Bronx Noir

And after Panama, where?

Africa, of course. Poor, besieged Africa, just a shadow of what it had once been, but still the only real place on earth. Sitting in this capsule of plastic and steel, he gazed at the continent’s limitless skies, tasted the wind-borne dust sweeping across its vast savannas.

The train’s doors half shut, then squealed and opened again. Two people entered.

The little blond girl and her mother.

They sat down opposite him. The woman, looking cold and worn, closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the plastic seat. For a minute or so, the girl played with a stuffed monkey on her lap. Then, as if sensing the hunter’s presence, she lifted her head and looked directly at him.

Her eyes widened and spots of color rose to her cheeks. He saw her lips move. You, she said silently.

He gave a little nod.

The girl stared, as if willing him not to disappear once more. Then she dug her elbow into her mother’s side.

“Honey!” The woman didn’t move. “Let me rest.”

“But Mom,” the girl insisted, “it’s him! The man from the zoo.”

The woman sat up. Now her eyes were open.

“See?”

The woman saw. The corners of her mouth turned down.

Having savored her moment of vindication, the girl went back to her toy. But her mother scowled at the hunter all the way to East 86th Street, as if she knew—just knew—that he’d been stalking them all afternoon, and even now was planning to leap across the aisle and finish the job.

PART V

ALL SHOOK UP

ERNIE K.’S GELDING

BY ED DEE

Van Cortlandt Park

All three of us turned sixteen halfway through the first summer of JFK’s presidency, when all things seemed possible. Lefty Trainor, Brendan O’Leary, and I had spent that summer caddying, drinking beer, and unsuccessfully trying to lure BICs, otherwise known as Bronx Irish Catholic girls, into Van Cortlandt Park. Okay, so maybe not all things seemed possible.

It was 9 p.m. on a hot Friday night in August and we were in our usual spot on the curb outside the White Castle under the el station at Broadway and 242^nd Street. We were checking out the skirts and wolfing down belly bombs. Local street wisdom had it that the little cheeseburgers were the best way to soak up the quarts of Rupert Knickerbocker beer we’d imbibed across the street, in the park. Three quarts of warm beer for $1.19 on a park bench had loosened our vocal chords for a doo-wop session under a streetlight we’d smashed to make it harder for the cops to zero in on us. Cops didn’t like doo-wop or guys our age. But in the dark and without the element of surprise, they were no match for us in Vanny. As my mother said, “You ran through that park like a bunch of savages.”

“Here comes God’s gift to women,” Lefty said.

“Kronek or the horse?” I said.

Patrolman Ernie Kronek was the worst human being in the Bronx. Kronek was a NYPD mounted cop assigned to patrol the 1,100 acres of Van Cortlandt Park. He’d made it his personal mission to torture us. If he’d caught us in the park drinking beer and singing he would have charged at us, swinging his nightstick like he was the King of England on his polo pony. He loved to whack us, then smash the beer. We all had bruises from Ernie K. at one time or another. He truly hated us, but he loved the girls. Every night, about this time, he’d ride across the parade ground to the southwest corner of the park. He’d sit there atop his horse and stare at the girls coming down the steps of the el station. Treating them to a gaze at his manly physique. Asshole. Everybody knew it. Even the other cops.

On the opposite side of Broadway, the local men were gathering in Hagan’s Bar to wait for the early edition of tomorrow’s Daily News. It was a Bronx ritual. Every night around this time they’d leave their apartments and walk to Hagan’s to have a cold brew and listen for the bundles to be tossed from the truck. Then they’d have one more while Irv from the candy store cut the bindings and stacked the papers on the outside racks. On Saturday nights the three of us helped Irv put the Sunday paper together. We lugged the early edition off the sidewalk and stuffed each paper with the Sunday magazine, the comics, the sale ads, and the classifleds, which had come earlier in the week. Our hands and faces would be black with printer’s ink, but we had two bucks each burning holes in our pockets. Irv always tossed in a free paper, usually a torn one, but we only read the sports section on the back five pages. Between Irv’s deuce and the money we made caddying at Van Cortlandt, the nation’s oldest public golf course, we didn’t need anyone’s free newspaper.

“It’s gotta be the horse,” Lefty Trainor said, as a tall redhead in pale blue shorts giggled and pet the big Tennessee Walker. The horse was named Con Ed for the electric company who donated him. Ernie K. called him “Connie,” but it wasn’t a female. Poor Connie had the worst of it, having to lug Ernie K.’s fat ass around. We held no grudge against the horse, who after all was just an innocent animal. The cop was another matter; we watched in disgust as he flashed his Ipana smile down on the thirtyish redhead, his square jaw jutting outward.

“Who does the woman remind you of?” Lefty said.

“Maureen O’Hara,” I said.