Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  O’Connor proudly wears the double-breasted dark navy wool togs with its hints of stripes and high waisted trousers with pronounced creases down them and cuffed at the ankle as if he were a Dublin Jackeen from the previous decade. A prisoner to his status among men and the division of hierarchies he can never stop trying to ascend, O’Connor’s bourgeois values contrast his Irish brogue; a symbol of the salt of the earth New York working class.

  Thos can’t help but to distrust him, but then again, Thos can’t help but to distrust everyone. But after the bird from Brooklyn’s news, he has to do something to get O’Connor to admit he’s on the tug, and in Wolcott’s pocket, the ILA’s mortal enemy.

  Set the trap, watch it slam shut.

  “Alright then, brass tacks. Thos, what do say?” O’Connor says from a narrow face over narrow shoulders.

  Thos begins to speak until a knock comes to the door.

  O’Connor turns to the door, “Who is it?”

  On the other side of the door a man speaks Italian.

  “Must be fer ye, Paul.”

  A man with an aquiline nose and a moon face walks in, looks at Thos, and goes directly to Vaccarelli’s ear.

  Slower than my bird from Brooklyn, but still effective.

  Vaccarelli’s hand makes a fist and his lips tighten as he gets the news.

  “Well Thos?” O’Connor says as the Italian man leaves the room.

  “Lucy, eh?” Thos asks Vaccarelli, then touches O’Connor’s sleeve. “That guy’s cousin was murdered by Meehan’s men, yet Vaccarelli will tell ya the ILA should back him. A weak man’s stance.”

  “An’ ya’d back this fookin’ Pulcinella instead?” Vaccarelli grumbles through clenched teeth.

  Thos looks at King Joe, then O’Connor, “I would.”

  “Why? What makes ya think he can beat Meehan in a fight? Ya seen the odds lately?”

  “I’m Treasurer o’ the ILA, o’ course I know the odds. Everyone in the union’s puttin’ their hard-earned money on Meehan.”

  “Then why side wit’ Lovett?”

  “Look what happened when ya fought Monk Eastman, what was decided then?”

  Vaccarelli denies the invitation to talk about the old times and changes course, turning to President O’Connor “I just found out Lovett invaded Coney Island an’ beat up someone very dear to me outside a business establishment o’ my very close partner.”

  O’Connor asks, “Who, Yale? An’ isn’t that a bawdyhouse? The Harvard Inn?”

  “It’s a ballroom an’ rest’raunt.”

  O’Connor nods and turns to Thos, “What’s with the change o’ heart? Ye were a Meehan man before the war. What happened?”

  Careful here, we don’t want him thinking I change allegiances easily.

  “Yeah well, there’s a time to gather stones together an’ there’s a time to cast them away. Meehan’s doomed,” Thos looks away from Vaccarelli. “If we’re gonna stay on top in Brooklyn, we have to go wit’ the eventual winner. Loyalty’s for ship captains.”

  “I know why this fookin’ crosta umana chooses Lovett, because his feud wit’ Tanner Smit’.”

  “Tanner’s on his way to Sing Sing, sir,” Thos lies, adding “sir” to cloud O’Connor’s critical eye.

  “That right?”

  “Part o’ the deal how Smith an’ Meehan kissed an’ made up. Meehan was jailed-up for theft o’ the Hanan & Son shoe fact’ry on Bridge Street and was bailed-out by Tanner. He got the dime from Johnny Spanish.”

  “Jaysus wept,” O’Connor sits back with big eyes behind little spectacles. “Ye’re sayin’ Meehan’s desperate, I see.”

  “The most desperate man in Brooklyn,” Thos assures, eyeing Vaccarelli. “There are always bitter consequences for acts o’ desperate hope.”

  O’Connor speaks while staring off, “Now he’s got the shylocks after him because he can’t pay since he’s lost all the tribute money from the Red Hook with Lovett takin’ it back. That’s no way to live.”

  “Famous last words,” Thos winks at O’Connor from the handsome side of his face. “Meehan’s a bad investment.”

  Vaccarelli reaches toward O’Connor, “We made a deal between this guy an’ Meehan. Now I’m s’posed to go back an’ tell my constituents the ILA is supportin’ the man that has invaded an’ murdered my people?”

  Thos bypasses O’Connor and speaks directly to Vaccarelli, “Lemme put it to ya this way; Meehan’s losin’ support. I’ve got a guy on the inside o’ the White Hand an’ he says it’s mutiny. Meehan double-crossed some fella by the name o’ Lumpy Gilchrist. They’re jumpin’ ship on Meehan. Ya ever heard the story about the guy who was abusin’ an beatin’ an ol’ man wit’ his fists?” All eyes turn to Thos, “A third guy sees it an’ decides to jump in an’ help out. . . The ol’ man didn’t stand a chance after that.”

  King Joe looks at Thos quizzically, though O’Connor and Vaccarelli get it right off.

  Vaccarelli touches O’Connor’s wrist again, “T.V., who is the ILA’s biggest enemy?”

  That grabs Thos’s attention. He looks coldly at O’Connor, who answers.

  “The Waterfront Assembly.”

  “Exactly, I hear Meehan sees Wolcott an’ the Waterfront Assembly as his biggest enemy too. We got common cause wit’ Meehan, why go wit’ the guy who has sided wit’ our enemy in the past?”

  The well-meaning fool just helped me convince O’Connor to side with Lovett without realizing it. He has no idea the president is on the tug.

  O’Connor turns to Thos, “Didn’t ye serve with Lovett yerself, Thos?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “It doesn’t color yer perspective?”

  “It definitely does. I know both o’ them. Meehan an’ I grew up just a few neighborhoods apart. My decision’s based on knowledge o’ both. Vaccarelli here knows neither.” Thos points lazy fingers at Vaccarelli and O’Connor, “Lemme give ya a scenario; what happens if we take Meehan’s side, then Lovett wins the war—”

  “War?” Vaccarelli questions.

  “There will be war, mark it. If Lovett wins that war an’ he’s holdin’ court at the Dock Loaders’ Club, we’ll look the fool by askin’ him if he’ll join the ILA. No, he’ll tell us to fuck off. He ain’t beholden to the ILA any more than he is to the Waterfront Assembly. Then all we got left in Brooklyn is the I-Talian South. An’ right around then our election happens, an’ it’s O’Connor against Vaccarelli here.”

  Vaccarelli sits up in his seat, “I never announced a candidacy.”

  “If we waited for the announcement, we’d lose the election.”

  O’Connor laughs and pounds the table with the flat of his fist, “Fortune favors the bold, Thomas Carmody. Ye’re a throwback, fer certain.”

  “O’Connor’s the man for the job, most of us know that,” Thos eyes Vaccarelli.

  “Ya got a mouth on ya, Carmody,” Vaccarelli tilts his head. “An’ what if we take Lovett’s side an’ Meehan wins?”

  “He won’t, that’s my fookin’ point,” Thos raises his voice.

  “Let’s calm down here boyos,” King Joe holds his palms up to both Thos on his left and Vaccarelli on his right.

  “Why can’t Meehan win?” Vaccarelli demands angrily.

  “Because I—” Thos stops himself and looks across the table at Vaccarelli. Between the two is the lone deck of cards, leaning to one side.

  Time to play.

  “Predictin’ the future is immensely difficult, I understand ya hesitation,” Thos allows Vaccarelli his protestation. “Even the best laid plans o’ mice an’ men can go awry. In the Dred Scott v. Sandford rulin’ o’ 1856, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the Fifth Amendment protected slaveholders’ property, in this case the property in question were. . . slaves, of course. Therefore, the Supreme Court used the Bill o’ Rights to deny human rights. Instead o’ resolvin’ the slavery issue, it caused the American Civil War. They thought they could control the future, but the well meanin’ fools paved the way to hell
wit’ their good intentions. Therefore, in comin’ to my decision to support Lovett, I have thought long and hard about ya’self, Mr. Vaccarelli.”

  “Ya call me a well-meanin’ fool?”

  Thos holds up one finger, “Well-meanin’ as in ya’re here to represent the interests o’ ya own element within the ILA.” Then a second finger. “A fool because ya arrogant enough to think ya know all the angles well enough to predict the future.”

  Their eyes meet and hold. Paul Vaccarelli is not a man to suffer disrespect. In Vaccarelli’s time as a gang leader he had ordered the death of many men. But now. Here. Staring long and hard into his eyes, Thos wonders if Vaccarelli himself had ever killed a man.

  Does he own souls as I do? Does he know that feeling?

  Unblinking, Vaccarelli says, “Ya never answered the question.”

  “Life has no answers, only questions. Ask Socrates.”

  “Death is the answer to life,” Vaccarelli muses.

  “Yeah but no one wants to hear that,” Thos smiles.

  In the ballroom outside, the band plays a turnaround and a woman’s voice can be heard singing When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Thos and Vaccarelli had stared into each other’s eyes so long now that it had turned into a contest. Sweat appears on Vaccarelli’s upper lip and the Italian’s face trembles in anger so slightly that it would have gone unnoticed if Thos hadn’t half-expected violence to ensue.

  Finally Vaccarelli speaks, “Why am I even speakin’ to this guy? I’m a Vice President, he’s the Treasurer. He shouldn’t even be in this room.”

  “Paul,” O’Connor taps Vaccarelli’s black pinstriped coat at the arm, then points in Thos’s direction. “When Tanner Smith put that hit on Thos an’ he an’ I spoke of it up in Buffalo, I told Thos to go back to Brooklyn an’ turn it all ILA. We debated how it could be done. To be honest, I didn’t think he had a chance, but I had to have someone try. An’ since all my Tammany friends called him Quick Thos, the Tenth Avenue Prodigy, I sent him back even though he didn’t want to go. Next thing I know he hammers out a three-way deal with the Young Turk Sixto Stabile and Dinny Meehan with all o’ their respective followers becomin’ card-carrying, red-blooded American union men for the International Longshoreman’s Association, which effectively put our competition out o’ business. My point is, later this year when we go on strike fer better wages, every single dock an’ pier in Brooklyn will not only refuse to work, but will not allow scabs to work in their place. Thos brought us Brooklyn at the first of it, don’t forget.”

  “I ain’t forgot,” Vaccarelli says. “I was involved in it too.”

  “Ye could even say that ye have Thos Carmody to thank fer becomin’ Vice President today, couldn’t ye? Since he singlehandedly raised up the Italian to the level o’ the Irish in Brooklyn.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Vaccarelli sneers.

  O’Connor now puts his hand on top of Thos’s arm too and has both of them in his grasp like a man of god, “I would,” he says.

  King Joe pants and rolls up his tongue, “So would I.”

  Vaccarelli’s head is turned sideways though his eyes remain on Thos directly across the table, “I don’ doubt this fella’s smarts. He’s got a lot goin’ on up there an’ he likes to play the game. I see him eyeballin’ that deck o’ cards. He wants to play. The thing is, analytics, weighin’ other people’s motives an’ figurin’ angles, those are all important, but that’s just the game. Sometimes ya gotta go wit’ what ya heart says. I ain’t sure Thos Carmody has a heart, but I do know if ya rely on the game too much, ya’re liable to come to decisions that can lead to regret afterward.” Vaccarelli raises his head and points to Thos with his lips, “Ya ever wonder if ya will regret leanin’ toward Lovett? Ya ever wonder if ya will regret havin’ no heart, Carmody?”

  Thos blinks and looks up to Paul Vaccarelli, “In this business a clear conscience is a sure sign o’ a bad memory.”

  Defeat curls on Vaccarelli’s lip.

  T.V. O’Connor breaks in, “Alright, let’s get to the meat o’ the matter. What side is Wolcott an’ the Waterfront Assembly takin’? I know it can’t be Meehan.”

  It’s time to spring the trap on you, O’Connor.

  Vaccarelli looks round, “There’s another guy wants to be king o’ Brooklyn? One king, two kings, three kings a dollar, all for a war, stand up an’—”

  “That’s another problem,” Thos interrupts.

  “Wolcott took Lovett’s side before,” Vaccarelli fires back at Thos. “Against my people.”

  “An’ lost. The Waterfront Assembly has their own man now. Garret Barry,” Thos turns his head nonchalantly to O’Connor, but with a predator’s eye staring out from his raised lapel. Searching for fear. Searching for knowledge.

  Now it’s your turn O’Connor. Let’s see how you do.

  “Garret who?” O’Connor says timidly, then looks at King Joe. “Do I know this man?”

  O’Connor’s face had blushed at the cheeks. He looks away again, losing his concentration for a moment until he realizes that he is giving himself away in Thos’s discerning eye. That is when Thos knows without a doubt that President O’Connor works with the ILA’s mortal enemy, Jonathan G. Wolcott. He can see it on O’Connor’s face. The guilt. The shame.

  Everything is fixed, Thos thinks. Even sworn enemies are bedfellows. . . Life is the biggest fix of all.

  Gods and kings and presidents. The one thing they all have in common is their class. The owning class. The ruling class, as they are known. Thos once thought there was nothing worse than the privileged rich, like Wolcott. But now he knows there is something much worse, the reachers of the rich. O’Connor has been reaching up beyond his station all of his life. Forgetting his Irish roots, except when it benefits him, esteeming the English and climbing their ladder. . . O’Connor’s deceit should not be a surprise. Yet somehow it hurts. Hurts hard because Thos knows he may have to kill his boss if the angles twist in that direction. Wolcott though. Wolcott would have offered O’Connor something to make a deal between the supposed enemies. Thos looks again at O’Connor.

  What did you get for your deceit of the working man, O’Connor? A house? A motorcar? A promise? Or are you simply on the tug now; an envelope handed over with a wink and a soft elbow to the ribs?

  “Nah, ya don’ know Garry Barry,” Thos answers O’Connor’s question solemnly so as to ease his boss’s shame and encourage him to continue to walk into the trap and eventually into a losing campaign.

  Then King Joe’s lips start flapping about, “Me personally? I never trust a fella whose first name rhymes wit’ his last name. Ever. Garry fookin’ Barry? It’s just fookin’ wrong, ya know what I mean?”

  “What’s he like?” O’Connor feigns innocence with an obviousness that Thos had never seen on his boss’s face before.

  Vulnerable, that’s what I see on you now, boss. You’re vulnerability.

  Thos keeps a cool head and smiles, “Garry Barry is a box o’ hammers. An eejit on an eejit’s errand. He’s always seen himself as the rightful leader o’ the White Hand, even wit’ only one follower. Meehan beat him in a one-on-one years ago. Now he’s got a gruesome scar where the White Hand ripped his face off an’ danced on it. But in Wolcott’s eyes he’s as lovely as a lass. Ya sure ya never heard o’ Garry Barry?”

  “I haven't,” O’Connor says. “I mean yes. . . No I’ve never heard of him. Yes I’m sure I’ve never heard—”

  Ice cold, Thos keeps up the ruse, “The Waterfront Assembly chose him because he’ll ruin the gang, is my guess. If he’s given the reins, as Wolcott hopes, he’d immediately run the whole racket into the ground so they can undermine the collective o’ workers. Barry’s been seen wit’ Wisniewski, Wolcott’s lump durin’ the storm, an’ a patrolman.”

  The fact that O’Connor does not shit ten kittens at the notion of a patrolman involved in the underworld confirms to Thos everything he suspects.

  Thos continues, “Barry is employed simply to terrorize the gang
, but Wolcott can’t say that to him, can he? But if we’re gonna back Lovett, an’ the Waterfront Assembly is gonna attack Meehan, then—”

  “Then we actually have a common interest with our biggest enemy,” O’Connor finishes the sentence, his face purple with shame. The trap slammed shut.

  “Don’t even consider that,” Thos turns angrily on O’Connor.

  “Ye don’t know what I’m thinkin’,” O’Connor pleads.

  “Ya’re thinkin’ we should back Barry too an’ get rid o’ the gangs altogether,” Thos says with a lowered eye that hardens his words. “First o’ all, we should never make agreements wit’ the Waterfront Assembly an’ the big business interests they represent. Moreover, remember who the ILA represents; the workin’man.”

  O’Connor blushes and changes the subject, “Let’s have a vote then. All in favor o’ supportin’ Lovett, raise yer hands.”

  Thos and King Joe raise their hands solemnly.

  “Those in favor o’ Meehan?”

  Vaccarelli raises a hand while watching for O’Connor’s.

  “Lovett it is,” O’Connor announces. “I like the fact that he is a decorated veteran o’ the Great War. The ILA can’t be seen as red. The newspapers may call us a collection o’ scofflaws an’ gangsters, but we’re not Bolsheviks. Lovett gives us appeal.” O’Connor warns with a wagging finger, “But I want no moves until after this fight. Give the men a chance to work it out amongst themselves.”

  “What about ya vote, O’Connor?” Vaccarelli grumbles. “I know ya’ prefer Meehan an’ his honor codes.”