by Peter Quinn
“Suit yourself,” Ellingwood said. “Stay in the wagon and mumble your hocus-pocus.” Jimmy sat where he was through the hour-long service, and for the next several weeks, each time the three of them drove to church, though the weather grew colder and the snow began to fly, Jimmy remained outside, wrapping himself in the coat he had been given. He never set foot into the church, even to get warm.
Soon the snow made it almost impossible to venture very far from the house. The bone-picking ended. Their daily fare became an unchanging round of beans, potatoes, and coffee. One day in January, Ellingwood rode a horse to town to buy some provisions. The sky was clear when he left, but by early afternoon the clouds rolled in, and soon the snow swept down in a solid mass, an obliterating descent of white that lasted well past dark. Jimmy joined Mrs. Ellingwood for dinner, something he had never done before. She had banged on the door of the shed and told him to come in. He was surprised at her thoughtfulness. She had always been polite to him, but it seemed to Jimmy that she regarded him as little more than a cat or a dog, an unthreatening and almost unnoticed part of the domestic complement.
Jimmy dug into the beans as soon as he sat down. He was ravenously hungry. She didn’t touch her plate. “You’re from New York, Jim?” She rested her head on her palm.
He nodded and went on eating.
“Must be something to see, the women in their silk dresses, hair all done up and wearing ornaments of gold, and the men in their fine frocks, smelling like spice, the whole town driving around in big fancy coaches, with their servants in tow.”
“There’s a lot of that in New York,” Jimmy said. He shoveled more beans into his mouth.
“My husband says it’s a wicked place, noisy, dirty, impious. Says that most of the people don’t work, live off politics, and that criminals abound and whores and drunkards are everywhere. It belongs to the foreigners, he says, and let them have it. America’s got no use for it.”
“Could be,” Jimmy said, “but I ain’t never given it much thought.” The wind swept past the sod house with a steady scream. Jimmy felt his physical hunger subside, but another kind of hunger filled him, hunger for the bustle of Manhattan streets in wintertime, lighted store windows, tinkle of shop bells, the evening crowd stepping out on the Bowery, the echo of women’s laughter. Suddenly, for the first time since he’d left, he understood that he would return, that he had always intended to return, that although he had grown used to thinking of himself as a footloose Paddy without a hometown, he had one all along: New York.
“Like to see it for myself,” Mrs. Ellingwood said. “My husband is probably right, it might well be a fearsome swamp, but at least I’d know for myself.”
They sat for a while with no other sound than the wind. Jimmy toyed with what was left of the beans. The hunger inside for going home turned into an ache. He felt as if he would cry. Mrs. Ellingwood stood up and walked over to the bed.
“Jim,” Mrs. Ellingwood said, “come here.” She unbuttoned her dress and let it fall around her feet. Underneath was a white shift. She let that fall, too. She folded her arms across her naked breasts. “Jim,” she repeated, “come here.”
He didn’t move. He studied the dark triangle between her legs. He had taken pleasure with himself on occasion, imagining naked women as he did, riding up into them, his hand simulating what he thought the tug of a woman’s body must feel like, but he had never been with a woman before, never seen a woman’s body in its full fleshiness. He was aroused.
Mrs. Ellingwood got into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. “Come to bed, Jim. Don’t be afraid.”
His excitement was mixed with fear. He felt his heart pound. He hesitated, then rose and walked over to the bed.
“Take off your clothes,” she said.
He removed his pants and shirt, becoming fully erect as he did. He climbed in. The bed was warm from her body, like the glow of a soft fire. She took him in her hand, stroked him. In an instant there was an uncontrollable flood in his loins, an unstoppable surge. He rolled on top of her the second before it happened, spilling his seed on her leg and stomach. He was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. She got up and fetched a rag, wiped herself clean, and did the same to him. Neither of them said anything. She put her arm around him. They lay there silently until he fell asleep.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep when he felt her hand between his legs, rubbing gently, stirring him erect. He rolled toward her. “This time we’ll make it last,” she said. He kissed her on the lips. Her mouth opened. He put his tongue in. He cupped her breast in his hand, squeezed the nipple between his fingers. She closed her eyes. “Suck them,” she said. He put his mouth on her right nipple and drew on it, caressing it with his tongue. After a few minutes he did the same with the left. She took his hand, brought it down to the opening between her legs, separated his index finger from the others and rubbed herself with it. “Like this,” she said. “Do it like this.” He slipped his finger into the tight, wet space, and rubbed. She moved with the motion of his hand, her firm stomach undulating up and down. She took his hand away, pulled him on top of her, and he slipped into her, his buttocks pushing him in, in and out, the surging feeling returning to his loins, the mattress springs groaning with the movement of their bodies until a shudder of release ran through his body and she cried out with pleasure. They slept after that. At the first light of day, she woke him as she had before, and they did it again.
Ellingwood returned in the late morning. Jimmy was sitting in the shed sharpening a scythe. He worked hard at it, drawing the stone back and forth across the blade. He was sure that his guilt was splashed all across his face, and he felt helpless to do anything to remove it.
“We won’t be needin’ that for some time,” Ellingwood said. If he saw any clue in Jimmy’s demeanor as to what had gone on in his absence, he gave no sign of it.
“Just staying busy,” Jimmy said.
“Good thing. Winter lingers in these parts. Having nothin’ to do can drive some to distraction and also land ’em in trouble.” Ellingwood spoke in a flat, impersonal voice, his usual tone, and betrayed no suspicion.
There were times after that, snatched moments when Jimmy lay with Mrs. Ellingwood, but that first night after Ellingwood returned, Jimmy was racked with remorse and fear. He stretched out on his bunk, unable to sleep, said an Act of Contrition, and promised himself that if he escaped detection, he would never go near her again. Soon his anxiety gave way to the overwhelming desire to be with her. He wondered at her ability never to reveal the slightest disquiet in front of her husband. Once, Ellingwood came home unexpectedly, and the lovers barely had time to get their clothes on before he was through the door. She greeted him in a calm, disinterested way, as though she were in the middle of her chores. Jimmy left as quickly as possible, afraid that Ellingwood would notice his burning red face.
In the spring they planted wheat and potatoes, and the weather was fine, with just the right amount of rain. Jimmy began to think about how he could sneak away and make his way east. He had no money, nor did Ellingwood ever mention the possibility of his being paid. He thought of telling Mrs. Ellingwood about his desire, but the more he was with her the more he noticed how little interest she had in him outside of bed. He suspected that the attitude of casual indifference she assumed toward him in front of her husband wasn’t a pretense but her true feeling.
Returning from a day of bone-gathering with Ellingwood, Jimmy saw a horse and buggy tied up in front of the sod house. Inside the house they found Harold Karst, the owner of the stable in town. A tall, muscular man with thinning blond hair, he was one of the few people in the area who seemed prosperous. Ellingwood didn’t appear surprised to find Karst there. They shook hands and stepped out into the yard. Mrs. Ellingwood busied herself in a corner of the room, saying nothing. When the two men came back in, Ellingwood said, “It’s all settled, Jim, you’ll be staying with Mr. Karst from now on. Town is a better place for a boy like you than a lonely f
arm like this.”
“I’ll take the horse back into town,” Karst said.
“And we’ll bring Jim in the morning,” Mrs. Ellingwood said, “in the buggy.” She smiled at Karst, and Jimmy knew that the buggy had been given in exchange for his indenture to the livery owner but that there had been an even more intimate exchange between Karst and Mrs. Ellingwood.
“We’ll miss you,” Ellingwood said. “You’ve been a good hand, more than I hoped when I first laid eyes on that poor waif from New York City.”
“Boy,” said Karst to Jimmy, “there’ll be none of the pampering with me that you’ve had here, a fine lady to cook and care for you. With me you’ll learn but one lesson: the value of hard, honest work. And let me warn you now, first thing, to put out of your head all thoughts of running away. There’s been a lot of that among the children brought here, and the good people of this territory are fed up with such ingratitude, and determined to put a stop to it.”
“Don’t worry about him,” Ellingwood said. “Jim is as loyal as a dog.”
Jimmy hardly slept that night. He thought about stealing a horse and running away but had neither money nor any idea of where to go. He was dressed and sitting on the side of his bunk when Ellingwood came in.
“Want some coffee?” Ellingwood asked.
Jimmy shook his head.
“Suit yourself. We’ll be leaving in a bit.”
Although it was early, it was already a hot, still day. The sky was empty and almost white. Ellingwood hitched up the buggy and brought it to the front of the house. Mrs. Ellingwood came out and walked around it, caressing it with her hand. She got in next to her husband. Jimmy sat next to her, the small bundle containing all his possessions on his lap.
They were about half a mile from the house when the sky darkened: In the distance, a low cloud spread like black ooze. “What’s that?” Jimmy said to Ellingwood.
“What’s what?”
Jimmy pointed. “That cloud.”
Ellingwood squinted at the horizon. “Oh my God,” he said. He dragged on the reins and drew the buggy around, flaying the horse with his whip. They dashed back toward the house. The wind began to blow, grass and dust whipping ahead of them as though fleeing the black cloud. The light faded, and it seemed night was coming on. Ellingwood beat the horse savagely. Ahead loomed the low profile of the sod house. Mrs. Ellingwood was screaming, but the noise of the wind had become so tremendous it devoured her words. They were only a few hundred yards from the house, and Ellingwood began tugging on the reins to slow the horse but the terrified animal was out of control. He grabbed the brake, pulled, and the buggy went into a wild skid and turned over. Jimmy jumped just before the vehicle flipped. He rolled across the grass and lay for a minute in total, unrelieved darkness, the wind roaring in his ears. He got up and ran toward where he thought the house should be. Suddenly he found himself at the front door. He kicked it in, threw himself on the floor and rolled under the bed.
The earth itself seemed to be writhing, and the wind invaded the house, smashing crockery and glass, tossing the cupboard to the floor, and flinging iron pots against the walls. After a few minutes the noise diminished, and gradually it died away, but Jimmy lay there for a long time before he crawled out from under the bed and looked around. Half the roof was gone, and the sun was shining in. He walked outside. A short distance away was the overturned buggy, but there was no sign of either the horse or the Ellingwoods.
Jimmy went back in and searched the house. He took a rifle and a blanket and set out walking, opposite the direction of town. In the early afternoon a farmer stopped his wagon and offered Jimmy a ride. The man was dazed. He was looking for his two sons, who had been out scavenging bones when the storm struck. He drove Jimmy a long distance to a town where the railroad stopped. They never saw any sign of the man’s two sons. In town, Jimmy sold his rifle to a German teamster. With some of the money he got, he bought a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. The coffee was rich and strong, not like the watery, bitter brew Mrs. Ellingwood made, and the smell stirred in him the memory of New York, open doors of restaurants, smells of food and good coffee everywhere. He was going home. He purchased a train ticket with the money he had left. It was only enough to take him a few hundred miles eastward, but he knew he would find someway to complete the journey, would do whatever it took, and that sooner or later he would be in New York, the old gang on the Bowery celebrating his return.
Cassidy ordered another round of drinks. “Sure, the real thing ruining this city is the war, no doubt about it. It’s turned everyone dishonest, made speculation the only religion, and raised the nigger into a god on whose altars the Irish are to be sacrificed by the high priests of True Americanism and abolitionism.”
Dunne paid for the drinks. One of the Gallagher brothers squeezed past, practically pushing Dunne into the other brother’s arms.
“Nature’s call,” Cassidy said to Dunne, “even the deef must answer it.”
Two officers came down the stairs, and many of the Trump’s patrons began to jeer and hiss.
“One in every generation,” Cassidy said. “One Judas to sell the Irish to the Devil.” He dragged up a gob of phlegm from his throat, rolled it around his mouth, and spit it onto the floor. “There’s our Judas, Colonel Robert Noonan.”
Noonan walked with a slight limp. He went through the room to the tables in the rear and took no notice of the jeering.
“He sold hisself to the Republicans,” Cassidy said. “Took their silver and gave them what they thought they’d never find, an Irishman willing to enforce the draft and coerce other Irishmen to free the very niggers who’ll steal their jobs.”
Noonan took his place at a table with other officers. The jeering grew louder. “The cheek of him,” Cassidy said, “the bloody arrogance of a true peeler. On the docks of this city the niggers are killing innocent Irishmen, and the Army protects them while they do, and there’s the man responsible, Pontius Pilate Noonan, washing his conscience with whiskey.”
Dunne decided it was time to go. Cassidy would talk nonstop about the war and the draft, subjects Dunne had no interest in. He knew few who did. Except for the early days, when the Bowery had shared the city’s delirium, the sporting crowd generally held that what happened in Virginia or Tennessee might as well be happening in Mexico. Of course, the newspapers were filled with it, and the docks, railyards, and whorehouses were jammed with soldiers. But save in places like the Union League Club or in the wealthy Republican neighborhoods or in the homes of those with sons, brothers, or fathers in the Army, the war seemed an increasingly distant echo that only occasionally commanded interest. The news of the draft was stirring things up, but in Dunne’s opinion, only the slow-witted would let themselves be ensnared.
Dunne excused himself, said good night to Cassidy, nodded to the Gallaghers, and went upstairs. Tomorrow he would start finding out everything he could about Halsey. He walked down Broadway. Across from the towering facade of the Haughwout Building, a structure in which the builders had installed a “vertical railroad” to reach the upper floors, he stopped to see the time. He reached into his pocket to check his own watch against the building’s clock, but it wasn’t there. He searched his clothes, and as he did the image of the Gallagher brothers bumping him flashed into his head. An old trick, but they had performed it flawlessly.
Dunne was content to let them keep the watch. It was a small price to pay for being reminded never to put down your guard, a lesson that the likes of Capshaw and Morrissey wouldn’t hesitate to teach in far more lasting ways.
II
SITTING ON THE THRONE in the middle of the semicircle of darkies, three to each side, Misters Fossil, Fingers, and Flossum to the right, Misters Bones, Blossum, and Biglips to the left, Mulcahey put his foot on the board that was raised slightly from the floor and fastened with a spring, pressed it down with a tapping motion, tat, tat, rat-a-tat, tat, strummed his banjo, and looked around at his fellow minstrels: Each sat bent forward with head
inclined toward center stage, hand poised above banjo and tambourine, bow resting on fiddle strings, ready to go, waiting only to hear the music the interlocutor had chosen and joining right in at the opening notes of the “Clem Titus Jig,” an Ethiopian minstrel version of the Irish reel “Young Arthur Daly,” all rising in one well-rehearsed motion, rocking back and forth, swaying, shuffling, until ol’ Mister Bones could take dis standin’ still no mor’ and let his feet follow the relentless metrical banging of Mulcahey’s self-invented floorboard castanet, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. When Bones reached stage right, he stopped with his back to the audience, turned slowly, and strutted in the opposite direction, a broad, exaggerated walk, his shoulders rolling from side to side, his knees reaching up to his chest, and the others fell in behind him, still playing their banjos, Mulcahey taking up the rear, a confusion of discomposed, gyrating marchers, which is why Daddy Rice used to insist, “Say what you like about minstrel music, ain’t nobody ever going to get men to march off to war to it,” and why Dan Emmett was so surprised when “Dixie,” the walk-around he had written for Bryant’s Minstrels, became the grandest military anthem of them all. It seemed nobody recognized its martial potential until the month the war started and the owner of the Varieties Theatre in New Orleans, lacking an audience for his production of Pocahontas, added a concluding extravaganza: a drill and march of Forty Female Zouaves!!!, the high-stepping chorus crossing the stage singing, “Look a-way, look a-way, look a-way, Dixie’s Land.” The song swept across every corner of the South, the anthem of the Confederacy, the Volkslied of its people, a Broadway ditty.