Every Man for Himself. Mark J. Hannon

      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.”

      CHAPTER 5

      THE WEST SIDE, 1912

      From the stable where Cooper’s Dairy kept the horses, Joe liked to look out the back door at the canals and the river at the end of the day. He loved the way the mighty Niagara flowed— strong, swift, and ceaseless as it rushed northward from Lake Erie to the Falls, uncontrolled by any man. In contrast, the new Barge Canal seemed almost sedentary, protected from the River with a break wall. Tugs pulled barges there, steaming up and down carrying coal, hay, and ore. Further inland, parallel to the Barge Canal and forgotten by modern commerce, the original canal was green with algae in parts, but perfect for fishermen and boaters, who built shacks along the towpath. On the land farther in still, just off Niagara Street, the modern age took hold once again, as locomotives’ whistles screamed and their stacks spewed black smoke along the tracks of the New York Central, occasionally stopping at Ferry Street to drop off passengers for the boats going over to Fort Erie in Canada.

      Joe noticed that, in the last hours of sunlight, a group of young guys had been gathering on Bird Island between the canals and were building a house there made of old lumber hauled to the site by the wagonload. By the middle of the summer, the “clubhouse,” as they called it, was built, and the same men were showing up with skinny boats with long oars attached, pulling up and down the canal. The clubhouse had a fancy gray and maroon sign advertising it as “The West Side Rowing Club.”

      On a Saturday afternoon in August, Joe stopped by to see if the horses were fed and watered properly, and noticed a crowd of people gathering by the clubhouse: girls in white dresses with parasols; and boisterous young men, some in colorful tank suits and others in white shirts, wearing bowler and straw hats. The athletes were carrying boats and oars to the canal, and the men in street clothes were drinking beer and shouting encouragement to the rowers in green, blue, and maroon uniforms as they prepared for their races.

      His stable inspection completed, Joe walked over to the footbridge to Bird Island and watched. The rowers were getting into their boats, and some of them were pulling short distances up and down the canal.

      “They’re still warming up, we’re not too late,” Joe heard from behind, as a group of people hustled over the bridge to the Island, festooned with blankets and baskets. One of them, a girl wearing a white dress with a big black belt, was holding the dress up at her wide hips, showing thick white ankles, hurrying along. A breeze caught her purple hat, and as she turned to catch it, Joe recognized the Worth’s maid, Eileen. She cried out “Oh!” as she snatched it, and smiled as he said, “Hello,” and touched the brim of his cloth cap. She nodded, then turned and hurried to catch up with her friends.

      Joe walked the rest of the way across the bridge and stood at the edge of the crowd. The men were gallused and cigar chomping, talking of the several clubs’ prospects in what they called the “regatta,” just like the rich men’s sail boat races on the lake. They also spoke of their prospects with the women, who gathered on the blankets with the picnic baskets nearer to the water. In the crowd, Joe spotted Pete Gilhooly, a plumber, who had a shop with Joe’s brother, Mike, on Niagara.

      “Hello, Pete, what kind of show are you putting on here?”

      “Why, Joe, how are you lad?” he said, pumping his hand. “We finally got the club together enough for