He spoke to Joe. “Partners on everything today, hunh?” “Un-hunh,” Joe said.
Christy turned to me. “Okay, boy. Heah is ouah bets. Tomorrow youah boss is broke.” I laughed. “Go ahead and break him. He can afford it.”
They laughed at that.
“Gimme fifty cents on Docket and Red Rose for the daily double,” Christy said, “and fifty cents win and place on Garage-man. That’s a hunch,” he explained to me.
“Sounds good to me,” I said professionally.
“Yeanh, it ought to pay a good price too. Ran out of the money the last three times.
And fifty cents place on Red Rose.” He stopped. “That all? “I asked.
“Thass all for today.” He laughed. “But you bring aroun’ a barr’ful a dough tomorrow and we’ll go you hot and heavy.” He handed the sheet back to me.
“Well, if I need any help in toting it over, I can always call you up and you’ll come for it in a truck,” I said.
“Anytime, boy, anytime!” He laughed and handed me two dollars. I stuck them in my pocket carefully.
“See you tomorrow, fellas,” I said and walked out.
My next stop was at the delivery entrance of a loft building on Sixty-second Street. There was a big loading platform raised about three feet off the ground. Two trucks were backed up against it. Several men were sitting around eating sandwiches and smoking. I walked over to one of them. He was eating a big dill pickle.
“D’ ya know Al Andrews?” I asked him.
“That’s him over there against the elevator door,” he said, pointing with his pickle to a tall man.
“Thanks,” I said, walking over to Andrews. “Al Andrews?” I asked.
The man nodded his head.
“I’m from Jimmy Keough,” I said.
“Come in here,” he said. “I don’t want the boss to see me.”
I followed him into the corridor, then into the men’s room. I gave him the sheet. He took it and, unbuttoning his pants, went into one of the stalls and sat down.
After a few minutes he spoke. “I don’t like nothin’ today!” I laughed. “There’s a winner in every race.”
“But not for me,” he said. “Every dog I played last week is still running.” “Maybe you’re due for a change in luck today,” I said hopefully.
“Maybe,” he said, doubtfully, looking at the sheet. Another few minutes passed. Then he said: “Tell you what. Gimme a dollar place on Smoothie in the second race, if two to win on Short Stop.”
I wrote it down. “Anything else?” I asked.
He looked at the sheet for a few minutes more as if it were a crystal ball. He shook his head and handed back the sheet. I took it. He reached down and pulled his trousers part way up and fished for his money. He couldn’t find it. He stood up and, holding his pants with one hand, he felt with the other and found the dollar. Letting his pants drop to the floor he gave it to me. I put it in my pocket and started out.
“See you tomorrow,” I said. He didn’t reply.
A drugstore just down the street was the next stop. I picked up three dollars there. Then a restaurant where some fellows who ate there played about seven bucks. A beauty parlour, a candy store, a few more garages and repair shops, a shoe store, another restaurant, and I had only one more stop to make. It was a furnished-room house. I rang the bell. The door was opened by a coloured girl.
I looked at my paper. “Miss Neal in?” I asked.
“Sho,” she said. “But you kinda young to be askin’ foh her.” She led the way up to the second floor. “Miss Neal?” she asked through a closed door.
“Come in,” a voice answered.
I went in. There were a few women sitting in there in kimonos and house frocks. “I’m Neal,” said a big, dark-haired woman standing up. “What do you want?”
“Keough sent me,” I said, looking around the room. I guessed correctly—I was in a whorehouse.
“Oh,” she said. “Got the sheet?”
I gave it to her. Another woman took the other one. I stood around while they looked at it. I shifted from one foot to another. Finally, one of them told me to sit down. I sat in a chair and looked out the window into the street. I got nineteen bucks in bets there. I looked at the wrist-watch Brother Bernhard gave me. It was nearly two o’clock. I had to hurry back to Keough’s or I’d be late. I ran all the way back to the store.
“How’d it go, kid?” Keough greeted me.
“Pretty good,” I said, taking out the betting slips and putting them on the counter. We totalled up the slips. I had $51.50 in bets. I gave him the money and got busy cleaning up the place. The afternoon went by quickly. When I finished figuring Keough’s slips I figured mine. There was $22.50 profit in my book. Split with Keough and my share was
$11.25.
“Eleven dollars and twenty-five cents for one day’s work,” I thought to myself as I went back to the orphanage for the night. It was more than I had ever made in one week before. It was more money than I had ever had at one time before. This beat going to the country for the summer.
A
T
the end of my first week on the route I had made fifty-one dollars. That and the six dollars I got for cleaning up Keough’s place brought my earnings to a total of fifty-seven dollars, which was more than most families earned in my neighbourhood. I don’t suppose I really knew the value of money. I gorged myself on franks and hamburgers and cokes. For the first time I always had money in my pocket. The kids in the neighbourhood all had something at my expense. I couldn’t resist showing my roll or spending it treating them. I was a real big shot.
I had a date to go swimming with Julie after church Sunday. When I met her she was carrying a small bag. “Where’s your bathing suit?” she asked when we sat down on the train.
“I got it on,” I told her.
She laughed. “How will you get back?” she asked. “Your suit will be wet.” I looked dismayed. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Well, silly, I’ll let you put it in my bag.” We sat back. The train was at Times Square, and the crowd piled in—all heading for the Island to escape the heat. We took lockers at a small bath-house near Steeplechase. I almost forgot my money but remembered just in time to take it with me. On the way out I bought a white belt that fitted around the outside of the bathing suit and had a pocket in it to keep the money. I was on the beach before her. I waited a few minutes till she came out. She had a red bathing suit on, and it looked swell. Without her high-heeled shoes on she was a little shorter than I was. She looked like a kid about my age instead of older, and I felt good about it.
The water was swell. We swam around a little and then lay on the sand. The sun was hot. Her body was mostly white and she was getting a little sunburned. I was brown from swimming off the docks.
“How’s your job going?” she asked.
I rolled over on my stomach beside her. “Pretty good,” I said. “I made fifty-one bucks last week.”
“Fifty-one dollars?” she cried incredulously.
“Yeah,” I said. “Wanna see?” I took out my roll from the money belt. “Put it away,” she said, “I believe you.”
I put the money back.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Get some clothes I guess and some things I always wanted. I’m tired of always wearing hand-me-downs and charity clothes. I’d like to pick out something myself—something I really like and would be mine.” I took out a package of cigarettes and offered them to her. She took one and I took one. I lit them, cupping my hand against the wind.
She drew a deep drag of her cigarette. “You ought to open up a savings account,” she said. “Some day that money will come in real handy—when you go to college, I mean.”
“Who the hell cares about college?” I answered. “I’m going to be a bookie and make some real dough. And you’re going to be my girl.”
“Do you really want me to be your girl?” she asked softly.
“Sure!” I said. She looked so pretty then I wanted to kiss her, but there were too many people around.
The day before Jerry went to the country, he came over to Keough’s to see me. “I wish you were going with me, Frankie,” he said.
“I can’t,” I said. “This job here …”
“I know,” he said, “but if you change your mind you write me and I’ll get Dad to fix it up.”
“I will,” I said. “Have a nice summer, Jerry.”
“You too,” he said, looking around him doubtfully. “See you in September.”
We shook hands self-consciously and he left. I watched him go. I envied him more at that moment than I ever had before. It must be swell to get everything you want by just asking, I thought. Then I went back to cleaning out the toilet. When I finished that I was going out to see my customers. I had taken Julie’s advice and started a bank account over at the Corn Exchange on Broadway and Sixty-third. It was nearly the end of my second week as a runner and I had almost seventy dollars in the bank. My book had been hit for eighty dollars yesterday, and I would have to make up the deficit before I split any more profits. But I wasn’t worried. I had learned that an occasional hit was good for the bookie as well as the player. They always played it back. They felt lucky and would bet heavier, and in no time at all they would be back in the hole again.
Walking across town, I met Marty and Ray. They were going over to the docks swimming. They asked me to go with them but I told them I couldn’t. I had to work. Marty asked me to come over to his house and see him, and I told him I’d try to make it tonight, but that I might be busy. A couple of other fellows called them and they left me to join them. Near the garage that was my first stop a bunch of kids were playing stick- ball in the street. I stopped for a few minutes to watch them. I shagged one fly ball and threw it back. One of them that knew me called: “Want a game, Frankie?”
“No, thanks,” I answered and walked away. I went into the garage. “Hey, Christy!” I called. “Where are you?”
He came out from under a car. “Hello, Frankie,” he said, with a big grin on his face. “Well, you did it,” I said smiling. “You win twenty-one bucks.” I paid him. His partner
Joe came out and I handed them the sheet. They played six dollars in place of their usual two.
Somehow the day did not have its usual satisfaction for me. Due to the winnings, I got the biggest day’s play I had ever got, but I didn’t feel too good about it. On the way back to Keough’s I passed the dock at Fifty-fourth Street where the kids were swimming. I leaned against a pole and watched them, diving and splashing and swimming and hollering. I felt like going over there and joining them, but I had to get back with the bets.
A voice behind me said: “I bet you’d like to go with them, Frankie.”
I turned around. It was Silk Fennelli. “Why no, sir … I mean … that is …”
He smiled. “That’s all right, kid, I understand. I know how you feel. You’d like to be with them—swimming, playing ball, or shooting craps on the corners. But you can t. You got a responsibility—yourself. Those kids don’t think any further ahead than the next minute, but you’re different. You want to get ahead. You want to amount to something. You’re going to be big time, and you’re learning now that for everything you get you got to give up something else—something maybe that you want or would like to do. And you have to make up your mind which it’s going to be. I was like you once.”
“That’s it, Mr. Fennelli,” I said. “I don’t feel like those kids any more.”
“That’s the good boy,” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder, friendly-like. “Where are you going now?”
“Back to Keough’s,” I said.
“Hop in my car. I was just going there myself. Besides, then you can give me one of your special shines.”
I followed him into his car. I felt pretty good when we stopped in front of Keough’s and I got out with the big shot. He had asked me how I was doing and I told him. He thought it was fine.
Once in Keough’s, I gave Jimmy the slips and the money. Then I got out my shine box and gave Mr. Fennelli a shine.
“The kid’s all right,” said Fennelli to Jimmy.
“Smart boy!” said Jimmy, looking proud as if he were my old man.
When Fennelli wanted to pay me for the shine, I didn’t want to take the money. It was a half a buck.
“Go ahead, kid, take it,” he said.
I saw he was going to insist. “Toss you for it,” I said to him. “Double or nothing.” “O.K.,” he said, tossing the coin into the air, “you cry.”
I watched it spin end over end. When it almost hit the ground I called: “Tails.”
Tails it was. He picked up the half and gave me a dollar, which I put in my pocket. “You’ll get along, Frankie.” He smiled.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you.”
Keough laughed. “Get us a couple bottles of beer, Frankie.”
I brought two cold ones up from the cellar and opened them. They drank quickly.
When they were finished, Fennelli said to Jimmy: “Ready to square up for last week?” “Sure thing, Silk!” Keougn said. “You know me—always pay up on time.” He took out a
roll of bills, counted out six hundred dollars, and handed it over to Fennelli. Fennelli stuck it in his pocket without counting it.
I left them and got out the mop and pail and began to wash the tile floor in front of the store near the counter. It was hot so I took off my shirt and threw it in a corner. The sweat ran down my face and I wiped it off on my arm. When Fennelli passed me on his way out he waved to me. I waved back to him, giving him a half salute, just like I did for Father Quinn.
T
HE
summer wore on. It was just like any other summer in New York: hot, muggy, tiring; people returning from work with tiredness painted over their faces like masks; kids shouting in the streets; crowded parks and beaches; paper headlines shouting the weather; no school; noise coming in through the open windows.
Just another summer in New York. But not for me. I liked it. For the first time in my life I felt free and not beholden to anyone. It was late in August. I had seven hundred dollars in the bank. I had a girl. I had two new suits. I ate in restaurants. I had money in my pockets. I could go where I wanted and do what I wanted. People and the kids I knew looked up to me. I was somebody. I was living high. I began to think about having to go back to school. I didn’t want to go. I was making too much money. Yet I knew I couldn’t get out of it. I wasn’t old enough to quit. I tried to plan how I would continue to make book while in school. I would ask for the morning session up at high school and then I would be out in time to get the bets. Things were looking up. I thought patronizingly of the other kids in the orphanage and in the neighbourhood. I was really going places.