“Brooklyn stinks,” said another driver, down the bar. “The borough of cemeteries. This is a first class place for graveyards.”
“My friend Palangio,” Elias said. “Il Doochay Palangio. Yuh don’t like Brooklyn, go back to Italy. They give yuh a gun, yuh get shot in the behind in Africa.” The rest of the drivers laughed and Elias grinned at his own wit. “I seen in the movies. Go back t’ Italy, wit’ the fat girls. Who’ll buy me a beer?”
Complete silence fell over the bar, like taps over an army camp.
“My friends,” Elias said bitterly.
“Brooklyn is a wonderful place,” Palangio said.
“All day long,” Elias said, reflectively rubbing his broken nose, “I push a hack. Eleven hours on the street. I now have the sum of three dollars and fifty cents in my pocket.”
Pinky came right over. “Now, Elias,” he said, “there is the small matter of one beer. If I’d knew you had the money …”
Elias impatiently brushed Pinky’s hand off the bar. “There is somebody callin’ for a beer down there, Pinky,” he said. “Attend yer business.”
“I think,” Pinky grumbled, retreating, “that a man oughta pay his rightful debts.”
“He thinks. Pinky thinks,” Elias announced. But his heart was not with Pinky. He turned his back to the bar and leaned on his frayed elbows and looked sadly up at the tin ceiling. “Three dollars and fifty cents,” he said softly. “An’ I can’t buy a beer.”
“Whatsamatta?” Palangio asked. “Yuh got a lock on yuh pocket?”
“Two dollars an’ seventy-fi’ cents to the Company,” Elias said. “An’ seventy-fi’ cents to my lousy wife so she don’t make me sleep in the park. The lousy Company. Every day for a year I give ’em two dollars an’ seventy-fi’ cents an’ then I own the hack. After a year yuh might as well sell that crate to Japan to put in bombs. Th’ only way yuh can get it to move is t’ drop it. I signed a contract. I need a nurse. Who wants t’ buy me a beer?”
“I signed th’ same contract,” Palangio said. A look of pain came over his dark face. “It got seven months more to go. Nobody shoulda learned me how to write my name.”
“If you slobs would only join th’ union,” said a little Irishman across from the beer spigots.
“Geary,” Elias said. “The Irish hero. Tell us how you fought th’ English in th’ battle of Belfast.”
“O.K., O.K.,” Geary said, pushing his cap back excitably from his red hair. “You guys wanna push a hack sixteen hours a day for beans, don’ let me stop yuh.”
“Join a union, get yer hair parted down the middle by the cops,” Elias said. “That is my experience.”
“O.K., boys.” Geary pushed his beer a little to make it foam. “Property-owners. Can’t pay for a glass a beer at five o’clock in th’ afternoon. What’s the use a’ talkin’ t’ yuh? Lemme have a beer, Pinky.”
“Geary, you’re a red,” Elias said. “A red bastidd.”
“A Communist,” Palangio said.
“I want a beer,” Geary said loudly.
“Times’re bad,” Elias said. “That’s what’s th’ trouble.”
“Sure.” Geary drained half his new glass. “Sure.”
“Back in 1928,” Elias said, “I averaged sixty bucks a week.”
“On New Year’s Eve, 1927,” Palangio murmured, “I made thirty-six dollars and forty cents.”
“Money was flowin’,” Elias remembered.
Palangio sighed, rubbing his beard bristles with the back of his hand. “I wore silk shirts. With stripes. They cost five bucks a piece. I had four girls in 1928. My God!”
“This ain’t 1928,” Geary said.
“Th’ smart guy,” Elias said. “He’s tellin’ us somethin’. This ain’t 1928, he says. Join th’ union, we get 1928 back.”
“Why the hell should I waste my time?” Geary asked himself in disgust. He drank in silence.
“Pinky!” Palangio called. “Pinky! Two beers for me and my friend Elias.”
Elias moved, with a wide smile, up the bar, next to Palangio. “We are brothers in misery, Angelo,” he said. “Me and th’ Wop. We both signed th’ contract.”
They drank together and sighed together.
“I had th’ biggest pigeon flight in Brownsville,” Elias said softly. “One hundred and twelve pairs of pedigreed pigeons. I’d send ’em up like fireworks, every afternoon. You oughta’ve seen ’em wheelin’ aroun’ an’ aroun’ over th’ roofs. I’m a pigeon fancier.” He finished his glass. “I got fifteen pigeons left. Every time I bring home less than seventy-five cents, my wife cooks one for supper. A pedigreed pigeon. My lousy wife.”
“Two beers,” Palangio said. He and Elias drank with grave satisfaction.
“Now,” Elias said, “if only I didn’t have to go home to my lousy wife. I married her in 1929. A lot of things’ve changed since 1929.” He sighed. “What’s a woman?” he asked. “A woman is a trap.”
“You shoulda seen what I seen today,” Palangio said. “My third fare. On Eastern Parkway. I watched her walk all th’ way acrost Nostrand Avenue, while I was waitin’ on the light. A hundred-and-thirty-pound girl. Blonde. Swingin’ her hips like orchester music. With one of those little straw hats on top of her head, with the vegetables on it. You never saw nothin’ like it. I held onto the wheel like I was drownin’. Talkin’ about traps! She went to the St. George Hotel.”
Elias shook his head. “The tragedy of my life,” he said, “is I was married young.”
“Two beers,” Palangio said.
“Angelo Palangio,” Elias said, “yer name reminds me of music.”
“A guy met her in front of the St. George. A big fat guy. Smilin’ like he just seen Santa Claus. A big fat guy. Some guys …”
“Some guys …” Elias mourned. “I gotta go home to Annie. She yells at me from six to twelve, regular. Who’s goin’ to pay the grocer? Who’s goin’ to pay the gas company?” He looked steadily at his beer for a moment and downed it. “I’m a man who married at the age a’ eighteen.”
“We need somethin’ to drink,” Palangio said.
“Buy us two whiskies,” Elias said. “What the hell good is beer?”
“Two Calverts,” Palangio called. “The best for me and my friend Elias Pinsker. “
“Two gentlemen,” Elias said, “who both signed th’ contract.”
“Two dumb slobs,” said Geary.
“Th’ union man,” Elias lifted his glass. “To th’ union!” He downed the whisky straight. “Th’ hero of th’ Irish Army.”
“Pinky,” Palangio shouted. “Fill ’em up to the top.”
“Angelo Palangio,” Elias murmured gratefully.
Palangio soberly counted the money out for the drinks. “Now,” he said, “the Company can jump in Flushing Bay. I am down to two bucks even.”
“Nice,” Geary said sarcastically. “Smart. You don’t pay ’em one day, they take yer cab. After payin’ them regular for five months. Buy another drink.”
Palangio slowly picked up his glass and let the whisky slide down his throat in a smooth amber stream. “Don’t talk like that, Geary,” he said. “I don’t want to hear nothin’ about taxicabs. I am busy drinkin’ with friends.”
“You dumb Wop,” Geary said.
“That is no way to talk,” Elias said, going over to Geary purposefully. He cocked his right hand and squinted at Geary. Geary backed off, his hands up. “I don’t like to hear people call my friend a dumb Wop,” Elias said.
“Get back,” Geary shouted, “before I brain yuh.”