Sleepers

  “His sister,” I said, nodding my head toward the Puerto Rican pitcher. “The old lady’s the mother.”

  “Let’s go, Mikey,” John shouted. “Pound this dufe right on his ass.”

  “What happened to her?” Michael asked.

  “Not sure,” I said. “Some kinda cancer. Got her in the legs.”

  “Strike these scumbags out,” the young woman shouted. “They can’t touch you, Davey. They can’t touch you.”

  “Swallow your tongue, crip,” Fat Mancho said to her from across the street.

  Michael stepped in, his legs level, his eyes cornered on the young woman in the wheelchair, waiting for the first pitch. He took a bad swing at a good ball.

  “Easy, Mike,” I cautioned, standing behind him. I’d never seen an expression like that on his face before. “Take your time. There’s no rush.”

  “She’s really good-looking,” Michael said, backing away from the sewer.

  “What the fuck you lookin’ at, little dick?” the woman in the wheelchair screamed at Michael.

  “And she’s nothin’ but charm,” I said.

  Michael swung at the second pitch too early, the broom handle touching his shoulder by the time the ball was in my hands.

  “Look alive, Mikey,” John shouted. “Hit your pitch.”

  “You can take him,” Tommy screamed. “You can take him, Mikey.”

  “Skinny Irish bastard,” Fat Mancho said. “What the fuck’s he doing?”

  “Forget the girl, Mikey,” I pleaded. “Worry about her brother.”

  But he couldn’t forget her.

  Michael swung and missed at the third pitch.

  He dropped the broom handle on top of the sewer and walked over to the back of Fat Mancho’s car, hands in his pockets, watching the woman in the wheelchair, his ears deaf to the groans of the people by his side.

  The pitcher pumped his fist in the air, waved to his teammates, and blew kisses across the street to his sister.

  “Told you he ain’t shit, baby,” the woman in the wheelchair said.

  “You could’ve just helped her cross a street,” I said to Michael, watching Tommy taking his practice swings. “Maybe get her an ice cream. You didn’t have to blow the game.”

  “It ain’t over,” Michael said. “Tommy can win it.”

  “Tommy closes his eyes when he swings,” I said. “You’re the one who could’ve won it and you didn’t.”

  “Tell me you wouldn’t of done the same?” Michael said.

  “You think she gives a shit?” I asked.

  “No,” Michael said. “I know she doesn’t.”

  “So?”

  “So nothin’,” Michael said.

  “Now we’re the fuckin’ Salvation Army,” I said, turning away, Fat Mancho behind me, staring at us both.

  “You ever wonder why there ain’t a Salvation Navy?” John asked.

  I didn’t know why he’d done what he did. No, that’s not exactly right. I knew why he’d done it, I just didn’t understand why he’d done it.

  “This fuck’s so stupid, he should be watered,” Fat Mancho said, watching Tommy at the plate.

  Tommy swung at the first ball he saw, sending a one-bouncer right at the pitcher, who caught it with the palm of his hand. He then turned and tossed the ball over the roof of a warehouse.

  “Game’s over, losers,” the pitcher said. “Cough up the cash. A buck each.”

  “You beat them, baby,” the woman in the wheelchair said, pushing herself closer to her brother.

  Michael collected the money, folded the singles, and handed them to the Puerto Rican pitcher.

  “Nice game,” Michael said, staring at the pitcher’s sister in the wheelchair.

  “Fuck me,” the pitcher said.

  Five minutes later we were sitting in front of Fat Mancho’s store, drinking Pepsi from bottles, watching the pitcher wheel his sister down toward 11th Avenue.

  “He ain’t better than you,” Fat Mancho said.

  “He was today,” I said.

  “You little punks let him be,” Fat Mancho said. “All ’cause Irish here got a thing for crips.”

  “Stay away from this,” Michael said. “It doesn’t matter to you.”

  “You boys are soft,” Fat Mancho said. “Like bread. It’s gonna catch up. And when it does, it’s gonna hurt. Bad.”

  “Hold the talk, Fat Man,” John said. “What happens is our business.”

  “You gotta stay tough to be tough,” Fat Mancho said. “Guys smell it when you’re weak. Eat you like a salad.”

  “Bread and salad,” Tommy said. “Everything’s a meal with you.”

  “I ain’t clownin’,” Fat Mancho said. “This is serious. You wanna be hard, you can’t play at it.”

  “Take it easy,” I said. “It was just a stickball game.”

  “Goin’ soft is a habit,” Fat Mancho said. “Hell to break. You gotta keep yourself mean. And cut your life around it. It’s the only way for little punks like you.”

  “This is like hangin’ out with fuckin’ Confucius,” John said.

  “Be funny, limp dick,” Fat Mancho said. “No skin sliced from my ass. This is just free advice, me to you. Take it or throw it.”

  “Thanks a lot, Fat Man,” Michael said. “We’ll think about it.”

  “You do that, Irish,” Fat Mancho said. “You fuckin’ do that.”

  In truth, we were all a little surprised by Michael’s actions. It was not his way to show vulnerability, especially to someone he didn’t know. It was also not his style to purposely lose at anything for anyone’s sake. It is something John or Tommy would have done without hesitation and something I might have done if I had given it any thought. But for Michael to do it caused us all to pause. We always saw him as the strongest among us, the one least willing to budge.

  None of us liked to lose, and yet here we had just lost and we didn’t know the reason why. Michael sensed our uneasiness but said nothing. In his mind, losing that game and handing a feeling of victory to a girl in a wheelchair was more than the right thing to do. It was more than a courageous thing to do. It was the only thing to do.

  Summer 1967

  14

  THE TEMPERATURE TOPPED out at 98 degrees on the day our lives were forever altered. It was the middle of a summer when the country’s mood plunged into darkness. Race riots had already rocked 127 cities across the United States, killing 77 people and putting more than 4,000 others in area hospitals, and neither side seemed ready to give up the battle.

  Along with the turmoil came change.

  Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson after Justice Thomas C. Clark resigned. In return, Ramsey Clark, the son of the retired justice, was named to the attorney general’s post.

  The Six-Day War was fought in the Middle East.

  The New York World-Journal & Tribune folded and Rolling Stone published its first issue. Bonnie and Clyde brought crowds to theaters and Rosemary’s Baby kept readers up all night. The Beatles sang “All You Need Is Love,” while “Ode to Billy Joe” suggested otherwise, playing and playing on the radio. Mickey Mantle, limping toward the end of his baseball days, hit his 500th home run, and Muhammad Ali, at the height of his boxing achievements, was stripped of the heavyweight crown for refusing to fight in Vietnam.

  We had spent our morning in the cool shadows of a second-floor poolroom on West 53rd Street, watching a craggy-faced lug in a T-shirt and torn jeans rack up a dozen games against four different opponents. As he played, he smoked his way through two packs of Camels and finished off a pint of Four Roses.

  “Bet this guy could even beat Ralph Kramden,” Tommy said, watching the man side-pocket the six ball.

  “Ralph Kramden doesn’t play pool,” I said. “He drives a bus.”

  “Not on The Honeymooners,” Tommy said. “In that movie.”

  “The Hustler,” Michael said. “That the one you mean?”

  “The one where they break Fast Ed
die’s thumbs,” John said.

  “You need directions to figure out the way you think,” I said to Tommy.

  “It wasn’t Kramden?” Tommy asked.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Michael said, looking around the smoke-filled room. “We’re startin’ to smell as bad as this place.”

  We made a right out of the poolroom, late morning sun warming our shoulders, our attention jointly fixed on lunch. We ran a red light crossing 11th Avenue, dodged a school bus and two cabs, then eased back into a fast walk in front of old man Pippilo’s barber shop. At 51st Street and Tenth Avenue we turned left, side by side on the silent streets.

  Between us, we had less than two dollars in our pockets.

  “Let’s go get some pizza,” John said. “We can tell Mimi we’ll pay him down the road.”

  “Mimi charges for water,” Tommy said. “He ain’t gonna go for any IOUs.”

  “We can grab something at home,” I said. “Leftovers.”

  “The only leftovers in my house are dirty dishes,” John said.

  “And week-old bread,” Tommy said.

  “Why not hot dogs?” Michael asked. “We haven’t hit the cart in a couple of weeks.”

  “I don’t know, Mikey,” Tommy said. “That cart guy ain’t like the others. He gets pretty crazy when you take him off.”

  “Tommy’s right,” I said. “Last week, he chased Ramos and two of his friends all the way to the piers. Almost cut one of ’em.”

  “A hot dog ain’t worth bleedin’ over,” John said.

  “We can eat hot dogs or we can eat air,” Michael said. “You guys choose.”

  “Air’s probably safer,” Tommy said.

  “May even taste better,” John said.

  “Whose turn is it?” I asked.

  “Yours,” Michael said.

  “You think he’ll recognize me?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” Tommy said. “I’m really hungry.”

  The scam was simple. We’d done it dozens of times before, with almost as many vendors. We picked it up from an Irish crew on 48th Street who used it every summer to score free Puerto Rican ices.

  I was to walk up to the hot dog cart and order what I wanted. The vendor would then hand me my hot dog and watch as I ran off without paying. This left the vendor with two choices, neither very appealing. He could stand his ground and swallow his loss. Or he could give chase. This second choice forced him to abandon the cart, where my friends could feast in his absence.

  The hot dog vendor at this corner was tall and slender and in his mid-twenties, with thick dark hair and a round, bulbous nose. A recent addition to Hell’s Kitchen, his English was as poor as his clothes, ragged blue shirt and jeans, front pockets frayed at the edges. He owned a Yankee warm-up jacket and soiled cap and wore them on colder days.

  The vendor worked the far corner of 51st Street and Tenth Avenue, standing under the partial shade of a red and yellow Sabrett umbrella, selling cold sodas, hot dogs, and sausages to an array of passing customers—local merchants, longshoremen and truckers, schoolchildren. Seven days a week, late morning to early evening, he was there, plying a trade that was all too easy for us to ridicule.

  We never saw the vendor as a man, not the way we saw the other men of the neighborhood, and didn’t care enough about him to grant him any respect. We gave little notice to how hard he worked for the few dollars he earned. We didn’t know about the young wife and two kids he left in Greece and how he hoped to build for them a new foundation in a new country. We didn’t pay attention to the tedious twelve-hour days he endured, slicing buns and sifting through chunks of ice through cold spells and heat waves. All the time stamping his feet on hard ground to keep the blood flowing.

  We never saw the tiny, airless fourth-floor room he lived in, a forty-minute walk from his station, its only comfort a tattered collection of pictures from home, crudely taped to the wall nearest the worn mattress of his bed. We never saw the hot stove, topped by empty cans of Campbell’s pork and beans. Or the crumpled packs of Greek cigarettes, tossed in a corner trash bin, gifts from his wife, his only stateside pleasure.

  We didn’t see any of that.

  We saw only a free lunch.

  “Mustard and onions,” I said, avoiding the vendor’s suspicious look. “No soda.”

  He nodded, wary, his eyes over my shoulders, looking for hidden shadows.

  “I know you,” he said, accusation more than question.

  I shrugged and smiled.

  “Can I have two napkins?” I asked, reaching my hand out for the hot dog. “Onions get messy.”

  The vendor pulled a second napkin from its canister and wrapped it under the bun. He hesitated for an instant, his hand out toward mine, our eyes fixed. We both sensed a wrong about to happen, though we were ignorant of its eventual weight. He shifted his feet and handed over the hot dog. I took it from him and ran.

  I scooted past Tommy Mug’s dry cleaners and Armond’s shoe repair. The vendor, the anger behind his months of frustration broken beyond any reasonable point, gave chase, a wood-handled prong fork in one hand.

  As I ran, slivers of red onions flew off the top of the hot dog, dotting my cheek and the front of my white T-shirt. I cut past the P.A.L. entrance and turned the corner at 50th Street.

  He was close on me, arms and legs moving in their own furied rhythm, the fork still gripped in one hand, his breath coming in measured spurts.

  “Pay my money, thief!” he shouted after me. “Pay my money now!”

  Michael, John, and Tommy were on their second hot dogs, leaning casually against the side of the cart, faces turned to the sun.

  “How long you think he’ll be?” John asked, wiping brown mustard from his lower lip.

  “Shakes or the hot dog guy?” Michael asked.

  “You got one, you got the other,” Tommy said. “That guy looked pissed enough to kill.”

  “Gotta catch him to kill him,” John said. “Don’t worry.”

  “These things are heavier than they look,” Michael said, standing now, hands gripping the cart’s wooden handles.

  “The heavy shit’s underneath,” Tommy said. “Where nobody can see it.”

  “What heavy shit?” John asked.

  “The gas tanks,” Tommy said. “The stuff that keeps the food hot. Or maybe you thought the sun made the water boil.”

  “Think we can push it?” Michael asked. “The three of us?”

  “Push it where?” John asked.

  “Couple of blocks away,” Michael said. “Be a nice surprise for the guy when he gets back from chasing Shakes not to find his cart.”

  “What if somebody takes it?” Tommy said.

  “You gotta be pretty dumb to steal a hot dog cart,” Michael said.

  “Ain’t we doin’ that?” John asked.

  “We’re just moving it,” Michael said. “Making sure nobody else steals it.”

  “So, we’re helpin’ the guy out,” Tommy said.

  “Now you’re listening,” Michael said.

  The vendor tired at 52nd Street and 12th Avenue.

  He was bent over, hands on his knees, the fork long since discarded, face flushed, his mouth open and hungry for breath. I was on the other side of the street, against a tenement doorway, hair and body washed in sweat. My hands were still greasy from the hot dog I held for most of the run.

  I looked over at the vendor and found him staring back at me, anger still visible, his hands now balled up and punching at his sides. He was beat but not beaten. He could go ten minutes more just on hate alone. I decided against a run toward the piers, choosing instead to double back and head for neighborhood safety. By now, I figured, the guys should have downed enough hot dogs and sodas to satisfy Babe Ruth’s appetite.

  I took three deep breaths and started running toward 51st Street, traffic moving behind me. I turned my head and looked back at the vendor, his body in the same position as it was a block earlier. I slowed when I reached the corner and allowed myself a smile,
content that the chase, while not over, had drifted to my favor.

  If I got to the cart fast enough, I might even have time for a hot dog.

  Michael, John, and Tommy were standing at the corner of 50th Street and Ninth Avenue, tired from having pushed the cart up the one long block. They stopped in front of a florist, a short woman, her hair in a bun, clipping stems from a handful of roses, watching them with curiosity.

  “Let’s have a soda,” John said, sliding open the aluminum door and plunging a hand into dark, icy water. “A Dr. Brown sounds about right.”

  “I’ll take a cream,” Tommy said.

  John handed Tommy a sweaty can of soda. “How about you, Mikey?”

  “I don’t want anything,” Michael said, looking down the street, arms across his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” Tommy asked, taking a slurp from his soda.

  “Shakes is taking too long,” Michael said. “He should’ve been back by now.”

  I stopped at the light at 51st Street and Tenth Avenue and looked for my Mends and the hot dog cart.

  The vendor was one avenue down, running again at a full pace, his stride seemingly stronger than ever. I bent over to tie my laces and caught a glimpse of him.

  “Give it up,” I whispered. “Let it go.”

  I stood and continued to run, this time toward Ninth Avenue. My sides hurt and my legs were starting to cramp. I was light-headed, my throat dry and my lungs heavy. I ran past Printing High School, the yard empty except for two rummies drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, thinking of ways to score their first drink of the day. I dodged past a heavyset woman tugging a shopping wagon piled with groceries and jumped two garbage-can lids tossed to the side by a passing sanitation crew.

  Then, halfway up the block, the vendor still on my trail, I saw the hot dog cart being pushed toward Eighth Avenue by my friends. They were hunched low and moving easy, walking within the shadows of the arches of the old Madison Square Garden, as calm and steady as if they were out walking a dog.

  The vendor saw them too.

  “Stop them!” he shouted, not breaking stride. “Stop them! Stop the thieves!”

  In a neighborhood where silence in the face of crime is a virtue and blindness a necessity, no one moved.