The Whip

by Kondazian, Karen

  Charley looked like he was going to pass out for a minute, but rallied. “Where was I? What did you ask?”

  “I just wanted to know what you were going to do when you can’t coach anymore.”

  “Oh that’s right. Point of fact, I’m not coaching much these days anyways. I tend to my horses and my apple orchard, and when the sciatica isn’t laying me low, I do a little lumberjacking for the extra dollar. And I’m a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.”

  “You’re an Odd Fellow? What the hell are Odd Fellows?”

  “Hey don’t laugh Byrne; we do all kinds of charitable shit. It’s a great group of men who love to be of service. It’s an honor. Have to be invited to join. We just raised enough money to help a young widow and her kids from losing their place.”

  “You’re not as tough as you appear to be, are you Charley?”

  The barkeep appeared once again and refilled both of their glasses.

  “Here’s to you changing the world. One widow at a time.” Byrne winked at him and laughed at his own joke as they downed the shot.

  “Changing the world,” Charley slurred. “Oh, shit yes…if I was young and strong again, I’d run for bloody President.”

  “What would you do if you were President Charley Parkhurst?”

  “There’s lots of bad things out there I’d fix. Stomp out what’s left of the fucking Ku Klux Klan for one.”

  They were then interrupted by a thin, crusty-faced man. “Hate to tell you gents but I just overheard what you said, and you’re fucking misinformed.”

  The stranger was already in his cups, sitting slouched on the bar stool behind Charley.

  “The great Klan is gone,” the man said. “Fucking Republicans took them down…threw ’em all in jail. When I get back home to Louisiana, I’m going to join the White League and help the good ole white Democrats get these fucking Republicans out of office. No matter what it takes. Long live the White League. Goddamnit, we sure as hell won’t lose this war.”

  “Is that right?” Charley growled.”I say, long live the Republicans. About time we took the fucking Klan down.” He turned his back on the man and continued his train of thought to Byrne.

  “Goddamned stranger…You know, first time I ever voted was Republican. For the great General Grant back in ’68. Took a bath, slicked back my hair, put on my best suit and headed into Soquel.”

  He stared into space.

  Byrne waited.

  Out of the clear blue Charley started laughing. “Yeah, got to the Tom Mann Hotel and there was this gaggle of suffragettes screaming in my ear.”

  Byrne wished he knew what was so funny.

  Charley continued on, “You know what? Put my first mark on a ballot at the ripe old age of 56. Would’ve voted for Lincoln back in ’60 too, but always seemed to be on the road voting time.”

  The stranger leaned toward Charley and interrupted again.

  “Lincoln? Grant? Those cocksuckers. Horatio Seymour should have won against Grant. He had a great slogan…This is a white man’s country, let white men rule.”

  Charley turned back, his voice quiet and cold. “Guess you’re not too happy about the 14th Amendment then are you? I hasten to remind you, Negroes are full American citizens now.”

  “If you’re not careful you piece of shit, with your nancy-boy politics, I’m gonna have to shut you up…gonna shove my fist down your fucking throat.”

  The man stood up knocking the bar stool over, and stepped forward towards Charley. But as he raised his fist, he lost focus, stumbled backwards, and collapsed into a drunken unconscious heap on the floor.

  A few men began to gather around Charley and Byrne.

  “Hey J.D.,” Charley shouted to the barkeep. “Get out your broom. Somebody here needs to sweep up the white man who rules.”

  Byrne started to hoot.

  Tiny, who had stopped playing piano in all the commotion, hopped up on the bar, and walked along the top of it pouring a round of celebratory drinks for everyone.

  “Free shots for all Republicans,” he yelled to the crowd. “And a double for my buddy Parkie.”

  After the double, Charley tipped himself down from the stool. His eyes caught the empty biscuit plate sitting there. He grabbed it. With Byrne in tow he staggered through the crowd of men towards the door. He caught sight of a nice-looking young man, a regular he knew from the saloon, and he thrust the plate at him.

  “Hey William, do me a favor and see to it that Abigail Simmons gets her plate back.”

  The man looked up surprised, his hands accepting the plate. “Abigail Simmons? Are you sure Charley?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m all set that way myself,” Charley said.

  The young man gave an insinuating smile and thanked him. Charley stumbled onwards through the door, Byrne right behind him.

  “I’m going this way to my hotel Charley. Where you headed?”

  “Gonna bunk down in the stable tonight. Ride home in the morning.”

  “Well…thanks for the terrifying coach ride and almost getting me beat up in the bar. I’ll never forget it or you. Oh, and I’ll get a copy of the article to you when it’s published.”

  “Hell, don’t worry about that. Just be sure you make me look good.”

  Charley turned and tottered off in the direction of the stables and his horse, away from the noisy brightness and loneliness of the saloon.

  ***

  And Byrne began his article this way: Imagine, he wrote. Imagine if you will, the last of the great stagecoaches thundering by in the dark of night: the whip and horses as one; the words “Wells Fargo” gleaming above the door, stenciled in gold. Two lamps swing from hooks on the front. No one sees the stagecoach but a lone wild dog pacing through the scrub.

  Five

  Watsonville, California

  December 28, 1879

  The table was covered with a red cloth and set for two. The interior of the small cabin glowed in the candlelight. Homemade curtains rippled from the dark recesses of the windows inward towards the illumination. Deliciousness hung in the air; something savory was cooking. Anna bent over the wood stove for a moment, adding fuel, the glow of the fire playing over her face.

  Close to sixty, one could still see in the secret places of that face, covered over by shadows and hard lines, what a beauty she must have been…a pressed rose now lost in the dusty pages of some nameless book.

  Anna heard the familiar sound of slow hoof beats approaching the cabin. She reached up to smooth her hair, her dark eyes tightening, apprehensive.

  A few minutes later the door of the cabin opened and Charley entered. Anna put her hands, protected by two checkered cloths, around the rim of a steaming tureen of soup, and carried it from the wood stove to the table.

  Charley reached with difficulty to hang his coat and hat on their customary hooks beside the door. He paused to rinse his hands and face in the basin of water, then turned and limped toward the table and sat down. Anna watched him with concern. Not a word had been spoken.

  Charley brought the spoon to his mouth, blew on it to cool it, and then tried to sip the broth. He could not swallow…the liquid spewed from his mouth. The exertion brought on a racking cough. Pain clouded his eyes.

  “Please let me help you. Let me go get the doctor.”

  The music of Anna’s Sicilian roots still, after all these years, colored her husky voice.

  Charley’s face was ashen, sweat beading down. When the cough subsided, he grunted, “No.”

  He heaved himself out of his chair. Anna watched him as he moved in a slow painful shuffle toward their bedroom; Anna’s lips pressed inward, her mouth a shadowy slash against pale skin. He vanished into the room, closing the door behind him.

  Charley sat on the bed patting his pockets until he found matches and a cigar. He bit off the end, lit the cigar a
nd took a deep draw. His exhalation became another wrenching cough.

  Anna stood up and made her way to the closed door.

  “Charley? Why won’t you let me help you?” She tried the knob. The door was bolted. “Damn it, you answer me.”

  “We all got to go sometime.” His voice was raspy and winded.

  “This is not a joke. Why do you lock the door?”

  There was no reply.

  “Alright. I don’t care. Even if you don’t like it, I’m going across to the Harmon’s, so George can go and get Dr. Irelan. Just lie down on the bed and rest. I will be back soon, I promise.”

  Still there was no response. Frustrated and helpless, holding back tears, Anna slapped the door with her hand. She grabbed her coat and walked out of the cabin.

  A moment later, when Charley opened the door, he saw that she was gone. He turned back, shutting the bedroom door again. He started to take another pull on the cigar but his lips had no strength. His arm felt heavy holding it. The cigar fell from his fingers to the floor. He stared down at it. He put it out with his boot. A stabbing pain ran down his arm.

  He sat back down on the bed…his breathing still labored, his throat tight. He took from his pocket a small tin. Sliding open the top, he removed several opium tablets from inside. Somehow he managed to swallow them. He bent and pulled off his boots. He felt winded…like he had been kicked in the gut. With great expense to his body, he dropped down to the floor on his knees in front of the bed.

  Reaching well under it, he pulled towards him the little trunk hidden there. He brushed a thick layer of dust off the top and stared at it for a moment as though it were a stranger. He took a little key from his pocket, turned it in its lock and then raised the lid. Reaching in, he pulled out something small and fragile and red. He held it up in his hands. It was a tiny embroidered homespun dress…the dress of a small child.

  Charley lifted the dress to his face, breathing from it as though it might give him life. He put it down on the floor alongside him and reached back into the trunk: a tiny pair of crocheted shoes. With care, he placed them below the little red dress. His shoulders rose and fell. Next, a tattered copy of Emerson’s Essays. And then lastly, a coiled dusty old whip.

  It meant something, Charley thought, that he’d held onto these souvenirs from a life that had long since ceased to be his.

  He pulled himself up from the floor.

  He was feeling ensnared beneath his garments. He felt he might smother within their bindings. He had to remove them and free himself from their grasp. He stripped off his shirt. His back and chest were wrapped round with wide bands of cotton stripping. He began to unwind the coarse cloths that bound him, and they fell in loops onto the floor.

  In a moment he was finished. Fighting against the waves of nausea and vertigo, he bent down to remove his pants and undergarments. His breath was short and strained and made a hollow yellow sound in his chest.

  He was naked now. He felt liberated, weightless, euphoric.

  In the dark glow of the candlelight, he stood in front of a small silver framed mirror perched on his bureau. There he watched himself remove the last bit of cover on his body…the black patch from his left eye, revealing an opaque, sightless orb.

  Next he took the mirror, his hands trembling, and moved it all around his body, every inch that he could see. He put the mirror back in its place.

  He took his hands and moved them to his waist and onto the hair of his groin. His hands touched the softness of his chest and then the roughness of his face.

  Unexpected tears came to his eyes.

  He lay down naked and spent on top of the blanket and looked up into the shadows of the air above.

  In the distance, he could hear his breath rattling.

  How strange it was. All that seemed to be left of this world now was breath.

  Then a sound came to him. A whistle. And fluttering…tiny flapping—orange against the blue.

  The candle next to the bed sputtered, struggling to stay lit.

  Warm blood escaped from his mouth. He sensed now, that he was a stranger to that flesh beneath, to that final intake of breath. Without fear, without surprise…the realization that in that moment he was about to die.

  Six

  Boston, Massachusetts

  March 1812

  It was March of 1812, the month when wagon-ruts were filled with cold, dark puddles—the month of mud and suicide in New England. Inauspicious thunder rumbled that morning from dark, low-hanging clouds. The rain was freezing. It came down slanted. A wagon clattered up the road toward a dreary-looking institution surrounded by barren winter fields. It was the Boston Society for Destitute Children.

  From a distance the building looked bleak—somebody’s old mansion converted by committee work to a good cause. From closer up the building looked not merely bleak but stricken. Shutters hung off. Paint peeling. A child’s rag doll was disintegrating in one of the puddles that pitted the front courtyard. The granite vases flanking the stairway were broken into great pieces.

  The wagon stopped in front. A young blond woman in a dark shawl, hugging a straw basket to her chest against the rain, stepped down and hurried toward the front door. She raised her fist and pounded hard against the peeling paint. Without waiting for a response, she knelt and placed the basket down on the topmost step. She had tucked a rag poppet inside the basket with her baby. She’d left a little note with no information of any earthly use. Neither of them, baby nor mother, was crying.

  The young woman returned to the wagon and touched the back of the hand of the older man beside her. He grimaced and slapped the reins across the back of the nags.

  The door of the orphanage opened and a man, the headmaster, appeared. Seeing no one in front of him, he looked down for a baby. Indeed, there it was. Another one. He bent down to pick it up. He held it so that it might also see the wagon moving away down the road.

  “Wave good-bye to mommy,” said the headmaster. “Wave bye-bye. You’ll not see her again.”

  Seven

  That night it was still raining; it had been raining for days. A flash of light, followed by a deafening crash of thunder, illuminated the room revealing long rows of crude beds, each with one or more sleeping children.

  The noise awakened the baby, hemmed in by pillows on a bed. She rooted for a breast. She thrashed her little hands out and grasped nothing. The baby whimpered, then started to wail. In a moment she was screaming, hot and red-faced.

  All up and down the rows, the screaming ignited the other children, who burst with some relief into tears. How they needed to cry, those children. Some of them had not even awakened. They were crying out loud from their sleep, crying their hearts out, knotted up in their coarse white nightclothes. It seemed there was not a dry eye or a closed mouth in the place.

  A fleshy, greasy-haired woman in a soiled nightdress appeared in the arched doorway, carrying a candle. She cast a grumpy eye over the room. Her mere appearance was enough to silence the children. They buried their faces in their pillows to stifle their sobs. The general racket died down, leaving a single burred, ear-splitting wail that moved up and down the audible registers: the baby, still screaming among her pillows.

  The woman lumbered over to the bed. For an instant the baby was diverted by the flickering candle in the woman’s hand. Curious, she paused her screaming. Then she caught sight of the woman’s big face coming closer and closer to her own, and howled even louder than before…with terror this time.

  The woman hoisted the baby up like a small plank onto one rolling hip. “We’ll have none of this now, missy,” she said. “Don’t I need my beauty sleep like anyone else?”

  Carrying the squirming, screaming bundle under one arm she strode past the rows of beds. As she passed by, the children in each row feigned sleep, holding themselves still, not relaxing nor peeking out from their pillo
ws till they knew she’d gone.

  Lee Colton however, a skinny somber-looking boy of four, slipped out of the bed he shared with another boy, and followed at a canny distance. Curious where the mean fat lady was taking the crying baby, he continued to follow them. He tiptoed through another room of beds, and then down a long hallway, past a heavy mahogany wardrobe, and then further down the hallway at the end of which there was a door.

  The woman held the child against her hip with her big elbow and pulled the door open. Inside was a cramped, dark space filled with shelves of stained linen. She set the baby into a laundry basket on the floor. “When you stop your bloody caterwaulin’, then you can come out.”

  She stepped back, yawned, and closed the door. A moment of silence, and then the muffled sound of redoubled screaming from within. In the laundry closet, utter darkness had descended.

  The woman turned, grunted with exasperation, and lumbered back down the hallway.

  Lee had drawn himself into a corner where the mahogany wardrobe met the wall, and now he inhaled and held his breath. The woman moved with much slapping and sliding of her flesh against itself. She wheezed and she thumped, too. The light from the candle illuminated the high parts of the walls and then the lower parts. Lee closed his eyes. In a moment she had heaved herself by him. He could hear her belabored passage into the dormitory, and then into the one after it. He could hear the final closing of the door. The children in their rows of beds were now breathing, unclenching their fists. Lee opened his eyes. He knew the children were whimpering themselves to sleep now.

  There was a little moonlight filtering in through a window, and he could make his way by it. He moved to the closet door and stood outside it for a moment. He listened to the frantic cries of the baby. Standing there in indecision, he hoisted up his baggy long underwear. He put his hand on the closet door handle. He had to stop the crying, he had to save the pretty baby. Turning to look once more behind him, he slipped inside.

  Early the next morning the fleshy woman reappeared, in an acre or so of apron, sighing, put-upon, dragging with her through the rooms and hallways a mop and a pail of dirty water. She paused at the laundry closet, put her hand on the knob, and yanked open the door. She stopped in mid-movement. Inside the closet, Lee was sound asleep, the baby, safe in his arms, staring up at him.