The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [109]
Vinnie said nervously to the retreating back, “I won’t take my break later.” Gino turned to leave. Vinnie got up and walked him out of the circle of light to the elevator. They waited, listening to the grind of iron cables and the growl of the ascending cage.
“Take a short cut through the railroad yard,” Vinnie said. “But watch your ass when those engines come down.” He rested his hand on Gino’s shoulder. “Thanks for bringing my lunch. You got a game Saturday?”
“Yeah,” Gino said. The elevator was taking a long time. He wanted to get out. He saw Vinnie glance nervously toward the clattering machines in the circle of light and flinch as the gray rat face turned, blindly seeking them in the darkness.
“If I get up in time I’ll come watch,” Vinnie said. Then the elevator was there, its two iron doors sliding back, and Gino stepped in and began the slow descent. The smell of decay, of rats, and of old shit made him sick. When he stepped out of the building he lifted his head to the warm, lemon, September sunlight. He stood still in almost joyful relief and freedom.
He didn’t give Vinnie another thought. He started to run slowly through the railroad yard, a great field of gleaming white steel that alternately fanned out and converged mysteriously in the sun. He cradled his right arm as if he were carrying a football and sped over the wooden ties, slipping around the steel rails that came together to trap his flying feet. Black locomotives came toward him and he slipped away easily to the left and right, picking up speed. A locomotive came up behind him, its engineer seated at the window on Gino’s side. Gino raced it, going full speed across the wooden ties alongside the engine, flying ahead, until the engineer gave him a casual glance and then the black engine chugged louder and clacked past him. When it swerved off into a maze of stationary brown and yellow freight cars, Gino stopped, exhausted. He felt a little sweat beneath his white woolen jersey and he was ravenously hungry, thirsty—and then suddenly he found himself strong and fresh again. He swung into a long, loping run to Chelsea Park. There he saw his friends tossing a baseball and waiting for him.
CHAPTER 21
ONE MORNING A week later Lucia Santa woke up sensing that something was wrong. Sal and Lena were still in bed. Sometime in the early morning hours Lucia Santa had heard Gino come home; she knew his careless, noisy undressing. But Vinnie she had not heard. Then she remembered that Monday was his night off, and on those nights he sometimes came home even later than Gino.
Though she knew it was impossible for anyone to enter the house without her waking, she checked Vinnie’s bed. He now used Octavia’s old room, the only private one in the apartment. The bed had not been slept in, but Lucia Santa was not seriously alarmed. Later, when she had sent the children off to school, she leaned on the pillowed window sill and watched for him to appear on the Avenue. Time went by; she saw the early shift of trackwalkers come across the Avenue for lunch and knew it must be nearly noon. For the first time she became worried. She put on a heavy knit wool jacket and went downstairs to see Lorenzo.
She knew her oldest son was always at his worst in the morning, but she was too nervous to wait. She found Larry at his morning coffee, rumpled undershirt draped over with black wiry chest hair. He sipped his coffee and said with real impatience, “Ma, he’s not a baby, for Chrissakes. Whatever he’s doing, he got through too late to come home. When he wakes up he’ll go to work.”
“But what if something