Pete Hamill - North River

“Fire engine,” she said. “That’s a fire engine, ragazzo.”

The boy’s jaw was slack with awe. And Delaney knew what he must do in the next few days.

St. Patrick’s Day fell on Saturday, and in the morning they stood three feet apart in the areaway watching the neighborhood empty. The boy peered through the grillwork of the fence while Irish music came from everywhere, out of open tenement windows, from the old streets of the Five Points, from Tin Pan Alley, from distant Kerry and Antrim and Mayo. They watched the entire student body of Sacred Heart, garbed in maroon uniforms, march east to the subway. They saw men in green ties, long coats, and a few vaudeville green derbies, coming from the saloons beyond the High Line, and clusters of women following the men. Some wore green buttons that said ENGLAND, OUT OF IRELAND. Most of the men nodded to Delaney as they passed. They were all going uptown to the parade.

“They must wonder why you’re not going to the parade, Dottore.”

“They know I’ve got patients,” he said.

Rose sat on the second step of the stoop, and Carlito climbed up behind her, to see better.

“Some of these guys,” Rose said, “they’re gonna need you tonight. After they beat the hell out of each other.”

Delaney laughed. “Let’s hope whatever they do, they do it uptown.”

He had taken part in many of these parades before the war, starting in the ranks of Sacred Heart, and later marching with his father, and he hated them and loved them too. Above all, he loved the defiant pride of the marchers. When he was twelve he asked Big Jim why the parade was on Fifth Avenue, where all the rich lived and the only Irish were doormen and maids. And his father said, Big fella, it’s simple: to show those bastards that they got the money but we got the votes. Delaney loved that part, the Tammany tale, and the sense among all of them that they too owned a piece of New York, they had purchased it with sweat and will, they were New Yorkers forever. He hated other things, starting with the clergy, plump and sleek, and how they insisted that the parade was a Catholic event, not just an Irish event. That meant they had no room for Jonathan Swift or Wolfe Tone, for Oscar Wilde or William Butler Yeats. He hated the drunkenness too, men embracing the stereotype and careening around the Irish joints on Third Avenue after they had marched. Hated above all what would happen to them in the night, or to their wives. He had treated too many of them. He knew all the reasons: the way the British refused to give them power of any kind, except to get drunk and assault their women. Drunks were no threat to power. Knew the reasons, but hated seeing their leftovers on the streets of New York. Still, in other ways, the Irish tale was a noble one, all about people who kept getting knocked down and kept getting up. He would tell that tale to Carlito too. Eventually.

“I went to the parade, five, six years ago,” Rose said. “Lots of guys throwing up on their shoes.”

Delaney said: “Were they at least nice to you?”

“Falling all over me,” she said, and grinned, and turned her attention to the last stragglers heading east, three old women of the type who used to be called shawlies, widows who stayed in church for hours each day. They wore shawls now too, and long dresses and warm coats.

Rose said: “I should walk wit’ these women. Look at them feet.”

They indeed had huge feet. Larger, by far, than Rose’s, but from similar histories. They had worked the stony fields of Connemara or Donegal, before embarking forever for New York. He knew one of them. The one in the center, with blue eyes like ice water. Dunn. Bridey Dunn. He remembered her fury when he told her that her son had polio and there was nothing to be done. There was no cure. The boy would live all of his life with a maimed leg. Bridey stopped and gazed from Delaney to Rose.

“So here you are with your whore,” Bridey said. The word was pronounced “who-uh.” The New York style. Rose tensed, as if preparing for combat.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dunn. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”

“Bad cess to you and your good wishes, Dr. Delaney.”

The two other shawlies were at her elbows, trying to move her along, but Mrs. Dunn shook them off.

“You’re a bloody disgrace,” she said. “Living in sin with this trollop.”

“Hey, you,” Rose said, with heat in her voice. “Shut up and go to the parade.”

Delaney stepped in front of Rose, his back to Mrs. Dunn. “Ignore this fool,” he said. “I’ll explain later.” But Rose stepped to the side and hissed at Mrs. Dunn. “Go on, get the hell outta here!”

“I’ll sic the coppers on the pair of yiz. I’ll get the priest over here! Yiz are a disgrace to all of us!”

“Bah fongool!” Rose shouted. And then her friends led Mrs. Dunn away to the east, snarling and sputtering all the way. Carlito ran to Rose and embraced her hips.

Delaney explained to Rose about Mrs. Dunn’s son, who probably picked up polio swimming in the North River and was now almost twenty, with a permanently maimed leg. He explained how Mrs. Dunn was like many other people: she had to blame someone for misfortune, and the doctor was the easiest target. In cases of incurable disease, a doctor was only a messenger, but they chose to blame the messenger.

“But she was after me too,” Rose said. “Not just you. But me! And she doesn’t even know me!”

“She knows you a little better now.”

Rose looked away, with some shame in her face.

“I’m sorry I used bad words,” she said.

“I don’t blame you,” Delaney said. “But it wasn’t you she wanted to hurt, it was me.”

“You feel hurt?”

“A little,” he said. “I should have defended you better.”

“Hey, I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can,” he said, remembering the affectionate way that Knocko Carmody called her a hoodlum. To him the word was a compliment.

“I just don’t like it when there’s some secret going on and I don’t know what it is.” She was silent for a beat. “Know what I mean?”

Then he told her about the single phone call with the breathing sound but no voice. He told her about seeing the bartender from Club 65 on the Sunday walk, and about Callahan and his friend in the tweed coat.

“Thanks for telling me,” she said. “I gotta watch even better now.”

And then went upstairs to work.

At one-thirty that afternoon, after dealing with a scattered lot of Saturday-morning patients, Delaney sat down at the kitchen table. There would be no house calls on this day of celebration. It was as if the entire neighborhood had gone up to Fifth Avenue to sing and march. In the warmth of the kitchen, he felt almost dizzy from the aroma of olive oil, basil, garlic, and simmering beef. Osito was on the chair to Delaney’s left, Carlito to his right. As always, Italian music was playing very low. Then Rose turned from the stove, grinning, to present the meal.

“Okay, something special, somethin’ new!”

“What is, Rosa?” the boy said.

“Braciol’,” she answered. “With pasta in oil!”

She laid plates in front of Delaney and Carlito and then one for herself. Carlito stared in a suspicious way at the mysterious new food. A rolled tube of beef, covered with dark red sauce.

“Watch,” she said to the boy, and reached over to cut his rolled beef in pieces.

“You see? Beef, with cheese inside, and sauce! ”

He stared at the braciole, not moving. Delaney took a piece and started chewing.

“This is great,” he said. Carlito lifted a piece with his left hand and took a tentative bite. His face was dubious and then subtly relaxed. He began to chew. Rose looked relieved.