Bones of the Barbary Coast

by Daniel Hecht

  From the instant it burst from its cover to the time it vanished over the wall was a duration of perhaps three seconds. By the time the shock fully struck me, it was already gone. The surprise, coming after the long minutes of frozen terror, left me weak and dizzy. I tottered toward the main alley, willing to risk the known dangers there in preference to the mysterious one back in the courtyard.

  Only afterward did it occur to me that I had been crouched in that cellar stairwell with it, with him, for five minutes or more, unknowing, and that had he meant me harm, he could certainly have accomplished it. But he had held perfectly still and silent, just as I had. Though his profile and muscularity of movement were that of a predatory creature, it seemed to me he had checked his impulse to attack; in general, I saw that he had behaved like me—as if both of us were creatures in peril.

  23

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1889

  THERE is NO way to describe my actions but to give up and list my deceptions, lies, and contrivances. (Dearest Hans, if it is you who reads these words, I beg you to forgive me for my lies and for my hubris in defying you and all the customs of respectable society.)

  First, as the castaway sending his message to a stranger on an unknown shore, I must say that, lest it seem unlikely that a virtuous Christian woman of good society have a sister like mine, it is the reverse that is really improbable. That is, what is more remarkable is that I am not like her, that anyone could have escaped those circumstances which prevailed in this forever-unfinished city.

  Our father came, like thousands of others, in 1849. He was the n'er-do-well brother, fleeing the perpetual disapproval of his staid family in Mobile and determined to show his mettle by becoming richer than they through some luck in the gold fields. He came in a great wave of similar men to a hardscrabble outpost of a few thousand souls. Within two years, there were a hundred thousand such hopefuls here, all but a few disappointed, stranded far from their homes and hopes. In those early years, women were rare, perhaps one for every two hundred men; all but the tiniest proportion of those women drifted here, or were imported by shameless businessmen, for the purpose of meeting the sexual needs of the men. They came from small towns, or east coast cities, or Mexico or France, misled as to their real destiny, or desperate and having no good alternative, or forcibly abducted or coerced. Some came voluntarily to strike it rich where their services would be in much demand.

  My mother was one of those women. My sister and I were two of the thousands of children that inevitably resulted from so much spilled seed.

  Margaret was born in 1856, the year that the Second Committee of Vigilance made such a great upheaval and it seemed that California was in a state of insurrection; I was born in 1860. That my father lingered long enough with my mother to sire us both and to dwell even intermittently with us was perhaps the most steadfast act of his life. He was a weak man in every way. Unlucky or unwilling to exert himself, he drifted from job to job, scheme to scheme, throughout the towns and camps of the region. I am sure he and my mother loved or at least needed each other, or they would not have cast their lots together; yet when he could not earn enough to feed us, he was never reluctant to have my mother ply her former trade "to see us through." And when Margaret came into her maturity, he forced her to do the same. I am sure my turn would have come had he lived.

  My father did only one other thing of any virtue, which was that he read newspapers, magazines, pulp novels, and books on mining or business or even history. He was, after all, from a respectable family, and had spent a year at university. Sometimes he read aloud, and he left his literature about so that, being bright and highly curious children, we learned to read. Thus Margaret and I at least grew up literate and with a glimmering that there was another world beyond our own tawdry circumstances.

  For my first year of life, we lived in a mud-floored tent in the silver country, where my father thought he might strike it rich and where he again failed, and thereafter in whatever shack or tenement was available. What might have become of us I cannot say, but late in 1872, my father learned that his brother Franklin intended to move to San Francisco. Those were the years that a new sort of enterprising person was drawn by the prospect of fortunes to be made here, providing needed commodities to the burgeoning population. Franklin rightly saw the opportunity to make great profits in fabric and clothing sales in such a place.

  When my father heard of his intent, he was both concerned and inspired: concerned that his brother would learn his true circumstances of poverty and unmarried cohabitation with a whore and her bastards; inspired by the opportunity to capitalize on his brother's respectability and industrious nature. He conceived a scheme whereby we would misrepresent ourselves to Franklin as decent people, with the goal of securing a loan (ostensibly to start a business) or a job in his firm. Motivated by this plan, my father read us the Bible, knowing Franklin was religious, and strictly schooled us in speech and deportment. He contrived a fiction of our proper lives and had us memorize its details. We sisters were thirsty for such stimulus and of course were of an age that we did not mind putting on airs, and we absorbed it all quickly. So that we could afford to dress appropriately to meet Franklin, my father put my mother and sister "to work." We were living in two rooms near the Oakland docks then. My sister was leased to a brothel in San Francisco, where the trade was brisker and, being young, she could fetch a better fee. My mother did her business at our apartment.

  There is a great deal more to tell of this period, but this is a pathetic and painful recounting. It is almost impossible for me to write it down. I will hasten to the ending, which is both tragic and fortunate.

  On the day we were to meet Franklin, my mother and father and I took the ferry from Oakland. The boat capsized near the San Francisco side, drowning sixteen people, among them my parents.

  Ever curious, I had expressed interest about the operation of the vessel and had been invited to the pilot house by the kindly crew, and so was not at the railing with my parents. The newspapers have described in detail this famous tragedy, but I saw only my small share of it: I remember a sudden forceful thump, followed by a booming in the hull; then the floor canted abruptly and threw me against the pilot house wall. The port rail went under, and then the bulk of the ferry settled suddenly and sucked down those who had first fallen in. The crew helped me escape the listing hulk, and within moments boats sped from the docks to pick up the scores of swimmers and those who still clung to the decks.

  So my parents died. And so I lived, and my uncle, instead of meeting his brother that day, simply inherited a ward: a girl of thirteen, an orphan with good speech and deportment, some knowledge of the Bible, and one brand-new but ruined frock.

  My sister was not with us, as she was "at work" in the city. My uncle never knew she existed. It was ten years before I was able to find her again.

  Oh, I cannot continue this. It will have to wait for another day.

  FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1 8 89

  Here are the ways I have betrayed and deceived everyone. This will be a terrible list, but it confronts me whenever I face these pages and I had best dispense with it.

  I am the product of a sinful act between a weak and morally bereft man and a whore.

  My sister is a depraved whore and an opium addict, and I love her and forgive her utterly.

  I pretend to be a good woman of a fine home in Pacific Heights, yet I know the alleys of the worst sections of the Barbary Coast as well as any rat that skulks and skitters there.

  I practice deception daily in my every deed, as when I dress in the petticoats and bustles and corsets that are expected of me and envy those whores lounging comfortably and shamelessly in their open wrappers and transparent chemises. Even so mundane a thing as my household ledger is full of misrepresentations that conceal surreptitious expenditures.

  Hans, I cannot bear you any children because I sustained an infection of my womb that left me infertile from the age of eighteen; I am lying when I say I, too, hope and expect
that we will soon start a large family.

  Hans, I do not merely receive you when we engage in sexual intercourse; my ladylike passivity and seeming aloofness is a falsehood I adopt to act a woman of the class you imagine me to belong to; in fact I take great pleasure in the pressure of your powerful body upon mine and in your manhood, and I think about that pleasure inappropriately, even when I sit on the hard pews at church and feel your thigh against mine.

  And that brings me to the worst of all my lies, those pertaining to my faith. I cannot, will not, deny that I am a person of faith; I believe absolutely in our Lord Jesus and in the acts of kindness we bestow in order to emulate his life and to relieve suffering. But I lie when I claim to accept the literal truth of Scripture, the strict moral admonitions of our church fathers, or the rigid habits and customs of our denomination. My demure and docile behavior is a lie; in truth, I am a willful and wanton spirit, rebellious by nature, disobedient, full of secret thoughts and longings. I have some corrupt or pagan strain of mind, for I see more of God in the sunset over the ocean or a blossom in my garden than I do in church, hear more of His truth in the creak of a cricket than in any of Rev. Wallace's thunderous sermons. I cannot abide the Thompsons and their ilk, in all their fine clothes and manners and blindered lives, their intolerance and haughty privilege. I do not condemn the criminals and sinners we minister to, only pity them. My husband and the church fathers believe my devoted work at the mission derives from a fervent desire to bring sinners to Christ; but in fact it stems from no such lofty aspiration, only a simple, heartfelt urge to relieve them of some measure of pain and misery, and to justify my regular presence in the Barbary Coast and thus provide a pretext to visit my sister. I do not believe in Satan, only in a single God who is vaster and more mysterious than we are willing to conceive, and whose intentions for us no man, no minister or saint or prophet, can claim to understand.

  There, I have said it. I have written all the worst. I can hardly read my own word, my hand trembles with the expectation of some great punishment, some bolt from above. Yet though I would welcome it, none comes.

  TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1889

  No, no punishment came, only Cook, who startled me by appearing at the pantry door: I had been so immersed in my confessions that my attention had lapsed. I pretended my tears resulted from some irritant in my eye. I shut the ledger in an offhand way, told her I had already put water on, would she make the tea; she complained briefly of her toothache and trundled away.

  I read my confessions and cringe. I realize to my horror how like my father I must be, to have become such an accomplished dissembler and schemer. And yet pouring it out has proved a relief, like opening the valve of the pressure cooker, letting the steam go; the danger of explosion is past. Afterward, I have felt a strange serenity and acceptance. Perhaps I am also like my sister and mother, far too flexible of temperament or morals. Inwardly, I make something of a shrug, as Margaret did, as if to say to God, "What you see is what I am." I suppose I am like her, willfully choosing, or claiming to choose, a shameful life.

  But that long list has compounded my situation, in that I cannot tell anyone about the mysterious and fascinating creature. He is surely something rare and amazing, that might by his nature answer many questions we have so often considered in our religious discussion. At the very least, he lives a unique life and sees this world from a rare perspective, and I am very curious about him; yet circumstances prohibit my telling anyone, for there is no way to explain how I came to be crouched in a cellar stairwell in a gangway in that filthy warren at that hour, and so saw him.

  By the week-end, I had not yet solved this dilemma, and in any case, though I half wanted to return to that gangway, Saturday and Sunday left no time for surreptitious errands. Saturday is the mission's busiest day and night, for it is when the district's enterprises are most active: men from the entire region come to find whores, sailors pour off ships and gamblers flood in to fleece them, and the saloons with their randy shows are full to overflowing. It is a time when those with any religious impulse at all are prone to sudden remorse and likely to appear on our doorstep, when already poor men gamble away their last cent and have nowhere else to turn. It is also when footpads are out in force, and their victims, along with those of the fist-fights, knife fights, accidental fires, and drunken falls, keep dispensers of mercy quite occupied.

  Sunday is for church, a great relief: The somber, serene convocation in that big hall, on its placid street in the Western Addition, safely removed from the Barbary Coast, refreshes and reassures me. Afterward, Hans and I often entertain members of the congregation, and all is most proper and reverent and civilized—too much so, for me, by the end of the day. This Sunday we had the Schultzes and the Thompsons to dinner. The Schultzes are unassuming and kindly, but the Thompsons are stuffy and disapproving, and it was an interminable evening. Even Hans expresses some impatience with Mr. Thompson, but has derived lucrative contracts from their association and so feels compelled to endure his company. Among other things, Mr. Thompson harbors strong opinions about the Celestials, which he is not reluctant to express, so that I had to bite my tongue throughout our meal. And his wife is boring, which after some hours can seem a worse sin even than intolerance.

  But on Monday I rode to the mission with Deacon Skinner, and conceived a bold idea that like so many of mine required deception.

  "Deacon," I asked, as if it were an idle question, just banter, "what is your opinion of Charles Darwin?"

  "He is a scoundrel!" he answered immediately. "No, worse—a minion of Satan. The only question is, witting or unwitting?" Then, scowling: "What prompts you to ask? You have surely heard my views a hundred times."

  "Of course. But have you read his works?"

  "I have indeed. I only recently finished The Descent of Man. Aptly named, I thought. Myself, I am distinctly in favor of ascent, thank you!"

  He looked at me askance, knowing I was up to some mischief. Deacon Skinner is an avid naturalist, who has closely studied the flora and fauna of the Peninsula and has gathered and catalogued an impressive collection of specimens.

  "So it is a flawed thesis?" I persisted.

  "It is in direct contradiction of holy Scripture."

  "Says the deacon and stalwart pillar of Good Savior Church. What does the naturalist say?" I maintained a small smile, as if unaware of how daring such a question was.

  He was most exasperated with me, but soon became thoughtful and resigned. "Oh, Lydia," he sighed, "flawed or not, I cannot accept it. Step on that slope and I am afraid it will become an avalanche that bears all mankind down with it. Look at the wretches we tend to every day. Their aspirations are fragile enough, aren't they? Their hopes of better things? The naturalist, too, prefers to maintain a belief in divinity."

  He had answered more candidly than I ever expected. In sympathy, I put my hand on his arm, and we said no more for a long time. We were nearing the mission when I spoke again, as if it had just occurred to me: "Deacon, last week a woman told me that she knew of a man in most miserable circumstances. He is elderly, she says, living in the streets, afraid to ask for help. Have you time for a short detour? She told me where he is . . . I am thinking we might find him if we go now."

  In this deception there was little risk of discovery, for I am well known for seeking out unfortunates; Rev. Smith calls me his "scout," good at locating souls who have been prepared by desperation to receive Christ.

  Deacon Skinner assented, and I pretended to recall the woman's directions uncertainly as I guided him toward that gangway. We found Nottingham, turned, then came to the alley in which I had encountered the two men. This was too narrow for the deacon's rig, so he tied the horse with some uneasiness and we walked in together, Deacon Skinner looking stern and carrying his brass-headed stick prominently, though we did not encounter anybody.

  "Perhaps here," I said when we arrived at the narrow passage.

  I felt considerable anxiety about what we might find, but in dayl
ight its aspect was somewhat different; the sense of menace was lessened, the air of squalor and pathos amplified. I had not noticed the buildings in the dark, but the one on the left was in fact empty, obviously fire-damaged, with its windows and doorways boarded. We walked uneasily in the cut between, our shoulders brushing the walls on either side. At the end, the little courtyard opened, cut off by the wall, and the stairs came down just as I remembered.

  Seeing it now, I realized that it would be a feat of considerable athleticism to leap and catch the top of that wall, and abruptly I became afraid that the creature might turn on us. My wish had been to have Deacon Skinner glimpse him, too, to gain both a naturalist's and a religious man's perspective, and so enlist his help in determining what this being was and what we as Christians ought to do. Thinking of the strength the creature had displayed, I became afraid I had brought dear old Deacon Skinner, knob-head cane or no, into grave danger.

  But aside from refuse, the courtyard was empty. Deacon Skinner peered first into the cellar stairwell, and announced, "Well, here's his nest, that's for certain."

  And when I looked in, I was shocked. I had pressed myself to the left wall, up into the shadows of the descending stair; only a few feet from where I'd stood was a pile of rags, clearly a spot where someone had slept repeatedly. There were bones of small animals, as if many meals had been taken there, and a few bottles arranged in a row. The door into the cellar was of thick oak planks, iron-bound and heavily padlocked, so he had not been somewhere inside; I had stood within inches of the creature all that time.

  "Are you all right, Sister Lydia?" Deacon Skinner asked.

  I had no doubt grown pale, and felt so weak I gripped his arm to steady myself. "Well, we have found the place, if not the man," I said. "It is a wretched spot to call home, isn't it?"