Marisi
Ornstein
Henry’s new lace-up boots tap the cobblestones as he walks up Fulton Street near New York Harbor, searching for his father.
He scans the faces of the sailors and dock workers looking for a set of eyes that look exactly like his.
The fires inside the metal grated spheres swinging from posts lighting the street singe his cap, as he weaves through the stream of approaching faces, registering every set of eyes within his scope.
He can’t help searching down the alleys, too, glimpsing indelicate silhouettes engaged in nothing good.
The stench of rotting fish and human spew is overwhelming, but it’s the stench of home, and he breathes it just fine.
A one-legged sailor is being attacked by a wild dog for stealing its food and nobody gives a shit, it’s justice.
As he gets closer to the sailing ships, Henry notices the cargo is being hauled by men and women of all ages, from all over the world, everyone working together, and he makes a mental note to reflect this ethic on his roads.
He flashes back to walking these streets as a child, learning new languages from the sailors from far away places, hearing stories about where they’ve been. He was always intrigued by the exotic symbols and stories sewn into their skin with ink.
Henry’s eyes close as he lets a memory flow from the perspective of his five year old mind. He sees his father emerge from a crowd of exhausted sailors pouring from a ravaged ship, dropping his duffle, lifting him high into the air, and wrapping him up inside his homemade coat that kept him warm on the sea, round Cape Horn.
Henry’s heel catches on a cobblestone, and all he sees are strangers.
He slips into a dark bar filled with the sounds of sick murmuring and clinking glass. Dilapidated sailors and a few Mermaids line the bar, lost in reverie and nursing rotgut drinks. There’s a floor level trough running the length of the bar, so that patrons can relieve themselves without losing their place.
Henry scans the room, but no familiar eyes does he find, so he pops a strawberry candy and hits the street, weaving through the stream of faces rushing towards him.
He spins back in time and draws a detailed map in his mind of the dark, putrid alley off Mulberry where he and his pals spent their time stewing up crimes to impress the older criminals of the neighborhood, who were allowed to walk up the eight steps, knock three times on the old wooden door, and enter the room where unimaginable secrets that rule the Five Points take form and flight.
Henry buttons his jacket, hoping the meeting he set in that same room behind that old wooden door will go as he visioned it, and not get he and Samuel killed on the spot.
As he reaches the corner of Mott and Bayard, Samuel arrives right on time, “If I’m gonna be part of this, Henry, I need to know what I’m part of.”
Henry checks his pistols, “I organized my old pals to offer an opportunity of business.”
“You’ve organized criminals.”
“Yeah.” Henry looks to Samuel with a shrug, “Crime counts for ingenuity here, Sam. It’s how we survive.” He squares his new boots, “I was born a hundred yards from where we stand. This ain’t Rivington Street, man.”
Samuel looks to the full moon, “What kinda business?”
“Transport. I’m structuring a flow of commerce from Coney to the Pacific, North to South. Roads need commerce. I’m here to organize it.”
Samuel stares, “You’re organizing crime.”
“I’m organizing crime. Absolutely.”
Henry checks his knife in his boot, “That’s what you’re part of.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to be part of. I didn’t come home to die.”
Henry holds Samuel’s eyes, “You with me?”
Samuel checks his pistols, “I’m with you.”
Henry checks his pocket watch, “Most of the commerce, the cargo will be legit. But, crime is crime, it happens sometimes. Might as well own it.”
“Right. Why not.”
“Why not. Exactly.” Henry checks his pistols, “Check your pistols.”
“I just checked them.”
“Check them again.”
Samuel checks his pistols again and shifts the blade in his belt.
Henry glances around, “You’ll meet men tonight who’d scare the teeth off a wolf. Don’t stare, no matter how gruesome. Keep your eyes traveling, never let them land. No telling what’ll combust. Let’s go, I’m never late.”
They walk up Mulberry and turn into a wide alley filled with stink, silence and shifting shadows.
Henry watches a group of kids huddled at the far end of the alley, then glances up through laundry ropes to twelve hawks against a full moon. He looks to the old wooden door and climbs the eight steps for the very first time.
He knocks three times on the old wooden door, and winks at Samuel, “Welcome to the road, Sam.”
The door opens and they flow into the dark room where unimaginable secrets that rule the Five Points take form and flight. The room is so dark and quiet it would seem empty if not for the twenty or so people crammed inside.
As Henry’s eyes adjust, he scans the room and watches as the savage faces of these adults shift back in time to the faces of young boys six, seven years old, as Henry remembers them, so much so that his spine tingles, “Welcome, friends. Thank you for accepting my invitation, I’m honored.”
A voice so raspy it hurts to hear blurts out, “You a big shot now, Willie?”
Henry’s temper rises at such a quick clip that he is nearly knocked off his feet, “Who’s that?”
A chair creaks as a figure rises, cloaked in an overcoat and a slouch hat over his left eye. He walks to Henry with a tricky limp and gets a bit too close, “Who’d you kill for them clothes?”
“I had this suit made by a tailor in Santa Fe.”
“Welcome home, Bill.”
“Name’s not Bill.”
Henry leans in, “Name’s none of your fuckin business.’”
“Right.”
Jimmy turns and addresses the room, “Anybody knows anybody who ain’t here and oughta be, speak the fuck up. Now.”
The room somehow relaxes as the men settle in. Jimmy takes his time traveling back to his chair.
Henry takes Jimmy’s place, “Those who know me know I ain’t here. Those who don’t know me, I thank you for being here. I realize what it took for you all to make the trip to Mulberry, and I’m offering opportunity to make the trip worth your trouble.”
He removes his cap, “I been West.”
As he speaks, he meets every eye in the room, “Saw it all. Up close. Words don’t do justice to description. It’s a wide open world out there and I got a way to make use of it.”
He hangs his cap on a peg on the wall.
“I’m building a series of roads heading out West. Reason I asked you here is, I’m organizing a network of cargo hauling on these roads with the potential to turn business our way. Create commerce, legal or not. Anybody interested?”
More than a few walk out, leaving twelve men sitting in the darkness.
Henry takes off his jacket, hangs it on a peg.
“Times are evolving, opening doors of options that weren’t never imagined. It’s my hope we can find strength in trust and move into the future together, because I have an idea that will take us beyond the local and span the years into the future.”
He speaks low, “I’m gonna give our particular skills a reason to exist in an expanding landscape of commerce that will only grow more lush in time.”
A man knocks on a table, “How do we earn?”
“You pay protection for your wagon and cargo, along with a toll for the right to put wheel to road and you’ll be free to earn and practice commerce any way you choose. As long as it’s within the scope of ethics. Our ethics. Based on the morals of the Points and the traditions of the open sea.”
A man in the corner knocks three times on his table and the rest of the men do the same.
“If we form an alliance built on mutual earning and respect each other’s routes and interests, we got a private game that never ends.”
Another man pipes up, “What do you mean you’re gonna build roads? You gonna own them?”
“What I mean is none of your concern, I’m here asking if you want to do business on them or not.”
Henry knocks on the table, “It’d be a powerful union if we in this room were to organize. Who here has an interest in talking further?”
A man with a thick Sicilian accent perks up, “I got an interest.”
Henry recognizes the man and involuntarily wells up for a millisecond.
He rolls his sleeves down, “Give us a vote, Jimmy.”
Jimmy walks to Henry and knocks on the table with his ring, “Vote.”
Slowly, everyone in the room knocks three times on the tables and walls.
Jimmy turns to Henry, “All in.”
Henry looks from face to face, “Honored.”
Jimmy calls out, “Whiskey!”
Whiskey is delivered and candles are lit, revealing the faces of people from all over the world, together as one. Jimmy drinks his whiskey and shatters his glass on the floor, the other men do the same.
Henry raises his glass, “Onwards, friends, to the future.”
As the room erupts in conversation, Jimmy walks to Henry, “What’s the larger picture?”
Henry ignores him and puts his cap back on, “Thanks for the invites.”
“I don’t need thanks. Gimme some money.”
Henry peels a hundred from his billfold, “Set another meeting. Tomorrow night, same time.”
Jimmy smiles and a vertical scar straight down the right side of his face creases in a way that makes Henry wince.
“I knew you was different.”
Henry looks at him, “Different how?”
“We all knew how to fight.”
Jimmy thinks, “You took something from the fight. You advanced us, brought us business. You accomplished ideas. Then, one day, you was gone, and we was left empty handed.”
“I was never here.” Henry leans in, “Understand?”
Jimmy grins sending a waft of stink from inside his mouth, “You was here just as you’re here now. I know you. Keep that in mind, Billy Kid.”
He breaks from Henry and walks outside.
Henry makes a mental note of how a man who can’t be trusted can get in the way of the flow.
As he follows Jimmy down the steps, Henry takes Jimmy’s shoulder, spins him around and gently slides his knife through his ribs and into his heart, “You talk too much, Jim.”
Henry holds Jimmy’s eyes until they go vacant, then props him on a crate against the alley wall, his hat over his eyes.
As he cleans his knife on Jimmy’s coat, he slips the hundred from Jimmy’s vest pocket, whistles to the group of kids huddled in the darkness and hands the hundred to the smallest kid among them, “Split it even.”
He juts his chin to Samuel, who is watching from the top of the steps, “Tell them fellas, another meeting tomorrow night. Same time.”
Samuel catches up to Henry, who is already strolling down Mulberry Street, his mind sailing towards his future, as it manifests itself in every tap on every cobblestone that his stiff new lace-up boots can find.
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