by Peter Quinn
Gradually, a number of the people Margaret knew from the ship came out and stopped beside her. They stood in silence. This was their destination. The discussions they had had on board had gone no further than this, the streets of New York. Delayed by engine troubles and fog, they had landed a day later than scheduled, and yet they had expected some welcome other than this, heat, noise, bustling crowds oblivious to their arrival. The full consequences of what they had done settled on them.
An inspector walked out of the doorway. One of the men asked him, “Sir, could you tell me the way to Pitt Street?”
“Sorry, I’m off duty,” the inspector said as he walked by. “Try somebody inside.”
A man and his wife and their six small children sat on their bundles. They were from Holy Cross, in Tipperary, and he had been the most active musician on the way over, forever playing his fiddle and singing. He stared glumly across the lawn around Castle Garden. The children grew restless and started to run about. His wife chased after them. He sucked on a tobaccoless clay pipe.
“I’m expecting me cousin to meet me,” he said to no one in particular. The pipe made a gurgling sound. After a few more moments of silence, he stood and pulled a large bundle onto his back. His wife handed smaller bundles to the children and threw a large burlap sack over her shoulder.
“Ach,” he said, “the Devil with waiting.” They moved off, and the old Irish-speaking woman and her daughter followed. With them as the vanguard, Margaret and the rest of the group that had collected by the door started toward the street. There was a policeman standing by a gaslight and another by the low iron fence around the park in which Castle Garden was situated. The ground was strewn with newspapers, rusted cans, and rags.
The first policeman twirled the baton he carried and hardly glanced at them. They moved slowly, nobody speaking. Up ahead, Margaret noticed a crowd of men, arms and legs draped over the fence. The second policeman was standing facing these men, his stick held in front of him. The men began to wave and hoot as the group approached, as if they saw someone they knew. Margaret fought the urge to turn back to Castle Garden. She let the momentum of those in front pull her forward. As soon as the immigrants left the park, the policeman walked away, and the men at the fence surrounded them.
She thought, or hoped, that they might be relatives of people from the boat, the cousins of the musician from Holy Cross, but he was already struggling with one of them, who had taken the sack off his wife’s back and thrown it onto a derelict-looking wagon. As Margaret watched them fight over a trunk, she felt someone grab her bag. She gripped it with both hands. She was too frightened to scream, and turned to locate the policeman. He was moving down the path toward Castle Garden, his back to them. The man took hold of her arm. “Relax, sister,” he said. “I’m only trying to help.”
She pulled her arm away.
“Take it easy. Calm down.”
She took a few steps backward, her bag clasped to her chest.
“There now. Easy does it,” he said. “All I’m trying to do is see you get a ride outta here. That’s all. That’s what I’m here for.”
The musician had given up his fight. His baggage and children were piled onto a wagon, and the driver was already off trying to coax or capture more business from the immigrants just leaving the park. Behind this first wagon was a string of similar vehicles, carts with broken railings, wheels missing spokes, sad, shabby horses, their hides covered with mange. The driver who had tried to take Margaret’s bag had successfully snagged the bags of the old woman and her daughter.
Margaret was the only one still left on the sidewalk. The lead wagon pulled out. The man who had tried to take her bag looked down and reached out his hand.
“Room for one more,” he said.
She took his hand. He pulled her up, took her bag, and tossed it behind. She had never seen anything like what she saw from their perch: thousands of coaches, carts, wagons, and vans packed together in two slow-moving streams that flowed up and down an avenue flanked with tall, imposing buildings, a rolling eternity of conveyances.
“I’m Bill Cunningham,” the driver said. He smiled. There was a large gap between his teeth. He tipped his hat. His hair was gray, but he had the full, creaseless face of a boy. He untied the reins from the brake stick and patted Margaret’s knee.
“No need to worry. I’ll get ya where ya goin’.”
Margaret moved closer to the end of the seat and held the railing tightly. Cunningham looked over his shoulder at an unbroken wall of traffic.
“Damn booly dogs make it tough for all of us, keeping us away from the Garden so youse gotta cart yer stuff all a ways from dere to here wid no help.”
Suddenly he brought his whip down with a loud crack and jerked violently on the reins. The cart lurched forward, and the two women in the rear went sprawling onto the floor. The cart almost crashed into the tailgate of a barrel-laden wagon, but came to a halt just in time. The driver of the wagon shouted, “Bloody idiot, Goddamn donkey son of a bitch, I oughta break your neck!”
Margaret put her hands over her eyes. Cunningham ignored the driver. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, “we all got cause to shout.” He inched the cart forward, and when they had entered the stream of traffic, he said to Margaret, “People got no manners, that’s the number one lesson for them arrivin’ in this town. First come, first served, and don’t stand in the way.”
They moved slowly, stopping every few feet. Pedestrians wove through the traffic, trying to get from one side of the avenue to the other.
Cunningham said, “Where ya from?” He whipped the horses again, and the cart darted deeper into the traffic, cutting off another heavily freighted wagon. The wagon driver was standing, and almost lost his balance. He cursed loudly.
“I’m from Ireland,” Margaret said.
“Neva woulda guessed. Thought you were a Chinee.”
The driver they had cut off pulled alongside, next to Margaret. A burly man with a blond beard and a great wide hat, he looked over at Cunningham and pointed his finger at him. “You miserable little pimp, you ever try that again, I’ll put my boot up your ass.”
Cunningham stared straight ahead, as if he didn’t hear what was being said. “Where in Ireland?” he asked Margaret.
Margaret watched the wagon pull ahead, and felt a surge of relief that Cunningham wasn’t going to test the driver’s threat. Cunningham tapped her on the leg. “I said, where in Ireland?”
“Cork City.”
“Mayo for me, on my mother’s side. She was an O’Dwyer, may she rest in peace. The Cunninghams are Galway people, that’s where the old man was from.”
They passed a small park. Ahead, the tangle of traffic became an impenetrable snarl. Despite the heat, people walked quickly, everyone in a hurry. Those leaving the buildings immediately picked up the pace, a crowd different from Cork City, not only in mass and momentum, but in dress, the cut of the clothing sharper, showier, the women’s dresses tighter at the waist, wider at the hem. The men’s coats were cut closer to their figures, the cuffs on the trousers narrower, better suited to the long stride of Yankee legs.
The cart crept along. Up at the next corner, a policeman waved the traffic on and blocked any vehicle from turning right. When the cart was almost abreast of him, Cunningham whipped the horse, tugged on the reins, and swung a sharp right, almost knocking down the policeman as they rounded the corner. They shot forward, driver and passengers bouncing about. Behind, the policeman screamed for them to stop. Cunningham kept whipping the horses, and they careened down the street, scattering pedestrians as they went.
“Damn booly dogs,” Cunningham said. “All they ever do is make a bad situation worse.”
It was the second time he had used that phrase, and it struck Margaret as being wildly out of place: The boolies in the hills of Ireland were cool summer pastures where the livestock and their keepers retreated in the summer, as far from these streets as could be imagined. The big dogs who helped tend the herds were gen
tle and intelligent, lying in the shade next to the cows, their eyes half closed, tongues hanging out, bearing no resemblance to the policemen in their soft hats, blue tunics, and starched collars. But Margaret would grow used to the expression. Everyone did. Until, eventually, booly was shortened into bull, the pan-ethnic monicker for a city cop.
The impression of that first day never left Margaret. New York wasn’t Cork City on a larger scale, which is what she had expected to find. It was a different order of existence. From the eminence of Cunningham’s driver’s seat she watched as aristocratic sunlit avenues intersected with streets in perpetual shadow. Right around the corner from grand churches and temples of commerce, their steps crowded with the faithful, were saloons and music halls going full tilt in the middle of the afternoon, slaughterhouses next to foundries, the acrid mix of blood, smoke, and horse piss hanging in the superheated air, acre after acre of sagging brick houses and slumping, wooden-framed tenements, the boulevards filled with fashion, the lanes crowded with dirt and misery.
She suspected that Cunningham was giving them an informal tour. She had given him the address of Mrs. O’Sullivan and was in no hurry to get there. As they drove on, the streets grew shabbier and more raucous. Children were in constant motion amid the traffic; a wonder that they weren’t run over instantly. There were Irish-looking faces everywhere, the countenances of country people and spalpeens, their clothing far less stylish than what she had seen on the avenue near Castle Garden, but a Yankee swagger to their step, the hustling gait that everyone in the city seemed to share.
“Mostly our own kind here,” Cunningham said. “Up a ways are the Krauts. Further west, a sprinklin’ of Italians. Ya can trust the Germans. Thick as mud, but they’re honest, which is more than ya can say for the Italians. Few in number, but as shifty as sand.”
Margaret had lost any sense of direction. Each street they entered looked exactly like the one they’d left, except perhaps a bit more decayed and worn. It was as if the poverty of the Irish countryside had been added to the worst degradation to be found in Cork City, multiplied a thousandfold and set amid a grid of coal-belching, iron-bleating factories.
Finally, in the middle of a street no better and no worse than those they had passed through, Cunningham said, “You’re home.” He jumped to the pavement and helped Margaret down. The old woman and her daughter bid her good-bye. For the first time since she’d left Ireland, she felt like crying, overwhelmed by the thought of never seeing again these two women whom she barely knew.
Cunningham told her that he would usually charge a fare of five dollars for such a ride, but in her case, he was waiving it. “Let’s say it’s on the house,” he said, “as long as I can see you again.”
“You should be paid what you’re owed. It’s only fair.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He picked up her bag and walked into a grocery on the corner of the street. Margaret followed. Inside, a girl was standing at the counter, her elbows on it, and reading a newspaper. In the rear was a makeshift bar, boards laid across barrels, two old men and a woman drinking whiskey.
“Which is Sixty-five Jackson?” Cunningham asked.
The girl kept reading the paper. She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder. “Building in the rear. Go down the alleyway next to here.”
“You know if a Miss O’Sullivan lives there?”
She turned a page of the paper. “Ain’t got a clue.”
The woman at the bar in the rear called out, “Which O’Sullivan is it, Agnes or Tillie?”
“Tillie,” Margaret said. The woman came forward, a short, slight, gray-haired figure with a flushed face.
“You’ve found her,” the woman said. “Who are ye?”
“Margaret O’Driscoll.”
“Ye were a little girl last time I saw ye.” She looked over at Cunningham. “Who’s this?”
“The man that drove me here.”
Mrs. O’Sullivan took Margaret’s bag from Cunningham. “Come, then, let’s get ye settled.”
Margaret followed her. Outside, Cunningham remounted his cart and tipped his hat. The two women in the rear of the cart waved as it pulled away. Margaret hurried to catch up to Mrs. O’Sullivan. They stepped into the alleyway. Piss, a familiar smell. In Cork City, the privies were set behind the houses, but here there was no space. Three privies sat in the small courtyard at the end of the alleyway, their doors hanging open. The yard was filled with children, and though an open tap next to the privies had turned the ground to muck, they didn’t seem to notice.
The tenement rose four stories, its facade covered with warped wooden stairs. Mrs. O’Sullivan stopped at the bottom step but refused to let Margaret take the bag. “How much did he charge?” she asked.
“He said the fare was five dollars.”
“Five dollars! That bloodsucker will burn forever in the deepest pit of hell. Cost ye eight pounds to cross the ocean and he wants a pound to bring ye from the docks. Damnation to him!”
“But he didn’t make me pay.”
“Not yet, he didn’t. But the likes of him never gave away a drop of sweat without figuring on being repaid, one way or other.”
Although Margaret didn’t say anything more on the subject to Mrs. O’Sullivan, she was glad that Cunningham wanted to see her again, happy that someone would come looking for her. She felt she did owe him something, some kindness, not just in consideration of the fare, but in view of the time he took to get her safely to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s.
When they reached the third landing, Mrs. O’Sullivan put the bag down. “Now let me have a good look at ye,” she said. “You’re the image of your mother.” They entered a small, airless room, the only light coming through the open front doorway. Children’s screams came from below, high-pitched and happy.
“I’d offer you tea, but there’s no lighting a stove on a day such as this,” Mrs. O’Sullivan said.
“No need,” Margaret said, “I’m not thirsty at all.”
Mrs. O’Sullivan walked into a back room. On the wall above where Margaret sat was a picture of Jesus pointing to His Sacred Heart. From behind, a shiny, brown-bodied insect scurried out, quick, furtive movements, something instantly repulsive about it. Margaret resisted the urge to reach up and squash it. Another one followed. They moved in a zigzag pattern toward the floor.
Mrs. O’Sullivan returned with a bottle of whiskey and two teacups. She poured a fingerful into each cup and handed one to Margaret. Margaret sipped the whiskey. A strange edge to it, unlike the whiskey at home. No great drinker of the stuff, but she had had enough to know this was different, watery, with a rough aftertaste. Whiskey made in haste, no hint of peat fires, no slow process of distillation; it was to be drunk, not sipped.
“Tell the truth,” Mrs. O’Sullivan said. “’Tis not at all like ye expected.”
“No, but it’s fine, fine, I’m grateful for it.” Margaret thought that Mrs. O’Sullivan had been speaking of the whiskey.
“Haven’t met a one yet ain’t been nearly killed by the shock of the place. Don’t matter how many times ye write and spell it out to them, there’s no understanding New York till it’s been seen with your own eyes, and that’s why I didn’t bother you with long descriptions. But don’t worry, the time goes quickly and then one day ye wake up and can’t imagine ever having lived anywhere else.”
Margaret nodded. She was having trouble staying awake. Mrs. O’Sullivan talked on, a soft flow of words. The whiskey and shadows were overwhelming. The day felt as if it had begun a year ago. She hadn’t slept much the night before.
She had slipped up to the deck and watched the lights of the city through the mist. What had she expected to find? A child’s dream, already lost.
Mrs. O’Sullivan’s boys were grown now, one a longshoreman, the other a grain shoveler in Brooklyn. They were patriots, too, she said, in the tradition of Margaret’s father, attended all the meetings at Hibernian House on Prince Street across from the cathedral, and been sworn into The Organization
by Michael Corcoran himself. Margaret made no mention of her father’s transformation.
Finally Mrs. O’Sullivan said, “You must be tired. We’ll talk business tomorrow.”
She led Margaret through one bare, windowless room with a mattress on the floor into another about the same size, this one with a window that faced out onto a brick wall. There was a wide bed by the window, iron-framed, a prominent sag in its middle. Margaret undressed and lay down. Downstairs, someone was playing a fiddle. Music for a jig. The music of home. Voices and singing, the loudness of people when they drink. The noise died down a bit. She drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, the heat was so intense that Margaret thought the stove must have been lit. It hadn’t been. Mrs. O’Sullivan had already left for work. The mattress in the middle room was occupied by a body beneath a sheet. Margaret moved past quietly. She opened the door to let the light in. The same crowd of children was playing around the privies. She went down and filled a pitcher from the slow-running tap, then went upstairs and lay down again. The heat was like a fever. She fell in and out of sleep, constantly waking from unremembered dreams. It was almost totally dark in the room when Mrs. O’Sullivan woke her up. They ate bread and salted fish by the light of a paraffin lamp. Mrs. O’Sullivan said that Margaret could share her bed for a dollar a month.
“What about the middle room?” Margaret asked.
“’Tis taken.”
“I know. I saw someone sleeping there when first I got up, but then she was gone.”
“You’ll hardly ever see her. Kathleen Leahy is her name. She cleans offices. Works nights, every night. A perfect tenant. If she ever decides to move, I’ll give you first claim on her spot. It’ll cost two dollars.”
