Paradise Alley Read Free Page A

workies and their wives. Plainly uncowed by the handful of police and thesquad of invalided soldiers standing guard—shouting out their insults and scatological comments.
    â€œThree hundred dollars! Oh, you can take that and shove it up my—”
    â€œOh, they will, Billy boy! Oh, they will!”
    Nervous, rueful laughter floating up from the mob.
    â€œThree hundred dollars! Tell Abe Lincoln to come an’ collect it hisself!”
    â€œOh, he will!”
    Nevertheless, they went ahead with it. The soldiers hauled a big, squared wooden drum up into the open window, and mounted it on the scaffolding there in full view of the crowd. A well-known blind man was led up by the arm, and the marshals gave the drum a heavy, lumberous crank, rolling it over and over until it resounded like thunder up and down the street, silencing even the mob.
    Then they opened the hatch and plunged the hand of the blind man deep inside. Watery yellowed eyes staring straight ahead. His fingers rooting in the drum like so many thick pink pig snouts until he had dredged up the first handful of names, written down on simple scraps of paper. An impressively groomed and uniformed major plucked them one by one from the blind man’s palm, unfolding them and reading out the names and addresses in a fearsome voice:
    â€œO’Donnell! Thomas! Fifteen Great Jones Street!”
    The crowd began to hiss and groan, and I saw the two pickets standing at either end of the drum exchange nervous looks. They held muskets with fixed bayonets, but it was clear to me that if anything had started, they would have bolted like rabbits.
    â€œCondon! Jack! One-eight-four Avenue A!”
    There were more groans, more hisses and boos—but nothing else. No well-placed brick or two that might have set off a whole barrage, provoked a volley. The spark wasn’t there yet. The crowd was in too good a mood, the weather too moderate still. As the next few names were called out there were more catcalls, more rude noises, but even most of this was good-natured.
    â€œBrady! Patrick!”
    â€œGood for you, Brady!” someone in the crowd yelled out, and then everyone was laughing. Soon every name was greeted with a joke—
    â€œO’Connell—”
    â€œHow are you, O’Connell?”
    â€œO’Connor! Sean!”
    â€œGood-bye, Sean!”
    â€œA rest from the missus for you, Sean!”
    â€œOld Abe’s done for you now, Sean me boy!”
    â€”the whole scene devolving into another extended street-corner entertainment. The kind they love—like a good dog fight or a family argument. At one point a particularly ignorant young b’hoy walked out of the crowd when his name was called and, with a resigned shrug, pulled himself up through the window. The major looked as if he were going to have a fit of apoplexy, his face reddening and his hand reaching for his holster, wondering what kind of prank this was.
    â€œWho the hell’re you?”
    â€œI’m McMullen, sir. I’m here to give meself up,” the lad said.
    The crowd roared, the whole exchange like a scene out of some Paddy stage farce. The major cursing at his would-be recruit—“ Get the hell down from there, goddamn you, man! ”—the youth just grinning sheepishly back at him.
    After that it was clear nothing was going to happen. The crowd was almost festive, so close to the end of the working week. Soon they began to drift away, to their homes or the local taverns, looking for new entertainment. The blind man still rooted for names, handing the little white pellets over to the bellowing major until the office finally closed its doors in the late afternoon. The marshals hauled the drum down from its platform then, and shuttered the big open front window, the guard of invalided soldiers hurrying away, grateful to be going back toward their barracks on Governor’s Island.
    Yet the whole time there was another draft