As a little girl back in East London, her wild-eyed mother told stories of the old world. One of those stories was about a woman locked in a tower.
Her mother Rose was half Romani, but because of her mixed blood, she was berated and deemed a “diddicoy.” The Ulster Irish side of her mother’s family had pushed her away as well, rebuking her as “tinker scum.” That was why the Leighton clan swaddled up their little ones and emigrated to East London within earshot of the bow’s bells when Sadie was a baby. There were forty-four Leightons altogether that had made the trek, her cousins Frank, Darby and Pickles among them.
In her mother’s story, Mary, Queen of Scots was left in a tower prison for eighteen years.
Men love to acquire and enslave a woman’s body. It makes no matter if the manacles are made of chain, or lace.
But what’s worse, it was the Protestant Queen Elizabeth who held the key to Mary’s gaol door.
In my end is my beginning, Sadie remembers the words her mother repeated while telling the story. The words that were sown into the dress of the imprisoned Catholic Queen. In my end is my beginning. Strange words that had naught to do with rebirth, but of life after death.
Upon execution, Mary, Queen of Scots wore a beautiful petticoat made of velvet with a black satin bodice and long gloves, ready to die for her devotion. Her gloves, in particular, were in the liturgical color to show she was content to be martyred for the Catholicism: Crimson brown. When Sadie was little, the story had convinced her of the purity of Catholicism and that Mary, Queen of Scots wore those long, blood-red gloves because it represented that she had reached into the deep heart of faith and was willing to trust that death would immortalize her. That in her end, was a beginning.
“I’m a hero!” John calls out again.
Fantasies, Sadie shakes her head and takes a deep breath. I need to get out of this hotel room. Just for a bit.
“Sadie?” Happy calls out as her eyes follow the women from the car park to the office below the window. “Sadie, are ya gonna go over John’s lessons this mornin’? He’s gettin’ antsy.”
“No,” Sadie lets the curtains close. “I want him to read to yu this mornin’, ‘appy. I’m goin’ for a walk. I ‘ave to get some air.”
“It’s cold outside—”
“Maybe I’ll just walk around the ‘otel.”
Happy crutches closer to her in front of the dresser and mirror and shields the revolver from John’s eyes, “Take this?”
“I don’ think I need it—”
“Ya never know, ya might.”
Sadie looks at the 1905 Colt revolver in his palm. It’s long, dark blue barrel with a rounded wood grip has a fixed blade sticking up at the end which Happy calls the “sight.” She had never shot it, but Happy had taught her how to use it. Though only in theory. In reality, where she rarely lives now, the revolver scares her. She does not want to use it. She does not want any of this fakery and hiding out, but she had made a choice. A terrible choice, but the safest. She chose her son over her husband.
“Just take it.”
“No, I won’t need it, thank you though.”
She walks to the closet and takes out a shawl and covers herself with it, “John?”
“Yeah?” The boy looks up from his book on the bed.
“I want yu to read to ‘appy, understand? Work on the things we went over, alright? If yu don’t know a word, use the dictionary.”
He looks back down to the Gods of Mars and mumbles, “Uhright, but—”
“Yes?” She quickly turns round.
“I kinda forget what daddy looks like. Do ya remember him?”
Happy chimes in, “Ya daddy’s very handsome an’ muscle-bound. He’s a leader o’ men. We coulda used him in the Army, I tell ya. . .”
Sadie slips out the door.
The tourist hotel in Rockville Centre, Long Island had emptied for the winter months. Days transformed into nights. Then nights to days while the cold kept them inside the room with nothing to break the monotony. Walking alone down the stairwell, past the lobby and down the long hallway, she is overjoyed with the feeling of having broken free. Even from her own child, who she loves more than anything, though she needs a break. She needs freedom.
The conservatively dressed women from the car park have collected in the open convention hall on the first floor that had been empty for months. She sneaks downstairs to spy on them from behind the double-door entrance from the hall. Inside the guests are flocked between the seating area and the stage where a large banner above them reads, “Carry the Nation to Dry!”
Sadie had never seen so many unaccompanied women in one place before. They are an impressive lot, too. Exceedingly kind to each other and without a single male escort among them. No children demand their attention. No elderly in need of care. They are free to do as they please. Free to speak about what they choose. A family of women together to strengthen women’s interests, a mesmerizing notion.
“Are you taking part?”
Sadie gasps and whirls round to meet the voice behind her, “Eh. . . No, I was just wonderin’ what all these women was doin’ gatherin’ togeva like this.”
“Togeva? Oh, do you mean together? Are you from England?” The woman reaches out with a bent wrist and gently touches Sadie’s arm with two fingers. “We’d love to hear your perspective on the movement. We all know England paved the way.”
“What movement?”
A smile comes to the woman’s face as if she were confiding in Sadie, “The anti-saloon movement.”
The woman wears a light blue and white hooped prairie dress from the last century, a wide bow round her neck and a bonnet with lace and white cloth gloves that reach up to the bend in her arm, just like Mary, Queen of Scots, but not Catholic.
“My name is Eleanor, Eleanor Allerton. I am President of the Woman’s Christian Temperance League It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Em. . . ’Ello Eleanor, I’m Sadie,” she stammers. “Sadie. . . Maloney. I’m ‘ere wif’ me son. Me ‘usband is—”
“Lovely,” Eleanor waves her gloved hands as if to shoo a fly. “We came a long way here. Some of us, like myself, are from Kansas.”
“What is Kansas like?” Sadie interrupts.
Take my son and I there. I want to go to Kansas. Wherever it is.
“What’s Kansas like?” Eleanor repeats the question in a way that leads Sadie to believe she does not like to be interrupted. “It’s fine. But we’ve never been to New York before so this is a bit exciting, if it isn’t too bold of me to say. Please, will you join us? We are having a roundtable discussion. Two New York state senators and five Long Island mayors are in attendance this day. Mamie White Colvin is here to speak, she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York just last year, you know. A true inspiration. We’re making great progress upstate, but the city is, well—”
A jungle of street and river gangs.
“A bit more of a challenge,” Eleanor finishes with a pretend smile. “We have an uphill battle, but we need good wholesome women to spread the word of god our Savior who preaches temperance and moderation in the Good Book.”
Sadie watches the woman’s eyes move up and down her gray dress, stopping at her hair.
I’m a disheveled mess, Sadie realizes and smiles shyly while pushing at the wrinkles in her old house gown with a sweaty palm. She collects herself and looks past Eleanor toward the banner, “What do yu an’ the ova woman wish to accomplish?”
“We’ve already accomplished what we wish. Now it’s time to see it through to the end,” Eleanor says with wide eyes and a mocking smile. “Only a couple states are left to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and women’s suffrage rides along with it. A vote to prohibit alcohol is also a vote to advance us women the right to vote, isn’t it wonderful? A year from now the Eighteenth Amendment will take affect and saloons across the entire country will be shuttered. We are confronting the notion of people simply being an extension of their urges, you see. W
hat would happen if all of us ended up giving in all the time? That would make us animals. But we have to lead with dignity and act responsibly, in accordance to inalienable values. With god’s hand to guide us, the women of today can make life better for the women of the future.”
Sadie wraps her mind round it all, but just as she is about to ask a question, Eleanor strikes up again with bright eyes and a saccharine smile, “But it won’t be easy. We need strong women to tow the line and help men get out of the saloon and into the home. It’s the alcohol that causes men to act evil, not the men themselves. Worse, it stains the purity of women too. Did you know harlotry is much more likely among drunkenness in women? By cleansing them all of alcohol, we cleanse their souls and open them up to god’s word.”
Eleanor takes Sadie by the arm and draws her near, “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to some of the ladies. They’ll be so excited to meet you.”
What am I doing? This is all too much. I just wanted to get away for a moment.
Sadie stops and pulls her arm away, “Me ‘usband owns a saloon.”
“Oh?” Eleanor tilts her head and her mouth puckers. “And where is he now? I imagine you are here with your son, of course. A woman is chained to her children, while men gallivant about with the drink coaxing them into sin. Pray tell where your husband is now?”
He is gathering for war.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie turns away and calls over her shoulder. “I ‘ave to be goin’.”
“Mrs. Maloney?”
Sadie almost forgot the ruse of her name, but turns as Eleanor approaches.
“Mrs. Maloney, what about the vote. Votes for women?”
Sadie lowers her eyes in shame.
Eleanor steps back and opens her arm toward all the women gathered by the stage under the banners, then steps forward and lowers her voice, “In May there will be a vote in the House of Representatives. If it passes it will go to the Senate. Now more than ever we need women to help pave the future. Mothers even more so. I understand if your husband would not approve of his wife lobbying to close down his saloon, but would he approve of his wife having a say in a democracy? Would he?”
“I. . . I believe he would, if—”
“If what?”
Sadie shakes her head, “Yu seem to ‘ave time and money to burn in order to think o’ other people’s future. It’s admirable, but I. . . I live ‘and-to-mouth. My worries are wif me son. Makin’ sure ‘e ‘as food in ‘is belly. I want ‘im to get an education. I’m not opposed to what yu doin’, really I’m not, but I ‘ave to stay safe. For me son’s future. Think of a way to include poor women. Poor mothers in yu pursuit, an’ I’d be ‘appy to ‘elp. Until then, I thank yu in advance for keepin’ us in mind.”
Eleanor slowly shakes her head as her shoulders slump and hands settle around her clean and newly pressed gown. As Sadie walks away, a speaker steps onto the stage behind Eleanor and is calling out politely for attention.
“We are all set to begin, ladies. Thank you all for coming—”
“Sadie,” Eleanor calls again.
Sadie stands with her back turned as Eleanor comes up behind her.
“Sadie, you are a good person,” Eleanor announces in a lowered tone. “And you are very smart, but it’s not your intelligence I question.”
Sadie shifts to face her.
“The problem is. . . You’re ignorant. You’re uneducated, isn’t that correct? I can’t save you from yourself, unfortunately.”
Sadie bites her lip as her eyes fill with water.
I will not cry.
She corrects her posture and takes a deep breath, but when she turns, Eleanor has gone.
As the women begin to sit for the speaker, Sadie sees a lone man standing off from the crowd. When she recognizes him by his strange eyes, she jumps behind the double-doors.
Darby. He found me. But how? How did he know? Who told him?
Sadie rushes down the long, carpeted hallway that leads to the lobby. When she hears the sound of doors closing, she peeks behind and finds that Darby’s quizzical eyes emerge from the double-doors to watch her.
Just then, up ahead in the lobby, Happy and John walk toward her without noticing that she is running in their direction. She quickly ducks into a room on the right that is being cleaned by the hotelier’s wife.
“Can I help you?” The woman asks.
Sadie closes the door halfway so she can see out, then turns round to the woman. Her hands shaking, she puts a finger to her mouth and with embarrassment and fear on her face, shushes her as politely as she can.
“What’s wrong?”
“Shh, please don’t speak,” Sadie pleads. “I ‘ave to ‘ide.”
Sadie turns to look out the door as Happy and John walk past, right in the direction of Darby.
She covers her mouth so as not to scream when Darby walks by in the opposite direction.
They must have walked directly passed each other, but Darby doesn’t even recognize his own kin.
Peeking out the door to the right, she sees that Darby has continued on and walks directly out the front door.
The hotelier’s wife comes up behind, “Is there somethin’ I can—”
Sadie screams and jumps, then covers her mouth again.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie mouths, then runs out the door and goes left toward Happy and John.
Up ahead John is running under Happy’s missing leg and laughing between the steeple of the soldier’s cruthes. She can’t call their names, so she runs to catch up to them when suddenly she is grabbed and pulled into a broom closet.
“Ya cousin was here,” a voice says.
It is dark and smells of a wet mop. By the sound of the man’s voice she knows him as the hotelier.
“He described ya to a T,” he pushes her against a wall and leans his weight on her. “Pretty woman, peasant dress, brown hair, cockney accent. Ya name ain’t Mrs. Maloney, is it? It’s Sadie Meehan.”
“Get off o’ me.”
“I lied for ya on account o’ I knew ya’d be appreciative, but if ya ain’t appreciative then I know how to get in touch wit’ him. His name’s Darby, Darby Leighton from Brooklyn, right?”
“What do yu want? I’ll give yu money—”
“I don’ want money, sweetheart. I wanna feel what it’s like inside ya.”
He lowers one of his hands to squeeze her hip and dry humps against her pelvis. She feels his tongue flick at the nape of her neck and a disgusted feeling boils in her stomach. A reminder. She had not felt this feeling in a long time. Not since 1912, in fact. But back comes the memory to overflow her thoughts.
The old leader of the Irishtown gangs, Christie Maroney, had inquired about her as he always inquired about the young, unaccompanied girls from broken families. As she walked past one day, he tipped his tiny derby hat and bowed to her on Sands Street. An ugly, burly man with simian features, Sadie thought him comical at a glance, but she hadn’t realized his bowing was in mockery of her honor.
A few weeks later he attempted to speak to her, but Sadie ignored and tried to walk round him. That was when everything changed. Everything. Not just for her, but for everyone in Irishtown.
Gold-toothed Christie the Larrikin had grabbed and yanked her to him, just as she had been grabbed and groped in the broom closet. Maroney held her close with a hand that dug low into her backside. Hip to hip he held her, and reached up into her shirtwaist to pluck at her nipple with his club-like fingers, right there on Sands street where hundreds of people walked by and watched and did nothing.
He would not let go. It lasted for agonizing minutes while his derby hatted galoots stood guard. She screamed many times. She was sure everyone could hear her the struggle in her screams, yet no man found the courage to offer her help. Up close, the Larrikin’s meaty lips parted to reveal a pink and gold grin. From behind, he thrust a hand within her bloomers and pushed two ringed fingers up and inside her, lifting her off the ground.
She could feel his manhood grow as
he grunted into her ear with a husky voice, “Now that ya wet’n ready, ya can work for me.”
In the months previous to the incident, Dinny Meehan had been courting her. So had Harry Reynolds who had even pledged himself to her. But Dinny took initiative when he found her on the street after she’d been clutched and fondled. Her hair had fallen unbound and her dress was torn in two places as he pressed her with questions. Through gasping tears she told him what had happened, though in a disconnected timeline.
Within hours Dinny Meehan gathered all the gangs together. And at a gold-throned dawn the next morning the King of Irishtown since 1900, Christie the Larrikin lay dead with a bullet hole between his eyes in the women’s entrance of Jacob’s Saloon.
The hotelier’s hand had made its way up her blouse too. In the darkness he had grown hard and she could feel it on her leg. With his chest against hers, she is pinned against the broom closet wall. When he presses himself against her pelvis, he reaches behind and grabs a handful of her buttocks.
She screams. Quickly his hand goes from her breast to her mouth.
“Goddamnit,” his breath smells of rotten cabbage. “Ya shut ya gob, stupid hussy. Here’s what’s gonna happen. When I’m done I’m gonna give ya cousin’s contact information to ya, an’ we’re even steven, see? I’ll just dip it in for a bit, then ya free, uhright? Tell me that’s the plan. Say it.”
With his hand over her mouth, Sadie can only breath through her nose and can’t speak.
What choice do I have? He’ll do it anyhow. I’ll just think about something else. I’ll make something up. A fiction. I’ll think about a story my mother told me. I’m not here. Then it’ll be over.
Tears dribble out of her eyes and run down the hotelier’s hand over her mouth. She nods at him.
Smiling his three-tooth smile, he takes his hand off her mouth and undoes his trousers. He grabs her hand and pulls it to his penis.
There’s that feeling again. In my stomach. Disgust. Think about Barsoom. The Valley Dor. The afterlife. Think about Mary, Queen of Scots. Think about anything.
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 25