Sleepers (8 page)

“Since when do you wear glasses?” Miss Pippin asked. “I’ve never seen them on you.”

“Just got ’em,” Tommy said.

“All right, all right, I’ll get you the book,” Miss Pippin said. “But next time, don’t be so quick to give up your search. Take the time to look for what you want to read.”

“I will,” Tommy said. “I promise.”

Miss Pippin started up the steps of the ladder, one hand keeping her long, pleated skirt in place. Tommy stared up, his eyes eager to catch a flash of thigh. Michael turned to me and winked. John held the book he pretended to read well above his face, making valiant attempts to suppress his giggles.

“Keep it down,” I whispered.

“She’s almost there,” Michael said, his voice even lower. “Couple more steps.”

“Don’t look up,” I said. “Until it happens.”

Tommy turned his head away as soon as he saw Miss Pippin’s fingers wrap themselves around the spine of
Moby-Dick.
She gave the book a slight tug, inching it from its wedged-in slot. It slipped easily into her hand, releasing the pressure on the other books on the shelf, causing them all to fall in her direction.

The first two landed on the side of Miss Pippin’s head, undoing the red ribbon in her hair and slamming her eyeglasses to the ground. A flurry of other books collapsed around her, loosening her grip on the ladder. The flat pages of an open novel hit her square on the chin, her body lurching down, off the ladder, to the ground.

“Oh, shit,” Tommy yelled. “She’s gonna fall.”

Miss Pippin landed on her back, her eyes closed and her legs spread apart at angles. She lay quiet, an occasional moan rising up from the back of her throat. The copy of
Moby-Dick
was still clutched in her right hand.

“You think she’s dead?” John asked, standing away from the table, his mouth open, his eyes fixed on Miss Pippin. “She can’t be dead.”

“Let’s get outta here,” Tommy said, stepping away from the crowd forming around the motionless librarian. “Let’s get out now.”

“Not until we find out if she’s okay,” Michael said.

An old woman, her arms wrapped around Miss Pippin’s head, shouted for smelling salts. Two other women ran by with small cups filled with water from a cooler. A maintenance man, standing in a corner, leaning on the arm of a mop, mumbled on about calling an ambulance.

We stood in a group, a good distance from the crowd, aware of the suspicious eyes cast in our direction. John was the most nervous, lines of concern etched across his
face. Tommy was sweating through his T-shirt, his breath coming in rushes. Michael’s arms were folded against his chest, staring back at those who looked his way, masking his fear with a defiant stance.

I stood next to him, aware that whatever harm had been caused to Miss Pippin was my fault. I had performed the crammed-book trick dozens of times, each time to gales of laughter. This was the first time something bad had happened, and I didn’t like how that made me feel.

I watched with outward relief as the hands and arms of three coworkers helped Miss Pippin to her feet. She stood unsteadily, her back resting against the shelf where the damage had been done, dozens of books scattered about her.

“Looks like she’s gonna be okay,” Michael said to me.

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

“In a minute,” Tommy said. “Something I gotta do first.”

“Let it go,” John said. “Then for sure they’ll get wise.”

Tommy ignored the plea and stepped through the small cluster gathered around Miss Pippin, searching among the fallen books until he found the copy of
Moby-Dick.
He scooped it up and turned to face a still-dazed Miss Pippin.

“Thanks for finding the book,” he said to her. “Didn’t mean for you to go to all that trouble.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, watching as Tommy turned his back and walked out of the library, slapping
Moby-Dick
against his thigh.

I
WAS STANDING
in the doorway of the building next to Mimi’s Pizzeria, licking an Italian ice, trying not to let the melting liquid drip onto my new white T-shirt.

“You know what crap like that does to your body?” Father Bobby asked, coming up to my left, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Have you any idea?”

“Beats smoking,” I said. “Cheaper too.”

“Maybe,” he said, tossing the cigarette to the ground and twisting it out with the heel of his sneaker. “So, what do you hear? Anything?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Quiet. Nothing to do except wait to go to school.”

Father Bobby was wearing a Yankee T-shirt under a blue button windbreaker, gray sweats, white socks, and low-cut Flyers, fresh from a two-hour basketball game. His face was ruddy, his hair combed back and still wet with sweat. Since he had been raised in the neighborhood, he pretty much knew all the rules and how best to break them. Anything we had
thought
of doing, he had already done years before. He never preached to us, fully aware that long sermons were not the way to go with my group. But he knew we liked and respected him and cared what he thought. There were so many ways to fall on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Father Bobby tried to be there to break those falls.

“What about what happened at the library the other day?” he said, stepping up into the doorway next to me. “That sounded exciting.”

“You mean Miss Pippin?” I asked, finishing the last of the ice.

Father Bobby nodded.

“That was rough,” I said. “All those books falling on her. It was scary.”

“I heard you were there,” he said. “The other guys too. Looking for something good to read, I suppose.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Strange business,” he said, leaning even closer. “You know, a whole shelf of books falling on top of somebody’s head. How do you figure a thing like that happens?”

“Accident, I guess,” I said.

“Must be it,” he said. “What else could it be?”

I wiped my hands and mouth with the clean corner of a folded napkin and said nothing.

Father Bobby pulled his hands out of his pockets, a stick of Juicy Fruit between his right thumb and forefinger. He had a smile on his face.

“It’s got a name,” he said, offering me the gum.

“What?” I asked, declining with a shake of my head.

“The shelf trick you and your buddies pulled. It’s called keepers. I played it when I was your age. Never could get the whole shelf down though. You must be pretty good at it.”

“Father,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” he said, still smiling. “Maybe I got wind of the wrong information.”

“Sounds like you did,” I said, shifting my weight. “Well, I’d better get going.”

“I’ll see you later tonight,” Father Bobby said, turning away and walking toward the corner.

“What’s tonight?” I asked.

“Going to drop off some books and magazines around the neighborhood,” he said. “You know, for the elderly and disabled. People who can’t get out on their own. I checked with your mother. She said you’d love to help.”

“I bet she did.”

“She wants you to be a priest, you know,” he said as he wedged the slice of Juicy Fruit into his mouth.

“Do you?” I asked.

“I just want you to stay outta trouble, Shakes,” Father Bobby said. “That’s my only wish. For you and your friends.”

“Nothin’ else?”

“Nothin’ else,” Father Bobby said. “I swear.”

“Priests shouldn’t swear,” I said.

“And kids shouldn’t dump a row of books on a librarian,”
he said, waving and turning the corner, heading for church.

Summer 1964

6

W
E HAD FOUR
bath towels spread across the hot black tar of the roof. A cooler filled with chunks of ice and a six-pack of 7Up rested against a slate-gray chimney. A portable radio played Diana Ross, singing soft and low. Clotheslines, crisscrossing rooftops and bent under the weight of laundry, supplied the only shade.

“It can’t get any hotter,” John said, his eyes closed to the sun, his upper body lobster red.

“Let’s go swimming,” I suggested, sitting next to him, the sun baking my back.

“We just got here,” Michael said, lying down on the towel closest to the edge, an ice cube melting on his chest.

“So?” I said.

“I’m with Shakes.” Tommy left his towel for the cool of the clotheslines. “I feel like an egg up here. We could get us some buttered rolls, a few more sodas, and head down to the docks.”

“I’m still on my burn,” Michael said.

“And Mrs. Hudson hasn’t come home from work yet,” John said.
“Nobody
can leave without seeing her.”

Mrs. Hudson was a part-time secretary for a midtown travel agent. She wore short dresses and high heels in the summer and no bras the year round. She was married to a Pepsi-Cola truck driver who had two large
hawks tattooed across both shoulders. She had a brown cat named Ginger and a loud wing-clipped parakeet who sat perched near her living room window and tweaked at the street traffic three stories below.

She left work every day at three-fifteen and headed straight for her apartment. During the hottest months she would strip off her clothes and sit by an open window, trying to catch a breeze. When her mood was light, she would look up at the roof across the way, smile, and wave.

Mrs. Hudson was the first naked woman any of us had ever seen.

Most days, she crossed the bedroom to the bathroom and washed her hair in the sink. She then returned to the open window and brushed her dark brown hair in the warmth of the sun.

As she brushed, we focused on her breasts. They were probably average size, but appeared massive to our youthful eyes. Whatever her motives, Mrs. Hudson seemed to enjoy this summer ritual as much as we did.

“Here she comes!” Tommy shouted. “Right on time.”

Within seconds, the four of us were perched by the edge of the roof. Mrs. Hudson was making her way down 51st Street, dressed in a black halter top and a black skirt cut at the thighs. Her pumps were white, the heels adding several inches to her height.

“I can’t believe her husband lets her outta the house lookin’ like that,” I said.

“I can’t believe her husband lets her outta the house,” John said.

“She fool around, you think?” Tommy asked.

“I hope so,” Michael said. “And I hope someday she’ll fool around with me.”

“Like you would know what to do,” I said.

“What’s to know?” Michael demanded.

“It’s like the old song,” John said. A smile spread across his face and his eyes lasered down on Mrs. Hudson
as he broke into a high-voiced melody. “My body lies over the ocean. My body lies over the sea. My father lied over my mother. And that’s how I came to be.”

“Shakes is just nervous because he ain’t ever done anybody,” Tommy said.

I was incredulous. “What? You have?”

“You know Katie Riggio?” Tommy asked.

“The one with the iron teeth?”

“Braces, moron,” Tommy said. “Anyway, I kinda did her last month.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Forget where,” Michael said, turning away from Mrs. Hudson. “How?”

“We went to a movie.” Tommy started blushing, sorry now he ever mentioned the night and the girl.

“What movie?”

“I forget,” Tommy said. “Something with James Coburn.”

“He’s pretty cool,” I said. “You ever see
The Magnificent Seven?”

“Forget James Coburn,” Michael said. “Get to the good stuff.”

“After the movie we went for a walk.” Tommy now lifted his face to the sun. “Then I bought her an ice cream cone.”

“Bought
her an ice cream cone,” John said, his eyes wide. “You
must
be in love.”

“It was nice, you know,” Tommy said. “Just walkin’ and holdin’ her hand.”

“When did she drop her pants?” Michael cut in.

“In the hall of her aunt’s apartment.”

“Standing up?” I said.

“Against the wall,” Tommy said.

“What did you do?” I asked, watching Mrs. Hudson appear in her window, breasts flopping against her chest.

“Fingered her,” Tommy said.

“How’d it feel?” John asked.

“Like I had my hand in a glazed doughnut.”

“Lucky bastard,” Michael said.

“Wonder what it would feel like having your fingers inside Mrs. Hudson?” I asked.

“Like being inside a glazed doughnut
factory,”
John said.

Our loud laughter caught Mrs. Hudson’s attention. She stood up, stretched, and smiled.

“Maybe someday we’ll know,” I said.

“Maybe someday we’ll all know,” Michael said.

“It’s something to live for,” Tommy said.

“Sure is,” John said. “It sure is.”