The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [26]
“You wanta play Seven-and-a-half again double stakes?” Joey asked.
“Nope,” Gino said.
Finally the rain stopped and the sun came out and so did they, crawling like moles from beneath the platform. The washed sun was far in the west, over the Hudson River. Joey said, “Jesus, it’s getting late. I gotta go home. You comin’, Gino?”
“Ha, ha,” Gino said. “Not me.” He watched Joey pull his wagon toward Tenth Avenue.
The late shift came out of Runkel’s factory. The men smelled of the chocolate they made and the smell was sweet and sticky like flowers, heavy on the rain-freshened air. Gino sat on the platform and waited until no one came out.
He was deeply pleased with everything he saw—the tenement bricks dyed deep red by the ripening sun, the children coming out again to play in the streets, the few horses and wagons slowly wending toward the Avenue, one leaving a spotted trail of grainy, gold-flecked manure balls. Women came to opened windows; pillows appeared on ledges; women’s faces, sallow, framed in black bonnets of hair, hung over the street like gargoyles along a castle wall. Finally Gino’s eyes were caught by the swiftly flowing stream of rain water in the flooded gutters. He picked up a small flat piece of wood, took out his half dollar, balanced it on the wood, and watched it sail down toward the Avenue. Then he ran after it, saw he was nearing Tenth, picked up the wood and coin and walked back up toward Ninth Avenue.
On the way, passing a row of empty houses, he noticed a bunch of boys as big as Larry swinging on a rope hung from the roof four stories above them. They jumped from the ledge of the second-story window and swung high over 31st Street, riding through the air like Tarzan to the window of an empty house farther up the street.
A blond kid in a red shirt soared in his great half-circle, missed the window, pushed against the wall he hit with his feet and, twisting, soared back the way he had come. For a moment he gave the illusion of really flying. Gino watched with burning envy. But it was no use. They wouldn’t let him do it. He was too small. He went on.
On the corner of Ninth and 31st, in the light-shot oblong shadow of the El, Gino put his stick of wood with its rider coin back in the gutter and watched it sail down to 30th Street; bobbing, riding little wavelets, snagged by soggy bits of newspaper, fruit skins and cores, eroded smooth remains of animal turds, scraping the shining blue-black tarred street bottom beneath the water. The wooden stick turned the corner and started down 30th Street to Tenth Avenue without losing the coin. Gino trotted watchfully beside it, keeping an eye sideways for the kids who had chased him the night before. His boat sailed around tin cans, whirled around piles of refuse, but always fought free to sail finally through a succession of tiny gutter rainbows. Then Gino grabbed his half-dollar piece as the boat sailed down through the grates of the sewer beneath the bridge on Tenth Avenue. Thoughtfully he walked around the corner onto the Avenue and was hit in the stomach by little Sal, who, head down, was running away from a game of “Kick the Can.” Sal shouted excitedly, “Ma’s lookin’ for you. We already ate and you’re gonna get killed.”
Gino turned around and went back toward Ninth, searching for rainbows in the gutter. He backtracked to the empty houses, and found the rope dangling alone. Gino went to the basement and entered the house, climbing crumbling steps to the second floor. The house was gutted, the plumbing stolen for lead, the lighting fixtures gone. The floor was treacherous under a shale of plaster. Everything was still and dangerous as he tiptoed through the ghostly rooms and through doorless doorways. Finally he reached the window and could see the street. The square frame for the windows was only an empty stone socket. Gino stepped onto the ledge, leaned out, and grabbed the rope.
He pushed away from the ledge, and for one glorious moment he had the sensation of really flying of his own will. He soared through the