Make Me a City

by Jonathan Carr

  Eulalie neither understands the rules of chess nor the significance of the game at hand. She can sense, though, with a child’s intuition, that something very serious indeed is happening. The grown-ups are never able to hide their feelings when they’re afraid. Her mother and grandmother try to make her stay with them in the bedroom where they are tending Wabaunsee, but she escapes and returns to the keeping room. She tugs on Pointe de Sable’s coat and whispers a warning in his ear, before positioning herself in her favorite corner of the room, perched on a stool in the shadows by the kitchen door.

  The game is tedious, if it truly is a game. Certainly, neither Mr. Kinzie nor Gray Curls (her nickname for Pointe de Sable) seems to be enjoying himself. Why is it so slow? Why does so little happen? And why does Gray Curls have a black stocking over his eyes? It must be very uncomfortable. Sometimes she wonders if the game is already over, even though they are still seated at the table, because they take such a long time between turns. She does not doubt that Gray Curls will win, but she wishes he would hurry up because only when the game is over will the bad man Mr. Kinzie leave them. Life can then go back to how it was before.

  She can see Mr. Kinzie is concentrating hard because he keeps his eyes on the board even while he’s pulling on his pointy whiskers and chewing on his tobacco, spitting out a wad on the floor whenever he finally moves one of his white pieces. Sometimes he mutters under his breath; at other times he says a rude word aloud. Gray Curls, who stays upright and motionless, remains silent other than when he gives instructions to Uncle Jean (Lalime), speaking in what Eulalie will understand, later in life, are combinations of letters and numbers that respond to pieces and squares on the board.

  She is sleepy. The room is smoky and it is late. Tiptoeing to the table, she slides along the bench until she is next to Gray Curls. There aren’t as many black and white pieces on the board as before, and the ones still there have moved around, but that does not make the board look any prettier or more interesting. Lying down, she rests her head in Gray Curls’ lap. His coat smells of kinnikinnick tobacco and grains of paradise. With his hand on her shoulder, she falls asleep.

  How much time passes, she has no idea. But it is dark outside when she is woken by voices. Gray Curls soothes her as she sits up to see what is happening. There are fewer pieces on the board than before, and their arrangement looks even less pretty. Mr. Kinzie moves one of the white pieces. Uncle Jean turns over the sandglass.

  A long period of silence follows, broken only by the sound of creaking floorboards as Mr. Kinzie paces around the room. She watches the sand fall through the narrow gap in the middle of the glass. The grains show a range of shiny colors in the lantern light. She could watch them all night, they are so beautiful, and much more interesting than the grown-ups’ game. Uncle Jean speaks. He tells Gray Curls there are only two minutes remaining to make his move. Mr. Kinzie returns to the table but not to his seat. He stands over the board, rocking back and forth, arms folded, casting the pieces in shadow. She continues to watch the sand, wondering what the color will be, of the very last grain that falls through.

  “Let My Euladie move the next piece,” she hears Gray Curls say. She stops watching the sand and looks up at him, but then remembers he cannot see her. Gray Curls gives instructions to Uncle Jean, who then shows her which piece she has to move where. There are more black pieces than white pieces, but while most of the white pieces are big, most of the black ones are small. It is one of those she has to move forward. She is about to do this when she catches a whiff of Mr. Kinzie’s perfume, the sharp mix of bitter oranges and the bite of salt and the flash of lightning that makes her eyes water. It reminds her of the last time she smelled it, and of how Mr. Kinzie seized her by the throat and dragged her outside the bedroom door. For a moment, she fears he is going to do that again, but then she remembers that Gray Curls and Uncle Jean are here. He would never dare, would he? “Hurry up, girl,” growls Mr. Kinzie, waving the finger that had felt ice-cold against her lips. “Make your move.”

  He has distracted her. She is confused, no longer sure which piece she is supposed to move. Anyway, the small black figures—five or six of them—all look the same, so it will not make any difference. She chooses one in the middle and pushes it forward to the next square.

  Suddenly, the grown-ups are all talking at once. She has made a mistake. Uncle Jean is telling her “no, not that one.” He wants her to move it back. He’s pointing to another one instead. But Mr. Kinzie is speaking too, and when she tries to move the first one back, he grabs her by the hand and won’t let go. He is saying it cannot be changed. That is the rule, and they know it. Then it’s the silliest game she’s ever seen. She wants to cry, but she does not because she is terrified by what is happening and what she has done. Uncle Jean is arguing with Mr. Kinzie. He’s saying it’s unfair, that she’s only a child, she doesn’t understand what she’s doing, that she’s made a mistake and Mr. Kinzie knows it.

  She buries her head in her grandfather’s coat and sobs. She knows she has ruined everything for everybody. All the bad things that happen to them from now on will be her fault. And she has no doubt that those bad things will happen. She wants to disappear and die. It is no consolation that Gray Curls is running his fingers through her hair, that he’s telling her not to worry, that she has done nothing wrong, that it makes absolutely no difference.

  The truth, though, is that her mistake does make a difference: a very significant difference. She is so busy feeling sorry for herself that it takes her a long time to realize the grown-ups have started to argue exactly the opposite to what they had been arguing before. Mr. Kinzie wants her move to be changed back. Uncle Jean is saying it is too late to do that now. Did not Mr. Kinzie himself insist, only a few minutes ago, that it had to stand, and had he not already played his next piece? Mr. Pointe de Sable accepted that earlier decision, though it had seemed to go against his interests, and now it is Mr. Kinzie’s duty to do the same. She loses track of who says what or why, but she knows that Uncle Jean [to his credit, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Hunter?] refuses to alter his decision.

  She does not remember how many more moves are made before Mr. Kinzie says another rude word, very loudly, and storms out onto the porch. The door slams behind him. Uncle Jean removes the black stocking from around Gray Curls’ eyes, and her mother and grandmother appear at the far end of the room. Mr. Kinzie was a formidable opponent, Gray Curls tells them. “And I was stuck, until My little Euladie, she comin’ to the rescue. She must’ve seen six moves afore us, and gone done make the one move that would be winnin’ the game.”

  Is that really true? Has she really saved Gray Curls? She looks up at her grandfather. There are lines and stretch marks across his face from the black stocking, but otherwise he looks normal. He smiles, and nods. “Until that point, we were drawn equal, and prob’ly nobody gonna win. You won’t understan’ this now, My Euladie. But people like Kinzie man, they thinkin’ the game be won with the power of the few, with castles and knights, bish’ps and queens. That’s why they don’t take no notice of the pawns.” She looks at the board. “Are those pawns?” she asks, pointing to the five or six small black pieces that surround the remaining duo of large white ones. Gray Curls nods. “Remember this, My Euladie, that in the end it’s the pawns that do the winnin’ in chess, for they be the soul of the game, the same as we pawns be the soul of the world too, also.”

  She does not know what that means, but she swears to remember it.

  The next moment, the door from the porch is flung open. Mr. Kinzie reappears. He sweeps the beautiful walrus ivory pieces off the table. They scatter across the floor. “You cheated,” he says to Gray Curls. “And you’ll pay for it.”

  “No, he didn’t,” says Eulalie. “You’re a bad man and I hope you die.”

  MRS. HUNTER She broke out into speech again. Real speech, this time?

  MR. WINSHIP That’s what your grandmother was always told. I guess she must have been so upset that the words
came tumbling out.

  MRS. HUNTER She was a courageous soul, wasn’t she, from an early age?

  MR. WINSHIP Indeed. How one shudders, when one thinks of the life that little girl was destined to lead. How unfairly the dice would fall. And the irony is that in an honest world, her mistake would have changed everything.

  MRS. HUNTER The agreement signed by Mr. Kinzie was worthless?

  MR. WINSHIP I reckon honorable people of that era would have respected such an accord, lawyers or no lawyers. But, in retrospect, it does seem naive of your great-grandfather to have trusted a man like Mr. Kinzie to keep his word. Perhaps he had no choice.

  In any case, Kinzie went to St. Joseph and came back a week or so later with the reinforcements that had been threatened. Your grandmother did not, thankfully, witness the violence that took place on the afternoon of his return. This time, Eulalie was kept locked in one of the bedrooms with her mother and grandmother. She heard, though, a terrible disturbance. And in the middle of the night, when all was quiet again, she finally managed to sneak out. She found Gray Curls slumped in his rocker on the porch, smoking a pipe, with a horn of whiskey on the table beside him. He had a bandage over one eye, and his legs were limp. He once mentioned in his journal that Kinzie had threatened to break them. He and his henchmen had done exactly that. Your great-grandfather spent the rest of his life hobbling about on crutches.

  MRS. HUNTER I … I had no idea.

  MR. WINSHIP Eulalie fetched a blanket and slept out on the porch with him. She awoke sometime later, when it was growing light, and saw Gray Curls asleep in the rocker, a line of caked blood down one cheek. She found a moist cloth in the kitchen and dabbed at the blood. Although she was as careful as could be, he woke up. He thanked her. She said she thought he had won the game with the bad man Mr. Kinzie. So why had they come back and done this to him? His reply surprised her. “My little Euladie,” he said. “I always thinkin’ there be justice in the world. But now I ain’t sure. This din’t happen ’cause I lost. With these people, this is what happens when you win.”

  She was only a little girl, she said. It took her a long time to understand how that could possibly be.

  [Pause]

  MRS. HUNTER If you take on somebody more powerful than yourself and play by the rules and beat them, they annul the result.

  MR. WINSHIP Exactly. They behave as if they are above the law.

  MRS. HUNTER Then nothing has changed.

  MR. WINSHIP It appears that Mr. Kinzie did, though, expect one aspect of the agreement to remain valid. When he returned to Echicagou, he did not travel on behalf of those “powerful men” in St. Joseph. He came back with his own men on his own account, having duly persuaded his employers that the Pointe de Sable property was worthless. He forced Pointe de Sable to sign a bill of sale that listed all his land, livestock and household possessions—the document is still held in Wayne County Building, Detroit. The buyer was a Monsieur Jean Lalime, the sale price was 6,000 livres. The only exclusions, we discover from Pointe de Sable’s journal, were twenty-seven paintings. Four years later, in 1804, Jean Lalime transferred ownership of the Pointe de Sable house and property to a new resident, Mr. John Kinzie.

  MRS. HUNTER Who called himself the founder of Chicago. Not a beginning that sets an encouraging tone for what follows.

  MR. WINSHIP No. That’s why I start my Alternative History with the story of that chess game. The more I think about it, the more its significance has come to haunt me. Today, Chicago has the reputation, does it not, of being the most corrupt and violent city in America? We historians like to search for patterns and starting points. It’s in our blood. So when I look at modern Chicago and see it controlled by a web of crooked politicians and millionaires, with their crooked police and crooked ward bosses, I ask myself how we got here, and how and when it all began, and how things might have been different. And I am always drawn back to May 6, 1800, when Kinzie ignored the result of the chess game and used violence to impose his will, with the collusion—willing or not—of Jean Lalime. That was when the rot set in, and when Chicago’s destiny was decided.

  MRS. HUNTER And if Kinzie had kept to that agreement?

  MR. WINSHIP A very different city might have evolved, in which all races lived and worked together, in which Indians, Easterners, Negroes and immigrants held each other in mutual respect, in which wealth was more fairly and evenly distributed. [laughs] I’m becoming sentimental in my old age.

  MRS. HUNTER Could we turn to another subject, also of special interest to me because of my grandmother’s … I do apologize, Professor. Please give me a moment. I did not realize I would find it so difficult to talk about her. I am referring to what is called The Massacre Tree.

  MR. WINSHIP You mean Mr. Pullman’s monument?

  MRS. HUNTER Yes. As we know, this was unveiled last year and is intended by Mr. Pullman—and I quote—to be “an enduring monument, which should serve not only to perpetuate and honor the memory of the brave men and women and innocent children—the pioneer settlers who suffered here—but should also stimulate a desire among us, and those who are to come after us, to know more of the struggles and sacrifices of those who laid the foundation of the greatness of this city.” I have not yet seen this monument for myself. But I understand it is a large bronze sculpture set on a marble base and is said to have cost over $30,000.

  MR. WINSHIP I have not seen the monument either, and I should add for the record that I do not intend to see it. Let me explain. First, shall we assume, for the sake of argument, that this statue is a work of art? I have no idea whether it is or it isn’t. But if it is, why, you might ask, would I choose not to see it? After all, what else but art can cast a light, and often an uplifting one, on man’s inhumanity to man? The obstacle for me, Mrs. Hunter, is the sculpture’s location. I believe this bronze sculpture captures but a single moment in time?

  MRS. HUNTER It records the occasion when Chief Black Partridge was said to have saved the life of a settler called Mrs. Helm.

  MR. WINSHIP As was described in Juliette Magill Kinzie’s very fanciful Wau-Bun, the “Early Days” in the North-west. She was Mr. Kinzie’s daughter-in-law, even though the two of them never actually met. That aside, my point is this. I believe the only work of art that should be installed as a commemoration on the very ground where such an event took place must illuminate the bigger story in which it plays a part. Should it fail to do so, it dishonors the memory of the other participants, and traduces history. Too often, history is told from only one point of view and, given your description of this sculpture, there is little doubt that it will have fallen into this trap. A monument that aspires to be a memorial can take many forms, but when it comprises a single incident that is atypical—rather than typical—of what happened, we can be certain that it has been chosen to make a point. This particular event—which may or may not have taken place—was doubtless approved by Mr. Pullman because it promotes a version of history he finds agreeable. The sculpture is close to where he lives?

  MRS. HUNTER I believe it is sited in front of his house.

  MR. WINSHIP How times change. And the tree itself? Does that still stand?

  MRS. HUNTER I don’t know.

  MR. WINSHIP Do not let me discourage you from going to see Mr. Pullman’s monument, Mrs. Hunter, though I understand you may have personal reasons for staying away that have nothing to do with the sculpture itself. If you do go, I would be fascinated to hear how you find it.

  MRS. HUNTER I wondered whether, in preparation, I might read your account of what happened that day, when they abandoned Fort Dearborn?

  MR. WINSHIP You may, but I must warn you that your grandmother’s memory was vivid, and her experience traumatic.

  1894

  THE MASSACRE TREE

  ARM IN ARM, you walk along Van Buren’s icy sidewalk in the direction of the station. There is a bitter wind and the sky has the swollen gray look that portends snow. But it feels too cold for that today. You curse Tom for suggesting
it would be good exercise to walk instead of taking a trolley, like any normal person. Whether he likes it or not, you are going to have a cup of something hot at the station, even if it means missing the next train.

  But perhaps you’re being unfair. Is blaming Tom merely an excuse? Last night you read Professor Winship’s account of your grandmother Eulalie’s meetings with Isaac Van Voorhis beneath the cottonwood tree. There followed a harrowing description of what happened during the retreat from Fort Dearborn. It might have been better not to have read it. You cannot get her words out of your head.

  You grip Tom’s arm tight as you wait to cross the intersection at Pacific Avenue. Van Buren Station is already visible, its central tower—similar to the dome of a cathedral—rising solid against the sky. The limestone has a frosty glint this morning. The clock tower says it is half past two, which means the hands must have frozen. A railroad station is, some say, a temple to progress. What would Pointe de Sable have thought, if he could have seen it? He would not even have known what a railroad was, let alone imagine a building could be built as high as this. And six stories is nothing, you’d tell him. Some buildings have over twenty.

  “What would Pointe de Sable have thought,” you ask Tom, “if he were with us now?”

  His cheeks and ears are the most brilliant pink with cold. It makes him look so young and handsome, you have an urge to kiss him.

  “He’d probably be as confused as we would be, if we suddenly had to stand on this same street corner a hundred years from now. Assuming, that is, it still exists.”