It must also be the reason she’s on Sands Street. Not many other ways for a one-armed girl in Brooklyn to get by.
Willie puts a fifty-cent piece on the dresser. Wingy rises, drops the baby pink negligee. Smiling, she comes to Willie, helps him undress. She knows it’s his first time. How do you know, Wingy? I just do, darlin. Willie calculates—it must be her hundred and first time. This month. As he stands with his pants bunched around his feet, she kisses his chin, his lips, his big nose. He begins to shake, as if cold, though the room is stifling. The windows are shut tight, fogging. Wingy leads him to the bed. She lies on top of him. She kisses him harder, parts his lips with hers.
He draws back. Half her bottom teeth are missing.
Merchant marine knocked them out, she says. Now no more questions, sugar lump, just you lie back and let Wingy do what Wingy does.
What does Wingy do?
I said no more questions.
Her touch is surprisingly gentle, and skillful, and Willie is quickly aroused. She drags her rich chestnut hair up his chest, across his face, like a fan of feathers. He likes the way it feels, and smells. Her hair soap, Castile maybe, masks the room’s other baked-in scents. Male sweat, old spunk—and Fels?
It struck him when he first walked in, but it didn’t register. Now it registers. Whoever launders Wingy’s bedclothes uses the same detergent as Mother. It’s a common detergent, he shouldn’t be surprised, but it confuses and troubles Willie at a climactic moment of his maturation.
More confusions. Willie thought Eddie could cuss, but Wingy makes Eddie seem a rank amateur. Why is she cussing? Is Willie doing it wrong? How can he be, when he’s not doing anything? He’s pinned on his back, helpless. If anyone should be cussing, it’s him. Wingy’s abundant pubic hair is coarse, nearly metallic, and it chafes and scrapes the tender skin of Willie’s brand-new penis. In and out, up and down, Wingy does her best to pleasure Willie, and Willie appreciates her diligence, but he can’t stop dwelling on the gap between reality and his expectations. This is what makes the world go round? This is what everyone’s so excited about—this? If there’s any pleasure at all in the experience, it’s the relief he feels when it’s over.
Wingy curls against him, commending his stamina. He thanks her, for everything, then gathers his clothes and gives her a ten-cent tip. He doesn’t stick around for the complimentary flower.
Photographer turns down Sands Street. The road is being repaired. He weaves slowly among orange cones, sawhorses. Anywhere along here, Sutton says.
Photographer pulls over, slips the car into park. Ninth floor, he says in an adenoidal voice—ladies’ handbags, men’s socks.
What happened on this corner, Mr. Sutton?
This is where Willie lost his innocence. A house of ill fame. That’s what we called whorehouses back then.
Was she pretty? Photographer asks.
Yeah. She was. Though she had only one arm. They called her Wingy.
Which arm?
Her left.
Why didn’t they call her Lefty?
That would’ve been cruel.
Reporter and Photographer look at each other, look away.
Do you want to step out, Mr. Sutton?
Nah.
Willie, Photographer says—why exactly are we here?
I wanted to visit Wingy.
Visit?
I can feel her, right now, smiling at us. At your questions. She didn’t like questions.
The ghost of a one-armed prostitute. Great. That should make a nice photo.
Okay, boys, next stop. We’ve seen where Willie lost his innocence. Let’s go to Red Hook and see where Willie lost his heart.
With the Armistice—November 1918—all of New York City becomes Coney Island. People fill the streets, dance on cars, kiss strangers. Offices close, saloons stay open around the clock. Willie and Eddie and Happy join the crowds, but with mixed emotions. The war was the best thing that ever happened to them. Peace means no more need for machine guns. No more need for them.
Laid off again, the boys scramble. They comb the wants, fill out applications, canvass. But the city is crowded with soldiers also hunting for work. Newspapers forecast another Depression. The third of Willie’s life, this one looks to be the most severe. Things get so bleak, so quick, people wonder aloud if capitalism has run its course.
The boys sit on the rocky waterfront at Red Hook, fishing, while Eddie reads aloud from a newspaper he pulled from the trash. Strikes, riots, unrest—and every other page carries a grim profile of another boy not coming home.
One of every forty who went overseas, Eddie reads, won’t be back.
Christ, Happy says.
At least they did something with their lives, Willie says.
Eddie stands, paces. He pitches rocks at the water. Nothin’s blunth changed. We’re blunth right back blunth where we started.
He stops, lets the rock in his hand fall to the ground. He stands still as a statue and stares into the distance. Willie and Happy turn, follow his gaze. Now they too stand slowly and stare.
Happy sprints toward her, removes his tweed cap, bows. She jumps back, but it’s an act. She’s not startled. A coiled cobra wouldn’t startle this girl, you can tell. Besides, it’s Happy. She was hurrying somewhere, walking purposefully, but now, coming upon a specimen like Happy, she’s got all the time in the world.
You gotta hand it to that Happy, Eddie says. He sits, adjusts his hat, checks the poles. Willie nods, sits beside him. Every few minutes they turn and shoot a wistful look at their friend.
Happy brings her over. Okay, you bums, look alive, on your feet. Bess, this here’s the Beard Street Fishing Club. Of which these are the presidents, Mr. Edward Wilson and Mr. William Sutton. Fellas, say hello to Bess Endner.
She’s an ash blonde, that’s how police reports will later describe her, but in the light of late autumn her hair contains every kind of yellow. Butter, honey, lemon, amber, gold—she even has golden flecks in her bright blue eyes, as if whoever painted her had some yellow left over and didn’t know what to do with it. She’s petite, five foot four, but with the graceful strides of a taller girl. Fifteen years old, Willie guesses. Sixteen maybe.
She’s carrying a wooden basket. She shifts it, shakes hands with Eddie, then Willie.
What’s in the basket? Happy says.
I’m bringing lunch to my father. That’s his shipyard right over there.
Some big shipyard, Happy says.
Biggest in Brooklyn. Founded by my grandpa. He came to this country in the hold of a ship, and now he builds them.
Willie stares. He’s never seen such confidence. The next time he does, it will be in men with guns. Eddie stares too. It doesn’t seem to make her uncomfortable. She probably can’t remember a time when people didn’t stare.
She points to their poles. Fish biting?
Nah, Eddie says.
What are you using for bait?
Bottle caps, Willie says. Nail heads. Chewing tobacco.
Water’s kind of icky, isn’t it?
We give the fish a hot shower and