Willow Locke - Anarchist Detective

Ayala and Yaakov II

They wandered away from the park walking northward along the vast thoroughfare of 7th Avenue, into the wild carnival of the city afternoon. The air was filled with the shouts of the vendors, their voices over-mastering one another in rapid succession in their trenchant bids for the commerce of passers-by. "Hot Corn! Salt Peanuts! Fresh Cherries!" The dirty sidewalk was crowded with ersatz food stands, mostly managed by children around Eitan's age. There were also stands for dry goods and sundries. A middle-aged woman sold fancy perfume bottles, all empty, for a few cents. Yaakov bought a match from a ragged little girl and lit a cigarillo.

The Avenue was crowded with young dandies parading in their finery. Rugged men of the fire companies, strolling with their girls between shifts. They wore silk top-hats over slick soap-locked hair, and formal black dress coats over pristine cotton shirts and dark ties. With this ensemble, they still wore their heavy oiled brown canvas trousers and their black fire-boots with trailing buckles, perhaps out of the need to be ready at a moment's notice to chase a fire, perhaps out of masculine vanity. The girls accompanying them were dressed in the height of fashion, but with strange, theatrical flourishes. Ayala saw one wearing one of the season's most popular dresses, a rust-colored cotton dress with green floral panels, but she had added a gaudy bright red silk sash and elbow length black opera gloves. Around her neck on a gold chain she wore a pair of silver and abalone opera glasses, which she frequently peered through while holding the burly arm of her fire-fighter paramour. With their bold strides and playful carousing, the couple cut a swath through the foot traffic, Ayala and Yaakov stood aside to let them pass.

Strings of multi-colored pennants zig-zagged overhead from building to building. The whole avenue seemed like some raucous parade ground, although there was no occasion. A toy balloon merchant wearing clown make-up and a circus costume carried his wares on a 20-foot pole, and the cream-colored spheres of latex formed a towering cloud which gently undulated above him. Someone threw a handful of ticker-tape from an apartment window, and Ayala watched a long paper streamer unfurl and hang twirling above the street.

The cobbles were covered with mud and horse excrement to the extent that the stones themselves were never actually visible beneath the ubiquitous slime. Pedestrians kept well away from the street and crowded one side of the sidewalk, for fear of being splashed with the noxious goo. Black Model-T's jostled among the horse drawn carriages, and a public bus crawled its way up the fetid avenue amidst the tangle of traffic. A fire company in their bright red ford engine crossed the avenue speeding towards Astor Place, and a horse and cart careened onto the sidewalk to get out of the way. The old mare knocked over a stand of salt peanuts and stood placidly on the sidewalk eating the nuts while the owner of the stand and the carriage mutually vituperated one another over the calamity. Ayala laughed.

Everywhere there was music, Ayala and Yaakov were on the street corner near a Klezmer band and the complex syncopated rhythm was guided by an energetic tuba player who rocked the beat back and forth with his scuffed and gleaming tuba. Just as Yaakov and Ayala were about to cross the street, a young girl materialized holding a broom. She was around nine years old and was dressed in colorless rags.

"Let me sweep the crosswalk for you sir, so you don't ruin your fine shoes." she said, bowing so low her long tangled hair brushed on the sidewalk. Yaakov smiled and opened his wallet. He gave the urchin a five-dollar-bill and the little girl recoiled with shock.

"I-I only ask a penny, sir." she faltered "Just a penny." She held the bill out to Yaakov to return it—her hand trembled.

"It's OK," said Ayala, taking the money and pressing it back into her hand. "It's for you. What's your name, little one?"