He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners

by Jimmy Breslin

  Cosgrove pulled himself up, pushed the kids smoking crack out of his way, and went from door to door, banging hard, and finally, one was answered by Disco Girl, who was wearing her Disco Girl shirt but not much underneath that, and only some sort of panties. Cosgrove of course would not look at them. Disco Girl beamed. Behind her, bare-chested, was a grinning Great Big. The music was so loud that Cosgrove could only see Disco Girl’s lips move. She stepped forward, right into the hallway, and Disco Girl said proudly, “We make a basketball player.” Cosgrove’s finger pointed at Great Big. “That’s the mortaler!” he screamed in French. Great Big was too happy to be contrite. “You might end up living in Hell,” Cosgrove said to Disco Girl. “As for you” — he addressed Great Big — “come with me.”

  The church was dark by the time they got back there. A note was tacked to the front door and he read it in the faint light from the streetlight. The note, from the pastor, said that the money changers, as he called them, at diocesan level had closed the church and reassigned him and that Cosgrove could give the keys to the old caretaker who, as his last act, was going to padlock the church and fill in the front door with cinder blocks. Those at diocesan headquarters also knew nothing about Cosgrove’s claimed assignment from Rome and were unamused and suspicious about the story he had told. “All concerned think it best that you return to Ireland,” the pastor concluded. Cosgrove shuddered. “Go back to Ireland! I’ll drown.” He went inside and pulled the light cord in the front hall. The bulb went on, for which he was thankful.

  In the morning, he said Mass for himself in the empty church, made bacon and eggs, noticing it was the last of the eggs, and was listening to the radio when it abruptly went off. There was a sound outdoors and he rushed to the door to find a fat man, carrying a flashlight and clipboard of the utility worker, walking to his van. “Lights out!” the utility man said.

  It was Friday, and Great Big, hungry as Hell, began to prowl through the empty rectory, ripping open cabinets one after another. The man no longer had patience, Cosgrove said to himself. There also was no mail.

  On Saturday afternoon, the lone woman on the block, the old one across the street, told them to be over in an hour sharp for a full meal. When he and Great Big arrived, she met them at the door with one hand clutching an old blue robe. She led them past a small kitchen and into a dining room that had a linoleum floor, two stuffed chairs, a couch with a plastic cover, and a television. She had them sit while she became engrossed in a television show, a rerun of a family comedy. When the show ended, she said, “Wasn’t that a good dinner we had? I’m stuffed. Come tomorrow if you want.” She showed them out and Cosgrove spent the night listening to Great Big prowl and mutter in the dark.

  On Sunday morning, Cosgrove threw vestments over his arms and led Great Big out through the weeds, and they emerged in the silence of sleeping homes in Howard Beach. Cosgrove thought of ringing the Chief’s doorbell to speak to him about the condition of his soul, but he would do that later, and he walked the streets until he found the big brick Catholic church, with its school across the street, and the place had a reasonable crowd for the first Mass of a Sunday, a fine well-dressed white crowd, and Cosgrove, in vestments, went down the center aisle before Mass started and Great Big followed him on the altar and went to the door of the sacristy from which the regular parish priest was about to emerge to say Mass.

  On the altar, Cosgrove opened Mass. Great Big kept the frantic parish priest trapped in the sacristy. Cosgrove said Mass fervently, but with a certain speed of prayer. He told the worshipers, “The collection today is to assist the African missionaries.” As this was no lie, Cosgrove had no qualms about walking down the aisle with the collection basket himself. On this morning, he did handsomely for such an early hour — almost fifty dollars — and when he came to the last pew, which he knew was a signal for Great Big to go out the side door so both could start the getaway phase of the Mass, he was facing an old lady wearing black and with her gray hair pulled into a bun. She sat with a powerful, dark-haired man, undoubtedly her son.

  The dark-haired man was sleeping soundly. His expensive blue shirt was open to reveal a chest laden with gold chains. Cosgrove held the basket in front of him. The old lady poked her son, Mr. Frankie Five Hundred, who had performed the Sunday morning ritual of coming directly home from his night out, collecting his mother from the basement apartment of his house, and taking her to first Mass. Bleary-eyed, but still able to see well enough, Frankie Five Hundred reached into the collection basket and grabbed two fives and the lone ten.

  Cosgrove dived into the pew and tried to snatch the money back from this man. Who now looked up and, seeing Cosgrove, let out a yelp. “You the guy!”

  Cosgrove instantly knew Frankie Five Hundred as the man who had been alongside him for the whole day when the poor man Big Paulie was killed on the sidewalk in front of the nice restaurant in Manhattan. “I must speak to you,” Cosgrove said. “Excuse me, ma’am, but God bless you.” He patted her hand and the old lady nodded. “I must speak to your son.”

  The old lady said, “I won’t let him sleep no more during Mass, I promise.”

  And Cosgrove said, “No, I have something more important. We must speak. Can we go outside?”

  Frankie Five Hundred looked about wildly. How do you kill a priest right in church? At this point, his mother grabbed him by the arm. “You stay awake and pay attention in church.”

  Frankie Five Hundred said, “I got to go outside with this guy.”

  And the mother dug her old nails into Frankie Five Hundred’s arms. “You stay.” Cosgrove tried one last snatch at the money in Frankie Five Hundred’s hands but he couldn’t get it. Great Big was coming down the aisle and Cosgrove was pointing at Frankie Five Hundred and he was sure Great Big would be able to get the money. Up on the altar now, the parish priest was shouting for police and nobody quite knew why except for Cosgrove, who led Great Big out the door. Cosgrove threw the vestments over his arm as they walked.

  Upon approaching the last street, Cosgrove felt compelled as a priest to tell the Chief that he must save his soul immediately, to point out most vigorously that the Chief could drop dead ten minutes from now, expire without the chance to say an Act of Contrition, and for killing Mr. Big Paulie, the Chief would burn forever in the eternal fires of Hell. He turned the corner and strode right up to the Chief’s house and rang the bell. He did this many times before a heavy, middle-aged woman, auburn covering her gray hair, clutching a robe, opened the inside door, looked out through the storm door, disappeared, and came back carrying her purse. She opened the storm door partway and her hand came out holding a bill.

  “Thank you, but I came here to speak to the Chief.”

  “Who speaks to him?” the woman said, instantly withdrawing the hand offering the money. “You listen to him. That’s one good thing about being with him. You never say the wrong thing. That’s because you never got nothing to say.”

  “I’m familiar with protocol. I worked directly under the Pope.”

  “Then you know.”

  “Let’s say I’d like an audience.”

  “Come back at noon when he gets up.”

  “My dear woman, you don’t understand. I must speak to him now.”

  “Forget it, Father.”

  “Now you just wait a minute.” Cosgrove fumed. “I am here to save your husband’s soul.”

  “Who told you that it needs to be saved? My husband is a good man. He umpires Little League baseball games.”

  “I believe I have the right to say that a man’s soul needs saving.”

  “Who told you to come to a man’s door, say a thing like that?”

  “I did,” Cosgrove snapped.

  “Are you trying to put the bull on me?” the woman said. “What am I supposed to do, be afraid of your collar? Say, how do I know what you are? I don’t think you’re a priest at all.” Suddenly, she looked past him and saw Great Big on the sidewalk.

  And now Mrs. Chief shrieked
. “Oh, Chief! It’s a setup!”

  She slammed the door in Cosgrove’s face.

  Cosgrove walked off. “The woman doesn’t understand,” he said to Great Big. He led Great Big into the marshes. As they pushed through the grass, it crackled and waved. And there was a squeal of tires as a car rushed up to the Chief’s house and Mr. Frankie Five Hundred, bundled in a beautiful pearl gray overcoat, jumped out. He was halfway up the walk to the Chief’s house when the door opened and a voice snarled from inside and Mr. Frankie Five Hundred spun around, his hand going inside his beautiful pearl gray overcoat for his gun, and he stood on tiptoes to see into the marshes. He saw the weeds waving. Mr. Frankie Five Hundred, crouching, his gun straight out, went into the weeds and followed the crackling sound.

  He did this until the noise stopped. Uncertainly, Frankie Five Hundred forged ahead. He felt the first of a cold winter rainfall. He looked down and saw that his wonderful pearl gray coat was getting wet. More drops fell on the coat. Mr. Frankie Five Hundred looked up at the sky. “I am getting wet in the rain.”

  He was so intent on the sky that he did not notice the immense hands reaching through the bullrushes.

  Mr. Frankie Five Hundred woke up bound and gagged in a place he had never seen before. A basement somewhere. He looked about. In the flickering light of a tall ivory candle he saw a black man sitting on the floor in the corner. The huge black man stared at Frankie Five Hundred.

  9

  IN THE MORNING COSGROVE prayed with an untroubled conscience because clearly they had snatched this Frankie Five Hundred out of the weeds in self-defense. Although the matter did present problems: they had to free the man, yet remain safe from retaliation, and if everything went wrong, if Cosgrove did not provide food, the doctrine of quisquis agit, agit propter finem— extreme measures in extreme times — would start to come into play. Frankie Five Hundred undoubtedly could turn into at least the near occasion of sin for Great Big and perhaps transcend sin and become a necessity. Cosgrove thought that somehow God would provide an answer. Then, in a wonderful sign, the old lady across the street actually tottered over to them and brought a platter of baked ziti covered with a white linen napkin for breakfast. They fed the bound man and Cosgrove alertly let Great Big eat all but a few forkfuls.

  At this point, while Cosgrove was wrestling with problems but still enjoying the morning, there was noise at the door. At first Cosgrove thought the gangsters had descended upon them, but he realized there had been no sound of cars. He then thought it was the old lady returning for her platter and the cloth napkin, but then he heard the mailbox sound. Rather than the clang of metal, there was the sound of a breeze blowing glass chimes and Cosgrove felt great hope surge through him. When he pulled out the mail there was a letter in shaky handwriting, from an old parishioner undoubtedly, and a second letter, whose envelope carried the yellow seal of the Vatican. Inside was a sheet of paper, no seal on it, which disappointed him immediately, and when he glanced at the bottom and saw that no secretary had typed it, indicating no carbons were distributed around the offices in Rome, his expectations dropped slightly more. Still, his hand trembled.

  The note was from the monsignor in Rome and it expressed sorrow and apprehension that he had not made proper arrangements for Cosgrove and that he was horrified to be in receipt of a note from the Americans asking who Cosgrove was and what he was about. The monsignor said that while he was not personally to blame for this deep error, he still would accept responsibility. He said that the speech-writing group working on the Pope’s upcoming American tour would, for the first time, go out and do actual research, rather than write learnedly in Rome. The team would find Cosgrove’s observations, on Howard Beach and sex, as originally contracted for, extremely valuable, particularly for the Pope’s Detroit speech. The monsignor said he could well imagine Cosgrove’s plight, all alone and with no resources in Queens and Brooklyn. Therefore, he personally and officially had contacted the only religious residence in the United States owned and run directly by the Vatican, the seminary of Saint Josephinus in Delaware, Ohio. Cosgrove was to pack up and go to the seminary, where he would find the superior not only awaiting him, but under full orders to provide both for Cosgrove and for this large man accompanying him. The monsignor in Rome listed the phone number and address in Delaware, Ohio. He ended the letter.

  No wonder he indicated no copies going to anyone, Cosgrove thought. The monsignor, such a brilliant man, had made a mistake and in order to gain authority to provide funds and direct help right here in New York, he would have to admit to such a mistake and ask a superior in the Vatican to rectify this. But how could a man have a successful career if he were to admit a mistake? The monsignor would make the best arrangements he could, Delaware, Ohio, but had no means or authority to send a check or tickets.

  Cosgrove, however, decided that, surely, the speech-writing team would be able to handle expenses and the like summarily. Therefore, he told Great Big in the most glowing tones of what would happen to them, and he said that all they had to do was guard this Frankie Five Hundred until he, Cosgrove, found a way for them to flee the area and go to the magnificence of Delaware, Ohio. He left the rectory and walked the streets until he found the post office. A clerk showed him on a map that Delaware, Ohio, was just outside of Columbus. Cosgrove used a precious quarter to call American Airlines and was shocked when told that the fare for two people, one way, was $212.

  He thought of the return tickets to Rome that he had back in the rectory. Never would he risk them on any plan, he told himself. Why, he could cash in the tickets, use some of the money to fly to Ohio, and get to the Vatican seminary and find the Papal delegate there and in charge and Cos-grove would be in Ohio with Great Big and with no way ever to return to Rome or anywhere else. Even to Africa. For a fleeting moment, Cosgrove experienced the feeling that he had never really left Africa. So far, things in East New York seemed as close to Africa as humans could make them. Then his mind, so active when in trouble, seized on a wonderful idea. He would get the airfare from public assistance, just as Disco Girl and the others were doing at this precise moment. Good boy, Cosgrove!

  Later, enthusiastic because he had found the place on his own, Cosgrove arrived at the four-story East New York Income Maintenance Center, whose title only serves to further confuse thirty-two thousand people in the immediate area who have no income to maintain. In front of the center was a hot dog truck, a wide woman with a shopping cart filled with empty soft drink bottles, and a repairman trying to fix an outdoor phone that had been ripped out. Standing directly against the doors, two silent women were holding babies.

  The waiting room, which had five windows in it, was thick with cigarette smoke and had a tile floor and ashstands and hundreds of women on lines, with as many more sitting on many rows of folding chairs, children climbing on and off their laps. The women smacked quarter bags of Wise 22 percent more potato chips, the added percentage being at least reluctant to appear. Cosgrove saw Disco Girl waving to him. She said that she had the use of the coat today. A baby in rubber pants slid off the chair next to Disco Girl’s and Cosgrove settled into it, right into a puddle. He jumped up. Disco Girl clapped her hands. “You should never sit by the baby. They pee all over.”

  Disco Girl pointed excitedly. “The girl and her man got silver fox coats.”

  On one of the long lines waiting at the windows was a young couple, each with silver, bushy short fur jackets and fur hats with earflaps.

  “They cost a hundred dollars,” Disco Girl said. “They fly people. Fly girls. Go around with gold hanging out of their ass — excuse me for talkin’ like this — but that’s what fly girls are.”

  The fly girl was chewing gum and smoking a cigarette. Disco Girl watched the fly girl carefully as she took a last drag on her cigarette and bent over to put it in the ashstand. Disco Girl was off the chair and over to the fly girl and snatched the butt and began smoking it.

  “How much that coat cost?” she said to the fly girl. />
  Because of the thick fur flaps the fly girl couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  Disco Girl shouted. The fly girl pulled up an earflap and listened to the question. “Two fifty.”

  “You hear that?” Disco Girl said. “Two hundred fifty dollars each. They homeless. They know how to do it. Me and my mother be wearin’ the same coat the last two years.”

  “How do you get the coats?” Cosgrove said.

  “Sell,” the man said.

  “Sell what?”

  “Sell her pussy.”

  “How can you say such a thing? That is the Devil’s bargain. A fur coat for prostitution.”

  “Sellin’ her pussy keeps us warm in the snow.”

  The curtains on all five windows suddenly were pulled back and clerks appeared. Cosgrove started for the first window and found himself reeling to the rear of a line that went from window to wall. There wasn’t even room on the second line to fit against the wall. He settled on the third line. Cosgrove counted: he was number 63. He was bumped from behind.

  “Excuse me,” a woman said. Her gray eyes, a beautiful contrast to smooth dark brown skin, displayed amazement. “You the first white person I ever saw on this line.” She laughed loud. She said her name was Elise Mabrey. “I spend my life copyin’ white people and now look at you copyin’ me. You be findin’ out that it’s hard work. You got to spend at least forty hours a week bein’ poor.”

  Cosgrove grunted. “I have had experience with the worst human beings on earth, British bureaucrats in Africa. I’ll move these people along.”

  “Maybe you do better because you’re white,” Elise Mabrey said. “I tried copyin’ white people but it didn’t work. Had me a job, just like all the white women, doin’ computers for a Jew lawyer. Kornbluth and Kornbluth. I worked midnight to seven in the mornin’. I ask my supervisor to change my shift and my supervisor got mad. You’re entitled to twelve days’ sick leave. I took all my time. Just sat home for twelve days. My supervisor had me suspended. I had a hearing and I won. But they put me on nights again. I was gettin’ four hundred dollars and cabfare home to Brooklyn. If I worked overtime, I got breakfast money. I had to stay up all day watchin’ my little girl. I go to work at night, I wind up noddin’ on the computer. Sometimes I didn’t go to work at all.