Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  “In the heart?”

  “Wait for it,” I mumble, almost out of energy now. “Death need not prove fatal, see. General Edward Pakenham’s body was then placed in a cask of rum and sent back to Ireland for a formal British military funeral.”

  “But—”

  “But the dockloaders’ in Cobh, Ireland. . . I mean Queenstown, Ireland. . . they saw the cask clearly marked with the name of the famous plantation family on it, crossed it out, and simply wrote ‘Rum,’ then sent it back to America. Well that cask went to a South Carolina tavern where its patrons pulled heartily from the tap and emptied the cask in less than an hour, until they realized it was. . . still heavy—”

  “Where in the hell are you going with this story?”

  “The men who drank the cask were shocked and disgusted. They dug a shallow grave and dumped the body in, and all promised never to drink again after pulling on that famous Pickled Pakenham Punch.”

  Pakenham turns to Patrolman Culkin, “He’s evil. He is a villain. Only horrible people would tell a story like that.”

  “But it’s true,” I say. “True story.”

  Culkin steps forward, squeezing the leather of his blackjack, “Brosnan used to tell me all the stories that came outta Irishtown. Ghosts an’ whiskey wars an’. . . Prophecies. I bet no one in Irishtown foresaw’r this in the storm or the mist. A public lynchin’. Lucky enough ya just turnt eighteen, ya’re a man now. Ya’re old enough to pay the price,” he chuckles and spreads both hands around his own neck. “Choke to death. Outta all the ways to die, chokin’s probably one o’ the worst, what do ya think?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Yeah maybe ya’re right, kid. Maybe it’ll go quick. I tell ya what though, ya Ma ain’t gonna take it well. She’ll prolly blame herself. I mean it was her that led us to ya, right? An’ then there’s that little business about. . .”

  I blink. Then blink again and slowly turn my eyes to Culkin.

  He goes on, “She told Father Larkin that Dinny Meehan wanted ya to kill Brosnan. But ya refused, right? So he had to have someone else do it. Or, he did it hisself. But if ya hang for it, I guess she’ll feel bad about bringin’ it up in the first place.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? Maybe she’s the one that’s lyin’ to try an’ save ya. Pin on it Meehan. A mother’d do anythin’ to save her own son. Includin’ dumpin’ the blame on someone else. I guess that means it’s up to ya to tell me if Meehan killt Brosnan, or did he order someone else to do it?”

  “Neither. . . as far as I know.”

  “Ya know nothin’?”

  “Nothing.”

  “‘Cause other guys seem to know a lot. Cute Charlie Red Donnelly’s in the other room, see. He says it was ya’self did it. Even the little kids, Whyo an’ Will say they overheard talk that Meehan told ya to do it an’ ya did. Ya know what that means?”

  I don’t answer again, but my thoughts are running.

  Red is weak. So are the kids. Vulnerable to Patrolman Culkin’s blackjack logic. If they don’t want the punishment, they would blame it on someone else. Whoever the police want them to blame it on.

  “It means if ya admit to what others say ya did, ya will be hung tonight. But if ya tell who did do it, then ya Ma can see ya again. She’s outside now. Ya wanna see her? She’s kinda upset, by the way. Word seems to have gotten out that the scaffold is bein’ raised for her baby boy. She didn’ take that well. Neither did ya two sisters. I guess they really love ya. I have no fookin’ idea why they’d love a murderer though. So let’s do this. Let’s go over it again.”

  Again? I didn’t do it, that’s all I know. But I would not go to my doom with an undaunted soul, like in the song. If they swing me from a scaffold, I would cry. I would not have the courage of a Fenian. The world would remember me as a man who cried for getting caught killing a cop.

  When the blackjack goes in the air again, I thought it would come down on my head. Maybe a shoulder or a thigh. But no, the lead ball landed directly on my manhood.

  “I told ya not to scream!” Culkin yells over me.

  His eyes are filled with violence again. A joyful violence.

  The scaffold will have the smell of newly cut wood. That slight burning smell of saw’s teeth cutting through it. I’m sure they will have built a platform too, with the noose swaying in the breeze off the East River. The mist enveloping it in mystery. The darkness obscuring it from view.

  “Ya wanna hang t’night?” He points out the barred window behind me. “It’s all set up for someone. Ya heard them constructin’ it.”

  The anchor of silence is sunk deep in me. I can’t talk. But maybe I should tell him Dinny did it. That’s all he wants. It would be easy.

  Like a baseballer, he uses both hands to swing the blackjack again on both shins of my legs.

  “I asked ya a question! Someone’s gotta die for this!”

  Tell him Dinny did it. That’s all he wants. It’s easy.

  “Might as well be a worthless Irish teen in a violent gang that robs honest businesses, takes advantage o’ the poor an’ butchers policemen. Ya wanna die for it?”

  Dinny might have done it, I don’t know for sure. Wait, the letter. What happened to the letter that was in my new coat from “H”? I look up to Patrolman Culkin, He must have read it. He knows that I know he did it. I am going to die.

  “What’s so funny? I fookin’ asked ya a question!” He rears back again in the black.

  A bang comes to the door. As spittle flies through the window light, Patrolman Culkin freezes in place.

  “Patrolman Culkin open this door!” An older man’s voice. “Now!”

  “Talk to Ferris,” he yells back. “I told him to—”

  “I have Ferris next to me,” the voice responds. “Open the door, patrolman.”

  I slowly look up to the whites of Culkin’s eyes in the darkness. He’s scared. I see fear. Then he smiles again, coy and terrifying as he connects his blackjack to his belt.

  When the electric light is flipped on, I close my eyes at the shock of it.

  “My god,” the older man’s voice yells. “Look at the poor boy.”

  He shoulders out of his tunic and drapes it over my shivering body, “Are ya alive, son? Are ya alive? Say somethin’.”

  I lick my lips and clear my throat. The bright electric, unnatural light above buzzes. It’s cutting shine forces me to squint as I look up to his red pistachio face and big white walrus mustache. He wears a police uniform too. On his chest is a badge.

  Sullivan, it reads Sullivan. Captain Sullivan.

  He touches my shoulder, “Say somethin’ to let me know ya’re ok.”

  “Are they going to hang me?”

  “Who?” Captain Sullivan looks behind him, then turns back to me. “Son, what’s ya name? Tell me ya name?”

  “Patrick Kelly.”

  He then stands up and gives an order, “Put this young man back in his clothes. Untie him this very minute. Ya’ve had him alone for two days an’ ya’ve gotten nowhere.”

  “We can’t let him go, he’s—”

  “What are ya gonna charge him wit’?”

  “Murder.”

  “Wit’ evidence? Who named him? Who saw’r him?”

  “He said it was Meehan.”

  “No,” I whisper.

  I’m so hungry, so cold.

  “Son?” Captain Sullivan leans both hands on bow-legged knees and looks me in the eye as Patrolmen Ferris and Culkin mumble frantically. “Did ya do it? Did ya kill Detective Brosnan?”

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “I understand, son. But this is important.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t do it.”

  “Then answer me this. Choose one or the other, uhright?”

  I nod.

  “Did Dinny Meehan kill the detective? Or did Meehan order him killt?”

  I turn an eye up to him, “I never heard that name before.”

  “Give this young man his new togs bac
k,” Captain Sullivan orders.

  When finally my binds are loosened and I am free to go, my legs will not hold me and I fall to the wet floor with a slap.

  I’ll never be the same.

  A Shadow Falls

  Darby Leighton walks through a factory where teen girls and old women worry at their sewing machines. The floor-to-ceiling windows bring in plenty of light which means Darby cannot hide. A few of them turn from their work when they see something wash by. To avoid their notice he slips through a side stairwell and walks across a foot bridge that connects two buildings over an alley where below he can hear the rattle of garbage cans and the backfire of a combustion automobile engine.

  Bill will kill me for this. I lost Sadie and I never found out who rode Anna. . . And the trial—

  He flies across row house roofs, shifts through fourth-floor windows and emerges through another on the second floor, bends into coal holes in the sidewalk and roams through a diner kitchen unseen.

  Wild Bill’s voice bounces through his thoughts, “If ya don’ get me both, I’ll’ let Petey Behan shoot ya in the back o’ the head an’ ya brains’ll come out ya eye sockets an’ ya nose an’ mouth.”

  He pushes through a backdoor in a grocer where two cats nimbly skitter over alley puddles when they see a shadow stalk by. He strides sideways through narrow passages and shaded courtyards where two men secretly kiss, and he darts unheard behind five men unloading a freight car onto a storagehouse platform.

  When he reaches the building that adjoins his own, he walks past the German woman again who folds clothes now, though her young son does not see him this time. He walks down the cement steps past the basement entrance, and up more cement steps where the door is still open.

  Should I gather my family and lam out of Brooklyn forever? Or go to say my goodbyes to Ligeia and Colleen Rose before I tell Bill the truth?

  He takes another stairwell up to the eighth floor and crawls out of a window and climbs the fire escape to the roof. He hops the five-foot brick wall and begins to descend down another fire escape as the sun bobbles at its zenith.

  He pulls up the window to his room and enters.

  “Darby?” He hears Ligeia say.

  My god, I love my family so much. We have to run. That’s it, we’ll run.

  “Gather everythin’ that means somethin’ to ya,” he says sweeping up armloads of clothes from the nightstand.

  “What? Darby what you do? Why you—”

  “There’s no time, my love—”

  In the corner of his eye Darby notices movement by the bassinet and sees a small, gorgeous girl with a fox-colored crown of woven hair pinned up and falling in wisps down a long and elegant white neck. She holds the baby Colleen Rose close to her embroidered peasant blouse.

  “Darby this is eh-Molly Maguire. She is my friend. She come here to sit for the baby, when we go to ristorante.”

  He stares at the smiling Colleen Rose, then up to Molly Maguire’s face.

  Anna? Anna Lonergan? Why is she holding my angel? And why does she lie about her name? Evil little cunt.

  The words rise up in his throat, but in his mind different words are recalled, the beauty of hidden love inside the heart of an evil little girl. It must be her, she is the red-haired girl in Abe’s riddle, not Maureen Egan. It’s Anna. Is she here for revenge? But for what? What have I ever done to Anna Lonergan?

  “I can’t believe how beautyful this little doll is,” Molly Maguire’s smile is so genuine, so pretty that for a moment he doubts her knavery. “I’ll be happy to help. Ya don’ even gotta pay me, I just wanna be close to the baby,” she turns confidently to Darby. “I grew up a only child, Mr. Leighton.”

  “She is eh-so sweet, Darby,” Ligeia kisses Molly Maguire on the forehead and pulls her close, cheek to cheek. “I never know a girl with so many, eh, instinct is the word I look for to say? Yes, instinct for babies. She have eh-true instinct for babies.”

  “Almost like she came from a big fam’ly, right Molly?” Darby asks.

  But Molly is all innocent smiles and gives a little virtuous tilt to her head, “Are ya two gonna go out that window? Or is there a door inside here somewhere?”

  Darby doesn’t answer, then motions to Ligeia, “I need to talk to Molly. I need to know more about her before we leave our baby with her.”

  Ligeia’s eyes move from side to side, “I understand, my love. You are the man of the family and want to eh-protect us.”

  “Yeah,” Darby turns to Molly. “Put the baby in her bassinet an’ come wit’ me.”

  Molly Maguire dutifully does as she is told as Darby holds the window open for her, then follows her out onto the fire escape.

  “Whatta ya want?” He says through his teeth.

  “Mr. Leighton? Ya assume I want somethin’? All I want is to help on account o’ I love babies so much,” her blue eyes have the gleam of fire in them. “Break any windows recently, Mr. Leighton?”

  “Anna—”

  “Oh an’ I want to talk to Bill,” she cuts in. “Ya will help me get to him. Or ya won’t,” she turns her eyes inside to Ligeia and Colleen Rose and looks back up to him with her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Darby grabs her arm and their boots clammer on the metal platform outside the window.

  “Be gentle wit’ a girl, would ya?” Molly says until her innocence dies away. “My brother knows I’m here, so if anythin’ should happen to me—” she nods toward the ground six floors below.

  The memory of Richie Lonergan’s pale blue eyes sends icy blades into Darby’s heart. Those terrible, unsentimental gray-blue and see-through eyes.

  The redhead then flashes a faultless smile and flutters her butterfly eyes, “Do not refuse me.”

  “Ya’re the evil little girl that Abe told me about. Why not just have ya brother or father bring ya to Bill? Why me?”

  “We all have a role,” Anna smiles. “Now you have yours.”

  “Bill don’ listen to me no more,” Darby lowers his eyes. “I uh, I have failed him one too many times now.”

  “Then tell him what he wants to hear,” Anna says with genuine concern in her voice. “But tell him it’s a sign that ya saw’r, like a vision. Bill thinks ya’re a, I dunno, a seer or a druid or somethin’.”

  “What he wants is ya’self, Anna. He has me askin’ around everywhere about ya. He wants to know who bedded ya so he can kill that man, whoever it is.”

  Anna blinks and moves closer, “An’ now ya have found the truth. Ya saw’r it.”

  “What did I see?”

  “Ya had a vision that I still have my purity. Ya saw’r it in the shape o’ leaves swayin’ in a tree maybe?” Anna comes closer. “Listen, Bill’s war mad an’ Abe says Bill claims he can read the future by watchin’ the murmurations o’ bird flocks take wing.”

  “What?”

  “He devotes hours to the practice. An’ that ain’t all. One o’ his Shit Hounds came up lame so he plunged a knife into its chest and observed how it convulsed. He studied the pattern o’ blood that came out and stared into its eyes to see the future as its life slowly extinguished.”

  Since when does Anna Longeran use words like observe and convulse and extinguish?

  She continues, “He believes he is fated. An’ ya’self? Bill trusts ya, Darby. He says ya see wit’ eyes an’ speak no lies.” Darby’s honored eyes float with tears, “He said that about me?”

  “Sure he did.”

  “So why would I work wit’ ya,” Darby suddenly says. “We’re opposites. Like contradictions, ya an’ I. We got nothin’ in common but Bill. Why should I trust ya?”

  “Opposites make movement. Contradictions cause sparks,” Anna tosses her hand at the wrist. “An’ besides we have one very important thing in common.”

  “What’s that?” Darby’s voice is colored with doubt.

  “Fam’ly. We both got a fam’ly we need to provide for. So tell Bill I have been seen wit’ them slatterns ‘cause I’m tryin’ to win him income, like I
told him already. Grace an’ Kit? They’re sittin’ on gold mines, see? Sixto Stabile’s biggest earners down at that bawdyhouse on Fourth Avenue, the Adonis.”

  “Bill ain’t no pimp,” Darby’s voice is glum and hopeless.

  “Strange line for a drug dealer to refuse crossin’.”

  “Bill ain’t no drug dealer either.”

  Anna looks at him distrustfully, “Ya really don’ know, do ya?”

  “Wha?”

  “Abe got Needles Ferry to switch sides. Now he walks around Red Hook wit’ a detail o’ Bill’s Trench Rabbits. Needles gave out one free taste o’ the marchin’ dust an’ one hit o’ the boiled tar to everyone down there. He’s even got access to true morphine for the injured vet’rans. Now they got a income besides labor tribute.”

  “Abe is a sneaky bastard,” Darby mumbles.

  “Abe has a knack for tossin’ up a dime in the air an’ catchin’ twenny cents. He knows how to make himself valuable. He even got information about Thos Carmody’s boss that helped bring the union to Bill’s side.”

  “What information? About the president o’ the ILA bein’ in Wolcott’s pocket? I’m the one that saw’r O’Connor on the back o’ the tug at the Union Street dock.”

  Anna shrugs, “Bill only wants ya to have value, see? An’ he only wants to hear what he wants to hear, get it? That’s his weakness.”

  “His weakness?” Darby repeats as if he had thought of Bill as infallible all along. “What do ya know about his weaknesses?”

  Anna swallows and bites back the words that had come to her mouth, then looks up to him, “Durin’ the trial back in 1913, were ya there?”

  “Sure I was. I watched my brother get convicted o’ somethin’ he didn’ do.”

  “Do ya know who the main witness was?”

  “Uh, I don’ really remember—”

  “It was Grace White, ya fuckwit.”

  “It was?”

  “Yeah, it was. Now listen, ya go to Bill an’ ya tell him that I’m pure an’ that ya gonna make Grace tell the truth this time in court, that Vincent killt Christie the Larrikin.”