Read Online Streets of Gold by Evan Hunter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Evan Hunter
Tags: Contemporary
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What if I told you that June of 1901 was the sunniest June in the history of New York City?
ME: Grandpa says it rained for twelve days and twelve nights. It went into the records, he says.
TONY: Have you checked the records?
ME: No, but. . .
TONY: Then how do you know Grandpa wasn’t lying?
ME: He never lies, you know that. Anyway, what’s the rain got to do with the story?
TONY: I’m only trying to show you that if
part
of the story is a lie, maybe
all
of it is a lie.
ME: It sounds like the truth. That’s good enough for me.
Which, in a way, is exactly how I feel about this narrative. If it
sounds
like the truth, that’s good enough for me.
You
go check the records, I’m too busy, and I’m too blind. I haven’t the faintest inkling whether June of 1901 was the wettest June on record or the sunniest. When you find out, let me know — though frankly, I don’t give a damn, If you’re willing to compromise, I’ll say it was the
cloudiest
June on record, how’s that? The floor of the subway tunnel was covered with
mist
, okay? The Spanish-American War took place in 1794, Pope John was a Protestant, we got out of Vietnam with honor, astronauts are lyric poets, and my mother is a whore. Who cares? The truth I’m trying to deliver has nothing to do with careful research meticulously sandwiched into a work of fiction to give it verisimilitude or clinical verity. The
only
truth I’m trying to convey is this: it’s a lie.
All
of it.
That’s the tragedy.
In contrast to the miserably wet June that year, the beginning of July was sunny and hot. The Fourth fell on a Thursday. Today, this would mean a four-day weekend, but in 1901, when men were working a six-day week, Independence Day was only a one-day respite from the almost daily grind. Francesco had been in America for the celebration of Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays (which meant nothing to him) and for Easter (which he had spent in the hospital recuperating from Halloran’s attack). The Fourth was special to him only in that it promised widespread celebrations on the order of
La Festa di San Maurizio
in Fiormonte.
One of those celebrations was sponsored by the local Republican Club, and was announced in the newspapers (including
Il Progresso
, the Italian-language newspaper read by all literate Italians in the ghetto) as:
REPUBLICAN CLUB
GALA FOURTH OF JULY PICNIC
** FREE * FREE * FREE * FREE **
BEER SANDWICHES ICE CREAM
MUSIC FIREWORKS
JEFFERSON PARK — NOON TO DUSK
Francesco awakened on the morning of the glorious Fourth to the sounds of the Agnelli children arguing in the room next door. He quickly checked under his pillow to make sure his shoes had not been spirited away and pissed into, and then glanced sleepily at the clock on the chair beside his bed. This was to be the most important day of his life, but he did not yet know it, nor would he come to know it for a long, long while.
I must get out,
he thought,
I must go back
. He thought that every morning and every night, and yet he continued to work on the subway, and he continued to return to this dreary room in the apartment of the iceman and his family. There seemed little reason for Francesco to remain in America. He was more heavily in debt now than he had been on the day he’d arrived, and seriously doubted that he could ever repay all the money Bardoni had advanced to him. The weekly bite on his pay check had drastically reduced the amount of money he could send home to Fiormonte each week. He was weary most of the time; his bones ached from the labor he performed, his mind reeled from the babble of sound assaulting him most of his waking day. And now that Pino had defected, now that Pino had announced his intention to marry Angelina Trachetti and stay here in this barbaric land, where was there any sense in persisting? Was a man to be governed by his stomach alone? He would go back to Italy, he would
ME: Grandpa says it rained for twelve days and twelve nights. It went into the records, he says.
TONY: Have you checked the records?
ME: No, but. . .
TONY: Then how do you know Grandpa wasn’t lying?
ME: He never lies, you know that. Anyway, what’s the rain got to do with the story?
TONY: I’m only trying to show you that if
part
of the story is a lie, maybe
all
of it is a lie.
ME: It sounds like the truth. That’s good enough for me.
Which, in a way, is exactly how I feel about this narrative. If it
sounds
like the truth, that’s good enough for me.
You
go check the records, I’m too busy, and I’m too blind. I haven’t the faintest inkling whether June of 1901 was the wettest June on record or the sunniest. When you find out, let me know — though frankly, I don’t give a damn, If you’re willing to compromise, I’ll say it was the
cloudiest
June on record, how’s that? The floor of the subway tunnel was covered with
mist
, okay? The Spanish-American War took place in 1794, Pope John was a Protestant, we got out of Vietnam with honor, astronauts are lyric poets, and my mother is a whore. Who cares? The truth I’m trying to deliver has nothing to do with careful research meticulously sandwiched into a work of fiction to give it verisimilitude or clinical verity. The
only
truth I’m trying to convey is this: it’s a lie.
All
of it.
That’s the tragedy.
In contrast to the miserably wet June that year, the beginning of July was sunny and hot. The Fourth fell on a Thursday. Today, this would mean a four-day weekend, but in 1901, when men were working a six-day week, Independence Day was only a one-day respite from the almost daily grind. Francesco had been in America for the celebration of Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays (which meant nothing to him) and for Easter (which he had spent in the hospital recuperating from Halloran’s attack). The Fourth was special to him only in that it promised widespread celebrations on the order of
La Festa di San Maurizio
in Fiormonte.
One of those celebrations was sponsored by the local Republican Club, and was announced in the newspapers (including
Il Progresso
, the Italian-language newspaper read by all literate Italians in the ghetto) as:
REPUBLICAN CLUB
GALA FOURTH OF JULY PICNIC
** FREE * FREE * FREE * FREE **
BEER SANDWICHES ICE CREAM
MUSIC FIREWORKS
JEFFERSON PARK — NOON TO DUSK
Francesco awakened on the morning of the glorious Fourth to the sounds of the Agnelli children arguing in the room next door. He quickly checked under his pillow to make sure his shoes had not been spirited away and pissed into, and then glanced sleepily at the clock on the chair beside his bed. This was to be the most important day of his life, but he did not yet know it, nor would he come to know it for a long, long while.
I must get out,
he thought,
I must go back
. He thought that every morning and every night, and yet he continued to work on the subway, and he continued to return to this dreary room in the apartment of the iceman and his family. There seemed little reason for Francesco to remain in America. He was more heavily in debt now than he had been on the day he’d arrived, and seriously doubted that he could ever repay all the money Bardoni had advanced to him. The weekly bite on his pay check had drastically reduced the amount of money he could send home to Fiormonte each week. He was weary most of the time; his bones ached from the labor he performed, his mind reeled from the babble of sound assaulting him most of his waking day. And now that Pino had defected, now that Pino had announced his intention to marry Angelina Trachetti and stay here in this barbaric land, where was there any sense in persisting? Was a man to be governed by his stomach alone? He would go back to Italy, he would
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