His destination was little more than twenty blocks downtown. He crouched on a stoop across from the building where he had lived with his father, pulling up his long legs, leaning against the ironwork railing. It was drizzling and the sky hung down. The gutters were wet and filthy. A boy came out of the house across the street. It was Eddie’s good luck that when he signaled the boy approached. He was six or seven years old, shy, Orthodox, hanging back when he reached the stoop. Clearly, he’d crossed the street because of his interest in the dog. He could barely take his eyes off Mitts, who cheerfully slobbered and returned the boy’s gaze.
“You know Joseph Cohen?” Eddie asked the child.
“No.” The boy most certainly had been told not to talk to strangers. He didn’t raise his eyes. To gain the boy’s trust, Eddie switched over to Yiddish.
“Mr. Cohen, the tailor. You know him?”
The boy glanced up, surprised that this lanky, gruff young man spoke his language. He didn’t look like one of them, but the boy accepted Eddie now that he knew they were of the same faith. It was obvious that the boy was more impressed by the dog than by anything Eddie had to say. He tentatively held out his hand, and Mitts sniffed it. Startled by the dog’s wet nose, the boy drew his hand back. He shifted from foot to foot, nervous but more interested than ever.
“Go ahead,” Eddie suggested, recognizing a fellow dog lover. “You can pet him. He won’t bite.”
The boy remained suspicious. It was likely that his mother had warned him not only to stay away from strange men but to avoid strange dogs as well.
“Go on,” Eddie said. “He’s friendly.”
The boy’s curiosity got the better of him. He edged nearer, grinning when Mitts sat before him.
“Someone I met said he’s a rabbit, and maybe that’s what he thinks he is. A big rabbit with white feet.”
When the boy petted the pit bull’s broad head, a smile of delight crossed his face. “He’s like silk.” Mitts licked his face, and the boy laughed and wiped his cheek. “He is a big rabbit.”
Eddie returned to his initial questioning. “You know the man who lives on the fifth floor? The tailor. The one that doesn’t like noise and doesn’t talk to anyone? He has a long, dark beard.”
The boy nodded, but he corrected Eddie. “His beard is gray.”
That piece of information made Eddie’s throat grow tight. He held out a dime. “For you,” he said, to the boy’s great surprise. He then handed the boy the envelope he’d brought along. “Bring this up to him and you can have the dime.” There wasn’t much cash in the envelope, but it was enough to purchase new boots, a few bags of potatoes and turnips, a scarf, even a new coat, for the one Eddie had bought his father long ago must certainly be threadbare by now. “Don’t open it. Understand?”
The boy accepted the dime and the envelope. Before he went on, Eddie grabbed him. “My dog can judge who’s trustworthy and who’s not, that’s why I’m giving this job to you. He trusts you.”
The boy nodded, his eyes on the dog. After Eddie let go of him, the young messenger patted Mitts one last time. “Good boy,” he said in English before he ran across the street.
The Cohen apartment was at the front of the building, its single window overlooking the street. Eddie had often sat there, watching the dusk sift past the glass, waiting for the time when he could sneak away. Now he wondered if his father had been aware each time he opened the door, just wide enough to make his escape.
After several minutes, Eddie looked up to see the curtains move. He lifted his hand to wave before the curtain closed. He had no idea if his father would keep the envelope that had been delivered, or if he would burn it in one of the two soup bowls he owned, or perhaps donate it to the poor box in the shul. Eddie wondered if he’d even recognized the man across the street as his only son.
Being back in the neighborhood gave Eddie the jitters, and his skin prickled. He considered stopping at the druggist’s shop on Grand Street where the pharmacist was said not to have left his store for more than twenty years, a self-imposed prisoner, the victim of love gone wrong. But the shop was often closed, and there was no cure for Eddie’s ailment. He wandered, so deep in thought he didn’t notice that the streets where he’d grown up had melted away. He found himself at the river. Water slapped at the row of wooden docks on stilts. He still had the trout, which he now unwrapped from its casing of damp newspaper. The silvery scales were cold and wet. The trout belonged to the river, and that was where Eddie would dispose of it. Rain had begun in earnest, a cold spring shower that left a haze of blue over the mirrored surface. Eddie could barely see New Jersey or make out the ferries that cut through the water. He leaned down, holding the trout in both hands. When he let go he expected it to sink. The rain was falling too hard to see clearly, yet he could spy a trail of light, as if the trout was racing through the water, headed for the depths, his freedom restored.
Eddie sat back on his heels, stunned. He did not believe in life everlasting, or in the prayers of his forefathers, or in miracles of any kind. The movement of the fish was most likely a trick of light, but light was something he did indeed believe in. He had the urge to leap in himself so that he might discover whether or not it was alive, and whether, if he followed the trout, he would find what he had lost when he left his father’s house, when he shut the door and found himself on the dark streets of New York.