The King of Mulberry Street by Donna Jo Napoli Page A

really like.”
    “I'm going back to Italy,” I said.
    The man wiped his mustache. “Get a load of this kid,” he said to the younger man. “Talks like a big shot.”
    “It's true,” I said.
    “Don't let your mother hear you say that,” said the younger man. “You'll break her heart.”
    “My mother's in Italy.”
    “Where's your father?” said the other man.
    I didn't answer.
    “You alone?”
    “Not for long,” I said. “I'm going to sneak onto that ship.”
    “You'll never make it,” said the man. “See the guards?”
    “And if you get caught trying,” said the younger man, “you'll wind up in an orphanage.”
    “Orphanages aren't as bad as the streets,” said the other man.
    “Remember that one that burned down? Half a dozen kids died.”
    A shopkeeper came outside and said something to the men in English. They got back to work.
    If my experience on the last passenger ship was typical, it would be a long time before the
Bolivia
was empty and I could sneak on. Days, probably. So I walked along the wharf toward the Statue of Liberty.
    A ferry crossed from Ellis Island. My eyes fixed on it. There was no one aboard I could know, no long-lost cousin. But I stood watching anyway.
    A man got off and went up to a policeman and asked him something. The policeman answered in English. The man got so flustered, he pulled a piece of cigar from his pocket and fiddled with it. The policeman took out a match and lit the man's cigar. The man's face widened in a huge smile of surprise. I was smiling, too. For this moment it didn't matter that no one understood anyone else.
    A group of men came up to the policeman now. They said the same words over and over, till I found myself whispering them, too—the English words: “Which way Lester Brothers?” The policeman turned to other passing men, and more people got consulted, and soon there was a crowd.
    An Italian said to another man, “Ignorant Irish. They want to make shoes at the Lester Brothers factory, and they don't even know it's way out in Binghamton. Days away.”
    “Someone ought to tell them to go over to Chatham Square to earn the travel money to get to Binghamton,” said the other man.
    “You going to tell them? You going to help the Irish?”
    They laughed and went on.
    And just like that I had my next plan. I'd work inChatham Square till the
Bolivia
was empty and I could sneak on. But first I had to get breakfast. Where were the American ladies who liked to help strangers? No one handed out food on this wharf.
    I went back up the street. It was busier now; skinny children in rags hawked their wares. Their dirty hair was blond or light brown, their faces red and snot-streaked. They had scabs and open sores on their elbows and knees.
    The beggar boy with the triangle stood on the same corner. “Have you got anything to eat?” I asked him.
    He turned away and whistled again, the same tune as before. Someone dropped a coin into his tin cup.
    What a stupid question. Maybe a night in a barrel had softened my brains.
    Okay, so there was no food sitting around for the taking. That meant a job came first, then breakfast. “Which way Chatham Square?” I asked him, using the English I'd heard from the men who came off the ferry—my very first attempt.
    He spat on the ground in front of me.
    “Come on,” I pleaded in Napoletano. “I need to get to Chatham Square.”
    “So what,” he said in English. I didn't understand, of course, and he knew that. After a bit, he said in Napole-tano, “Why?”
    “I need money.”
    “You, begging? With those fancy shoes?” He spat again. “Forget it. That area's taken. And the
padrone
in charge of those boys will whip you bloody if you move in.”
    “I'm going to work, not beg,” I said.
    “So what,” he said again in English. Then he shook hishead. “You think I don't work? I stand here all day long. I have to bring in eighty cents or my
padrone
will beat me.”
    “Why don't you run away?”
    “He binds