Sons From Afar

by Cynthia Voigt

  James let Sammy have the window seat. This was his brother’s trip. He reviewed the financial position, as the bus moved out of Easton and onto the highway, crossed the Bay Bridge and went into Annapolis to let off and pick up passengers. Sammy’s twenty dollars was all they had left, so if they missed the evening bus back down to Easton they’d need to spend the night in Baltimore. There were places, like the Y, where you could sleep overnight for only a couple of dollars. Those places were safe enough. You could eat pretty cheaply if you had to, doughnuts and milk, or hot cereal; breakfast wasn’t an expensive meal. Sandwiches or hamburgers—you could probably feed two fine for not more than five or seven dollars. It would be close, but they had things covered. Besides, they could go without eating a day; nobody starved to death in a day; so the worst possibility was safe enough. Anyway, they’d just eaten a couple of huge sandwiches apiece, which Sammy had packed for them, and cookies and oranges; so that would hold them for a while. It was lucky, too, because James had just plunked down all but a couple of dollars of two weeks’ wages for those round-trip tickets. Sammy was carrying the rest of the money, but it was enough. Unless something like being mugged and robbed happened, they’d be okay. And they could always call Mr. Lingerle, if they needed help. James thought, he’d thought of everything you could think of in advance. He leaned back in his seat, smelling the conditioned air of the bus. He didn’t much like its flavor, but it wasn’t as bad as the diesel fumes the bus trailed behind it.

  The route the bus took followed the main highway, but cut off it to the left and right to stop in the little towns along the way. The highway was lined with new shopping centers that had big chain stores and four movie theaters together, and with old roadside businesses—bars, food stands, garages surrounded by cars that had been in accidents. It was a couple of hours before they approached Baltimore itself. They traveled then without stopping, through a belt of industrial parks with boxy windowless buildings in thick rows, past little houses packed close in together, and then along the rebuilt area around the harbor, where the fancy aquarium poked right out into the harbor. At the bus terminal Sammy stood up before the engines had even stopped. He and James were the first ones off. “We’ve got a ways to walk,” Sammy told James. “It’s a couple of miles. Let’s get going.”

  Sammy turned to walk off. James just followed. At least, when they went to Cambridge, James had explained where they were going.

  “It’s down by Fort McHenry,” Sammy said.

  “That’s where the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ was written,” James said. He didn’t ask what it was. “You want to take a look at it? The War of 1812,” he explained. “The British came up the Chesapeake Bay. I guess, Baltimore was a more important city then.” Sammy just moved along the crowded sidewalk, moving between and around the other people. James stayed beside him. “The prime military targets have changed entirely, now. Nobody’d bother bombing Baltimore now.”

  “I can see why,” Sammy said.

  James looked around him. Crowded streets—crowded with lanes of traffic, cars and trucks and buses; crowded with the sounds of motors working and horns hooting, and with the heat-swollen odors of gas engines—the crowded street ran between sidewalks crowded with people either walking along or waiting in lines at a bus stop. The people in cars, except for a few that had their windows down and radios blaring out, rode sealed in, windows rolled up tight, air-conditioned; but the people on the sidewalks, or clustered at crossings, talked to one another or studied the displays that crowded store windows. You never saw the same face twice. Each building, even though they were all similar in their mass and general design, had its individuality, in molded ledges under upper story windows or in the way blocks of glass and steel had been put together in the more modern buildings. The sidewalk was filmed with black, grimy dirt, and so were the store windows. Papers and empty food containers, cigar ends and cigarette butts, puddles of melted ice cream, all kinds of litter, edged the sidewalk and gathered in the gutters. He wished the city was cleaner, because it was so filled with life and variety and possibility, all swirling around, filled with energy and with going places. All ages, colors, sizes, shapes of people moved past them or along with them. James could have spent the whole afternoon just walking up and down that street, his brain trying to take in and remember everything he was seeing and hearing, his brain working away on what he was seeing and hearing, wondering.

  But Sammy turned them off to the right, onto a street than ran beside a highway. They walked parallel to the harbor, through open areas, open lots, and occasional clusters of newly built row houses with straggly grass struggling up through packed dirt, with narrow windows on their brick façades, like old-fashioned border fortifications where the windows were just wide enough to let a bowman shoot through. James was interested by the ways in which the architects and city planners had contrived to make this development look both attractive and safe to potential home-buyers. Nobody was outside, although a couple of lawns were being sprinkled.

  “I hate this place,” Sammy said. James didn’t answer, because he was busy looking and thinking, but he didn’t agree. The downtown needed cleaning up, and this area needed time for the grass and scrawny trees to do some growing, but that was all. And there was so much life packed into such a small area.

  They moved on, to older, unimproved blocks, where older row houses crowded up close to the sidewalks and leaned up against one another. Here, people sat on stoops and watched the two boys walking along. Here James began to get nervous, to listen for footsteps following them. It was something to do with the doorways that had two-by-fours nailed in a cross to keep them closed, to keep people from breaking in. Something to do with windows that had been broken and not mended, their curtains hanging out into the heavy air. Little kids quarreled and ran around on the cracked sidewalks. No lawns, no trees, and plenty of expressionless faces, expressionless eyes looking at the two of them. What did they see, James wondered: just two kids, one young but broad-backed, strong-looking; one taller and bonier; both in jeans and sneakers with sweaters hung around their waists in case the day grew cold.

  James felt vaguely threatened. He didn’t know how Sammy felt. He looked at his brother, and saw that Sammy’s round head was cocked back a little, and his shoulders were squared. Sammy’s eyes kind of danced and he looked around him, to the side, ahead, with a little smile of excitement at the ends of his mouth. Sammy looked sure of himself, which James wasn’t sure was any too smart around this place. Around here, it was smarter to look invisible, that was his guess. Sammy was walking along like if anyone wanted to fight he was ready, and happy, to oblige.

  Sammy turned off the street to go on beside a park area, with the harbor visible sometimes along to their left. Sailing boats were moored here, sleek white yachts, their sails furled along the booms and covered with weather-resistant fitted covers. Trees spread out along grassy parkland.

  “How far is it?” James asked.

  Sammy didn’t hesitate. “We’re past halfway.”

  “What did you do, memorize the map?”

  “I couldn’t afford to buy it, could I? I’ve got a good memory. Don’t worry.”

  They walked on. Their route skirted the edge of the harbor, running behind big warehouses, and docks where cranes drew up high into the air. An occasional dock was busy with people unloading a freighter. Sammy didn’t stop to look at any of this. They were the only ones on the sidewalk.

  Sammy led James inland, onto something called Fort Street. They crossed over railroad tracks, empty and rusted, and into a more densely inhabited area. It was densely inhabited, but not prosperous. When Sammy had found the building he wanted, another square brick one with carved cement over its doorway, he walked up the steps and into it, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. “This is the place where people come to get hired to work on boats,” he said. James just nodded. Inside, it was a big room, like an auditorium without any chairs. The raised stage at the end had no curtain, just blackboa
rds, like a schoolroom except that the blackboards were the old-fashioned black kind, not green. The big room was empty except for a guard sitting at a table, reading a newspaper and eating potato chips from a bag. “What do you boys want?” he asked.

  James looked at the man’s mouth. Crumbled and moist chips covered the tongue. He looked away. Let Sammy do the talking.

  “Where is everybody?” Sammy asked.

  “It’s Saturday.”

  “Ships come in and go out on Saturday,” Sammy pointed out.

  James stepped back from the conversation. He might get to see Fort McHenry after all, which would be interesting.

  “Not this Saturday,” the guard said. He picked up a can of Coke and swilled the drink around in his mouth. “You’re not allowed in here.”

  “If we wanted to find someone, a sailor, where would we look?” Sammy asked.

  “Kid,” the guard said, half amused, running his hand over his white crewcut, “there are thousands of sailors all over the world. Up to God knows what. I don’t know where you’d look. Is it your brother or something?”

  “Yeah,” Sammy said. He stood there, waiting.

  “Does he have a name?” the man asked, sarcastic. He put his hand into the bag of chips, and took out a handful, which he crammed into his mouth. “I’ve been sitting here for four years, ever since they put my pacemaker in. I know almost everyone.”

  Sammy threw the name down defiantly, “Verricker.”

  The man leaned back to laugh, his mouth open. Then he pointed out, “He’s never your brother.”

  “You said or something.”

  This was like some kind of contest, James thought. Like some kind of game they were playing. The man knew their father, knew his name at least, but he didn’t say that directly. Sammy was playing the game as if he knew how. James felt uncomfortable, not knowing the rules, and frightened a little at the hostility behind the game. He wondered how Sammy managed to miss the hostility.

  “If he owes you money, I’d say you didn’t have a chance. There are a lot bigger men in line for Frankie Verricker, all of them ahead of you. You better go home, kid.”

  “Is he around?” Sammy asked. He stood there, straight and not moving, his hair the only bright thing in the hollow room. James watched his brother, and waited.

  “Frankie’s never around when you want him. That’s his way. I haven’t seen him in here for—it must be almost three years now. Or heard of him being around. And believe me, if he’d been here word would have spread. There are always some people waiting to catch up with Frankie Verricker.” The guard took another drink, another swallow.

  Sammy stood there.

  “Unless he’s been here and they caught up with him and he’ll never show up anywhere again,” the guard said.

  Sammy stood. James was ready to leave.

  “Tell you what, kid,” the guard finally said. “If you want some news more up-to-date, you should go down to a place called Al’s. It’s about three blocks from here. Head toward the water and ask if the chief is in there.”

  “The chief? What is he, an Indian?”

  The guard laughed again. “I wouldn’t let him hear you say that, if I were you. The chief’s a pure-blood white American and he wants to keep things that way. He’s a chief mate, first mate.”

  “But there must be lots of those. How will I know which is him?” Sammy insisted.

  “You’ll know,” the guard assured him. “If anyone knows anything about Frankie’s whereabouts, it’ll be the chief. He’s had a keen interest in old Frankie for a long time. Now get out of here, both of you.”

  That was the end of that, James knew. They couldn’t go into a bar. Besides, nobody knew where their father was. They’d walk back to the bus station, call Mr. Lingerle to meet the evening bus, and have dinner. He was ready to be out of this part of town.

  Back on the street, Sammy turned without a word and went in the opposite direction from James. “Not that way,” James said.

  “I want to see if this chief is around,” Sammy said.

  “We can’t go into a bar,” James argued. “We’re underage. It’s against the law.”

  “We can try,” Sammy said. His face was locked into its stubborn look, jaw set, eyes not focusing on anything in particular. “All they can do is throw us out. You can go back if you want to.”

  Sammy knew James couldn’t do that. Not alone. “We’ll miss the bus,” James said.

  “So what.”

  “What’s got into you, Sammy?” James demanded.

  Sammy shrugged and didn’t say anything. Then he said, still not looking at anything, “We’re close. We’re really close. It’s no time to turn tail.”

  “I’m not turning tail,” James told his brother, because if Sammy thought James couldn’t think, couldn’t feel this hostility, couldn’t look ahead and see a door about to be slammed in his face, then Sammy was underestimating him. “You don’t think you’ll actually find him, do you? And if you did find him, what would you say, anyway?”

  Sammy grinned. He looked right at James, grinning. “Nothing. I don’t have anything to say. I’d just like to punch him out.” James thought it sounded like he meant what he said; and he probably did mean it, knowing Sammy. James couldn’t stop him, and he didn’t see anything funny. But he couldn’t let Sammy go alone. He didn’t want to wait alone either. Not around here.

  “Come on, James,” Sammy said.

  James followed along beside his brother.

  CHAPTER 13

  Al’s Bar and Grill was on a block where tall narrow houses, advertising rooms to rent by the week or month, were jammed in between small restaurants that looked too dirty to want to eat in—Mexican, Chinese, a pizza-and-sub shop, a couple of other bars. There were no trees, just the pale concrete sidewalk and narrow black street where battered cars had been parked. The early evening air seemed chilly, even though the temperature was in the seventies. James guessed, not thinking about the other things he was noticing—a man asleep against trash cans, the high shrieking woman’s voice that came from the top room of one of the houses—that the street must be a place where transients lived, people who were always staying just until they went on somewhere else. Nothing—not houses or cars or businesses—looked taken care of. Pieces of newspaper blew around at their feet, and the wire baskets the city had put out for trash at street corners stood empty. He didn’t let his eyes look down the occasional narrow alley that lay dark between two buildings.

  There was nothing to be afraid of, James told himself, not believing it. He reminded himself that he was pretty much of a coward, a real chicken. Cowards fueled their own fears, he reminded himself. He noticed that there were no kids on this street, in this part of the city; he saw neither little kids nor older kids. He’d have felt better with some kids around. He’d have felt better if the few people out at this hour on a Saturday didn’t look at the two boys as if they didn’t like them, as if they personally didn’t like them.

  James couldn’t believe that Sammy didn’t know what kind of an area they were in. He didn’t say anything, but he looked over at his brother. Sammy was just walking on along, looking like he didn’t care about anything, didn’t notice anything, heading for the neon sign that hung out over the street, spelling out AL’S BAR & GRILL in pink neon letters. Looking strong, able to take care of himself.

  James couldn’t look like that if his life depended on it. He hoped his life didn’t depend on it. “Cool it,” he muttered to himself.

  The door to Al’s stood open onto the sidewalk. James followed Sammy through a screen door where the bodies of flies had been mashed into the netting. Inside, the bar was dim, a smoky narrow room with a long bar down one side, a few battered tables down the middle, and booths along the opposite wall. It smelled of beer and latrines. A television screen added what it could to the shadowy lights. Some men sat on tall stools at the bar, watching a baseball game. Except for a solitary man hunched over his glass at a far booth, the tables and b
ooths were empty. The bartender, who was probably Al, leaned back on his elbows against the bar and watched the game. He turned around to see who had come in.

  He was a skinny little man, with lips so thin James thought for a minute he didn’t have any mouth at all. A skinny little mustache grew over his upper lip, making him look like a rat. “Bug off, you two,” he greeted them.

  James would have obeyed, but Sammy just moved on toward the bar.

  “You deaf?” the bartender asked. A couple of the men sitting there looked over, looked bored, looked back to the TV.

  Sammy leaned on the bar, like someone in a cowboy movie. James hung back, from whatever trouble his brother was about to get into. “We were told we might find a man called Chief around here,” Sammy said.

  “What do you want with the chief?”

  James studied the row of bottles lined up under the long mirror behind the bar. He studied the names and logos of the different brands of beer.

  “Just some information,” Sammy said. His voice was still high, like a kid’s, but his calmness wasn’t like a kid. James, jittery with nervousness and feeling out of place, wanted to pull on Sammy’s sleeve and tell him to be more polite, to ask him if they couldn’t please leave. Sammy acted like James wasn’t there.

  “Yeah? What kind of information?” the bartender asked. He had little black eyes that shifted from Sammy to James and back again.

  “Whether the chief is here or not, to start with,” Sammy said.

  The man gave that some thought. He watched the TV set while he thought. James watched it too; it was an Orioles game, of course.

  “And if he is, then what?” the bartender asked, his nose sharp as a rat’s.