North River

by Pete Hamill

  Then the telephone rang. Twice. A third time. He was suddenly rheumy with dread. But then thought: It could be news. From Knocko. Or Danny Shapiro. Or Grace. He went through to the office and lifted the receiver.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Someone was breathing on the other end. But no words were said.

  Carlito dressed warmly, and they went walking east, with church bells ding-donging everywhere. Delaney could not tell Catholic church bells from Protestant church bells. Some were joyful. Some were somber. All were a form of summons, calling the faithful to services, as they had for centuries. He loved the sound but ignored the summons. Delaney felt warmer, holding the boy’s hand.

  As they reached Broadway, Delaney squatted down and showed Carlito how to tuck the bear inside his coat, with its head sticking out, leaving the boy’s hands free. He could swing both gloved hands now, Delaney explained, or he could jam them in his pockets. And he could still talk to Osito. When Delaney stood up, a woman was smiling at him. She was about fifty, wearing a Sunday hat bedecked with artificial spring flowers. There was no makeup on her fleshy features. She wasn’t flirting. She didn’t seem amused. She just seemed happy to see a grown man, no longer young, caring for a small boy.

  “What a handsome lad,” she said.

  “That he is,” said Delaney. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and moved on, walking downtown. He noticed that her long dress stopped above large feet. The feet of Connemara, not Agrigento. She merged with the crowd.

  They turned west on Eighth Street, heading to Fifth Avenue. As they came closer, the boy stopped again. Up ahead was the Sixth Avenue Elevated, turning into Greenwich Street. For a moment, Delaney froze. Against the window of a saloon, he saw the bartender from Club 65, dressed in a camel’s hair coat and brown fedora. He was watching Delaney and the boy. Then he turned abruptly and walked away.

  “Gran’pa, look!” the boy said excitedly, pointing to the distant sight of iron pillars rising from the street. “The El!”

  “Yes, that’s the El all right. But it’s not the one we saw before. It’s a different El.”

  The boy’s brow furrowed, and he whispered something to the bear. There was no train visible on the El. Delaney looked in the other direction and saw a man in a gray belted coat peering into a store window. The man who was alone in Angela’s that night. Goddamn. I’m being followed. By two different guys!

  “Let’s go up onna El, Gran’pa.”

  “Not now. Maybe later.”

  The boy mumbled to the bear in a disappointed way. Delaney was sure that the bear was disappointed too. When he looked back, the man in the gray coat was gone. A G-man? Watching the same target as the bartender from the gangster joint? Maybe it was just an accident, Delaney thought. Maybe the bartender was out for a Sunday-morning stroll. Just like us. And saw me. Maybe the G-man, if he was a G-man, just needed a rest after sitting through mass. Maybe, but not likely. And who called this morning? Who was breathing into the telephone? Delaney noticed a hot dog shop on the other side of the street and, sensing danger, steered the boy left into a used-book store. From behind the streaky window, he looked back into the street and did not see the man in the gray coat or the bartender. Why would they follow me around? They must know I’m not part of the great communist plot. And Frankie Botts knows I’m not that hard to find. Killing me would be simple.

  The boy was gazing around him at walls of books, and at tables piled with larger volumes. At the far end of the room, a man with a thick red beard and heavy horn-rimmed glasses sat at a desk. He wore a bulky gray sweater and a loose red scarf in the chill of the room. He looked up and then went back to reading his own book. Classical music played from a radio. There were a few other men in the store, examining books, locked in solitude. There were no women. Delaney turned to Carlito and gestured at the walls and table.

  “Books,” Delaney said. “These are all books.”

  “Books.”

  They drifted around the store, the boy touching the books as if they were polished shoes. They came to a table of children’s books. Delaney searched them for a book about trains or the great oceans. Nothing. But there were some treasures. A Child’s Garden of Verses. Peter Rabbit. Treasure Island. The Story of Babar. Delaney wondered what the boy could comprehend. It was too soon for Long John Silver. But maybe I could read him the lovely Stevenson verses and put poetry in his head to stay. I could start him up the road to Byron and Whitman and Yeats. He picked up the copy. It was worn, but unmarked by scribblings in pencils or crayons. Then he opened the Babar book. The illustrations were bright with primary colors, as innocent as Matisse, with all those gray elephants in green suits, exploring the world.

  “Look at this,” Delaney said to the boy, who took the large book in his small hands. He sat on the floor and peered at the images of elephants and ponds and jungle and a city that was surely Paris. He turned the pages with growing anticipation. He pointed at a bear’s face on one page.

  “You like that book?” Delaney said.

  “Yes, Gran’pa. I like it.”

  “Give me a buck for da two of dem,” the owner said, in the tones of Brooklyn. His fingers and teeth were yellow from tobacco.

  “Thanks.”

  “Dat Stevenson book, da pomes are pretty nice,” he said, sliding the books into a paper bag. “But y’ know, dat Babar is pure colonialist propaganda.”

  Delaney wanted to laugh and didn’t. The man was so serious he didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Could be,” Delaney said. “But I like the pictures, and so does the boy.”

  The owner shrugged. “Just warnin’ you.”

  “Thanks.”

  They turned into lower Fifth Avenue, with its stately Georgian houses and the Brevoort Hotel, and up ahead was the Washington Arch and the green swath of the park beyond. The boy stopped and gazed up at the arch, as if he’d seen it before somewhere. He pointed and looked up at Delaney with a questioning face.

  “The arch,” Delaney said.

  “Arch.”

  In six or seven years, he would tell the boy about Stanford White, who designed the arch, and how Big Jim was at the opening with all the other boys from Tammany Hall. He would explain Tammany Hall soon enough. After a long while, he would tell the boy how Stanford White died. Shot down by the crazy husband of a discarded young mistress. He could explain the meaning of all this carved stone. For now, it was enough to take the boy’s hand and cross the street. A uniformed cop in a long uniform overcoat stood before the arch, shifting his weight from foot to foot, tapping his club into the bare palm of his left hand.

  “Good morning, Officer,” Delaney said.

  “Good morning,” the cop said, a bit startled.

  “Morning,” the boy said.

  They walked under the arch and back around, with Delaney pointing at the bas-reliefs and George Washington and details the boy would learn about later. All the time, he was scanning the square for the man in the gray coat or the bartender from Club 65. No sign of either of them. Then he and the boy faced the six acres of Washington Square. Under the grass and the walkways, the bones of thousands of human beings were buried. For a long time, it was the city’s Potter’s Field, where the bodies of the lonesome poor were dropped in ditches and covered with dirt. Here the victims of smallpox lay wrapped in yellow shrouds. Murderers were dropped after being hung from the gallows on the northwest corner. On foggy nights, the residents always insisted, the ghosts of the unhappy dead rose to walk the world again. That too must wait. The boy was still too young for ghost stories. He was still learning the names of the visible world.

  They walked into the park, the boy swinging his arms freely. Under the brightening gray sky, students from New York University walked in groups across the park, talking intensely. Professors crossed their paths, overcoats open to the warming day. Carlito stared at a boy his own age who was pedaling a yellow tricycle under the watchful gaze of a red-haired Irish governess. There were battered men here too, as there we
re everywhere, sitting alone on benches. And on one bench, he saw the man in the gray coat, reading a Daily News. I should just confront him, Delaney thought. Go over there and . . .

  Then Delaney was distracted by a man in a velvet-collared overcoat and modest gray fedora, walking in a jerky way from the Minetta Lane end of the park. It was Mr. Cottrell. Alone and far from Horatio Street. He staggered, then fell facedown, the fedora rolling a few feet. People stopped to look. Delaney ran to him, dragging Carlito. He squatted beside Mr. Cottrell and gently turned him over. His eyes were open, but he did not seem to be seeing anything. He certainly showed no sign of recognizing Delaney. Two students paused about ten feet away. Delaney called to them as he squatted beside the fallen man.

  “Hey! There’s a cop just past the arch. Tell him to call an ambulance. Right now! This man’s having a heart attack.”

  The students hurried away to the arch. Carlito was looking down at the man, his face tense, holding the bag of books to his chest. Delaney leaned close to the stricken man’s ear.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Cottrell,” he said. “The ambulance is coming. Don’t worry. Try to breathe. Slow, yes, like that. Breathe . . .”

  The cop arrived as Delaney placed Cottrell’s hat on his chest.

  “They’re on their way,” he said. “This guy gonna make it?”

  “Maybe.”

  Delaney and the boy watched as the ambulance pulled away to the east with its siren wailing. About fifteen other people watched too, including the governess and the boy with the tricycle. The man in the gray coat was gone. Delaney thought about Mr. Cottrell, locked within his bitter cell, and what he would think if he learned who had tried to help him. I couldn’t save his son, Delaney thought, but maybe I’ve helped save him. He wondered what Cottrell was doing here. Down beyond Minetta Lane there were whorehouses that had been there since the Civil War. There were also churches. Maybe he just was out for a walk. Maybe alone, in an anonymous crowd, with the winter easing, he could find some consolation. Maybe.

  Delaney gripped the boy’s mittened hand. He took a deep cleansing breath, then exhaled. Then saw people looking into the brightening sky. Some of them were smiling. The boy looked up too, and pointed.

  “Gran’pa, look! El sol!”

  “Yes,” Delaney said, smiling too. “El sol. The sun.”

  “The sun!”

  Delaney could feel winter seeping out of him. He fought against tears.

  They stopped to celebrate in a hot dog place on Sheridan Square. First they scrubbed their hands in the men’s room and dried them with sheets of the New York Times stacked above the bowl. They went to the counter, and Delaney lifted Carlito onto a stool, and the counterman asked what they wanted. Two hot dogs, Delaney said. Mustard in a bowl. Sure thing, the man said. This time Carlito insisted on trying mustard on his hot dog, instead of his fingertip, as if it were a sign of manhood. The counterman placed a bowl of mustard before him, with a wooden stick to be used for dipping. Delaney tried to help the boy, but Carlito insisted on doing it himself. He splashed mustard on the bear and on his own coat.

  “Don’t worry, boy,” Delaney said, wiping at the mustard with a handkerchief. The boy looked embarrassed. “I mean it, boy: Don’t worry.”

  Carlito made a face at the first taste of mustard, but was able to chew and make a face at the same time. As he worked his way along the length of the hot dog, the boy seemed to enjoy it more. He looked slyly at Delaney, who was consuming his own hot dog, as if they were engaged in a conspiracy. To hell with Rose.

  Then a man was beside him. The bartender from Club 65. The man who had vanished from Washington Square.

  “Hello, Doc,” he said.

  “Hello. What’s your name again?”

  “It don’t matter. Whatta ya hear from Eddie Corso?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Mr. Botts, the boss, well, he’s still very interested.”

  “Let me ask you something, mister. You been following me?”

  “Nah, I was just passin’ by. It’s a nice day. The sun is shining. A good day for a walk.”

  “That’s what we’re going to do too. Just walk in the sun. Give my regards to Mr. Botts.”

  He nodded to the man, took the boy by the hand, and walked out. He didn’t look back. They walked west toward the North River. The sun followed them, brightening every street, casting long sharp black shadows under the El as they crossed, bringing vivid color from the bricks of the buildings. These fuckers are everywhere. Feds and gangsters. Jesus Christ . . . More tenement windows were being opened, welcoming the breeze, letting it scour the sour winter air of the flats. Kids were arriving in noisy battalions. Running, leaping, playing tag, throwing balls and catching them. One kid burst out of the door with what was called a pusho, a scooter made of a milk box nailed to a two-by-four, with a dismembered roller skate serving as wheels. Carlito watched them all. They were offering him lessons in what it was to be a boy.

  Delaney looked at the Cottrell house, but there were no signs of life. He thought about ringing the bell and explaining what had happened to Cottrell and how the ambulance had taken him to Bellevue. He didn’t. They were probably at the hospital now, on watch. Like hundreds of others all over the city on this day when the sun had returned from exile.

  They entered under the stoop, the boy whipping off his coat. He called Rose’s name in the hallway, but there was no answer. He wanted to show her his books.

  “Later,” Delaney said. “Now we take a nap.”

  “Okay. I like a nap.”

  He woke abruptly from a formless dream and saw the clock: four forty-five. Still Sunday. He remembered the man in the gray suit, and the bartender from Club 65. His breath kept coming in short panicky gasps. He remembered Mr. Cottrell and wondered if he was alive or dead. He rose and went to the bathroom and stepped into the shower and scrubbed himself. He dried, then dressed quickly, in rough clothes. When he opened the door, he could hear Carlito talking below to Rose. She was back from wherever she went on Sundays. The aroma of garlic and oil rose through the house. He hurried down to the kitchen.

  She looked at him and held up Carlito’s coat.

  “Mustard on his coat!” she said with a laugh. “I know what that means!”

  He laughed too.

  “Hot dogs!” she said, and now Carlito was giggling in a delighted way. The bear was seated on the fourth chair. Rose draped the coat on the empty chair.

  “Rosa,” the boy said. “We see the sun.”

  With that, she put her hands up, palms out.

  “The sun, it’s beautiful,” she said. “It makes everything grow.”

  They ate veal and pasta and bread, Delaney joking about how the hot dogs rose off the grill and flew into their mouths. Veal, he said, was definitely better. There was good color in Rose’s cheeks. She moved more easily now on her feet, and never mentioned the killer boots or murderous women at the funeral of John McGraw. Delaney cleared the table and washed the dishes while Rose helped Carlito feed imaginary food to the bear. When they finished eating, Delaney sat back in his chair. He said nothing about the man from Club 65. Or the man in the gray suit. He didn’t even mention what had happened to Mr. Cottrell.

  “Okay,” Delaney said. “Some work to do.”

  She looked at him in an apprehensive way, as he moved into the shed that led to the yard. He lifted the old Arrow bicycle and carried it through the kitchen into the hall where patients sat in the mornings. Rose and Carlito followed.

  “We’ll need some newspapers, so we don’t dirty the floor,” he said. “And I have to find the oil in the shed . . .”

  Rose produced some old newspapers while Delaney found the oil and then started tearing away tape and covering from the bicycle. Carlito ripped at the wrappings too. Then the naked bicycle stood there, as if shrinking into shyness. For twenty minutes, the three of them wiped away the dust of winter and spots of rust, using sandpaper and oil, and Delaney then oiled the gears.

  “What a bea
uty,” Rose whispered. “Che bello.”

  “Can you ride?”

  “Of course. I can’t drive a car or a bus, but a bicycle, sì!”

  “Hold this steady.”

  Delaney lifted Carlito into the wide basket fastened to the front handlebars. It usually held his bag when he went on house calls. The boy looked uncertain and then smiled broadly when he fit perfectly, with his small legs draped over the front.

  “He can be the chief!” Rose said. “Like on a fire engine.”

  “The navigator,” Delaney said. “He can hold my bag in his lap.”

  “Yeah, a navigator like Cristoforo Colombo.”

  Delaney thought: Sailing without charts, right into the future.

  That night he slept without dreams and awoke before six to a new sound.

  Birds.

  Unseen, but out there for sure. Their chatter celebrating the coming day with calls and whistles. Some must have worried about the presence of bullying seagulls. But mainly they issued songs of joy. Away off he heard the baritone horn of a liner, coming into the North River to one of the Midtown piers. Delaney felt the way he did every morning when he was twenty.

  He shaved and showered and dressed. At Sacred Heart when he was a boy, they celebrated the first Friday of each month. But the central figure was always a dead man on a cross. They should have celebrated Mondays. They should have celebrated birdsong. They should have sung in Latin about foghorns.

  Rose still slept, but the boy was up, and Delaney told him to dress.

  “We’re going for a ride,” he said.

  Fifteen minutes later, Delaney wheeled the bicycle into the areaway at the front of the house, with the bundled-up boy beside him. To the east in Brooklyn, the sun was struggling ro rise. Most snow was gone, and he saw that the yard was carpeted with dead leaves and litter and needed sweeping. That would have to wait. He placed clamps on his trouser bottoms and opened the front gate and wheeled the bicycle to the sidewalk. He lifted Carlito into the seat.

  “Hold on, big fella,” he said.

  And began to pedal. Slowly at first, with the back of the boy’s head before and below his own. Struggling for balance, finding it, then pedaling harder. He saw some silhouetted men waving as he passed, and he waved back. Then he saw the light burning in Mr. Nobiletti’s shoe repair store. Getting an early start. He pulled over and went in with the boy.