A Moment in the Sun (32 page)

The reading is always good for the Kid. He keeps moving through the room as the newshounds listen, jamming papers under their elbows and into their hands, the men paying without looking at him.

“
‘It’s quite a swagger yer walkin with today, Tom,’ says the man with the spade. ‘Have they lowered the price on whiskey?’

“
‘Sure and hasn’t the Congress itself signed the Articles iv
WAR!
’ says the copper.

“
‘Ohhh—have they finally done the dade? Tis a hysteric occasion—’

“
‘It’s got me martial spirit inflamed,’ says Gilhooley. ‘If there was a Spaniard at hand I’d pop him in the beezer meself!’

“
O’Malley throws a glimmer around the street. ‘And where is the swarthy little fandango-dancers whin you nade im? I don’t suppose an Eyetalian would do?’

“
‘Diffrint race altogether, Martin. Yer Dons has been a haughty and crool outfit since the days of the conquistadoros, whereas your Eyetalian is more iv a Jovanny-come-lately to the Table iv Nations. Columbus himself was wurrkin for the Spaniards whin he bumped into the United States.’

“
‘They’re a seafarin paypul, yer wops,’ agrees O’Malley. ‘Sure and haven’t ye ivver seen em on the Staten Island Ferry, with the rag and polish in their hands? All the grrreat ocean voyages—Magellan, Cook, Henry Hudson sailin up our own West Side—there was always a little Jewseppy aboard to kape a sparkle on their boots.’

“
‘There’s a call out fer fightin men,’ says Gilhooley, twirling his stick. ‘I’ve half a mind to throw me name into the hat.’

“
‘Half a mind indade,’ says O’Malley, filling the back of his wagon.

“
‘Tis a grrreat day fer the Republic,’ continues the officer, a far-off look in his eye. ‘And the Cubings will be throwin a party as well.’

“
‘The divvil with the Cubings,’ says O’Malley, tamping down his haul with the back of his spade. ‘This is
our
donneybrook now. They want a fight, they can attack Porto Rico or one iv them ither islands in the Carrybium. Forst come, forst served is what I say!’

“
‘That’s the spirit—’

“
‘And whin the Pearl iv the Aunt Tillies is free,’ he adds, ‘can the Emerald Isle be far behind?’
”

There is cheering and banging on tables then and Schoendienst buys a round for anyone who can shove their way up to the bar. At the door the Yellow Kid runs into Maxie Schimmel, lugging in a stack of
Herald
s.

“Two more rounds in these jokers,” he shouts to Maxie over the sound of the scribblers stomping their feet in time and singing
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
, “and they’ll buy
yes
terday’s paper.”

He heads over to the Park Row turnaround then and attacks the commuters getting into their trolleys to go home.

“
WAR!
” he hollers. “Spanish Threat to Burn Washington!”

He is bumping shoulders with One-Nugget Feeny, who’s got an armful of the
World.

“
WAR!
” cries Feeny. “
World
Exclusive, Cuba Declared Newest State!”

“
WAR!
” yells the Kid. “Houdini Disappears in Havana!”

“
WAR!
” shouts Feeny. “The
World
Remembers the
Maine
!”

“
WAR!
” screams the Yellow Kid. “The
Journal
Declares
WAR!
on Spain!”

The Kid is down to a handful by the time it is dark, hanging outside the New Citadel, the Delmonico’s downtown joint on South William Street. He has all but one paper stashed under a trash barrel across the way, and every time a couple sports wander out with their bellies full of oysters and alligator pears he goes into his crybaby routine.

“Wah-hah-hah-hah!” he goes, tears running down his cheeks, standing smack between them and the hack stand, bawling and snuffling and holding the lonely paper out with trembling hands.

“What’s the matter, sonny?” says one out of three.

“I wanna go to home!”

“Go home then.”

“I can’t! I gotta sell all my papers or my fadder’ll knock the tar outta me! Whah-hah-hah-hah! Dis is my last one ony won’t nobody buy it. I wanna go home!”

“Here, then. What’s this, the Hearst paper? There ought to be a Com-mission to look into this—forcing young children out on the streets to peddle this trash! Here, go home now.”

And before he’s halfway down the block they’re gone in their hack and he runs to grab the next one.

There is a woman, a young one, all dressed in satin and foxtails with a big hat with feathers and a bucket of perfume on her who bends down to take his face in her hands.

“Isn’t he adorable?” she says. He has the ratty old cap on still, and he’s been blubbering so much there’s snot hanging out his nose and his toes are sticking out the front of Hunky Joe’s old clodhoppers and he’s yellow as the flophouse sheets, but what the hell, she thinks he’s adorable that’s her business. “What’s the matter, little boy?”

There’s nothing much the matter, he’s never made so much mazuma in one day, ever, but her hands feel nice on his cheeks and the perfume is o.k. too, so he just keeps sniffling.

“I gotta sell—my last paper—before I can go home,” he manages to whine out between sniffs, lips trembling. “An if I don’t—”

“Hush now. Rupert?” And with this the skinny geezer scowling down at him sighs and digs into his jacket. “Rupert, buy this poor child’s newspaper. How much is it, darling?”

“Only a nickel,” says the Kid in a very small voice. “Onnaconna it’s my last one.”

Rupert slaps the coin into his palm and snatches the paper away.

“And where do you live?” asks the pretty woman, straightening up.

“Baxter Street,” he answers without pause, “with my fadder and six baby sisters.”

By the time he is making the long walk back up Broadway, legs weary, he has only four papers unsold. The
Journal
doesn’t give you nothing back for returns, none of them do, so he is out the four cents.

He is passing Fulton Street, yawning already, when Sluggo Pilchek calls from under a streetlight.

“Yo Kid,” he calls, “lookit what I got here.”

At first when Sluggo peels the paper back he thinks it is dead, but then he can see its face is red and that it’s only too weak to cry, little eyes blurry and almost clear blue, naked inside the front page of the morning
Telegraph.

“Some lousy break, huh?” says Sluggo, who works for the
Sun
. “Ditched on the street wrapped in a stinker rag like that.”

“What you gonna do with it?”

“What am I spose to do with it? The old lady’s already got a squaller at home.”

“We can’t leave it here.”

“Its mother did.”

The Yellow Kid rewraps the baby, lifts it awkwardly. “Grab my papers.”

“You aint gonna sell these now—”

“Grab em.”

“What are we doing?”

“Look for a cop.”

Sluggo picks the Kid’s papers up, shakes his head. “This hour? They’re all up on Bowery, suckin at the tit.”

“So we’ll bring it to the nuns.”

They walk, the Yellow Kid wondering if it’s still alive but not daring to check.

“How’d you do today?” asks Sluggo.

“Knocked em dead. They can’t get enough of this Spain business.”

“It’ll only get better.”

“That’s what they say.”

Sluggo cocks a doubtful eye at the Kid’s new bundle. “So how you figure the nuns feed these things?”

“They keep milk.”

“Just sittin around?”

“Maybe.”

“Cause they got no tits, nuns.”

“Really?”

“Brides of Christ,” says Sluggo. “They’re not spose to have em.”

“They must keep milk then.”

“It goes bad awful easy.”

The Kid shrugs. “They do what they can,” he says, “then send em to Randall’s Island.”

“What’s that?”

Maminka had gone out there for a while, after she was big with the last one who was going to be Anezka if it was a girl or Miklos if it was a boy, the last one that came out blue, not yellow, and didn’t breathe. She went out there for the money a couple weeks, before she got so low she just sat and stared out the window that wasn’t nailed shut yet, frozen for hours like the Lady Undressing for Bath. You took a ferry to Randall’s and nursed the orphan babies and the nuns at the Infants’ Hospital paid you.

“They bring women out there to feed the squallers,” says the Kid. “It’s like a dairy.”

“Well whoever ditched this kid should of ditched it out there. Stead of the friggin sidewalk.”

“Women get moody,” says the Kid, “you never know what they’ll do.”

“You can say that again,” says Sluggo.

Most of the shops are closed up. A lone horse trolley rolls by in the opposite direction, nearly empty.

“Where you sleepin?”

“They got a room by the presses at the
Sun
,” says Sluggo
.
“We can stretch out on the benches. Don’t cost a penny.”

“Yeah, but you sleep at the
Sun
, you gotta sell the
Sun.
”

Sluggo shrugs, his feelings hurt. “It’s a good paper. Everybody says so.”

There are no cops on lower Broadway, so they cut across City Hall Park, nearly empty now, the fountain shut off, and angle up to the Five Points Mission on Pearl. They used to have a stroller outside, one of those nice wicker jobs with the wheels pulled off so nobody would nick it, but people would just ditch their babies in it and blow, no matter what the weather, so now you got to rattle the knocker.

“Lord save us, not another one,” says the Sister of Charity who answers. “And at this hour.”

“We could put it back if you want,” says Sluggo.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” She takes the little thing from the Kid, holds it up to the light. “Only a few hours in this world, the poor thing. Not much hope for him.”

“You gonna put it on one of those trains?” The Kid has heard about Sister Irene and her trains, sending orphans out to lonely people in the far West, out past Jersey.

“He’ll be lucky to see the sun rise,” she says, hugging it close and turning to go. “We’ll have to get the sacraments taken care of, save his little soul.”

“What I tell you?” says Sluggo when she has closed the door on them without a tip or even a thank-you. “No tits.”

Sluggo gives the Kid his papers back and heads off for the
Sun
building. The Newsboys’ Lodging House is close on Duane, where everything is a nickel-and-a-penny—six cents for a bunk, six cents for coffee and roll in the morning, six cents for pork and beans at night. You can wash up, bank your money, even get a stake to buy the next day’s papers if they know you well enough. But it is a warm night and doesn’t feel like rain. There is a headstone, a big tall hunk of polished pink rock that shields you from sight of the street in the old St. Paul cemetery yard. Big letters on the front of the stone, somebody important planted under it.

The Yellow Kid spreads his newspapers carefully on the ground, lies down on them and looks up at the stars. The Sunday edition is best for this, at least a hundred pages, three color supplements, a regular mattress of a newspaper, but two afternoon extras will do. If the baby lives, he thinks, probly it will get sent out somewhere with nothing but dirt and trees on the ground, where the horses got no trolleys hitched to them, where you look up in the sky and there’s nothing but clouds. Poor bastid. The Kid can hear the thrum of the presses rolling in the giant buildings a block away, can feel the rumble of them through the ground here at the center of America. They will run all night and tomorrow there will be fresh news to sell. The baby is safe with the nuns and the Spanish fleet is creeping who knows where and the Yellow Kid has a full belly and a new hat and the moon is rising nearly full, smack behind the chapel spire. There is
WAR!
, and fat times lie just around the corner.

EXILE

Wu sits back among the crates as his assistant pores over a page of sums, clacking an abacus. The warehouse smells of sandalwood and machine oil. Wu speaks English with Diosdado and never ceases smiling.

“You are an emissary.”

“I assure you that the money is secure,” Diosdado explains. “Here in a bank in the city.”

“We have all heard of your General’s settlement with the Spanish crown.” Wu slumps with his hands folded on his stomach, a round man dressed in the Western style, with a white fedora tilted back on his head. His assistant wears a blue cotton work tunic and makes small noises as he calculates.

“We can make a purchase, then?”

Wu shows Diosdado the palms of his hands. “The merchandise you seek is unavailable.”

“I was told that if anyone in Hongkong could accommodate us—”

“It would be I, yes. But our new administrators, in their wisdom, have forbidden trade in weapons.”

It is always hard to tell with them, the Chinese, what is bargaining and what is fact.

“Many things are forbidden in the Crown Colony,” says Diosdado blandly, “and yet you are known to deal in them.” Wu is alleged to be head of the Three Harmonies Society and an exporter of illegal coolies from Macao. He continues to smile.

“This city is alive with rumor. Weapons, however, are of a great concern to the British government. May I inquire what purpose you might have in acquiring so many of them?”

“For our people,” says Diosdado. “To fight the Spanish.”

“But the terms of your Treaty—”

“Have been violated repeatedly.”

Wu sighs and shakes his head. “Politics. Irresolvable conflicts. I am so very content to remain outside of their sphere.”

“If you were to quote me a price—”

“The Germans in Shandong are growing wary of our—our more ex
cit
able citizens,” says Wu, leaning forward to make his point. “And the British do not wish to upset the Germans—”

“We are not going to give weapons to the Boxers.”