A View from the Bridge Read Online Free Page A

Puts watch back in his pocket.
    They continue eating in silence.
    CATHERINE: He’s bringin’ them ten o’clock, Tony?
    EDDIE: Around, yeah. He eats.
    CATHERINE: Eddie, suppose somebody asks if they’re livin’ here. He looks at her as though already she had divulged something publicly. Defensively: I mean if they ask.
    EDDIE: Now look, Baby, I can see we’re gettin’ mixed up again here.
    CATHERINE: No, I just mean ... people’ll see them goin’ in and out.
    EDDIE: I don’t care who sees them goin’ in and out as long as you don’t see them goin’ in and out. And this goes for you too, B. You don’t see nothin’ and you don’t know nothin’.
    BEATRICE: What do you mean? I understand.
    EDDIE: You don’t understand; you still think you can talk about this to somebody just a little bit. Now lemme say it once and for all, because you’re makin’ me nervous again, both of you. I don’t care if somebody comes in the house and sees them sleepin’ on the floor, it never comes out of your mouth who they are or what they’re doin’ here.
    BEATRICE : Yeah, but my mother’ll know—
    EDDIE: Sure she’ll know, but just don’t you be the one who told her, that’s all. This is the United States government you’re playin’ with now, this is the Immigration Bureau. If you said it you knew it, if you didn’t say it you didn’t know it.
    CATHERINE: Yeah, but Eddie, suppose somebody—
    EDDIE : I don’t care what question it is. You—don’t —know—nothin’. They got stool pigeons all over this neighborhood they’re payin’ them every week for information, and you don’t know who they are. It could be your best friend. You hear? To Beatrice: Like Vinny Bolzano, remember Vinny?
    BEATRICE: Oh, yeah. God forbid.
    EDDIE: Tell her about Vinny. To Catherine: You think I’m blowin’ steam here? To Beatrice: Go ahead, tell her. To Catherine: You was a baby then. There was a family lived next door to her mother, he was about sixteen—
    BEATRICE: No, he was no more than fourteen, cause I was to his confirmation in Saint Agnes. But the family had an uncle that they were hidin’ in the house, and he snitched to the Immigration.
    CATHERINE: The kid snitched?
    EDDIE: On his own uncle!
    CATHERINE: What, was he crazy?
    EDDIE: He was crazy after, I tell you that, boy.
    BEATRICE: Oh, it was terrible. He had five brothers and the old father. And they grabbed him in the kitchen and pulled him down the stairs—three flights his head was bouncin’ like a coconut. And they spit on him in the street, his own father and his brothers. The whole neighborhood was cryin’.
    CATHERINE: Ts! So what happened to him?
    BEATRICE: I think he went away. To Eddie: I never seen him again; did you?
    EDDIE rises during this, taking out his watch: Him? You’ll never see him no more, a guy do a thing like that? How’s he gonna show his face? To Catherine, as he gets up uneasily: Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away. He is standing now, stretching his back.
    CATHERINE: Okay, I won’t say a word to nobody, I swear.
    EDDIE: Gonna rain tomorrow. We’ll be slidin’ all over the decks. Maybe you oughta put something on for them, they be here soon.
    BEATRICE: I only got fish, I hate to spoil it if they ate already. I’ll wait, it only takes a few minutes; I could broil it.
    CATHERINE: What happens, Eddie, when that ship pulls out and they ain’t on it, though? Don’t the captain say nothin’?
    EDDIE, slicing an apple with his pocket knife: Captain’s pieced off, what do you mean?
    CATHERINE: Even the captain?
    EDDIE: What’s the matter, the captain don’t have to live? Captain gets a piece, maybe one of the mates, piece for the guy in Italy who fixed the papers for them, Tony