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Angelo checked the clothesline over the stove. "Wet as a bambino's bottom," he reported. "But Giuliano is short like a girl. We borrow his shirt and britches for tonight, yes?" The one named Giuliano seemed to protest, but it was in Italian, so Jake didn't know if it was because of being compared to a girl or having his clothes appropriated.
They ate their supper of beans and bread, grumbling that it wasn't spaghetti. Jake finished his so quickly that Angelo gave him a second helping. He mopped up the last of the juice with the bread—the crusty bread was wonderful—and longed for a third helping, but the pot was empty and the men were getting up, signaling, alas, that the meal was done.
He couldn't go home, not in Giuliano's clothes, so he went with them to Chabis Hall. He'd seen the plain frame building from the outside many times, but no one who wasn't Italian ever went in there. The hall was dimly lit and crowded. Many were smoking cheap cigars and cigarettes, which fouled the air more than Angelo's coal stove, but somehow the electricity in the room made up for everything. It wasn't the excitement Jake felt when he stole food from the grocer's and got chased down the street. That was thrilling, of course, since he always managed to outrun his pursuer. This was the excitement of being a thief in the middle of hundreds of thieves, all set to steal away the world of Mr. Billy Wood, with his mansion in Andover and more automobiles than even the blooming millionaire himself could count.
That the talk was all in Italian was frustrating, but when the crowd quieted and began to listen to individual speakers, Angelo whispered a few words in English to Jake, so he could get an idea of what was being said.
"Mr. Billy Wood don't understand when we speak soft, speak reason, tell him we are cold and hungry while he is fat and rich. So now we speak strike. That is language he will understand when he have no more profit."
"Shh." A man, sitting in the row ahead, had turned around. He whispered something fierce in Italian, which made Angelo put his arm protectively around Jake's shoulders.
"Joe Ettor say we are all Americans," he said. The man shrugged.
"Who's Joe Ettor?" Jake couldn't help asking.
"Come tomorrow night," Angelo said. "Then you see."
Jake was beginning to believe that the meeting would go on forever when the men around him stood up and cheered and then began to talk noisily among themselves. Still jabbering, the crowd streamed out into the dark street. "Come on, Jake," Angelo said. "Time to celebrate our big strike."
Soon, however, Angelo was so wrapped up in strike talk that he seemed to forget that Jake couldn't understand the blinking Italian gabble. He followed them to a tavern. Although there wasn't a single light burning, one of the Italians grabbed the door handle and yanked. It was locked. The second tavern was dark as well, but there was a crudely lettered sign on the door. "What it say, Angelo?" someone yelled.
The crowd parted to let Angelo get to the door. He bent close to the sign. "It say—" he said, reading the English words—"it say, 'closed by order of the police.'"
The men began to curse in language even Jake could understand. "The blasted police close down the taverns because we strike," Angelo said. "Come on, we go to Marco's. He always got home-made."
But something held Jake back. He knew it was harder for Angelo and his friends to have him hanging on. He'd have to face his father sooner or later. So somewhere along the dark street, he slipped away from his noisy companions and headed down the hill.
He was still wearing Giuliano's clothes, the waist tied with a string to keep the pants from falling down, as he made his way through the cold darkness of the night back to the shack. pa was waiting for him, pacing the dirt floor, spitting out curses against the world in general and Jake in particular. Too late Jake remembered that he'd meant to buy a bottle for pa. He tried to run as soon as he saw how furious the man was, but it was cold and he was tired and pa was too quick for him.
He snatched Jake by the arm and held on like the devil himself, his long nails biting into Jake's flesh. "Where you been, you thieving bastard?"
Jake knew better than to answer such a question.
His pa pulled him close, his stinking breath in Jake's face. In the smoky light of the oil lamp, the man squinted at Jake's clothes. "Wop clothes!" he declared. "You been with those damn strikers, ain't you? Take 'em off!"
Jake hesitated just long enough for the man to smack him across the face. Then he untied the string and dropped his pants.
"Shirt, too."
Jake obeyed.
With a practiced motion, his father undid his belt and began to lash Jake's legs and then his back. The boy bit his lip to keep from screaming out. Finally, pa's arm tired, and he dropped the belt to the dirt floor.
Holding Jake fast, pa picked up Giuliano's pants and felt the pockets until he found the pay envelope, still soggy from the earlier soaking. "Ha!" he said. In his greed, he let go of Jake's arm to pull out the envelope, and Jake took the chance to jump away from his reach. He grabbed the shirt and pants and started running. He never stopped until he was in the shade of the giant mill, where he dressed himself once more, tears of anger stinging his cheeks.
The boy was too ashamed to go back to Angelo's, so he headed for a place he knew was never locked up—the Irish church, Saint Mary's, on Haverhill Street.
He made his way through the dark sanctuary—the only light, the pale one above the altar—into the room to the left of the altar where the priests kept their robes. He knew from past experience that there was a toilet there and a basin. He fumbled his way in the dark until he found the basin. Standing before it, he stripped himself of Giuliano's clothes, now soggy with his blood. He turned on the water and, with the towel that was hanging next to the basin, washed the bloody stripes on his legs. They stung like fury. He swiped the towel across his back.
Should he try to rinse the blood off Giuliano's clothes? And wear what? A priest's robe? He laughed out loud. He, Jake Beale, got up like a papist priest! In his father's eyes, that would be the only thing worse than a wop's shirt and trousers. So there in the dark, in the priests' private basin, he washed the blood from Giuliano's shirt and pants as best he could and hung them over the heavy chairs in the priests' room to dry. Then he opened the closet and found himself a nice wool robe with a sash and wrapped himself in it. It was warmer than Angelo's shirt had been.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the dark room, so he investigated the cabinets, where he found a carafe of wine and funny little pieces of dry crackers. He stuffed handfuls of the round crackers into his mouth and washed them down with the wine. It was sweet and tasted a lot better than the wine Angelo had given him in the tavern. He sat down on the soft carpet and drank more of it until the pain in his back and legs dimmed and his head began to nod.
"Holy Mother of God!"
The bulb hanging from the ceiling was lit,
and Jake saw, standing above him, a burly Irishman, his raised eyebrows like woolly caterpillars, his blue eyes bulging.
