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Ulysses

irst there was darkness without recognition. Then slowly, an awareness of it. An awareness that it wasn’t the darkness of space—cold, vast, and remote. It was a darkness that was close and warm, a darkness that was covering him, embracing him in the manner of a velvet shroud.

Creeping from the corners of his memory came the realization that he was still in the fat man’s coffin. He could feel along his shoulders the smooth, pleated silk of the lining and, behind that, the sturdiness of the mahogany frame.

He wanted to raise the lid, but how much time had passed? Was the tornado gone? Holding his breath, he listened. He listened through the pleated silk and polished mahogany and heard nothing. Not the sound of the wind whistling, or of hail falling on the coffin lid, or of the church bell swinging on its hook unattended. In order to be certain, he decided to open the coffin a crack. Turning his palms upward, he pressed at the lid, but the lid wouldn’t budge.

Was it possible that he had become weakened with hunger and fatigue? Surely, not that much time had passed. Or had it? Suddenly, it occurred to him with a touch of horror that in the aftermath of the storm, while he was unconscious, someone might have happened upon the open grave and shoveled the mound of topsoil onto the coffin, finishing the job.

He would have to try again. After rolling his shoulders and flexing his fingers in order to restore the circulation to his limbs, he drew a breath, put his palms again against the inner surface of the lid, and pushed with all his might as the sweat that formed on his brow ran in droplets into his eyes. Slowly, the lid began to open, and cooler air rushed into the coffin. With a sense of relief, Ulysses gathered his strength and pushed the lid all the way back, expecting to be gazing up into the afternoon sky.

But it wasn’t the afternoon.

It looked to be the middle of the night.

Raising a hand gently in the air, he saw that his skin reflected a flickering light. Listening, he heard the long, hollow horn of a ship and the laughter of a gull, as if he were somewhere at sea. But then, coming from a short distance, he heard a voice. The voice of a boy declaring his forsakenness. The voice of Billy Watson.

And suddenly, Ulysses knew where he was.

An instant later, he heard a grown man howling in anger or in pain. And though Ulysses didn’t yet understand what had happened to himself, he knew what he must do.

Having rolled onto his side, with a great sluggish effort he raised himself onto his knees. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he discovered by the light of the fire that it was blood, not sweat. Someone had hit him on the head.

Rising to his feet, Ulysses looked around the fire for Billy and for the man who had howled, but no one was there. He wanted to call out for Billy, but understood that to do so would signal to an unknown enemy that he had regained consciousness.

He needed to get away from the fire, outside of the circle of light. Under the veil of darkness, he would be able to gather his wits and strength, find Billy, and then begin the process of hunting his adversary down.

Stepping over one of the railroad ties, he walked five paces into the darkness and took his bearings. There was the river, he thought, turning on his feet; there was the Empire State Building; and there was their encampment. As he looked in the direction of Stew’s tent he thought he saw movement. Quietly, almost too softly to hear, came the voice of a man calling Billy, calling him by his given name. The man’s voice may have been almost too soft to hear, but it wasn’t too soft to recognize.

While remaining in the darkness, Ulysses began circumventing the fire moving carefully, quietly, inevitably toward the preacher.

Ulysses stopped short when he heard Stew call his name. A moment later he heard the clang of metal and the thud of a body falling to the ground. Feeling a flash of anger with himself for being too cautious, Ulysses prepared to charge into the encampment when he saw a silhouette emerge from the darkness, moving unevenly.

It was the preacher using Stew’s shovel as a crutch. Dropping the shovel on the ground, he picked up the boy’s flashlight, switched it on, and began searching for something.

Keeping an eye on the preacher, Ulysses crept to the edge of the fire, reached over a railroad tie, and retrieved the shovel. When the preacher gave an exclamation of discovery, Ulysses stepped back into the darkness and watched as he picked up Billy’s knapsack and sat with it in his lap.

In an excited voice, the preacher began talking to himself about hotels and oysters and female companionship while withdrawing Billy’s belongings and tossing them on the ground—until he found the tin of dollars. At the same time, Ulysses began moving forward until he was directly behind the preacher. And when the preacher, having slung the knapsack over his shoulder, leaned to his left, Ulysses brought the shovel down.

With the preacher now lying in a heap at his feet, Ulysses felt himself heaving. Given his own injury, the effort to subdue the preacher had taken all his immediate strength. Worried that he might even faint, Ulysses stabbed the shovel into the ground and leaned on its hilt as he looked down to make certain the preacher was unmoving.

—Is he dead?

It was Billy, standing at his side looking down at the preacher too.

—No, said Ulysses.

Astoundingly, the boy seemed relieved.

—Are you all right? asked Billy.

—Yes, said Ulysses. Are you?

Billy nodded.

—I did like you said, Ulysses. When Pastor John told me that I was alone, I imagined that I had been forsaken by everyone, including my Maker. Then I kicked him and hid beneath the firewood tarp.

Ulysses smiled.

—You did well, Billy.

—What the hell is going on?

Billy and Ulysses looked up to find Stew standing behind them with a butcher knife in hand.

—You’re bleeding too, Billy said with concern.

Stew had been hit on the side of the head so the blood had run down from his ear onto the shoulder of his undershirt.

Ulysses was suddenly feeling better now, more clearheaded and sure of foot.

—Billy, he said, why don’t you go over there and fetch us the basin of water and some towels.

Sticking his knife through his belt, Stew came alongside Ulysses and looked at the ground.

—Who is it?

—A man of ill intent, said Ulysses.

Stew shifted his gaze to Ulysses’s head.

—You better let me take a look at that.

—I’ve had worse.

—We’ve all had worse.

—I’ll be all right.

—I know, I know, said Stew with a shake of the head. You’re a big, big man.

Billy arrived with the basin and towels. The two men cleaned their faces and then gingerly dabbed at their wounds. When they were done, Ulysses sat Billy down beside him on one of the railroad ties.

—Billy, he began, we’ve had quite a bit of excitement tonight.

Billy nodded in agreement.

—Yes, we have, Ulysses. Emmett will hardly believe it.

—Well, that’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. What with your brother trying to find his car and having to get you to California before the Fourth of July, he’s got a lot on his mind. Maybe it’s for the best if we keep what happened here tonight between us. At least for now.

Billy was nodding.

—It’s probably for the best, he said. Emmett has a lot on his mind.

Ulysses patted Billy on the knee.

—One day, he said, you will tell him. You will tell him and your children too, about how you bested the preacher, just like one of the heroes in your book.

When Ulysses saw that Billy understood, he got up in order to speak with Stew.

—Can you take the boy back to your tent? Maybe give him something to eat?

—All right. But what are you going to do?

—I’m going to see to the preacher.

Billy, who had been listening behind Ulysses’s back, stepped around him with a look of concern.

—What does that mean, Ulysses? What does that mean that you’re going to see to the preacher?

Ulysses and Stew looked from the boy to each other and back again.

—We can’t leave him here, explained Ulysses. He’s going to come to just like I did. And whatever villainy had been on his mind before I crowned him is going to be there still. Only more so.

Billy was looking up at Ulysses with a furrowed brow.

—So, continued Ulysses, I’m going to take him down the stairs and drop him—

—At the police station?

—That’s right, Billy. I’m going to drop him at the police station.

Billy nodded to indicate that this was the right thing to do. Then Stew turned to Ulysses.

—You know the stairs that go down to Gansevoort?

—I do.

—Someone’s bent back the fencing there. It’ll be an easier route, given what you’ll be carrying.

Thanking Stew, Ulysses waited for Billy to gather his things, for Stew to put out the fire, and for the two to go back to Stew’s tent before he turned his attention to the preacher.

Taking him under the armpits, Ulysses raised him up and draped him over his shoulders. The preacher wasn’t heavier than Ulysses had expected, but he was gangly, making him an awkward burden. Shifting the body back and forth by increments, Ulysses tried to center it before he began walking in short, steady strides.

When he reached the staircase, if Ulysses had stopped to think, he might have rolled the preacher down the steps to preserve his own strength. But he was moving now, and he had the preacher’s weight evenly distributed across his shoulders, and he was worried that if he stopped he might lose his balance or his momentum. And he would need them both. Because from the bottom of the stairs, it was a good two hundred yards to the river.

Duchess

oolly’s sister came into the kitchen like a ghost. Appearing in the doorway in her long white robe and crossing the unlit room without a sound, it was like her feet didn’t touch the floor. But if she was a ghost, she wasn’t the harrowing sort—one of those that howl and moan and send shivers down your spine. She was the forlorn sort. The kind of ghost who wanders the halls of an empty house for generations, in search of something or someone that no one else can even remember. A visitation, I think they call it.

Yeah, that’s it.

A visitation.

Without switching on the light, she filled the kettle and turned on the burner. From the cabinet she took out a mug and a tea bag and set them on the counter. From the pocket of her robe, she took out a little brown bottle and set it beside the mug. Then she went back to the sink and stood there looking out the window.

You got the sense that she was good at looking out the window—like maybe she’d gotten a lot of practice. She didn’t fidget or tap her feet. In fact, she was so good at it, so good at getting lost in her thoughts, that when the kettle whistled it seemed to catch her by surprise, as if she couldn’t remember having turned it on in the first place. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she left her spot at the window, poured the water, picked up the mug in one hand and the little brown bottle in the other, and turned toward the table.

—Trouble sleeping? I asked.

Caught off guard, she didn’t cry out or drop her tea. She just gave the same little expression of surprise that she had given when the kettle whistled.

—I didn’t see you there, she said, slipping the little brown bottle back in the pocket of her robe.

She hadn’t answered my question about whether she had trouble sleeping, but she didn’t need to. Every aspect of the way she moved in the dark—crossing the room, filling the pot, lighting the stove—suggested this was something of a routine. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to learn that every other night she came down to the kitchen at two in the morning while her husband slept soundly, none the wiser.

Gesturing back toward the stove, she asked if I’d like some tea. I pointed to the glass in front of me.

—I found a little whiskey in the living room. I hope you don’t mind.

She smiled softly.

—Of course not.

After taking the seat opposite mine, she trained her gaze on my left eye.

—How does it feel?

—Much better, thanks.

I had left Harlem in such high spirits that when I got back to Woolly’s sister’s house, I’d completely forgotten the beating I’d taken. When she answered the door and gasped, I practically gasped back.

But once Woolly had made the introductions and I had explained the spill I’d taken in the train station, she got a cute little first aid kit out of her medicine cabinet, sat me here at the kitchen table, cleaned the blood off my lip, and gave me a bag of frozen peas to hold over my eye. I would have preferred using a raw steak like a heavyweight champ, but beggars can’t be choosers.

—Would you like another aspirin? she asked.

—No, I’ll be all right.

We were both quiet for a moment as I took a sip of her husband’s whiskey and she took a sip of her tea.

—You’re Woolly’s bunkmate. . . ?

—That’s right.

—So, was it your father who was on the stage?

—He was under it as often as he was on it, I said with a smile. But yeah, that’s my old man. He started out as a Shakespearean and ended up doing vaudeville.

She smiled at the word vaudeville.

—Woolly has written to me about some of the performers your father worked with. The escape artists and magicians. . . He was quite taken with them.

—Your brother loves a good bedtime story.

—Yes, he does, doesn’t he.

She looked across the table as if she wanted to ask me something, but then shifted her gaze to her tea.

—What? I prompted.

—It was a personal question.

—Those are the best kind.

She studied me for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not I was being sincere. She must have decided I was.

—How did you end up at Salina, Duchess?

—Oh, that’s a long one.

—I’ve barely started my tea. . . .

So, having poured myself another finger of whiskey, I recounted my little comedy, thinking: Maybe everyone in Woolly’s family liked a good bedtime tale.

• • •

It was in the spring of 1952, just a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, and we were living in room 42 at the Sunshine Hotel, with pops on the bedsprings and me on the floor.

At the time, my old man was what he liked to call betwixt and between, which just meant that having gotten fired from one job, he had yet to find the next job to get fired from. He was spending his days with his old pal, Fitzy, who was living across the hall. In the early afternoons, they would shuffle off to scour around the park benches, fruit carts, newsstands, and any other spots where someone was likely to drop a nickel and not bother to pick it back up. Then they would head down into the subways and sing sentimental songs with their hats in their hands. Men who knew their audience, they would perform “Danny Boy” for the Irish on the Third Avenue line and “Ave Maria” for the Italians at Spring Street station, crying their eyes out like they meant every word. They even had a Yiddish number about the days in the shtetl that they’d roll out when they were on the platform of the Canal Street stop. Then in the evenings—after giving me two bits and sending me off to a double feature—they would take their hard-earned pay to a dive on Elizabeth Street and drink every last penny of it.

Since the two of them didn’t get up until noon, when I woke in the morning I would wander the hotel looking for something to eat or someone to talk to. At that hour, it was pretty slim pickings, but there were a handful of early risers, and the best of them, without a doubt, was Marceline Maupassant.

Back in the twenties, Marceline had been one of the most famous clowns in Europe, performing for sold-out runs in Paris and Berlin, complete with standing ovations and lines of women waiting at the backstage door. To be sure, Marceline was no ordinary clown. He wasn’t a guy who painted his face and tromped around in oversize shoes honking a horn. He was the real McCoy. A poet and a dancer. A man who observed the world closely and felt things deeply—like Chaplin and Keaton.

One of his greatest bits was as a panhandler on a bustling city street. When the curtain came up, there he would be, navigating a crowd of metropolitans. With a little bow, he would try to get the attention of two men arguing over headlines by the newsstand; with a doff of his crooked hat, he would try to address a nanny whose mind was on the colicky baby in her care. Whether with a doff or a bow, everyone he tried to engage would go on about their business as if he weren’t even there. Then when Marceline was about to approach a shy young woman with a downcast expression, a nearsighted scholar would bump into him, knocking his hat from his head.

Off in pursuit of the hat Marceline would go. But each time he was about to grab it, a distracted pedestrian would send it skidding in the other direction. After making several attempts at retrieval, to his utter dismay Marceline would realize that a rotund police officer was about to step on the hat unawares. With no other choice, Marceline would raise a hand in the air, snap his fingers—and everyone would be frozen in place. Everyone, that is, except Marceline.

Now the magic would happen.

For a few minutes, Marceline would glide about the stage, skating in between the immobile pedestrians with a delicate smile, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Then taking a long-stemmed rose from the flower vendor, he would present it shyly to the downcast young woman. He would interject a point or two to the men who were arguing by the newsstand. He would make faces for the baby in the pram. He would laugh and comment and counsel, all without making a sound.

But as Marceline was about to make another circuit through the crowd, he would hear a delicate chiming. Stopping at center stage, he would reach into his shabby vest and remove a solid gold pocket watch, clearly a vestige from another time in his life. Popping the lid, he would regard the hour and realize with a doleful look that his little game had gone on long enough. Putting the watch away, he would carefully take his crooked hat from under the fat policeman’s foot—which had been hovering in the air for all this time, a feat of gymnastics in itself. Brushing it off, he would place it on his head, face the audience, snap his fingers, and all the activities of his fellow men would resume.

It was an act worth seeing more than once. Because the first time you saw the show, when Marceline snapped his fingers at the end, it would seem like the world had gone right back to the way it was. But the second or third time you saw it, you might begin to realize that the world wasn’t exactly the way it was. As the shy young woman is walking away, she smiles to discover the long-stemmed rose in her hands. The two men debating by the newsstand pause in their arguments, suddenly less sure of their positions. The nanny who was trying so diligently to appease her crying charge is startled to find him giggling. If you went to see Marceline’s performance more than once, all of this you might notice in the seconds before the curtain came down.

In the fall of 1929, at the height of his fame in Europe, Marceline was lured to New York by the promise of a six-figure contract for a six-month residency at the Hippodrome. With all the enthusiasm of an artist, he packed his bags for an extended stay in the Land of the Free. But as it so happened, the very moment that he was boarding his steamship in Bremen, the stock market on Wall Street had begun its precipitous plunge.

By the time he disembarked on the West Side piers, his American producers had been ruined, the Hippodrome was closed, and his contract was canceled. A telegram waiting for him at his hotel from his bankers in Paris informed him that he too had lost everything in the crash, leaving not even enough for a safe passage home. And when he knocked on the doors of other producers, he discovered that despite his fame in Europe, virtually no one in America knew who he was.

Now what had been knocked from Marceline’s head was his self-esteem. And every time he leaned over to pick it back up, a passing pedestrian would kick it out of reach. Off in pursuit of it he went, from one sorry spot to the next, until at long last he found himself performing pantomimes on street corners and living in the Sunshine Hotel—right down the hall, in room 49.

Naturally enough, Marceline became a drinker. But not in the fashion of Fitzy and my old man. He wouldn’t go to some dive where he could relive old glories and air old complaints. In the evenings, he’d buy a bottle of cheap red wine and drink it alone in his room with the door closed, refilling his glass in a smooth, elaborate motion, as if it were part of the act.

But in the mornings, he would leave his door ajar. And when I gave it a tap, he would welcome me with a doff of the hat that he no longer owned. Sometimes, if he had a little money on hand, he would send me out for milk, flour, and eggs and cook us tiny little crepes on the bottom of an electric iron. And as we ate our breakfast sitting on his floor, rather than talk about his past he would ask about my future—about all the places I would go, and all the things I would do. It was a grand old way to start the day.

Then one morning when I went down the hall, his door wasn’t ajar. And when I tapped, there wasn’t an answer. Placing an ear against the wood, I heard the slightest creaking, like someone turning on the bedsprings. Worried he might be sick, I opened the door a crack.

—Mr. Marceline? I said.

When he didn’t reply, I opened the door the rest of the way, only to find that the bed hadn’t been slept in, the desk chair was toppled over in the middle of the room, and Marceline was hanging from the ceiling fan.

The creaking, you see, hadn’t come from the bedsprings. It had come from the weight of his body turning slowly back and forth.

When I woke my father and brought him to the room, he simply nodded his head as if it were what he had expected all along. Then he sent me down to the front desk to have them call the authorities.

Half an hour later there were three policemen in the room—two patrolmen and a detective taking statements from me and my father and the neighboring tenants who’d come poking their heads through the door.

—Was he robbed? one of the tenants asked.

By way of response, a patrolman gestured to Marceline’s desk, where the contents of his pockets had been laid out, including a five-dollar bill and some change.

—Then where’s the watch?

—What watch? asked the detective.

Everyone began talking at once—explaining about the solid gold pocket watch that had been so central to the old clown’s act that he had never been willing to part with it, not even when he was broke.

After looking at the patrolmen, who shook their heads, the detective looked at my father. Then my father looked at me.

—Now, Duchess, he said, placing an arm over my shoulder, this is very important. I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. When you found Marceline, did you see his watch?

Silently, I shook my head.

—Maybe you found it on the floor, he suggested helpfully. And you picked it up, so it wouldn’t get broken.

—No, I said with another shake of the head. I never saw his watch.

Patting me on the shoulder almost sympathetically, my father turned to the detective and gave the shrug of one who’s tried his best.

—Search them, said the detective.

Imagine my surprise when the patrolman asked me to turn out my pockets and there, among the gum wrappers, was a golden watch on a long, golden chain.

Imagine my surprise, I say, because I was surprised. Stunned. Astounded even. For all of two seconds.

After that, it was plain as day what had happened. My old man had sent me downstairs to the front desk so that he could frisk the body. And when the watch was mentioned by the meddlesome neighbor, my father had draped his arm over my shoulder and given his little speech so that he could slip it into my pocket before he was patted down.

—Oh, Duchess, he said with such disappointment.

Within the hour, I was at the police station. As a minor committing his first offense, I was a good candidate for being released into my father’s care. But given the value of the old clown’s watch, the crime wasn’t petty theft. It was grand larceny. To make matters worse, there had been reports of a few other thefts at the Sunshine Hotel, and Fitzy claimed in a sworn statement that he had seen me coming out of one or two rooms in which I didn’t belong. As if that weren’t enough, the people from child services discovered—to my father’s utter shock—that I hadn’t been to school in five years. When I appeared before the juvenile judge, my father was forced to admit that as a hardworking widower he was not in a position to protect me from the malevolent influences of the Bowery. For my own good, all agreed, I should be placed in a juvenile reform program until the age of eighteen.

When the judge delivered his decision, my father asked if he could offer a few words of advice to his wayward son before I was carted away. The judge acquiesced, probably assuming that my father would take me aside and be quick about it. Instead, my old man stuck his thumbs under his suspenders, puffed out his chest, and addressed the judge, the bailiff, the peanut gallery, and the stenographer. Especially the stenographer!

—As we part, my son, he said to one and all, my blessing goes with thee. But in my absence carry with you these few precepts: Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. And this above all: to thine own self be true. For then it must follow, as night follows day, that thou cannot be false to any man. Farewell, my son, he concluded. Farewell.

And as they led me from the room, he actually shed a tear, the old fox.

—How terrible, said Sarah.

And I could see from her face that she meant it. Her expression had suggestions of sympathy, indignation, and protectiveness. You could just tell that whether or not she became happy in her own life, she was bound to be a wonderful mother.

—It’s okay, I said, trying to ease her distress. Salina wasn’t all that bad. I got three meals a day and a mattress. And if I hadn’t gone there, I never would have met your brother.

• • •

When I followed Sarah to the sink to clean my empty glass, she thanked me and smiled in her generous way. Then she wished me good night and turned to go.

—Sister Sarah, I said.

When she turned back, she raised her eyebrows in inquiry. Then she watched with that same muted surprise as I reached into the pocket of her robe and removed the little brown bottle.

—Trust me, I said. These won’t do you any good.

And when she walked out of the kitchen, I stuck the bottle in the bottom of the spice rack, feeling like I’d done my second good deed of the day.

FOUR

Woolly

n Friday at half past one, Woolly was standing in his absolute favorite spot in the store. And that was really saying something! Because at FAO Schwarz, there were so many wonderful spots to stand in. Why, to get to this spot, he had to pass through the collection of giant stuffed animals—including the tiger with the hypnotizing eyes, and the life-size giraffe whose head nearly hit the ceiling. He had to pass through motorsports, where two boys were racing little Ferraris around a figure-eight track. And at the top of the escalator, he had to pass through the magic set area where a magician was making the jack of diamonds disappear. But even with all of that to see, there was nowhere in the store that made Woolly quite as happy as the big glass case with the dollhouse furniture.

Twenty feet long with eight glass shelves, it was even bigger than the trophy case in the gym at St. George’s, and it was filled from bottom to top and side to side with perfect little replicas. On the left side of the case was a whole section dedicated to Chippendale furniture—with Chippendale highboys and Chippendale desks and a dining-room set with twelve Chippendale chairs neatly arranged around a Chippendale table. The table was just like the one that his family used to have in the dining room of their brownstone on Eighty-Sixth Street. Naturally, they didn’t eat at the Chippendale every day. It was reserved for special occasions like birthdays and holidays, when they would set the table with the best china and light all the candles in the candelabra. At least, that is, until Woolly’s father died; and his mother remarried, moved to Palm Beach, and donated the table to the Women’s Exchange.

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