Mr. Lynch’s voice snaps Thos out of his thoughts, “Whose side ye takin’ in Brooklyn? Meehan? Or Lovett?”
The way Mr. Lynch grumbles at the word “Lovett,” tells Thos he’s a Meehan man.
Without answering, he raises the clear liquid to his lips, “Meehan’s ways are admirable, sure. An’ archaic.”
“Ye takin’ Bill then?”
“I don’ know. . . yet.”
“No? Well everyone knows whichever side ye don’ choose will also become hist’ry. Quick Thos is never wrong. . . as they say.”
The firm handshake from Mr. Lynch drains Thos of most of his strength. When he tries to take his hand back, the tavern owner grips him harder, then pulls Thos closer, “Ye’d be better served if ye fought fer Ireland, not the ILA. We need a smart feller to sort out the issues ‘tween President de Valera an’ New Yark’s biggest fundraiser fer Ireland, John Devoy. They’re already lockin’ horns, them two. We need a respected mediary, Thos. Ye were born in Ireland an’ all New Yark knows yer talents, to be sure. Come, work toward the creation of a country, not to keep afloat a ship full o’ laborers an’ scofflaws. Ireland calls, Thos. Ireland calls.”
“Ya mistake me, sir,” Thos says as respectfully as he can. “Ireland’s a part o’ my past, not my future.”
Outside, bundled up in a long coat with flipped collars and a low hat, he leans on the corner of the brick wall where Hudson and Barrow streets meet.
I’m dying, Thos admits while holding the note in his coat pocket with the phone number for Lefty and Costello. But before I go, I have to get Tanner. Sixty-nine to one.
Thos can taste the retribution killing in his mouth. Savory and sweet, as nourishing as food. Something, who knows what, draws Thos back to murder with a great hunger. An impulse, even. A need so powerful that it overshadows his decision between Meehan and Lovett. A deep and urgent craving, but whether it’s because he misses the hunt and all the killing he took part in during the war, or something else, he isn’t exactly sure.
He should’ve killed me, because now Tanner Smith must die.
Gnawing at him is the lack of assuredness he has always been known for. Before the war he was the quiet, smart guy. Although no one has noticed since coming back, he is changed. Doubt has crept into him. Fear of the unknown. The one thing everyone could count on was Thos Carmody’s unflappable certainty. His acuity and brilliant judgment. All changed now. Lost, there are no answers from him any longer. Only questions that lead to more questions. He is changed, and it has everything to do with his awakening in that field hospital.
Now look at me. I’m falling apart. They should call me Timorous Thos. The only thing I know now. The only thing I feel assured about, is that Tanner Smith must die.
In front of the Fourteenth Street Ballroom in Chelsea, two large men guard the front door. One is Irish, the other a dark-haired, moon-faced Italian, most likely an employee of Paul Vaccarelli who was recently promoted to vice president of the ILA alongside King Joe Ryan.
“Where ya goin’?” the Italian moves to get a better view of Thos’s face.
“Inside.”
The Irish opens the door for Thos, “Come in, sir.”
“Who is he?” The Italian demands.
“He’s the guest o’ honor, ya fookin’ dago-eejit.”
“Don’ call me that—”
As the two argue Thos lights a hand-rolled and whips the match out as smoke curls over his shoulder in the cool air.
“Quick Thos!” He hears a familiar voice.
Thos looks up to the big dog-faced, baggy-suited, cigar-toting King Joe who elbows through the guards.
“Ya’re late, Thos,” King Joe says with a fat-tongued Rottweiler smile.
“Ya don’ really want me to go in an’ ham it up at a banquet, do ya? That’s what ya’re good at, not me.”
“Just for a bit,” King Joe laughs and slobbers on his coat. “How’d ya find out it’s a banquet? S’posed to be a surprise.”
“Yeah well.”
“Anyway, after a little ham an’ eggin’ we’ll head to the backroom wit’ O’Connor an’ Vaccarelli for a talk. Where’s ya uniform?”
“I gave it to the moths. Everyone’s gotta eat.”
King Joe wraps an arm round Thos and walks him through the front door, “Ya can’t be all business, all the time, Thos. We got whiskey imported from Ireland.”
“Fell off a British steamer on the Chelsea piers, I’ll bet.”
“The best kind! Some things’ll never change here in New York.”
The Italian doorman points at Thos, “He’s got a weapon in his coat.”
“Ya’re lucky he didn’t use it,” King Joe belches back, then whispers into Thos’s ear, “Ya believe this thing about hirin’ Vaccarelli as a VP? Fookin’ I-Talians all up in ILA leadership. I’ll never get used to it, Thos.”
“Gonna have to.”
Thos looks through the corridor into the smoky ballroom where thousands crowd, shoulder-to-shoulder. As he is lead through the back, King Joe motions to the stage with his cigar hand where a band strikes up, Stars and Stripes Forever.
Then Thos hears T.V. O’Connor at the microphone on stage, his voice crackling through the large speakers on the floor, “Here he is folks, Thomas Michael Carmody!”
The slew of union men roar at the introduction and wave flags in one hand while gulping whiskey with the other. They cheer him and step out of King Joe’s way to make a path that leads all the way to the stage.
“I don’ want to give a speech,” Thos yells in King Joe’s ear. “I’m not one for a dog an’ pony show.”
“Don’ worry, just a few words. They wanna hear from the war hero.”
“I ain’t no fookin’ war hero.”
King Joe helps Thos to a small staircase on the side of the stage as O’Connor asks the crowd to quieten down. Thos leans on the handrail and struggles up the stairs like an old man. Out of breath he looks over the slew of faces that cheer him. Behind, the band members are clapping too, and the drummer gets up from his set to shake Thos’s hand.
“My brother was in the 69th,” he yells. “Welcome back!”
Ratcheting up his Irish lilt, President O’Connor yells into the microphone, “T’is me pleasure to give yez the warmest introductions. Ye’ve heard o’ the man-behind-the-man, pullin’ the strings? Well in the International Longshoremen’s Association he is Thos Carmody, an’ without his sage advice an innovative, shrewd idears? We’d’ve lost the war for the hearts an’ minds o’ the workin’ man to the IWW Wobblies. He is a man who left the ILA as Treasurer o’ New Yark for the Army, an’ comes back as. . . Ye guessed it, Treasurer o’ feckin’ New Yark!”
The crowd is wild in patriotic fervor. There are red, white and blue streamers and red, white and blue balls hanging from the ceiling and red, white and blue top hats, and Thos feels as though he’s at Tammany Hall’s Democratic Convention with all the politicking, backslapping patriotism and drink taking.
“Ye’ve all heard o’ the Army’s 77th Infantry,” O’Connor continues. “Promised support on both flanks, they were abandoned an’ encircled by the Hun. Blown to shreds, starved. Most came from New Yark City, so the fight was already in them. Many died fer their country. Fer freedom, but those who survive are chosen!”
Thos looks at O’Connor when he hears the strange words describing him, Chosen? For what?
“The ILA loves America!” O’Connor announces, then lowers his tone. “Loves our veterans. Some say we’re a load o’ Communists, but we all know that’s just an attempt to smear us, right?”
The slew of men laugh, but the ruse must be played up. It’s only old-money America what claims ya can’t be a socialist and be patriotic at the same time.
“Thos Carmody,” O’Connor holds the microphone closely, picking up a whiskey and holding it high in the air, as everyone in the crowd follows suit and hushes their drunken gobs. “We salute ye an’ the great sacrifice ye made fer this country, a god-lovin’ free nation where
the right to force tribute is as American as apple pie!”
Overcoming their tears, the onlookers roar again in laughter.
“Speech!”
“Speech!” The longshoremen yell.
O’Connor picks up the microphone stand himself and personally walks it over in front of Thos, then yells into it in front of him, “How ’bout a couple words from the war hero!”
Thos touches the microphone stand and steps up to it. He looks into the crowd. Behind him sit wives with their legs crossed, looking impatient. Drunk men with their hats on sideways smile proudly from the crowd, and wait. Thos turns to King Joe, who opens his hands and motions for him to say something.
“I uh. . .” the sound of his own voice through the speakers startles him. “I thank yaz for all o’ the uh, praise. I’m not. . . uh, not one for speeches but—”
Thos wants to say that he is uncomfortable in front of big groups because being exposed like this makes him feel he could get shot at any moment. But that doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.
“But I uh—” he speaks again into the microphone. “Ya’re very kind to—”
When the grenade went off, hot metal came screaming out of the dirt with a flash of yellow and orange. Then there was the smell of burning flesh. His own, yet the artillery fire, the constant screaming of shells, the thundering cannonades, the wounded calling out into the night in prayer and the endless guns spitting fire, the infernal roar went on, all of it, together, unstopping, unceasing until finally, mercifully he lost consciousness. Then the unemotional face of the field surgeon. The blood stains on the white sheets. The meaninglessness of it all. The disconnected reasoning that has taken over his thoughts. The detached order. Or maybe there is meaning to everything, but for once Thos Carmody can’t figure it out.
It makes no sense to him to be described as “chosen.” The doctors would only say he suffers from shell shock and certainly the war ground his strength into powder, but there is something else at play. Something bigger. Trying to piece it all together, he searches for meaning, but fears the worst.
Is that what it means to be chosen? That you have an important role to play despite your own will power? But why do I continue to get weaker?
Just then he sees a familiar face in the crowd.
Tanner?
Thos tries to focus in on the face, then reaches behind him and pulls out his pistol and points it into the crowd.
The women behind him screech, unfurl their long legs and clop in heels through the stage curtains. The drummer and tuba player duck behind their instruments. Thirty men below the stage shift and twist away from the pointed pistol like a school of fish obscuring and confusing a predator. In the scattering movements, Thos loses Tanner’s face. He lowers the pistol to get a better look into the dispersing crowd until he concludes he is no longer in danger.
T.V. O’Connor startles him when the president steps in front of the microphone and yells into it, “Thank ye Thos Carmody! We salute ye! The ILA salutes all our Great War Veterans!”
The microphone picks up Thos’s muffled voice, “I thought it was Tanner.”
King Joe then pulls him from the stage with an arm over his shoulder. When they reach a backroom he asks Thos, “Ya got any readymade handroll’ds? Wanna have a smoke?”
“Yeah,” Thos reaches a shaky hand into his coat pocket as King Joe pours him a whiskey-neat.
As he lights a cigarette Thos notices an uneven deck of cards in the middle of the table and fights back the urge to reach out and straighten, shuffle and deal them. Instead, standing over the table, he pulls from the whiskey that bites back at his lips and burns his throat.
As he sits he takes account of the room where boxes of Irish whiskey are stacked along the walls with bolts of silk, perfectly organized sacks of cereal grains and flour, and Yuban coffee, three round metal containers of black ink, half-opened boxes of colorful sweets from a Peruvian company, clothing detergent and photo engraving zinc, five barrels of corn syrup, eight kegs of German beer and four kegs of English black treacle molasses that never made it to their destination, but will be resold for King Joe’s profit.
“Ya sure ya’re up to all this shit that’s goin’ down in Brooklyn? Ya look, emm, tired an’—”
“Disfigured, g’ahead an’ say it. But when I fall, I always land on my feet,” Thos says with cold eyes to cover his own doubts. “I just ain’t one for stages, I told ya that.”
King Joe nods in agreement, “Ya made a choice yet? Lovett or Meehan?”
Thos feels his hand shake again, “Maybe.”
“O’Connor’s gonna grill ya on it. Tell ya what though, we’re Meehan’s last ally. Them boyos’ll be friendless an’ fuckt if we back Lovett. Ya heard the Black Hand no
longer—”
“Yeah.”
“Personally, I don’ want them to go to war wit’ each other. It splits up the north Brooklyn longshoremen. We’re caught between two stools on this one. War’s not good for business. I don’ want war.”
Thos reads the headline of the newspaper lying on the table.
Union Rift Drawn Down Ethnic Lines, Irish vs. Italian
The appointment of Paul Vaccarelli
Angers the Incumbent Irish Element
“Yes ya do.”
“What? Why?”
Thos takes a long drag and in that moment he makes up his mind, “That’s what the shippin’ comp’nies’ll want,” Thos exhales and points to the newspaper. “Wolcott’s already fast at work.”
“How’s Wolcott—”
“They got a reporter on the tug. We might as well use their energy to our favor.”
“Thos, we don’ want a gang war.”
“It’s inevitable. In this world the peacemongers are blind an’ the one-eyed man rules. Lovett is actually prepared for war an’ a politician always knows deep in his soul that god speaks through the army, if ya catch my drift. Lovett’s got smart advisors too. An wit’ all the defections from Meehan’s clan? Lovett’ll make short shrift o’ Meehan when the time comes. Here’s what we do; we talk O’Connor into backin’ Lovett. Meanwhile we know what’s gonna happen in the ILA when we call the strike later this year. Vaccarelli an’ his I-Talian element will be makin’ a power move on O’Connor. The ILA’ll be split. O’Connor an’ the Irish against Vaccarelli an’ the I-talians. In Brooklyn where Lovett an’ the Black Hand’ll fight against each other, O’Connor’ll take the heat for causin’ the split as much as Vaccarelli does. An’ ya’self—”
Spittle gathers in both corners of King Joe’s smiling mouth, “I take the high road all the way to the presidency in next year’s election.”
Thos nods, “Immigrants are the future o’ the union.”
“So I’ll come in huggin’ both sides, blamin’ O’Connor an’ Vaccarelli for tryin’ to tear the union in two. The unification ticket.”
“What do we care about a gang war in Brooklyn?” Thos shrugs. “Either way, we’ll wait ’til after the war’s over, then we’ll take the winnin’ side when ya the President o’ the ILA.”
“Fookin’ brilliant. Ya’re fookin’ brilliant, Thos.”
“That’s why I’ll be Vice President o’ New York.”
“Yes ya will, as long as the plan works.”
“Famous last words,” Thos mumbles to himself, then answers King Joe. “I haven’t been wrong yet.”
King Joe suddenly becomes sullen and turns on Thos, “But what do ya want outta all this?”
“I already told ya—”
“No, Thos, why do ya go outta ya way to make me president? What do ya want, Thos?”
I want to know why I’m still alive. I want to know why everyone says I’m chosen. I want to know why I’m growing weaker everyday and why I yearn to murder again.
Thos looks up, “I want to win. At everythin’.”
King Joe’s panting mouth turns to a sloppy smile, “So do I. Ya’re a big fish in a small pond, Thos. A kingmaker!”
And Vincent Maher is a
Queensolver. Put us together and you got a royal flush.
He turns his eyes up, “Well ya gotta live up to that name, King Joe.”
The door handle slowly turns. As Thos watches, he gently feels for the pistol in the back of his trousers and fingers the trigger.
Tanner, is that you?
Conjurer Of Misfortune
Patrolman Daniel Culkin’s red and glistening cock disappears like a little bald turtlehead retreating into its shell as he buttons the trousers of his police uniform.
“Imagine, if ya can, two people playin’ chess,” he tells his prisoner who is chained to the radiator. “But there, I already lied to ya. It’s a ruse, they’re not playin’ against each other, it just looks like it, right? Now imagine Wolcott standin’ over them both an’ directing each move for both players. When Wolcott picks up chess pieces wit’ his chubby sausage fingers, blood floods the board, drowning even the Queen and King. On both sides.”
The patrolman then walks over to the window and separates the black drapes with a finger, “Ya never thought our headquarters’d be this close to the Meehan home, I know.”
Below is a courtyard where newly sprouted grass has grown into a collapsed dray and through a stack of wood-spoked wheels. Beyond are the backs of other buildings that break the skyline with roofs and chimneys upon low-rise Brooklyn tenements as endless as trees in a jungle, hidden families living in each one.
Chained to the radiator Maureen Egan weeps naked, though her cries are muffled by a bar towel that is taped over her mouth. On her wrist is a dirty cast with browned fabric coming out where it ends at her thin forearm and through the finger holes. Because of the cast, the manacles are cuffed at her upper arms and bolted to the radiator, forcing her to press her bare breasts outward, bending her back. The chain that crisscrosses her chest over both shoulders are also secured to the radiator. Her hair is an explosion of tangled red clumps and the makeup she had applied that morning runs down her heart-shaped face like black blood on orange freckled cheeks.
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