Sure enough, tomorrow it would be a beautiful shiner. I found my tongue. “Jeeze, Marty, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.” I helped him to his feet.
“It couldn’t be helped,” he said and laughed.
Julie, hearing the noise, came into the room. “You’d better put a cold towel on it,” she said, “or it’ll swell up.”
He shook off his gloves. “O.K.,” he said, “we’ll have another lesson soon.” At the door he turned to me and said: “Wait here, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
They left the room and a few seconds later I heard the water running in the bathroom. I still had my gloves on. Julie picked up the gloves Marty had dropped on the floor.
“Can I try them on?” she asked.
“Go ahead. They’re not mine,” I answered.
She put them on. “They’re very clumsy,” she said. “You get used to them,” I said.
“My father said I should’ve been a boy,” she said. “I was always a tomboy.” I didn’t answer.
“Show me how to box, Frankie,” she said. “Not really—I mean just an idea.” “O.K.,” I said.
“But don’t hit me,” she said quickly. “I’m so afraid of getting hurt—especially here.” She put her hands under her breasts and pushed them up.
I looked and then gulped out an answer. “All right, just swing at me a few times and then well quit.”
She held her arms out funny-like and took a couple of swings at me. They missed, and then she stepped in close and swung. I blocked them and then stepped in and clinched. She caught my arms under her elbows and locked them against her sides. I could feel her close to me. This fighting with a girl had a bad effect on me. It was too exciting—the wrong way.
“You’re very strong,” she said, pressing herself against me.
I looked up at her. She was a little taller than I—black hair and wide, full mouth. Her eyes looked funny-like. We stood there a second and suddenly became aware that Ruth was in the doorway looking at us. We broke loose immediately.
I flushed. “She wanted me to show her how to box too,” I said lamely. I could feel my ears burning.
“A regular Gene Tunney, aren’t you?” Ruth said bitingly. “Martin wants you.”
I took off the gloves and gave them to Julie, then followed Ruth into Martin’s room. He was stretched out in bed with a cold towel on his eye.
“I’m sorry this happened, Frankie. But meet me over at my father’s store tomorrow and we’ll get together again.”
“O.K., Marty,” I said. “I’m sorry I hurt you. See you tomorrow.” I turned and left.
Ruth followed me to the door. She held it open for me and I stepped out. “Good night, Ruth,” I said.
“Good night,” she said and started to close the door behind me. Halfway she stopped. “Would you like to do me a favour?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“Then stay away from my brother. You’re cheap and filthy and rotten, and you’ll only spoil him.” She clipped the words out savagely and shut the door in my face.
I started to walk slowly down the hallway.
“Psst.” I heard someone call out. I looked up. It was Julie standing in another doorway in front of me.
I looked back at the door I had just come out of, and wondered what she was doing in the other doorway.
“Come here,” she whispered fiercely. She motioned with her arm. I followed her through the door. It led into the kitchen of Martin’s apartment and then through the kitchen into a small room on the far side of it away from the rest of the apartment. She closed the door behind us.
“This is my room,” she whispered. “Be quiet.”
She was telling me to be quiet. Hell, I was so excited I couldn’t speak—only look at her. She flicked out the light and walked towards me. She put her arms around me and kissed me. I could feel her tongue flicker in and out against my lips, her hands against my body. I could feel my hands running over her, and she fell back on the small bed.
“You’re so strong,” she said. “You mustn’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.” And after a while she said; “Hurt me, please hurt me….”
It was midnight when I left her. Walking through the streets, wet and muggy, I felt now I was a man. But I was a fool. I was not yet fourteen and big for my age and too big for my breeches.
I
T
was Saturday morning and Keough left me in the store all alone. He was taking his wife and kid down to the station to put them on the train for the country where they were going to stay all summer.
I had all the tables set, the beer iced in the cellar, and the place swept clean. I had cleaned out the toilets, polished the glass showcase in which he kept the cigars, and was now washing down the windows. They were half covered with black paint so no one could see in, and just had the words on each window, “Billiards” in small, black letters. I had wet the windows with a brush and then wiped them down with a squeegee on a long mop handle.
While I was working, Jerry and Ray came down the street. They stopped to watch me. “Jeeze!” said Ray, “you’re as good as a regular window washer.”
“It’s a trick,” I said proudly. “Ya gotta know how to work the squeegee!” With a final wipe and flourish I finished. I picked up the pail and brush and walked into the store. “Come on in,” I said to them. “Keough’s out.”
They came into the store. It was the first time any of them had been in the place. Kids weren’t allowed.
“How’s about lettin’ us shoot some pool, Frankie?” Ray asked.
“Can’t. Ya gotta be an adult. Minors can’t play. See the sign?” I pointed to a sign over the cash register that read, “Minors not permitted.” “We can get closed up if you play.”
“How about comin’ swimmin’ with us this afternoon?” Jerry asked.
“I’d like to,” I said. “Maybe if you’ll drop by this afternoon and we’re not busy, Jimmy’ll let me off.”
“O.K.,” said Jerry. “We’ll stop by on our way to the docks.”
The afternoon was hot and Keough had come back from the station in a good mood and whistling: “My Wife’s Gone to the Country, Hooray, Hooray!” We weren’t busy and he let me off for a couple hours.
The three of us walked down the street towards the Fifty-fourth Street dock. I saw Marty on the other side of the street. I called: “Hey, Marty!”
He came over to us, and I introduced him all around and asked him to come swimming with us.
“I’d like to,” he said. “That is if the other fellows don’t mind.” “Hell, no!” I said. “The more the merrier.”
The dock was crowded when we got there. I saw some fellows I knew. Pete Sanpero was there with his gang, but he didn’t say anything to me so I didn’t pay any attention to him. We swung ourselves under the dock and got out of our clothes. Then we jumped into the water. It was warm and dirty near the dock because a sewer emptied there, but when you swam out a little ways it was nice and fresh. We splashed around a little and then I said to the others: “I wish we could fly back to the docks from here so we wouldn’t have to get that slime over us when we go back.”
Jerry called back to me: “If you’d come up to the country like I asked you, you could swim in a real lake.”
An aeroplane roared overhead. We all turned and yelled. Then Ray said: “I wonder if that was Rickenbacker.”
“Hell!” I said, “if it was, it was an angel. Rickenbacker’s dead.”
“No he isn’t,” Marty yelled. “He’s alive. He shot down the ace of the German flying circus, von Richthofen.”
“Anyway, America has the best goddam aeroplanes in the world. And American fliers are the best,” Ray said.
We floated on our backs awhile and watched the ferries and the Hudson River boats go by. Then we got out of the water and stretched out on the docks in the sun. We were stark naked and too far from the streets for anyone to see us. We lay there quietly awhile. The sun was hot and I covered my face with my shirt.
A shadow fell over me and I heard a voice say: “Who let this goddam Jew down on our dock?”
I thought it was someone talking about Martin so I lay there quietly waiting to see what would come of it.
“Hey, fellers,” the voice cried. “Come over here and look at what makes a Jew.”
I heard a couple of feet come over and stop not far from me. “Jeeze!” one of them said, “funny lookin’, ain’t it?” They all laughed.
“Come on, Jew,” said the original voice. “Let’s see what the rest of you looks like.” There was a minute’s silence. Then a foot prodded me roughly and the voice said: “I mean you. Don’t you know when you’re spoken to?”
I took the shirt from my face slowly and sat up. Jerry, Ray, and Marty were sitting near me, looking at me. I saw Marty had put his trousers on, so they must have meant me. I had been circumcised when I was a kid. I got to my feet and faced my tormentor. He was a guy I didn’t know. “The name’s Kane,” I said slowly. “Francis Kane. And I’m not a Jew. Want to make anything of it?”
“That’s right,” one of the boys called. “He’s from St. Thérèse.”
I took a step towards the other fellow. “All right,” he said, “I’m sorry. But I don’t like Jews. I’d like to see one here. I’d kick him off the dock.”
Before I could answer, Marty stepped up in front of me. “I’m a Jew,” he said quietly. “Let’s see you kick me off the dock.”
The boy was a little taller than Marty. Marty’s back was towards the water. Suddenly the fellow made a rush towards him, intending to push Marty into the water. Nimbly Marty side-stepped and the fellow, not being able to stop his rush, plunged over the side of the dock into the water with a big splash. I burst out laughing and the others followed.
I leaned over the edge of the dock and yelled to the guy splashing in the water: “The little Jewboy was too smart for ya, huh?”
He cursed back at us and tried to clamber back; but he was so mad he missed and fell back into the water. We laughed again. Just then a yell went up: “A dame’s comin’ down the dock!” All of us who didn’t have any clothes on jumped into the water.
Later when the woman had gone we clambered back on the dock and got dressed. “I
gotta get back to work,” I said, and we walked back to Tenth Avenue in silence.
At the door of the poolroom Jerry said: “Don’t forget: after church tomorrow you’re coming over to my house to meet my father.”
I went into the store and Keough was there, hot and perspiring and busy. When he saw me he hollered: “Bring up some beer from the cellar. It’s a hot day and the boys are all thirsty.”
K
EOUGH
was closed on Sunday. I had to stay at church through all the Masses because I was an altar boy. After the last Mass, near twelve o’clock, I would generally go back to the orphanage, have dinner, and then go out for the rest of the day. Sometimes I would go to a movie or up to the Polo Grounds and sneak into the ball game. This Sunday I had promised Jerry I would go home with him to see his father.
Jerry’s father was the Mayor of New York—the great democrat, the people’s man, a regular, friendly man with a big hello and a glad handshake and baby-kissing lips. I didn’t like him. Ir dated from a long way back—long before I knew Jerry Cowan. It was when Mr. Cowan was alderman from our district and he made a speech at the orphanage’s Thanksgiving dinner. He made a nice speech that none of the kids could understand, but then we didn’t care. We were too full of turkey. I was about nine at the time. He sent me into the superintendent’s office to fetch some cigars from his overcoat. When I gave them to him he held out a big shiny quarter to me and said: “This is for being a good boy.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, taking the quarter. Then I remembered what the teacher had taught us and I went over and put the money in the church box.
Mr. Cowan saw it. “That’s a real fine young man,” he said, and called me over. “What’s your name, young feller?” he asked.
“Francis Kane, sir,” I said.
“Well, Francis, here’s five dollars more for the church, but before you put it in the box tell me, what do you want more than anything else for Christmas?”
“An electric train, sir,” I said.
“An electric train you shall have, my boy. I have a son just about your age at home and that’s what he wants too. You both shall have it.” He smiled at me as I put the five- dollar bill in the church box.
I counted the days till Christmas. Christmas morning, when I went down to the big tree in the dining-room, I expected to find the electric train, but it wasn’t there. Maybe it hadn’t come yet. I couldn’t imagine he would forget. The day passed and no electric train came.
I didn’t really give up hope until I had gone to bed. Then quietly I began to cry into my pillow.
Brother Bernhard, who had been walking in the hall, heard me and came into the dormitory. “What is the matter, Francis?” he asked in that warm, friendly voice of his. Sobbing, I sat up in bed and told him about the electric train.
He listened quietly and then said: “Francis, do not weep for a small thing like that. ’Tis not very much for a man to cry for. ’Tis better you cry for the love of your friends and for us who cannot give thee half the love thee needs. And besides”—Brother Bernhard was a practical as well as a sentimental man—“Alderman Cowan has been in Florida for the past month, and no doubt he was too busy wi’ his other affairs to think of ye.”
He stood up at the side of my bed. “Now go to sleep, lad. Ye’ll be needing your
strength for tomorrow. I’m after taking ye to Central Park for sleigh riding. For ’tis snowing, which ye can see if ye’d but put your head to the window.”
And I put my head to the window and sure enough the snow was coming down in great big flakes. Dry-eyed, I lay back in bed. I heard Brother Bernhard go back into the hall. He met someone there and I could hear him saying: “I don’t mind the politicians breaking their promises to their voters, but I wish the scoundrels wouldna try to break the hearts of little boys as well.”
Then the light in the hall flickered and went out, and I began to hate Alderman Cowan with all the fury of a small boy’s soul.
When I first met Jerry, just before his father was elected Mayor, I didn’t quite know what to do about him. He was a likable, friendly boy who never understood that the real reason for taking him out of a private school and transferring him to St. Thérèse was political. I liked him but I didn’t know whether to carry my grudge against his father to him.