Palisades Park by Alan Brennert Page A

would never know—with a fusillade of acorns that went Bam! Pop! Bam! as they peppered the concrete. Far from discouraged, she and Jack would retreat under a wooden crate or cardboard box and pretend they were taking tommy-gun fire from Jimmy Cagney, ducking out long enough to cry “You dirty rat!” and fire their Wyandotte water pistols at the imaginary Cagney.
    The apartment was close enough that Eddie could walk to Palisades as Adele took the children to Marie’s, who babysat them while their parents worked. Marie adored them, as did Franklin, who remarkably even drank less when they were around. He would hoist Antoinette up into the air and call her “my baby’s baby,” which Adele found quietly touching. “She’s good for him,” Marie confided to Adele. “I think she reminds him of you when you were small, before everything started to go wrong for him.”
    Business at the park had been modestly encouraging since it opened under the new management at the end of May, and Eddie was feeling cautiously optimistic. But his bright mood was dispelled on an otherwise sunny morning in June when, as he was making his way south down Palisade Avenue in Fort Lee, he recognized a familiar figure heading toward him from the opposite direction. It was Arthur Holden.
    Eddie felt awkward as hell, but as he drew closer he put on a cheery smile and called out, “Hey, Art, how’s it going?”
    Holden cut a far different figure from the dashing performer who used to stride confidently down the midway. As Arthur approached, Eddie could see that physically he appeared fine—no limp or any other aftereffect from a car accident that had sidelined him last season—but there was a sadness and loss in his face that almost made Eddie’s heart break.
    “Hello, Eddie,” he said with a smile, the two men shaking hands as they met. “Off to the park?”
    “Yeah, back to the grind,” Eddie said. “You’re looking good, Art.”
    “I feel good. Good as ever. That’s the hell of it.”
    Although fully recuperated from his accident, Holden had not been engaged by the Rosenthals for another season at Palisades. “They think I’m washed up,” Arthur said bitterly, “but I’m not. I can still do the act, Eddie, if only they’d give me a chance.”
    Eddie didn’t know what to say, but Holden had enough to say for both of them: “Hell, do you know how many bones I’ve broken over the years? Both legs, three times apiece! Fractured a dozen ribs, my right foot, my left arm … not counting all the times I’ve been knocked cold hitting the side of the tank. And I always came back from it! Like I can now.”
    “I know, that’s rough luck,” Eddie said. “Say, you used to play Olympic Park, didn’t you? Have you tried them? Or Coney Island?”
    “Nobody wants to take a chance on a fifty-eight-year-old high diver,” Holden said bleakly. “Florence and I have been on relief for months.”
    “Jeez, Art, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Eddie said. “You need some cash? I can spot you twenty bucks if you need it.”
    Arthur seemed touched by that and put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Thanks, Eddie, that’s damned nice of you. But all I really need is another chance to show what I can do. I guess I’ve just got to start all over again, like I did in Brooklyn. And if I can’t cut it, well, better to be out of the picture than just a sad old relic gathering dust.”
    He held out his hand again and Eddie took it. “All of you at Palisades, you’ve been like a family to me,” he said with a melancholy smile. “I really appreciate it. Take it easy, Eddie.”
    “Yeah,” Eddie said, feeling the opposite, a vague unease, “you too, Art.”
    Holden strode away, continuing north on Palisade Avenue as Eddie continued south—disturbed, he couldn’t say why, by the whole meeting. It did seem as if Arthur had gotten a raw deal, but he wasn’t the only performer the Rosenthals had dropped, and Eddie suspected it was as much about