Read Online Gangster by Lorenzo Carcaterra - Free Book Online Page B

Ida the Goose said, smiling. You play it right.
        Angelo glanced at Pudge. I will not let you die, he said through lips that barely moved.
        Thanks, Pudge said. I'll sleep better now.
        Ida the Goose and Angus McQueen exchanged a nod and a smile.
       
         *     *     *
       
    PAOLINO STOOD KNEE-DEEP in the clear waters of City Island Bay, his pants rolled up to his thighs and his hands sifting through the bottom's soft sand. He looked up at Angelo sitting on the center plank of a rowboat and smiled. The boy, a half-filled bushel of clams resting between his legs, smiled back. The hot morning sun beat down on both of them.
        How many do we have so far? Paolino yelled across the short distance separating them.
        About fifty, Angelo called back. Maybe more.
        Paolino squinted up at the sun, its warm rays turning the pall of his white skin a bright shade of red. Three more hours, he said. By then, the basket will be full.
        Are all these clams for us? Angelo asked, his white T-shirt bunched up and hanging around his neck.
        As many as we can eat, Paolino said. The rest we give to the people in our building.
        Do you want your drink, Papa? Angelo asked, reaching for a bottle of red wine wrapped in cloth.
        Paolino rinsed his hands in the clear water and walked toward Angelo. The two of them had left lower Manhattan in the middle of the night and hitched a ride on a friend's milk wagon heading up to the Bronx to make its deliveries. They slept for most of the five-hour trip and stared out at the passing scenery during the rest of it. A gulf was developing between the boy and his father and Paolino felt powerless to prevent its expansion. The hours he spent with his now-eight-year-old son were too few to matter, stolen minutes jammed in between work and sleep. It was one more fault he could lay at the doorstep of his new homeland.
        Paolino had cursed Italy for the ease with which it submitted to the dark hands of organized crime. But now, here in New York, he saw greater dangers. The streets of lower Manhattan sucked up boys like his Angelo and thrust them into a sinister realm where their torn pockets would be lined with wads of easy money. At such a young age Angelo had already glimpsed an escape route from the cramped confines of his dead-end tenement life.
        Paolino flipped his shirt over the side of the boat. The sun and sparkle of the water reminded him of an earlier tune, when his days were marked by long walks across green hills and fresh meadows and along tree-lined roads, herding his flock, his own future as clear to him as the overhead sky. That short period seemed galaxies removed from where he now stood. He felt as if he were in the middle of someone else's life, cruising by, honing in on the memories of a stranger.
        I do not remember the last time I was out in the sun, Paolino said. It feels good.
        How much longer will we stay? Angelo asked. His English was improving daily, deterred only by his occasional stutter and living among New York Italians, who found it much easier to speak in their  own tongue than to add the demands of a new one to their burdens.
        Milk wagon will be by to pick us up at four, Paolino said, taking the wine bottle from his son. As he swallowed the homemade brew, Paolino stared at the boy's face, the youthful features so much a carbon copy of his wife's that it made him wince. Why? You have someplace to go? he asked, wiping his chin and handing Angelo back the bottle.
        Pudge needs me, Angelo said.
        He needs you to do what? Paolino asked.
        I don't know, Angelo said.
        Listen to me, Angelo, Paolino said, a wet hand resting on top of the boy's knee. I know it is hard for you now. The way we live is not the best. But it will be better. Hard work will make it better. That is the only way I know and the only way I want to teach you.
        Angus McQueen does not