William Kennedy - Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

“Don’t call him that, George,” Vivian said.

“That was his name,” George said.

“We shouldn’t use that word anymore,” Vivian said.

“What word?” George asked.

“Nigger,” Tremont said.

“No, we shouldn’t say that,” George said. “There’s other words to use. Like ‘Shine.’” And George sang:

“ ’Cause my hair is curly,

’cause my teeth are pearly. .”

“That old coon tune,” Tremont said.

“Just because

I always wear a smile. .”

“You’re singing that because you’re thinkin’ about Big Jimmy,” Tremont said.

“Big Jim sang that all the time,” George said, and he sang:

“Just because my color’s shady,

That’s the reason maybe,

Why they call me ‘Shine’. .”

“Nobody calls you ‘Shine,’ George,” Tremont said.

“You know that song, Tremont?”

“My daddy taught me. Why you like it so much?”

“It’s got a lot of pep. Everybody oughta love it.”

“You in a good mood, Georgie,” Tremont said. “Big Jim used to say you brought luck and sunshine when you come into the club.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s always wonderful down here,” George said.

“Wonderful?” Tremont said. “You talkin’ about Green Street, Georgie? This old street’s fallin’ apart, one of the lowest of the lowdown streets in this town. They’re boardin’ up houses, kickin’ people out, pretty soon won’t nobody be livin’ here.”

“I was on Green Street when I was young,” Vivian said. “I heard it had houses of prostitution.”

“That’s a positive fact,” said George, “but it didn’t spoil the neighborhood. Madge Burns had the best house, and Davenport’s was the most expensive. Big Bertha used to sit in her window and wave at you, French Emma’s was the cheapest, and the Creole house on Bleecker was very popular. Very popular.”

“You know all about it, George,” Vivian said. “Did you go to those places?”

“Thank God I never had any need of them. But I took their play when I was writing numbers. There were some wonderful girls in those houses, lovely girls, not that I had any need of them.”

“Those girls been down here forever, Miss Vivian,” Tremont said. “My daddy said they had about a thousand when he was young, even more during World War One. Everybody knew Green Street. People came here from all over. Always been a good business.”

“Still is, sort of,” Matt said. “There’s half a dozen houses right on Bleecker Street, busiest street down here. There — across the street, the one with the awning on the first-floor window — any house with an awning is doing business.”

“How do you know all this, Father?”

“Claudia gave me a tour. Better Streets was trying to get the prostitutes to move off her block so the kids wouldn’t have to grow up with all that, and Claudia asked me to help do it. But it’s tough to close those places down, and if you move them their customers can’t find them and you get a lot of rape. That’s the argument, anyway. The madams pay off the police and the politicians, so they’re well protected. I took a list of addresses up to the bishop’s office — twenty-two houses of prostitution — and I showed it to the chancellor. He said Patsy McCall, the political boss of Albany, would never let such places exist and that I made it all up because I was a Republican agitator.”

“He say that to you?” Tremont said, chuckling.

“I was never even a Democrat. Never belonged to anything organized, except the church, if you think that’s organized. I do my thing. That’s why they silenced me. I spoke to a few groups and I did criticize the Mayor in a couple of speeches. And that day you were poll watching, Tremont, my argument with those ward politicians got in the papers and the diocese didn’t like it. I got a big mouth, no doubt about it, and they told me to keep it shut and stay off Green Street.”

“But you couldn’t.”

“I didn’t plan tonight, Tremont. You and your gun got us down here.”

“My gun. Gotta clean it, can’t wait no more, right here quick, sing us a song, Georgie, won’t be a minute.”

They were on Bleecker, a few doors from Trixie’s and Hapsy’s. Tremont went into an alley between two three-story brick houses, both dark. Matt watched him open his sack and gun case, remove the AR-15’s magazine and put it in his coat pocket. He broke down the gun and with the soapy towels he scrubbed the stock, barrel, pistol grip, handguard, sling, and carrying handle, and then he held part of the gun with a towel and let it drip.

George took Vivian’s arm and said, “I remember now that we did go dancing out to Snyder’s Lake.”

“I’m so glad, George. I remember it very well.”

“You were good and honest and you never let anybody cut in,” he said.”You danced every dance.” Then he sang:

“I’m tying the leaves so they won’t come down,

So the wind won’t blow them away,

For the best little girl in the wide wide world,

Is lying so ill today.

Her young life must go when the last leaves fall.

I’m fixing them fast so they’ll stay.

I’m tying the leaves so they won’t come down,

So Nellie won’t go away.”

Vivian kissed George, which made him extremely happy. He felt like he’d hit the number. He had made the right moves. Was there anything more he should do? In the alley Tremont laid the cleansed AR-15 on the sack and scrubbed the gun case with a soapy towel. On the opposite side of Bleecker a white panel truck pulled up and parked. A white man and a black man got out and went up the stoop of a house with a first-floor awning. Vivian was holding George’s arms and giving him short kisses. Matt was urging Tremont to hurry up with the gun. Tremont opened the sack and nudged the scrubbed gun case halfway into it with his elbow. He was holding part of the gun with a paper towel when a woman screamed and came out of the house that had the awning, running down the steps with something in her right hand. The black man from the truck was behind her, and then the white man, who was holding his ear and yelling, “Get that bitch.” The black man closed on the woman who turned and lashed out at him with her right hand, without contact. She ran toward Green Street past the pilgrims who were watching from the other side of Bleecker.

Tremont came out of the alley and said, “That’s Rosie.” He put the AR-15 together, took the magazine from his coat and shoved it into the gun. He stepped off the curb to see Rosie punched by the black man who kicked her as she went down, then kicked her again. The second man, blood gushing from his right ear, said “Kill that bitch.” Rosie rolled away from the black man and with a backhanded sweep cut his leg with what the pilgrims could now see was a linoleum knife.

“You cunt,” the black man said. As he took a pistol from his back pocket Tremont shot him and he fell, his pistol clattering into the shadows of a housefront.

Matt pulled Vivian and George into a basement doorway under a porch. The second man looked to where the shot came from and with his bloody right hand took a pistol from his belt. Tremont shot him and the man fired his pistol once into the sidewalk and, as he fell, his pistol flew into the street. He got up and limped toward the panel truck as the first man crawled into a crouch and disappeared around the corner of Green Street.

Tremont crossed Bleecker and shot the panel truck’s front tires, then shot out the windshield and fired shots into the engine. He kicked both pistols into a sewer and called to the fleeing white man as he vanished up the block, “Hey, buddy, you got a flat.” He walked back to Rosie who was trying to stand up, blood all over her face and clothes.