Dinny’s contract binding him to death is slung across his face by a look. It was always like that, of course, his face knowing death. But when you see it coming for yourself it makes a look. And he had it.
If he never wanted his story told he wouldn’t’ve kept me around. He preached silence but kept a kid who was known to steal pencils next to him. A future writer. He knew what was coming. Nobody could really follow Dinny’s mind, so it was all a secret. And that’s part of what always kept him ahead of others. Keeping himself stronger than us, harder and smarter. But that all came natural. So much so that we never recognized the ancient face he began taking with him in those spring days, 1917. Eventually someone would kill him. Not cancer or sickness or old age or some injury. Men taking him down. And at foolish reasoning too.
Allowing part of one of your territories to secede gives words to a revolt, it is said of Dinny who relinquished half of Red Hook to outsiders. His job now is to stanch or at least stave blood, but eventually someone will come for him with knives to cleave the skin of his frame or guns to clap open his brain. Eventually.
He stands on the steps and waits for everyone to stop talking, Paddy Keenan snapping his towel at them. Standing amid the men myself, I look up to hear what he says too. Hoping him to contradict the mumbles these men begin daring to whisper of him. Waiting for us, Dinny shows no concern for mumbles or death and even looks more content and at ease than I’d seen him in some long time. As a man who is taken with challengers would be, I suppose. In love with those that protest him even, I’d say. With his eyes taking the voices down more and more by the second, I see this melancholic little objection the men have is no more than a test to him—as a woman tests her lover’s love for her to see what he is willing to put up with, drawing him out of his masculine cover. But Dinny won’t be drawn out. I smile knowing that he is solid for such a test and those who mumble are ready to consent . . . for now.
“It’s a sad day. Let us be humble for the Lonergan family and offer our humility as a gift. We provided them wit’ a respectable grave at Calvary Cemetery for the child, and there’ll be Mass afterward at St. Ann’s, as his mother requested,” his eyes alert, mouth almost smiling with agility. “I believe that in honor o’ Tiny Thomas, we should also take steps to never again allow children to run round our neighborhoods without a pair o’ shoes on their feet, and a second pair for the closet.”
Standing next to Cinders Connolly, a father himself to young ones, I hear him sniffle and see his eyes going watery at these words as he looks down to his folded hands.
“Let us be respectful of the Lonergan family on this day,” Dinny says, knowing full well that the Lonergan family is seen as among the lowest of classes. Some even call them traitors for committing to Lovett, which gives even more words to the whispers that Dinny is losing his grip. Slowly he comes down the steps as men finish their beers, wipe it from their clean-shaven faces and head toward the door in low mutterings that are no longer objections. Their hods and hooks and hammers, trowels and tape measures and chisels, and all the tools we’ve shaped for the work we do, that shape us too, are left in the corner.
We go up the long hill of Bridge Street. South, two hundred and fifty strong. Sullen in our climbing the pavement and spread across the old cobble road yellowed with time and uneven and burrowed with dark cavities like the mouth of an old seafaring swain.
The brightness of spring is on our necks and at the head of us is Dinny Meehan walking gently. And he walks with a great shyness and servility in him, though all know him a powerful man. A man of a greatness that harkens, within all of us, to the old times in Irishtown when the rest of the world was kept away by a great tradition of silence. And by great leaders mostly mythical in their span, the embellishments of Irish storytelling being as traditional as the drink in our hands. Leaders who became great and mythical by their acts of defiance against the Goliath of law—not unlike Dinny. Flouting their dominance boldly, openly. Then persevering after its retribution, and coming out greater in popularity from it all. Greater still after death. These men of myth and all those that followed them, kept the Anglo-American law out of Irishtown, and kept Irishtown Brehon in culture and tradition. Their names though, still to this very day even, are unarticulated. Don’t exist for you and I. Only in the oral fashion had they been spoken of by Irishtown’s shanachies, who called them, of course, Patrick Kelly.
Up in the windows as we pass are children that see in us a greatness they’ll never attain, but won’t stop the trying for it all the same. Behind them is the shame in their mother’s eyes. A woman’s derision put on men who are tasked with ensuring meals for his family by violence for which he is forced to use. That she does not agree with his methods and his damned patriarchy. Yet it seems her feelings change just moments later and with a sudden rush in her of the pride and understanding of a man’s doom and fortune in their time, the men are then seen in a truer light. That they defend her love, at the least of it. For nowhere in the world does a mother’s spite toward the freedom men exercise in violence at her family’s defense become end and all. That it is an ugly business for them, making meals where meals are hard-won. And where many go hungry and without work, these men fight for space. And succeed too.
I feel happy to be among them and look round me in cheer, even as we are quiet and refuse the slightest remark, for in each man is the cause and the dignity to mourn one of our children’s passing. We stride through Bridge Street heads down, yet The Swede and Mickey Kane, closest to Dinny now, peer upward for enemies. As we pass the Lonergan bicycle shop, Vincent Maher and Harry Reynolds walk amongst the dockbosses. I am now sixteen and my voice is thickening and I hold with a stronger grip the pipe under my coat, ready at any calling for my people. That they are now my family and knowing that I love them and knowing they love me too, as men can. But when we pass McLaughlin Park where the children of PS 5 play, I watch and wonder as there are quite a few kids my age there. Emma McGowan is there somewhere, sheltered and behind fences, me out in the wind and the streets. But at least I am with my people, I think to myself. Though I can’t help but wish for an education and swear to myself I’ll read the book by Walter Whitman when I get a chance.
When we come to Johnson Street, we go right in our masses and as fate would have it, the Lonergan home is directly between Dinny’s Bridge Street and where Bill Lovett’s Jay Street gang once headquartered, until The White Hand gripped them and pulled them in like all the other gangs. On the first floor is the wake where we stand outside, a rough lot. As we wait, a shoeless child pulls on my coat sleeve and blurts a request. Though I don’t hear him, I look down and press my finger over my lips and give him a coin. It isn’t until later that I learn he is one of the Lonergan children running unwatched, dressed in the funeral uniform Dinny bought, though he’d taken the shoes off. A man leaning on his cane as he slowly comes to us is treated with dignity, and we make a path in our crowding the street for him to get through. On the sidewalk, a large-shouldered Russian woman with a flowery, dirty hat tilted to the side harrumphs at our numbers and our ways, and many others watch from tenements above in their window chairs and elbows leaning on the frames.
There is only the sound of the city in the distance as we shuffle in queue outside the Lonergan home. We are very quiet now. In front of me is the fidgety Needles Ferry holding his hat at his side—the skinniest man I’ve ever met. Behind me is old Beat McGarry, normally with a mouth full of words, it is now closed and his eyes are to the ground in front him, hands behind.
Cinders Connolly emerges from the tenement and finds me in the line, whispers in my ear, “Come wit’ me. Give condolences to Anna . . . respectful an’ humble.”
I nod to him as we cut in the line ahead and soon enough men are coming out the same door we are attempting to go in. Inside we lean against the hallway stairwell for them to pass in the opposite direction and eventually I come to the room where the miniature casket, opened for all to look in, is flush against the wall and
under a window. On another wall is a clock that was stopped at ten twenty-four, the moment the wee one was found.
To the casket I come and look down into the frozen face and give a little smile at the tot’s new coat and tie—the first suit ever he wore. A cross is held in his tiny fingers folded so naturally that I forget for a moment that he is gone, and behind his head and above is a small whittled-wooden statue of a weeping and handsome Christ, with his thorny crown and naked breast, looking up in his agony as if he knew the child too.
I cross myself and move to the left, where wearing her mourning weeds, Mrs. Lonergan sits staring into the candle that she holds in her lap secured by a gaudily ornamented, rusted-green candlestick with a finger hole. To her left is Father Larkin holding her wrist with one hand, his beads in the other. Two women at her left sing strange, spontaneous songs and hymns, reminding me of the countryside of my youth. Mrs. Lonergan slowly rocks to the loose rhythm in them and seems far away in thought and overcome with the seemingly spurious grief that is overwhelming her.
“May your boy rejoice in His kingdom where all our tears are wiped away,” I offer.
“Oh,” she says awkwardly, and looks up. “What a kind t’ing to say. May God be with you too, William.”
I bow and move on but I can’t help but feel so proud of myself for touching her, and the humility in it and pride in myself mix together and make me feel so wonderful that I almost cry too, if it wouldn’t be so selfish to do so. But quickly I am taken away from my own feelings of greatness, for when I see Anna the first time on this day I am shocked by the blackening of her eyes and swollen nose. Behind her is the shamed father leaning his elbows on his knees in a chair pointed toward a side wall. Some say that Anna’s father punched her for not taking Tiny Thomas to the hospital, but most know that when John Lonergan found out about the boy’s death he drank himself violent, as he often does. I can see that Anna is forced to breathe through her mouth and it is only afterward that I notice her wearing a new dress. She is not as sad as her mother, though, and instead carries an air of forthright responsibility to her.
“My most heartfelt condolences to you and yours,” I say to her.
“Thanks, Liam,” she says while looking past me to the person behind with a sternness I don’t expect.
In the kitchen are the young males quietly peopling the table on the other side of the parlor wall. Abe Harms and Richie Lonergan look up at me distrustfully as I walk by, and as I notice Petey Behan, who is looking away angrily, I feel Vincent Maher pull me from the line to where, standing on the other side of the kitchen, are the men of The White Hand huddled closely together. I can see as well as the others that the Lonergan band across the small kitchen are a disconcerted bunch. Frankie Byrne and his men stand behind them, along with the older brothers Behan and Quilty. That they feel bitter on our having a claim on the family by our reaching out to them—providing casket, flowers, dresses, and little suits for all, and a grave. Showing up in our great numbers too, while Lovett sits in a cell at our benefit. Richie himself is the most egregious looking of the bunch, shooting his eyes away and cracking his knuckles and wrists on the table nervously. As I mix in with The Swede, Maher, Harry Reynolds, and others, Dinny approaches the sulky table of youthful males with hat in hand and his cousin at his side, Mickey Kane. A round of handshakes is accomplished, though the boys do not stand at Dinny’s reaching out to them. They are whispering to each other and with the plaintive, keening women at their singing, I cannot hear a thing said but I know it is of business that they speak. With Dinny and Mickey’s back to us, I see Richie’s eyes look around them toward me, then look away.
The line of inquisitive visitants peering in on the dead child continues to move slowly, eerily. Blessing child and mother as a matter of routine. Their humility related more to the shame of curiosity than sorrow for the family’s loss, and it is Anna that seems most put out by it. Her hair off and over her shoulders is a silky, strawberry-yellow swirl so lucid that it seems to be from another place, certainly not from this dark den where so many malnourished children flop in a two-room flat a block away from the old slaughterhouse on Tillary Street and the elevated trains. With her hair up, the skin of her neckline is revealed as a deep, unsullied milky hue and with a new dress on her, she is a beauty of uncommon genius, if not for the blackened eyes. And although she seems the picture of youthful elegance with her small shoulders and slight overbite and an upper lip that is full and bright, there is disgust churning in her as she sees us manning the kitchen. She moves from her place in the grieving line and holds Dinny’s arm firmly, looking up to his head.
“Ya can all go now,” she says with a flinty and lowered voice that threatens a break into screams. “I thank yaz all very much for what ya offered. We all thank ya, but it’s our home and our grievin’ and we have the right to do it the way we wish ourselves to do it. In our fashion.”
“Anna?” Mary yells toward her. “Let the men stay, oh. Oh Lord above us. Why all this . . .”
“We’ll go,” Dinny says humbly, turning his attention away from Richie. “I’m sorry to offend.”
“It’s fine,” Anna breaks in with Mary wailing loudly, drowning everyone else’s voice in her tears. “We’ll see ya at Mass afterward . . . and thank you. . . . Shut up, Ma!”
Mary howls louder still at this affront from her own daughter, as Anna turns red in the face, then screeches to Dinny, who is bowing away humbly, “Yeah, and if ya so concerned, Dennis Meehan, then why not tell ya witnesses to go away then? Yeah? That’s how ya can help our fam’ly . . .”
“Anna,” Mary yells.
“I’ll never consider this child as a proper man for me,” Anna says pointing at me, her face red and shaking. “Let Bill go—he’s a real friend of our fam’ly. Get out. Out.”
Dinny nods calmly and we leave the kitchen, entering the line toward the door and the hallway. Behind us we can hear Anna raising her voice over her slouching mother who stares into the candle, “We’ve got our pride, Mother, and we’ll keep it. Upon all of us there still lies the curse of Cromwell for as long as we are under that Dinny Meehan!”
“For the pity of Jesus on his cross, not so cruel, Anna,” Mrs. Lonergan whines, heaving and sobbing to the tune of the old women’s keening at her side.
As we come outside I look back and see Richie and Abe and Petey and Matty Martin and Tim Quilty standing in the doorway looking on us. The older brothers and Frankie Byrne’s boys behind them. And in the air we can hear a block or two away, even out here on Johnson Street, the dull farumping of bass drums, the tint pulses of snares, and the patriotic trills of half-keyed bugles among some claps and muted roars of happy Americans. Though we don’t respond to the boys staring us down, The Swede says, “Can’t let Lovett go, ever.” But the only thing I see on Dinny’s face is loss. Although we have Lovett, it does not seem we have the future, for it’s in those boys where his plan resides.
A few hours afterward, Richie began yelling at Anna by the casket as mother Mary ran through the house. Richie then floored his father before bolting south with his followers helter-skelter, where they went drinking down on Union Street, which confused the locals who thought a deal had been struck. Confused by the slurs of the young Irish boys that upbraided and abused men on the street. The ginzo-hunting spree left some fifteen innocent Italians with broken teeth and arms. For their efforts, all were taken to the Fifth Street Jail where Lovett was being held for murder.
CHAPTER 22
Work ’til Holes Are Filled
JULY, 1917
AND THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT I’D never experienced before. Believing in God, I certainly feel as though there are things in this life that are bigger than myself. That I can’t control. In my youth, however, I only half-believed in these larger powers. But as it is in this life, you only hear about these types of things after the fact. And at our level down in the bottom, as usual, we are the last to know about big changes. The reverberations of great decisions in New York Ci
ty starting at the top, eventually make it down to the flesh of the lowly, where we dwell. The arrangements made by the rich and the aims and conclusions reached will affect our lives mostly, yet of course, we were never queried as to our thoughts. Instead we find out by the great big and impersonal, untouchable manner of the secondhand.
Since Beat McGarry does not know how, I read the newspaper aloud to him and Ragtime Howard and Paddy Keenan at the Dock Loaders’ Club.
From on high, among the clouds above Wall Street in Manhattan, looking down at us and across the East River as if soaring, or like God commanding his flock, is Jonathan G. Wolcott among his own class. The last we had heard, he resigned from his position at the New York Dock Company as Vice President of Wage & Labor. Having had his strongman Silverman murdered, his confederate on the Red Hook docks Bill Lovett arrested, and being left only with the lump Wisniewski at his side, Wolcott had lost to Dinny Meehan and the International Longshoremen’s Association. Without a plan to win back dock labor, we saw his resignation as his ruin. But that was not the case at all, at all. Born and raised among the Anglo owning class, his resurrection is not quite as humble as that of Jesus of Nazareth, but resurrected he is. Brought back to the top without question of his failing, as if failing weren’t a measure he is held to in the first place. He’s held high no matter of standards or merit, for their standards of merit have nothing to do with success or failure as we know it.
“A Waterfront Assembly has been formed on Wall Street to oversee all future building contracts on the Brooklyn waterfront,” I read aloud.
The board of directors is a collection of landowners in Brooklyn, executives of big businesses, the waterfront commissioner, and a few select Brooklyn politicians. All the shipping companies and dock and warehouse and factory owners, box companies, coffee and tobacco companies, and local weapons manufacturers, and tenement landlords are on the board. Utilities too—like the gas works, industrial rail, trolley, and electric companies. Even Hanan Shoes. If it is big business, it has a representative on the board of the Waterfront Assembly. With Wall Street as its home, up there in the clouds above us, looking down as if we are ants, its plan is to make the Brooklyn waterfront bow to the gods of efficiency.
Exile on Bridge Street Page 22