Darby smells the salt in the air mixed with the scent of rotted rubbish. He and Darby lean against a pole in front of the entrance when suddenly Richie’s voice howls out, “An’ ya ain’t old enough to be a bouncer, ya fuck!”
Darby looks away when he sees Richie’s face go flush and his eyes turn from pale blue to red with rage.
I hate when Richie gets angry, it scares me.
“Go’on get outta here,” the big boy says, though he is the same height as Darby, his big moon face, round shoulders and keg belly give him the girth he is known for.
“Fuck you,” Richie stands up to him, an inch taller. “Come outside an’ say that.”
Richie steps back into the sidewalk while Petey, Matty and Timmy form a circle so pedestrians cannot get in the middle.
The man with the three-scarred face looks incredulously at Richie, who’s peg leg is covered by long trousers.
He doesn’t know who Richie is, Darby realizes.
Suddenly Scarface Al flashes a smile and waves out some burly friends from inside the Harvard Inn to even the odds. All four of them are bigger than all four of ours, but no matter.
This is could get very bad, Darby’s stomach drops. I don’t like this.
Darby’s eyes begin to wobble. As his legs start to shake he holds the light post to keep his balance.
As Scarfaced Al steps onto the sidewalk, he finds Darby’s eyes. Then sees the dustbroom in his hand.
He recognizes me.
But it’s too late, Richie has punched the man in the cheek and the brawl has begun. Richie’s fists are fueled by some bubbling craze inside of him, thrashing and sick with fury. Before the big boy can respond, Richie is behind him thrusting punches into his side and crashing them across the partially balding head and ear of Scarfaced Al.
Timmy then lands a right cross and then a left cross that breaks the skin over one of the Italian’s eyes and drops him while Matty is on his back and screaming for help.
“Let’s go,” Abe yells at Darby. “let’s go. We have to bar the door.”
“Wha?”
Abe grabs the dustbroom, but Darby pulls it back and runs for the door. As quickly as he can Darby slides it through two door-pulls and the both of them put a shoulder on the door to secure it.
When Darby looks back, chaos has taken the Coney Island Bowery. In unison, Bill and the rest of the gang swarm the four Italians and land punches and kicks, over-running them. A long-dressed woman somehow is entangled in the melee and cannot escape. Everywhere men are being beaten with pipes and cudgels and fists and boots. Jidge Seaman backs a man into a parked motor car. As the driver tries to take off, Frankie Byrne whips at the Italian’s knees with some sort of weapon. Non and Petey and Joey Behan are taking turns kicking at a man’s ass and genitals from behind, laughing all the way. The shit brown hound rips the collar off of an Italian, tosses it aside and sinks its teeth into his forearm but then lunges toward the man’s testicles. The other dogs are protecting the perimeter from any would-be hero, howling at anyone who comes near the circle.
Men pound on the door from the inside to get out and Darby screams when his broken finger gets caught between the dustbroom and the door pull. Then the dustbroom snaps in two.
“Ahh! They’re gonna get out soon,” he yells into the afray that has spilled into the streets and sweeps up unwitting tourists and anyone else caught in the disorder.
Suddenly three men slip through the door before Darby and Abe can get it closed again.
“Oh fuck,” Darby cries out. “No, no, no. Shit, they got out!”
One of the men who escaped pulls out a pistol and points it directly at Darby.
I’m not supposed to be here, Darby closes his eyes after he saw inside the tiny hole of the gun’s narrow barrel. I’m supposed to be looking for Sadie before Bill finds out I lost her. I have to find her to get my brother Pickles a retrial. And I need to get back to Ligeia and Colleen Rose, they’re waiting for me. I can’t let them wait too long.
When Darby opens his eyes again, the man with the pistol is now pointing the barrel into the air and claps off a warning shot, “Alright, Alright, Break it up before I—”
The sound of the man being tackled and slammed to the ground comes to Darby’s good ear. Petey Behan has quickly wrestled the escapee to the sidewalk and presses all of his weight on the soft part of the man’s wrist with both thumbs. In agony, the escapee yells out and loosens his grip on the gun.
Amidst the chaos of flailing bodies and wild punches, Bill walks gingerly through the crowd and coughs. “Get me that piece,” his voice grinds like gears. “I want it.”
Petey takes the German model pistol and holds it out to Bill, but one-arm Flynn intercepts it. As bodies are tossed and punches thrown behind him, Flynn stares at the Luger P08 Nine Millimeter Parabellum as if it were some mystical, cherished gem. He holds it out in his palm and rubs a thumb gently across the handle and the distinctive lug at the base of the grip, which was added to attach to shoulder packs for the average Hun soldier. It was this standard issue model that had wounded Private Joseph Flynn in France, changing him forever. When their brigade was isolated and lost, he was without medical care and the wound festered. To stop the corruption, Non Connors, Thos Carmody and five others held him down as Bill hacked at the arm with a rusted hand axe, then tossed the limb into a ravine. They then poured boiling water on the bleeding stump at his shoulder and burned it with a hot iron before wrapping it with soiled linen.
Somewhere Bill had picked up a boater’s hat and slipped it over his head. And there is a toothpick hanging out of his wolfish grin as well.
“Pulcinella,” a wounded man remarks in a grisly voice, recognizing him.
Richie has bloodied the big boy into submission with the help of Petey, Timmy Bucks and Sean Healy, though Richie has a long cut under his eye that seeps blood onto his dirty collar. The Hanan boot that is nailed to his peg leg holds the Italian to the sidewalk by the neck while others have his arms and legs splayed out.
“Check his pockets,” Bill says.
Two men rip the pockets out of Scarfaced Al’s inner coat and trousers as his eyes stare up and into Bill’s.
“Four hundret dime, this guy carries on him,” Joey Behan reports as he hands the bills to Bill.
“Give that roll to the Mole,” Bill commands as Behan walks toward the door and places the wad in little Abe Harms’ coat pocket.
Wild Bill stands over the scarfaced fellow and opens his coat to reveal the silver handle of his .45, then speaks in a languid tone, “Il Maschio, Sammy de Angelo an’ now Scarfaced Al.” With one eye closed and the barrel pointed down at his victim, Bill finishes, “They send me three killers, an’ I send them three bodies back, that’s a trifecta.”
Leaning against the door still, Darby puts a finger in the only ear he can hear from so that the .45 blast does not deafen him altogether.
“Ya promised me,” Petey voices his complaint without saying Bill’s name. “Ya promised me captain!”
A gunshot rings out and Darby flinches. The men inside the Harvard Inn stop pushing on the door and instead press their faces against the glass to see who took the bullet blast.
Two blocks east, five patrolmen are sprinting toward them. Three blocks west there are ten more with gun smoke billowing above them.
“Ya stay south o’ the Gowanus,” Bill warns the big boy, then throws an eyebrow in Darby’s direction. “I got my shadow on ya. I know where ya live. I know ya got a Irish wife, an’ I know where ya work. Toy wit’ the border again an’ I’ll butcher ya, ya fookin’ guinea-wop slime.”
And then they run.
~~~
In the back of the dark and lumbering night train, someone pushes Darby by the shoulder, waking him.
“Bill wants to talk at ya,” one of the Trench Rabbits says loud enough for him to hear.
Someone laughs and Darby hears a voice, “Oldie man Leighton can’t hear a thing, ‘less ya yell an’ ya scream an’ ya sing.”<
br />
The night’s black face had closed in all round to rob him of his valuable vision. With his good hand he holds a straphanger to keep his balance. At the front of the train, Bill stands in the dark with his legs open.
What now? I just want to go home.
When he reaches the front of the train, Bill tells him to turn round and face the men.
“Darby Leighton,” he announces in a growl. “Ya failed me again.”
The train goes quiet, all but for Bill’s words and the iron wheels on the rails outside, clacking down the night.
“But ya showed courage,” Bill calls out. “Ya showed spirit under fire. I understand ya was scared, but ya fought against fear, an’ never quit. Ya showed gallantry an’ risked ya life when we was in combat against a armed enemy force. Behind enemy lines! On top o’ that, ya have dedicated ya’self to an honorable pursuit,” Bill puts his hand on Darby’s shoulder as the train sways. “Ya committed to rightin’ the lie told about ya brother by Dinny Meehan.”
Darby’s stomach turns when he thinks of the money Dead Reilly demands and his missing cousin, Sadie.
“For these reasons, I want ya to hold somethin’ for me,” Bill reaches into his pocket and produces a gold cross with an eagle’s outstretched wings in front of it and shows it to everyone on the train. “I earned this Distinguished Service Cross in the war for the same type o’ valor that Darby showed all o’ us t’day. Darby?” Bill turns to him. “I want ya to hold on to this for me. I want ya to hold onto it until the day a judge declares ya brother’s innocence an’ clears ya fam’ly name in the eyes o’ men an’ law. An’ on that day, which is next mont’, when Pickles Leighton is released an’ we have a hundret scofflaw soldiers at our callin’,” Bill finds Darby’s eyes in the dark. “I will name ya the Fifth Lieutenant o’ the White Hand Gang.”
The men stand from their seats and the train explodes in applause. All twenty rush to the front of the train to congratulate Darby as Bill hands him the medal.
But one person still sits in a seat and has not congratulated him. Petey Behan’s eyes are downcast and angry, his lip curled.
“For valor!” Bill yells out.
“For valor!” The men respond.
Darby holds the war medal in his hand. It’s heavier than he thought. He looks round him at all the men who love him now and he almost smiles.
Those who Survive are Chosen
In Greenwich Village Thos Carmody walks up to the growler hole at Lynches Tavern and taps on it.
The tender Mr. Lynch opens it, “What can I do ye fer?”
“Ya know what I’m lookin’ for.”
“Thos feckin’ Carmody?” Mr. Lynch’s eyes look through the darkness. “Is it truly yerself? Ye look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“Come round to the back entrance.”
Thos gathers his remaining strength to walk round the side of the brick saloon. Everyday he has become weaker and weaker. Yesterday he forced himself to eat. To chew the food that tasted of metal and alloys in his mouth, then struggled to swallow. But it made no difference. Weaker and weaker he has become.
Maybe I got the cancer? He wonders. Or the grippe, as they call it in Brooklyn. The Great Influenza, most deem it, though Thos doesn’t have any symptoms in his lungs. Just in his weakening strength.
Just as Thos comes to the women’s entrance door, it opens and he slips through.
“I s’pose yer lookin’ fer information on Tanner Smith, that right?”
“Ya seen him round?”
“I heard he was sent Sing Sing-way.”
“But ya don’ believe it, just like I don’t.”
The tall, rangy man with austere eyes sits at a small table in the darkness where only a small window over a stairwell sheds a long shaft of light between the two in the rear room of the tavern. Thos hides the pockmarks left by the Cricket Ball grenade behind his lapel and beneath a lowered cap. He begins to speak until a door opens behind him.
“Thomas Carmody is that yer very self, is it?”
Thos looks up at Mr. Lynch, who tries to warn his wife, but it’s too late. Honora has come to Thos’s right side and as soon as she sees his pockmarked face, she screams and almost drops her son, who sleeps on her chest.
“Thomas?” She grabs hold of the table with her free hand.
He looks up to her from his chair with sad eyes, “It’s me, yeah.”
“Oh,” she sighs.
Honora’s face nervously comes to a smile as she gathers herself. She then reaches down to him and cups the right side of his cheek and gently washes it against the wounds.
That feels nice.
He leans into her hand, “Good to see ya again, Honora. Been a while.”
“I’m so happy ye’ve come back, Thomas. We missed ye round these parts, we did, ye know. My children still talk out on the street about ye as if ye were the prophet o’ Greenwich Village.”
“I can promise ye I don’ have the staff o’ Moses.”
“Oh ye’ve the wit on ye still, I see. Ah well, I’ve brought a drop o’ the pure,” Honora places an unmarked bottle of poteen on the table and reaches behind for two glasses. “I’ll leave ye bhoys at it then.”
When the door closes, Mr. Lynch leans forward, “No, Tanner didn’t go to Sing Sing. I would think that out o’ character.”
He fills the glasses and slides one toward Thos, raising his, “Sláinte chugat.”
“To my health?” Thos asks. “Nothin’ can save that, but I’ll take a drop anyhow.”
“Just throw it down yer gob, ye dour shite, ye.”
Thos drinks it with a nod and twirls the glass in his fingers as Mr. Lynch grits at the poteen before speaking, “Ye heard President Eamon de Valera’s comin’ New Yark-way, did ye?”
“De facto president,” Thos says. “Ireland ain’t even a country—”
“The Irish people are on their way up, Thos. Don’ shake the ladder on them.”
“Famous last words,” Thos mumbles.
“My patrons have been savin’ up. If I give ye any useful information, I’d prefer ye drop a few dullers in the hat fer Irish freedom,” A caricature of Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill and a black and white sketch of John Mitchel adorn the wall behind the tall County Clareman.
“I will whether it’s useful or not.”
“Good then,” Mr. Lynch crosses his long legs and sits back. “So it’s Tanner yer after. I heard o’ this obscenity ye throw out onto the street. A Blood Feud is it? Ye Americans think ye know somethin’ o’ Ireland, but ye don’t.”
“I was born in Ireland—”
“But dragged up round here in New Yark, ye were.”
Thos chuckles, “Blood feud. . . It’s a good way o’ gettin’ everyone’s attention though.”
“I don’t know why ye’re so dead set on killin’ this feller.”
It’s inevitable. He was hired to kill me and he didn’t. It’s either me or him, but getting Tanner is all I can think about it. All that drives me to get up when I long to give up instead.
Mr. Lynch’s voice is low and gravelly, “He’s scared, Tanner is.”
“He oughta be.”
“But he’s a cornered animal. Ye should keep yer eyes open, Thos.”
Sound advice, that.
“He’s been avoidin’ Manhattan because o’ yerself an’ Johnny Spanish. Meehan has assumed the debt, but it’s also assumed Tanner went into Sing Sing to butcher Pickles Leighton an’ start a new war for the inside. Thing is, Tanner’s own gangmen in the Marginals are ready to turn on him now. Ye know who they are; Lefty an’ Costello an’ a few others. They came by here an’ left this fer ye, just in case ye came by.”
The long man slides a piece of paper across the table into the beaming light as Thos puts back the glass of poteen and growls at the bite it leaves in his mouth.
Tanner’s hiding out, but his time is due, call us, Thos reads the piece of paper but doesn’t waste time on the number.
“Legitimate complaint or tr
ap?”
Mr. Lynch nods sternly, “They want what all the longshoremen want round here; join the ILA before the general strike. They don’t wanna be scabs. Ye’re the one’s got the ear o’ the big shots at the ILA, so there’s yer maths.”
“Adds up,” Thos trades a twenty dollar bill for the message from Lefty and Costello.
“Put it in the hat over there,” Mr. Lynch nods toward a counter in the dark that overflows with change and bills.
Thos does so, and the tavern owner stands up with him.
“Thank ye fer yer service, Thos,” Mr. Lynch shakes his hand and stares at Thos’s facial wounds. “But as ye know, fer Ireland’s sake, it’d been better if the Hun won.”
A failed idea, that.
No one in the Army had ever asked Thos what he thought the outcome of the Great War would be. He was only a First Lieutenant, after all. But the collective belief system the Americans surfaced with later in the war were new and on the ascent. Their patterns of accumulating change had an overall effect of growth, not decline. Their main opponent, the German Empire was seeped in outdated ideas amidst the great testing ground of war. And although they were aggressive and stormed the battlefield, by 1918 they were blown. In short, their ways were fast becoming obsolete. And Quick Thos Carmody would never fight for a losing side.
Without going into detail, Thos simply answers Mr. Lynch, “Yeah well, the Kaiser’s part o’ the old world now. He’s hist’ry, as they say.”
The Irish, Thos’s own ancestry, had proven over and over to him that their individual properties and their causal relations, which contribute to their collective emergence, was never worth putting money on. When systems of belief compete for cultural dominance, the Irish never win. An age-old criticism not dissimilar to that Julius Caesar heaped on the Celts in his book Commentaries on the Gallic War. Success is simply not ingrained in individual Celtic characteristics, dooming their capability to collectively dominate other groups.
But there is one thing Thos can’t get his head round. A defect in his theory that only recently has given him pause. A baffling result that haunts him and undermines his assuredness. The unsophisticated nature of the Irish forecasts their failure, yet beyond logic, they always survive. Reborn from despair, changed but with the same old emergent system doomed to failure, again. And resurrected from nothing anon, ad infinitum.
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