The Boy Who Granted Dreams

  “Aw, you’re breakin’ my heart,” said Bill, coming back into the room. He drained the bottle, threw it on the floor, and then shoved the knife his father used at the fish market into the paternal stomach.

  The mother threw herself between them as Bill was landing a second blow. She felt the blade scrape her ribs and enter her chest with a sticky sound. Eyes wide, she fell to the ground. Then Bill raised the knife and stabbed again. The father had stretched out his hands to protect himself. The blade went through his palm.

  “I ever tell you how much I hate your stinkin’ hands, all covered with fish scales and shit?” Bill laughed and stabbed him in the gut again. The father fell to the floor, across his wife.

  Bill lifted the knife and stabbed again and again, not caring whether he struck his mother the Jew or his father the fishmonger. And when he pulled out the knife for the last time, he was surprised to hear himself say “twenty-seven” out loud. Twenty-seven stabs. He’d counted them.

  He dropped the knife on top of the bodies in their bloody entanglement and went into the pantry to find something to eat and another bottle. He gathered up his fourteen dollars and twenty cents. He looked in the cardboard box where he knew his mother kept her money, and found three dollars and forty-five cents. From his father’s pocket he got an additional dollar and a quarter. He sat in the green armchair and counted how much he had: eighteen dollars and ninety cents.

  He looked at the ring on his little finger, and then worked it off. He took the bloody knife and used its point to pry out all the stones, one by one. He made a packet for them out of a piece of newspaper, and pushed it deep in his own pocket. He pulled a handkerchief out of the corpse’s pocket and used it to clean the blood off the empty setting.

  Finally he climbed back out the window he’d come in through, and reversed the itinerary he’d followed when he was a little boy afraid of the dark, when he was afraid he wouldn’t see his father coming after him drunk with the belt wrapped around his hand, ready to beat him for no reason. When he ran away from home because he knew his mother — the Jewish girl who had wanted to marry the German fishmonger — wouldn’t defend him. Because women were all whores, and Jewish women were the worst ones.

  “How much can I get for this silver ring?” he asked the old Jewish man.

  He knew that this little shop stayed open till late. Jews were shits. They’d do anything for money, he nodded inwardly. They were heartless.

  The old goldsmith took his loupe and peered at the empty mounting, turning it in his hand. Then he looked at the boy who’d brought it. He looked stupid. “Why would I want a ring with no stones in it? It is empty,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, dropping the ring on the counter, through the opening in the protective screen. “Two dollars I give you.”

  “Only two dollars?”

  “Where would I get another stone to fit here? Only the original one, nu? I don’t have it. Melt this down, make new ring, for new stone. Much work, no profit,” said the old man.

  Jews. They were all like that. Bill knew it. And this old kike was the worst of all. He knew that, too. But where else could he go? No other place was open at this hour. And he needed to scrape together as much money as he could so he could get out of town. He fingered the paper packet with the gems in his pocket. No, better not. The old guy would think he’d stolen them and he’d call the cops.

  “I gotta get five bucks for it at least. It’s real silver.”

  Yes, this boy was really stupid, thought the old man. His kind hated Jews because they thought they were smarter. That had always been the explanation. Because all these Americans were stupid. “Three,” he said.

  “Four,” said Bill.

  The old man sighed and counted out four dollars, passing them through the opening, taking the maimed ring.

  Bill stayed there, staring at him.

  “What? Something else?” the jeweler asked him.

  Bill stared straight into the eyes of the old man he’d spied on so many times, first with his mother when he was little and then by himself once he was grown. He stared at the heartless old man who had thrown his daughter out of the house when she fell in love with a German fishmonger. Who had covered all the mirrors in the house and recited the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, because for him it was as if his daughter had died, and he never wanted to see her again. And he had never wanted to see his grandson.

  Bill stared at his grandfather.

  “Ya shitty Jew,” he said, and laughed his charming laugh. He turned and walked away.

  The old man shrugged. “Martha,” he said, as soon as he was alone, calling towards the back of the shop. “Hear what just happened. A fool sold me a platinum setting worth at least fifty dollars for four! Platinum! And the idiot thought it was silver!” and he laughed, his light, gay, carefree laugh, the special laugh with which he’d won the heart of his beloved wife fifty years before.

  The same light and joyous laugh with which, three years later, he had welcomed the news that his wife had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. Bill’s mother.

  13

  Manhattan, 1922

  The news spread rapidly. And just as rapidly, the details grew in embellishment. By now it was common knowledge that Christmas had gotten out of a car that belonged to a famous Jewish gangster, one of the biggest. Some people went beyond mere hints, saying — while lowering their voices even more — that the car belonged to Louis Lepke Buchalter, or even Arnold Rothstein. Within two days, the whole Lower East Side was sure that Christmas hadn’t flashed a fifty dollar bill at the door of the tenement on Monroe Street, but an enormous sheaf of bills, “More than a thousand dollars,” they swore. The same witnesses added that the boy had an ivory-handled Colt stuck in his waistband.

  “Hey, the other day? We was just kiddin’ ya …”

  Christmas glanced at the boys, uncaring. He was wearing new pants, jacket, and shirt. And a pair of polished leather shoes that were the right size. He hadn’t spent a penny for any of this. The tailor, Moses Strauss, was terrified when he saw him come into his shop. He thought that a visit from the young gangster could only mean bad news. When he realized that Christmas wasn’t planning to extort money from him, he was so relieved, and grateful, that he made him a gift of a new outfit. And again rumors flew through the neighborhood. Moses Strauss was generally considered a toad. He never gave credit or layaways to the impoverished residents of the Lower East Side. So if even the “Jew toad” was willing to bite the bullet in front of Christmas, then everything they were hearing about the Diamond Dogs must be true.

  “Honest, we was kiddin’ around, is all, we didn’t mean nothin’ …” insisted the leader of the gang that had teased Christmas a few days earlier.

  Santo Filesi hung back a little. He was balancing a large tin can in one hand. He wasn’t comfortable in front of the other rowdy band. He, too, had brand new shoes, pants, jacket, and shirt. Moses Strauss had offered him a discount — that in itself something unheard of — but then the tailor thought Christmas was looking sulky. He wrapped everything up and kept on repeating that it was an honor to have two such fine boys as clients. “No offense if I call you boys, young gentlemen, eh?” he hastened to say, almost bowing across the counter.

  “You want somethin’?” Christmas asked the gang’s leader. “We’ve got stuff to do.”

  “I just wanted t’ say …” mumbled the kid, who was a big sixteen-year-old with a bulldog face and such a low hairline that he seemed to be missing a forehead. “Well, we was thinkin’ …” and he glanced at the boys in his gang, all of them looking as dangerous as he did, intensely black-browed and, like their leader, trying to smile and look friendly. “They ain’t no reason we can’t be friends, huh? We’re all Italians …”

  “I’m American,” said Christmas, looking at them.

  “Sure, sure … we’re American too, yeah …” said the kid, twisting the grimy cap he’d pulled off when he began speaking to Christmas. “See, what I wanted t’ say … maybe
you Diamond Dogs was thinkin’ about getting’ bigger. We wouldn’t mind goin’ in with you … okay? I’m sayin’ we could put both our gangs together.”

  Christmas gave him a dismissive smile and then turned to Santo and laughed. Santo bravely tried to laugh too.

  “So what would I even do with you guys?” Christmas asked the boy. “I gave you a chance and you missed out.”

  “I already said, we was jokin’.”

  “Yeah? Well, it didn’t make me laugh.”

  “So maybe it was a dumb joke,” the kid looked at his followers and squinted meaningfully.

  “Yeah, sure, just a dumb joke,” they chorused.

  “Us bein’ together — what’s in it for me?” Christmas asked, skeptically.

  “Look how many of us we got,” said the kid.

  “I’m talkin’ business here,” said Christmas. “How much do you take in every week?” Before the other boy could answer, Christmas shook his head. “Naw, I better be straight with you — you’d be a dead weight for us, sorry I have to say it.”

  The kid clenched his fists but swallowed the insult.

  Christmas stared at him in silence. “Here’s what I cans do,” he said condescendingly, “I’m gonna let you take care of your own business, but you guys have to respect my rules. First rule: You don’t hurt women, never. I’ll make you real sorry if you do. Second rule: Nobody better touch Pep’s dog — the butcher around the corner.”

  “That mangy mutt?” said the kid, “How come?”

  “Pep’s my friend, that’s how come,” and he looked the kid in the eyes, taking a step closer to him, confronting him. “That’s all you need t’ know.”

  The kid looked away. “Okay,” he said. “We don’t touch no women and we don’t touch the mangy mutt neither.”

  “Lilliput,” said Christmas. “From now on, she’s Lilliput t’ you.”

  “Lilliput …”

  Christmas stared at the other gang members. “Lilliput,” they chorused.

  Christmas laid his hand firmly, benevolently, on the kid’s shoulders. “Okay. If us Diamond Dogs needs some guys we can count on for a couple of jobs, I’ll think about usin’ you.”

  The kid’s face brightened. “Just say when, and we’re ready!” He held up a switchblade, clicking it open. Behind him all the other boys clicked open their own knives.

  Santo felt his knees give way.

  “Aw, put those away,” scoffed Christmas. “Diamond Dogs got somethin’ better,” and he tapped his own temple. “Our heads.”

  The boys put the knives back in their pockets.

  “Come on, Santo,” Christmas told his lieutenant, who was pale as a rag. “We need to get goin’. We got an appointment with you-know-who.”

  Santo had studied his role. He had to speak only one line. He’d practiced it over and over, all morning, in front of his mother’s mirror, with one hand in his pocket and an insolent look on his face. But fear of those knives made his voice come out sounding choked. He managed to gasp out. “Arnold?”

  Christmas turned on him, looking furious. “Yeah, why not spill the whole thing, his last name too?” Now the boys from the other gang were sure that they were talking about the fearsome Arnold Rothstein. Christmas looked into the other kid’s face. “You didn’t hear a thing, right?” he said, pointing his finger straight at him.

  “We’re all deaf, right?” said the kid, turning towards his gang.

  “Deaf,” came the chorus.

  Christmas and Santo strolled off, turning the corner. As soon as they came down the alley behind the butcher shop, Christmas whistled. Yapping and popeyed, Pep’s dog plunged out of the store.

  “Lilliput!” said Christmas happily, crouching on his knees and caressing the animal who greeted him joyously.

  “She‘s a mess,” said Santo disgustedly. Lilliput growled at him.

  Christmas laughed, opening the tin of salve Santo had asked his mother to prepare.

  “What now? You make her ready for oven?” asked Pep from the back door, seeing his dog besmeared with unguent. He held a chair in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

  The dog trotted over to him, wagged her tail in greeting, circled his legs, and then went back to Christmas.

  The butcher planted his chair in the mud of the alley, laid the newspaper on it and went back inside his shop. When he emerged, he was wearing a heavy jacket over his bloody apron. He sat down and opened the newspaper, with one eye on the shop. “You know why I can put this chair in the mud?” he said proudly. “Is metal. Never break. But back and seat, Bakelite. We invent here in New York, the Bakelite, you know? Indestructible.”

  “Nice,” said Christmas, then he pointed to the shop. “Santo, go make sure no vultures come in.”

  “Who?” asked Santo, baffled.

  Christmas laughed. “Stay by the entrance so no wise guys sneak in to grab a piece of free meat.”

  Santo hesitated, then started walking up the alley.

  “Hey, where are you goin’?” Christmas called.

  “Me? I go around to front door …”

  “I think you can come in the back. Is that all right, Pep?”

  The butcher nodded. “But don’t you steala my meat,” he told Santo.

  “No, mister, no … I never …” Santo began.

  The butcher chuckled, and Santo hurried into the shop, his face red.

  “He a tough guy, that one, eh?” said Pep. He laughed again.

  Christmas didn’t answer, but continued dabbing the cream over Lilliput’s raw patches.

  “Okay, you got her buttered up good now,” said Pep. “What is it?”

  “It’s for mange.”

  “And now you know about mange?”

  “No. But the doctor who made this, he knows.”

  “You not make-a me pay for it, boy, am I right?”

  “Well, the doctor didn’t give it to me for free,” Christmas stood up, wiped his hands on a handkerchief, and replaced the lid on the can.

  “Who ask you?” Pep started reading the paper.

  Christmas shrugged and kicked a pebble. Growling, Lilliput rushed after it, took it in her teeth, shook her head as if she were fighting, then came back over to Christmas, and dropped it at his feet. Christmas laughed and kicked it away again. Again Lilliput growled, and brought it back.

  “How much it cost you?” said the butcher, looking up from the newspaper.

  “Couple of bucks,” said Christmas carelessly, continuing to play with Lilliput.

  “Two dollar?” The butcher shook his head and kept riffling through the paper. He glanced at a headline, then put the paper down suddenly. He whistled to Lilliput, and when she came to him he picked her up, and held her near his nose, sniffing her as if she really were a roast chicken. He set her down. “Lemon. Alcohol.” He touched his finger to the dog’s red skin and rubbed it against his thumb. “Paraffin.” Then he cleaned his fingers on his apron and took up the paper again. But suddenly he lowered it again, with a ferocious glare at Christmas. “Two fucking dollar?” he said. “For a lemon, some shitty alcohol, an’ some paraffin?”

  “The doctor says put it on her every day,” said Christmas, meeting his gaze squarely.

  “Ragazzo,” said Pep, pointing a scarred finger the size of a sausage at him, “I hear lotta talk about you these days. Everybody say you big shot now, they don’t talk about nothing else. But now I tell you something. I not give a fuck about Italian gang or Jew gang or Irish gang. You all shit, you live by make decent people scare of you. These gang, they no break my balls, no make me afraid. I give kick in ass, I not care how many. Is clear?”

  Christmas looked silently at him. Santo peeped out worriedly from the back door.

  “Stay at your post,” Christmas ordered. Santo disappeared.

  “Didn’t you want t’ read the paper, Pep?” Christmas suggested.

  “Don’ tell me what I want do, piece of shit.”

  Lilliput, yapping playfully, dropped the pebble at Christmas’ fee
t. He kicked it for her, smiling.

  The butcher watched his dog rush after the pebble, and bring it back. “Already she not scratch so much,” he grumbled, still frowning.

  Christmas tossed the pebble again.

  “Oh, what the hell!” The butcher stood up, taking the chair in one hand. The newspaper fell in a puddle. “There, now you happy?” he grunted at Christmas, indicating the paper. “Come on, Lilliput.” The animal followed him into the shop. “Out!” he roared a few minutes later.

  As Santo came hurrying out the back door, looking worried, Christmas picked the newspaper out of the mud.

  “Signor Pep, he say give you this,” and Pep held out two dollars.

  Christmas smiled and pocketed them.

  “He pay us good, eh?” said Santo.

  “Good enough.”

  “How much I get?”

  Christmas opened the paper. On the front page, a big headline said

  BRUTE ASSAULTS MINOR, SLAYS OWN PARENTS.

  TEXTILE MAGNATE’S GRANDDAUGHTER

  VICTIM OF BRUTAL ATTACK.

  POLICE SEEK WILLIAM HOFFLUND

  Christmas’ face clouded. “William Hofflund,” he said in a voice full of hate.

  “How much I get?” Santo asked again.

  Christmas looked at him through slitted eyes. “That’s him,” he said. “William Hofflund. He’s the one.” And he walked away.

  14

  Manhattan, 1911

  “Yeah … there, I feel you … let it out … yeah, like that … openin’ up like a flower … a little bud … pushin’ its way out, like that, now … now … I was thirsty for ya … lemme drink …”

  “Sal!” Cetta whimpered. She let the orgasm quake her, shamelessly lift her. She dug her fingers into Sal’s thick hair, pressing his head against her own excited flesh, sensing the humors of her own body mingle on the lips of the man who knelt between her legs. “Sal,” she said again, more weakly now, loosening the grip of her hands, lazily arching her back in a final spasm, as if everything came to a stop, her heart, her breath, and her thoughts. As if she was miming death. A sweet death, to which she could abandon herself, dying for only a little while. And then awaken from that little death, only needing to open her eyes, to discover the whole world different, clouded, sleepy yet reborn. She sighed, naked on the bed. Stretching herself like a cat, and then curling against his chest as he lay beside her.