The Ryer Avenue Story: A Novel

by Dorothy Uhnak

  “Okay, slugger, what? C’mon, give, what do you want to say?”

  “Friend to friend, right?” He nodded. “Well, I know Patsy’s going out with boys and all. Okay, that’s her, that’s not me. But, Danny, I’m not sure if I’m ever gonna go out with boys and all that stuff. I mean …”

  “Mean, what? What are you getting at?”

  “Look. All I want is this. Just once. To say good-bye. Show me what it’s like to kiss a boy good-bye.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I never kissed a boy good-bye.”

  She turned her face up to him.

  For the first time since that night on the hill when he pulled her on the sled away from where Walter Stachiew lay battered and bloody, Dante D’Angelo was struck by the delicacy of her beauty.

  He leaned down and very gently kissed Megan on the lips. He held the kiss for longer than he had intended. He felt the warmth and stirring of something more than friendship. His hand touched her cheek lightly and he pulled back.

  “Good-bye, Megan. See you next time.”

  “Good-bye, Danny. Thank you.”

  “Hey,” he said, “what’s a friend for?”

  It was amazing how many people felt they had the right to tell Megan Magee how to live when she returned from the rehab clinic to continue her freshman year at St. Simon Stock High School. She had kept up with the work for the last six months, so academically she was prepared.

  Her father told her just to be herself. Well, who the hell else could she be? As if she had a choice. And Father Kelly told her to take things slow and easy at first. She was to give the other kids a chance to get used to her. Get used to her leg. Terrific.

  Sister Mary Frances met her one day as Megan was on her way home and told her that she should give thought to the possibility that God had marked her as “one of His own special girls.” Had Megan ever really given serious thought to taking vows? Had she ever considered that this deformity might be God’s way of showing her just how special she was in His eyes? Megan bit her tongue and shrugged. What could she possibly say to this nuthead without getting into serious trouble, since all of her immediate responses, bitten back quickly, were rough wisecracks?

  Her mother told her not to expect special privileges. She was still responsible for making her bed and picking up her clothes and doing her homework and taking her turn at the dishes. Thank you a whole lot, Mom.

  Her little sister, Elizabeth, offered to show her how to knit. Megan told her what to do with the knitting needles and the wool and the sweater instructions and warned what would happen to her if she told.

  Even that warped little creep, Willie Paycek, thought he had the right to approach her. She set him straight in a hurry. He was a rotten, mean bastard and nothing would ever change that.

  He followed her home one Saturday afternoon as she went up the hill on Ryer Avenue after a double feature, two serials, and two cartoons at the Avalon. All for seventeen cents.

  She felt him behind her, before she actually saw him.

  “Hey, Megan, you comin’ from the Avvie too? Good pictures, huh? You like the movies?”

  “Yeah. Some of them.” She could be civil to him, what the hell.

  “That leg, it must be tough, huh?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “I mean, that sort of makes you different from what you used to be, doesn’t it? I mean, it sort of changes things for you, don’t it?”

  Megan stopped walking, turned, and glared at Willie. She was about two inches taller than her tormentor.

  “Willie, go take a flying leap, okay?”

  “Well, at least I could take a flying leap, right? I mean, you can’t even walk so good anymore, never mind running and stuff.”

  Megan felt her fingers roll into tight fists. She was fourteen years old. Too old to flat-out belt someone. Probably.

  “Willie, what’s your problem? Whadda ya want?”

  Willie Paycek shrugged. “Hell, I’m just trying to be friendly, Megan. You don’t have your best friend, Patsy, anymore, do you, so maybe you and me could be friends.”

  “Get lost, Willie.”

  He smiled. It was a smile too old for a young boy’s face. It was cruel and insinuating. “You lost your girlfriend, huh? That must be tough. I hear she likes boys now, in the regular way. The normal way. Like she and you used to like each other. You know—like freaky girls.”

  Megan froze. The boy’s face was a mask, grinning, insinuating things she barely understood. “Freaky girls? I’ll tell you who’s a freak, Paycek. What kinda boy pulls his little brother’s pants down and charges a penny to look because the poor kid hasn’t got what he’s supposed to have? You still doing that, Willie? And how about you, Willie? You got what you’re supposed to have, you little creep?”

  Willie ran his hand up and down his fly. “Wanna see, Megan? Wanna see what you got missin’ … one of nature’s mistakes, Megan. You’re the freak here.”

  Her right fist lashed out so fast that Willie never even saw what knocked him to the ground. She stood over him, feet wide apart.

  “Wanna see what I can do with my heavy club foot, Willie? I could crush you to nothing, you little prick.”

  She turned and walked away, trying, God, trying so hard not to rock from side to side, but she heard him wailing after her, over and over, Willie, the little bastard, “Cripple! Cripple! Cripple! Freak, freak, freak!”

  It took every ounce of resolve for her to keep going, not to turn back. Don’t hear him; don’t let him get to you.

  But of course, everything Willie Paycek had said got to her and burned into her very being.

  She saw Patsy around the neighborhood, sometimes with a group of girls, on their way up to Fordham Road to shop at Alexander’s department store, or going to the movies or just walking around. Patsy always seemed to be smiling, laughing, having a great time. Megan saw her sometimes with a boy, holding hands, looking up at him like he was made of gold. Simpering, grinning, laughing at everything the guy said.

  She was so jealous at times, she could hardly breathe. And she didn’t know if she was jealous of the boy or of Patsy or of the life Patsy was living. She didn’t know how to handle the intense pain of being left out.

  Megan concentrated fiercely on her schoolwork. For all of her four years at St. Simon High, she was the top student. Not the top girl, the top student. She was two months shy of her seventeenth birthday when she graduated.

  She had been accepted at Marymount, an expensive, top-line Catholic women’s college in Westchester. She would live in a dormitory during the week and come home on weekends. Her father told her how lucky she was, to be going on to college. The first one, boy or girl, in the Magee family.

  The summer of her graduation from high school, her father got her a job working in John Daly’s Real Estate and Insurance Company, up on Fordham Road. Twenty-two-fifty a week; after taxes, eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents. She opened a savings account at the Bronx Dollar Savings Bank. She deposited ten dollars a week toward clothing and other expenses at college. The rest of the money she could spend as she pleased.

  Her father thought she was preparing to become a schoolteacher. Megan had no intention in the world of standing in front of a class of kids who would call her “cripple.” Or to teach in a school for handicapped kids, as an example of what they could become if they really worked hard.

  She knew she wanted to become something professional. She wanted to prepare herself to take care of herself for the rest of her life. No boy was knocking at her door to get married.

  She had her boy friends. Not boyfriends. Just the guys from the neighborhood who, through the years, accepted her exactly as she was: still Megan, still able to sink a basket, smack a rubber ball with a sawed-off broomstick. Maybe she couldn’t move smoothly, but she could move, and she never asked for favors. She was comfortable with the boys; she trusted them. There was no special girlfriend, since Patsy. She was cordial and polite but very careful to ignore any overtures from any
girls; she could never trust a girl again. They were treacherous.

  Her one friend, besides her cousin Charley O’Brien, was Danny D’Angelo. He was the one person she trusted totally. He never treated her in any special way, never made her feel different, that he was being nice to “the cripple kid.”

  Sometimes he took her to the Paradise. Not a date, just a night at the movies, when neither of them had too much schoolwork. Danny was prelaw at Fordham.

  He also never treated her like a girlfriend. Just a pal.

  Megan wasn’t sure how to handle that. She wanted it both ways. Wanted Danny to hold hands with her; to whisper to her in the movies; to look at her in a certain way. But still it was good to know that she could turn to him for advice, could confide in him when she needed to.

  It was to Dante that she told her secret: she didn’t want to go to Marymount. She’d had enough of Catholic school. She had her heart set on Hunter College, where all the smart Jewish girls went. There was no fooling around with the Hunter girls. They went for an education, not to put in time waiting for some boy to come along and take care of the rest of their lives.

  “Well, I’d say you’ll have to negotiate that one with your father, Megan. He respects you enough to listen to you, at least. But have your arguments ready and be prepared for his objections. You have to go one-on-one with him, and your dad’s a really smart guy. You know, you’re the first in your family to go to college, just like I am. Our parents are a bit awed by us; you have to be ready to tell him why you think Hunter would be better for you than Marymount.”

  She took a deep breath. This was the first time she had ever said this out loud. “Because they have a good premed and I want to be a doctor.”

  Danny whistled. “Wow.”

  “There’s more.” Megan hesitated. “This isn’t something I just thought up. I’ve been thinking about it since I was in rehab.”

  Besides all the physical therapy, the painful daily workouts, twice a week Megan had a session with the staff psychiatrist, a fairly young woman with bright eyes, a soft voice, a reassuring manner. Megan had found out she could say anything at all. It was better than confession; she didn’t have to do penance, just learn to understand some of the things that had been bothering her. She wanted to become a psychiatrist.

  “I want to learn how to do what she does, Danny. How to make people feel … good. Not just sick people but, you know, people who need help.”

  “Then level with your dad. Let him know exactly how serious you are.” Danny reached across the luncheonette table and helped himself to her bottle of Coke, took a long drink, then said thoughtfully, “Okay, I’m talking now as your attorney, right? You’re my first client. Here’s my advice. You offer Frankie Magee a quid pro quo. An exchange, something for something.”

  “Quid pro quo. Okay, what have I got to offer him?”

  “He saves four years of tuition by your going to Hunter. He saves that money for medical school. You get your education, he gets a doctor in the family.”

  “You think I should tell him what kind of doctor I want to be?”

  “I think you should do it one step at a time. It’s pretty tough to get into medical school, you know. Ben Herskel was telling me he’s got a cousin who’s going to Scotland to go to medical school. He couldn’t get into any American school because of the quota. Against Jews.”

  “Quota? Against Jews? Why? I don’t get it.”

  “I guess because they’re so damn smart. And ambitious. The medical colleges are afraid they’d have nothing but smart Jewish kids going to be doctors. I don’t think it’ll be easy for a girl to get into medical school, Megan.”

  She stiffened; chin up; tough guy. “I got the grades. I’ll get the grades at Hunter. I can compete with anybody. Right?”

  “Hey, I’m on your side, remember? Well, anyway, it’ll be okay for you. You got the right rabbi.”

  “The right rabbi? What the hell does that mean? One minute you’re saying Jews can’t get in, and then you’re talking about a rabbi. What rabbi?”

  “In the political sense. A rabbi is someone with a lot of clout. Someone in a position to make deals, trades, a favor for a favor. Your dad is one of the strongest deal-makers in the Bronx. He’s a power. Didn’t you know that?”

  “My dad?”

  “Well, what do you think your father does for a living?”

  She shrugged. It wasn’t something she had really thought about. “He works for the Party. He does … I don’t know. Whatever. He helps a lot of the neighborhood people get jobs and their kids get summer jobs and into good schools and stuff …”

  She nodded. Yes, her father had influence in many areas.

  “Quid pro quo, kiddo. That’s your father’s world. Favor for favor. He’s a very powerful man. He’s able to get kids into law school, med school. Hell, I might need him someday to help me get into Columbia Law School. They’re not too thrilled with Italians.”

  “My dad, he can do that?”

  “And a lot of other things.”

  Megan looked down, played with her straw, drawing it in and out of a puddle on the table. She lowered her voice.

  “So let’s say you want a favor from him. So what do you give him back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked directly into Dante’s eyes. “Do you tell him you’ve been a good friend to his kid? His little cripple daughter who hasn’t got other friends, so maybe Frankie Magee owes you? Is that how it works?”

  Dante froze. His face stiffened with anger; his eyes blazed. He looked away from her, ran his hand roughly over his face, shook his head. His controlled anger was frightening.

  He leaned across the table. “You little jerk. You goddamn little jerk. Is that what you think? That I’m your friend because of what your father might be able to do for me? Is that all you know about friendship, Megan? Jesus. I’d like to knock you right off your seat. Damn you, Megan, don’t you trust anyone? Don’t you even realize what you just said to me?”

  She hunched her shoulders and shook her head. “Danny. I … I just …”

  He reached across the table and jerked her face up, forcing her to look at him. “You better learn what friendship is, kiddo. Do you really think … all these years … do you think …” He ran out of words, dropped his hands, shook his head.

  He saw the long stream of tears down her cheeks, watched as she brushed her face roughly with the back of her hand.

  “Danny, I’m sorry. Honest. I just said it … without thinking. I didn’t really mean it.”

  “Megan,” he said softly, “don’t you trust me? Because I trust you more than anyone else I know. You should know that by now. We talk about things, you and I, and we confide in each other and … listen, I wouldn’t care if your old man was a tap-dancing clown in the circus. That has nothing to do with us. You either believe that or you don’t. I think you better tell me right now. Do you consider me your friend, or do you think I’ve been planning, all these years, to use you, to …”

  She tried, weakly, for a joke. “A tap-dancing clown in the circus?”

  He didn’t smile. It was too serious. “I’m gonna tell you something, Megan, and you better remember it. I know Patsy hurt you a lot. But that was her. Not me. And not other people, either. You better take people one by one, starting with me. You got that?”

  She nodded. Finally they slid out from the table and he followed her out of the luncheonette. She looked over her shoulder at him.

  “So you wanna race me to the corner? I’ll give you a head start.”

  He wrapped his arm around her neck, pulled her along, teasing. They were walking without looking, and they slammed into Patsy Wagner and her latest boyfriend. They were holding hands, giggling, flirting.

  “Whoops, sorry,” Dante said. They exchanged greetings cautiously, Patsy rubbing her hand up and down her escort’s arm, glancing at him possessively.

  Dante put his arm around Megan’s shoulders, leaned over, and lightly kissed her o
n the lips.

  “I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going. When I’m around this girl … well, what can I tell ya?”

  They watched the other couple enter Herskel’s. Megan felt light and free and giddy. Not even the drag of her heavy brace held her down for the moment. “Thank you, Danny,” she whispered.

  Frankie Magee did not make it easy for her. Megan knew that if she had been little Elizabeth with her fat yellow sausage curls and her round, damp blue eyes who had gotten polio, the whole world would have stopped in its orbit. Whatever little Lizzie wants, after all, the poor little kid.

  No one, least of all her father, ever considered Megan a poor little anything. Usually this was the way she wanted it, but hell, sometimes it would be nice. Just to make things a little easier. But like hell he would do that.

  The only times she ever confronted her father in his small office in the basement came when she’d done something wrong. She’d have to sit across the desk from him and explain herself, get caught up, under his tight probing questions, in her own lies. Why the hell should she feel so tense now, so defensive, so scared? Because Frankie Magee could be a very intimidating man.

  “And when did you make all these major decisions about your life, may I ask? I thought it was all set and decided on. Marymount up in Tarrytown—and a finer school a fortunate young girl couldn’t ask for. Prepares young girls to be good teachers. A teaching degree would serve you well all your life. Medical school? Jeez, Megan, how did you decide on that? I thought it was all set, you at Marymount.”

  “Daddy, you decided Marymount, you and Father Kelly. And I did talk to him about Hunter College. He agreed with me that even though it’s a public school, it’s one of the most highly rated, academically, in the country. And all girls, the same as Tarrytown, so all the students there are serious about their education. No fooling around and stuff. And there’s no tuition—just the cost of books and labs and things. And I could pay for all that with what I earn this summer. And I could work after school, a few hours every week, until the work gets really intense …”