“You wanted to see me, Mr. Hainsworth?”
“I did. I suppose you’ve heard about the financial panic?”
“Yes. Some of my projects have been withdrawn, but I’m managing.”
The banker nodded, distractedly. “The future is bleak, very bleak, indeed,” he said, as though he were talking to himself. “Forty thousand unemployed and almost a thousand merchants have shuttered their doors. Losses are at a staggering one hundred and twenty million dollars.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“It is. Oh, it is.” He finally looked at Michael. “I’m sorry, but I have to call in your loan.”
For a moment, Michael’s mind went blank and his stomach clenched. “I … I don’t understand …”
Hainsworth turned away from Michael’s bewildered expression. “I told you that there might come a time when we would have to call in your loan.”
“You said that would happen if I didn’t pay. I’m current on my monthly note.”
“It doesn’t matter, we have to call in the loan.”
“Then you mislead me, Mr. Hainsworth. You said nothing about calling in the loan as long as I was current in my payments.”
“It’s in the fine print,” the banker pointed out.
“Well, I guess I didn’t read the fine print,” Michael snapped back. “Mr. Hainsworth, I can’t afford to pay off the entire loan. You know I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Then you leave us no choice but to seize your warehouse and all your assets.”
“But you can’t do that—”
“We can and we will.”
Michael slumped in his chair. He hadn’t read the fine print, but he was sure the banker was within his rights. There was no use in arguing further. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning I’ll send men to board up the warehouse.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Try to sell it. Although, God knows that will be difficult, given the hard times that are upon us.”
“So, you’re telling me I have to go back to my warehouse and inform fifty men that they are out of work?”
“Look at it from our point of view, Ranahan. Gotham Bank has lent millions and millions of dollars to other banks as well as individual clients. One by one they’re going bankrupt or defaulting on their loans. We’re losing a fortune. In fact, we may go under ourselves.”
Michael stood up. “You’ll get no sympathy from me, Mr. Hainsworth.” And on those words, he stormed out the office.
He got back to the warehouse just as the men were returning. He waited until everyone was there. Then he came out of his office. “Men, listen up. I have some bad news.”
All conversation stopped and it was suddenly deathly quiet. Judging by the expressions on their faces, they knew what was coming. “I’ve just come from my banker. They’ve called in my loan.”
“What does that mean?” Flynn asked.
“It means I have to pay the full loan amount, but I don’t have the money.”
“What does that mean for us?” asked one of the workers whose wife was about to give birth.
“It means,” Michael’s voice cracked, “that as of tomorrow morning, the bank owns Ranahan Construction.”
“Do you think they’ll keep us on?” someone asked.
“No. Banks don’t know how to run a construction company. They’ll try to find a buyer.”
The men were too stunned to protest. One by one, they filed out of the warehouse in silence. Michael went back to his office.
Flynn stood in the doorway. “What’s next, Michael?”
“I need to find a job. So do you.”
“I’m not so bad off. I don’t have a family to feed.”
Dreading telling Emily about what had just transpired, Michael aimlessly walked the streets for hours and what he saw made him even more depressed. On almost every block a bank was shuttered or a business boarded up. Hollow-eyed and disoriented men wandered the streets, some of them trying to peddle the tools of their trade. But, of course, there were no buyers. Finally, it started getting dark and he went home.
“Did you work late tonight?” Emily asked when he came through the door. “Your dinner is on the stove, I’ll—” She stopped talking when she saw the expression on his face. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Is it bad, Michael?”
His eyes filled with tears. “I’ve lost the business, Emily. It’s gone. Everything I’ve worked for since we came here is gone. All gone.”
She rushed to him and buried her face in his chest. “I’m so sorry, Michael.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I’ve let you and the children down.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve always done your best for us. No one has worked harder than you.”
“If only I hadn’t taken out that second loan. I was blinded by greed.”
“That’s not true. You did what any decent man would do for his family; you tried to give us a better life.”
He clung to her. “Emily, I can’t believe I’ve lost everything in the blink of an eye.”
She led him to the table and they both sat down. “All right, let’s look at the bright side. All the children are healthy. We’ve put enough money aside so we can afford to stay here for at least a year. You’ll get a job and we’ll just start over. In the meantime, I can make money by bringing in laundry.”
Michael slammed his hand down on the table. “You’ll do no such thing. Your father was a lord, Emily. You were a lady.”
Emily took his hand. “Michael,” she said softly, “all that is gone. Lost and gone forever. Now, I’m just Emily Ranahan.”
Michael kissed her hand. “I’m so fortunate to have married you, but I’m afraid you got the sorry end of the bargain.”
She stroked his cheek. “That’s not true. I know of no finer man than you.”
He stared off into the middle distance, a devastated expression on his face. “I just don’t understand any of it. How could one man, or a handful of bankers, create such misery for so many undeserving souls?”
Emily said nothing. She had no answer.
Over the next several weeks, from sunup to sundown, Michael walked the streets searching for work. He didn’t encounter many of the dreaded No Irish Need Apply signs, but it didn’t matter. There was simply no work to be found anywhere.
Finally, in desperation, one dull October morning, he swallowed his pride and decided to go see Tommy Walsh.
Inside the Tammany Hall building, he went up to a desk manned by an elderly gentleman. “Who is it you wish to see?” he asked.
“Mr. Thomas Walsh.”
“And your name is?”
“Michael Ranahan.”
The man ran his finger down a long list of names and his finger stopped on one. He squinted up at Michael and his whole demeanor changed. “Mr. Walsh is not available,” he said brusquely.
“Is my name on that list?”
The man opened a drawer and slid the list inside. “That’s none of your business.”
“I must see Mr. Walsh.”
“I told you—”
Before he could finish, Michael bolted for the stairs.
“Stop, you can’t go up there without permission—”
Breathing heavily, Michael stopped in front of Walsh’s office and took a deep breath to get his breathing under control. Then, without knocking, he opened the door and went in.
Tommy Walsh was even more jowly than he remembered. His flaming red hair was now a more subdued auburn. Walsh glanced up over his newspaper. “You look familiar. What’s your name again?”
“Michael Ranahan.”
Walsh’s face turned the color of his hair and he jumped to his feet. “Ranahan! Get the hell out of my office, you damn traitor.”
“Please, let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. We asked for your help and you refused. Tammany has a long memory. What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“I need a job.”
Walsh’s eyes narrowed and then he sat back down and burst out laughing. “A job, is it? Aren’t you the cheeky one? You turn your back on Tammany and now you expect us to help you find a job?” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Get the hell out of here.”
“I couldn’t let my men off work that election day, Mr. Walsh. As I told your man, I had several contracts that were on deadline. If I hadn’t completed the work by the contractual dates, it would have been ruin for me and the loss of my business. Besides,” Michael added feebly, “Mr. Wood won without my help.”
Walsh lit up a cigar. “And no thanks to you. So, what happened to your fine business?” he asked, sarcastically.
“The bank called in my loan. I couldn’t pay and I lost everything.”
“Well, that’s the way of the world, isn’t it?” He picked up his newspaper and resumed reading.
A despondent Michael turned toward the door. It had taken all his courage to come here, but he’d hoped—prayed—Walsh might offer him a job. The knot in his stomach tightened. This had been his last hope. Where could he go from here?
As he opened the door, Walsh said, “Wait.”
Michael stood riveted in the door while Walsh studied him. Then, pointing his cigar, he said, “Unlike you, Ranahan, I am a loyal man. I haven’t forgotten what you did for my sister and because of that I’ll find you a job.”
Michael felt the crushing weight of the world lifting from his shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Walsh. Thank you.”
“You can show us how thankful you are the next time we come to you for help.”
He wrote an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Michael. “It’s not much of a job, but, considering the financial chaos going on in this city, just be grateful you have one. Be there at eight o’clock sharp.”
Emily looked at the wall clock in the kitchen. It was just after seven. The kids had been put to bed, Letta had gone to see Otto, and the house was blessedly quiet. Normally, she enjoyed this quiet time alone—Dermot had been particularly raucous today—but now, instead of being able to relax, she was tense. Every night since he’d lost the business, Michael came home dejected from another fruitless day of searching for work. Her heart ached for him, but there was nothing to be done but wait for him to come home, offer him encouragement, and try to get him to eat something.
She stiffened when she heard the key in the latch. Then he was standing there with a big grin on his face.
Emily rushed to him. “Have you found work?”
He picked her up and twirled her. “I have.”
“What kind of job is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What—?”
“I went to Tammany Hall today and spoke to Mr. Walsh. He was understandably angry at me, but he remembered what we’d done for his poor sister and he took pity on me.” He handed her the piece of paper. “Tomorrow morning I’m to go to this address.”
Emily studied the piece of paper on which was written: 14 Water Street and frowned. “And you don’t know what kind of job it is?”
“It’s a job, Emily, that’s all I know and I’m grateful for that.”
“You’re right. It is good news. I can’t wait to tell Henrietta and Cully. We’ve been invited to Sunday dinner.”
“No,” Michael snapped.
Emily was taken aback by the anger in his tone. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t face Cully.”
“Why not?”
“Emily, I lost the business. The business that Cully spent years building up. I just can’t face him.”
“He won’t blame you. If he still owned the business, he’d have lost it, too. It wasn’t you, Michael. It was the deviltry of a gang of dishonest bankers and speculators.”
Michael turned toward the stairs. “You go, if you want. I’ll stay home with the children.”
A soaking rain further added to the gray grimness of the rundown warehouses fronting Water Street on the lower east-side. Michael, drenched by the rain, checked the addresses until he came to 14 Water Street. He took a step back in dismay. Fourteen Water Street was an ugly, drab warehouse with windows so dirty it was impossible to see what was inside. Over the door, a decaying sign said: Clayton Coal Company.
He stepped inside and immediately began to choke on the coal dust swirling around the dimly lit, cavernous room. Mounds of coal, piled fifteen feet high, covered the entire floor, save for small pathways, like rabbit runs, that snaked around the mounds. Michael watched grim men scurry along these rabbit runs pushing overloaded wheelbarrows of coal. At first, he thought the men’s faces were just dirty from the coal dust, but on closer inspection, he saw that most of them were Negroes.
He spotted a tiny office in the corner. The sign on the open door said: J.T. Dunlap, manager. A small, wizened man with large, pointy ears that made him look like a gnome, looked up. “What do you want?”
“I was sent by Mr. Walsh.”
He gave Michael the once over. “This is hard work here.”
“I can do it. I was in construction.”
The man guffawed. “Construction? That ain’t hard work here.”
“Whatever it is, I can do it, sir.”
The man shrugged. “We’ll see.” He picked up a pen and opened a ledger. “Name?”
“Michael Ranahan.”
“The pay is three dollars a day, Monday to Saturday.”
Michael blanched. “Three dollars a day?” That was less than half what he’d been making when he was working for Cully.
“Take it or leave it.”
Michael reminded himself of the fact that the city was in desperate shape and he should be grateful that at least he had a job, such as it was. “I’ll take it.”
Dunlap squinted at the wall clock. “You start at seven and you end at seven. It’s after eight now. You’ll be docked an hour’s wage,” he said, as he meticulously made an entry in the ledger. “Kitch,” he bellowed, startling Michael, who didn’t think the little man could be so loud. “Get in here now.”
A moment later, a large Negro with broad shoulders and thick arms was standing in the doorway. “Yes, boss?”
“Show this man the ropes.”
“Yes, boss.” He looked Michael up and down as though trying to assess whether he would be up to the job. “Come with me,” he said, with a deep, resonant voice.
The man towered over Michael. “I’m Kitch. What’s yourn?”
“Michael.”
“Mi-kill …?”
“Close enough.”
“Well, Mikill, what you do to get sent to this hellhole?”
Michael shrugged. “I need a job.”
Kitch nodded. “Don’t we all. C’mon.”
They walked to the far end of the warehouse and out through a large opening to where two large finger piers thrust out into the waters of the East River. Several steamships were docked at each pier. Men scurried up and down gangplanks pushing wheelbarrows full of coal.
“It be pretty simple what we do,” Kitch explained. “We gets coal deliveries from steamships comin’ up from Pennsylvania and whatnot. We stores it here till the steamships that run betwixt here and Albany need to coal up. And dats about it. The coal come in, the coal go out. Fo’ the rest of the day you jest follows me and do what I do.”
While some of the other men stopped to watch with great interest, Kitch began to shovel coal into a wheelbarrow. Michael followed suit. When both wheelbarrows were full, Kitch looked at Michael’s load with a sly grin. “You ‘bout ready?”
Michael shrugged. “Lead on.”
With his powerful arms and shoulders, Kitch lifted the handles of his wheelbarrow and started for the pier. Michael did the same, but, inexplicably, his wheelbarrow seemed to suddenly have a mind of its own. It careened wildly to the right and then to the left. He tried mightily to get the wheelbarrow under control, but despite his best efforts it finally tipped over, spilling coal across the floor.
Kitch and the others roared with laugh
ter.
“It’s all ‘bout balance, see?” he explained to Michael. “You best learn to control that barrow or you gonna find yourself in the East River.”
Embarrassed, Michael began to furiously shovel more coal into his wheelbarrow. Kitch leaned over and whispered, “Don’t put much in there till you learns to control it.”
Michael did as he was told and by carefully paying attention to balance, he managed to get the wheelbarrow out to the pier. Now his next hurdle was negotiating the wheelbarrow up the gangplank, which was set at a precariously steep angle. Again, everyone stopped to watch.
Determined not to fall into the river, he gripped the handles tightly and made a run for the gangplank. He was wobbly and at times almost lost control of the wheelbarrow, but he made it. A grinning Kitch followed. “I thinks you got the hang of it.”
It was after eight by the time Michael got home. When he came through the door he was almost unrecognizable. His hair was matted with coal dust and his face and hands were black. His eyes were red-rimmed from the coal dust-laden air in the warehouse and his throat was raw from coughing up coal dust all day.
“Michael, you look a fright. What kind of work did you get?”
“It’s a coal company. I think I must have moved ten tons of coal today. At least that’s what it felt like. God, my back is killing me.”
“Will you go back tomorrow?”
“What choice do I have? It’s a job.”
“You can find another.”
“I doubt that. It’ll be all right. I’ll get used to it.”
“Go wash up. I’ll fix your supper.”
As Michael was going upstairs, Dermot came out of his room. When he saw his father’s dirty face, he laughed and pointed. “You look like a nigger.”
Without thinking, Michael backhanded his son, sending him crashing against a wall. “Don’t you ever use that word in this house, do you understand?”
Through defiant and angry tears, Dermot shouted, “All the kids say it.”
“I don’t care. You will not use that word in this house or anywhere else. Do you hear me?”
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