by Peter Quinn
He had sent an invitation to General and Mrs. Grant to be his guests at the Metropolitan Hotel and to visit his store. He awaited their acceptance.
Stewart walked with purposeful step to the main entrance, on Broadway. A long journey from Belfast to this place, but mighty was the Lord who maketh straight the crooked ways. He would not abandon His servant.
The shades on the door were drawn. Stewart tapped with his cane. A face peeked out. It was Hobson’s. The store’s superintendent unlocked the door and stood back.
“You’ve secured every entrance, I see,” Stewart said.
“Aye,” Hobson said. “And I’ve a man hidden behind every window with orders to defend it at whatever cost.”
Stewart knew that he had been hard on Hobson in the past, yelled and stormed at him, dressed him down in front of other employees, threatened his job, questioned his intelligence, left him quivering with indignation and humiliation. But this day he knew also that Hobson harbored no rancor against him. Whatever had passed between them, they were joined by history, tradition, the ancient awareness of a common foe. Hobson was a Londonderry man. That’s why he had hired him in the first place. Thickheaded and stubborn, yes. But loyal as a hound and, if need be, every bit as ferocious.
“The hour has come, Hobson.”
“Aye, Mr. Stewart, so it has.”
The previous Saturday evening, in commemoration of the Boyne, the Loyal Order of the Orange Society of New York had held a dinner at the Metropolitan Hotel. An intimate affair. Only two dozen or so guests. Superintendent of Police John Kennedy had sat on Stewart’s right, Hobson on his left.
They had discussed the successful introduction of the draft, which had begun that day. Stewart had mentioned the reports he had heard of agitators trying to whip up the crowd, shouting “Down with property!” and “Share the wealth!”
Kennedy had seemed unintimidated by such reports. He spoke admiringly of Robert Noonan. “He’s the best of his kind,” he said. “The fears about his abilities or loyalties seem to have been misplaced.”
“Aye,” said Hobson, “but we’ve yet to hear from the worst of his kind, and they be the bulk of it.”
Thank God, Stewart had said to himself, for men like Hobson, who understood the nature of that brooding, uncivilizable race. It could not be thought otherwise. The evidence was there for all to see, from Scullabogue to the streets of New York, the same unchanging traits.
At the height of the Famine, fifteen years before, moved by the accounts he had read of the dreadful suffering in the Irish countryside, Stewart had chartered a vessel and sent it to Belfast loaded with foodstuffs. He had told his agent there that for the return voyage the agent was to arrange free passage for as many young men and women of good moral character as the ship could hold. Almost every single one was a Protestant, and the three who weren’t had already announced their intention to convert.
At the end of the dinner, Hobson rose and proposed a toast. Though not a man given to public declamations, he spoke with passion, almost as if he sensed the disaster about to befall them. “In the days ahead,” he said, “let us not forget the brave example of the thirteen apprentice boys of Londonderry who in closing the gates of the city against King James secured the sacred cause of liberty as well as their own immortality.” The names rolled off his tongue without prompting or text: Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Daniel Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Stewart, Robert Morrison, Alexander Cunningham, Samuel Hunt, James Spike, John Cunningham, William Cairns, and Samuel Harvey.
Standing in the vestibule of the store, there was little that needed to be said. Both Stewart and Hobson knew the threat they faced. Had known it all their lives.
Behind the inner door a crowd of frock-coated ushers strained to see what was going on. They seemed to Stewart an unimpressive band for conducting the resistance to a pike-carrying, bloodthirsty tribe of savages. But perhaps the apprentice boys hadn’t looked much different when they slammed shut the doors of Londonderry.
Moved and shaken by the awareness that the God of Hosts had put them where the Reverend George Walker and the apprentice boys had once stood, right here, in the midst of New York, a city that bore the very name of the Great Apostate himself, James, Duke of York, the Traitor King, Stewart and Hobson embraced.
Stewart held Hobson by the shoulders and gently pushed him away. “I’ve always trusted you,” he said.
For all the abuse he suffered, Hobson knew it was true. He alone had complete access to the books and managed not just the store but supervised the military contracts, a wondrous source of orders to fill. He sank to his knees and looked up into Stewart’s face. Around the great bulbous nose the eyes were filled with a fine mist, and the gray pupils seemed to shade closer to blue.
“The day I hired you, Hobson, I knew you were a boy to be depended on!”
Hobson bowed his head. The cold tile of the floor pressed hard into his knees, and the ache turned into a sharp stab of agony. He tried to listen to the words of praise that Stewart was lavishing on him, but the pain drew all his concentration, and unable to bear it any longer, he tried to rise. His legs wouldn’t unbend. In an instant of panic, he grabbed Stewart’s arm.
Stewart pulled away and Hobson pitched forward on all fours. The ushers jockeyed with one another to see where he had disappeared. Hobson sensed that the stone gray had returned to Stewart’s eyes. He pushed hard with his arms, forced one benumbed leg forward, and struggled to his feet.
“No surrender!” he shouted.
V
SQUIRT WAS TOO BUSY moving Mulcahey along to pay much attention to the press of people along the Bowery. Morning was not Black Jack’s best time. Eliza and Squirt had spent half an hour rousing him and getting him out the door of the hotel. Mulcahey stopped. “Christ,” he said, “they’ve cooler weather in the Sahara.” He wiped his face with his sleeve and walked toward the entrance of a beer hall.
Squirt grabbed him by the tail of his coat. “No time, Jack,” he said. “Mister Brownlee made it clear. You got four new minstrels in the show, and ’less you get ’em to dance when they’s suppose’ to dance and sing when they’s suppose’ to sing, he don’t want you back. Told you that in front of everyone.”
Mulcahey half recalled it from the night before: Brownlee’s red face, loud voice, wagging head. Don’t make the has-been’s mistake, Mulcahey. Don’t imagine for a moment that you can’t be replaced! He felt Squirt’s hands pushing him from behind. “All right, all right,” he said. “Don’t treat me like a mule.”
“Don’t act like one, I won’t treat you like one,” Squirt said.
They turned off Canal onto Broadway. At the corner of Broome, they stopped to let a caravan of beer wagons pass. A short distance down Broome, a saloon was already going full tilt. Someone was playing the piano. Mulcahey walked over and peered in the window.
“I thought so!” he said. “Nobody can play the piano like Mike Garvey. God, I haven’t seen him in an age. Be insulted if he knew I was this close and didn’t stop in to say hello.”
Squirt took Mulcahey by the sleeve and pulled. Mulcahey staggered and almost fell into the gutter, but Squirt caught him and dragged him across the street. “Say hello later,” Squirt said, “when you know you still got a job.” Mulcahey followed Squirt the rest of the way without saying a word. They went into the alley beside the theatre, up the iron stairs. Mulcahey dropped into a chair. Squirt went to the basement, lit the stove, brewed coffee, and boiled a towel. He served the strong, black brew to Mulcahey. When Mulcahey was finished drinking, Squirt brought up the steaming hot towel and wrapped it around Mulcahey’s face. Several times Squirt returned with freshly boiled towels and full cups of coffee, and by the time the rehearsal began, Mulcahey was on his feet, quick and alert and full of jokes. Good old Jack Jack.
Mr. Brownlee didn’t show up until the rehearsal had been going on for over an hour. Mulcahey expected him to be pleased and happy. Instead, he appeared pale and shaken, bare
ly taking any notice of the troupe. He told them that on the way downtown his coach had been stopped on Third Avenue by a gang of thugs who held a knife to his throat and plucked his watch and chain and pocketbook. “In the middle of Third Avenue!” he said incredulously. “In my own coach! In broad daylight!”
After a few minutes the manager came and whispered something in Brownlee’s ear. Brownlee got up and left. The rehearsal was called off. A stagehand told Mulcahey that a full-scale riot had commenced in the northern part of the city. “The people is on the warpath,” he said. “Brownlee’s a Republican and is afraid of losing his scalp.”
The box-office clerk came in and reported that there was a crowd outside yelling for the minstrels. Seemed good-natured enough, he said, but this day there was no telling what the likes of them might be up to, and it was best if the troupe made an appearance and sang a song or two to keep everybody happy.
Mulcahey led them to a small balcony that protruded over the sidewalk. Stepping out, he was surprised to see that the traffic on Broadway had almost completely disappeared. Down below, gathered in a semicircle around the front of the theatre, was a crowd of about two hundred, a mix of clerks and workingmen who cheered when the minstrels appeared. Mulcahey launched the group into “Old Dan Tucker” and followed it with “Who’s Dat Nigga Dar A-Peepin’?” He spoke the last verse:
Now, ladies and gents, my song is sung
And I’se hope you hab had some fun;
If you want to keeps from sleepin’
Come hear dis nigga here a-peepin’!
The crowd laughed and applauded. Mulcahey bowed and told the minstrels to go inside. From below, a voice cried out, “You got any niggers in there?”
“Who wants to know?” Mulcahey said.
One of the minstrels poked Mulcahey in the ribs. “Leave it be, Jack,” the actor said softly. “Let’s go.”
A boy in a blue errand coat stepped forward. “The people want to know!”
Mulcahey strummed his banjo. “Well, boy, tell the people we got coons galore. But none a good bath wouldn’t bleach as white as your ass!”
There was more laughter and applause. Mulcahey went inside. The box-office clerk met him on the stairs and said that Brownlee had sent word to cancel the evening’s performance. “All the theatres is closing,” the clerk said. “The streetcars is stopped running, and there’s mobs everywhere. Some is sayin’ a Rebel fleet been spotted off Red Bank on its way here.”
Mulcahey went to his dressing table. He took off his sweat-stained shirt, sponged himself with a wet cloth, and put on the fresh shirt Squirt had laid out. Squirt sat watching him.
“You’ll have to stay here a bit,” Mulcahey said.
“Figured that out for myself, Jack.”
“All sorts of rumors floating about. Who’s to know the truth? But seems certain there’ll be trouble for your kind.”
“Which kind is that?”
“It sure ain’t redheads.” Mulcahey reached over and rubbed Squirt’s orange-colored nap. Done it a thousand times, before every performance, for good luck. Squirt never seemed to mind. Now he pulled back.
“Look, boy,” Mulcahey said, “it’s for your own good. Soon as I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll be back to fetch you. Meantime, you have the place to yourself. You can strut the boards like Edwin Booth himself. Just be sure to keep that woolly head out of sight.”
Squirt walked away without another word and disappeared into the basement.
Mulcahey finished dressing and left the theatre intent on going directly to the New England Hotel and checking on Eliza. He hadn’t gone more than a dozen yards when he met two players from the Adelphi. They were filled with stories of how the riot had started up at the Ninth District headquarters on Forty-sixth Street and was breaking out in other quarters of the city, almost simultaneously, and how the police were on the run, abandoning entire neighborhoods to the mobs. “Word is,” one of them said, “it’s all been planned ahead of time, and there’s to be a coordinated attack this afternoon on Wall Street and the Sub-Treasury.” He glanced nervously up Broadway. Without anyone suggesting it, the three of them went to Tom Kingsland’s, which was packed with theatre people exchanging rumors and enjoying the prospect of a night’s liberty.
It was nearly six o’clock when Mulcahey finally left. He had made several attempts, but each time a new patron would hurry in with some extraordinary report or rumor of what the mobs were up to. It wasn’t until one of the other men from Brownlee’s arrived with an eyewitness account of the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue being pillaged and burned that Mulcahey remembered his intention of checking on Eliza and reassuring her that Squirt was safely hidden away.
Canal Street had little of the traffic it usually did at that hour, but the Bowery was filled with people, many already drunk, some bedecked in frocks, hats, and dresses obviously plundered from fancy shops. More than a few were bleeding from cuts sustained entering those premises through broken windows. But the wounds did nothing to dampen the festive mood. Outside the hotel, a reveler wearing a ratty woolen shirt and a brand-new derby stopped Mulcahey and asked to borrow a handkerchief. Mulcahey handed it to the man, who wrapped it around a gruesome-looking gash on his arm and went off singing in a lighthearted way.
Eliza was sitting on the edge of the bed when Mulcahey entered their room.
“Jack,” she said, “where’s Squirt?”
“Safe as can be. Left him at Brownlee’s just about an hour ago, when we was first informed there’d be no show tonight.” He sat by her on the bed. “All the theatres is shut, my love, which means we shall have to find a way to amuse ourselves.”
“There are mobs hunting and killing Negroes, and you left that boy alone?”
He took her hand, but she pulled it away and walked over to the door.
“How could you, Jack?”
“The boy is tucked in at Brownlee’s for the night. Save for Squirt, it’s empty. No one knows he’s there but me.”
“How do you know? How can you be sure a pack of them won’t come and search him out?”
“Was leave him there or bring him here. Seemed sensible enough he’d be safer hid away than walking the streets. Squirt agreed.” He walked over to her. “Let’s not argue. There are better ways to spend our time.”
“You could have stayed with him.”
“To what good?”
“Forget it.” She grabbed the doorknob. He seized her arm. “Leave go,” she said.
“You can’t go out.”
“Remember, I’m a free colored person. You don’t own me. I can go wherever I want, and I’m going to Squirt.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mulcahey said, “if it’ll settle your mind, I’ll go back and spend the night. Be more entertaining than listening to you. You know, Eliza, there are times you nag worse than a wife.”
“I wouldn’t know, Jack. I’ve never been one.”
He put his hat on and left, slamming the door behind him. He stopped in at Tom Kingsland’s on the way back, intending only a single drink, but it was approaching dark by the time he left. The shops and theatres along Broadway were shuttered and forlorn, but up ahead the St. Nicholas Hotel blazed with gaslight and activity. There was no sign of any disturbance. Turning into the alleyway beside Brownlee’s, Mulcahey noticed light spilling through the open rear door. Beneath the stairs, figures huddled, their backs to him. They turned when they heard his footsteps. A body was stretched on the ground behind them, and though he couldn’t make out any features, Mulcahey was sure it was Squirt.
A tall, square-shouldered figure came toward Mulcahey. He wore a waistcoat over a bricklayer’s apron and approached cautiously, his right hand hidden behind his back.
“Lookin’ for somethin’ in particular?” he asked Mulcahey.
Mulcahey took a step back. “I’ve an appointment here.”
“It’s closed for the evenin’,” the man said. His hand came from behind his back. He held a wooden bung mallet. Behind him,
two others reached down, lifted the body from the ground, and brought it into the square of light framed by the rear door. “This who you come to see?” one of them asked.
Blood was pouring out of Squirt’s nose. His eyes were open but vacant and glazed. He showed no sign of recognizing Mulcahey.
“I’m here to see the manager,” Mulcahey said.
“Try again another time,” the man with the mallet said. He and the others carried Squirt to the fence that divided the alleyway and lifted him up.
“Look,”! Mulcahey said, “there’s Metropolitans all over the place, and I saw troopers across the street. They’re everywhere. Drop this boy and get outta here quick as you can!”
The man with the mallet sat astride the fence. “Sounds to me like you want this nigger for yourself,” he said.
“Just don’t want to see anyone get hurt unnecessarily.”
The man leaned over and shoved the mallet into Mulcahey’s face. “Then scat!”
The man and his two companions pulled Squirt over the fence. Mulcahey waited a minute before he followed. He caught up with them as they dragged Squirt feetfirst toward Crosby Street. “You know,” he said, “it comes to me now that this boy is employed at Brownlee’s. Bet they’d pay handsomely to get him back unharmed.”
The trio halted. The man holding Squirt’s right leg said, “What’s your stake in this nigger?”
“My stake is in Brownlee’s. I’m set to be hired there and want to make sure they offer the best show there is.”
“Then do us all a service. Go practice your nigger-faced imitations somewhere you won’t get in the way.”
Crosby Street was far livelier than Broadway, and a parade gathered behind Squirt’s body as it was dragged along. Mulcahey stayed close. At the corner of Spring, the man with the mallet was handed a clothes wire. He told the others to drop Squirt’s legs and stand aside. He bent over Squirt, undid his belt, tore his trousers off, and tied the cord around his genitals. He put the rope over his shoulder and dragged Squirt forward. Squirt moaned loudly. People poured out of houses and saloons to see what the rumpus was about. Mulcahey lost sight of Squirt but pushed and shoved until he saw the orange kink of Squirt’s head.