On the Waterfront by Budd Schulberg Read Free Book Online

were on your own. His old man had begged him to take it easy. His friends had warned him not to go out.
    “Whaddya want, Terry?”
    Terry reached into his windbreaker and held up the pigeon. The bird was frightened and when it sensed the open air it tried to thrust itself forward out of Terry’s hands. It managed to work one of its wings free and beat wildly to wrench itself from Terry’s grasp. Terry held it firmly by its legs and with his other hand pinned its wings down with authority.
    “Ya see this,” he shouted up through the limp and gaudy laundry. “He’s one o’ yours. I recognized the band.”
    Joey leaned out a little farther. He had the young, pink-cheeked, slightly fleshy good-looking Irish face associated with choir boys.
    “Lemme see. Maybe it’s Danny Boy. I lost ’im in the last race.”
    Terry wasn’t thinking what he was doing. Just doing it like he was told. “He followed my birds into their coop. Here—you want ’im?”
    It was nice of Terry to bring his bird back. Joey had felt bad about losing Danny Boy. He had figured to mate him with a fast hen, Peggy G. He started to say he’d be right down. But the animal watchfulness of the Bohegan docks was in him and the words wouldn’t come out. The rat-quickness of the docks was in Terry too. Without having to think about it, Terry added, “I’ll bring him up to the roof. Meet ya at yer loft.”
    The pigeons were the peaceful and satisfactory part of Joey Doyle’s life, as they were of Terry’s, and the sight of the sleek, firm bird in Terry’s hand, and the mention of the loft, Joey’s only escape from the bruising immediacy of the waterfront, were reassuring.
    “Okay, okay,” Joey said, “I’ll see ya on the roof.” As Joey Doyle turned away from the window, Terry took a couple of backward steps and released his hold on the pigeon. It flew aimlessly upward, brushing the aerial laundry in awkward, night-blinded flight. On the roof Terry could see the silhouette of a couple of hulking business suits waiting for their quarry in the dark. They were a couple of pistols, Sonny and Specs, and he hoped they wouldn’t give Joey too much of a hard time. If Joey would only get smart and come around. This is the way it was and this is the way it would always be and you had to be an awful meatball to go against the set-up or think any different. It was no skin off Terry if Joey wanted to louse himself up. Terry backed away into the alley, crabwise and with a crab’s instinct for pulling his head in. The cracked record behind him was croaking its miserable tin-pan-alley dirge.
“Tippi tippi tin tippi tin
    Tippi tippi tan tippi tan….”
    Jesus, these rummies down here, they could sure get on your nerves. The unkempt, staggering form lurched into Terry and a wave of disgust broke over him as he recognized Mutt Murphy, a one-armed dock-worker rotted out with cheap whiskey, who started his day in the afternoon like a gentleman, made the rounds of the bars (usually on the end of a quick heave-ho) until the early hours and then flopped in a hallway or a tenement basement.
    Mutt had left his arm between a couple of packing cases some ten years back. He had been wandering around griping about his compensation and cadging drinks ever since. Terry had heard the sob story and had had the sour whiskey breath blown in his face too many times. As Mutt made contact with anyone who happened to wander across his stumbling path, his left arm shot out automatically, his palm uplifted in the classic gesture of supplicants, at once ashamed and aggressive.
    “A dime. Got a dime you don’t need? For a crippled-up member of 447?”
    “Go on, get outa here,” Terry said, pushing the wreck away from him and farther along the alley.
    Being pushed was an all-day every-day experience for Mutt and he wasn’t even slightly discouraged. He had learned to accept being pushed and cuffed around as his principal contact with these riverfront people among whom and off whom