“I don’t think yu understand the danger yu’re puttin’ Celia an’ I—”
“I understand that Celia an’ yu’self ‘ave no children to protect,” Sadie’s voice is low but bitter. “Yu can’t ‘ave children, yet everyone assumes it’s ‘er fault. ‘Ow do yu even know it’s Celia’s body that can’t make a baby? Maybe it’s yu own body’s fault, ‘ave yu ever considered that?”
“I ‘ave an’—”
Sadie cuts him off so that he cannot disarm her with his grand humility, “Remember when we spent months togeva, yu an’ I? On the steamship? Remember ‘ow close we were? I ‘eard, just as yu ‘ad, about women gettin’ raped on the passage to America. Yu never said anythin’ about it to me though. Still, yu never let me out o’ yu site, did yu? Yu even waited outside the loo for me an’ slept next to me, back-to-back. Yu protected me, cousin. Tell me then, what changed yu? When did yu stop carin’ about yu own blood?”
“Now yu sound like yu mova, Rose.”
“Don’t compare me to me muva,” Sadie raises her voice and sits up in the lawn chair, bare feet in the grass. “I’m sorry I imposed on yu, Frank. But we’re fam’ly. We’re blood. Yu should try ‘arder to remember that.”
“I’m reminded everyday,” Frank says softly. “I can’t even leave Brooklyn wif’out pieces o’ me fam’ly followin’ along to remind me.”
“So yu were just tryin’ to get away, were yu? Away from yu own fam’ly?”
“I admit to that,” Frank folds his hands in his lap and turns his eyes toward the tree line and the woods beyond. “Darby is a sideshow o’ contradictions. An’ I ‘ate danger, ya know that ‘bout me, but me younger bruvas are troublemakers. Darby made a big mistake in puttin’ all ‘is eggs in Wild Bill Lovett’s basket when ‘is fiancé is Italian. An’ on top o’ that, ‘e’s just plain barmy. ‘E’ll end up dead in some empty lot or on the floor o’ a saloon somewhere, ‘e will. An’ Pickles is off ‘is chump. Best thing for everybody was when ‘e was sent up to the stir.”
Sadie squirms in her chair.
“Sadie love, I know yu ‘adn’t many choices back before Dinny took over Irishtown. I ‘eard terrible things ‘appened to yu that caused Dinny to ‘ave Christie Maroney off’d. An’ I know I benefited from Dinny offerin’ me a jobber at the Soap fact’ry, but I’d change everythin’ if I could.”
“I wouldn’t,” Sadie’s fingers dig into the lawn chair. “Then I wouldn’t ‘ave me son.”
“An’ what ‘appens when Dinny shows up ‘ere at me ‘ome? What will ‘e do to me Sadie? What? Will ‘e just send Vincent Maher? That man’s a killer, yu know. I ‘ave first ‘and experience seein’ ‘im kill.”
“They won’t do nothin’ to yu, Frank.”
“Yu don’ know that. Celia an’ I don’ want any trouble, but just in case, I’m buyin’ a pistol.”
“A pistol?”
“This is me property, Sadie. This land’s in me name. It’s in the American constitution, yu know. The right to bear arms, yeah?”
Yes, which is why I’m going to keep the revolver hidden in the closet.
“What good is land wif’out children? We’re not goin’ back to Brooklyn, Frank. We’re stayin’ ‘ere. I’m going to get John into a good school. A tutor over the summer—”
“Where yu gettin’ the money for that? I know Dinny’s not sendin’ it.”
“Don’ worry ‘bout that, Frank. I’ll give yu money for rent too, not to worry,” Sadie looks into the woods with starry eyes. “Yale University is nearby. There are a lot o’ universities ‘round ‘ere. John’s six years old now, by the time ‘e’s eighteen I want ‘im ready. I ‘ave twelve years to prepare ‘im. Yu said yu’self ‘e’s a pro’igy, yu did. We may ‘ave come from the hills o’ Northern Ireland an’ the streets o’ East London only to land in Brooklyn, but me child need never see a cobblestoned street again, Frank. D’yu understand me? I might ‘ave been groped on the street, roped into marriage an’ kept in a tower like Mary, Queen o’ Scots, but me son will ‘ave a better life. An’ yu gonna ‘elp me, damnit.”
“Sadie, I don’ like it. I don’ like it one bit. I moved up ‘ere to get ‘way from trouble—”
“Yu know, I was wonderin’, Frank,” Sadie leans her elbows onto her knees to get closer to her cousin. “Some’ow Darby found out we was on Long Island. Some’ow ‘e found out the exact ‘otel we was stayin’ in. I wondered ‘ow ‘e found out, but now I don’. It was me own cousin that told ‘im, wasn’t it, cousin?”
“Sadie, ‘e’s me bruva,” Frank said. “An’ ‘e was tryin’ to get me ova bruva outta prison an’ wanted money. Money Celia an’ I don’ ‘ave, yeah?”
“So yu turn-in the mova on the run wif a six year-old? I see. I see. Don’t matter that ya look tough on the outside, right? That don’t matter because on the inside yu’re a coward, Frank.”
“An’ yu’re a beggar—”
“I know, an ignorant beggar. Lost like so many in these times,” Sadie finishes the sentence. “But it stops wif’ me, understand? I’ve twelve years to prepare that child. It stops wif’ me. An’ me revenge will be the education o’ me son. d’yu understand, Frank?”
“Mum?” John speaks through the screen door with Celia standing above him. “Have yaz seen any fawns yet?”
“Don’ use that word, John. There’s no such thing as ‘yaz.’” Sadie turns round with a smile on her face, “No fawns yet sweet thing.”
“Ya have to be trustworthy, only then will the mother let her children come out.”
Sadie glances at Frank with a sharp-eyed smile.
Fight
June 1919
Dawn gathers at the darkest hour and the starless sky turns from black to a cloudy gray. Mist mingles among us and the air is fraught with the scent of a cleansing rain. Above us the bridges linger like the great shadows of mythical monsters over the currents of the old river.
Dinny Meehan stands naked and thigh deep where the stony bank and the muddy shore glistens black under the swoosh of saltwater. With his hands he cups water over his shoulders. From behind, muscle ripples in the triangular blades of his upper back. Between his legs the hint of manhood sways thick like low hanging fruit in the spring. He bows his head as water drips from long shards of hair that fall over his ears and cling to his temple.
“Is he praying?” I turn to The Swede.
“Just leave him be.”
Vincent exhales and tosses a frayed cigarette, “I hope this goes over well. I was born here in Brooklyn. Motherless, true. Fatherless as well. But I like it here. It’s my home, ya know? I don’ think I could leave if we. . . lose.”
I growl back at him and nod toward Dinny’s powerful build, “If anyone thinks they’re going to take the seat above the Dock Loaders’ Club from that man today, they’re going to have to win it from him, square up.”
The Swede bobs his head in agreement and taps me with a fist. Yet my belly gurgles.
So why can’t I convince my own stomach that he’ll win?
“Square up?” Chisel flashes a brown-toothed smile as he leaves through a wad of bills. “An honest guy an’ a liar walk into a saloon, ‘Can I buy ya a drink?’ The liar asks. ‘Sure,’ says the honest guy. The liar then turns to the big tender behind the bar an’ says, ‘this guy just agreed to buy me a drink.’ The tender begins pouring until the honest guy begs to differ while the liar tosses the drink back. ‘Someone’s gonna square up for this,’ the tender pounds his fist. ‘I’m broke,’ the liar shrugs. The tender then looks to the honest guy.”
The Swede asks. “Who do you got money on anyway, Chisel?”
“Why Dinny of course, I am fundamentally against payin’ rent.”
Behind us are two, maybe three thousand people at the base of Bridge Street and spread through the Jay Street Railyard, while the shrouded city stands tall across the river. The sound of a metal blacksmith’s wheel grating against some sort of sword or metal beam takes to the air. Beyond the Navy Yard wall to our right are competing soun
ds of a serrated saw that tears through wood, the crackle of welding guns on ship hulls and shovels being thrust into piles of stone and dumped into wheelbarrows.
“Some say he died there,” Beat McGarry’s mouse eyes stare into my own through the melted candle of a face on him.
“The Bard says that,” I shake my head.
“All the survivors o’ the Great Hunger say it. Some were there. They brought him back themselves.”
“Survivors,” I repeat without realizing it.
Beat continues, “They squatted in Jackson Hollow, unwanted. Wretches, amassed in the fields of antebellum Brooklyn like livestock. But whereas cattle had use to the Anglo-American, the Irish had none. We were nothin’. We were no one. A place like that? That’s from where heroes arise. I was a babe in the belly the first year I went on this pilgrimage an’ have been ever since. But I’ll tell ya, I’ve never seen such small numbers.”
“Small? There’s a lot of—”
“Not like back then,”Beat interrupts coolly. “We had triple this number o’ people. There’s been an exodus from Brooklyn for many years now an’ I fear we’re the last o’ a breed. The gang is even split in half an’ Lovett’s followers don’ give two shites about the traditions. That’s why ya’self an’ I are so important.”
“I know but—”
“Can ya imagine the people, Liam? Close ya eyes an’ think o’ the shoeless masses o’ us squattin’ in fields an’ lean-tos an’ shacks made o’ trash. They had nothin’, Liam. Nothin’. . . but hope. Can ya imagine them? Truly? I believe ya can. Of all people, Liam. I know ya can imagine them.”
“I do,” says I. “I can.”
“An’ ya will,” Beat points a finger in my chest. “Ya’re next in line, kid. Behind me. Ya can refuse it all ya want, but ya will still be next in line. The Bard says it, an I myself know it to be true. D’ya have that pencil still?”
“Pencil?”
“That ya stole from Lumpy Gilchrist.”
I blink my eyes and search my pocket. My belongings had been returned to me after I was released from the Poplar Street Police Station. Worthless items to all, but myself. The pencil for which I write notes in Whitman’s book Leaves of Grass, and the Saint Christopher my mother gave me before beginning my journey across the Atlantic Ocean are my treasures.
Beat continues, “I can’t read or write, so I’ll continue the oral tradition when the Bard passes on. But ya will write it down for all to know.”
We both look out on the water.
He taps me, “Dinny died right there, see?”
“Where?”
“There,” Beat points. “Where he’s standin’ now.”
The sun fights through the clouds in the east to cast gray light round Dinny in the moving water.
“If he died, how is he standing there?”
“A song,” Thomas Burke answers as he comes up from behind. “Don’ be so distrustful, Liam.”
Beat joins in, “It was prayers to the old gods brought him back. The harvest moon an’ the wind an’ the trees, because the god we know had ignored them. So they keened to bring back the old ways an’ in response a storm appeared at dawn an’ overturned a ferry from Manhattan. That mornin’ an eleven year-old boy drowned to keep his sick father afloat, an’ they knew their prayers had been answered.”
“Were you there?”
“Nah, I was—”
“Myths and folklore from a people haunted by hunger, famine, disease and Trevelyan’s cold heart,” says I. “I wouldn’t confuse hope for magic. I used to believe in heroes that came from the Otherworld and itinerant shanachie seers that told eternal tales, but I was a kid then. Now I’m grown.”
“Ya’re right, it’s mere hope that fuels our stories,” Burke’s tone is calm and agreeable. “Fertile hope, because the most powerful o’ all hope springs from despair, the pang o’ hunger an’ desperation that causes people to hope so hard their brains hurt for the wantin’. It’s that hope what shakes the heavens, an’ a hero falls out; his wet soul awakened when the old folk pass away.”
“Crazy talk,” I spit out in their direction. “I’m supposed to tell that story? With a straight face?”
“Liam—”
“Enough,” I interrupt. “I’ve got more than enough on my plate already.”
Naked, Dinny trudges through the East River as a soft rain begins to circulate in the air, barely distinguishable from the morning fog. Biddy Hoolihan comes to his left with his clothing over her arm. A stooped man with a full white beard and windswept sea-green eyes comes to his right on the rocky shore.
“Isn’t that him? The Bard?” I ask Beat.
Burke nods and Beat says, “But he has the grippe, Liam. A wheezin’ cough. It’s in his lungs, real bad. His days near an end. An’ mine draws nigh. I’ll be the third Irishtown shanachie, an’ ya’ll be—”
“Alright, alright,” I tamp Beat’s enthusiasm.
Dinny’s broad chest and thick upper arms dwarf the elderly woman and the stooped Bard. The dark wet mist that descended obscures the amber morning light, but does not cover Dinny’s bare cock to our eyes. And the dark curly pelvic hair between his thick thighs does not seem to embarrass anyone. Slowly he dresses while out on the harbor a distant tugboat sounds off, hoo-hooooo. He then walks directly toward me until I stand off from his way. And a clearing is made through the great slew of old Brooklyn Irish assembled this morn.
“Go, c’mon,” Cinders gently pushes me from behind.
As the crowd separates, The Swede and Vincent Maher walk directly behind Dinny. Cinders, Red, The Lark and Dance follow with Big Dick, Philip Large and Henry Browne as well as Eddie and Freddie in tow. Behind them gather the bulk of the longshoremen who follow Dinny Meehan’s clan out of Bridge Street. In all more than one hundred men and all the families have come out, though mine is not present.
“Liam,” I hear a voice.
When I look over I see Mrs. Burke and her children. She is at the head of them and pushes her eldest son Joseph in a homemade wheelchair.
I run over to greet them, then lean down toward Joseph, “Where did you get this chair?”
He says, “It just. . . appeared at our f. . . front door.”
“Who made it?”
But Mrs. Burke just gives a proud smile.
“I came to see a real f. . . f. . . fight,” Joseph says. “The legend of D. . . Din—”
“Don’t say that name,” I point into his face and smile. “You don’t know no one by that name, understand? He doesn’t exist, remember?”
Joseph smiles a big happy smile and nods without another word said.
“Liam,” I hear again and look up.
Mrs. Burke steps aside and through the crowd, my sister walks through.
“Abby, what are you doing here?”
“I’m with ye, Liam.”
“Is Mam an’ Brigid here?”
“No, Mam wouldn’t come. She forbid me to come too, but. . .”
“You shouldn’t—”
“Liam, I’m tired o’ everyone tellin’ me what I shouldn’t do. This is what I want. When can I start choosin’? I’ll be eighteen come next year. Even if I am a young woman, don’t ye want yer sister to have the power to make her own mind?”
“Well—”
“I want to be here. I want to be with me big brother who done so much for his fam’ly, even if his own Mam doesn’t appreciate it.”
“She does but—”
“I know, she werries. But ye can’t werry yer whole life 'way, can ye? Ye’ve risked everythin’ fer us, Liam. Let me show me appreciation. Let me choose. I can do anythin’, ye know.”
I smile and shake my head, “We need all the help we can get.”
Our hands come together, but when she squeezes I wince.
She moves her eyes from my hand to my face, “Be careful today, Liam.”
The crowd moves through the streets and the newly bloomed trees. Behind us the aged are helped along by their full grown children, and
grandchildren. Still in her widow’s weeds, Mrs Mullen carries the newborn at her breast while her eldest son Whyo holds hands with his hobbling grandfather. In his other hand is the little girl with Vincent’s eyes.
“It’s gonna be a fight for all time to tell,” Whyo tells his grandfather with Will Sutton shadowing him. “Like ‘A Day for Legends’ was back in 1916, or the Adams Street Riots o’ 1913. It’ll go down in Irishtown hist’ry!”
“Ya do what ya can for the king,” Mrs. Mullen nods to her boy with a proud smile. “He’s there for us. Ya do what ya can for him so he wins t’day, otherwise. . .”
She trails off, but Whyo continues, “They’ll call it the Battle o’ Jackson Hollow, maybe.”
“The Brawl for King o’ Irishtown,” Will Sutton offers.
“Ye’re warriors, all,” the Bard calls forward through a wet cough. “Soldiers o’ the Dawn.”
A smile comes across my face when I see the old fellow again, the Bard. He wears his good intentions round him like a charm for all to see. And when he smiles back at me I look away the shame wells up in me for not having gone back to him, even as many people had asked me to.
I heard tell that he was one of those whose ship berthed in Brooklyn, which was the tail-end of a great and tragic journey. With nowhere to go, he and many other orphans, lost souls and the broken-hearted wandered into Jackson Hollow, then eventually founded Irishtown and every year go back to honor that journey and the great many who were lost along the way, whether in Ireland or out at sea. And although our numbers are no longer what they once were, I can see he is proud, still.
As Cinders and I walk past, I ask, “How many are there? The survivors from those days?”
Cinders looks back to me, “Eight.”
“Eight?”
“Last year there were eleven.”
“I. . . I didn’t know—”
“No one honors them as much as Dinny. He has cared for them since. . . since before I knew him.”
Through the morning mist we walk in a great procession. Between buildings on Hudson Avenue through the oldest parts of Irishtown and up on both sides of the uneven slate sidewalks.
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 60