O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [147]
For the Irish, down the social ladder, there was always hostility against the blacks, who they feared were after their jobs.
When summer’s heat and wet crushed the city or there was an economic slump or a killing or a political fucking, black and Irish tensions went to the brink.
What happened that night at Paddy O’Hara’s Saloon was bound to happen.
The Galway Brewery down by the river was a prime supplier for the midtown, West Side bars, restaurants, and gardens.
Its teamster corps was solid Irish, driving livery vans artistically decorated with posters of current events and solid horses sporting chimes and plumes.
A Galway teamster was no small measure of a man. Indeed, each beer wagon had a helper, always a black man, who did most of the heavy work, rolling the kegs in and taking the empties away.
Paddy O’Hara’s Saloon was on the route of Tommy Bannon, whose horse was in far better shape than Tommy himself. After twenty-five years of draying, he was drowning in the sorrows of life as well as drowning in the other stuff that surely wasn’t holy water.
Tommy, though, was a respected man. In the early days, he had gained prestige as one of the first teamsters and purveyors of Galway beer. Add that to a fine singing voice and jolly manner.
However, his family grew larger and larger and his fine singing voice went croaky over the years. Often, these days, he dozed in the driver’s seat. Though past his prime, he could still be a fine show.
The owners of Galway Brewery, the Mulcahy brothers, had sentimental loyalty to anyone who had come from their county in the old country. They turned their eyes away when, again and again, Tommy fell off the wagon and had to dry out at the Angels of Mercy.
Tommy’s helper, an elderly Negro, certainly past fifty, known only as old Henry, had been on the job eighteen years. When Tommy fell ill, Henry ran the route, earning an extra twenty-five cents a shift. In the past few years, old Henry drove the route, often as not.
When Zachary knew Tommy Bannon was down, he’d often hitch on with Henry and help him run the route. Henry was not only amusing to banter with but had a terribly keen mind in sorting out the confusion in the city. They became like pals, the first black person Zachary had ever really known. On the route, Zachary got a firsthand view of the general abuse a Negro bore in an ordinary workday.
It annoyed Zach and puzzled him. Would America implode before it could become cities without boundaries?
It was a scorcher, the most brutal and suffocating heat wave in twenty years, some said. The July evening had driven everyone to the rooftops and fire escapes gasping for breath, and the fire hydrants below opened, dousing the kids, and movement slowed to a shuffle.
When out of Long Island, a beedler of a thunderhead of lightning and rain roared onto Manhattan like a prayer answered from the Almighty.
Breath-saving, lifesaving, cooling, the storm dumped and hovered. People stood there on the sidewalks pointing their mouths up like fish drinking and doused themselves to the bone.
It made for a horrendous mess out on the streets, mixing up horse shit on the cobblestones and turning them snot-slippery. Iron wheels spun and horses lost footing. On the unpaved streets, vans went down nearby, hub-deep in mud. It was fun for the kids, but hell on wheels for the teamsters.
Paddy O’Hara’s Saloon had been drunk near dry before the storm, and the afternoon delivery was nowhere in sight.
The first street out of the Galway Brewery was an uphill affair. Wouldn’t you know, the wagons were loaded to the gills and man, beast, and wagon struggled to get to their routes. Deliveries ran later and later. A busted axle at the gate and flying barrels made life no easier.
Tommy Bannon generally fell sick with one thing or another when it stormed. The brewery became more short of men as crews had to go out and help crippled wagons.
Bucking it alone,