by Marc Simon
Arthur rolled the paper wrapper into a ball and dropped it into the waste can in front of the store. He hurried back to the bench, eager to be beside his friend. A few cars drove by. Gas street lamps came on. Arthur took a sweater from his pack and draped it around his shoulders. “Jack? Robert’s coming, right?”
Around five o’clock that afternoon, thanks to a Pirates victory, the mood was festive in The Wheel, but Abe was grim as he and Alex wiggled their way into Davy’s corner table. Alex jumped onto Davy’s lap and said, “What’s this?”
“This, my boy, is a recorder. A fine musical instrument, first played in the courts of the great medieval kings of Europe, and Ireland, too, of course, by musicians and jesters alike, to entertain, inform, charm and amuse.” He held the recorder to his lips and played several bars of By the Light of the Silvery Moon. “Abe, is it all right with you if I instruct squire Alex on how to play this noble instrument, with which someday he may join the hallowed pantheons of recorder virtuosos?”
“I want to see it, Davy,” Alex said. He blew until his face turned red. “Nothing comes out.”
Four men played cards a few tables to the left, using match sticks for their wagers, since card playing for money in drinking establishments was illegal—although everyone, even the beat cops that periodically stopped in for a quick beer, knew exactly what half and whole matchsticks represented. At the far end of the bar Edward Peck tossed darts with the tottering Horshushky. Peck had long given up asking Alex to throw darts again. Everyone had, for as much as they cajoled him and his father, Alex refused and Abe was adamant—if he don’t want to, he don’t want to, and that’s the end of that.
Davy said, “What’s the matter, Abe? You look like you got a toothache.”
“It ain’t that. It’s Arthur.” Abe pulled out the note he’d found on the kitchen table when he and Alex came home from the confrontation with Hannah. Arthur apologized for not telling Abe in person, but he’d left to enlist in the army, and said that Abe needn’t worry about him, that he could prove he was eighteen, and that it was his patriotic duty to serve. He couldn’t wait until he really was eighteen, the big war was coming, and the Germans might win and we can’t let that happen, and besides, school wasn’t for him, and he and Jack Walsh were going in together, as best friends, so Abe didn’t have to worry. They’d look out for each other, he said, and please. tell Benjamin and Alex that he would be home just as soon as could.
“What am I gonna do, Davy? He’s only sixteen, a boy. He don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. I don’t even know which way he went.”
Davy put a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “Listen, I wouldn’t worry too much. A dollar to a dime says the boy will be banging on your front door about midnight tonight when his stomach starts to rumble and his gumption wears off. Not that I think his intentions are bad, mind you.”
“But what if he don’t?” Abe shuddered. What if they actually took his son? Abe could see him, stuck in a muddy foxhole with artillery shells coming down on him, or charging across some field into machine gun fire. He could get a bayonet through his stomach, or get blinded by that poison gas they were talking about. Hell, just when things was getting better for rest of the family, he had to go and pull this stunt. Abe had had enough of death already, with Irene’s passing and Ida dead in a fire. He looked at Alex. What would another loss do to him?
“Daddy.”
“What?”
“Arthur told me he’s going to bring me a German flag.”
“He told you—wait a second. You knew he was going to take off to join the army?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Alex looked at his fingers on the recorder. “He told me not to tell. Benjamin, too.”
“But you should have.” The dartboard crowd cheered as Peck hit a bull’s-eye. Abe looked up to see Delia move toward the bar with a tray of empty glasses. “Alex, you stay here. Davy, watch him for a minute, will you?” He started after her.
Davy nodded and yawned.
After his father left, Alex said, “Davy, is Daddy mad at me?”
Davy’s head slumped forward on his chest as he snored.
Alex took the recorder and slipped off the chair. He weaved his way through the tables, pausing to accept pats on the head.
*
Delia had almost reached the kitchen when Abe caught up to her. He said, “I need to talk to you.”
Delia stacked glasses on the bar. “I’m working, Romeo.” She tried to push past him.
“Come on. What’s eating you?”
Delia bumped her rear against the swinging doors, forcing them open. “How’s your little girlfriend Hannah?”
Abe was about to try to explain when Horshushky, barely able to stand, threw a meaty arm over Abe’s shoulder. With a drunk’s heavy strength, he spun him around. “Buy you a drink, Abe?”
“You stink like dead fish, Horshushky.”
“Now be nice, my Jewish friend.” He pulled him to the bar and signaled for two beers. “A toast to you and Delia Novak, the nicest piece of…the nicest gal in the joint.”
Abe let his beer sit and kept his eyes on Delia. “I ain’t got time for this, all right? What do you want?”
“What do I want? I want to know what your secret is. How come you can get into her pants when every other slob in this joint can’t get the time of day from her? No offense, but you put some kind of Jew spell on her?”
“Christ, you’re even dumber than you look.” He gulped down his beer and went back to his table.
Davy was asleep. Alex was gone.
*
On one side of The Wheel’s bathroom was a long, thigh-high trough made of corrugated tin, which served as a communal urinal. On the other side were four open wood stalls with toilets and a cold-water sink. A fly speckled light bulb hung from the ceiling.
Dr. Malkin had just finished relieving himself when the door opened and Alex wandered in, holding his recorder with both hands. He looked up at Malkin. “Nothing comes out.”
Once again an opportunity has been delivered to me, Malkin thought. Although this was not a good room for a proper examination, at least, he thought, he could get the measurements of this boy, since his father had refused to let him come near him since the mother’s death, as if it were his fault and not The Dip’s.
“Ah, my boy Mr. Alex, I can see it that you are playing it the flute.”
“It’s a recorder.”
“Aha, so it is. But also I can see it you are having no success in the playing, no? Instead of this recorder, how would you like to play it another game, to be it the doctor, like Dr. Sergei, yes? Here, I will give it to you my stethoscope so you can hear it your heart beating.” He handed Alex his stethoscope while he looked in his bag for his measuring tape.
Alex put the stethoscope on his chest. “I can’t hear it.”
“No, no, my boy, you will ruin it with your yanking and pulling. This is a medical instrument, not a toy, you put it the ends of it in your ears. It is not for the pulling, it is for the listening. You have to put the tube part here.” He motioned to his ears.
For such a little one, Malkin observed, he certainly has it much strength to stretch the tube out so far, perhaps because of the long arms. He held up the measuring tape. “Alex, my little friend, now if you would be so kind as to hold it your right arm down to your side like this, you see, so that I can make it the accurate measurement of its length. No? But perhaps I will be giving it you this piece candy, for your cooperation, yes? Here.”
Alex popped the gumdrop into his mouth and held out his hand.
“More? Now wait it just a minute, young man, I have given it the candy to you, we have made it the deal, you must first allow me to make it the measurement before you can have more.”
Alex shook his head no.
A dare, Malkin thought, I shall make it a dare for him, so I shall get my way. “Little Alex, do you know what? I will bet it to you a nickel you cannot do this
.” He stretched out his arms. “If you can do this you can have it the nickel. But I do not think you can.”
“That’s easy.” As Alex shot his arms out and held them tightly in place, Malkin quickly measured his wingspan and jotted it down on a pad of paper he’d taken from the lobby of the William Penn Hotel that morning, after the suffragette march. As he glanced at the logo, he imagined that he was the hotel’s house doctor.
Now he needed to measure the rest of his body. The legs, the feet, everything, he reasoned, they must be measured as well, for to go to the Conference on Childhood Diseases in Philadelphia at the end of August, the child’s measurements, they must be on the application, must be specifically recorded at various times in the child’s growth, otherwise they might think he was not a scientific doctor. To get to Philadelphia, he would have to take a train with the boy. How this could be done, especially without the father’s consent, he didn’t know, but he would find a way. When the medical experts saw his work with Alex, they would recognize that Dr. Sergei Malkin, dentist also, was a medical man to be respected for his discovery of a unique childhood condition, and no doubt there would be money in it for him, too, with Alex as his ward, for research, exhibitions and speaking engagements, teaching perhaps, God willing. No more chasing patients at Holy Roller meetings or parades.
But first he needed to get the other measurements, especially the legs and genitalia. Perhaps the growth there was abnormal as well. “All right, so I see it that you can hold them out your arms very well, as you are doing it. But I bet it you cannot do this.” Malkin shrugged off his suspenders. His heavy wool pants fell around his ankles. “This time I shall give it to you now two nickels.”
As Abe tried to shake Davy awake he felt a hand on his shoulder. “I got a few minutes now,” Delia said.
“I need to find Alex.”
She looked around the room. “Relax, he ain’t going nowhere. First you need to tell me what’s going on with this Hannah dame.”
“Look, it ain’t what you think.” Abe explained how he’d met Hannah in the first place—hell, it had been Delia’s idea to get help at the synagogue. He told her how Hannah had lived with her two spinster aunts ever since her parents died, and how she was really good to Alex, and how Alex seemed to be taking to her, too, getting along fine with her and the dog and the aunts, who made him all kinds of good old-fashioned Jewish food and bought him clothes and treated him like a little prince, which took a load off Abe’s mind, he was damn lucky to have them watch his son. “And that’s it.”
“So everything is hunky-dory with you and this girl.”
“Yeah—wait. What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s good-looking. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. How do I know you ain’t fiddling around with this Hannah? Maybe Delia ain’t good enough for you no more.”
Abe lowered his voice. “You’re plenty good.”
“You’re damn right I am.” She took his chin in her fingers. “You need a shave. But this Hannah stuff, you watch it, you hear? Besides, I got something else I need to talk to you about. It could be big for us, Abe. Very big. But I can’t talk here.”
“Yeah? Why don’t I come by tonight and you can tell me all about it.” The thought of spending the night with Delia made him momentarily forget looking for Alex and the mess with Arthur.
“Forget it…I gotta work the mansion tomorrow. I’ll come by after Sunday dinner. Now sit. I’ll find Alex for you.”
Before she could get up, the bathroom slammed open. Edward Peck had Alex on his left hip and Dr. Malkin by the collar. Malkin clutched at his trousers, which were bunched halfway between his ankles and his knees, forcing him to walk in mincing steps, which elicited catcalls and laughter from the drinkers as he struggled by them.
Alex waved at Abe. “Hi, Daddy. Dr. Malkin gave me a nickel to pull my pants down.”
“No, wait, please, I did not say it to him exactly like that.”
Abe grabbed his son from Peck. “You all right, Alex?”
Peck explained how he’d come into the bathroom moments earlier to “drain the dragon” and found Malkin with his pants down around his ankles, bent over at the waist, his head near Alex’s stomach, a tape measure in his hand. “I would have cracked his head open for him right then, Abe, but I figured you’d want to do it yourself.”
Malkin waived his arms. “But it was for the scientific research is all.”
Alex pointed at Malkin. “He wanted to play a game with me.”
Abe handed Alex to Delia. He shook Peck’s hand. Then he hit Malkin with a straight left to the nose, sending Malkin’s pince-nez flying and ultimately landing in Carl Tosca’s beer mug two tables away. “That’s one.” Abe cocked his right fist, but Peck pulled him away.
“He ain’t worth going to jail for, Abe. You see to your boy, we’ll escort this piece of dog shit to the door.”
Blood dripped from Malkin’s nose, and he dabbed it with the back of his soiled cuff. He pointed at Abe. “Nothing I did it to your boy, Miller, except to measure. You will hear it from my attorney of law about this.”
“Tell your attorney of law about this, too,” Peck said. He and Horshushky took Malkin’s arms. They dragged him across the floor, and as they passed the tables, men that were close enough smacked Malkin on the back of the head. Outside, they tossed him to the curb. A moment later, his black bag landed on top of him.
Malkin sat up and leaned his back against a trash barrel. He ran his tongue over his teeth and was relieved that no new ones were missing. He felt his nose and winced. Even without a mirror he could tell it was broken, since it angled slightly to the right.
Two young women in long dresses and felt hats walked by him arm-in-arm. The taller one asked Malkin if he were all right but the other insisted that they move on, he probably was just some drunk they’d thrown out of the bar and that she didn’t want some soused-up rummy pawing at her or throwing up on her new patent leather lace-ups, which had cost her almost two dollars.
Riley the beat cop strolled around the corner, on his way to The Wheel for a sandwich and an envelope of cash from John, his fee for allowing The Wheel to host a Saturday night after-hours craps game. He tipped his hat to the two girls. The taller one pointed back at Malkin, who by this time had struggled to his feet. As he approached him, the cop said, “Everything all right, sir?”
Malkin spit out some phlegm and blood. “Yes, yes, officer, it is just an unfortunate fall I was taking over the curb.”
Riley looked at Malkin’s eye, which was almost swollen shut and had begun to turn colors. “That curb hit you a good one.”
“Yes, well, that is true, as you say, but now I must be it on my way to visit a patient that is very ill, perhaps it is she could be dying, no? So I shall be going, officer, if you do not mind it.”
Riley rested his club on Malkin’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t drink no more today if I was you, doc.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t touch it the one drop.”
Malkin limped away from the bar, his bruised ego hurting even more than his mashed nose, but despite the slings and arrows he had suffered at outraged hands, he had one thing on his mind: He had to find a way to get hold of that boy.
*
The constable tapped Arthur and Jack on the shoulders and told them there was no loitering, that it was time to go home, not knowing that going home for them was not possible, at least for that night.
The boys drifted away down the street in the feeble last light of day. They stopped at a four-story red brick building, The Wayside Hotel, with a sign that advertised clean rooms, $2.50, an amount which would consume nearly one-third of the boy’s pooled traveling money.
In the small lobby, a chunky woman with thick glasses sat on a stool behind the counter with a ledger book and a pitcher of water. She read from The House of a Thousand Candles, a romance novel ironically set in Pittsburgh. A Pekingese slept on a pillow on top of a desk behind her. She looked up over her reading glasses. “Help you boys?”
/>
Jack said, “That room for two-fifty? Do we get it for the both of us?”
The woman scratched the dog’s head. “Fifty cents extra. If you want breakfast, it’s another fifty. Hi, Cal.” She waved to an old man in a black suit walking though the lobby toward the stairway.
Arthur was all for the offer, but Jack insisted they hold out for his cousin. Finally, they agreed to wait another half hour, until it was completely dark, before they took the room.
They were sitting on a bench outside on the walk, sharing a pack of oyster crackers, when the woman came out with her dog on a pink leash. Her flowered dress came down over her feet, and as she moved it looked as if she were floating. She stopped in front of the boys. “You two still here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The little dog lifted his leg to urinate on Jack’s shoes. “Bad boy, Sparky, bad boy. Lord, the day he listens to me, it will be a miracle, praise Jesus. Won’t it, Sparky-poo? But anyhow. Now boys, I ain’t trying to pry into your plans for the evening, in the hotel business it don’t pay to pry to close, but this here establishment, we ain’t got but the one room left for tonight, and I’ll bet you a dollar to a donut in a little while from now some traveling salesman will come by needing a place for the night, or some local feller with a snoot full looking for a room to sleep it off, seeing as he can’t go home the way he is. So if I was you boys, and I didn’t have no other place to go, well, I’d grab me that room afore someone else does. But like I say, that’s your business. Come on, Sparky.”
A man and a woman walked by them, arm in arm, and entered the hotel.
The boys counted their money for the fifth time that day. Home seemed a long way off.
Chapter 21
The next morning, as Abe slept off four lagers and a shot of Old Overholt, Alex and Benjamin ate apple butter and toast at the kitchen table with the newspaper spread open before them. Benjamin scrutinized the box scores from the previous day’s games, while Alex read the front page out loud. He fired off a series of comments—strike breakers battle union, mayor calls for tax increase, arson suspected in South Side fire—maybe it was a fire like at Grandma’s house. He shivered at the memory of flames and heat and smoke. He wondered if Grandma were in Heaven with Jesus.
