Читать книгу Every Man for Himself - Mark J. Hannon - Страница 8

CHAPTER 4

THE WEST SIDE, 1905

Teresa Monteduro finished washing her little boy, Torreo, scrubbing his legs thoroughly, and helped him get dressed in clean clothes. Happy at the attention, the five-year-old boy looked up at her and hugged his mother. She hugged him back, asking the Blessed Mother to please make her little boy well. The exertion had tired her, and she was wheezing when she got to the front door. She steadied herself by holding onto the frame as she tried to call out for her other boy, Rafaele. Nothing but a rasp came out. She snatched her handkerchief from her dress pocket to dry up the blood-tinged sputum on her lips. Struggling to draw a breath, she waved over to her friend Melissa sitting on the porch next-door, who was happily bouncing her infant daughter Katarina on her knee. When Melissa saw her wave, she came down the steps and over to the front yard, keeping a distance between the sick woman and Katarina.

“What is it Teresa?”

Teresa filled her lungs once, then again, and tried to speak.

“Rafaele . . .”

“You need Rafaele, Teresa?”

The sick woman nodded, still holding herself up in the door frame. Her friend began bellowing out the older boy’s name, in one direction and then the other.

A few moments later, the gangling teenager appeared from between the houses down the street, and approached with an unsteady gait. Drinking again, Melissa thought. Everything happens to poor Teresa.

“Rafaele, come over here. Your mother needs you.”

When he walked by, Melissa shook her head, smelling the wine on his breath. He went up the steps and into the house, knowing his duty. His mother got into a chair and nodded.

Torreo smiled at him when he came in and latched his arms around his neck when he bent over to pick him up.

“Oh, you’re getting to be a big boy, Torreo,” Raefaele said. “We’re going to see Dr. Rodems today, Torreo. He’s over on Richmond.”

Carrying his little brother outside, Rafaele carefully placed him into the wagon in the backyard and pulled him between the houses to the sidewalk in front of the house. They began their journey down the street from the cramped, wooden two-story houses on Connecticut over to the spacious brick residences on Richmond. Rafaele pulled the handle silently, turning around occasionally to see his little brother smile at him. They stopped for Mr. Anzalone’s fruit wagon at the corner of Normal and Connecticut, and Rafaele picked up the boy to let him stroke the horse’s mane as Mr. Anzalone held the bridle steady.

Rafaele pulled the wagon down Connecticut Street. As they crossed 15th, a boy with torn coveralls saw them coming and ran back down the alley in his bare feet, where he found his older brother and two other boys, who had taken all his marbles a few minutes before.

“Hey! It’s the Cripple and Staggers! They’re comin’ down the street right now!”

The three shooters snatched up their marbles and ran gleefully with the barefoot boy to the street. When Torreo saw them, his limbs stiffened and he cried out, “Ahhn,” getting Rafaele’s attention. The elder brother looked up from his trudging to hear the four starting to shout.

“Crip, crip, cripple! Crip, crip, cripple!”

“Get outta here, you little bastards,” Rafaele shouted, waving his free hand and trying to speed up.

The four kept shouting, “Crip, crip, cripple!” and then the two older boys ran into the street. Picking up horseballs, they proceeded to heave them at Torreo and his brother. While the older brother shielded his face with his arm and caught the first clump on his sleeve, a second splattered on Torreo’s ear, its wet center clinging to his curly hair and dripping down onto his freshly scrubbed neck and clean shirt.

Ladling milk into a pitcher, Joe Brogan spotted the one kid scoot between the wagon and Bismarck and scoop up some fresh horse dung. Following him with his eyes, Joe saw the boys dancing around the little wagon with the crippled boy and his brother, flinging shit at them.

“Hey!” he shouted at the bullies while the housewife he was serving started screaming at them, as well.

“Merdosos monstros!” she screamed, as Joe went after the kids, who were continuing to run about the wagon. Catching one, Joe grabbed him by the collar and kicked him in the behind as hard as he could swing his leg, driving the boy head over heels across the pavement. The housewife charged as well, screaming obscenities and swinging her fists to drive them away from the helpless brothers.

The four bullies scampered away, laughing. Torreo’s face was wet with tears and feces, clods of horseshit on him and the wagon. Rafaele cried, too, and tried to wipe away the dirt from the little boy’s sobbing face with his hands.

“Bring him inside, we’ll wash the baby,” the housewife said, and Joe picked up the little fellow, who clung to him, crying. Rafaele followed, still pulling the wagon. Inside, Joe put Torreo on the sink board, and the woman took his soiled shirt off him and washed the shit away.

“I’ll go find him a clean shirt. You watch him, Joe.” “You okay now, little guy?”

Stifling his sobs, Torreo nodded.

“They aren’t going to bother you any more, the dirty little bastards.”

Coming back with a clean shirt, Mrs. Lano said, “Those boys are no good. Always stealing stuff, wrecking things. No good.” She continued in Italian, drying Torreo off with a towel and pulling the clean shirt over his head.

Carrying Torreo outside, Joe saw Rafaele tilting the wagon sideways, sweeping the horse dung out with his hand.

“Hey, Mrs. Lano, do you have a rag we can clean this with?” Joe asked.

She nodded, and when she came outside with a wet rag, she started jabbering rapidly in Italian at Rafaele, who kept his head down while he wiped out the wagon. When he was finished, Rafaele nodded as Mrs. Lano continued her lecture, wagging her finger at him. When they finally went on their way, Torreo turned himself around in the wagon and waved at Joe and Mrs. Lano, who shook her head.

“It’s a shame. That baby’s got no one to look out for him, Joe.”

“That little fella’s going to have a rough time of it, Mrs. L.”