On the Waterfront

  Katie hung back, and Terry took her arm.

  “Come on—don’t be ascared. See what I was tellin’ ya? They run a nice quiet place. I mean the drunks get the heave-ho.”

  Inside, the Bellevue bar had a nineteenth-century flavor, with its time-worn mahogany bar and elaborate chandeliers. A merchant sailor nearing the end of a long drunk was singing Rose of Tralee to a middle-aged woman who had come in for lunch and had lost track of time. To Terry’s chagrin a plump over-made-up young girl was at a corner of the bar with Terry’s chum Jackie. Terry tried to look away, for it was Melva, but she caught his eye and called over, “Hiya, Terry?”

  Terry barely nodded.

  “A friend of yours?” Katie said.

  Terry winced. “Just a—passin’ acquaintance,” he reached for the phrase he had heard somewhere. “What’re you drinkin’?”

  Katie hesitated and in the pause the sailor at the bar gave up Tralee to tell the bartender. “Hit me with another Gluckenheimer.”

  “I’ll try a—Gluckenheimer,” Katie said.

  “Two Gluckenheimers,” Terry called. “And draw two for chasers.”

  Katie looked bewildered. “Come on, give a smile. You’re beginnin’ to live a little,” Terry tried to reassure her.

  “I am?”

  “Hey, Terry,” the bartender called over from the bar. “See the fight last night? That new kid Ryff. Both hands. A little bit on your style.”

  “Ha, ha,” Terry said. “I hope he gets better dice than me.” To Katie he shrugged the bartender’s compliment off. “Comedian.”

  “Were you really a prizefighter?” Katie asked.

  “Aah, I used to be. I was goin’ pretty good for a while. But—I didn’t stay in shape. I had to take a few dives.”

  “A dive? You mean into the water?”

  Terry laughed. “Yeah. Into the water.” He laughed again.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  He pointed to her. “You. Miss Square from Nowhere.”

  She blushed slightly but she wasn’t put off. “What made you interested—in fighting?”

  Terry raised his shoulders again in that gesture of casual disgust. “Aah, I don’t know. I had to scrap all my life. I figured I might as well get paid for it. When I was a kid my old man got chopped off”—he saw the question rising in her eyes and added quickly—“never mind how. Then they stuck Charley ’n me in a dump they called a Children’s Home.” The sore memory of it made him screw up his nose. “Boy, that was some home. Well, anyway, I ran away from there and peddled papers, ’n stole a little bit and fought in club smokers and then Charley hooked up with Johnny Friendly and Johnny bought a piece of me …”

  “A—piece of you?”

  “That’s right,” Terry said, without bothering to explain. “He was a piece man. Tied in with Mr. T.”

  “Who’s he?” Katie asked.

  “Forget I mentioned him,” Terry said quickly. “Well, anyway, I won about twelve straight and then …”

  He stopped and took a good look at her. What was he, punchy or something? Telling this Doyle broad all this stuff. He never talked about dives, or Mr. T., or the connection with Johnny F. What was he doing—getting soft in the casaba?

  “Yes—and then?” Katie said, leaning forward a little and looking into his eyes.

  “Aah, what am I runnin’ off at the mouth for?” Terry said. “What do you really care?”

  “Shouldn’t everybody …” Katie hesitated.

  “Come again?” Terry said.

  “I mean, shouldn’t everybody care …”

  Terry shook his head in disbelief. “Boy, what a fruitcake you are!”

  “Well, I mean … the Mystical Body … brotherhood … thought …” Katie was groping.

  “Gee, thoughts,” Terry said, both mocking and impressed. “Alla time, thoughts. And the funny part is, you really believe that drool.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said quietly.

  The bartender had set their drinks down on the table. Terry was relieved to have something to do. This kid gave him a funny feeling when she looked at him, almost through him, and said crazy things like that, saying screwball things like she believed them, things that lower your guard and feint you wide open.

  “Well, here we are,” he said, picking up the thick jigger with the familiar false bottom, handing it to her and then lifting his own with an air of festivity. “One for the lady and one for the gent. Here’s to the first one, I hope it aint the last—Dink—” He touched glasses with her, lightly ceremonious, and then waited in amusement as she sniffed the rim of the glass suspiciously and allowed the surface of the sharp-smelling liquid to touch her lips.

  “Mmmmm,” she murmured non-committally.

  “Not that way,” Terry said. “One hunk. Down the hatch. Like this.” In a practiced gesture he poured the shot down his throat.

  “Wham!” he said.

  Challenged, Katie raised the formidable ounce of whiskey to her mouth and gulped it down. Her eyes opened wide and she coughed as it burned all the way down. “Wham …” she whispered with amazement.

  “Not bad, huh?” Terry was grinning at her. He felt better when he had her on his own ground.

  “It’s … quite …” was all Katie managed to say.

  “How about a repeat?”

  “A what?”

  “Once around again.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Mind if I do?”

  “Of course not,” Katie said. “You do what you want to do.”

  “Hit me again, Mac,” Terry called out, feeling a little more confident with the first ball in him. He drank half the glass of beer and leaned closer to her across the table.

  “You wanna hear my philosophy of life?” Terry said, still bothered by her “brotherhood” pitch. “Do it to him before he does it to you.”

  She looked at him a moment before she said, “I like what our Lord said better.”

  “Maybe,” Terry said. “But I’m not lookin’ to get crucified. I’m lookin’ to stay in one piece.”

  “I must be crazy to have come here with you,” Katie answered.

  He put his hand on her arm to hold her. “Hang on a second. Gimme five minutes. I don’t get a chance to talk with a kid like you every day.”

  She shook her head angrily and pushed his hand away. “I never met such a person. Not a spark of feeling—or human kindness in your whole body.”

  “I wouldn’t know about them things. Whatta they do for you excep’ get in your way?”

  “And when things get in your way”—Katie’s voice was rising—“or people, you just get rid of them. Is that your idea?”

  “Listen,” Terry said, suddenly taut, suddenly dry-mouthed, “don’t be lookin’ at me when you say them things. It wasn’t my fault what happened to Joey. Fixin’ him wasn’t my idea.”

  “Why, whoever said it was?”

  Hell, he had been asked a lot of tough precinct questions and punched around by cops, but this was worse, these goddam soft-voiced innocent questions.

  “Well,” he began lamely, “I didn’t like the way everybody was puttin’ the needle on me. You and them bums in the church. And this Father Barry. I didn’t like the way he was lookin’ at me.”

  “He was looking at everybody in the same way,” she said.

  “Oh yeah? I thought he was givin’ me the business. Anyhow, what’s with this Father Barry? What’s his racket?”

  “His racket?”

  “Yeah, yeah, his racket. You’ve been off in daisyland, honey. Around here everybody’s got a racket.”

  “But he’s a priest.”

  “Are you kiddin’? So what? The black suit don’ make no difference. Everybody looks to get his.”

  “You don’t believe anything, do you? You don’t believe anybody?”

  He reached over and tried to touch her hand again, but she drew away. “Katie, listen to me. Down here it’s every man for himself. It’s keepin’ alive. It’s standin’ in with the
right people so you c’n get a little change jinglin’ in your pocket.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “If you don’t?” He looked at her wisely, arrogantly, yet with a certain inexpressible sadness. “If you don’t, right down—chop.” He shook his thumb savagely toward the floor.

  Katie shuddered. “That’s no better than an alley dog.”

  Terry drained his glass of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “All right. I’d rather live like an alley dog than wind up like—”

  He caught himself. Who was baiting him into this trap? It was a sucker play and he knew it. Something about this straight-talking, freckle-faced, cool little broad.

  “Like Joey?” she was saying. “Are you afraid to mention his name?”

  “Naah,” Terry said quickly, but it sounded more like a cry of pain than a denial. “Only why do ya have to keep harpin’ on that? Come on, drink up. You gotta get a little fun outa life. Come on, I’ll stick some music on.”

  She shook her head without looking up at him. What she was feeling inside spread over and around him like an ocean roller before it breaks, when you know any second it is going to change from a smooth gathering swell to plunging foam. He was like a swimmer trying to ride it over, up and over easy. But it wasn’t easy. He was over his head. And yet, as in drowning, there was something hypnotic about it, something that numbed his will to strike out for his old line of survival.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he sighed. “What’s the matter?”

  He had risen to push a nickel into the gaudy-colored juke-box. “What kind of number you want? You like her nibs Georgia Gibbs?”

  She lifted her head to look at him and just as he had feared, the wave broke in her, catching her more by surprise than it did him. The words rose out of her and broke over the dam before she knew what she was saying. “Help me. If you can. For God’s sake, help me.”

  Terry was caught between the table and the juke-box with the coin cold and damp in his hand. She made it sound so easy. He wished it were! But there was Charley and the steady work and respect for Johnny and their trust in him. What kind of rat would he be if he went back on rock-bottom things like that? Johnny and Charley’s world was built on standing with your own. You just didn’t walk out on a fella like Johnny, a natural leader like Johnny. And here was this nice girl, this fugitive from daisyland begging him for help, me!—Terry, whose only interest in a girl like this should have been to catch her against the wall of a dark tenement hallway.

  He turned back from the juke-box and swung his hands loosely against his sides.

  “I’d like to—Katie—but—I don’t know nuthin’. There’s nuthin’ I c’n do.”

  Katie started to rise. She felt listless now, tired. The effect of the drink spun her deeper into bewilderment. “All right … All right … I shouldn’t have asked you.”

  She picked her coat up off the chair.

  “You haven’t touched your beer,” he said. “Go on, drink it. It’ll do you good.”

  “I don’t want it. But why don’t you stay? You stay and drink it.”

  “I got my whole life to drink,” Terry said.

  She gave him such a look of understanding, sympathy, disapproval, that he could not help blurting out:

  “You’re not sore at me?”

  “What for?”

  Again the innocence, the misplaced trust was sharper to take than the back of a copper’s hand.

  “Well, fer—fer not bein’ no help to ya?”

  “Why, no,” Katie said softly. “I know you would if you could.”

  There had been one fight when Tony Falcone, who could hook very strong to the body, had caught Terry under the heart. Terry copped the decision but he could feel that punch in his body for weeks. He still carried the memory of it. They say a punch like that and you are never the same, never quite the same. Katie’s would-if-you-could was a punch like that.

  As Katie turned from the table toward the exit, she found her way blocked by a couple of muscular men in rented tuxedoes who were snarling at each other, “Don’t tell me I didn’ see ya, I saw ya”—“The hell ya saw me”—“The hell I didn’ see ya, ya dirty …” Then they started swinging at each other. Katie backed away in fright while the bartender hurried over apologetically.

  “There’s a weddin’ inside in the private room. These fellas ’re just feelin’ good. Celebratin’.”

  “Yeah,” Terry said. “Don’ mind them. In two minutes they’ll be huggin’ ’n kissin’ each other. Come on. I’ll get you out through the lobby.”

  He led her down a narrow paneled corridor which passed the small ballroom rented for private parties. A local five-piece orchestra was playing, as a somewhat corrupted two-step, that good old Irish jig “The Washer Woman.” The room was darkened, and shifting beams of red, green and purple lights moved across the bodies of the dancers from a cheaply ornate balcony.

  As Terry and Katie paused to look in, the bridal couple dashed past them, escaping from their guests in the semi-darkness. The bride was small and not very pretty. Terry recognized her as the oldest daughter of Joe Finley, a minor City-Hall grafter who had a piece of the loading on Pier B. The kid was Freddie Burns, a checker, moving up in the world. The bridal gown was lacy white and beautiful, and Katie, bemused by the drink, the confusion, the music and the rainbow effect of the moving lights, was touched by the rented-hall romance of it all. She had no thought, as Terry did, that the groom was a cutie marrying City Hall to beat the rap of an eight-hour day. “I love weddings,” Katie said.

  “The car’s in the side alley,” the groom was saying.

  “Give me a cigarette,” the bride said, as they hurried away.

  “Later. You smoke too much anyway,” the groom said, and the couple disappeared down the corridor.

  The five-piece semi-pro band had swung into an oldie, “Avalon”; the sound of the sliding of feet on the wooden floor was hypnotic. The men were mostly heavy-muscled petty officials who looked too big for their tuxedoes. Most of the women had gone too fat. Many had yellow, shellacked beauty-shop hair. This was a gathering of the minor politicians and straw bosses of Bohegan, spiced as usual with members of the local mob, not the goons, but the loan sharks, shop stewards and delegates who fed on and fed the local politicians.

  Katie stood at the threshold, lost in the music. Terry wondered what she was thinking. “I met my love in Avalon—beside—the bay: I left my love in Avalon—and sailed—away …” the song crooned its simple, heartbreaking logic.

  “Guess they forgot to send us our engraved invitations, huh?” Terry tried to arouse a spark in her.

  She smiled faintly and he was encouraged. He indicated, in the grand manner, his brown corduroys and red-and-black-checked wool shirt. “I’m glad I wore the tux. I hate to feel outta place.”

  She smiled at him and he slid his arms around her, careful not to come too close.

  “Come on—you wanna—you wanna spin a little?” He made a pair of dancers out of his index and middle fingers and spun them around in front of her face, closer and closer until they danced along the bridge of her nose. She laughed, and before she could say no he was dancing with her in the corridor. He swung her around, expertly; she followed easily, instinctively.

  “Ah, you dance divinely,” he said with borrowed elegance, and she laughed again. With more confidence now he led her to the edge of the darkened ballroom where they began to whirl among the other dancers.

  “Hey, we’re good!” he said. “Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Murray.”

  She let him hold her tighter. The music was soothing with its simple-sweet lilt and its saxophone croon. “The Sisters oughta see ya now,” he said with his mouth close to her ear. When she closed her eyes he let his lips touch her hair and slowly move down to her cheek.

  “Oh, I’m just floating, floating,” she murmured. “Just floating …”

  The saxophone player had lowered his instrument and risen to his feet to do the vocal in a th
in, true, Rudy Vallée voice. Terry joined in with him softly:

  “And so I think I’ll travel on—

  To Av—a—lon …”

  The band hit a final, conventional chord and the overhead lights came on in an intrusive glare. Terry and Katie were still holding on to each other, caught in the crooning, tin-pan-allegorical mood of the song, when Truck came up to them. Gilly was with him. Truck and Gilly weren’t there for any wedding, Terry could see that. They didn’t say, Hiya, kid, or anything like that. None of the back-slapping and clown-sparring. They were all business, solidly, heavily business.

  “I been lookin’ all over for you, Terry,” Truck said.

  One thing about Bohegan, you couldn’t hide. It was a mile long and a mile deep and everybody watched everybody else.

  “Well, okay?” Terry said.

  “The boss wants you,” Truck said.

  “Right now?”

  “Definitely,” Gilly said.

  Truck bent his bull neck toward Terry’s ear. “He just got a call from Upstairs. Somethin’s gone wrong. He’s hotter ’n a pistol.”

  “Well, I gotta take this—this young lady home first,” Terry said.

  “I’d get over there, Terry,” Truck said. “If I was you I wouldn’ waste no time. Gilly c’n take the little lady home.”

  “Definitely,” Gilly said.

  “Look, you tell ’im—tell ’im I’ll be over after a while,” Terry said.

  Truck looked at Gilly, scandalized. “O-kay,” he said, the inflection on the last syllable making his meaning unmistakable, “O-kay …”

  The two Johnny Friendly boys shrugged to each other and left Terry standing there.

  Katie crossed the threshold into the corridor and watched them walking rapidly toward the lobby. Terry joined her, shifting uncomfortably.

  “Who are those …” she started to ask.

  “Aah, just a couple of—fellas around,” Terry said, troubled.

  “What was that short, thick one whispering to you?” Katie asked. “Why does he have to whisper?”

  “Listen, Katie, for your own good,” Terry jumped ahead of her questions. “You gotta quit askin’ things. You gotta quit askin’ so many questions. You gotta quit tryin’ to find out things. Lay off. Lay off.”