The Boy Who Granted Dreams

  Adapting the same criteria to persons that his father used for screws and nails, Karl gave a rational thrust to the “human storehouse” he planned to operate. After a very few years, working beyond the obligatory hours, giving himself over to the profession body and soul, he was making a career for himself. Now he was manager of the second level at N.Y. Broadcast, not just charged with overseeing programs, but with suggesting new ones.

  And that evening Karl, as often happened, was still in his office late at night, trying to think of something to replace an unbearably boring cultural program featuring a university professor — a friend of one of the top managers — who droned on about American history. It hadn’t awakened the slightest interest among the listeners because he kept making it too complicated. The professor had a nasal voice that would put anyone to sleep, even a man who’d been chugging strong coffee for a week, thought Karl. Because he had no idea about who his audience was, he didn’t know the people who might tune in, and he didn’t have the slightest interest in understanding them. But if N.Y. Broadcast wanted radio to enter the homes of ordinary people, then radio had to speak their language, know their problems and their dreams. Karl kept telling his bosses this.

  He rubbed his tired eyes. Discouraged, he closed the folder where he kept his ideas for new programs and put on his jacket and overcoat. For weeks he’d been trying to find a way to tell the story of America without the tiresome preachings of the stuffy professor. He locked his office, wrapped a warm cashmere scarf — a gift from his father — around his neck and started walking down the service stairs. He didn’t trust the elevators at night. By this time the operators had gone home and the night watchman was famous for sleeping deeply. If Karl were to get stuck in the elevator, he’d have to wait till the operators came back the next day. So, when he worked late, he always took the stairs.

  The building was immersed in shadows and silence. Karl’s steps clicked on the steps. When he had almost reached the second floor, however, he heard a voice echoing up the stairwell. Amplified. Warm, rounded. Happy. Alive. An unknown young voice. Karl opened the door leading to the second floor and walked quietly down the hall that led to the recording studios.

  Just outside studio three he saw a group of people.

  “… because a gangster’s fundamental rule,” said the voice, now stronger and clearer, “is that a man owns something only as long as he can hang on to it …”

  Karl moved in closer. A man from the group hovering outside of studio three turned around and looked at him. The whites of his eyes flashed in the semidarkness. He was a black man, with a mop and bucket in his hand. Worriedly, he touched the shoulder of the woman in front of him. She too looked back, and a worried look came onto her face, too. She opened her mouth to speak but Karl stopped her with a gesture of his hand, then he put a finger to his lips for quiet. He came over and stood with the group, and one by one, as each of them turned to look at him, he signaled them to be quiet. All of them were black. They were all part of the cleaning crew.

  “You might want to know how I know all these things,” the voice went on. “Well, that’s easy. I’m one of them. I run the Diamond Dogs, the most famous gang on the Lower East Side. I used to be a raggedy-ass kid who didn’t eat, some days …”

  Gently Karl touched the shoulder of the woman who cleaned his office. “Hi, Betty,” he murmured.

  “Good evenin’, Mr. Jarach,” said the black woman, startled.

  “Who is that?” Karl asked her softly, pointing towards the darkness of Studio Three.

  Betty shrugged helplessly. “We don’ know,” she said.

  Karl noticed that she had answered him out of politeness, but really she only wanted to listen to the voice. Karl smiled.

  “… It all started in Five Points, they used t’ call it the Bloody Ould Sixth Ward, the Sixth District. But you wasn’t born yet, and I wasn’t neither. Which is lucky …”

  Karl saw the cleaning crew smiling and nodding at one another.

  “… On accounta those were wild places. Places it wasn’t healthy to go. Where Cross, Anthony, Orange and Little Water come together …” the voice went on. “Dontcha know those street names?”

  His listeners shook their heads.

  “Nevah heard of ’em,” muttered Betty, very softly.

  “No? Hey, I bet ya been there a million times,” the voice continued, as if it had heard them respond. “Anthony Street? Now it’s Worth Street.”

  Karl watched various mouths drop open. And he opened his, too, amazed, thinking, Worth Street, where my father’s hardware store is. The street where I grew up.

  “They gave Orange a new name too: Now it’s Baxter. And Cross? That’s Park Street. But Little Water’s gone. Nobody knows where … So how many times have ya walked right over history?”

  The cleaning crew shook their heads incredulously. And Karl, too, was amazed and fascinated. He moved through the group and tried to see into the studio, but all he could see was the dark shape of a figure leaning over the table, holding a microphone.

  “It was full of saloons and dancehalls back then, kinda like a Coney Island for the likes of us — oystermen, sailors, workingmen, guys making low wages … that’s where gangs was born. An’ believe me, those guys was mean. They wrote the book on rough and tough …”

  Karl was bewitched. He was listening in the same tense silence as the cleaning crew.

  “It’s late. It’s time for me to leave you, New York …”

  A disappointed murmur came from his listeners.

  “But I’m gonna be back soon, with a lot more t’ tell ya. About da slums, and da press gangs; and about the Old Brewery, about Mose the giant, an’ Gallus Meg; about Patsy the Barber and Hell-Cat Maggie, the woman you’d never wanna meet …”

  The listeners laughed softly, elbowing each other. Karl was smiling with them.

  “And I’ll tell ya about today’s gangsters, too — the ones I see every day; the ones you might see walking around in their flashy silk suits. I’ll teach you t’ talk like they do, and I’ll tell about adventures that went on in the alleys of our own city …”

  “When he do that?” asked one innocent among the cleaning staff.

  “Here’s a story about Monk Eastman, from way back when he worked as a bouncer in a ballroom on the East Side. He was just startin’ out, but he already liked seein’ blood. He had a big club, a cudgel, t’ make sure everybody in the dancehall behaved. If some client got rowdy, why he’d just knock him out. And then, very carefully, he’d cut a new notch on his club. So one night Monk comes over to some poor old guy who ain’t doin’ a thing, see, and he lays him out with a tremendous whack. Blood pourin’ out of his scalp …”

  “Oh sweet Jesus lord!” said a plump woman near Karl, pressing a hand to her breast.

  “Shh!” Betty hushed her.

  “Somebody asked him why he done it, an’ Monk said, ‘Hey, I already had forty-nine notches on my club, so I needed an even number …’”

  The cleaners laughed again, softly. And Karl laughed too.

  “I have to go now. I gotta take care of a rat who turned out to be a canary. Once he’s iced, I can pick up da take from a speakeasy I got,” the voice paused. “Good night, New York. And remember … the Diamond Dogs are watchin’ you. We know all your stories.”

  Next they heard the crackle of the microphone being turned off.

  This is the history of America! thought Karl, and after a second of silence, he started applauding. And the crowd around him applauded too.

  Then they heard the sound of a chair being pushed away from the table, and when Karl switched on the studio light, they all stood looking at a frightened twenty-year-old boy with a tangled blond forelock; his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. He looked at them, stammering at Karl:

  “Excuse me … sorry … I was just leaving …”

  “What’s your name?” Karl asked him.

  “Please don’t fire me.”

  “What’s your name?”
br />   “Christmas Luminita.”

  “Do you really know a lot of these stories?”

  “Yes, sir …”

  “Ten o’clock. Tomorrow. Here,” Karl smiled at him. “We’ll record the first episode.”

  41

  Los Angeles, 1927

  Bill was striking a set. It was nine o’clock at night and there was nobody else on the sound stage. In all these months, he hadn’t made any progress in the world of cinema. They’d hired him to be an assistant scenery mover, and he was still an assistant scenery mover. His salary was just barely higher than a well-paid black man’s. But his possibilities for a career were exactly the same as any street nigger’s. Zero.

  Bill gave a firm blow to the base of one of the two wooden supports that held up the painted panel of the set. Same with the other one. He loosened the two wooden slats and let the panel fall to the ground, echoing through the hangar. That’s what he’d learned in Hollywood. Which side of the set were you on? That was what mattered. If you were in front of the scenery you could be anything you wanted. Today a pasha, tomorrow a rich guy, in any case the boss of the world. And you were in some dream mansion, in a luxurious office, in a heated swimming pool. Bill turned around to look at the mutilated set. The sumptuous harem where they’d been shooting lesbian sex scenes all day was pathetic and ridiculous now. If you were behind the scenery you could see all that reality for what it was: sheets of painted cardboard, held up by wooden bracing. And those panels would get repainted to trick you over and over: pretending to be something else, some other fraud. The chief set designer told him the first day, slapping his hand on the wooden slats that held the painted flats up, “Wood is worth money, remember that. When you take down a set, it’s the wood you have to be careful with. The cardboard? That ain’t worth shit.” Because this was Hollywood: nothing. Worse: an illusion.

  Bill stacked the panel in a corner and then took two new supports apart. He yanked the nails out of the base and the top and put them carefully with the others. Usually he was in a hurry to finish work and get home. So he could watch Linda Merritt crying. But not tonight. And from now on he wasn’t going to be in a hurry. Linda was gone. She’d left. She wasn’t going to be a star. She had hoisted the white flag and gone back to her farm. Where she certainly wasn’t going to quit crying, even if it was for new reasons, new regrets, new disillusionments. But now Bill was burned up because he was never going to get to spy on her again.

  He picked up the flat from the floor and flung it violently towards the corner where the others were piled. It rode the air like a sail, or like a broken wing; rose, arched awkwardly, and crashed to the ground, crumpled. Bill gave it an angry kick, picked it up and put it in the corner. Back on the set, he flopped on the big bed where that day’s actresses had rolled around naked, oozing their fake passion into the sheets that the lights made look like silk. He pressed his face against a pillow and tried to control his rage. His nostrils were full of Shalimar, the perfume used by the leading lady, that bitch who thought she was like Gloria Swanson. Bill loathed her. More than any of the other whores who passed through here. The others didn’t pay attention to him, but this one had had it in for him since the very first day. She made him bring her coffee, or water, or do anything she asked, just so it was something humiliating, and she always sneered at him. All the time. The coffee was always too black or too sweet or too pale or didn’t have enough sugar. And the water was always too warm or too cold. Or he’d taken too much time or not enough. The bitch would look at the director and she’d say, “Where’d you dig up this lug, Arty?” and she’d laugh and turn to the make-up girl or the set dresser and say, “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?” And Bill had to take it, he couldn’t talk back to her, even though he looked at her with blazing eyes. And she, the fucking bitch, could tell; she enjoyed it, she challenged him, she put her hands over her always-naked breasts and laughed. Laughed in his face.

  Bill grabbed the pillow, ready to rip it apart. But he controlled himself. Next day the set dresser would blame him and make him pay for it. And Bill didn’t make enough to allow him to pay for a pillow stinking of Shalimar and that whore. He threw it far away, and turned over, lying face down, nostrils dilated and trembling with anger. He looked up at the steel mesh up by the ceiling, and the spotlights that were looking at him like dozens of electrified eyes.

  No, he wasn’t in any rush to go home tonight. And not just tonight. He was never going to be in a hurry to go back to his crummy apartment at the Palermo. She was gone now. Over these past few months Linda had tried to start a conversation with him. But he’d always evaded her. He didn’t want her to find a friend in him, somebody she could tell her troubles to. He wanted Linda to suffer alone because that was how he could feel pleasure. Even when she’d knocked at his door one night, asking if he’d like to share a bottle of tequila with her, he’d shut the door in her face as rudely as possible.

  He’d let her get drunk alone. That night had been wonderful. Linda had wept more than usual. And she’d left the light on. She’d let herself be loved through the wall like never before. That was a night of passion.

  But it wasn’t only the fact that Linda was gone that made Bill mad with rage. That morning the new tenant had come to his door. A young guy, prissy-looking. Somebody who thought he was better than other people because he was a screenwriter, because he had a typewriter. When Bill opened the door, there was a nasty smile on the face of this shitty screenwriter who thought his own shit didn’t stink. “Sorry, pal, the party’s over,” he said. Bill didn’t understand. Then the writer, still smiling, raised one eyebrow and jerked his chin at the living room wall. “Your free peep-show,” he said. “I spotted the holes in the wall,” and he chuckled. “Too bad your leading lady left town. But I’m not going to audition for you, so I plugged both those holes. All the same, you gave me a great idea for a story.” Bill wanted to beat the shit out of him, but the screenwriter tuned away, smirking. After while Bill heard him typing on his fucking typewriter. He was sure he was writing about him. Laughing at him. Making him ridiculous.

  “Are you sniffing me, lug?” a sudden voice echoed through the set.

  Bill leaped off the bed, looking guilty.

  The actress laughed, showing her white and perfect teeth.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody,” she said as she climbed the stairs leading to the dressing rooms. “It’ll be our little secret,” and resting a gloved hand on the stair rail she turned towards Bill and ran the tip of her tongue over her scarlet lips in a swift flickering movement of mockery. “I forgot something. A present from an admirer,” she said, not wasting another look on him. “But don’t mind me. You just go on choking your chicken like I wasn’t here,” and she disappeared, laughing, into a dressing room.

  Bill was hot with anger. He grabbed the hammer and attacked the wooden supports. He yanked them off the two-by-four base and piled them up neatly. He lifted off the panel and put it in the corner with the others.

  “Did you take it?” said the actress in a hard voice a moment later.

  Bill turned to look at her. She was wrapped in a pale fur coat that was already shedding. It hung open over her tight fuchsia silk dress.

  “Did you take it?” she asked again, hurrying along the gallery and starting down the stairs.

  “What?” said Bill, staying where he was.

  “You lowlife shit,” the actress sneered as she came towards him, her footsteps echoing across the deserted stage.

  She was a Mexican, but with pale skin. She didn’t look spic. More like a Jew, Bill thought, surprised. A rich Jew girl with fur and jewels on. Thin. Little tits. How old would she be? Eighteen, maybe? She looked like a woman because she was a whore. But she was only a girl.

  “My bracelet. It’s gold, you son of a bitch,” said the actress once she was in front of him. “I left it in the dressing room and you stole it.”

  “I never took it,” said Bill.

  “Give it back
to me and that’s the end of it,” she said, pointing a finger in his face. Her nails were smooth, long, red-lacquered. With a big fake emerald ring.

  “I ain’t got it,” Bill repeated. And he thought she was only a girl. With long black hair that fell in soft curls.

  “Son of a bitch …”

  “There’s only one bitch in here and it’s you,” said Bill. He could feel the anger building up inside him, forcing its way out.

  “I’ll tell everyone, you shitty thief,” said the actress. “You’re finished. They’ll fire you and you’ll end up in jail, piece of shit,” but she took a step back as she insulted him.

  Bill saw that her sureness, her whore’s arrogance, was vanishing from her eyes. And then he laughed, as he hadn’t for a long time. In his laughter he could hear the old, joyous high note that used to be the voice of his nature.

  “You’re going to jail!” screamed the actress, and she took another step back, because what she read in Bill’s eyes frightened her.

  “Yer scared, aincha?” said Bill, coming close to her. She’s just a girl, he thought. And he stroked the pale skin of her cheek. Not a spic. A heeb.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said scornfully and tried to turn away.

  But now Bill had grabbed her wrist. Nothin’ but a spoiled Jew bitch, and rich, too. “I ain’t gonna kiss ya, I promise,” he snarled, and punched her in the face.

  She fell to the floor, whimpering. Then she tried to escape, crawling on hands and knees.

  “I ain’t gonna kiss ya, Ruth,” he murmured, grabbing the collar of her pale fur coat.

  She twisted away, screaming, trying to escape, pulling out of the fur. Bill grabbed her raven hair and turned her around. Her lip was split, blood mingling with lipstick. Her eyes were filled with fear. Bill laughed — hearing with delight that light and brilliant tone that once again bubbled out of his throat — and punched her again. Thinking of Linda who had gone away. Thinking of the cunt screenwriter who thought he was better than Bill because he had a typewriter. Thinking of Ruth, of that first time, that first joy. Of that night in which he’d understood that there was a way to set free all his rage and frustration without letting it poison him. He hit the girl again, in the face. And then in the gut, the stomach. He grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet, then dragged her to the bed where she’d been rolling around all day with that bold lustful smile on her face, that smile she’d lost now. He threw her on the sheets that the lights transformed into silk, climbed on her, straddling her, holding her by the wrists, and he licked the blood and tears on her face.