This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann

the same shadows. He watches as she takes both hands off the bars and stretches her arms wide, tottering slightly but still keeping her bicycle true to the long lines of dark.
    When they reach the far side of the bridge, Eleanor leans her bike against Walker’s. They spread a blanket on the concrete to share a picnic before they release the birds: a bottle of Coca-Cola, a bar of chocolate, some bread with cheddar cheese.
    Eleanor touches Walker’s wrist, points at the pigeons in the cages—one orange and one blue—and they both laugh.
    Halfway through the picnic, a passing pedestrian spits in Walker’s face and shouts at Eleanor, “Nigger lover!”
    She thumbs her nose at the pedestrian and Walker wipes the spit away with a handkerchief. He drops the handkerchief off the bridge toward the water. They watch it spiral away. He says nothing, but they pack the last of the picnic back into the basket, take out two jars of paint, and later they release the pigeons into the air.
    The couple pedal furiously back across the bridge, watching the pigeons vying for the lead.
    Walker is way out in front, the empty cages still balanced on the front of the bike. “Wait for me!” shouts Eleanor. The pigeons disappear in the sky.
    When the two cyclists arrive back at Vannucci’s home, both of the gambling men are furious. In their hands each holds a pigeon that has been newly painted, half orange, half blue.
    They are fighting over which one belongs to whom and who is the rightful owner of the two dollars. Walker and Eleanor stand on the tenement rooftop, doubled over with laughter.
    The two men give the couple strange glances, then tuck the multicolored pigeons back into the coop.
    â€œFrig me,” says Power.
    â€œWhat is frig?” asks Vannucci.
    â€œA frig is…”
    And then Power, too, starts to chuckle.
    â€œA frig,” he says, winking at Walker, “a frig is somewheres ya keep things cool.”
    *   *   *
    Eleanor places a picture of her mother and father on her bedside table. It was taken at a summer carnival in Brooklyn in the early years of the century, a Ferris wheel in the background static against the sky like a cheap bracelet. Con O’Leary has the beginnings of a mustache smudged above his lip. Maura’s dress is buttoned high at her neck, but the third and fourth buttons have popped open, unnoticed, revealing cleavage. They are standing by the strong-arm machine. The bell on the machine is at the very top—where it says STRONGMAN EXTRAORDINARY !—and Eleanor is sure that her father is the one who has just slammed down the hammer. He is smiling, his belly is full and proud, and his cheeks are puffed out. Eleanor likes to think of him in that same position when she takes the subway out on weekday mornings to the Brooklyn Heights haberdashery where she works. She salutes her father’s sleeping form as she travels back and forth underneath the river. She doesn’t think of him as agonized or frozen in a strange ascension—rather, he is upright, proud, standing by some muck-bed strong-arm machine, held in tableau, grinning.
    *   *   *
    Familiar and trembling, they meet in darkness. One evening on a park bench she asks Walker to comb her hair. He steps behind the bench. Her hair is heavy, pendant. When he is finished, she turns and kneels on the wooden slats and leans toward him. In his hands he can still feel the weight of her hair. She says his name out loud: Nathan. He looks at her, and it seems to him that her voice bends back the nearby grasses.
    *   *   *
    Eighteen years after the blowout, Nathan Walker emerges from a railway freight tunnel on the West Side of Manhattan.
    Quick clouds cast shadows, and the streets are thatched with ribbons of sunlight. There is a spring in his step, although he has been digging all day. Working the railway tunnel is easier than working underwater,