When I get back to the Tent City, I still got that grin going strong. Lottie and my ma are huddled up on the log outside our tent finishing Esther’s dress. Lottie gets a peek at me smiling and starts hassling me ’bout how come I look so damn happy.
“Must be all this good weather,” I says.
But Lottie ain’t nowhere near ready to take that for an answer and keeps right after me. When I see our ma ain’t looking, I give a quick point for Lottie to meet me inside our tent to give her the scoop on where I been. When she gets inside the tent, I shut down the flaps. It’s half dark and the air is close. She laughs and says to me that I don’t gotta hide nothing, cause Pauline ain’t even around. I tell her that this ain’t got nothing to do with Pauline.
“Oh, I seen the way you was lookin at her when she was settin by the fire last night, Chester,” she says. “There’s some things a woman just knows.”
Lottie turns away from me to start laying out the pillows, blankets and the feather ticks we got left for tonight. She says to me that I don’t gotta worry none anyway, cause Pauline likes me too.
“She likes ya just fine ever since her pa tolt her ’bout how ya stood up for Charlie Dugan at the union meetin.”
“What?”
“Mr. Paul told Pauline how ya give it to Grubby and all the rest of them Fair Weatherers when they wanted to quit on the strike. Now that Pauline knows ya ain’t nothin like Buzzy, she’s real keen for ya. She said she didn’t even mind kissin ya in Lasky’s barn.”
Now that Pauline knows I ain’t like Buzzy, she’s real keen on me. Don’t that just beat all, I’m thinking to myself. The one day in my whole damn life that I really am like Buzzy and sunafabitch if it ain’t today.
“Pauline says she might have even kissed ya again if that liar Grubby hadn’t a got ya fired off Lasky’s.”
“I don’t know what to tell ya,” I says to Lottie. “I think you’re makin the whole thing up.”
I pick up one of Lottie’s feather pillows and slap it so hard into the side of the tent, one of the canvas walls collapses before I go stomping outta there spitting and kicking rocks outta my path the whole way to Patchtown Road.
Sixteen
When the sun’s near down, I roust my dupa off the stump I been loafing on in the 35 woods and follow the Penn Central tracks down through Dago Town back to Facianni’s barber shop. I keep myself out of sight hiding in the shadow of the freight cars, waiting for full dark. When a horse wagon comes rolling up the alley to the side of the West End company store, I push forward between the wheels of the coal cars so I can get a peek at who’s driving. Up on the buckboard, slouched back into the seat, the thinner dago what was bitching about us pollocks not having no money is clutching the reins. His shoulders is hunched up around his neck which is long like a stovepipe. His Adam’s apple’s so big I can see it bobbing when he starts to mumbling up one of them dago songs.
I wait till he stops the wagon at the back door of the shop before I slip out from the coal cars and make my way down the alley. Keeping my back pressed tight against the wall of the company store, I watch him knock a couple times on the back door of the barber shop. The varnished door edges open and somebody skids out two waist high stacks of wooden liquor cases. The dago sneaks a look down the other end of the alley towards the Windber station and then snatches up one of the cases and hefts it into the back of the wagon.
“Lemme give ya a hand,” I says to him.
That dago damn near jumps outta his skin when he hears my voice coming out from the other side of that horse wagon. He lets the case clatter down onto the wood bed of the wagon. I don’t hear no glass breaking, but he’s for sure one pissed off dago, saying to me that any broken bottles are coming outta my pay.
“So you break ’em and I pay for ’em?” I says. “Don’t sound right to me.”
I know I’m being a real smart ass here, but it feels like with these fellas ya gotta stand up for yourself right off the bat. When the door of the barber shop opens up Facianni sticks his head out just far enough that I can see his hat brim.
“Shutta hell up, you two,” he says.
In the back of the barber shop there are three more cases of liquor stacked up by the door. Facianni tells me the dago’s name is Sal and we’re supposed to take all of this liquor out to Dunlo.
“Ya take to Sons a Itlee,” he says. “Ya get ten dollars.”
I start to say that sounds good to me, but Facianni’s already walking back towards the front of the shop. I grab up a case of liquor, and Sal heaves up the other two and we take ’em out to the wagon. Sal pushes the back door shut, real careful not to make no noise and then we stretch a piece of canvas over top of the liquor crates in the back end of the wagon.
When we climb up in the wagon seat, I set myself down to ride shotgun, but Sal shoves the reins into my hands. He says that everybody knows he can do this job, it’s me that’s got something to prove here. So, I take up the reins and drive the wagon nice and slow up Railroad Alley onto Somerset Avenue past Leone’s Market to the corner of Ninth Street.
“Getta move on, ya dumb pollock,” Sal says to me. “Ya don’t wanna make it look like yer doin something wrong.”
So, I give them reins a shake and the horses giddup a bit and we’re headed up past the Berwinds’ Big Office to get onto 160 outta town. I’m stewing over that dumb pollock shit a little, but I figure if I’m gonna be working with all these damn dagos, I better just learn to let it roll off my back.
Once we make the turn onto Dunlo Road and start rolling up the big hill, it’s all kraut farmers’ cornfields and I figure we’re pretty much in the clear. I look round a bit at the bare trees, thinking that I’m doing all right for myself. Just last night I was setting round, fired off of Lasky’s and worried about starving. And now here I am, gonna earn ten dollars in one night.
Setting next to me, Sal ain’t saying nothing. He’s just whistling some song I don’t know and sluggin off a bottle of wine. I flip my coat collar up so’s it covers my neck and I snap the reins again. The less time this whole trip takes, the better.
We’re going along pretty good, already past Windber Recreation Park where they got the Fourth of July picnic, when I spot a wagon up ahead. It ain’t moving towards us or away from us. It’s just setting there on the side of the road.
“Sal,” I says. “What ya make a that?”
“Maybe they got a busted wheel, kid. How the hell do I know?”
Sal tries not to let nothing get into his voice, but I can tell he ain’t too happy ’bout seeing this wagon. I watch him reach his hand into his coat pocket. He fidgets out a little black revolver. He looks clumsy with it, like he ain’t used to fooling with no pistol. It’s scuffed and small in his hand, nicked up fierce, and nothing like them chrome shining forty-fives that ride on the Pinkertons’ hip. But when Sal clicks the dark hammer back, it dawns on me. This is some serious business.
“Keep drivin,” Sal says.
The closer we get to that wagon, the quicker my breath is coming. If this turns into some kinda shootout, I ain’t even got no gun and Sal don’t look like no Buffalo Bill to me. What if there’s a whole mess of them and only two of us? I try to listen for anything they’re saying but I can’t hear nothing over top of our wheels clacking on the road.
“Aw, for Chrissake!” Sal says.
For a second, I think he’s mad at me for slowing the wagon down, but then I see he’s squinting ahead at the folks up off the side of the road. Sal wipes his nose with the back of his hand and then eases the pistol hammer back down before he cuddles it back into his pocket.
“Damn Windber cops,” he laughs. “For a second, I thought you and me was in some deep trouble.”
When we pull up alongside the police wagon, there’s two Windber police setting on the buckboard. They got navy uniforms like the Pinkertons but with copper badges instead of brass buttons and brimmed captain’s hats instead of slouch caps. Sal talks to them real quiet for a minute, till they’re a
ll smiling and joking.
“This here’s Chester.” Sal points at me with his thumb. “He’s working for “some people” now.”
After them cops take a good look at my mug, Sal gives ’em a twenty-dollar bill outta his hip pocket. The cops chuckle a little more and give me a nod and say “thanks” to Sal.
The police closest to our wagon pops off his captain’s hat and tucks the greenback inside the silk lining. Then his partner snaps the reins a good one and turns the wagon back around cross the road and they head off for Windber. Sal watches them till they’re pretty far gone down the road into the dark.
“Angelo’s got every one a them Windber cops in his back pocket,” he says to me. “A twenty-dollar bill can get you loose of most anything you’re gonna pull.”
“That’s good to know,” I says.
“But I tell ya, kid,” Sal smiles, all cock of the walk. “Don’t try none a that shit with them State Police. You’ll get pinched for liquor and bribing to boot.”
I nod at this, but it don’t matter none, cause Sal ain’t lookin. He got the reins clutched in his hands now and he ain’t in no mood to go slow. He’s slapping them horses into a lather and we’re making time hauling ass down Dunlo Road. The wind zips over my skin with a chill and them trees are just shadows dropping away behind us. Ain’t even no use in trying to talk over the clatter of them horse wagon wheels on the reddog.
We keep going like that for almost a whole hour before we get to Main Street in Dunlo. I’m rubbing my hands together trying to keep ’em from freezing straight off till Sal tosses me back the reins. He takes a heavy pull from his wine bottle and says driving this damn wagon is thirsty work. Smiling at me, he says he wants to get his ass back to Windber cause there’s a card game going out in 42 and his good luck feels fixed as a fat lady’s wedding ring.
He points for me to make the turn on Fifth Street behind a two-story brick Sons of Italy Club. I stop short of the back door and Sal hops outta the wagon. He tells me to stay put and goes over and gives the same knock I seen him use at Facianni’s. When the door opens up, three fellas come shuffling out. They’re all in dungarees and Sal looks pretty fancy next to them in his serge trousers and buttondown shirt.
“This here is Buzzy’s brother.” Sal jerks his thumb up at me in the wagon seat. “He’s going to be drivin for Angelo now.”
Them rough looking fellas just nod their heads at Sal and start counting out his money.
Seventeen
Six weeks of hauling that bootleg liquor for Angelo and my whole life is different. I turned fifteen. I got my family moved clean outta Tent City and set up down Dago Town. I’m getting ’em the star boarder treatment living above Leone’s Market. We got storebought furniture and beds and we’re eating halushki and blintzes every day. We even had ham shank and gold crust cherry pie steaming on the table at Christmas. The twins are back in the oneroom and even Lottie, who ain’t none too happy ’bout me turned to bootlegging, seems have a little spring back her step. My ma’s maybe a little worried ’bout me, but since she knows that we was damn well gonna starve staying in that tent camp, she ain’t gonna kick neither.
Only thing bothering me, I ain’t seen Mr. Paul or Pauline neither for a good while now. I been too busy with this here bootlegging to be scuttling around down that tent camp or freezing out on the picket line. ‘Sides, Lottie’s done told me five times a day that Pauline would rather marry a monkey than be caught dead running round with low life bootleggers.
Down at the 40 Hotel barroom, I heard tale from Fatty Papinchak that Charlie Dugan and them might be having some kind of luck with the Berwinds over Philadelphia. They been talking to a posse of newspaper reporters ’bout coming down to Windber and writing how old Berwind’s getting rich selling top dollar coal to the subway trains while he’s doing us dirt. I don’t know nothing exactly, cause I been busting my ass day and night for Angelo.
So far, I been to Dunlo and Vintondale and Seanor and Hollsopple and Hyndman and damn near every other town on the Route 160 and 56 T. I been to so many “Sons a Itlee” I’m getting to feel like I’m some kinda wop my own self. I even got a new set of clothes for myself so when them small town dagos see me comin they know right off that I’m working for Angelo.
Tonight, I’m headed over to his standalone down on 18th Street. Me and Sal gotta water down the bathtub liquor Angelo gets from the Ashtola moonshiners before we pour it into Gordon’s gin bottles. Then I gotta run the lot of ’em to the Slovak Club out in Beaverdale.
When I get down to that cellar, Sal’s already got most of the bottles full of bootleg and he tells me to get to work behind him, topping off all them fifths with a bit of real Gordon’s to keep them Beaverdale Slovaks from getting wise.
We’re going at it in one of the extra rooms that Angelo had dug out under his front yard to the side of his coal bin. He keeps all the liquor down here, the Canadian stuff that comes in from Pittsburgh and the bootleg too. Ain’t too many fellas, outside of the Black Handers theirselves, that know just what he keeps down here. I’m pretty sure Angelo didn’t even tell Buzzy where the mix up was being handled.
“Ya wanna learn something, kid?” Sal asks me.
I step over to the plywood table that Sal’s working on. He’s dousing a mix of water and moonshine outta a gallon vinegar jug into a row of washed out Gordon’s bottles. He clues me in that if I spread each gallon of bathtub over twelve bottles instead of eight, I can make up a whole extra case that I can sell for myself.
I tell Sal that’s pretty good thinking. But I ain’t looking to get into no trouble with Angelo, so I mix my bottles the way I been told. When everything’s ready, I straw pack all the bottles into apple crates and carry ’em up the stairs and stack them up in Angelo’s wagon.
The ride out to Beaverdale is all right. Nothing but moonlight and white stars and the wind whistling through the bone bare trees. I’m singing a little song about pork chops and thick legged women Buzzy taught me while we was loading egg coal on the B seam last winter. I wonder if maybe he sung the same song on the same run.
Them Slovaks, I think, are pretty happy to be getting any liquor at all, so they’re all backslaps and smiles with teeth. They pay me cash money and then haul the whole stack of liquor crates into the Slovak Hall theirselfs, so I don’t even have to get down from the seat of the wagon.
It’s coming back that I hit a snag. I’m clipping along the 160 down into Windber when I see a dark sedan setting over next to the park entrance. I don’t pay it no mind thinking that maybe it’s broke down or something. But once I get past, it fires up and stays on my tail around the bend and down the hill, creeping after me the whole way to where I hang my left onto Somerset Avenue.
Sick of being followed, I draw the wagon over on the corner of Tenth Street in front of the dago baker. I figure that sedan’s gonna pass me by and keep going straight into Windber, but the bastard drifts in behind me. I start getting nervous, twisting my head around, trying to catch a peek at who’s walking up on me. Angelo says ain’t no other dagos gonna give me a hassle long as I work for him. He says even them rough Sicilians ain’t gonna bother with me neither, cause they keep to themselves down Johnstown and he takes care of Windber, but I don’t know.
It ain’t none of them wild dagos, though. It’s that twitch-faced Coulson, ’cept now he’s gotta wide-brim Trooper hat balanced on his head like he’s some kind of State Police. He comes strutting up the side of the wagon and that’s when I see he got the star pinned to the side of his greatcoat.
“What ya got in the back a that wagon, boy?” he asks me.
“Coulson,” I says. “I ain’t got a damn thing in the back of this wagon.”
He shines his lantern up all across the buckboard, maybe scanning to make sure I ain’t got no shotgun. Then he pushes the light close up into my face and that’s when he recognizes me.
“Pistakowski,” he asks me. “Why you out so late?”
“Just getting some air,” I tell him.
>
He takes his hat off and puts his other hand on his hip. Hiking one of his high-polish boots up on the wagon wheel, he taps his Trooper’s star with his fingertip. He says he knows just what my brother done on the late-night wagon trips. He says he wouldn’t be one bit surprised, I ain’t up to the same damn thing.
“I bet yer new boss up the State Police barracks would love to learn how ya know so much about hauling Ashtola shine,” I tell him.
“I’m gonna check the back of yer wagon.”
“I tell ya, I ain’t got nothin.”
But Coulson’s already back there ripping the canvas off the wagon bed. He yanks it down with one quick pull and tosses it into the road. He gives everything back there a toss, but don’t find nothing ’cept some straw and an empty apple crate. Spitting some tobacco on the ground, he tells me that I better watch my ass from here on out.
“Cause ya know that I’ll be watchin it.”
I think ’bout saying he shouldn’t spend too much time looking at boys’ asses cause “people might talk,” but I ain’t sure he’s a hundred percent above using the blackjack and I ain’t looking to get no beating. So, I just let the whole thing go. Once he rolls off, I hop down and stuff the canvas back into the ass end of the wagon and drive the rest of the way back into Windber humming and thinking about Pauline.
Eighteen
Pushed up close to the dark bar down the 40 Hotel three days later, I’m sipping on a coffee mug of hard cider. I’m dead beat from running a load of corn whiskey the whole way out to Stoystown for some dago’s wedding. It’s past four o’clock in the afternoon, and the barroom’s filled with fellas who are putting in a day here and there, working some of them shoestring mines out toward Central City. But it’s getting colder and with most everything used up, folks are having a tough time. The union can’t be pitching a fit about every fella that’s working for one of them small operators just enough days to keep his family from starving or freezing.
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