Snow in August (36 page)

Michael raised his bat and began screaming at the sky.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
.

Then the world was red as rage, and he smashed with the bat at the trunk of one car and the windows of the other, he swung
at the air, he struck at the ground, he cursed and bared his teeth, and hammered again at the cars, while Rabbi Hirsch lay
there, and people were shouting from windows, away down the block, and he wailed again at the sky, wolf howl, banshee wail.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
.

The ambulance came and a police car and a crowd of kids and women and the owners of the two ruined cars. An orderly said,
He’s alive. But as they lifted Rabbi Hirsch on a stretcher into the ambulance, Michael heard one cop asking him
whether he’d done this to the rabbi, and someone was shouting, Lookit my cah! Who the fuck’s gonna pay for my cah? And the
other cop was saying, Your insurance company pays, pal, and the man said, I don’t got any fuckin’ insurance! And then Mr.
Gallagher was there, on his way to work, and he said to the cop, This kid couldn’t do this, this kid was with us when we cleaned
off the last swastikas, this is a good kid, and look, he’s got a cast on his leg, for Christ’s sake, and there’s no blood
on the goddamned bat.

What about these cars? a cop said. Who did this to these cars? Mr. Gallagher said, Find the guys that beat up this rabbi and
yiz’ll have your answer.

While they talked, Michael’s head filled with images of violence. He imagined Tippy and Skids and the rest of the
momsers
, kicking, stomping, laughing, while one of them gouged the swastika into the door; imagined Rabbi Hirsch fighting back, the
way he tried to fight at Ebbets Field, and falling between the cars, while fists and shoes and sticks rained down on him;
and wished he could have arrived when it was happening, shown up with his father, and Sticky the dog, and Father Heaney, and
Charlie Senator. Then there would have been a fair fight. He imagined his mother telling his father what had happened on Ellison
Avenue and how they had put their hands on her. And pictured his father getting his M-1 and going hunting for Falcons. I wish
I could do that. Go and get them.

He said none of this to the police. And after Rabbi Hirsch was lifted into the ambulance, Mr. Gallagher drove Michael home.
Don’t worry, the older man said. The cops will get those bums. Michael did not reply.

As he climbed the stairs, he felt numb and slow, his strength drained away. He gripped the banister to steady himself, and
then made an effort to finish the last flight. His mother was sitting
where he’d left her, but suddenly her own numbness vanished. She got to her feet and went to her son.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, son. What’s happened?” she said.

He told her. And dissolved in tears and then in rage again. He punched at the air. He shook his fists. He ground his teeth.

“I’m gonna get them!” he shouted. “I’m going over to the poolroom and I’m gonna
kill
them! I don’t care what they do to me! I’m gonna kill them, kill them, kill them.”

“Don’t bother, son,” she whispered, hugging him until the rage ebbed. “We’ll be leaving.”

Then she turned away from him, folding her arms, and for the first time since the news of the death of Tommy Devlin, she began
to weep. The sound was full of a deep, grieving helplessness. And Michael thought: They have to be punished. Here. On earth.
Not in Purgatory or Hell. Here.

And then he thought about the only way that punishment might be certain.

O
n the following morning, Kate Devlin was up early. Michael heard her say that she had lost one day of work, she could not
afford to lose two; but the words were just words to him. Rabbi Hirsch was in the rooms, his blood on the walls, at the table,
in the bathroom. He heard her say that they had to hurry to the hospital, it was the day his cast would be removed; but the
words receded behind the screen of blood. He chewed cereal and saw the rabbit’s teeth snapped at the gums. He heard the radio,
and saw the blood leaking from the rabbi’s ear. He turned on the water tap to wash his face and saw blood. He combed his hair
and saw the great swelling of the rabbi’s skull.

“I have to see him,” Michael said. “I have to see Rabbi Hirsch.”

He heard his mother say that if he was in critical condition, they might not allow visitors. Her voice seemed to be coming
across a vast distance. He heard her say she would check with
her friends who still worked at Wesleyan. Heard her groping for words of comfort.

“They say your leg could be as good as new,” she said. “You know, when bones break, they heal harder than ever.”

Michael wanted to believe this, wanted to believe that when he healed and his mother healed, and
if
Rabbi Hirsch healed, they would all be stronger than ever. But if Rabbi Hirsch died, he would not heal. The rabbi’s face
forced its way into his mind, and everything else seemed trivial. I am sitting where he sat that night, Michael thought. I
am sitting where he told his story. He is here. I must try to believe.

They walked out into the hot morning, slowed by the plaster boulder of Michael’s cast and the need to use the stickball bat
as a cane. He could hear Harry James playing “Sleepy Lagoon” from an unseen radio and wondered what it would sound like on
a Chiclets box. Or the shofar. And then saw Rabbi’s Hirsch’s face: the snapped teeth, the blood, the swollen skull. Try to
believe, he told himself. Try to make him heal by believing.

In front of Casement’s, a fat man sat in his undershirt on a folding chair, fanning himself with a newspaper. The asphalt
felt soft. A lone pigeon circled sluggishly over the rooftops. Kate took Michael’s hand as they climbed aboard the trolley
car, and then, as they passed Pearse Street, he saw Frankie McCarthy.

“Mom, look.”

“Holy God.”

McCarthy was with some of the other Falcons, swaggering along the avenue, carrying a small canvas bag. He was out of jail
for the second time. They could see Tippy and Skids, laughing and joking. They saw the Russian. And Ferret. Frankie McCarthy
walked as if he were a veteran home from
the wars. Michael wondered if they were telling him what they had done to the Devlins, mother and son, and how they had battered
the rabbi from Kelly Street.

“Do nothing,” he heard his mother say in a cold voice. “We’ll be moving.”

At the hospital, he stopped thinking of the Falcons while nurses directed them down corridors that Kate knew from her days
working the wards. Rabbi Hirsch must have been rushed through these halls, he thought. With frantic nurses beside him and
doctors shouting orders. They went to a tiny room on the first floor, and Michael lifted himself onto a gurney. Maybe he was
on this gurney. Maybe they used this to wheel him into the operating room. A young intern in green scrubs looked at Michael’s
cast and the hospital records and reached for some large shears.

“You’re Jewish?” he asked Michael.

“Irish.”

“You got Hebrew written here, buddy. It says long life.”

“Can I save that piece?” Michael said. That piece of Rabbi Hirsch.

“Sure.”

Then the intern shoved the shears under the cast and started cutting. This was a simple thing to do; the cast that felt like
cement to Michael turned out to be fabric and plaster. The intern first cut down the inside of Michael’s right leg, and then
did the same on the outside, cleaving the cast into two parts. He gently pulled them apart and they made a sucking sound where
the fabric and plaster had stuck to Michael’s skin. Suddenly, the odor of compacted sweat filled the tiny room. When Michael
looked at his skin, it was white and mottled like grass that had lain under a rock. He expected to see worms.

“Can he walk on that?” Kate said.

“Why not?”

“Without a crutch?”

“Hey, it looks as good as ever,” the intern said. “But you gotta get it X-rayed before you leave.”

“Can I wash it off?” Michael asked.

“Right in there.”

Michael slid off the gurney and tried putting his full weight on the leg. The floor was very cold under his bare foot. There
was no pain, but the leg felt weak and strange and very light, in spite of all the exercise on the roof. He went into the
small bathroom, feeling unbalanced as he walked, and found soap and paper towels and washed his calf and ankle and foot. His
soapy hands on the leg made him feel odd, slippery, thrilled. When he was finished, he stepped out and the leg felt fresher
but not quite his. The intern was gone. Kate waited by the door, holding one sock, one shoe, and the piece of the cast that
bore the Hebrew lettering. She forced a smile.

“You heard him,” she said. “As good as ever.”

They walked down the hall to have the X ray made. He was here, too, he thought. They must have X-rayed his skull. The room
was crowded. Everyone was white. Doctors, nurses, and patients. As they waited their turn, Kate studied the classified advertisements
in the
Brooklyn Eagle
, circling apartments with a blue pencil. He thought: She’s serious, she’s giving up, she wants to leave. And how can I blame
her? I’m the guy who dreams of white horses racing over the factory roof.

“You’re next, young man,” said a nurse with frazzled blond hair. “Soon as we do this guy.” He heard her bright telephone operator
voice. He heard her speak to Kate: “Thanks for your patience, Kate. You know how it goes.”

“I certainly do,” Kate said.

“Nurse,” Michael said. “Did you X-ray a rabbi here yesterday?”

“A rabbi. Yes, I believe we did. He was mugged, poor soul, wasn’t he?”

Someone called her and the conversation ended before it had begun. He heard his mother say: “He’s in the best hands here.”
He heard his mother say: “It’s not like some city hospital.” He heard her say: “They’re just butcher shops.” Michael wiggled
his toes, massaged his skin and muscles, and measured one leg against the other. The damaged right leg was definitely thinner.
He wanted to get out into the sunshine, to exercise the leg and let the sun brown his skin. And then take care of one big
thing.

“Mom, I want to see Rabbi Hirsch,” he said suddenly. “He’s here somewhere, and I’ve got to see him.”

She looked at him in an exasperated way, as if considering that the rabbi might be part of their troubles. Michael sensed
this.

“It’s not
his
fault, what happened,” Michael said angrily. “He’s a good man and they’re not. You know it, Mom.”

“All right,” she said. “When you’re in X Ray, I’ll find out where he is.”

Then it was his turn. He followed a nurse into the X-ray room, while Kate went out to the corridor. The X ray took a few seconds.
He asked the dark-haired nurse operating the machine if she had X-rayed a rabbi the day before. “I was off yesterday,” she
said. Then called out: “Next.” And told Michael to wait outside. With Kate gone, he sat in the back row, behind dozens of
women and children and a few men, and felt his anger throbbing like a wound. Goddamned nurse. Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she
doesn’t want to tell me about his broken head. Maybe there’s brain damage. He saw the blood
seeping from the rabbi’s ear. He saw the slick red puddle on the asphalt.

Kate returned, shaking her head.

“He’s up on the seventh floor,” she said. “In intensive care. No visitors, Michael.”

“I’ve got to see him,” Michael said. “I don’t want him to be alone, the way I was.”

“I know that, son,” she said, irritated. “But he’s in a coma. Do you understand what that
is?
” He nodded that he understood. “They’ve got a cop up there, keeping everybody away. We’ll come back when he’s better. Out
of the coma. We’ll bring him pound cake and iced tea.”

That was that. They walked home together. Michael was still limping, but he kept increasing the weight on the healed leg,
hoping that each step would make it stronger. It was almost noon. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. Flowers wilted on
the stands outside the florist’s shop. The asphalt was softer. Dogs huddled against walls, their pink tongues hanging. Kids
sat in the shade on the side streets, sucking on lemon ices and drinking red sodas. Michael felt sweat seeping down his back
under his shirt, as slow and thick as blood. It must be hot in his room at the hospital, Michael thought. He must be sweating
under the bandages. But he will not die. I have to believe that. I won’t let him die.

“It’s a scorcher,” he heard Kate say, as if forcing herself back to normal conversation.

He heard his own voice, following her lead. “The radio says it’ll be ninety.”

“Human beings aren’t made for such heat,” she said. “When it’s sixty in Ireland, we think we’re in the tropics.”

The hallway was cooler than the street, but as they climbed the stairs, Michael’s stomach churned, and the heat grew clammier,
as if it were pressing down from the roof. He paused at the first floor landing, touching his mother’s forearm.

“Someone’s upstairs,” he said.

She listened. They could hear the muffled sound of a flushing toilet. In the Caputo flat, pots clanged against a sink. Jo
Stafford was singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” in Mrs. Griffin’s. But there were no baritone whispers above them, no shuffling
of feet.

“Come on, son,” she said, leading the way.

And stopped as she turned on the second floor landing.

Sonny Montemarano and Jimmy Kabinsky were sitting on the steps.

“Hey, Michael,” Sonny said.

“Some friends you’ve been,” Kate Devlin said. “Move over and let us by.”

Sonny stood to let her pass, and for a moment Michael was afraid that he’d completely turned against the Devlins and would
strike her. He tensed, ready to attack.

“I don’t blame you for being mad at us, Mrs. Devlin,” Sonny said softly. “But we didn’t have no choice.”

“Yes, you did,” she said, her anger pushing her up the steps. “You could have had guts.”

Her keys jangled as she opened the apartment door. Michael started to pass Sonny and Jimmy.

“How you feeling, man?” Jimmy said, looking ashamed.