Liberty Falling-pigeon 7 Read Online Free PDF

their big ears elsewhere.
    "My son, Dwight junior," the captain said proudly. Anna and the little boy murmured "Howdoyoudo" in unison. "We call him Digby," Dwight said.
    "That's so people can tell us apart," Digby volunteered.
    "Two peas in a pod, right, son?"
    "Two peas."
    Cal cast off and Dwight turned his attention to conning the Liberty IV away from the dock and clear of the dredging barge that toiled most hours of every day keeping the boat channel from silting in. Various creatures, animated by Digby, assisted in the process. A turquoise burro rode the top of the wheel, and a grape-colored, forked-tongued beast that more closely resembled a slug than a snake insinuated itself into the crook of Dwight's elbow.
    "How come you're not in school?" Anna asked, and was startled at how like her maternal grandmother she sounded.
    At the querulous tone, Digby looked injured. "It's summer," he said.
    "Monday, Wednesday, Friday Dig usually has piano, but his teacher's sister's having her baby today. C-section. So Dig's come to work with me. Dig's a musician. A regular Liberace."
    Digby rolled his eyes and Anna laughed. "Harry Connick Junior?" she offered.
    "Maybe..." Clearly Digby didn't want to be pigeonholed this early in his career.
    As Manhattan, already formidable, grew to fill the windscreen, Anna watched Digby's zoo wander across Dwight's bridge and felt better than she had since she'd arrived in New York the previous Thursday.
    The boat became part of the balletic weave of ships in the harbor. Out the starboard side of the cabin, Anna could see the statue. A helicopter chopped the air over the plaza. No doubt retrieving the dead child. Ahead was the distinctive geometric shape of Ellis Island.
    "I was one of the last immigrants through there, did you know that?" Dwight said.
    Anna didn't know whether to believe him or not. He liked to string her along to see how long it would take her to get a joke. The past few days it had been quite a while. Not feeling mentally acute, she just nodded.
    "No kidding. I was a little shaver, not more than four years old. I came over from Czechoslovakia with my mom. She was an old widow lady of twenty-two. That was in 1951. We were just about the last folks through."
    "I was born here," Digby said proudly. "Right there." Using the tail of an armadillo as a pointer, he indicated most of Brooklyn.
    In need of harmless conversation, Anna asked: "Do you remember any of it?"
    Dwight shook his head. "Not much. But when I started working here, it was like that baseball guy said, deja vu all over again. I'd remember stuff I'd never thought of before. Just little scenes and things. Mom remembers, though. She had to stay out there close to a week. Some kind of paperwork snafu. My grandmother, or the lady that would be my grandmother soon as her son and my mom got married, came out and got me, so I was only there maybe overnight.
    "They must have known they were closing up shop soon. The people Mom spent her time with were these old geezers who'd worked Ellis since day one--"
    "That'd be fifty-nine years, Daddy. They'd be too old," Digby said.
    "Hey, tell it to your gramma. This is her story."
    "You tell Gramma," Digby said in a tiny voice only he, Anna and a brown plush turtle heard. Anna gathered that Gramma was a formidable woman.
    "Ma came home from that week on Ellis with enough stories to last a lifetime. People born, people hanging 'emselves rather than be sent back to the old country, ghosts and royalty, a lady in the loony bin found dead wearing nothing but her knickers, operas, ball games, this shock treatment machine they rolled from ward to ward, guys falling in love with gals who didn't speak a word of their language, folks with money stuffed in their shoes. Good stuff. There's tapes from lots of immigrants in the library. They got Ma to make one.
    "Never make it, Cal," he hollered out the window as the deckhand tossed the rope expertly over a piling. "Cal missed his calling," Dwight said as