“Come into the bedroom, Panayoti,” she said, “before you go.”
Peter Karras remade his bed and pushed it up into the wall. He passed his father, who smelled of coffee and cigarettes and booze, and faintly of the Wildroot tonic he wore in his thick, graying hair, and went into the apartment’s sole bedroom. The shades were drawn, as they were drawn in all the rooms, the red light coming from a candili suspended from the ceiling in front of several icons hung on the wall. Among the icons was a framed magazine photograph of FDR.
His mother stood by his father’s dresser, pushing coins off the top of it into her hand. Peter stood beside her, admiring his father’s Bowie knife, which he kept on the dresser. Next to the knife sat an American-Bosch radio, and next to that two empty bottles of Gunther’s beer. Georgia reached over and took her son’s face and turned it in the light. She looked at his bruised temple and sighed.
“It’s okay. Ma. It don’t matter.”
“O patera sou eine kalos anthropos. Acous? Don’t be mad at him, boy. He only wants you to be safe. He worries, Panayoti, thas all. Hokay?”
“Then birazi,” he repeated in assurance.
She blinked her eyes and pressed the coins into her son’s palm. “Pick up a chicken from the butcher on your way back home. I’m gonna boil it, make an avgolemono soup for tonight.”
“I’ll get it at the Piggly Wiggly, Ma. They got ’em fresh killed.”
“They all say fresh killed. Get it from the butcher down the block, it’s cheaper.” She pushed him softly on the back of the head. “Go on, boy. Pas sto kalo.”
Peter walked from the room. She watched him go.
Out in the living room, he passed his father once more. Dimitri pushed his empty plate to the side and struck a match to a tailor-made cigarette. He looked at his skinny son, getting taller now, almost ready for his balls to grow heavy, to get the feelings of a man.
“You see the photographia?” said Dimitri.
“I saw it,” said Peter. “Thanks, Pop.” Peter kept walking, opened the front door.
“Don’t forget about the chicken,” said Dimitri, as the door closed.
Outside the door, the iceman, a narrow-chested American in white duck trousers, arrived. Karras faked a punch as he passed. The iceman flinched, mumbled something about Greeks. Karras laughed, headed down the stairs, thinking that he caught the scared little guy the same way every day. It was easy to take control, if you acted like a guy who didn’t care.
Billy Nicodemus lived in the same building as Peter Karras, at 606 H. Karras picked him up at his door on the second floor and said hello to Billy’s parents, a quiet couple who ran a soda-bar concession downtown. Steve Nicodemus, Billy’s older brother, smacked Billy on the back of the head as he was going out the door. Billy Nicodemus was a husky, kind kid, with the essential good nature of his father. He never saw the point of a fight.
“Say,” said Billy, “what’d you have to go and do that for?”
“A love tap,” said Steve, and tilted his chin up at Karras, who he knew would understand.
Billy, crazy about baseball, had his mitt under his arm. He and Karras went down the stairs and out onto the street.
They went around the corner to 703 6th, and took the stairs up to Perry Angelos’ place. On the way up, Karras saw Helen Leonides, one year his junior, playing jacks outside her parents’ apartment while the landlord, Leo Bernstein, stood at the door collecting rent. She smiled at Karras, who looked away.
Perry, a small, rather homely child with long ears and large, sad brown eyes, was nearly ready when the boys came to pick him up. Karras and Nicodemus talked to Perry’s mother for a while, who offered them some gleeka. They ate the sweets standing at the door of the bright apartment. Perry’s father, who owned a kind of coffeehouse for Greeks near the Navy Yard, worked seven days a week and came home only to sleep and change clothes. The other boys rarely saw him, but imagined they knew the father well, as Perry described him to them all the time.
Perry gave his mother a kiss. On the way downstairs. Perry saw Helen Leonides, and said hello.
“Hello, Perry,” said Helen. And then, musically, “Hello, Pete.”
Helen made Karras nervous, in a funny kind of way. He didn’t respond to her greeting, and he and Perry and Billy took the stairs quickly to the street.
Joe Recevo sat on the stoop and grinned as the boys approached his building at 5th and H. At twelve, Recevo was the senior member of the group, but had been held back in a year in school for poor performance. The year meant something: Recevo was taller than the others, had a downy row of moustaches, and in the past few months witnessed his voice deepen by a shade. With his dark, dense wave of hair and deep brown eyes, he had it over them in the looks department as well.
Recevo jumped down off the stoop onto the sidewalk, tilted his newsboy’s cap back on his head. The boys stood around him.
“Fellas,” he said, and he reached out and flicked a finger at the lobe of Perry’s right ear. It stung a little, and Perry rubbed it. “I didn’t hurt you, did I, Pericles?”
“Leave him alone, Joey,” said Karras.
“Sure, Pete, I’ll leave the little bookworm alone.”
Recevo pushed on Karras’s shoulder a little. Karras brushed Recevo’s hand away. They smiled at each other, neither of them stepping back.
“So where we headed?” asked Recevo.
“Let’s get over to the playground,” said Karras. “Boyle ought to be there. Maybe get up some stickball.”
“All right!” said Nicodemus, punching a fist into his mitt.
Walking through Chinatown, they came upon a kid named Su. Recevo warned Karras once that Su’s pop was in with the Hip Sings, but Karras didn’t know what that meant, and didn’t care. Karras played often with Su in the alley, and thought him to be a good little athlete. The boys asked him to come along.
“What about Baer and Schmeling?” said Nicodemus as they headed east. “Wasn’t that somethin’?”
“It was a wild right,” said Recevo, “that’s what it was. Schmeling turned right into it.”
“Knocked him colder than a pawnbroker’s heart,” said Perry Angelos, who had read that expression exactly in the morning Herald. He had memorized it after he had finished poring over “Buck Rogers”, “Barney Google”, and “Gasoline Alley” — his favorites — in the funny pages.
“Steve Mamakos called it,” said Karras. “He said yesterday that Baer was gonna win.”
“Mamakos,” said Recevo. “What’re you, in love with the guy?”
“I said he called it, that’s all.”
“Max Baer!” said Su, who threw a left hook and a straight right at the air as he walked.
“What’s a Chink know about boxing, anyway?” said Recevo.
“I know, Lecevo,” said Su.
“‘Lecevo’,” said Joe, with a chuckle. “Yeah, you know, all right.”
“I bet George Zaharias could beat Max Baer,” said Angelos.
“Zaharias is a wrestler, Pericles,” said Recevo. “What a dumbhead.”
“I know it,” said Perry. “And he’s a Greek, did ya know that? Real name is Vetoyanis. He’s wrestlin’ Jim Londos next week at Griffith Stadium.”
“Like we need another Greek visitin’ D.C.,” said Recevo. “The town’s already lousy with ’em.”
Perry Angelos and Billy Nicodemus said nothing. Recevo looked over at Karras, who seemed to be grinning a little, maybe at the exchange, or maybe just because the guy was enjoying the day. With Karras, Recevo couldn’t tell.