“But this eh-Prince of Pals? He buy me from La Sorrisa, then sell me to the family Stabile to work as puttana at, oh I forget the name.”
“The Adonis Social Club.”
“That it, you know this place?”
“Yeah.”
“I no work there, I run. Right away, I run. I no puttana, you understand? How you say in English?”
“Whore or slattern.”
“I no whore or slattern, no, never. I run and that night I find you on stairs when—”
“No,” Darby says. “I don’ wanna talk about that. That I can’t talk about. Listen, the Prince o’ Pals is a fella by the name o’ Frankie Yale, see? He’s Black Hand.”
“Black Hand? Oh, I see. La Mano Nera, now I know. Now I see.”
“An’ so is the Adonis,” Darby turns to look at her. “I gotta go there.”
“For why? You have me for—”
“It’s for business. I’m lookin’ to find somethin’ out.”
“Find out what?”
Should I talk to her? Yes, I should. I should tell her everything.
“Well, there’s this girl that my boss asked me to find who she had, uh. . . He wants to know who she lost her purity to.”
“Purity? Pureza eh? Why?”
Darby swallows, “He wants to kill that man.”
“This your boss eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Now I see. I have known men like this. They are blind to a woman’s pureza. Dangerous men, they are. An’ he ask you to find this out for him. It’s secret, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Ah, well you must do your job, Darby. This man pay for you, me, Colleen Rose so we can get new home. Yes, yes. This girl who lost her pureza, who does she have as best friend?”
“I dunno, maybe Grace an’ Kit, two slatterns at the Adonis.”
“Go to them. They know too. She share with them her story, I know this about women. So here what you do; take knife to puttanas and put to their throat and tell them you kill them if they don’t give the information. Where Grace and Kit live?”
“The Henhouse. A place where the Black Hand keeps their top earners.”
“Go there. Quiet as cat. No go to Adonis, too dangerous there. I know.”
“How do you know? How do you know all o’ this?”
“En Italia, we know things. But Darby, you must be very careful with this boss. He is a bad man. Do not fail him, he will kill you if you fail him. What is his name?”
Darby looks away, “I-talians call him Pulcinella. An’ from what I hear, he looks for signs in nature an’ thinks himself reborn as some warrior chieftain.”
“Pulcinella, eh? La marionette? I see. They have fear of him. You need to do these things, find Sadie and the lover of Anna for you boss. What else?”
I need to put a name to a face, but maybe that can wait.
“There’s nothin’ else.”
“Then we go.”
“We?”
“We go to Conne-ti-cut, you, me and Colleen Rose. Together, yes. After that, you go to Henhouse, let us go now.”
“Why do ya wanna go wit’ me?”
“I like Frank. He good man. He tell me his wife no can have baby. He cry when Colleen Rose come. He love Colleen Rose and he say his wife want to see her too. He say this to me in hospital.”
“He did?”
“Let us go there now.”
“I would, but my boss wants me to come meet him for a secret raid.”
“A secret what?”
“Raid, like an attack.”
“You no soldier, Darby, my love.”
“I could be, maybe.”
“No, you no go, Darby. Do not go to Pulcinella if you not know this information, Get information first.”
“He said I gotta go to it, this raid.”
“Maybe I go talk to this Pulcinella then, eh?”
No, never. You can never talk to Wild Bill Lovett, he hates all Italians.
“Darby, when you have his information, he will pay you? He will give you things, like important title or something? Status among the other men, right?”
“Yeah, he said he’d consider me for Fifth Lieutenant, then I’d make good money.”
“Darby, my love,” Ligeia takes the baby from his arms. “No go to secret raid, please, my love. If you no have information, he kill you. This secret raid? It no exist, Darby. He will kill you instead.”
“But I have to show up, Bill is a stickler on punctuality, a disciplinarian. If I don’ show up, he’ll send someone to. . .”
“Darby don’t eh-leave me here alone in this place with baby. I can’t be alone again, no. Darby, Darby listen to my words, Darby, no, no—”
“It’ll be alright,” Darby brings her close.
“Have you see him kill before? Have you?”
Yes, many times. All were Italian.
“No,” he answers and takes her hand again so that he may see the ring he gave her. “I made a commitment to ya. An’ that commitment is sacred to me. Is it sacred to ya as well?”
“Yes.”
“I will be back, my love. I will be back to fulfill my commitment.”
Ligeia takes a deep breath and crosses herself, “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
She pulls the cross from inside her blouse and kisses it, then reaches up to wrap a hand round Darby’s neck as she lay her head on his chest.
Mary Magdalene’s Blemish
I hope they try and stop me, Anna bites her lip as she approaches the guarded door of the Lonergan bicycle shop.
Petey Behan looks at her with a box-faced smile, “Yo Anna, who was it got a leg over on ya, eh? Timmy Bucks says it was Poe Garrity, but I says no way.”
Anna looks at Timmy with his buck teeth protruding from an open gob, “This fookin’ muppet? He might be able to eat a apple through a tennis racket, but he don’ know the first thing about what a woman wants.”
Matty giggles when Timmy’s face scarlets.
Anna turns and comes face to face with Petey, then steps closer so that their noses almost touch, “An’ you? By the end o’ this day, ya will pay for those words wit’ blood.”
She moves to walk past, but Petey stands in front of the door, “What’s the password?”
“Fuck you ya fookin’ box o’ rocks.”
“That ain’t it.”
Anna wheels round and throws a punch and just as Petey is about to retaliate, her big brother Richie comes out the door and stares wordlessly at Petey until he backs away.
Anna flies into the bicycle shop with the wind as the door crashes against the wall.
Her mother Mary sits at a small desk with tears in her eyes. Forever with tears in her eyes. There are different types of tears that come from her mother. Some are begot by anger. Some from self-pity. Others for the martyrdom of Jesus on the cross. And still more for the all-too rare acts of kindness offered to her.
The begging mother, the mendicant mother, they should call her.
Anna knows all the types of tears Mourning Mother Mary has in her arsenal. But the tears that fill her eyes today are borne of defeat.
Anna slams the door and looks to her younger brother, sixteen-year old Willie who stands next to Richie’s most-trusted follower, the curly-haired Abe Harms.
“Go outside Willie,” she coldly commands.
“I’m old enough to know what’s goin’ on around here,” Willie protests.
“Get out right god’amn now!” Anna screams and kicks the small desk over that her mother sits behind.
“Ya go out as well Abe. . . go,” her voice low now, assured. “This is a fam’ly matter.” She turns her eyes back to Willie, “For the elders o’ the fam’ly, both o’ yaz go.”
As Willie walks past her, Abe touches Anna’s elbow so gently that she thought it might be a fly. He leans into her ear with breath of cool mint, “Bevare your family’s fury,” says he. “But a big brother is forever your champion, yez.”
“Wha?”
Anna turns angrily, yet something compels her to whisper back to him. “I don’ need a champion.”
“If only a lady might need one to protect. . . or avenge her,” he backs away with eyes of supplication.
Avenge? Avenge what? What does he know?
Anna turns slowly to Richie, but cannot get a read on his impassive, pale eyes. Then to her mother. Exposed, Mary is bellowing and jiggling and sagging in the chair that now has no desk in front of it. Mourning Mother Mary sobs like a great shoulder-less pigeon with a long, chinless neck of wattling flesh. Her hands clasp over her face in remorseful shame with breasts that slope low under a plain sack dress. The bun atop her gray-peppered hair is unkempt and falls to her slumped neck like onion skins. Mary drops her hands for a moment to look at her eldest daughter, the burn across the left side of her face revealed.
“Anna,” Mary announces in her half-Brooklyn, half-Irish accent. “What are ya wearin’? Ya look a migrant person in them frugal togs, ya do. A peasant blouse an’ a skirt? At least pull ya hair back like a lady, eh? What happened to ya? Did a man hurt ya? Was it the man who gave ya money to pay our rent? Oh, nah, nah, nah. . . Please tell me it’s lies bein’ spread ‘bout ya.”
“Why would I do that?”
Mary stands up at the same height as Anna, but is much heavier and speaks in a low, calm tone, “Anna, I want ya to know I’ll always love ya now matter—”
“Isn’t that ya job, Ma? I mean ya love him don’t ya?” she points at Richie.
Mother Mary squirms, “Course I do.”
“Why would ya consider not lovin’ me then?”
“Anna, if ya could just understand. What ya have is a gift from god. Beauty an’ youth. Good men want that,
but—”
“But what? they don’ want me now? An’ if they don’ want me, then I’m like garbage? Ya think I’m thick as planks and don’ see things for the way they are Ma?”
“Ya just left us. Where did ya go, Anna? Where? Even now, where do ya sleep? Oh! It’s all lost,” Mary cries out. “A woman’s weapon is the wound that weeps love. God blimey, if ya don’ use it ya’re through. Ya’re a woman now, Anna. A woman has love in her heart. Ya purity unblemished is the gift ya bestow upon a man who earns it, Anna. I won’t believe ya to be the demimonde they name ya. If it’s true, ya have to go to Father Larkin, sweetness. Repent, repent like Mary Magdalene. Tell me then, what do ya love?”
Anna turns away in thought, I love Neesha, forever and always.
“Ya won’t even answer, will ya? No, ya won’t. Ya heart is black as coal, Anna an’ ya nothin’ but a. . . nothin’ but a twist! Look at ya’self.”
Anna’s mouth goes small and her eyes narrow, but she says nothing.
Mary moves to focus on her son, “Richie I told ya to do what the man says—”
“His name’s Dinny Meehan, Ma,” Anna interrupts. “No one even calls him ‘the man’ anymore on account o’ everyone knows who he is outside o’ Irishtown now. We don’ have to abide by his codes no more.”
“It’s lost,” Mary buries her face in her hands. “Richie could be up there with the king above the Dock Loaders’ Club right now—”
“King,” Anna rolls her eyes.
“They’re in control o’ the waterfront an’ the rake o’ money it brings, but no. Both o’ ya had to ruin our chances o’ makin’ it. Neither o’ yaz would listen to reason. Now Bill’s back an’ there’s war again. It’s always the same round here is it not? Since before I even came it’s been this way. Gang wars. Fightin’ fer control o’ labor so to charge the longshoremen the tribute money. I guess it’ll always be this way, like we’re just a moment in time. We’ll be forgotten, surely we’ll be forgotten an’ they’ll be twenny more kings o’ Irishtown over the next twenty years, if truth be told. No one’ll look back on the year 1919 an’ think t’was any different. Another year, another war. I just wanted a future, Richie. A future, Anna. That’s why ya have children, is it not? Ya have a future, but it’s lost. It’s gone now.”
Richie wobbles to take the weight off his peg and put it on his lone leg, “Ma, it ain’t lost—”
“T’is! Me own daughter uses the lord’s name in vain and gives her body ‘way like some—”
“Slattern?” Anna finishes. “An’ as for our lord, he’s got no answers for us either, Ma. Every time I went to talk wit’ Father Larkin, he’d tell me to light a candle or pray an’ to be quiet an’ do my duty an’ take care o’ the children an’ keep my purity so I can attract some hairy-arsed man to marry me an’ support me so I can bring more children onto this dirty earth. There’s no future that I’m willing to submit to. There’s none offered me.”
“Oh Anna ya’ve always been so full o’ the vinegar an’ with a tongue as sharp as a serpent’s tooth.”
Anna grits her teeth and grabs her squealing mother by the shoulder, “An’ I want ya to know Ma. The man who ya believe I slept wit’ at the Adonis Social Club? The man that paid our rent durin’ Winter? He didn’ take my stupit purity. Brooklyn did. Bein’ in this family did. You did!”
“Stop it Anna, please stop it,” Mary tries to ward her off with a sign of the cross. “Let me go, don’t tell me no more.”
“Ya took my blood, Ma!” Anna screams and pushes her mother. “Ya tried to betroth me to that boy Liam Garrity, remember? Sell me off like a farm animal for that future o’ yours. An’ what about me? What about what I want? Ya never asked. Ya an’ Dinny just put together a plan to hurry up an’ marry us so that he could inherit Richie’s followers an’ all the little Lonergan boys like Willie for his gang, an’ ya could stand tall as Queen Mother o’ Irishtown. It all made so much sense to ya, didn’ it? But now? Now ya future’s gone ‘cause I’m stronger than ya. I won,” Anna points into her own chest above Mary. “I won the right to decide my own future.”
“Ya mighta won, but we all lost because o’ it. The whole fam’ly. An’ fer what, eh? So ya could besmirch ya soul in the face o’ god? In the bed o’ some lustful stranger? So we could pay rent fer a few months? Nah, nah, nah! Ya’d be happy to put ya mother through the depths o’ hell to have ya own way wit’out a single t’ought fer ya brothers an’ sisters. What do I say to the people what name ya a slattern, Anna? What do I say to them?”
“Tell them the Lonergan fam’ly survived a winter wit’out losin’ any more children, an’ that ya daughter took matters into her own hands in the face o’ her mother and father’s lunacy. The fookin’ lunacy o’ this fam’ly caused all this! It’s ya fault Richie lost his leg, ya know. What type o’ mother sends a eight year-old twelve blocks for bread in a city wit’ streetcars on every block?”
“Anna,” Mary swallows the pride that had welled up in her throat. “Anna listen to me, Bill has a black drop in him, ya know. He has it from his grandfather. His father not so much, but his grandfather killt men an’ would fight any man until he fought a man twice his size an’ was beat to death. The black drop might be good fer soldierin’, but ya should steer clear from him, Anna. Mother to daughter, understand?”
“So we should go meekly into Dinny’s favor?” Anna waves her mother off. “Just keep ya advice to ya’self, Ma.”
“Oh, it hurts, it hurts so bad,” her mother is holding her hand at the wrist again.
“What hurts, Ma?” Anna asks.
“I can feel it,” Mary calls out and holds her hands above her head. “I can feel ya, Jesus. I can feel ya pain. I have it! I have ya pain in my wrists an’ in my ankles where ya was nailed to the cross by the Romans, persecuted by the Jews. The nails! Oh they hurt.”
“This again,” Anna shakes her head.
“The Great Tribulaton!” Mary screams. “Worse than ever’s happent! All the signs are bein’ shown us! Our faith is shaken but we must continue to believe. The sun an’ moon will darken now an’ the stars’ll fall from the sky. The Son o’ Man will appear in his great glory amidst the clouds. Listen for the trumpet. Ya must listen! An’ then ya will see his angels accompany him. I have been grant
ed the rights o’ prophecy. The saints an’ the angels give me visitation—”
“Is she mad?” Anna asks Richie, though he does not answer.
“Anna, can’t ya see it? Can’t ya?” Mary rushes up to her, but gently strokes down Anna’s arm. “Even the auld augurs in Irishtown see it. But they don’ know. They don’ understand what’s really happenin’. They say the moon will rise an’ the hero will come, but they’re pagans. Somethin’s comin’ alright, but it ain’t no hero or archons or orphans an’ all that silliness, nah, nah, nah. I tell ya Anna, I can feel Jesus in me hands an’ in me feet. Where they nailed him to the cross, I feel it. I do, I swear it, child.”
She is mad, She can’t be round the children. Anna looks at Richie. He can’t even communicate. Who will care for our little siblings if their mother is psychopathic?
“Anna, one night I woke up an’ I was bleedin’ from the wrists. Look, look, here are the scars. In these days we pass through a final fire, ya see. There’ve been fires everywhere in Brooklyn o’ late. More are to come. An’ storms too! Hunger. Death! All the businesses are lettin’ men go. No more ships! No more European contracts. That’s what all o’ this is, ya see. God is puttin’ ya t’rough this difficult time to test ya, understand? If ya believe, ya will seek penance like Mary Magdalene. Ya will, ya will. Before it’s too late. He’s comin’,” Mary raises her arms again. “God, send us ya son. I know it is he who comes.”
The bell on the door jingles as John Lonergan stumbles in. The room goes quiet except for the snuffles of Mourning Mother Mary. The father walks along the wall of bicycles sideways until he stops. He looks at the desk on the ground, then to Anna and clears his throat, “I’ve been laughed outta Red Hook. Bill. . . he just laughs. I’m lower than Darby Leighton now. I’m the lowest o’ them all.”
“The final fires are risin’,” Mary mumbles. “An’ what about Richie? Can he go back?”
“Richie’s Richie,” he slurs.
Mary declares “Oh but it’s only a matter o’ time ’til the man decides not to pay the rent any longer wit’ the both o’ yaz followin’ his sworn enemy. The fires. The fires. ”
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