Exile on Bridge Street

by Eamon Loingsigh

  He uses silence to sway me too, his hands folded and head slightly atilt. To make me see it all, he sits quiet and allows me to imagine on my own. To see him as who he is and what he has done. What he is still doing, for not only did he organize a great blow to take back the docks from the “others,” a day for legends as we termed it, to not only win against the most absurd odds, but to know exactly where he’d land afterward. Where these enemies would be funneled and collect to again attack: Lovett. Lovett being the recipient of offers from our enemies through Red Hook in the south of our territories, Dinny will know from where these enemies will attack.

  Everyone in the gang questioned why Non Connors, Lovett’s right-hand man, was set up as the lamb. It’s too obvious, some said. It gives Lovett momentum, others complained. But I see it now so clearly. By setting up Non Connors, Wolcott and the New York Dock Company, Frankie Yale and the Italians, King Joe and the ILA, Brosnan and the law would all go to Lovett to make a deal against Dinny and the power structure set up in old Irishtown. To divide and conquer us, as the Anglo-Saxon has always done. That the only way to take Dinny down, would be through Lovett. I look up to Dinny and see his brilliance for the first time, the bridges and skyscrapers over his shoulders and the breeze of the waterfront brine in our noses through the open iron shutters. He did it on purpose, setting up Connors so that he would know exactly where they’d strike next. Creating! Creating what would be seen as a weakness by outsiders, while making Lovett an enemy too for making deals with those outsiders. And I see too, looking at him at his desk now, that Dinny Meehan does everything with purpose.

  “Why don’ ya trust me?” Dinny asks, his thick, dark brown hair falling over his shorn ears in jagged shards. “Now I hear Petey Behan punched ya and ya ran away. Do ya remember what I said in the taxi we took together t’rough Manhattan earlier this year? Do ya remember?”

  “I do.”

  “What?”

  “You said draw a line and don’t ever let anybody cross it again without a fight.”

  “We’re a family here,” Dinny says, spreading his hands across the room. “Some o’ us don’ act right and need to be handled. We don’ go to Brosnan and the tunics for justice, though. The law ain’ for us, it’s for the ownin’ class who can slip a piece o’ change to the judge to get saved, make the laws themselves for their benefit—and for the rest? Who got nothin’ but hope? It’s to hell they’re sent. We don’ go to the papers to right a wrong either. Or the boss on-site for a slave’s justice. We don’ go to I-talians for nothin’ and the ILA don’ tell us what to do. Nah. . . . We take care o’ our own problems. You, Liam. . . . Ya got a problem.”

  The other men in the room mumble in agreement.

  “You know like I know,” Dinny continues. “T’roughout time our people been crushed by others. They keep us poor and weak so that they can have touts among us who need handouts. To keep us small and controlled. If it weren’t for touts among us, we’d have our own country where you’n I would still live, wouldn’t we, Liam?”

  “That’s true. A big part of the problem, at least.”

  “Ya father told ya about ’em. They’re always there among us. Always will be. That’s why we take care o’ things on our own. You . . . you got things ya gotta take care o’ wit’ Petey Behan, ’cause the rest o’ us’ll suffer if ya don’t. Ya know why? Because if ya don’ do somethin’ about ’em, they’ll see weakness in us. Weakness is opportunity, dig? Lovett an’ Lonergan and every man down there are always, and always will be, waitin’ for us to show weakness,” Dinny opens his left palm out in front of him, open to the ceiling and says, “weakness,” then does the same with his other palm, “opportunity.”

  I think about what he means.

  “Now,” he continues, The Swede staring down at me. “Can I have ya trust?”

  “You can.”

  “Can I help bring ya mother an’ sisters, Abby an’ Brigid, to New York?”

  “You can,” I say.

  “Can I help get ya own place where they can stay in a peaceful neighborhood? Like down by Prospect Park’r somethin’?”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “First though,” Dinny raises a finger. “Ya gotta earn the trust o’ these men. Earn ya name back. Show that you’ll stand up for ya’self and for us and what we have together here.”

  I am following him.

  “Do you knowhow you can do that? How you can earn their trust and earn ya name back?”

  I think around in my head for the answer.

  “He still don’ get it,” The Swede says, unfurling his long arms from their crossing and dangling them at his side in frustration.

  “How can I do it?”

  Dinny looks at me seriously, then speaks softly, “Ya gotta challenge Petey Behan.”

  “To a fight?”

  Dinny nods, “Now.”

  “Right now?”

  “Now,” Dinny says, then turns to Vincent Maher. “Tell Tommy Tuohey to come up here.”

  Vincent immediately unlocks the door, “Tuohey? Come up.”

  “You have a short time now,” Dinny says to me. “Ya boy is downstairs.”

  As Tommy Tuohey and Vincent Maher enter, Tuohey is blurting, “What’s it I’m gonna learn the bhoy when it’s Dinny beat me twice?” Tuohey then looks up to Dinny, “How’s it? Why not yerself teach ’em?”

  “I’ve already gave ’em advice and I don’ think he’s listenin’. What’d I teach ya about fightin’, Liam? What? Were ya listenin’ to me?”

  Before I can feel scared about fighting, I am having to answer questions, “Keep my fists over my face and, uh, spread the legs for balance, I think you said.”

  “Dat’s right giverteek, moraless,” Tommy starts talkin’ so fast I can barely understand him, and all while he is sparring me at the same time. “Stand up. Hands high, dat’s right. Now slide back wit’ ye front foot while steppin’ back with the back foot. No, no, like dis here. Slide’n step. Yeah yeah, bhoy, left widda jab right widda hook. Swivel dere. Swing here fer fecks sake. When ye go chest to chest wid ’em, don’t give an inch. He clatters ye, don’ slash yerself and don’ say nuttin’ just keepa goin’ like she’s a job. Just remember we fight ’cause we’re men and we’ll do it.”

  “We fight because we are men and we will do it.”

  “True ’nough.”

  Over the next ten minutes, Tommy gives me pointers while the others in the room watch and throw in their opinions. Even Lumpy notices something and turns round all surprised.

  “Bounce, bounce,” Vincent yells at me.

  Tommy slaps me a good one across the face, “Wake up, ye feckin’ sausage. Ye ready for da yoke to try’n hert ye? Are ye? Ye’ll wake up den, won’t ye? Ye like yer mudder, don’t ye? Don’t ye wish ye could live under’er skirt again, don’t ye?”

  The others laugh.

  “Duck out the way den here comes a right cross.”

  I drop my hands while my eyes pop out and I rush from the way of it.

  “Don’t drop ’em, Sally. . . . Ye wanna be a poet, do ye?”

  The men laugh again, louder this time.

  “What is it Ragtime call ye d’udder day? Eddie Allen Poet? Dat’s his name?” Tommy asks the others as he moves around and swats down my fists.

  “Poe,” Dinny says.

  “Yeah Poe,” Tommy says. “Ye wanna name fer yerself? Yer a poet warrior are ye? The man here’s name is Poe Garrity in his corner ready to die fer his country sure of himself as he is. Killin’ ’em wit’ the werds, does he. But a man can’t have a name widout neck. Ye got neck, bhoy? Do ye? Well ye’ll go’n prove it then. Earn yerself den and if yer a sausage don’t come back.”

  “Let me see ya fists,” Dinny says, standing from his desk, and we stop our bouncing and sparring.

  He takes my hands in his. Dwarfing them with his muscular thumbs and big round fingers, wide palms. He then turns my hands round and opens them, feels the calluses and closes his eyes.

  “Ya
haven’t worked for a few days,” Dinny says, then looks in my eyes. “Killed a man though.”

  The room goes silent.

  “Ya can forget anything anybody told ya in this room for the last while,” Dinny says, closer to my face now than ever before, then whispers. “Don’ forget this. Only remember this. Most important thing I’ll ever tell ya. Ya lookin’ at me?”

  “I am,” I say, focusing in on his green eyes.

  “This . . . as long as ya alive . . . don’ quit.”

  The men again mumble in agreement.

  “He hurts ya, get back in for more. No one can beat the man outta ya. If he does, and you quit?” Dinny says, then nodding toward Tommy Tuohey. “Like he says, don’ come back.”

  “Today ya make ya name,” Tommy says. “A real poet don’t sit in rooms. He’s out in the world fightin’ it.”

  “Has nothin’ to do wit’ Petey Behan,” Dinny says walking back toward his desk. “But if ya quit, don’ come back here. You’ll never make it. And we won’ have ya.”

  I look over to Cinders Connolly who has always been so kind to me, but his face is strong and hard and looking away. Vincent is staring at me in a demanding smirk ready to uproot the friendship he and I have too. Waves of distress ripple through my body. And when I think about going back to Mr. Lynch if I couldn’t stomach this fight, I remember being blocked by Dinny’s claiming him. Which means, of course, there’s nowhere for me to go.

  “Jimmy,” Dinny says to The Swede as he sits at his desk. “Lumpy holds the money, tell Chisel no holder’s fee. He’s only there to fan the odds, introductions and whatnot. I’ll give ’em a bite afterward.”

  The Swede confirms as Dinny looks over to me, “Good luck, kid. G’on now, lead the way. Vincent, you stay wit’ me up here. You stay up here too, Tanner, yeah?”

  Tanner nods.

  “Every man has a day to prove ’mself,” Tommy says to me. “The world demands it.”

  Vincent unlocks the door and opens it for me. Down the stairs I walk, The Swede, Tommy Tuohey, Cinders Connolly, and Lumpy Gilchrist behind me. The first person I see is Paddy Keenan behind the bar as I enter the saloon below. He looks to me, tosses a towel in front of him at the bar where Ragtime Howard looks back over his shoulder. Beat McGarry, remembering things for future stories, as he loves to do, is smiling slyly as he sees the four of us descending. Like three broad-shouldered moose sipping from the river, Red Donnelly, Gibney The Lark, and Big Dick Morrissey look back too and so does the flat-faced Philip Large whose mouth is open in wonder.

  Fear and anger rushing through me, I shoulder through a few immigrants and stand over the table that holds the beers of Petey Behan, Martin, Quilty, Harms, and their leader Richie Lonergan, who looks at me coldly as I stop.

  “Behan,” says I.

  He looks up from the side of his face as the men following me come to a stop above, Tommy’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Meet me outside.”

  Chisel MaGuire appears of a sudden between us and blurts, “Finish ya drinks, boyos. We gotta challenge.”

  “Hey hey,” I hear a whooping.

  “Them kids?”

  Behan looks away from me and picks up his beer, downs it. Stands up close to my face as tall as he can make himself and turns his back to me, walks to the door.

  “Yeah. Yeah,” the men shout.

  As we shuffle toward the rear room door in the traffic, I hear men speaking in languages excitedly. Outside, Richie pushes people out of the way so he can stand with the rest of us, though he hobbles and leans on Harms. It is drizzling, though the cold has mostly subsided from the snap that came round the day The White Hand took back control of the docks from the ILA and the Italians and the New York Dock Co. There is a freedom in the air that I hadn’t felt since getting soused that night. A feeling that we had cleared the way and any disagreements now between us are no more than the faction fighting or the coming up of a man. It is our time and I can feel it and how we make things is our business—all the rest can watch and get out from the way.

  I am surprisingly at ease and at the ready. Pushed up by the courage in my youth. I feel a comfort in it even, for I am not the only man throughout time that has his day of test. I am only one among many who seek dignity. Because although we bring our ways to the world, we lose them too. But were it not for men like Dinny Meehan, those old ways would not stand so tall above us, a hand on our shoulder. I feel myself gaining. I feel a power within me ascending to the fore. The child in me to the aft. And like the brave men of Dublin whose words cut open hearts . . . the men who write in blood as they stand proud against death just this week, I too stand with them ready to give my blood to sacrifice my childhood and walk among the other seers, the tribe of auguries and the unkempt visionaries that stride upon dirt paths with glinting weapons, protecting their families. A man among the sodality of men. Making survival out of this life that is after throwing difficulties in the path of us.

  “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” I mumble under my breath, still not knowing in the slightest who it was that wrote such wonderful words. Something so ancient and stirring, yet here I stand inside the fighter’s circle with cobblestones beneath my feet, buildings above me in place of Ireland’s green floor and trundling hills. I take off my coat and my tie and push back my hair, close my fists.

  “We have here a challenge!” Chisel stands on a chair in the alley and points toward Petey as the onlookers lower their voices, the underpass of the Manhattan Bridge to our left, the rail yard at the end of Bridge Street in the foreground with Manhattan looking down to us. “One youngster who come up with the Lonergan crew, a Brooklyn-born boyo . . .”

  The Swede kicks the chair from underneath Chisel, “We ain’ barkin’ t’day, get up’n fan the odds and shut ya hole.”

  I see Richie Lonergan pointing and trying to speak with Lumpy, though The Swede has turned and is in the way, holding him back with one large paw on Richie’s chest. I can’t really hear him, but I believe Richie is claiming a percentage of the take if Petey wins. Harms is using his shoulders to press The Swede and offers supporting comments for Richie’s claim. And Bill Lovett is casually peeling off bills with his legs open and speaking to Petey’s ear, then handing a wad to Lumpy. Meanwhile, The Lark and Big Dick along with Red Donnelly, Cinders Connolly, and Philip Large have their arms spread out with their backs against the circle of yelping men to keep it wide enough for the two boys to fight.

  “Back up.”

  “Poe,” Tommy Tuohey yells in my ear. “Dis boyo’d like to get in close on ye, giver teek, mora less. Needa keep distance with long jabs from ye, hear it?”

  “I do.”

  “If’n when he gets in on ye close like, ye gotta puck yer way out, hear it?”

  “I do.”

  “Don’ tangle too long on the inside. Dat’s his game. Yer to keep a distance and pick off the fact he’s got the short arms like.”

  I look up and see Dinny and Tanner and Vincent in the shutter windows looking down on us. Vincent waves a fist at me and smiles as Dinny and Tanner stand behind him with their arms crossed, watching me.

  From above I hear Vincent clapping and yelling and a few others as well are on my side, including Cinders Connolly, who yells and smiles at me while struggling to hold back men and next thing I know, Petey is walking toward me with his fists up, as I hadn’t heard a bell or anything announcing our beginning. Closer he gets. Closer still until I can see the meat in his shoulders and his wide face. He tries cornering me, but I slip away, ducking from one of his swings. I lose my balance a bit and hear Tommy Tuohey yell something, but I can’t hear it clearly.

  I feel in me that I don’t want to swing at him. That I don’t have the anger in me to attack, so I bounce like I was taught and go from side to side, avoiding him as he bears down. His aggression makes me feel hunted and he yells something out to the fact that I was the one that challenged him and why am I running now? And then finally Petey puts his hands down and com
es directly at me. As I jump out of the way, he grabs my shirt and yanks me back toward him and as my left shoulder bumps against his body, he swings up with a left and twice with sweeping right hands that catch me on the knuckles covering my face. The crowd roars and I see the veins in Lovett’s neck pull up as he yells, Frankie Byrne and the Lonergan crew standing at his side.

  My knuckles burn and I feel a small lump grow on the top of my head where he somehow clipped me as I back away, and before I can think about it much, someone from behind pushes me toward Petey, who is surprised and takes a wild swing that is partially blocked by my hands again.

  “Stay away from ’em,” I hear Tuohey yell to me. “Jab jab.”

  As Petey moves in again, I straighten my left arm as long as it will go and duck my head at the same time as the punch lands on his forehead. He quickly swings back again, but his arms aren’t long enough to connect. I do it again and the onlookers jump up in excitement. One more time with the left jab and I follow it with a straight right that goes over his shoulder, and with all of my weight heading toward him and missing, he swings three and four times from my stomach to my chest and up to my mouth where his last one lands before I move away from him.