The King of Mulberry Street Read online

  Gaetano and I sold the lunch sandwiches, our eyes darting around, searching for Pietro's padrone. He didn't show.

  That night we brought Pietro back to Signora Espos-ito's. She took him in without a question, but her eyes were knowing. Don't ask. Don't ask. Everyone has a past that's bad. Don't pry.

  The following morning the padrone was waiting on Pietro's corner when we set up across the street. He stood by that same lamppost I'd first seen him at, and straightened the brim of his hat and watched us. Even though Pietro was safely back at Signora Esposito's, I shivered. When I stared at the padrone, Gaetano pinched me hard and told me not to look at him. But Gaetano was nervous, too; he dropped one of the egg and potato sandwiches.

  The padrone stayed there through our morning sales. He was back again at lunch. And for the evening sales. He never said a word.

  The next day he didn't come. At one point someone tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped back with a yelp. But it was just a customer.

  The padrone didn't come back. Days passed. After a while, I stopped expecting him. I was so happy, I needed to celebrate.

  One night, after dinner, when we sat on our mattresses, I pulled out the package I'd hidden under my bed. “There's something for each of you in here. But they wrapped everything in one package. Who wants to open it?”

  Gaetano looked away.

  Pietro looked down.

  “Come on. It's a surprise. Don't you like surprises?” No one answered. What was the matter with them? “It's a celebration. Because Pietro got away from his padrone.”

  Gaetano took the package. “Then it's for you to open, Pietro.”

  And I got it. I wished so much that I'd asked for two packages. Who knew when Gaetano had last had a surprise to open?

  Pietro opened it carefully. He stared. And smiled.

  “Shoes?” said Gaetano. He took the larger pair and turned them over in his hands. “I've never walked in shoes.”

  Pietro already had his on and was circling the small room. “I have,” he said almost imperceptibly.

  Gaetano pressed the leather with his thumb. “How'd you know the size?”

  “I measured with my hand while you were sleeping.”

  “Who needs shoes?” But Gaetano put them on as he spoke. “How do you tie them?”

  So I showed him.

  Gaetano stood up. “I can wiggle my toes inside them.”

  Pietro laughed. “So can I.”

  And I realized with dismay that I couldn't anymore. My toes were cramped. My feet had grown fast. I'd have to find a way to stretch these shoes, because I was determined to wear them when I went back to Napoli. “Let's go for a walk,” I said.

  Pietro shook his head. “You think my padrone's given up. But he hasn't. I know him. I'm not leaving this room.”

  “Then we can walk a hundred steps here,” I said. “We can march behind one another in a circle.”

  “A thousand steps,” said Gaetano. “And I'm in front.”

  After that, Gaetano wore his shoes every day. So did Pietro, though he still wouldn't leave the apartment, until one night Signora Esposito sat down on the bed beside him and slapped him on the knee and said, “Be a philosopher.”

  We looked at her, dumb as rocks.

  “Philosophers are the smartest people around,” she said, “and they don't give a fig about their appearance.”

  This was a little hard to listen to from a woman who powdered her face white every day. But we all wanted to know where it was leading. So we kept our eyes on her.

  She got up and went to the door.

  “Wait,” said Pietro. “What are you talking about? I don't care what I look like.”

  “Then dress like a girl.”

  I cringed, but she didn't even look at me, so I don't think Pietro guessed that I'd told her my idea.

  “Wait right there.” She left and came back a few minutes later with a skirt she'd made out of an old dress. She dropped it on his lap, and she put a checkered kerchief over his hair, tying it under the chin.

  As soon as she left the room, Gaetano laughed like a hyena. Pietro ripped off the kerchief. But I jabbed Gaetano with my elbow and begged Pietro to put it back on—and to wear the skirt, too. This time both Gaetano and I managed to keep a straight face.

  Pietro walked a half block behind us as we went to Grandinetti's, because he was afraid that if his padrone saw me or Gaetano, he'd recognize Pietro, even in the skirt and kerchief, even with shoes on.

  Starting that day, Pietro helped Grandinetti run the produce store. The instant he arrived at the store, he ran into the storeroom and slipped off his skirt and kerchief. Then he worked hard. He was good with money, and he was honest.

  And the amazing thing was that Pietro was like a different person working beside Grandinetti. He whistled constantly. He greeted the customers and made jokes with them. And, funniest of all, he danced. At closing time, when the store was empty, he'd push the bushels back and tap and twirl. When we asked who had taught him, he clicked his heels and spun away. Over the weeks his face grew fuller and his eyes lost their haunted look.

  Pietro spent money a little more easily now. One morning, as Gaetano and I were turning from Bayard ontoMulberry Street, a Chinese boy stopped us. He was holding a big sack, and I'd seen him selling cigars on that corner before.

  “Want to buy something?” said the boy in English. “Cigars? Rock candy?”

  “Get away,” said Gaetano in Napoletano, though there was no reason to expect the boy to understand it.

  “I'll buy a piece,” I said to the boy in English. I gave him two pennies and took a piece. “What else you got?”

  “Domino games.” The boy took out a small black box. “You play? I can teach you.”

  “Never heard of it,” said Gaetano.

  “I know how to play.” Pietro came up behind us in his skirt. “Is this the Chinese game?”

  “Tien Gow is too hard. This game is easy.”

  Pietro bought it.

  When we walked on, Gaetano mumbled, “Bastardo.”

  I stiffened. “He speaks good English.” Nothing I could say would irritate Gaetano more. “He never makes a mistake.” I held out the brown candy. “Have some.”

  “Filth,” said Gaetano. “Probably laced with opium.”

  The Chinese were known to have gambling houses where everyone smoked opium. Gaetano knew children didn't smoke it, though. He just said that sort of thing out of habit.

  But even Gaetano's hatred of anyone who wasn't Italian couldn't stop him from loving dominoes. Pietro explained the game that night. We played a bunch of rounds, till one of us reached one hundred points. The low scorer was Gaetano. We played again. Gaetano won again.

  “Whatever it is,” Pietro said to him, “your strategy's good.”

  It was the first nice thing either one of them had ever said to the other.

  We played almost every night after that.

  After two months we felt sure that Pietro's padrone had given up looking for him. Another boy belonging to the same padrone was playing a triangle on that corner now.

  The night when I told Pietro the other boy was on his corner, he stopped polishing his shoes and said, “What's he look like?” But before I could answer, he dropped his head. “No. Don't tell me.” With his eyes still on the floor, he said, “Put a dollar from my share of the money into his cup.”

  “A dollar!” said Gaetano.

  “Every day,” said Pietro. “Twenty cents toward what he has to earn. And the eighty that I would have earned if I hadn't run away.”

  “It's your money.” Gaetano got up in a huff and went to the door. “You know what? You really are a mook.” He left the room.

  But I understood: Pietro owed money—and you paid what you owed.

  In the evenings we sometimes took walks together, Pietro in disguise and me. It was on one of those walks, on a night when the first real chill of autumn roughened our cheeks, that we did the important numbers. I'd learned that mornin
g that a third-class ticket from Napoli to Manhattan cost between twenty and twenty-five dollars, depending on the ship. Pietro had worked for his padrone for more than three years, six days a week.

  “At eighty cents a day,” I said to Pietro, “that makes at least two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  Pietro's face went slack. He didn't speak.

  “Come on, Pietro. You're good at numbers.”

  “At Signora Esposito's,” he said slowly, “we each pay two dollars a week. It should cost a lot less at my padrone's—he feeds us garbage. It shouldn't even cost a dollar. It shouldn't even come to fifty dollars a year.”

  We walked, our shoes tapping the sidewalk.

  “I had no idea the passage cost so little,” said Pietro. His words came faster now. “There was no one I could ask. No one any of us could ask. Our padrone always said it was a fortune.” He put his hand over his mouth, as though he was about to be sick. Then he breathed loudly. “I've paid for my passage four or five times over. The boys I lived with—almost all of them have paid over and over.”

  “And the thief beat you.”

  “He beat all of us,” said Pietro.

  “You don't owe him. You're free.”

  “I'm free,” said Pietro, but his voice was small.

  “Don't be sad,” I said. “It's over. That part of your life is behind. Now you've really got a reason to dance.”

  “Gaetano was right all along; I'm a mook.”

  “Don't say that.”

  Pietro looked at me and his eyes glistened in the light of the streetlamp. “I lied just now. I could have found out the price of a ticket if I'd really wanted to. But I was afraid of being on my own. I hated my padrone—but I stayed with him.” He turned his face away and wiped his cheek. “And he counted on that. He counted on our being more afraid of freedom than of him.”

  “You're not afraid anymore.”

  “Because I have you now. You're my friend.”

  “So is Gaetano.”

  “I know,” said Pietro. “And you're both braver than me. I couldn't do it alone, like you did.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let's go home and write to your aunt.”

  “My aunt. She said she'd never leave Napoli. But maybe if I sent her the money, she would.”

  “Let's go.”

  “I've got to think about this first,” said Pietro. “You go on ahead.” He walked up Mulberry Street slowly.

  I didn't go home. Instead, I went down to the wharves almost without realizing where I was going. I stood at the black water. A huge passenger ship was docked there. For I don't know how long, I'd been telling myself it was time to find out about the cost of a ticket. One thousand sandwiches had come and gone long before. I'd stopped counting, but we'd probably sold two thousand by now. Every day I shoved my fist in my shoes, trying to stretch them, and I told myself to go find out. But I kept putting it off. I'd been too busy. I still went over my Napoli memories every night, to keep them sharp. And they still made me feel better. But I was so busy, I didn't think about Italy much during the day—not much at all—hardly ever.

  And maybe it wasn't just because I was busy. Maybe it was also because I liked our business. I loved it. And I loved Gaetano and Pietro and Grandinetti and even Si-gnora Esposito.

  Now I was dazed to think I had far more than enoughmoney saved for a boat ticket. And no matter how much phony documents cost, I probably had plenty for them, too. I could go back to Napoli anytime I chose.

  The water lapped around the ship quietly. I stared at moonlight on black water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Crosby Street

  I should have been overjoyed to know I could go back. I walked slowly, reminding myself of what I loved about my city. Going over my memories usually made me feel safe. As long as I did that, nothing truly awful could happen.

  But it didn't work that night: when I got home, Pietro wasn't there.

  He didn't come back and he didn't come back.

  Even inside, I grew so cold, my teeth ached.

  At midnight Gaetano said, “Go to bed. I'll look for him.”

  Instead, I went out the door with him.

  We walked up and down every street and every alley of Five Points, calling his name softly so we wouldn't wake anyone. Pietro wouldn't have left theneighborhood. He was still far too skittish to do that. Wasn't he?

  We went back home at dawn, just the two of us.

  A sense of dread made me sluggish. I'd seen life change in a flash. One moment I was Mamma's boy; the next I was on my own. But this couldn't be another flash. I wouldn't let it. Pietro had to come back.

  We couldn't search anymore. Not now. It was a workday, and people depended on us. Old Lady Cassone would have egg and potato sandwiches waiting in less than an hour. And there were Pierano and Grandinetti and Witold, the Polish butcher, and Martino, the baker, and the boys, Michele and Nicola and Roberto, who wanted to sell from the cart—all of them counting on us.

  So we went to work.

  As we were selling breakfast, I looked over at the boy playing the triangle. I'd looked at him every chance I got all morning, but he'd always had his back to me, as though on purpose. Now I caught him looking at me, too. He turned his back instantly.

  Something awful had happened for sure.

  Pietro had talked about the padrone's other boys the night before. He'd said almost all of them had paid their debt over and over. He'd said none of them knew that.

  Everything outside my head went silent. Pietro was loyal. He'd never let those other boys stay in the dark about this.

  I walked up to the boy.

  His eyes showed terror and he turned his back to me.

  “Is he at your padrone's place?” I asked, speaking to his back.

  He played his triangle loud and fast.

  “Okay,” I said. “I don't want to get you in trouble. I need information, that's all. You live on Crosby Street—I know that much. Just tell me the number.”

  He played that triangle as though his life depended on it.

  Maybe it did.

  I walked away fast, looking around, praying his padrone wasn't spying.

  As we pushed the cart back to Five Points to get ready for the lunch shift, I asked Gaetano, “Did Pietro ever tell you where his padrone lives?”

  “No. And don't even think about it.”

  “He told me he lived on Crosby Street, but I don't know where exactly.”

  “Shut up!” said Gaetano.

  “He went there. I'm almost sure of it. I told you what he said when he found out how much a ticket costs. He went to tell the other boys.”

  “Shut up! I mean it.” Gaetano grabbed both handles of the cart and pushed fast.

  I ran along beside him. “He told me once that his padrone ties the boys to the bedposts at night so they won't run away. He's probably tied up right now.”

  “It doesn't matter. I know what the padroni do. Everyone in Five Points knows. Everyone but you. We've all seen it. You can't do anything to help him.”

  “Yes, I can!”

  Bam! And I was on the ground, my ear ringing where Gaetano had punched me.

  “Shut up! No crazy plans!” he shouted down at me. “You don't know what happened to him. You don't knowanything, you mook. And even if you're right, it's his own fault for going there. Anything you do might get you in trouble and you'll be dead, or good as dead. It'll be so bad that you'll wish you were dead. So just shut up!” He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand and went back to pushing the cart.

  I got to my feet and punched Gaetano in the middle of his back.

  He whirled around and put up his fists. But then he shook his head and dropped them.

  We went through the motions of the lunch shift almost without thinking. But after lunch, all I could see was Pietro, hanging in the wind. Abandoned. Nonna would have been so ashamed of me. Loyalty was everything. Pietro's padrone was bad—the way Franco on the cargo ship was bad. When Franco kept Mamma off
the ship, I didn't do anything because I didn't know what was going on. But now … I couldn't stand this!

  Gaetano could handle the evening shift without me. All he had to do was try to speak English, and he could do the whole thing with a couple of boys helping him.

  So while Gaetano was off buying the candies to load on the cart, I put one of the last oranges of the season in my pocket for Pietro and I ran up Mulberry to Canal Street and asked which way Crosby was.

  I was there in five minutes. The trouble was, Crosby Street was lined on both sides with tall buildings. And it was long. Pietro could have been tied up in any one of hundreds of apartments.

  Well. There was still a couple of hours, at least, before the boys who worked for the padrone would come home. Sothe padrone himself was out on the streets, checking up on them. If I went fast, if I had any kind of luck, I'd find Pietro in that time.

  The first building had a laundry on the ground floor. I went up one flight. Then the second. Then the third. I knocked on door after door. At a few, no one answered. Two were opened by women. Two by old men. One by a group of children. The children slammed the door in my face. Most adults shooed me away. One woman answered, but she didn't know where a padrone and a bunch of children lived. But one old man said, “There's a padrone in every building, the whole length of Crosby.”

  How many padroni could there be in this city? Dozens? Hundreds? But I couldn't think like that. The search was just starting.

  I tried the next building. And the one after that. So many doors. Confused faces. Frightened. Annoyed.

  I was coming down from the top floor of the sixth building when I heard a woman singing, “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy …” I stopped and gripped the banister. A second later I was face to face with Pietro's padrone, climbing the stairs. Our eyes met in a moment of shock; then his face twisted with rage. I turned and ran back up the stairs and down the hall to the door at the end, the only door on that floor where someone had answered me—an elderly woman, but at least she had a lock on her door. Before I got there, he hooked me around the chest from behind. He clamped his other hand over my mouth.