City of Dreams (29 page)

A
THUNDERSTORM HAD
blown through overnight and scrubbed the air clean. So everything glimmered, every brick on every building, every cast-iron pillar and plate glass window, every length of trolley track and every horse turd, for as far as they could see.

A walk down Broadway, the father said, led through the heart of his city, “where the fine folks shop and eat and play.” And on a day like that, it would be a sin not to walk what he called the greatest street in the world. So down Broadway they went.

They passed through Madison Square, home of the famous Garden, and the boy gazed up at the yellow brick mass, the arches, the tower, the weathervane statue of Diana. As always, he slowed to admire the huntress, who happened to be naked.

“Come on, Tim. We need to see the sachem before he goes into the hall, because afterward, the high mucky-mucks have a private lunch and you can’t get near them.”

South of Madison Square was the Ladies’ Mile, a stretch of expensive shops and giant retail emporiums called department stores, where pennants fluttered from rooftops, colorful awnings shaded the street, and anyone—lady
or
gentleman—could buy almost anything from almost anywhere in the world. It was an easy walk from Hell’s Kitchen, but this magical neighborhood seemed to the boy as if it existed on another planet.

At Twentieth Street, the father pointed out the façade of Lord and Taylor’s, wrapping the southwest corner in five stories of shimmering glass, cast-iron pillars, wrought-iron trim work, and a shiny coat of beige paint.

“There’s the handsomest building in New York,” he said, “and a sad thing it is that your mother never come here to shop. But if them bonds is worth anything, I’ll have her down here faster than a nun can say Hail Mary. She can ride the steam elevator all day, and buy herself a bustle and a parasol and the fanciest hat in the window.”

“I think she’d just like a new sewin’ machine.”

“Well, she won’t need to be takin’ in sewin’, either. Money’ll make her a fine lady. Money’s the thing, son.”

“But you said
respect
was the thing.”

“I said every man deserves respect till he proves he don’t. But not every man thinks like me. In this world, you have to earn respect. Better to get it by usin’ a good brain to make money than by usin’ a six-pound sledge to beat fellers senseless.”

As they passed Brooks Brothers and Bonwit’s, the crowd began to build. Then the boy heard music thumping up Broadway, something by Sousa, and it made his heart pound. The spectacle was near.

At Union Square, the father headed straight for the statue of George Washington, where the trumpeters of the Sixty-ninth Regimental Band were playing a flourish, calling the sachems and braves to take their places for the parade down Fourteenth Street to the wigwam.

Sachems, wigwams, braves . . . this Tammany organization, which had been taking care of New York Democrats for over a century, took its name from the famous Delaware Indian Sachem, Chief Tamanend. And to its “braves,” it was a true tribe.

That’s what the father said as he jostled and glad-handed his way across the sun-drenched square. Clustered around the statue were the twenty-four top hats worn by the sachems of the twenty-four New York assembly districts. Some of them were ceremonial figures, but most were also district bosses, the ones who could always help, no matter the problem, because they knew everyone in their districts and had done favors for most of them. And if their top hats were not enough to identify them in a sea of derbies and straw boaters, they all wore white aprons over their swallow-tail coats, aprons edged in gold-threaded fringe and bearing an image of the chief himself.

“Mr. Plunkitt! Mr. Plunkitt!” cried the father.

At the sound of his name, a man with gray hair and a black mustache turned and pasted a smile onto his face.

At the same moment, the boy thought he saw Uncle Billy pushing toward them. But then the crowd shifted and Uncle Billy disappeared.

The sachem took Dick Riley’s hand. “How’s the best salvage man in Hell’s Kitchen, and his handsome son, too?”

Timothy Riley took off his New York Giants hat and said, “Hello, Your Honor,” just as his father had coached him.

“We’re fine, sir. Fine,” shouted Six-Pound Dick over the noise. “I’ve brung Timothy to meet you. This is his first time celebratin’ the glorious Fourth at the hall.”

George Washington Plunkitt offered his hand to the boy. Though the sachem was shorter than the father, his grip was even stronger.

“Are you marchin’,” asked Plunkitt, “or goin’ ahead to get a seat?”

“We’re after seats down front,” said Six-Pound. “I want the boy to hear every word of the Declaration.”

“Well, that’s just grand. Every boy should know it by heart.” And the sachem began to turn away.

“Mr. Plunkitt, sir,” said Six-Pound, “I need a bit of advice.”

The trumpets played another call, and the bandleader urged the sachems to fall in.

Plunkitt’s smile dropped off his face. “Now, Six-Pound, this ain’t the time or the place for business. If it’s a job you need—”

Six-Pound Dick took off his hat, looked around to make sure that no one was paying attention, and pointed into the crown. “It’s this.”

Plunkitt looked in, then reached in and lifted out a small piece of paper.

Six-Pound said, “I was hopin’ you’d know what I should do with it.”

Plunkitt read the bond, front and back. “Where did you get this?”

“Well, let’s just say—”

“Now, Six-Pound,” said Plunkitt, “you’re workin’ in the old Daggett Tavern. Is that where you found this?”

“How did you know I was workin’ up there? It ain’t even in the district.”

“Who do you think put in a word with the owner?”

As the men talked, the boy was looking around at the crowd and up at the statue, and for a moment, he thought that he saw Uncle Billy peering down from the base of Washington’s pedestal. But the crowd shifted again, and Billy was gone.

Plunkitt slipped the note into his jacket pocket. “Come and see me at my office on Monday and we’ll figure this out.” Then he turned to the boy. “You know where my office is, son?”

Timothy shook his head.

“Afternoons, I’m in the district at Washington Hall. But every mornin’, you’ll find me down at the County Courthouse, at the bootblack stand. That’s where a man of the people does the people’s business, out in the open, out where the people can see him.”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy.

“Oh, and Dick, do you have more of these things?”

“Unh . . . just a few.”

“Well, hold onto ’em till Monday,” said Plunkitt. “And don’t show ’em around.”

“One, two, three!” cried the bandleader, then the brass strains of “Washington Post” all but blasted the boy’s hat off.

As the parade began to move, the father just stood there in front of the statue of Washington.

So the boy asked, “How come you didn’t tell him there was two hundred bonds?”

“Well, son, if the day ever comes that I’m not around to help you, he’s the man to go to. But don’t ever trust him . . . or any other powerful man.”

“Do you think he’ll help?”

“Unless there’s better reason not to.” The father clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Now, then, let’s go and enjoy the show.”

As they pushed into the crowd, the boy saw Uncle Billy again. He said, “Pa—”

The father stopped and turned. “What?”

“Uncle Billy been watchin’ us ever since we come into the square, and whenever I see him, he ain’t lookin’ happy.”

“He won’t be happy if he thinks we’re goin’ behind his back. He’s touchy that way. Come on.”

F
ATHER AND SON
hurried down Fifteenth Street, slipped down Irving Place, and beat the parade to Tammany Hall, known to the braves as the wigwam.

This wigwam was no Indian tent, but a handsome three-story building topped with a statue of Chief Tamanend. The domed ceiling and grand chandelier in the auditorium reminded the boy of the medieval halls he had read about, though there was nothing medieval about the flags and bunting that hung everywhere, even from the window shades.

“If you could turn color into gas,” said the father, as he jostled toward a pair of seats halfway down on the left side, “we could cut this building loose, and all the red, white, and blue would float us right over to Brooklyn.”

The ceremonies began with resounding music as the sachems took their places on the stage and joined in “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then came the resounding words, “When in the course of human events . . . ,” followed by the resounding cheers, then the resoundingly boring speeches, first from the long talkers—two politicians who spoke on big issues that the boy did not understand—then from the short talkers. He liked them better because they were, well . . . short.

Still, it was four hours before the Tammany Glee Club launched into the closing anthem, and the boy was swept up by the energy of all those hungry, thirsty, sweaty, cigar-smokey men singing along:

Columbia the gem of the ocean! The home of the brave and the free
.

The hungriest and thirstiest began to slide toward the exits.

The shrine of each patriot’s devotion
.

But the rest continued to sing, though all knew that downstairs there were a hundred cases of champagne and two hundred kegs of beer . . . just waiting.

A world offers homage to thee
.

The boy was amazed to hear his father singing, so he joined in.

Thy mandates make heroes assemble
,

Then his father stopped singing and looked seven or eight rows ahead.

When Liberty’s form stands in view
.

A scrawny little man with a bashed-in face had turned and was looking at the Rileys through the haze of cigar smoke. Slick McGillicuddy. And he was whispering into the ear of a big man in a checkered suit. His brother, Strong.

Thy banners make tyranny tremble

Dick Riley tipped his derby to the McGillicuddys and finished the song.

When borne by the red, white, and blue
.

Ten minutes later, the Rileys found a spot in the corner of the huge lunchroom, elbow to elbow with braves from across the city. The beer barrels and the champagne cases were rising from the subbasement called “the spring.” Negro waiters were sending food flying along all the tables and countertops—knockwurst and beef tongue and pickled eggs and pig’s feet and ham sandwiches. And all the booming laughter and big talk and backslapping were making the windows rattle.

The boy had never felt more of a man, especially when the father put a mug into his hand.

“Your first beer, Timmy. Don’t tell your mother.”

The boy tapped his mug against his father’s, watched his father blow the foam off the top of his, and did the same.

That was when Uncle Billy found them. “Dick, I been looking all over for you.”

The father’s mug stopped at his lips. “Get yourself a beer, Billy, and calm down.”

“I already had a beer. With Strong McGillicuddy himself.”

“Strong McGillicuddy?”

Again the boy sensed a catch in his father’s voice, a note of concern.

“Me and Strong had a fine talk,” said Billy.

“About what?”

“This and that.” Billy thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his vest and rocked back and forth on his heels. “He ain’t such a bad sort. Not like his brother. Not at all.”

A big man in a checkered suit came up behind Billy. He had a heavy brow, a broken nose, and a face so pockmarked that it looked like someone had beaten him with a wool card. He said, “So this is Six-Pound Dick?”

The boy felt his father stiffen.

The man thrust out a hand. “I’m Strong McGillicuddy. I been away a while.”

Dick Riley angled his body to put himself between his son and Strong.

“C’mon, shake,” said Strong. “Slick
needed
a bit of learnin’. If it had to be done with a six-pound sledge, it had to be done. So . . . no hard feelin’s.”

“Go ahead, Dick,” said Uncle Billy. “Give ’er a shake.”

“Right,” said Strong. “Bygones.”

The boy noticed that Strong McGillicuddy raised his voice and looked around, as if to see if anyone was watching.

Everyone was watching, and conversation in that corner of the lunchroom had stopped colder than the beer.

“Right,” said Billy. “Bygones.” He nudged his brother-in-law, who took the proffered hand.

Then Strong McGillicuddy looked at the boy. “A Giants fan, are you? I’m for the Trolley Dodgers myself.” He pulled the bill of the boy’s cap down over his eyes. “I’ll see you ’round the neighborhood.” Then he turned and pushed back through the crowd.

“There, now,” said Uncle Billy. “Ain’t peacemakin’ good for the soul?”

Six-Pound Dick took the beer from Timothy and put it into Billy’s hand. “From now on, when you drink, drink with men you can trust.”

“My sentiments exactly,” said Billy, then he stepped closer to his brother-in-law and whispered, “So . . . why am I drinkin’ with the likes of you, if you don’t trust me.”

“What damn fool talk is this?” said Dick. “I trust you.”

“So what was it you handed to the sachem out in the square? Somethin’ I’m thinkin’ come out of the attic of that old house yesterday. A little piece of paper. Looks to me like some kind of funny money.”

“I’ll tell you when the time comes, Billy. Till then”—Dick gently lifted the beer mug toward Billy’s lips—“let’s enjoy the day the best we know how.”

The boy had seen that gesture work often when Uncle Billy’s anger started to boil about something. But this time, Billy kept his eyes on his brother-in-law all the while that he was draining the mug. And when he was done, he turned and stalked away.

iv.

The next morning, Timothy’s mother woke him at six thirty and sent him to meet his father down at the barn on Eleventh. When he got there, it looked as if his father had been working for hours at something.