He went downstairs, waited twenty minutes on the carfare line, ran to the subway, going over the turnstile without touching this time. He found the address on East Sixteenth Street, a shabby building with Puerto Ricans clustered in the narrow doorway. He walked up one flight and into a barren room with harsh fluorescent ceiling lights where at a desk was a man in a shirt and sleeveless sweater, his head down, gray hand held out for the sheet of paper. He stamped it and returned the paper to Cosgrove without looking up. The stamp on the paper said, “Report to Evening Session Manhattan Dog Grooming School, 235 East 34th Street.”
Cosgrove walked four doors and into a saloon crowded with Puerto Ricans. Cosgrove took three shots of cheap rye with two big cold beers and it all went swooshing down like a babbling brook and he had the same again and stayed there until he had three dollars and change left. He walked up to East Thirty-fourth Street dreamily, humming, taking a misstep here and there. You haven’t been drinking enough, he told himself, so it hits you immediately.
He found the Manhattan Dog Grooming School, which was in a storefront next to a bar. The air inside was thick with perfume. A skinny man, talking on the phone, seemed annoyed when Cosgrove walked in. Cosgrove gave the man his paper, which the man, talking on the phone all the time, stamped, and he gave Cosgrove a form to fill out, which said, “Reimbursement for Manpower Training.”
He waved a hand to direct Cosgrove to a long room in the rear, where four black women sat on high chairs and combed poodles, which sat like princes on round tables. One wall was lined with cages where more poodles sniffed through the strong wire.
A red-haired woman in a green smock directed the black women. When Cosgrove walked in, she opened a cage and brought out a black poodle. “The other students here tonight are already on their second session,” she said. “We are giving you a particular lesson. See this dog’s hair? You’d think the owner would know enough. See how matted his hair is? This won’t do at all. You just can’t wash and brush this hair. You must shampoo the dog thoroughly and shave the hair. It is matted beyond our ability to help. You must be very careful for this is an expensive job. The bill for this will be at least fifty dollars.” Until now, Cosgrove had been dreaming in his alcohol. “Fifty dollars, you say?” The woman nodded. “And how much of that is mine?” She said without smiling, “Oh, you are a student. You are learning a trade. Not only do you not get paid, but the city pays us for you to be able to learn here.”
“That makes it perfectly fair,” Cosgrove said. He looked at the black poodle, which was perched on the round table with its nose twitching and its beady black eyes looking at Cosgrove. The student down at the end snapped at her dog, “Sit, bitch!” The red-haired teacher scolded her for this. “You must not speak to a dog like that. You can get an F for failure if you do that. Do you want an F for failure on your school record?”
Cosgrove put the black poodle under his arm and walked for the front door. He knew the woman didn’t see him because she never yelled, and the man at the front desk was so busy on the phone that he never looked up as Cosgrove went out onto East Thirty-fourth Street and headed for the subway. He walked as far as a bar, which he was about to pass when he heard a gleeful shout inside. This was the same as throwing a brick wall in front of Cosgrove. He went inside with the poodle squirming under his arm. He put the poodle on a stool, and the dog sat up elegantly. A man with red cheeks and in shirtsleeves called out, “Give the man and his dog a drink.”
“The dog is a teetotaler,” Cosgrove said.
The red-cheeked man burst into laughter. “Let the man drink for the dog, too.”
“And the man will,” Cosgrove said.
He ordered two ryes and beer chasers and swallowed them rapidly and to give cheer to the bar, he held the empty beer glass up to the poodle, and the poodle gave it a tentative lick, made a face, and pulled his head back.
Cosgrove grabbed some peanuts and held his hand over the poodle’s mouth. The poodle sniffed and Cosgrove dropped peanuts into the dog’s mouth. The dog chewed them up.
“Peanut fed!” Cosgrove said. “That’s the best feed. He’ll make me a great dinner.” The red-cheeked guy felt that was great and he absolutely insisted that Cosgrove have another drink, which Cosgrove did. Twice. Wiping a hand across his mouth, packing the dog under his arm, he called out, “All the best! I’m going to have a leg myself.”
This had the saloon roaring as Cosgrove left with the dog. He walked until he found the subway, waited for the clerk to count change, and was through the gate and onto the train. Somewhere in Brooklyn, he wasn’t too certain where, but it sure was Brooklyn — he was the only white in the car — Cosgrove got into a struggle with the poodle, who began to whine and writhe in Cosgrove’s arms and Cosgrove, out of whiskey irritation, or maybe a drunken test for himself and a preview for the dog, sank his teeth into the dog’s shoulder. The dog howled.
A man seated across from Cosgrove jumped up and announced to the car, “I finally seen news! The man bit the fucking dog!”
When Cosgrove got to the avenue in East New York, he clapped a hand over the poodle’s mouth and stepped into Baby Rock’s store, which again was empty. He peered around the corner and saw a Lincoln town car in the shadows a few yards up from the telephone pole. Sitting in front, three men, their heads apparently on axles for they were rotating so rapidly, were trying to see anything moving on the dark street. There was nothing. Cosgrove sat on the couch, held the dog, and waited. Sometime later, the car pulled away. Emboldened by alcohol, Cosgrove simply stepped out of the store, walked down to the telephone pole, and, seeing a fat envelope tacked to the pole, grabbed it, stuffed it into his pocket, and walked on.
He had no idea of the time he arrived home, but he made so much noise that Great Big, sleepy and grumpy, appeared in the hallway and opened the door. Cosgrove held the dog high. A delicate trophy. But enough to prevent starvation. “Here’s a meal for us!” He carried the dog into the kitchen and put him on the table and lit a candle. The poodle sat on the kitchen table and waited for someone to comb his hair. Cosgrove waited for Great Big to take the poodle outside, run a stick through him, and start roasting. Of course there was no sin to doing this. As a dog has no immortal soul, he may be killed and eaten upon the slightest hunger.
Great Big snatched the dog, carried it to the back door, and threw the poodle out into the night.
“What was the matter with him?” Cosgrove asked. “Poodles are clean dogs. There was enough on him to eat. Aren’t you hungry?” Great Big shook his head. Cosgrove pulled the envelope out of his pocket. “No mind. Look what I have for tomorrow and the days after that.” Great Big paid no attention to this and walked out of the room.
Cosgrove ripped open the envelope and, bending over the candle, examined it. There was five hundred dollars in twenties and a note that said, “The man’s name is not Frankie Fifteen Thousand. It is Frankie Five Hundred. That is all you get. You better send Frankie Five Hundred back. Or we will pay you back good.”
There can be no greater shock, even for one who has taken a vow of complete poverty, than to receive fourteen thousand five hundred dollars less than expected. Cosgrove sat down. Heavily. Some minutes later, the last of the alcohol in him effected a temporary rescue. Rather than being overwhelmed by defeat, he saw that the note was highly useful, for he could show it to Frankie Five Hundred, who would see how little regard these gangsters had for him. This might be invaluable, for Cosgrove had no idea of how to release Frankie Five Hundred without having him run straight to the gangsters, who immediately would kill Cosgrove. If, however, he could show Frankie Five Hundred that the gangsters thought he was virtually worthless, and intimate that perhaps they would kill him as soon as look at him, Frankie Five Hundred would go straight home rather than report to the gang.
Elated, Cosgrove, holding a low candle, clumped downstairs, where he found Great Big asleep in the doorway to the basement, as if guarding Frankie Five Hundred. Cosgrove stepped over Great Big and called
into the darkness to Mr. Frankie Five Hundred. “Here! See what these creatures with whom you associate truly think of you? They say you are only worth your name. Here, look at this.” Trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness, holding the small candle aloft, Cosgrove waved the envelope and money at Mr. Frankie Five Hundred, who was not there. The rope and gag were there, but not Mr. Frankie Five Hundred.
Glancing down, Cosgrove saw on the floor next to Great Big the wrapping from their last pack of Tums.
Cosgrove was distressed at this turn of developments and went back upstairs, where he sat in deep contemplation. The doctrine of necessity, as in quisquis, he thought, was one thing. But in introducing ransom, ugly temporal money, into the situation, he clearly had departed from that doctrine. Not even in recollections of Aquinas could he find a plausible thought, a partially open door that would get him out of this. He was so furious that the gangsters had shortchanged him that he wanted to hold them responsible for the whole thing, but he could not. Nor could he affix blame on Great Big, who had lived in harm for so long that, even with constant admonishments, he had no idea of any line between good and bad in any given situation. Thinking all this over, Cosgrove saw plainly that redemption required him to face this matter squarely.
At six o’clock that night, he and Great Big walked into the Chief’s small restaurant and went straight to the table where the Chief and his men sat over an early dinner. One of the gangsters scrambled to his feet. “I told you I seen a cannibal around here.”
“Sit down,” the Chief said quietly.
The Chief, as placid as a harbor, indicated that Cosgrove and Great Big were to take seats. Cosgrove dropped the envelope on the table. One edge touched the marinara sauce. “Pick it up,” the Chief said. Cosgrove stuffed it into his pocket, the red sauce splotching the black suit. “You left this envelope for me?” he said to the Chief. The Chief nodded.
“I am here to return it,” Cosgrove said. “This person of yours was no longer there when I returned last night.”
The Chief nodded. “He excaped and you got the nerve to come in here like this?”
“I am a man of honor,” Cosgrove said. “When you and I met on that night that Big Paulie was deceased, I attempted to speak to you directly but you left hurriedly, you might recall. By the way, we better spend time tonight talking about that. Just the two of us. You cannot go walking around with a thing like that on your soul. My dear fellow, if you were to be hit by a bus you would die in the state of mortal sin. Remember to talk about this with me before I leave here. I always face up to matters. As regards your Mr. Frankie Five Hundred, I wrote you a note. I then collected your payment as it were.”
Upon hearing the day Big Paulie got shot brought up, the Chief opened his hooded eyes wide, and if there is such a thing as the corners of a man’s mouth tightening to show anger, then both ends of the Chief’s mouth probably squeaked inside because there was no more skin left to roll in. The Chief obviously was thinking that as long as he had to kill a priest he might as well kill him spectacularly. The young gangster next to the Chief, Tough Tony, couldn’t contain himself. “Where is Frankie Five Hundred now?” Tough Tony moved his chair away from Great Big.
“I’m trying to listen to this man talk,” the Chief said. The other gangsters sat motionless.
Cosgrove dwelled on the fringes of the subject, on time and place, attempting to allow his confession to develop candidness as he went along. He thought that perhaps by bringing out this particular case, that of Frankie Five Hundred, and tying it to others, such as the shooting of Big Paulie, which he already had just introduced, he could spark some fear into the souls of these people, although this was not his primary interest, cheap, grubby homicides in a nation stained with deeper sin.
Cosgrove said that Frankie Five Hundred had been gone for a long time now. Many hours.
The Chief shrugged. “That means that my friend Frankie should be walking through this door at any moment,” the Chief said.
The young hoodlum at the table was anxiety ridden and the Chief once more warned him to behave.
Cosgrove plucked a shrimp from the Chief’s plate and started to eat, but he felt compelled to stop and say to the Chief that, as far as he, Cosgrove, could time it, the gangster Mr. Frankie Five Hundred had disappeared from the basement of the church sometime the day before.
“Yesterday,” the Chief said.
Cosgrove nodded.
“Who was watching him?” the Chief said.
Cosgrove pointed at Great Big.
“The cannibal,” the young hoodlum said, pushing away from the table.
The Chief put food in his mouth and chewed slowly. He swallowed and pointed to the platter of seafood. “Tell him to eat something,” the Chief said to Cosgrove.
Cosgrove spoke to Great Big in Yoruba. Great Big shook his head. Cosgrove looked at the Chief uncertainly.
The Chief’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I asked the man to have something to eat with me.”
Cosgrove went back to Great Big, whose answer was curt.
“What did he say?” the Chief said.
“He said he wasn’t hungry,” Cosgrove said.
The Chief thought this over. The young hoodlum standing at the table gasped. Then the Chief said, in a voice rising to a wail, “The cannibal ate Frankie Five Hundred!”
Terrified by Great Big, the thugs slid away in terror, except for the Chief and his chief enforcer, Jerry the Jew, who was called that because he was Jewish. The Chief grabbed Cosgrove from one side and Jerry the Jew got him from the other and they both pushed very hard against Cosgrove, causing Cosgrove to pop out from between them.
Cosgrove ran for the door. Great Big bent over and sank his teeth into Jerry the Jew’s shoulder, much as a horse bites a groom, and Jerry the Jew let out a horrible scream, as if a shoulder bone had been shattered. Great Big opened his mouth wide and wanted to bite the Chief’s head off and now even the Chief gave way. He fell backward to prevent his whole head from going inside Great Big’s mouth.
Great Big followed Cosgrove outside, and they returned to the church by a route so circuitous that it took two hours. They took up existence in the church basement, protected from everything but the dim emptiness. Once Cosgrove peered out an upstairs window in the rectory and saw a car parked up the street, at the top of the gully. Standing by the car were three mean and lean young guys dressed to kill. Scouts. The Chief was only a phone call away.
Two days later, only a lonely picket was out there, sitting in the car. Cosgrove dispatched Great Big out the back door. Great Big moved through the weeds to the car, whose driver, Tough Tony Messina, was slouched in the front seat listening to a Frank Sinatra tape. Tough Tony had one hand on the wheel and the other was being used for finger snapping to Sinatra’s singing. Great Big stood up at his full height next to the car. Immediately, Tough Tony turned gray. His fingers were stilled. Tough Tony jabbed a shiny shoe at the gas pedal. The car stalled. Great Big put his face against the window. Tough Tony slapped both hands on his chest and tried to breathe. Great Big pulled his hand back, apparently to smash the window. Tough Tony’s tongue popped out of his head and his eyes rolled. Hearing Cosgrove leave the rectory on the run, Great Big turned from the car. Cosgrove ran with his left arm pumping and his right hand spread over the jacket so he could at all times feel the envelope with the five hundred in it.
Heading to the bus, Cosgrove and Great Big found Seneca and Baby Rock walking down the street, holding hands. “I took Baby Rock to my aunt’s house so he could get all cleaned up good for his new job,” Seneca said.
“How do you like the job?” Cosgrove asked Baby Rock.
Seneca said, “Baby Rock be likin’ the job.” Baby Rock nodded. “Baby Rock say they have ribs there.” Baby Rock nodded. “Chinee ribs.” Baby Rock laughed. Seneca pouted. “Now what he be needin’ is a roof. Disco Girl win the roof and they won’t give it to her. Baby Rock won that roof, too.”
“How is that?”
“He tell you. Tell him, Baby Rock.”
“My sister be puttin’ my name on the application as a dependent. If she won the roof, I won, too.”
“So if you be married, you get the roof,” Seneca said.
Suddenly, Cosgrove felt a burst of brilliance, and he grabbed Seneca and Baby Rock by the arms and rushed them aboard the bus. When they got off in downtown Brooklyn, he went up to a patrol car and received directions to Borough Hall and Cosgrove and Great Big walked the two kids up the steps of the old building and to the county clerk’s office. There was no line.
“It’s a shame to see them doing it so young,” the clerk said. “But they got you helping them, Father, I guess it’s great.” The clerk had Baby Rock and Seneca fill out forms and Cosgrove sign as the guardian and there were no records requested, for in Brooklyn the Roman collar is stronger than cables holding a bridge.
Outside, Cosgrove checked the clock in the Borough Hall tower, for Baby Rock had to be at work by 10:30. He had an hour. “Hurry now. You’re a workingman,” Cosgrove said. It was a little before ten when Cosgrove, Baby Rock, and Seneca arrived at the East New York Income Maintenance Center and Cosgrove banged hard on the special supervisor’s door and Harold Feinberg opened it.
“You cheap cur! You robbed Disco Girl of her house.”
“She was not legally married.” Feinberg exulted. “That is the rule.”
“Well, if you check her entry, Baby Rock is on it. And Baby Rock is now going to be legally married in front of your eyes.”
He thrust the marriage license into Feinberg’s hands. “This must be a fake,” Feinberg yelped. Cosgrove smirked. “Be off with you.” He snatched the license back and called out to Elise Mabrey and some of the other women and they gathered around and Cosgrove, reading from the license, said, “You are to witness the wedding of Ms. Seneca Jackson and Mr. Basil (‘Baby Rock’) O’Dwyer.”
He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners Page 21