IT WAS FOUR DAYS LATER THAT CHARLES SAW AIDAN AGAIN. CHARLES had been enjoying a nice stretch where he’d stolen nothing and paid for everything, which had left him a lot of leisure time. Sitting on the edge of an iron horse-water trough, he looked down and admired his new shoes. Part of his newly acquired funds had gone to the cobbler, and he was proud to be able to walk through the city streets without dirtying his feet like the younger urchins. With a smug grin on his face, he looked up, and just then, the crowd parted momentarily to reveal Aidan and Willy settling up for the day.
After Aidan handed Willy his bootblack kit and the two went their separate ways, Charles took off after Aidan and soon fell in step with him.
“Sullivan,” he said with no inflection, looking straight ahead.
“Charles!” exclaimed Aidan. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Word on the street is that Willy’s newest boy’s some guttersnipe named Artie.”
“Yeah,” said Aidan, looking at his shoes as they walked. “That’s me.”
“What’s with the moniker?”
“Well, let’s just say that Willy ain’t a fan o’ the Irish,” said Aidan. “I’m headin’ up Merrimac—you headin’ that way?”
“Yeah, I was goin’ that way anyway,” said Charles, although he hadn’t been headed anywhere at all.
“So,” said Aidan, “how did you hear about who Willy was working with?”
“Well, Artie,” Charles said as he strolled with his hands in his pockets, “I hear things. For instance, I hear that Willy and Artie been seen havin’ a spat or two, disagreeing about how to divvy up the spoils.”
Aidan looked over in surprise. “How could you know that? Weren’t nobody that overheard us.”
“Willy tells everybody that he’s Willy the Wind because he can run like the devil, but most will tell ya it’s more because he’s such a windbag. He’s down the waterfront most every night, running his mouth about his busy day when he ain’t dumpin’ whiskey into it.”
“Well, I don’t care. The money’s good.”
“But not as good as it should be, right? He ain’t exactly a fifty-fifty kinda mug.”
Aidan stopped walking and faced Charles. “I’m aware of that. One day he kept it all because he lost his shirt on a bar bet the night before. But I ain’t got much of a choice. I’m the only one in my family that’s bringin’ in any coin, and I can’t make it work on the goddamn nickels from rushing the bleddy growler!”
“Jesus, Sullivan, keep your shirt on,” said Charles, but all the fun had drained out of telling Aidan about Willy. “Look, I know ya can’t make a livin’ doing work that’s aboveboard. Wanna know what my last go at a real job was? Catchin’ rats for the dogfights at the rat pit over on Fleet Street.”
“What?”
“Nickel a rat. They need a ton of them. Each fight, a dog might take out twenty rats. And if you think rushin’ the can was a lousy job, you ain’t never caught rats. After a while, they say you get good enough to do it without ever gettin’ bit, but I didn’t stick with it long enough to find out. Got a bite that swelled up my whole arm, all red and white and festerin’, and I was willin’ to do anything else after that.”
Aidan had no response to this. Time to toughen up, Charles thought but didn’t say aloud. Ain’t never gonna make it otherwise.
As they walked side by side, Aidan contemplated what Charles had just told him. He knew, as everyone did, that rat baiting was a big draw in the North End, and the job Charles described made sense—what man would catch the rats when he could pay a ten-year-old that was quicker and lower to the ground? Clearly, there were worse jobs than the Clumsy Bootblack, but Aidan wasn’t sure if this made him feel better or worse. Either way, the image of Charles catching rats with his festering arm was one he was anxious to put out of his mind.
They made a turn and continued to weave their way through the West End, headed toward Aidan’s tenement on Chambers Street. Unlike the business district, where street cleaners frequently carted away trash, here you had to watch where you stepped. The five-story tenements loomed over the narrow streets, and every alleyway afforded a view of drying laundry on the line. Whereas Washington Street was so wide that stores on both sides had awnings to shield the foot traffic, here the sun had trouble squeezing in between the dirty buildings.
When they reached the middle of a cross street, Charles stopped short and looked up at the tenement in front of him.
“What’s up there?” asked Aidan.
Charles resumed walking without saying anything, but before they reached the end of the block, he said quietly, “I used to live there.”
“Yeah?” said Aidan. “Where’d your family move to?”
“We didn’t move,” said Charles as he looked down the street and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “My Ma died there.”
Aidan thought about this. “So, it was just you and your Ma when she died?”
Charles said nothing.
“You ain’t got a home anymore,” said Aidan, but it was more of a statement than a question. He saw Charles tense up, and immediately he regretted saying it.
“So now you’re better than the likes of me? Fine,” seethed Charles. He quickened his pace.
“That weren’t even in the ballpark of what I meant. I just didn’t know.”
“Well, now ya do,” said Charles testily, but less so than before.
They had arrived at Aidan’s building. Aidan felt guilty at the relative opulence of his address. “I guess I’ll see ya ’round,” He started up the steps as Charles walked down the sidewalk.
“Hey!” shouted Aidan down the street. Charles turned around with exaggerated slowness. “Willy takes a dinner break one to two. I’m at Rosen’s soda fountain over on Broomfield Street at half past one most days.”
“Don’t need your charity, Sullivan.”
“Ain’t charity. I owe you dessert, remember?”
Charles turned back around without responding and continued on his way. Aidan called after him, “Rosen’s! Half one!” and he watched until Charles turned the corner, never once looking back. With a sigh, Aidan climbed the rest of the steps.