This is why Mother never much liked fighting, even though it was fighting that had won her hand, for it was also fighting that first got my Da into trouble there in Liverpool, and it was fighting that transformed him in Leeds, where he took up the noble art of self-defense in any tavern or alley where men gathered for sport and blood and money. It was fighting that propelled the five of us—Marty, born in 1890, myself in ’91 and May a few years later—from Leeds to Wigan, not much of an improvement, mind you, but still moving in the right direction, which was more or less west, back toward Liverpool, back toward those docks, back toward the ocean, which led away from England and to America, where the Maddens’ bout with God would be decided once and for all.
The dreaming Monk let out a snort that woke me from my reverie and as I fixed my eyes I saw that he was looking at me with that stare that the living imagine is the gaze of the dead. He reached out, half swinging, all reflex, but he wasn’t trying to clip me. At the end of the punch he did something I’d never seen him do before: he opened his fist and made a hand. I took it and he held me tight, his great paw crushing my little mitt, but I didn’t care because he was not trying to take my strength from me. He was trying to give me what was left of his.
Chapter Eleven
The cove what killed my father was named Iron Tom Jefferson, a strapping Welshman undefeated in forty-two fights and more or less uninjured in same, not counting the occasional gouge or tooth mark from an unscrupulous yet nevertheless defeated opponent. Jefferson stood taller than six foot and weighed on the order of fourteen stone. The muscles in his forearms rippled as he grasped the rope to step into the makeshift ring, and a gasp went up from the crowd at this specimen of adult manhood.
In the other corner was the fine figure of Francis Madden. In contradistinction to his rival, Francis did not ripple, but was as sleek as a tiger, and before the opening bell rang he danced a little Irish jig, just to show the paying customers a thing or two and also to give the last-minute punters a chance to get their bets down, Jefferson having gone off at a 5 to 3 favorite.
This is not story now, but fact. I remember, because I was there. “Jeez, that Jefferson is a big sonofabitch!” I exclaimed.
The reason my Da was fighting Jefferson was threefold. The first was simple improvement in working conditions, for work in the mills was fierce. The incoming wool, whether pure merino or mongrel crossbreed, most of it still bloody, had to be sorted, graded and scoured down before it could be sent for processing into yarn. The scouring with alkaline soap was to remove not only the blood but the yolk, which is the name the woolen manufacturers give to the dried sheep sweat, made of lanolin and suint, that sticks to the wool. On the looms the warp and the weft had to be threaded intricately through the bobbins, and it made a great deal of difference whether the finished product was to be woolen or worsted, the distinction having to do with whether the fibers were carded or combed, and so on to the roving. A man or a woman could easily lose a finger or a hand in the carding machine, and worse misadventures awaited the unwary. I learned enough about wool to know that I never wanted to have anything to do with it.
The second was Irish pride. My Da was never one to let a fight pass him by, even those he should have, and when the challenge came from a local promoter named McCafferty to take on the champ, he couldn’t pass it up, no matter that his fellows at the mill told him he had no chance against the bigger man, that he’d be pounded into submission in no time flat. But the challenge was too great and the prize too dear.
Which brings me to the last and best reason: money. Da had placed our entire savings with the turf accountant, to be wagered on his own good self, for a week before, he and I had done the sums and realized that a win against the local champ would get us all out of Wigan and England forever.
The bell sounded and the two men came dashing out of their corners. Francis shot out a series of jabs, testing his man, but Jefferson laughed them off and, without preamble, swung from his heels with a roundhouse right. Da danced easily out of the way, for only a careless fool would get clipped by a punch like that, delivered from a mile away; now that he knew how Jefferson telegraphed his big swing, he could render it harmless by skittering along the edge of the ropes like a water bug, always alert for the incipient haymaker.
A more pressing issue for my father, as round one melted into rounds two, three, four and then five, was how to do some damage to his opposition. The jabs may have scored points with the aficionados of the fight game, but they were doing precious little damage to Jefferson. Crisp punches rolled off his cheek, nose and jaw like water off a duck’s arse. Da was contemplating the problem when he stupidly walked into a Jefferson right. It was as if his legs had been suddenly kicked out from underneath him.
“Get up, Da, and give it to the dirty bastard but good!” I cried, because what boy likes to see his Da lying flat on his back, blood gushing from his nose, and a monster standing over him, ready to clobber him again the minute he got to his feet, or even before.
“Is Da all right?” asked Marty.
“Don’t you worry,” I said. “Da’ll lick ’im.”
He got to his feet as the bell sounded. The roar from the crowd was something I’ll never forget, fear mixed with bloodlust. I liked it.
Just before he went out for the next round, Francis was able to turn quickly and shoot a quick wink at Mother, and I know for a fact she carried that wink with her for the rest of her days.
The following twenty-one rounds unfolded more or less in the manner of the first five, Jefferson swinging and Madden dancing, until the crowd began to whistle in derision. The good folks of Wigan were not used to seeing a bout go on so long without some significant level of mayhem. “Whatizis, a waltz?” wondered one souse, who had a fiver down on Jefferson and who in his own mind had not only already spent his winnings but explained their absence to the lady of the house.
By the twenty-eighth round it was clear to me that this frame was going to be the measure of both men. The previous round had ended with Da and Jefferson draped over each other like a couple of drunks. Jefferson was beginning to wear down, whether from the effects of Francis’s punches or the effort of his own, it didn’t matter. And Da was knackered.
Still, he came out battling. For the first time, he took the fight to Jefferson, catching him on the side of the ear and staggering him.
Right away, the crowd was on its feet, shouting for blood in the way that crowds do when they sense that something is up. Jefferson, enraged but gratified that his opponent was finally beginning to fight like a man, snorted and charged. Da tried to fend him off by throwing his arms around him, but Jefferson’s momentum was too great, and down they both went, Jefferson on top and Francis on the bottom. This Jefferson had not become champ without fighting dirty, and so he took this opportunity to sink his teeth into Da’s left cheek.
The ref pulled them apart and both men got unsteadily to their feet. The howling of the mob had now risen to painful levels: jungle excitement in the English Midlands.
Jefferson was confident that the finish was near. He stopped to play to the crowd for a moment and that proved to be his undoing, for Da had cleverly positioned himself just behind him, so that when Jefferson turned back, he caught the full force of a Madden punch smack on his nose, which exploded in a rain of blood. He shook his head, showering sweat and blood over the spectators who were crowding the ropes, then counterattacked with a swing of his own, which blow, however, caught only the breeze and spent its force upon the currents of air.
According to the laws of physics, the body of Jefferson now followed his fist over and past his adversary, which gave Da the opening he had been so long seeking. Crouching down and then coming up with terrible force, he landed a right squarely to the point of the Welshman’s chin—a perfect pigeon-killer—and down went Jefferson; as his head flashed by on its way to the canvas, I could see the blankness in his eyes, and before the referee had reached the number 4, I knew Jefferson was out, maybe even
before he did.
Da seemed no less in a daze, and stood over his fallen rival mutely, gazing down at his handiwork and swaying from side to side. Then all at once Da’s fight arm was lifted high in the air by the ref, and then, for his own safety, he was quickly hustled out of the ring and back into his makeshift dressing room in one of the mill’s storage rooms.
We found him midst warp and woof, lying on a cutting table. “How do I look?” he croaked. His nose was smashed, his cheek was torn, his eyes were swollen shut and his right hand, which had shattered on Jefferson’s chin, was useless. Mother could hardly bear to look at her husband.
“As fine as the day I married you,” replied Ma.
“Yer Ma always was a good liar,” he said, just before he passed out.
McCafferty entered with the cash. Da was unconscious and Ma was weeping, so he looked us children over and instinctively handed it to me. I counted it quickly—I’d never seen that much money in one place at one time before. “Now beat it,” I commanded.
He glanced at our broken Da. “I hope it was worth it to him,” he said, half out the door. “I hope it was worth it to you all.” Then he left.
No one said a word. I guess it was in that moment that I became boss in the family. Ma looked at me, and I could tell she didn’t know whether to be proud of me or afraid.
A week later we were all bound for Liverpool.
Chapter Twelve
WE STAYED SOME SEVERAL MONTHS in the port city while my father recuperated. To all who asked, he’d been hurt in a mill accident, which was more or less true. His healing was coming along very slowly, though, which meant we were spending part of the winnings. So one evening in the spring of 1902, when I was ten years old, Da looked at Mother and said, “I think it’s best that you go on first without us.”
He might as well have asked her to leap to the moon. “Out of the question,” she said.
But Da wasn’t listening. “Get settled with your sister Lizzie. Find us lodgings, learn the territory, and then sure as the sun comes up in the morning, why we’ll be aboard the next ship with bells and bows on.”
“What about the children?”
“Don’t worry about the little ones, love,” he assured her. “Even flat on me back I can still handle them. And besides, Marty is all of eleven now.”
“It ain’t Martin I’m worried about,” said Mother. Meaning me.
Da coughed up some blood, and she wiped his mouth clean with a rag. “The only trouble Owney’s gonna get into is with me if he don’t obey,” he promised.
“But, Francis, he’s so—”
Da’s head flopped back onto his pillow. “Just do this thing for me, Mary,” he murmured. “Just do this and I swear to you that everything will turn out right.”
And so it was that our mother, Mary O’Neill Madden, set off for America alone on board the Oceanic in May of 1902. The Oceanic was no coffin ship, but the pride of Robert Ismay and J. P. Morgan’s White Star line: 704 feet long, 63 feet wide, weighing more than seventeen thousand tons, and, powered by steam-driven twin screws, she could make up to twenty knots. There were one thousand third-class passengers, and Mother was one of them.
She bid us good-bye quayside in Liverpool, accompanied only by the steamer trunk she’d lugged over from Ireland. Da stood there, a cap pulled tightly down over his forehead to conceal his bruises; his right hand was splinted and bandaged tightly; and he walked with a cane, which helped him to fend off the dizzy spells.
“Good-bye, Mary,” he said quietly, shaking hands with her in deference to decorum. “We’ll be along presently.”
“Good-bye, Mama,” said Marty, his eyes downcast and teary.
“Your mother wants no tears today, Martin.”
“I love you, Mama,” said little May serenely. To look at her face, you might have sworn she was proud of her Ma, who was undertaking this great adventure on behalf of the entire Madden family.
Then it was my turn. “Won’t you kiss your Ma before she goes?” asked Mother, reaching down to me. “Or will you always be my darlin’ problem child?”
I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight, for sure wasn’t I both sorry and happy to see her go. Sorry to lose her company and happy that she was staking our claim in the New World. “Don’t you worry none, Ma. I’ll take care of everybody. You just do your part and everyt’ing’ll work out fine.”
Mother started bravely up the gangplank and then stopped. “Oh, Francis!” she cried. “Kiss me once, quick, before I go! For God help me I do love you so!”
I reached out to help him but Da shook me off and stumbled forward. “Mary,” he whispered, kissing her hard. “Did we have enough time?”
“Don’t be stupid, husband,” she said, crying now. “Sure, we’ve got all the time in the world.”
He was still clutching her tightly when the porters herded her along and away. Ma’s last view of her family was of Francis standing erect on the platform, his good arm held out to her, and her three children waving good-bye, handkerchiefs held in each hand like small semaphores whose message was unmistakable in any language.
By and by, Da was beginning to feel like his old self, if not exactly to look it. He still walked with an aid, and his eyesight meant he wouldn’t be dodging many blind-side blows, but at least we could see in him a semblance of our old man. That summer was spent awaiting her letters, the first of which arrived by post some six weeks after her departure. It was chockablock with information about the wondrous City of New York.
My darlings,
You will all be pleased to know that I have found a place for us to live. It is located in the Tenth Avenue of New York, which is on the West Side of Manhattan, not far from the North River. The Flat is located on the top floor of a splendid Building and while the area is perhaps not the most refined—there is a large railroad Yard across the street, although I am told we will not be overly disturbed by the noise of the trains—it is more than adequate for our Needs. New Yorkers ride on Railroads in the sky they call Els, which is short for Elevateds, and there is one nearby us, in the Ninth Avenue to the east. There are many Irish People here, but also many Germans and Italians and Jewmen and even African Negroes, which I have never seen the likes of before, but do not be alarmed because they are all here, except the black people, for the same Reason that we are, to make a new Life, and even if it proves to be a hard one, it must of necessity be better than the one we are leaving behind.
“I think yer Ma’s gone daft,” was Da’s reaction.
“It ain’t like Ma to make up tall tales,” said Marty.
I hit him hard on the shoulder. “You callin’ Ma a liar?” I demanded.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said May. “Trains that fly.”
Came the time when Da was able to get about well enough for us to think about traveling. We’d hit that point of no return where our remaining funds were just about equal to the price of the crossing, so Martin wrote to Ma that we’d be coming along by and by, and May and I went down to the Cook’s office and booked ourselves third-class passage on the Teutonic, the newest ship of the White Star line. That just about tapped us out, but I knew that it was only a short matter of time after we landed in New York that my lucky stars would be smilin’ down on me.
We spent our last evening in Liverpool down the public house, the King’s Arms, where Da could get a proper whiskey, which he hadn’t had since before the fight.
“No more kings now, lads,” says he, savoring the water of life. He always called the three of us “lads,” which plural formation included May, because I think he was always leery of singling her out on account of her sex, the very basic idea of which made him uncomfortable. “Just presidents, of which I’m told every lad can hope to grow up to be one, providin’ he’s right and proper American-born.”
“Guess that leaves me out,” said Marty, thumping his fist on the scarred lounge table. I loved my brother, because I had to, but damn his eyes if he didn’t always see the dark side of
things, the debit side of the ledger, whereas I felt that positive numbers were the only kind to hanker after, and therefore the only kind to admit.
My father ordered another whiskey—two in fact. One for himself and one for Marty and me to split, us bein’ so young and all. For my Da was of the opinion that it was better for him to introduce us to the Creature in a controlled setting, as it were, rather than the Creature to introduce itself to us, on its own terms and in a place of its own malignant choosing. I scooped the whiskey away from Marty with my right hand and downed it in one go.
“There’s better things than bein’ president,” I said, and meant it.
We set out for the quay early on an overcast morning in June of 1902. A huge crowd was milling about, awaiting the signal that all was in order to board. Paddies, limeys, lascars, Polacks and Roosians mingled, only too happy to see off England at last, and me foremost among ’em.
I looked up at the great ship that was to bear us to America. Displacing more than twenty thousand tons, she stood taller than St. George’s Hall, and her three stacks proclaimed her membership in the ranks of the swiftest ships of the line. “God bless this ship,” exclaimed Father, leaning on me and Marty, waving his good arm in her direction and beholding her with awe. “It’s a honor to be quitting these shores aboard such a fine lady!”
The ropes blocking entryway to the gangplank had been loosened, and the passengers were pushing forward. I was doing my best to support my Da and hang on to my sister when Pop paused, almost halfway up, and began to mop his brow. “My God is it hot,” he said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, on the contrary, there was a brisk wind blowing and that, if anything, it was a bit on the chilly side.
And All the Saints Page 10