Burke turns again to me, “Is that true too?”
Darby leans in close, “Gather ya fam’lies an’ leave Brooklyn. Ya don’ wanna be the guy that defends a lie. An’ ya don’ want ya mother to end up like Mrs. McGowan, Liam, wit’ a dead son to mourn. Or in ya case Burke, ya wife’ll be left a weepin’ widow wit’ a cripple kid.”
At that the pipe comes out and I swing, though Darby has retreated. Quickly he ducks under an overhang and falls through the narrow darkness of a passageway and disappears. Above, he slips through the shade of a half-open window. One leg trails through.
“Knowin’ things is what I’m known for,” an echo rises in the narrow confines of the alleyway. “An’ I’m the guy waitin’ in the long shadows to use them against ya. Leave Brooklyn while yaz can. Hear it.”
I tuck the pipe back in its place inside my coat and angrily turn for the waterfront and Atlantic Terminal with Burke in my ear.
“Should we leave now?” He looks up sheepishly. “Like leave Brooklyn?”
“No.”
“But ya heard him. We got fam’lies to worry about, Liam. I’m scared o’ goin’ to war wit’ Bill’s guys—”
I cut him off, “Dinny was there for us when we needed someone. He’s the rightful leader. . . And he is honorable.”
I think. I hope. If I am making a terrible mistake, would I know?
I pound out my doubts further, “Don’t believe Darby Leighton, he lies.”
“Uhright,” Burke manages with a sad-eyed stare.
Do I really know if I am doing the right thing?
The rail yard of the Atlantic Depot separates the waterfront world from the abutted tenements and factories and storehouses. Further north toward Brooklyn Heights there is a forty-foot bluff that separates our area from the public. And up toward Irishtown it’s the approaches to both bridges. The Navy Yard has an old wall at the east end of Irishtown to keep outsiders out, and a gate that bars entrance.
But in the Atlantic Depot black-faced men armed with coal shovels to feed locomotives tip their caps at us as we hop over the hodgepodge of criss-crossing freight rails. A hundred platforms with metal sheds, sloped overhangs and dark doorways face the water where the goods unloaded from ships are directly loaded into train cars by laborers. No teamsters are needed at the Atlantic Terminal as the loaded trains clank with metallic shrieks through cobblestoned streets directly into storehouses and factories through arched shutter doors. The goods can also be hoisted through yet more arched windows above, and beyond the skyline of lower Manhattan reaches high into the obscuring mist across the water.
Close on two hundred men have gathered by the long torso of a steamship in hopes of being picked by the White Hand to unload it. But only half that is needed, the rest are left with no more than a promise from Dinny Meehan to be chosen next time.
“Where ya been?” Dago Tom asks as Burke and I shoulder through the crowd. “Dinny’s been waitin’ on ya.”
“Long morning,” I shake my head. “Looking forward to getting back to work.”
“Go see Dinny first, g’ahead,” Dago Tom’s eyes are downcast and disquieted.
Why does Dinny wait for me. Is there something wrong? I’ve had enough problems for one day.
Spread out under the looming steamship, Dinny’s inner circle of dockbosses and chosen few stand as if a public execution is at hand as the New York Harbor moans and rattles with a thousand cascading sounds. Barge horns bleat low and long on the water and provides a bass line for the whistling harmonies and trebled yowls of the working class Brooklyn melody.
To Dinny’s left, Vincent Maher leans against the ship door on the long dock with arms folded. His handsome face stares coldly ahead with the handle of a .38 snub-nose protruding from his tight pants and unbuckled belt, thick hair falling over ears in pointy black shards.
To the right is the horse-face of The Swede, sallow and cruel-eyed. As he notices me his milk-white, feathery hair moves with the windy currents atop his ugly mug. At a height of some six-feet and five-inches, he is inhumanely tall for our day.
I turn to Beat McGarry, “What’s going on?”
“Ya don’ know? I thought ya was one o’ them now?” With his lips, Beat points in the direction of Dinny across the dock, then moves away from me.
To keep warm amidst the bitter East River drafts, we jostle and stamp in place. I am among one hundred loyal White Hand men who face Dinny and his inner circle on the raised dock. Before I can push through to join them, Harry steps forward halfway between as if sequestered. He faces Dinny with his back to us and his hands clasped behind in supplication.
“Harry Reynolds,” Dinny’s voice booms out and a silence comes across the waterfront until far to the south we can hear a pier whistle shriek in the distance.
Harry throws a hard glance over his shoulder in my direction, and my stomach turns.
What’s happening?
Ahead the ship towers over us all along the terminal where Harry Reynolds has silently and dutifully led under Dinny Meehan’s command since the White Hand came into power some six years ago.
A squeaky shed door opens at the end of the dock from which appears Tanner Smith, who pridefully stands next to Dinny himself. Men mumble round me at Tanner’s presence. Chiding whispers, are they. Borne of his betrayal of both Dinny and our ILA ally, Thos Carmody.
Harry breaks the silence and calls out, “I only meant to help ya fam’ly.”
“By going to my home again? When I’m locked up?” Dinny stares coldly.
“What is this?” I turn to Dance and Dago Tom.
“Ya big day, Liam,” Dago says.
“What does that mean?”
But I’ll have none of it, I won’t. I step forward and to Harry’s side in order to face consequence with him.
“Man,” I address Dinny, “It was me that sent Sadie away—”
“Shh,” Vincent hushes without moving his eyes from Harry.
Cinders Connolly steps forward next to me, “Man, I asked Harry —”
“Quiet,” The Swede yells.
The sea air twists and turns, unsettled. At first it comes from the East, then shifts to the south as we await judgment.
“I had already told ya not to go there under any circumstance,” Dinny says.
Standing next to me Harry does not blink or look away as a tugboat spouts in echo in the waterway distance.
“Most o’ us here know what ya’d done,” Dinny says. “All o’ us know the pledge ya swore. An’ ya betrayed it at the worst time. . . Now it’s time we part ways.”
Harry’s eyes slowly move up to Dinny’s, “I swore two pledges. An’ cannot abide by the allegiance to one without betrayin’ the other.”
I turn to Harry, “What pledges?”
“I told ya, Liam. Quiet!” Vincent says.
Why won’t anyone tell me what happened back then?
“We’ll go through the men for a vote,” Dinny announces
The Swede comes to Dinny’s side and looks at Harry, “Can’t never trust a man who breaks his promise.”
“Vincent, ya’re next” Dinny calls, and Vincent walks up angrily to stare at Harry. But it is obvious that he is tortured by the decision as tresses of windblown hair fall in his eyes. Vincent knows the temptation to defy Dinny Meehan, as the Italian Black Hand has regularly offered him to switch allegiances. Here, his face hardens again on Harry. He clears his throat and speaks a single, somber word, “Go.”
Dinny summons Cinders Connolly.
Cinders shakes his head. “Harry’s too valuable. An’ Liam’s far too young to take over the Atlantic Terminal.”
I turn to Harry, “What did he say? What did Cinders just say?”
“Ya gonna be the dockboss o’ Atlantic now,” Harry looks me dead in the eyes.
“I can’t be a dockboss. I’m not ready for anything like that.”
Dinny walks up when he hears Harry and I, “Yeah well, smooth seas make slipshod sailors. No one’s ever ready. Change alway
s comes unexpected, unannounced, stirrin’ up fear and doubt. But we have to move wit’ it. It doesn’t serve to struggle against change. Our time is short in this world, but ya were born for this, Liam.”
Both Dinny and Harry hold stares at me until I turn to Dinny angrily, “You speak of change? The man who all call a luddite?”
“Liam,” Harry touches my arm. “That was Wolcott said that. Ya quote Wolcott against the man?”
“You weren’t even there.”
“It’s done, Liam,” Harry says.
“Done means done,” Dinny confirms.
But Cinders is not done, “Harry made a mistake goin’ to ya place again. But lucky he did. If he hadn’t made that mistake, Garry Barry’d’ve burnt ya home to ashes.”
“Whadda ya say,” Dinny turns sideways to request Cinders’ vote.
Normally an affable and generous fellow, Cinders bares his long eyeteeth, “I say it ain’t Harry’s fault that Mickey Kane was killt. We all know Mickey was the future o’ us. But wit’out him we must not only mourn one o’ our own, we must also reconsider the future. But this? This? We weaken ourselves even further wit’ this. We gotta keep Harry Reynolds. I hate sayin’ this, but it’s gotta be said, Liam don’ hold sway like Harry. It’s a fact,” he turns to me with sorrowful eyes.
Dinny turns to The Lark.
“I say what ya’d say yaself, man. My vote’s aye,” The Lark mumbles with his arms crossed over his chest. “Ya say he goes, he goes. Liam ya’re up, but ya gotta square things wit’ Petey Behan at the least.”
The sting of pride burns me. When a man loses a fistfight in Irishtown it’s said the winner takes ownership of the loser’s repute. It’s an old notion, but old notions still ring true here and feeds the flame of pride in men.
Dinny quickly nods toward Red Donnelly.
“I vote aye on Harry, but ya can’t send the kid to the Atlantic Terminal, it’s too dangerous for him. He ain’t proven,” Red says. “No one’ll wanna listen to a fella whose manhood is owned by another. Liam’s also know for bein’ a murderer o’ kin. That can be good, but not if he don’ own his own manhood.”
Again with my uncle’s memory. Will I ever get past that?
“An’ look what Richie did to ya,” The Swede calls out, turning Red’s cheeks redder. “He beat ya to sleep, remember? Yet ya hold down the Navy Yard just fine.”
I shake my head at that. I never thought the day would come when The Swede would argue my case.
“Liam’s only worked the Jay Street Terminal for a couple weeks,” Red yells back. “He did well, and that’s fine, but if Lovett comes up from the south? Forget about it.”
The Lark throws out his chest, “They first gotta come through the Baltic Terminal to get to Atlantic. They do that, an’ we’ll crush them. Plus we’re so close we can give him support if Liam needs it.”
“If yaz won’t accept Liam, then I’ll take over the Atlantic Terminal,” The Swede points angrily into his own chest.
Red tilts his head, scared to say the truth; The Swede is not what he once was.
“Ya couldn’t kill Garry fookin’ Barry,” Cinders pops off. “Now look at ya, Swede.”
“I vote aye as well,” Big Dick Morissey jumps in with a baritone voice and takes the floor since it is his turn for a vote. “But ya need The Swede by ya side, man. Since Liam’s repute is sufferin’, I can take over the Atlantic Terminal. Ya know I’m as good as The Lark, an’ maybe my day’s come now. I think the world o’ Harry. But if ya say we gotta know who’s loyal, since we’re about to go to war wit’ Lovett, then maybe it’s time I step up.”
“Yaz don’ even understand what’s happenin’,” Cinders looks at Big Dick, Red and The Lark.
“Vote’s over,” Dinny turns his body in Harry’s direction. “Harry Reynolds, ya hereby eighty-sixt from the White Hand.”
Cinders shakes his head, “Fuck.”
“Go to New Jersey. Go upstate,” Dinny ticks off. “I don’ care where ya go. I see ya in Brooklyn an’ I’ll kill ya myself.”
“Jesus,” I drop my crossed arms. “I didn’t even get to vote.”
“It’s already outta ya vote’s reach,” Dinny assures. “Five to one. Five to two makes no difference.”
Harry nods his head solemnly. He had not shown any emotion during his indictment and does not now either. He takes a shiv from inside his coat pocket, then reaches into his trousers and pulls out a nine-inch knife and drops them both on the ground in front of him. He pushes his chin forward and quickly turns round and walks through the mass of one hundred men with nary a sound.
“Harry’s always been there for ya,” I argue.
The Swede points at me, “Ya keep ya mouth closed.”
Before walking away, I leave Dinny with one last thing, “I know you gave Harry an order. And I know he broke it. I also know that there’s no one here as capable as Harry Reynolds to fill your shoes now that Mickey’s gone.”
“If ya leave, ya don’ ever come back,” The Swede warns me.
Vincent stands in front of me to block the way. He places a hand on my chest and nods toward Dinny over my shoulder, but there is no order forthcoming.
“Let me pass,” I say under my breath.
Vincent rolls his head to one side and shrugs, then steps aside. As I bang through the men waiting to unload the steamer, I feel their eyes on me. Burke joins me too, and keeps up as I break into a dead run through the trails of entwined rail tracks and hop through two linked storage cars. At the corner of Henry Street and Atlantic Avenue I catch up to Harry along the sidewalk in front of the Atlantic-Pacific Mfg. Co under the sign that reads “Life Preservers and Ring Buoys.”
“Harry.”
He does not turn round, but looks in the direction of my shoes from the side of his face.
“I don’t understand what just happened.”
Still he says nothing. He just stands there in his dark gray suit, black tie and Hanan boots.
“Where will you go?”
“Dunno,” he manages.
The wind from the bottom of the street crawls up our backs as sheets of half-crumpled paper and candy wrappers dance along the corner of the building and settles eventually in the slushy grates of a sewer on Henry Street.
“Harry.”
“Don’ thank me,” he says, well aware of what I am about to say. “Ya already did that by comin’ after me.”
“But what did you do?” I dare to come close to his shoulder. “Back before I came to Brooklyn, something happened between you and him. What was it? Tell me.”
A deep growl rumbles in his chest, “We all got things we done. Things that we’re not proud o’ an’ don’ want nobody to know about. There are things ya did too, that I know ya don’ wanna talk about. That ya don’ want ya mother an’ sisters to ever know about. I’m no different. We’re all just tryin’ to survive. Any way we can. Ya did a terrible thing so that ya could get ya fam’ly to safety. In the end though, overall, it’s not so terrible, is it? What ya did? In the end, it’s nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
“Well—”
“I’ve stuck to the pledges I’ve made as best I can, even when they contradict each other. For the rest o’ my days I’ll honor them. ’til the day I die, at least.”
“I know you pledged your loyalty to Dinny, but what’s the other one?”
Harry shakes his head, “If it’s all about fam’ly, it’s alright, right? We just want a better way. A better day for them. We’ll sacrifice ourselves for the hope that they’ll have a better life. That’s why ya did what ya did, right? Fam’ly?”
“But—”
“Some o’ us got no fam’ly. None. No parents. No siblin’s. No kin whatsoever. For people like me it’s a dream, havin’ a fam’ly,” he turns his head in my direction without looking at me. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. This? What we have? This was my fam’ly. Or as close to my fam’ly as I could get.”
“Ya’re always welcome in my fam
ily.”
He shakes his head again and begins to speak, then runs fingers through his hair.
“What?” I step closer. “Say it.”
He shakes it off and turns his eyes to mine, “It’s ya time to step forward now.”
“I can’t be a dockboss. It’s a jape to think I could do that job. I’m not ready for it. I have to tell them—”
“I already taught ya everythin’ ya need to know,” Harry says.
“But I worry that I put my family at risk and if—”
The most important thing of all.
“If I’m doing the right thing. If what we are doing as a whole is good or benevolent. Like, are we the villains that people say we are? Or do we fight for good?”
Harry ponders that for a moment, “They never wanted this work, they just want to control it so that we can do nothin’ but shovel shit against the tide. They vilify us for what? Ensurin’ our fam’lies are fed by controllin’ the labor racket? Controllin’ our own destiny? If that’s a villain, I don’ wanna be a hero.”
He takes a deep breath and lays a hand on my shoulder, “In a rotten world, good eggs stink. Ya’re a good egg, Liam. To them ya smell rancid. Take heart an’ be sure o’ this; the White Hand does good too. An’ just now it honors ya. It’d only be bad if ya refused the call.”
“It also honors Tanner Smith, doesn’t it? While dishonoring you.”
Harry points into my chest and taps three times, “Don’ believe everythin’ ya hear.”
What does that mean?
But Harry turns round to walk east on Atlantic Avenue away from the terminal.
“What about what I see?” I call to his back. “A witness is he who saw.”
“Don’ believe all that either.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
But Harry has gone. He walks in front of a wain just as a gust of wind had kicked, and caused garbage to tumble across the cobblestones and up into the opposite sidewalk. Harry had gone and did not look back.
Life is Due
The cast iron gray clouds move slowly above like a river of molten ash. Below it, white plumes of mist spill along the water and obscure the distance with chalky and churning bluffs. The Statue of Liberty’s shape comes into view here and there, only to be swallowed again by the veil.
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 19
