by John Sayles
“ ‘They’re a seafarin paypul, yer wops,’ agrees O’Malley. ‘Sure and haven’t ye ivver seen em on the Staten Island Ferry, with the rag and polish in their hands? All the grrreat ocean voyages—Magellan, Cook, Henry Hudson sailin up our own West Side—there was always a little Jewseppy aboard to kape a sparkle on their boots.’
“ ‘There’s a call out fer fightin men,’ says Gilhooley, twirling his stick. ‘I’ve half a mind to throw me name into the hat.’
“ ‘Half a mind indade,’ says O’Malley, filling the back of his wagon.
“ ‘Tis a grrreat day fer the Republic,’ continues the officer, a far-off look in his eye. ‘And the Cubings will be throwin a party as well.’
“ ‘The divvil with the Cubings,’ says O’Malley, tamping down his haul with the back of his spade. ‘This is our donneybrook now. They want a fight, they can attack Porto Rico or one iv them ither islands in the Carrybium. Forst come, forst served is what I say!’
“ ‘That’s the spirit—’
“ ‘And whin the Pearl iv the Aunt Tillies is free,’ he adds, ‘can the Emerald Isle be far behind?’ ”
There is cheering and banging on tables then and Schoendienst buys a round for anyone who can shove their way up to the bar. At the door the Yellow Kid runs into Maxie Schimmel, lugging in a stack of Heralds.
“Two more rounds in these jokers,” he shouts to Maxie over the sound of the scribblers stomping their feet in time and singing Glory, Glory Hallelujah, “and they’ll buy yesterday’s paper.”
He heads over to the Park Row turnaround then and attacks the commuters getting into their trolleys to go home.
“WAR!” he hollers. “Spanish Threat to Burn Washington!”
He is bumping shoulders with One-Nugget Feeny, who’s got an armful of the World.
“WAR!” cries Feeny. “World Exclusive, Cuba Declared Newest State!”
“WAR!” yells the Kid. “Houdini Disappears in Havana!”
“WAR!” shouts Feeny. “The World Remembers the Maine!”
“WAR!” screams the Yellow Kid. “The Journal Declares WAR! on Spain!”
The Kid is down to a handful by the time it is dark, hanging outside the New Citadel, the Delmonico’s downtown joint on South William Street. He has all but one paper stashed under a trash barrel across the way, and every time a couple sports wander out with their bellies full of oysters and alligator pears he goes into his crybaby routine.
“Wah-hah-hah-hah!” he goes, tears running down his cheeks, standing smack between them and the hack stand, bawling and snuffling and holding the lonely paper out with trembling hands.
“What’s the matter, sonny?” says one out of three.
“I wanna go to home!”
“Go home then.”
“I can’t! I gotta sell all my papers or my fadder’ll knock the tar outta me! Whah-hah-hah-hah! Dis is my last one ony won’t nobody buy it. I wanna go home!”
“Here, then. What’s this, the Hearst paper? There ought to be a Com-mission to look into this—forcing young children out on the streets to peddle this trash! Here, go home now.”
And before he’s halfway down the block they’re gone in their hack and he runs to grab the next one.
There is a woman, a young one, all dressed in satin and foxtails with a big hat with feathers and a bucket of perfume on her who bends down to take his face in her hands.
“Isn’t he adorable?” she says. He has the ratty old cap on still, and he’s been blubbering so much there’s snot hanging out his nose and his toes are sticking out the front of Hunky Joe’s old clodhoppers and he’s yellow as the flophouse sheets, but what the hell, she thinks he’s adorable that’s her business. “What’s the matter, little boy?”
There’s nothing much the matter, he’s never made so much mazuma in one day, ever, but her hands feel nice on his cheeks and the perfume is o.k. too, so he just keeps sniffling.
“I gotta sell—my last paper—before I can go home,” he manages to whine out between sniffs, lips trembling. “An if I don’t—”
“Hush now. Rupert?” And with this the skinny geezer scowling down at him sighs and digs into his jacket. “Rupert, buy this poor child’s newspaper. How much is it, darling?”
“Only a nickel,” says the Kid in a very small voice. “Onnaconna it’s my last one.”
Rupert slaps the coin into his palm and snatches the paper away.
“And where do you live?” asks the pretty woman, straightening up.
“Baxter Street,” he answers without pause, “with my fadder and six baby sisters.”
By the time he is making the long walk back up Broadway, legs weary, he has only four papers unsold. The Journal doesn’t give you nothing back for returns, none of them do, so he is out the four cents.
He is passing Fulton Street, yawning already, when Sluggo Pilchek calls from under a streetlight.
“Yo Kid,” he calls, “lookit what I got here.”
At first when Sluggo peels the paper back he thinks it is dead, but then he can see its face is red and that it’s only too weak to cry, little eyes blurry and almost clear blue, naked inside the front page of the morning Telegraph.
“Some lousy break, huh?” says Sluggo, who works for the Sun. “Ditched on the street wrapped in a stinker rag like that.”
“What you gonna do with it?”
“What am I spose to do with it? The old lady’s already got a squaller at home.”
“We can’t leave it here.”
“Its mother did.”
The Yellow Kid rewraps the baby, lifts it awkwardly. “Grab my papers.”
“You aint gonna sell these now—”
“Grab em.”
“What are we doing?”
“Look for a cop.”
Sluggo picks the Kid’s papers up, shakes his head. “This hour? They’re all up on Bowery, suckin at the tit.”
“So we’ll bring it to the nuns.”
They walk, the Yellow Kid wondering if it’s still alive but not daring to check.
“How’d you do today?” asks Sluggo.
“Knocked em dead. They can’t get enough of this Spain business.”
“It’ll only get better.”
“That’s what they say.”
Sluggo cocks a doubtful eye at the Kid’s new bundle. “So how you figure the nuns feed these things?”
“They keep milk.”
“Just sittin around?”
“Maybe.”
“Cause they got no tits, nuns.”
“Really?”
“Brides of Christ,” says Sluggo. “They’re not spose to have em.”
“They must keep milk then.”
“It goes bad awful easy.”
The Kid shrugs. “They do what they can,” he says, “then send em to Randall’s Island.”
“What’s that?”
Maminka had gone out there for a while, after she was big with the last one who was going to be Anezka if it was a girl or Miklos if it was a boy, the last one that came out blue, not yellow, and didn’t breathe. She went out there for the money a couple weeks, before she got so low she just sat and stared out the window that wasn’t nailed shut yet, frozen for hours like the Lady Undressing for Bath. You took a ferry to Randall’s and nursed the orphan babies and the nuns at the Infants’ Hospital paid you.
“They bring women out there to feed the squallers,” says the Kid. “It’s like a dairy.”
“Well whoever ditched this kid should of ditched it out there. Stead of the friggin sidewalk.”
“Women get moody,” says the Kid, “you never know what they’ll do.”
“You can say that again,” says Sluggo.
Most of the shops are closed up. A lone horse trolley rolls by in the opposite direction, nearly empty.
“Where you sleepin?”
“They got a room by the presses at the Sun,” says Sluggo. “We can stretch out on the benches. Don’t cost a penny.”
“Yeah, but you slee
p at the Sun, you gotta sell the Sun.”
Sluggo shrugs, his feelings hurt. “It’s a good paper. Everybody says so.”
There are no cops on lower Broadway, so they cut across City Hall Park, nearly empty now, the fountain shut off, and angle up to the Five Points Mission on Pearl. They used to have a stroller outside, one of those nice wicker jobs with the wheels pulled off so nobody would nick it, but people would just ditch their babies in it and blow, no matter what the weather, so now you got to rattle the knocker.
“Lord save us, not another one,” says the Sister of Charity who answers. “And at this hour.”
“We could put it back if you want,” says Sluggo.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” She takes the little thing from the Kid, holds it up to the light. “Only a few hours in this world, the poor thing. Not much hope for him.”
“You gonna put it on one of those trains?” The Kid has heard about Sister Irene and her trains, sending orphans out to lonely people in the far West, out past Jersey.
“He’ll be lucky to see the sun rise,” she says, hugging it close and turning to go. “We’ll have to get the sacraments taken care of, save his little soul.”
“What I tell you?” says Sluggo when she has closed the door on them without a tip or even a thank-you. “No tits.”
Sluggo gives the Kid his papers back and heads off for the Sun building. The Newsboys’ Lodging House is close on Duane, where everything is a nickel-and-a-penny—six cents for a bunk, six cents for coffee and roll in the morning, six cents for pork and beans at night. You can wash up, bank your money, even get a stake to buy the next day’s papers if they know you well enough. But it is a warm night and doesn’t feel like rain. There is a headstone, a big tall hunk of polished pink rock that shields you from sight of the street in the old St. Paul cemetery yard. Big letters on the front of the stone, somebody important planted under it.
The Yellow Kid spreads his newspapers carefully on the ground, lies down on them and looks up at the stars. The Sunday edition is best for this, at least a hundred pages, three color supplements, a regular mattress of a newspaper, but two afternoon extras will do. If the baby lives, he thinks, probly it will get sent out somewhere with nothing but dirt and trees on the ground, where the horses got no trolleys hitched to them, where you look up in the sky and there’s nothing but clouds. Poor bastid. The Kid can hear the thrum of the presses rolling in the giant buildings a block away, can feel the rumble of them through the ground here at the center of America. They will run all night and tomorrow there will be fresh news to sell. The baby is safe with the nuns and the Spanish fleet is creeping who knows where and the Yellow Kid has a full belly and a new hat and the moon is rising nearly full, smack behind the chapel spire. There is WAR!, and fat times lie just around the corner.
EXILE
Wu sits back among the crates as his assistant pores over a page of sums, clacking an abacus. The warehouse smells of sandalwood and machine oil. Wu speaks English with Diosdado and never ceases smiling.
“You are an emissary.”
“I assure you that the money is secure,” Diosdado explains. “Here in a bank in the city.”
“We have all heard of your General’s settlement with the Spanish crown.” Wu slumps with his hands folded on his stomach, a round man dressed in the Western style, with a white fedora tilted back on his head. His assistant wears a blue cotton work tunic and makes small noises as he calculates.
“We can make a purchase, then?”
Wu shows Diosdado the palms of his hands. “The merchandise you seek is unavailable.”
“I was told that if anyone in Hongkong could accommodate us—”
“It would be I, yes. But our new administrators, in their wisdom, have forbidden trade in weapons.”
It is always hard to tell with them, the Chinese, what is bargaining and what is fact.
“Many things are forbidden in the Crown Colony,” says Diosdado blandly, “and yet you are known to deal in them.” Wu is alleged to be head of the Three Harmonies Society and an exporter of illegal coolies from Macao. He continues to smile.
“This city is alive with rumor. Weapons, however, are of a great concern to the British government. May I inquire what purpose you might have in acquiring so many of them?”
“For our people,” says Diosdado. “To fight the Spanish.”
“But the terms of your Treaty—”
“Have been violated repeatedly.”
Wu sighs and shakes his head. “Politics. Irresolvable conflicts. I am so very content to remain outside of their sphere.”
“If you were to quote me a price—”
“The Germans in Shandong are growing wary of our—our more excitable citizens,” says Wu, leaning forward to make his point. “And the British do not wish to upset the Germans—”
“We are not going to give weapons to the Boxers.”
“Be that as it may, there are none here to be purchased.”
Wu turns and tells the assistant, in Cantonese, that Diosdado wants to buy guns for the naked savages back home, as if they could be taught to use them. The assistant has a coughing laugh that rattles his abacus. Diosdado remains expressionless.
“Do you know of anybody who might have something we could buy?”
“If you are going to fight the Spanish,” says Wu, “surely there will be wounded. I can offer you an excellent deal on medicinal herbs—”
“I’m not authorized to buy opium.” Diosdado stands to leave. “Thank you for your time.” At least this one did not promise like the Japanese, promise and never deliver. Only Dr. Sun, the Chinese revolutionist, actually sent them weapons, but the boat foundered in a typhoon and all was lost.
“So very sorry to disappoint you,” smiles Wu from his throne of crates.
“We carry one foreign power on our back,” Diosdado says in Cantonese as he bows goodbye, “while China opens her legs for a dozen.”
The streets west of Central Market are packed with the usual swarm of humanity, the only relief from the noisy mass of them an occasional unobstructed glimpse up to the slope of Victoria Peak, where the humanity thins out and the British and the wealthiest of the Chinese merchant kings have built their palaces. It is green up there, with unfouled air to breathe, quiet. Diosdado’s rickshaw boy grunts as he trots up a slight incline, weaving them through vegetable stalls and charm-sellers, past an oversized British official sitting pinkly on a pallet borne by four sweating lackeys hustling in the opposite direction. A pair of carriages rattle by, full of wealthy Chinese heading to the Happy Valley racecourse, shouting out joyously as they go.
A city built on trade, thinks Diosdado, with the soul of a whore.
Junta activities in Hongkong emanate from the two houses on Morrison Hill Road in Wanchai. Don Felipe Agoncillo lives in the smaller one with his family and whoever spills over from the other. Diosdado calls to the boy when they reach the house, steps down, and reluctantly parts with a few coins. There is, of course, no more money from Don Nicasio, and the Junta can only spare a tiny stipend for its exiled patriots. But it wouldn’t do to arrive soaked in perspiration from the climb, not with the General back from Singapore.
It is Señora Agoncillo herself who answers the door, beautiful and gracious.
“Our young linguist,” she says, smiling and stepping back to allow him passage. “You must come out of the heat.”
He is ushered to the study, where members of the Junta and a few of the exiled government stand around a table, frowning over a drawing.
“I understand why the sun has a face,” says one, “but shouldn’t it be smiling?”
“In a Masonic triangle—”
“Just a triangle—”
“All triangles are Masonic. You can’t avoid the association.”
“The three points of the triangle represent Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”
“The French—”
“The French have nothing to do with us.”
“I thought the three stars—”
“They represent Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao—”
“Wonderful. Mindanao. Why not a half-moon and a scimitar?”
“The moros are Filipinos, whatever their beliefs.”
“And the rays emanating—”
“Eight rays, eight provinces that rose in ’96—”
“You make eight?”
“Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Manila, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, and Tarlac.”
“You allow a more generous definition of revolt than I.”
“Blue and red, like the flag of independent Cuba.”
“You’re forgetting the white triangle.”
“Red, white, and blue—”
“Symbolic,” says the slender, large-eyed man who has been sitting quietly at the head of the table, “of our hopeful friendship with the United States.” He smiles shyly. “Or at least that’s what I told their Consul in Singapore.”
The men laugh. Diosdado has never seen the General in person before. He seems too slender, too gentle a man to be the strongman of Cavite, who outfought and then outfoxed the Spanish cazadores, who had the grit to order the execution of the Bonifacios and risk tearing the movement apart.
“He suggested that we have a new banner, to rally the people.”
The voice is soft, seemingly without irony. He didn’t order the executions, Diosdado corrects himself, he merely allowed them to happen.
“Do you trust them?” asks Mascardo.
“The hulls of their Great White Fleet have been painted gray for battle and they have been asked by the British, in the interests of neutrality, to leave the harbor. We can only hope that they are trustworthy.” The General turns and looks directly at Diosdado. “And what do you think, Argus?” He indicates the drawing. “About my design?”
The men of the Junta all turn toward Diosdado. He is speechless at first, that the General would recognize him, would know his code name, would ask his opinion.
“We are a complex nation,” he answers in Tagalog. “We deserve a complex flag.”
The General laughs. “You went to see the Hong man?”