City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(15)

He forgets about taking a whiz, finds a sweatshirt for Terri and goes back outside and helps her get into it.

“Thanks, baby,” she says, and leans back against him. Someone has brought a mandolin out and is playing while Pasco sings a sweet, sad ballad in Italian. His voice comes out of the fog like it drifted across the Atlantic from Napoli—an old song from an old country that washes up on this New World shore like driftwood.

Vide’o mare quant’è bello,

spira tantu sentimento,

Comme tu a chi tiene mente,

Ca scetato ’o faie sunnà.





Guarda gua’ chistu ciardino;

Siente, sie’ sti sciure arance:

Nu profumo accussi fino

Dinto ’o core se ne va . . .



Pasco finishes the song and it’s very quiet.

He says, “Your turn, Marty.”

“Nah,” Marty says.

It’s a ritual. Marty demurs, Pasco insists, then Marty lets himself be persuaded into singing. While this goes on, the three come back from the bathroom—Pam in a sweatshirt now, still looking sexy as hell. She and Paulie sit down together; Liam comes to the opposite side of the fire and plops down next to Danny and Terri.

Then Marty sings “The Parting Glass” in his quavering voice.

Of all the money e’er I had,

I spent it in good company.

And all the harm I’ve ever done,

Alas! It was to none but me.





And all I’ve done for want of wit

To mem’ry now I can’t recall,

So fill to me the parting glass

Good night and joy be with you all.



How they had fought each other, these two immigrant tribes, for a place to put their feet. The Irish in Dogtown, the Italians on Federal Hill, toeholds carved out of grudging New England granite. The old Yankees hated the slick micks and greasy guineas, the bogtrotters and dagos who came to ruin their pristine Protestant city with their Catholic saints and their candles, bleeding effigies and incense-swinging priests. Their smelly food and smellier bodies, their incontinent breeding.

First it was the Irish, back around the Civil War, who filled the tenements outside the slaughter yards that teemed with packs of feral mutts prowling for offal and giving the neighborhood its name, Dogtown. The men worked the slaughterhouses, the quarries, the tool factories, making fortunes for the old Yankee families, then marched off to die in the war, and those who came back came back determined to claim a piece of the city. They came out of Dogtown and took the firehouses and the police precincts, then they organized the wards and voted themselves into political, if not economic, power, satisfied to run the city if they couldn’t own it.

Around the turn of the century the Italians came, from Naples or somewhere in Mezzogiorno, and fought the Irish. Two sets of slaves battling each other for the crumbs off the master’s plate until they finally figured out that together they had the numbers to take the whole table. They carved the city up like a roast beef, but were smart enough to leave the old Yankees sufficient slices to keep them fat and happy.

Oh, all the comrades e’er I had,

They’re sorry for my going away,

And all the sweethearts e’er I had,

They’d wish me one more day to stay.





But since it falls unto my lot

That I should rise and you should not,

I gently rise and softly call,

Good night and joy be with you all.



One night at the clambake, Danny saw Pasco Ferri reach out and touch Marty’s hand, and they both started laughing. Sitting there, full of food and wine, wrapped in the warmth of their friends and families, their children and grandchildren, they just laughed. And Danny wondered about the things they had seen, the things they had done to share that clambake on the beach.

Pasco seemed to see the question in Danny’s eyes, and, unbidden, said, “We didn’t outfight the old Yankees . . .” He paused to make sure that the children were in bed and the women were in the house and then continued, “We outloved them. We took our women to bed and made babies.”

It was true; what had made them poor—small houses crowded with hungry mouths—had made them rich. What had ostensibly made them weak had made them powerful.

Looking at him now, it makes Danny sad. Liam interrupts his reverie. “What’s she doing with that little greaseball?”

Danny doesn’t have to ask who he’s talking about. He’s looking across the fire at Pam, who’s leaning against Paulie. Even with the hood of a sweatshirt covering most of her hair, she looks beautiful in the firelight.

“Leave it alone.”

“I’ll leave it alone,” Liam says.

Marty finishes his song.

If I had money enough to spend

And leisure time to sit awhile,

There is a fair maid in this town

That sorely has my heart beguiled.





Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,

I own she has my heart in thrall,

Then fill to me the parting glass,

Good night and joy be with you all.



It gets quiet then. Mary and some of the women start picking things up and bringing them back into the house and other people just sit and look into the fire or start drifting off.