Nothing to Fear (12 page)

I laughed. Ma doesn't usually care much for politics, but she's really riled up about this election. She's been favoring Roosevelt right along, but I think it was that Bonus March business this past summer that really turned her against Hoover.

"To think," she always says, "our own president setting the army against the poor veterans that fought for this country in the war. Unarmed men killed, and that dear innocent little baby!"

It seems a bunch of veterans of the World War had got together and walked with their families to Washington, D.C., to ask if the president would let
them have the bonuses the army owed them a little early—to help them get through the depression. Instead of meeting with them, Hoover sent General MacArthur with his troops and tanks and everything to turn them away. Trouble broke out and several marchers were shot and killed. The troops carried bayonets and threw tear gas grenades. A little boy was stabbed through the leg, and a baby, who'd been born on the march, died from the gas.

Mama's been saying rosaries for that baby ever since. Bernard Myers was his name. I asked her once if rosaries would work on a Jewish baby.

"Daniel," she said, "are you forgettin' that our Lord was a Jewish baby?"

 

When Mama got back from the polls her cheeks were pink again. "Everyone is votin' for Roosevelt," she said, hugging me happily. "Oh, Danny, I know he's gonna win."

"And then things will get better, and Pa will come home."

"Aye." Her eyes sparkled. "Pa will come home."

A knock came on the door. "Ready?" yelled Mickey's voice.

I grabbed my broomstick. "Yeah," I called back. Then I turned to Ma. "That is, if you don't need me anymore."

"No, run along," said Mama. "You won't have too many more chances to play stickball before the cold and the snow set in."

"You sure you're feelin' okay then?"

"Fit as a fiddle. Off with you now."

I grabbed up my ball and joined Mickey in the hall. When we got downstairs he pulled me aside.

"Can you keep a secret?" he whispered.

"Sure. What?"

"C'mon. I gotta show you something."

He led me across the gutter to the wall on the other side. There were benches all along where bums usually slept at night and mothers sat during the day, watching their little kids play. It was a little late in the morning for bums, and a little early for mothers, so most of the benches were empty. Mickey pulled me over to one of them and, after again swearing me to secrecy, pointed to something on the wall behind it. I looked closely. It was a heart chipped into the stone, and it had the initials "M. C. & K. R." in it.

"Holy cow," I said. "Who do you think did that?"

"I did," said Mickey.

"You did? Why on earth would you do that? What if somebody sees it? What if
she
sees it?"

"I want her to see it. I asked her if I could do it."

"You
asked
her? What'd she say?"

"She said yes, dummy."

"She said 'yes, dummy'?"

"No. She said yes.
You're
the dummy."

I shook my head. "I don't get it, Mickey. Six months ago you would've flattened anybody that wrote your initials in a heart with a girl's. Now you go and do it yourself—in stone yet! What's gotten into you?"

Mickey grinned and shrugged. "Love, I guess," he said.

"Aw c'mon," I told him. "I'm gonna throw up."

Mickey gave me a deadpan look. "Grow up, will you, Dan," he said.

I stared at him. "Are you serious?"

"Yup."

What else was there to say? I just stood there staring at him with my mouth hanging open until he burst out laughing.

"C'mon," he said, "the guys are waiting, and if you don't shut that mouth you're gonna start attracting flies."

We walked down the middle of the gutter toward 106th, swinging our broomstick bats and bouncing our balls. I looked over at Mickey. He just kept smiling that goofy smile.

"Love, huh?" I said.

"Yup."

Silence again.

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"
How
do you know?"

Mickey stopped walking and gave me a smug grin. "Don't worry," he said. "When it happens, you'll know."

"Well I ain't losin' any sleep over it."

Mickey shook his head and walked away. He was acting so screwy. I couldn't tell if he was feeding me a line or what.

"Mick?"

"Yeah?"

"What's it like?"

Mickey put his head back and stared up at the sky. "It's
copacetic,
Dan," he said dreamily. "It's the swellest thing that ever happened to me. I just can't stop thinking about her, and when she lets me hold her hand, it's like ... well ... it's like Christmas and the Fourth of July and my birthday, all rolled up together."

"Jeez..."

"And Dan?"

"Yeah?"

"You breathe one word of this to the guys and I'll break every bone in your body."

OWOOOGA! OWOOGA!

Mickey and I each jumped about three feet. We don't get too many cars up in our part of the city, and the loud blast of the horn right behind us scared us half to death. We both scrambled for the sidewalk, and stood breathing heavy as a gleaming yellow Pierce Arrow went by.

"Wow," said Mickey. "Would you look at that?"

"I'm looking, I'm looking," I told him, my eyes nearly bugging out of my head. It was the most gorgeous car I had ever seen, long and sleek and dripping with chrome. The guy behind the wheel was some fancy dude with a white hat and suit and spiffy black shirt.

"Bootlegger," said Mickey.

"Gotta be," I agreed. "Who else has that kind of money?"

Mickey shook his head and whistled. "Maybe we oughta get into bootlegging, Dan," he said.

I laughed. "Oh sure," I told him. "That'd be just our luck—go into bootlegging just when Roosevelt gets elected, ends Prohibition, and puts all the bootleggers out of business."

Mickey laughed, too. He slid an arm around my shoulder. "You're right, Bugsy," he said in a fake gangster twang. "I guess we better find ourselves another racket."

The radio woke me up this morning. Mama had turned it way up. "Happy days are here again!" it blared.

"Roosevelt won!" Mama shouted as I staggered out to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "It was a landslide!"

When I went down on the street with my shoeshine kit, everyone was in high spirits. In less than an hour, I made almost fifty cents. Folks seem to suddenly have a good feeling about themselves again.

In school we talked about Mr. Roosevelt's "New Deal" and what it could mean for the country. For the first time, the U.S. government is going to fund relief programs, instead of leaving it up to the states and cities. New public works and conservation programs will be started to put people back to work.
There will be national unemployment insurance, and farmers will be subsidized so that they can reduce their production and prices will stabilize.

I don't really understand what it all means, but Mr. Brewster, our social studies teacher, said it means help for the hungry and homeless, and most of all, jobs for the jobless. He warned us that it will all take time, of course—as if we didn't know. I figure that since Mr. Roosevelt isn't even gonna be inaugurated until March fourth, it will take at least until the summer before he gets the depression straightened out. That's okay though. As long as we know the end is in sight, I'm sure we can make it through the winter.

Mr. Weissman was in such a good mood when I got to the store that he gave me the afternoon off. I couldn't believe my good fortune as I headed for Mickey's building. The afternoon off! This really was turning out to be a great day. I met Mr. Moriarty, the undertaker, coming down Mickey's front stoop.

"Somebody die, Mr. Moriarty?" I asked.

"No, Danny. Just making my rounds."

Mr. Moriarty comes around several times a year and shakes everybody's hands so they will remember him "in their time of need."

"Any good wakes going on, Mr. Moriarty?"

Mr. Moriarty paused and lifted his black stovepipe hat and scratched under it with one finger.

"Well," he said, "there's Mr. Milke down on One-Hundred-First."

"Who's he?" I asked.

"
Oh,
" said Mr. Moriarty, like he was about to tell me something very impressive. "Why, he was a taxidermist down at the Museum of Natural History."

"No kidding? What's a taxidermist?"

"A person who stuffs all the animals and birds for display."

"Wow," I said. "Even the tigers?"

Mr. Moriarty nodded. "Even the elephants."

"Wow," I said again. "What a neat job. What'd he die of?"

"Heart," said Mr. Moriarty, shaking his head sadly.

"That's too bad," I said.

"Indeed," said Mr. Moriarty, "indeed." He heaved a heavy sigh.

"Was he a friend of yours?" I asked.

"I like to think of all my customers as friends," said Mr. Moriarty. He sighed again.

I shook my head. "You sure must lose a lot of friends," I said.

Mr. Moriarty nodded sadly. "Well, good day, son," he said. "Remember me in your time of need." He reached his hand out to me and I shook it gingerly. It was cold and white, and it gave me the heebie-jeebies to think I was shaking the hand that touched all those dead bodies. He walked on down the steps, all stooped over and somber. I was still watching him when Mickey walked out the door.

"What're you looking at?" he asked.

"Mr. Moriarty."

"Why?"

I shook my head. "He sure is good at mourning," I said.

Mickey shrugged. "It's his job. What do you expect?"

I nodded. "I suppose. Hey, he said there's a good wake down on One-Hundred-First."

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"Some guy named Milke. Wanna go?"

"I thought you have to work."

"I got the day off. You wanna go or not?"

"I dunno," said Mickey. "I told Kitty I'd come by."

"Jeez, again?"

"What d'ya mean
again?
"

"You just saw her yesterday."

"So?"

"And the day before, and the day before that."

"So?"

"So what about you and me, Mick? We don't hardly do nothing together anymore."

"We played stickball yesterday."

"Oh wow, for all of an hour, 'til
she
came along."

Mickey looked torn for a moment, then we heard a door bang shut and looked over to see Maggie and Kitty standing on their stoop. Mickey's face lit up like a streetlamp.

"I know," he said, "we'll all go."

He ran over and grabbed Kitty's hand and pulled her down the steps. "C'mon," he said, "we're going to a wake." He looked back at me. "Well," he said. "What are you waiting for?"

"Nothin'," I grumbled. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked on over. Maggie still stood on the stoop.

"You coming?" Mickey asked her.

She shrugged and looked at me. I looked down at the sidewalk and kicked at a loose chunk of cement.

"C'mon, you two," Mickey pleaded, "it's a wake."

"Please, Maggie," Kitty's soft voice added.

I looked up. Maggie smiled and came down the steps.

"Sure," she said. "There's nothing I like better than a good wake."

Mickey and Kitty skipped off together like little kids and left the two of us standing there.

"Well," said Maggie, "it looks like it's just you and me again, Wild Bill."

I smiled and drew an imaginary six-gun from my hip and aimed it at Mickey's back. Maggie drew one too and aimed it at Kitty.

"Bang! Bang!" we shouted.

Mickey and Kitty glanced disgustedly over their shoulders at us like we were hopelessly childish.

Maggie sighed. "Kitty sure has changed," she said.

I nodded. "Yeah, Mickey too."

We holstered our guns and walked on in silence. Maggie looked at me after a while, and I looked back, then we both looked away. There didn't seem to be anything else to say. I felt my ears starting to burn. Why is it so hard to talk to her all of a sudden? We've been friends all our lives. I looked at Mickey and Kitty giggling up ahead. It was all their fault some
how. Why did they have to fall in love and change everything?

"So how come you're not at the store today?" asked Maggie at last.

"Weissman gave me the day off."

"How come?"

"I dunno. I guess he was in a real good mood about the election."

Maggie smiled. "Yeah," she said. "I guess everybody is."

We walked on again in silence.

"How's your ma doing?" Maggie asked suddenly.

I looked at her. "Fine. Why?"

"I heard her in the toilet, throwing up again this morning. Is she expecting another baby?"

My stomach twisted into a sharp, painful knot, and for a moment I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

"No," I said hoarsely. "She's got a touch of the flu is all. Caught it from Mrs. Mahoney."

Maggie stared at me and I stared back at her, wanting desperately for her to believe what I'd just said so I could go on believing it. At last she nodded and I was able to breathe again.

When we got to 101st we looked for the funeral wreath. It was on a building on the other side of the street, up toward Madison Avenue. It was a nice building with fancy iron railings and front steps that came down to a landing and then curved down on both the right and the left to the street. There were potted plants on the landing, and the funeral wreath was big and full, tied with a pink ribbon, which means Mr. Milke wasn't too old. When it's an old person, the ribbon is purple, and when it's a kid, it's white. Ma always gets all teary-eyed when she sees a building with a white funeral wreath on it.

We caught up with Mickey and Kitty at the foot of the stairs.

"Looks like a rich one," Mickey said. "Who'd you say he was?"

"Mr. Milke," I told him, "a taxidermist from down at the Museum of Natural History."

Mickey looked puzzled, but he glanced at Kitty and Maggie and didn't say anything more. We all brushed ourselves off and tucked ourselves in, and spit on our shoes and wiped them with our sleeves. Mickey passed around an onion he'd grabbed off a vegetable cart on the way over. We all squeezed it and sniffed until our eyes got red and watery.