Richie the Rabbi went to Belgium after the collapse. One day he called Captain Bill Gorta at police headquarters in Manhattan and said, Gorta remembers, “I just had a baby. I have to go to City Hall in Brussels to register him. Do you think you could call them and ask them as a courtesy to the NYPD to let me go right through without having to wait on line?”
Later in the day, Daniel stood on the street outside the house in Brighton Beach. The two hundred American had lasted only a couple of days. Mariano, from the house, had found a temporary job for him, installing floors in a supermarket around the corner. Daniel worked ten hours for $50. He hated it. He realized this was how his son had started here. He wasn’t going back to the job. He would sit here until he had to get his plane.
“A million,” he was told. “For all the victims.”
“All the victims.”
“Yes, but your son died so that should be the largest amount.”
That was a wrong estimate. The Russian, Hurshed, would have to live with his permanent damages and would need every dollar. He would get the most, $800,000. As Eduardo was gone, his father would receive $100,000.
But now, not knowing this, he shrugged. “I only stayed here to see where the accident was. If they give me something, fine. But I’m going back on Thursday. I don’t like it here.”
He held up four fingers. “I have four more.”
“José is the oldest?” he was asked.
“He is married. I just have my first grandson.”
“Who carries the bricks in the yard now?”
“I do. With Miguel. You saw him when he was young. He is grown up.”
“Then who are the little ones at the end of the line?”
“The girls. Maria Cruz. Zenaida.”
He looked down at the sidewalk. Then he took out a pack of Marlboros. When he lit one, it was the end of his conversation. He had lost too much around here, in Brooklyn, in America, and he wanted to get home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JIMMY BRESLIN has been writing a syndicated newspaper column for more than forty years. He is at Newsday and is the author of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and, most recently, the novel I Don’t Want to Go to Jail. He lives in New York City.
Copyright © 2002 by Jimmy Breslin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com
Originally published in hardcover by Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2002.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Breslin, Jimmy.
The short sweet dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez / Jimmy Breslin.
1. Gutiérrez, Eduardo, 1978–1999. 2. Alien labor, Mexican—New York—New York—Biography. 3. Illegal aliens—New York—New York—Biography. I. Title.
HD8085.N53 B74 2002
331.6’272’07471092—dc21 2001047283
eISBN: 978-0-307-55963-0
v3.0
The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez Page 19
