Dreams Come to Life Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

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  7

  8

  9

  10

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  About the Author

  Copyright

  I see that smile everywhere. It greets me in the darkness suddenly. Around a corner. In my dreams. That big wide grin. Mouth full of teeth that look flat and even. You’d never know how sharp they are until you’re sliding down his gullet.

  That little devil darling.

  I can’t escape it.

  What I’m about to tell you is going to sound unbelievable.

  I’m no fool. Folks are going to read this and think, “I don’t know who this Buddy guy thinks he is, but he ain’t gonna grift me.” But I have to write it down. I have to tell the story. Even if no one believes me. I have to while there’s still time. Before …

  Every sound, every creak, I’m looking for that smile. Anyone would say I was going loopy, but I know what’s true, I know what I’ve seen. I know what’s happened.

  You’ve got to read carefully. Words have never really been my thing. But I gotta use them, ’cause you can’t trust drawings.

  You can’t trust the drawings.

  There’s a lot of other folks involved. Too many. But if I can protect just one person, just one from what they’ve become …

  What we’ve all become …

  If you can find this, Dot. If you can find us …

  I guess I should begin at the beginning.

  And go on.

  * * *

  Until the end.

  Dreams come true, Buddy, that’s what he said. Mister Drew was no liar. Problem is, yeah, dreams do come true. But so do nightmares. Package deal.

  I didn’t understand any of that for a long time, to be honest. Dreams came true? For who? Rich folks, sure. But my family? Dreams were quick breaks between working your hands to the bone every day.

  I wish I could really capture what the Lower East Side was like the summer of 1946. I wish I could draw a picture of it: the sidewalks melting into the street and seeping into the sewer grates, steam squiggle lines rising up toward a harsh white sky, big fat juicy drops of water coming off folks’ foreheads. Maybe the word “sizzle” floating in the air.

  But I can’t draw it. I have to tell it.

  I’m trying to remember what I learned from you, Dot. How to write a good story. I have to remember what you used to say. To use all the five senses, not just sight.

  Writing isn’t drawing.

  The five senses. What are the other four again?

  Right.

  Sound: kids laughing and yelling at one another, adults shouting, glass breaking and then the sound of fists on flesh. Fights always happened when it got this hot. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, and the brain doesn’t work—turns to pink sloppy mush inside your skull, sloshing around and ready to pour out your ears.

  Touch: Your skin was always slick with sweat and everything under your fingers felt wet because you were wet. There was no way to feel dry.

  Smell: The air was always stale and still, unable to go up over the sides of the tall tenement buildings. It mostly smelled of piss. Made you want to throw up. Sometimes you did throw up. Oh! That’s another one. The smell of throw-up.

  Taste:

  Taste:

  Sorry, I can’t remember the taste right now. It’s too hard. All I can taste is the bitter in my mouth. That lingering taste of ink.

  Okay, so you get it. It was hot. And it matters you understand that, because I would have done anything to get out of this kind of hot, out of this neighborhood. I’d been running between sweatshops for a couple of years now. Ever since Pa died. Ma had taken over sewing the precut fabrics together, and I had dropped out of school and taken over for my cousin Lenny, delivering the finished suits and jackets to the boss, Mr. Schwartz. And then, you know, delivering the new pieces to Ma so she could do it all over again. We needed the cash. And it was the only way I could make Ma smile. I miss that.

  Ma’s smile. Gentle. Calm. Warm. The kind that reached all the way to her eyes.

  Not like his smile. Not like his smile at all.

  Anyway, I got paid, which was important.

  But I was almost seventeen now, and most of the other boys were just turning twelve and it felt stupid to be so old doing this job, and so when Mr. Schwartz suggested I be his go-to delivery guy, and explained I’d get to leave the neighborhood to travel all over the city, I said yes. There was green in other parts of the city. Trees and stuff. And the fancy neighborhoods didn’t smell like piss. And when I brought a finished suit to the Upper East Side, I could take a walk in the park and dip my feet in the boat lake.

  More important than any of that, I could watch the artists along the mall drawing pictures for tourists. Cartoons. I could watch them closely.

  This is where the problems started.

  First off, evidently artists are temperamental.

  “Hey, kid, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Just watching, sir.” Maybe this time I’d got a bit nearer to the canvas than usual.

  “Get out of here with your watching!”

  It was like getting to go to art school, except I bet at art school the teachers don’t chase you away and tell you you’re scaring off the customers because you’re hovering too close.

  But that wasn’t the biggest thing. See, something I haven’t said, because I guess you know by now, is I’m an artist. Well, now. Then I wasn’t. But I wanted to be. Not sure why; maybe it had something to do with my grandfather I’d never met. Who was still back in Poland. I figured he must love art. After all, the one big thing he’d saved and sent with Ma from “the old country,” as she called it, was those darn paintings. People always were super surprised to see these huge oil paintings in a small tenement apartment. She could’ve sold them. For a lot of money. But she didn’t. And that always stayed with me.

  I started by drawing sketches late at night, sleeping in and being late for class. Then I got sent to the principal’s office a lot for “doodling” during the day, and, boy, I loved the funny pages. I’d run around the neighborhood, collecting discarded newspapers, hoping to read the latest Popeye or Dick Tracy. I even started drawing comics, making up adventures with Olive Oyl, Pruneface, Sparkle Plenty. Soon I was inventing my own characters. They weren’t funny. I didn’t show them to anyone.

  But then I found the artists in Central Park. And, let’s just say, I got distracted.

  “You lost the suit?” Mr. Schwartz could be pretty scary for a man who was only five feet tall.

  “I’m sorry, sir! I swear it’ll never happen again!” I’d only put it down for a second to get a closer look at a drawing, but that was enough time for someone else to be sneaky and scoop it up.

  “What about last time, when you were three hours late? My client almost didn’t make it to his appointment on time.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You want to be my apprentice? You want to make a good, honest living?”

  I did, I really did. I needed the cash. We, my ma and I, needed the cash. And no one would hire some teenager from the slums who barely had an education. To be Mr. Schwartz’s right-hand man, that was more than I could have hoped for. Boy, I felt stupid. And ashamed.

  “One more chance, Buddy, one more and then that’s it.
”

  One more chance.

  This was my one last chance.

  Then I met him.

  When I first went to his studio to deliver him his suit, the clothing bag slung over my right shoulder, there had been a blackout ’cause of the heat. Not just in the studio’s tall brick building, but also in the rest of the neighborhood. The flashing lights on the theater marquees were still, and as I passed by the dark sign for St. Louis Woman, two stagehands were staring up at the building, hands on hips, toothpicks dangling out of their mouths.

  “Now what, Steve?”

  “Show must go on.”

  “That’s what they say, alright.”

  It hadn’t really clicked in my mind there’d been a blackout until a few blocks later west when I passed a theater off Broadway and finally arrived at the studio next door. I’d been super focused getting there, but I was already late. This time it wasn’t my fault. It was the subway, I swear. But Mr. Schwartz wouldn’t know the difference. I had to make up the time, so I was walking fast and not really noticing much of the world around me. But when I stepped into the muddy dark it jarred me back to reality. And I stopped and just stood there. It was so black you couldn’t really tell which way was up.

  Then, suddenly, it was super bright, like someone was shining a light right at me. I held up my hand and the light flew off my face and I watched as the beam scanned the room until it found a gray-haired older woman sitting behind a huge desk. I jumped, surprised to see her just appear like that.

  “Gosh dangit, Norman,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut behind the lenses of her oversized glasses.

  “Projector’s gone out,” said Norman in a gruff voice.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, the power is out everywhere. Get that flashlight out of my eyes!” There was a pause. And then everything went black again with a click.

  Blacker, I should say. Blacker. After the glare from the direct light it was like not just the flashlight was turned off, but my eyes too. Gave me shivers up my spine.

  I didn’t know what to do. I had to deliver this suit already. I thought I could remember where the desk was, so maybe I could just stumble toward it?

  “Who’s the kid?” asked Norman from somewhere.

  “I don’t know, Norman.” There was the sound of a match scratching a surface and then that womph of a flame coming alive. The old woman’s face was distorted grotesquely with long, drawn-out shadows drooping down as she lit a lantern in her hand.

  And then there was light.

  It flickered and danced off the walls. There were framed posters hanging on them. They looked like movie posters. But cartoons. And of one character in particular. He was real smiley. I wanted to take a closer look. Where was I? What was this place? Why did the character kind of look familiar?

  “Okay, kid, I see you now. What do you want?” asked the woman sitting down so low behind the desk only her glasses and top of her head were visible.

  “I, uh …” It wasn’t complicated, but I’d forgotten who I was delivering to and looked down, fumbling with the black clothing bag in my arms to find the name.

  “Come closer, can’t hear a dang word you’re saying,” said the woman. Her hand appeared over the top of the desk and gave me a sharp wave to come over.

  I did while still searching for the name tag.

  “I have a suit,” I said, trying to buy time.

  “Uh-huh,” said the woman.

  Finally I found the tag.

  This was the first time his name ever made any kind of impression on me. The first time it meant something. All that had mattered up until then was to get it to the studio on time. To not get fired. That was the important part. So I knew the address, I knew it was on Broadway, but the name of the guy hadn’t been anything I saw in my mind’s eye. Hadn’t pictured it.

  “Come on, kid, I haven’t got all day.”

  “Joey Drew,” I said. “I’m looking for a Mister Joey Drew.”

  “Who’s lookin’ for him?” asked Norman, his voice filled with suspicion.

  “Mr. Schwartz,” I blurted out. It wasn’t exactly the best answer but the dark and this guy’s attitude made me nervous for some reason. And somehow the flickering light over that smiling cartoon character thing didn’t help either.

  “Who?” asked the woman.

  “The tailor, who made his suit. I’ve got Mister Drew’s suit. I’m the delivery guy. With … his … suit.”

  “He’s dead,” said Norman.

  I turned to the man. He was standing so far away from the lantern light he wasn’t more than an outline. “He … is?” My heart thudded in my chest. That didn’t make sense and also scared me in a strange way I couldn’t quite understand.

  “Nah,” replied Norman with a laugh. “Nah, he ain’t.”

  “I … don’t understand,” I said, turning back to the old woman.

  She just shrugged and said, “Norman’s jokes aren’t really something anyone understands.”

  “It was a joke?” I looked back at the outline of the man. Norman was still laughing, but it didn’t seem like a happy laugh, didn’t make me feel better, that’s for sure. “Come with me,” he said. “His girl’s out for the afternoon. You can take it to him personally.”

  I glanced at the woman and she nodded, so I figured that was permission to follow the guy. Even though, I’ll be honest, I really didn’t want to. I’d decided Norman and I were likely never going to really get on, you know?

  The man clicked on his flashlight and led the way down a narrow hall. His beam was more direct than the glow from the lantern, and all I could really see was his silhouette and the far end where there was an elevator grate. Every once in a while, though, you’d catch a flash of another poster, with more cartoon characters and such. They seemed so happy, even in the darkness, but they made me feel the same way as that smiling character from the foyer did. Weird.

  “Can’t use the elevator,” said Norman. His face was still in shadow, and I nodded because obviously with the power out and all … So he pushed through the door next to it. The light flashed on the word “stairs,” though, I mean, I could have guessed.

  We started to climb together, Norman’s light leading the way. Every once in a while I’d look back into the pool of blackness. It almost felt like everything behind me was being erased, like I had to hurry up or I’d be erased too.

  I’m just saying, it was really hot out and my brain was making up all kinds of stories.

  They say that life is stranger than fiction. But I never thought anything could top the strange stuff in my mind.

  I was wrong.

  Norman stopped when we reached the third floor. I was sweating, I tell you. My shirt and undershirt were soaked through, hair matted to my head. There was this drip from the base of my neck, sneaking down under my collar.

  “Here, kid,” said Norman, handing me the flashlight.

  “What’s this for?”

  “I know my way back to the booth, you don’t know nothin’. Keep going. Good luck.”

  I took the flashlight, and as Norman slipped deep into the shadows, I called out, “Keep going where?”

  “Up, kid, right up to the damn top.” He laughed in the darkness. Man, I didn’t like that laugh.

  So here I was, Mister Drew’s suit in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and a trickle of sweat that was working its way down my back to a not-so-happy location. And who knew how many stairs were ahead of me. I shone the light straight up to try to guess, but the old wooden stairs seemed like they went on forever. Straight up to heaven. I flashed the light down, saw the stairs beneath me. Going on into the dark. Straight down to … well, you get where I’m going with this.

  So I made my way up those stairs as fast as I could, and it was exhausting and hot, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, and maybe it was because of the stairs that any of this happened. Because I’ll tell you, when I got to the top and came out of the doors, and the air was even thicker all the way up here, th
e way the heat rises and all, I just collapsed. Fell right onto the floor. Didn’t pass out, just fell, hard and with this loud boom, and I guess Mister Drew heard it because he came out of his office.

  “Hey, what’s with the racket?” Even in my woozy state his voice impressed me. It was so sure of itself, and friendly. I can’t tell you what makes a voice sound friendly exactly, but I don’t think I’m the only one out there who would describe it like that. I think that’s what made people like him.

  Trust him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said from the floor. “I have a delivery for Mister Joey Drew.”

  “I’m Mister Joey Drew,” he said, and a hand materialized in front of me. I was supposed to grab it. So I did. He helped me up. “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He didn’t let go of my hand right away, looked at it for a moment almost like he was examining it. I wasn’t really sure what he was doing, but it seemed a bit odd. Finally he released it and said, “Come into my office, kid.”

  There were windows up here, so I could see without the flashlight.

  “Sit, drink this.” Mister Drew passed me a cup of warm water as I sat opposite him and his large wooden desk. I drank it and it was like it came from a fresh mountain spring. “So,” he asked, leaning back in his chair, “who are you and what are you doing here?”

  I took another big swig of water and then answered his questions. “I’m a delivery guy for Mr. Schwartz, and I brought you your suit.”

  “Ah!” said Mister Drew, slamming his hand hard on his desk and making me jump. I didn’t know then how much he did that, though I never got used to it, I’ll be honest. “That’s the suit! Fantastic! Pass it over.”

  So I did and Mister Drew unbuttoned the bag and nodded. He had this way about him, this over-the-top way like he was performing on a stage so everyone could see even the tiniest of actions. When he approved of something, like he did of the suit, it was the best feeling in the world. “This is swell, this is just swell. Look at that, that’s a craftsman right there.”

  Maybe because I was tired and hot, I don’t know, but I said, “Actually, that’s my ma’s work.”

  Mister Drew looked at me, and I felt the blood drain from my face. Why’d I say that? I swore inwardly.