AIDAN HEADED DOWN STATE STREET TOWARD THE WATER, THE LAST place he would usually go but the first place he knew he was likely to find Charles. Unlike colorful Washington Street, where commercial enticements reached almost circus proportions, State Street was drab and serious. Businessmen walked with good posture in and out of the granite buildings, bowler hats firmly set on brows, thinking of numbers and money. Still, Aidan was not entirely out of place, because peppering the sea of men were messenger boys of his age delivering packages and letters. He passed through that ocean of finance and prosperity, fourteen cents in his pocket.
When he reached the end of the street and turned onto Atlantic Avenue, the scene changed again. Here, the pewter sky that had underscored the seriousness of State Street seemed to cast a grimy pall over all the piers and the working-class people milling about. The primary activity was unloading the day’s catch, to be sold right there on the docks and carted away, destined for the North End or Quincy Market. The stink of fish was overpowering.
Aidan was coming to realize how hard it would be to find Charles in all this commotion just as he saw Charles crossing the street toward him. “Hey!” Charles shouted as he wove his way between the steady stream of clopping horse-drawn carts. “What are you doing down here?”
In silent agreement, they turned up a street heading away from the waterfront, fists in their pockets as they ascended the slope. After a block or so, Aidan couldn’t wait any longer. “Willy got pinched.”
“Really?” said Charles, and despite his troubles, Aidan felt a small measure of satisfaction in being able to tell Charles something that happened on the street that he didn’t already know. Of course, it had only happened half an hour ago.
“Mark felt his wallet leaving his coat or somethin’. He spun around and grabbed Willy fast as a rattlesnake and wouldn’t let go for nothin’. Screamed his head off, and a cop came runnin’. Had Willy dead to rights, found the wallet on him and everything.”
“He’ll do time for sure, then.” Charles stopped in front of a saloon, indistinguishable from all the others they had passed. “C’mon,” he said, and they headed inside.
After dark, this establishment would be so full of drunken laborers and sailors that a boy would not be likely to venture inside, but now, when it was just before suppertime, it was only half full and its patrons only half drunk. Charles and Aidan took a scarred and sticky table near the door and ordered two short beers.
“So you’re out of a job,” Charles stated as they waited for their drinks to arrive.
“Got my bootblack kit,” said Aidan halfheartedly as he tapped the box he had parked by his feet under the table. “At least Willy taught me how to shine shoes.”
“Yeah, remember not to black the pants from now on,” said Charles as the bartender put the beers down on their table, slopping some over the sides of the glasses. They paid and took a sip. Neither mentioned how little one could earn blacking boots, a nickel at a time. Aidan was itching to ask Charles again about working together, but he dreaded the rejection this time, since he could think of no other way out now.
Charles considered Aidan from across their table. “Listen, I know you want to team up, Sully. But just think about what happened today. Willy, did he try to protect you, or did he hang you out to dry?”
“Yeah, but Willy’s a bastard, you said so yourself!”
“Okay, and what did you do when he got pinched? Did you try to distract the cops, help him get away?”
Aidan didn’t respond. He hadn’t tried to help Willy escape, even though Willy’s arrest meant the end of Aidan’s employment. Maybe what Charles had said was true—that when it came down to it, everyone was only out for himself. But no, he didn’t really believe that, at least not in all cases.
“Willy wasn’t worth savin’,” he said finally.
“And you’re sure I am?” asked Charles.
“Yes. Yes, I am,” said Aidan without hesitation.
“What if I don’t feel the same about you?” asked Charles.
“Then I ain’t no worse off than I was with Willy,” answered Aidan, and Charles had nothing to say to that. They drank their beers in silence for a while.
Charles looked out the window and wondered what he should do. Aidan’s sick mother wasn’t his problem. Charles could walk away, and Aidan would figure something out. Nobody had been there to help Charles when his mother died, and wasn’t he here, living proof that you could make it on your own? He thought about the first winter, how the bitter cold had reduced him to begging for coins he would hand over to the flophouse. He recalled hammocks where the lice and bedbugs kept him up half the night, the groping hands of some man in the dark propelling him back into the freezing street on two different occasions. Shuddering, he forced himself back to the present, where Aidan was sitting across from him, not an orphan yet, not without a way to earn wages.
As he was considering how to turn Aidan down, he had another thought: If he said no now, would Aidan still want to meet him at Rosen’s? Until this moment, Charles had not realized how much he looked forward to their meetings. Sometimes it was the only real conversation he had all day. More than the fate of Aidan or his mother, the possibility of losing his conversations at Rosen’s propelled him to say, “Lemme think about it.”
“Really?” beamed Aidan. “That’s swell!”
“Hey, I ain’t said yes, I gotta think about it.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t say no!” Aidan sat there, grinning like an idiot, and despite his misgivings, Charles had to smile.
“Say,” said Aidan. “Come to my place tomorrow night and have supper with us. My ma said she would make beef stew with drop biscuits. She’s finally feelin’ good enough to start cookin’ again, even said she can go out to do some shoppin’ now.”
“Probably your cookin’ that made her want to get outta her sickbed,” said Charles as he got up from his chair.
Aidan rose, and they walked to the door. “Half six, meet me at the steamin’ kettle, and we’ll walk up together,” Aidan said, and they parted ways.