Exile on Bridge Street (21 page)

But I don't believe that explains it all, and as Lumpy and I leave the room, he sends Vincent away with us too, again. Up there alone now, is he. Staring. Wondering who he is and what his place in the world could be. It's been said before that at twenty-seven years of age, if we haven't already figured our way, then we find ourselves on a precipice. On a wire. Deciding whether to jump or to stick to what we know and try and survive by using the tools we know we possess. Leaving behind the hopes that we held for ourselves in youth and accepting what we already understand we can and cannot do. Like anyone, Dinny had dreams for himself. Though he never talked about them to us. And many of those dreams were wrought with years ahead of him still. Time was there for those ideas to come to fruition. But at twenty-seven, dreams become hardened. Realities take their shape, then shape you in their wake.

“First Coohoo Cosgrave, now The Swede,” Beat McGarry whispers to me downstairs, his droopy eyes and face looking like a melted candle.

“What happened to Coohoo Cosgrave?” I ask.

He shakes his head slowly, lowering his eye to me and drinks a long drink, “Then there's what happened to McGowan . . . and Tommy Tuohey now?”

“What about them?”

“Tanner Smith?”

“What are you saying, Beat?”

“Lovett and those that followed him too? What if you was Dinny? How'd you be about all this? And now the income is way down.”

“Aye,” Paddy agrees, listening in.

“It's gettin' bad,” Beat continues. “So bad, Needles Ferry went up to see Dinny offerin' him to spread drugs around the neighborhood for a profit.”

“But Dinny wouldn't have it,” Paddy finishes the sentence.

“And Chisel Maguire, too, pitchin' Dinny that we should open a policy wheel an' faro joint the gang can manage and protect.”

“Wouldn't have gamblin' either,” Paddy says.

“Nor would he entertain Vincent's notion of a bawdy-house up here in Irishtown.”

“No way.”

“Dinny'd be no different than the man he took down to get control over the gang if he went with any combination of those three offers. He's stickin' to labor an' that's the end of it. He's no Christie Maroney. He'll never sell Irishtown out.”

“No he won't.”

“What do you think he'll do?” I ask.

“Dinny's t'inkin' about t'ings is all, William,” Paddy says.

“You're saying that he is having doubts? Like, what could he be doubting? He provides for people. For us. For all of us. And even more in the neighborhoods. I meet people all the time that he sends food to, pays their rent entirely. What'll happen to them if we fold up? How will I get my mam here?”

Paddy and Beat listen without comment while the dockbosses lean on the bar, their righthanders and others standing behind them. Many others too, standing in the cramped and crowded saloon blathering away. I look round to them, hats held low with cigarettes and pipes hanging from their dirty faces. The toothy grins and untrusting eyes and when the door opens we all look to see who it is. To make sure it's no enemy. And so it must be doubt that haunts Dinny here. Doubt that all he does—all that we do as a group—is for the best. Doubt that he'll ever make it to the summer of his life where the trees are green and the sun splashes on his face.

I drink my drink down and look upstairs through the darkness. Drop my glass next to Beat and Ragtime, in front of Paddy and elbow my way through the crowd. Put my hand on the banister looking up. They all look at me quietly as I start to walk up, and after a few steps, I start running. Up the stairs by the twos and pound on Dinny's door, then walk in.

He is standing with his back to me looking out the window. Unresponsive, as if he's given up entirely, which angers me. That I'd for so long followed this man was a fact that hitched me to his honor, among others. Now, here he stands with his back to us. Well, I won't have it. And the fact I am still young yet, only in my teens, gives me the opportunity to confront him without fear of his full wit and strength.

“How long are you going to feel sorry for yourself?”

No answer.

“I'd more or less find my own way in this world if you're not in it,” I say. “Been three months since all that went down. You . . . you think The Swede'd put up with your sitting hind on hands?”

Nothing from him, other than quietly placing his hands in his pockets and looking across the East River toward the Manhattan Bridge from his perch.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you about the place you got for me. I'm very grateful for it. Harry helped me understand it and so did . . . so did Tommy,” I say, giving myself a quick cross for his memory. “I was wrong and I know that now. I'm sorry for not appreciating what you do. You've done so much for me and I haven't been appreciative. I can't make everybody else say that. Or even notice what you do for them, but I know that they need you. Things on the docks are falling apart, Dinny. Cinders and Philip Large keep dealing with Austrians that don't know how the system works and Red's area in the Navy Yard is almost all union now, with that man Henry Browne leading the way and asking about you every damn day. Harry and Gibney have had to work together to fight off outsiders and that imbecile Garry fucking Barry keeps talking about how he is going to take the gang over. You know that? You know he says he talks with Thos Carmody and King Joe from the ILA? Like they're backing him. Is that true? No one believes it, but do you know if it's true, Dinny?”

Still nothing but his back.

I hold my fist in my hand and look back to the door and reach for the handle. As I do so, he partially turns to me with his head bowed.

“Got a lot on my mind. More than you know, really. But uh . . . it's against all I know, turnin' Tanner out. He was there for me and my fam'ly when we needed it. He helped us,” Dinny said.

Downcast, he slowly reaches into his desk and places a book on top of it. “I know ya birthday was a couple weeks ago, but this was for you.”

I walk over to him, as he turns back to the window again without ever looking at me. Picking up the thick book, it has no words on the hard, dark blue cover. I open it to the first few pages and it says,
Leaves of Grass
.

“Whitman,” Dinny says toward the windows.

“How did you know I would have wanted this? Thanks,” I say, holding the book open, turning to page 176 where I find the poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.” The poem that I only knew by title from the old broken-glassed frame on the wall downstairs.

It's gotten dark outside and even darker inside. Dinny drops a box of matches in front of me as I sit in the chair opposite his desk to read. I pop a match and hold it to a candle and point to the first line in the poem, read it slowly and with purpose. Spend the next couple minutes reading it, then start to read it again and although I know it is Lincoln that the poem is about, I can't help but think of Dinny Meehan. As if the poem is about him, not Lincoln. A great man, even though Dinny is a killer and sends people to jail, pays off the police and commits any and all sins to be sinned. I don't care. For me, Dinny is a good man in a bad place with little to no choice. He helps people who need it and does bad things in order to do so. I close the book.

“Thanks for thinking of me,” I say.

“Sure, sure.”

“I know that all you want is to have us all be together. Most people . . . they don't understand why you always tried for Lovett. I think I do though. Has he always been this way? Lovett? Why won't he just see that we're best as a group and the real enemies are others? Why does he act the traitor and go to Wolcott and Silverman and Wisniewski?”

Dinny is looking down and shrugs his shoulders, “Is there any avoidin' it?”

“I suppose there isn't.”

Looking back toward me Dinny asks, “Ya know much on hist'ry?”

“A bit.”

He grumbles and looks away, “Ya ever think it's true what they say about a man who overthrows another man eventually becomes the man he overthrew?”

“I don't know much about that.”

“Ya will one day, right now ya just green. Ya need to read some, ya know that?”

“I do.”

“I know ya wanna get an education. An' ya will someday, I know ya will. Just don't forget us when ya do.”

“I won't.”

“We'll all be dead one day and you'll be alive still, but ya can't forget. It's because o' the life I lead that they come after me. I don't go by their rules, right? But . . . they can never kill me off. Ya know? We'll always exist. Always, as long as they do.”

I look at him with my head tilted.

“Ya know, uh . . . Sadie. . . . We've been tryin' to have more kids, ya know? I mean she's always wanted a big fam'ly. Been a while since my son was born and we been tryin' but . . . I don't know what's wrong.”

“She's never mentioned that to me.”

“I love my wife more'n anythin' I've ever loved and I can't seem to give her what she wants most.”

“Well, you can't give everyone . . .”

“But children? I need fam'ly. Just like you, ya know? Need fam'ly. My blood. Carry our name . . . everythin' that's important's wrapped up in fam'ly, and someone up there . . . someone—whoever it is'r whatever it is—just don' want me to have fam'ly. Right from the start we were thrown off the land . . . sent away to New York. Then to Brooklyn, like I'm nothin'. Like I'm a nothin' in this world. Still takin' fam'ly away from me to this very day.”

“Don't you have two sisters up in Albany?”

“No, they're dead,” he said. “They forgot about me. They're dead to me. Abandoned us, those two. They just want their lace curtains and their English tea and their property-grubbin' husbands. Landowners, ya know? They always wanted to become exactly what's held us down for so long. Ya can't explain it to someone without it soundin' absurd by all measurements. Respectability among the subjects. You're too young to know about it, William. But that's all they think about. They're ashamed o' me. Now they have their own fam'lies and pretend like I died too. They always said I acted like my uncle Seamus. Always complained my older brothers'n my uncle Red Shay and . . . and about our father's knowing things, like Irish words and ways. When they got married, they lost the Meehan name and took the name of some other. Wanted nothin' more than to forget about the past,” he says shaking his head. “All of it. Just wanted it all to go 'way.”

“Well at least you have Mickey.”

He nods his head in agreement, though I can see he feels I don't quite understand, “Yeah, least I got him. Ya right.”

“You really mean a lot to me, Dinny,” I say, swallowing.

He nods heavily, “You uh . . . talked to the McGowan girl lately?”

“I haven't. Like I'm not sure what to do with my feelings at all about her since I'm so incomplete. I don't feel like I can concentrate on her without knowing about my own family's safety. I'd love to give myself to her, but I don't know myself, really. I don't even know her, other than a chance meeting.”

“I got ya.”

“I mean, I'm attracted to Emma. She's beautiful. Truly is. And a good person, it seems. Very good person. But uh . . . they wanna leave Brooklyn anyway and I'm still tryin' to get my fam'ly here in the first place. So . . .”

“Mrs. McGowan likes ya,” Dinny said looking over to me. “She tol' me she thinks ya'll be a good man one day. She can see it in ya.”

“That's nice of her to say.”

“She understands what ya goin' through. So does Emma.”

“Is that true? They're not upset with me?”

“Nah, they understand. The McGowans are good people. I'm friends with that family for many years, ya know. I met them when they were homeless, huddled in some stairwell corner of a courtyard,” he stops and looks at me. “Empty ya pockets.”

“What?”

“Empty 'em.”

I do as he says, empty them onto the desk. He fingers through the dollar bills and the coins and lint, investigating as if he does not trust me, and finds the Saint Christopher, picks it up.

“My mother gave me that,” I say.

He looks at it by the candle as if it were some foreign, strange object, “For good travels, right?”

“Yes.”

The candle in the darkness lights half his face; the cold night-wind ringing up through the open-shuttered windows moves his earthen brown hair. I shiver looking at him. A dangerous and gentle man.

He needles through the rest and finds half a pencil, picks it up, and looks at me, “Ya stole this.”

I don't answer because I know he does not want any record of what we do lying around for the law to come and use against us. He looks at the pencil and then at me again and says, “Don' forget about us.”

In the darkness upstairs we stand with hands in pockets, candle between us. Over his shoulder through the big windows are the city lights against the starless matte above. Forever over him, as his heart was shaped by the city that leans on him now, and it's in the city that he'll always be remembered.

“Let's uh . . .” he says. “Let's have a meetin'.”

“All right.”

“Sunday, after church.”

“What are we going to talk about?”

“The dockbosses, you, Vincent, Gillen, Mickey . . . and The Swede'll be back by then, too. Sunday . . . we'll talk about everythin'. I gotta go get a head start though, talk to some people first. . . . Tell the guys downstairs, would ya?”

“I will.”

“We'll talk about everythin' and we'll figure it out, but I gotta go do this first. Then we'll be ready.”

“All right.”

“Do me favor, William?”

“Sure.”

“Send up Vincent, yeah?”