Red Hook Read Online Free PDF

hundred and fifty years old. Civil War times, some earlier,” he said, and stretched out his arms. “The Brooklyn Shipyard. Biggest in the world, all the docks loaded with tea, cashews, mahogany, lumber, sugar, grain, all that grain coming from the Midwest, on ships through the Great Lakes to the Erie Canal to the Hudson River and down to New York. 1825, Artie. It was the opening of the canal that made this the greatest port on earth, the goods coming and going, the river running out to the Atlantic Ocean, connecting us to Europe.”
    I tried to interrupt, but Sid was on a roll and I couldn’t stop him.
    â€œWarehouses bursting.” He gestured to a building close by. “That one, over there, look, they had donkeys on the top floor that were whipped like crazy to work the pulley system that brought up huge bags of coffee that had been unloaded off the ships. I feel I can smell it when I’m out here, and I can hear them, the men who jammed these docks, men from Italy, Ireland, Syria, Sweden, Russia, working these ports. Can you imagine it, Artie? It was still here, some of it, when I was a boy. I used to sneak over here to look. It was forbidden, because I was a nice boy from a good family, and this was a tough neighborhood, there were rackets here, and gangsters, longshoremen who were really tough, but I loved it,” he said. “I was a child spy.”
    â€œWhat?”
    He laughed. “Not a real spy, Artie, but the kind you are when you’re a child. Let me make us some coffee,” he said, but he didn’t move. “Look at it. Think about it. Some piece of real estate, right? A place on the water, your own boat tied up out front, great views of the city, ten minutes from Manhattan, a fast escape. Money. You could build your own little empire here. Lots of real estate. Lots of money.”
    â€œEscape from what?”
    â€œAll that,” he said gesturing at the window and the faint outline of the lower Manhattan skyline.
    â€œAll what?”
    â€œFear.”
    He moved away suddenly towards the small, makeshift kitchen at the far end of the loft, and began filling a coffee pot. I followed him.
    â€œDo you speak Russian much these days, Artie?” Sid called out.
    â€œWhen I have to. On the job.”
    â€œI love your language,” he said. “I always have. I loved it. I learned it when I first heard about Paul Robeson going there. Robeson was my idol. He was a superior human being, my dad said, he played sports, he sang, he was brilliant, he ran with artists and intellectuals, black people, white people. You ever hear of Carl Van Vechten?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. He was close with Robeson. Robeson went to Russia, he felt that the Slavs understood Negro spirituals in their inner being, it was aboutsoul, and it was the Russian thing that stuck with me. So odd.” Sid’s voice trailed off. “I was always happy when you let me talk Russian with you.”
    I didn’t remember Sid talking Russian to me; I didn’t remember it at all, and I wondered now if he was crazy; maybe the fear, whatever he was afraid of, had driven him nuts.
    â€œIs this about something Russian, the dead man? Is that why you really called me?”
    He set the coffee pot on the stove and turned on the burner.
    â€œI hear things. People talk to me. I go over to Brighton Beach to buy the Russian newspapers and good bread, and sometimes caviar, and I have friends there, people in bookshops, people in cafés. Some friendly, some not so friendly. They see a black man, it’s a crapshoot, you know?” He smiled. “Excuse me, Artie, I’ll just go change my clothes while the coffee boils.”
    He left me then, and went through a door that I figured led to the bathroom.
    I shifted my weight and the wide plank floor creaked. Two of the loft’s walls were jammed with bookshelves. Books leaked from the shelves. Books stood in