Free Prayers for the Living by Alan Cheuse Page A

father, sweating, stops in mid-step, looking down at the cobblestones. Cars chug around them. Father panting. “Hard work, eh, pup?” he says to the boy.
    The boy nods, pressing up against the cart out of fear of the passing machines.
    And closer now the clanging—wavering in air, fading in, out, out, in, out
    BELLS BELLS bells bells bells BELLS BELLS
    as father and son halt in their passage. In the middle of Fourteenth Street. And from the east comes a clopping, clopping, clopping, a truck hauled by a horse of
    GRUENBERG’S DAIRY
    and from the west, now they can hear it, the
    BELLS BELLS BELLS
    of the fire truck.
    Fire somewhere in the city! Man and boy glance about, and the man looks down, as if peering beneath the cobblestones. “This land once belonged to the Indians,” he says.
    The boy is scared by the noise, by the rushing passage of vehicles. Hugging closer to the cart, his nose pierced by the cold odors rising up from the fruit, he fixes his eyes on his father. And thinks: Why isn’t he moving?
    And who knows why not? Who will ever know why not? Was it his heart? Had something torn loose in his chest? So he was resting there in the middle of the rushing chaos? Or was he lost in a dream of the Atlantis he always talked about, stopped there in the middle of traffic—dreamer and hardworking peddler all in one, poised in his crossing to the other side where he would take up his stand, would have taken up his stand, in competition with the hustling Irishmen?
    â€œBeneath these stones,” he was saying.
    â€œPapa.”
    â€œBeneath these stones . . .”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  BELLS
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  BELLS
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  BELLS BELLS BELLS
    and the forceful forward clop-clop-clop of the rushing onward wagon of
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  GRUENBERG’S DAIRY
    and from the east and from the west the
    BELLS BELLS BELLS BELLS BELLS
    and ahead of the fire truck the taxicab pushed almost on the sound, the way a leaf gets pushed ahead of a wave of wind.
    Was it Jacob’s heart? We never knew. He never had had no trouble, but it could have been trouble then, from the hauling, the lifting. He could have been standing there to rest until he felt he could get moving again. Or it could have just as easily been his mouth. May he rest in peace, he had a mouth, he had an imagination, and he was talking to the boy, talking to him about Atlantis this, Atlantis that, and then it was too late to move, because here came from the east end of the street the dairy truck, and he didn’t dare try to rush with the cart and the fruit and the boy to the other side, and from the west-end direction comes the taxi and the fire truck behind it, and the taxi driver flies into a panic, and he hears the big bells and the machine behind him, what does he do? He swerves to the left—here, I have a lipstick, somewhere in my bag, here, give me a napkin.

    So you see what happens? The fire truck nudges the taxi and the taxi swings to the left just ahead of my Jacob and Manny and the cart, and the truck coming from the east, the horse from the truck goes into a fit, jumps, what do you call it?—rears up, and the entire wagon tilts over on top of my Jacob. Oi, can you just see it? Such a thing, such a mess! The wagon spills over him like a wall of falling bricks! And, I’m telling you, what do we see now? We see a crashof truck and splintered wood and moans we hear, and shouts, and the horse, it’s screaming like a man, and there’s bottles all over, smashed, broken milk bottles,