Make Me a City

by Jonathan Carr

  She pauses. He has turned a puce color.

  “But he didn’t burn it,” she says. “He gave it to me.”

  Burner Brody hands her a flaming brand. “Throw it.”

  She remembers, now, something else. When she first looked at the broken bat, she noticed strange, rather pretty, circular indentations in the dried brown stain. She wondered how sticky it must have been for those to form, how much blood must have flowed.

  “Do you remember one of the other predictions I made in my column about the twentieth century?” she says. “I have your fingerprints on the baseball bat. Your fingerprints, Mr. Brody, are imprinted in Mr. Swanson’s blood. Those fingerprints are proof.”

  “I said throw it.”

  She feels his hand at her back. Unless he’s a psychopath. He is going to push her over the edge, the same as he did with Gus Swanson.

  Everyone will think it was an unfortunate accident. The coroner will record a verdict of accidental death, and there will be no shortage of respectable people to testify. “Sadly, it was clear that the act of throwing the firebrand must have caused her to lose her balance. There was nothing anyone could have done to save her.” She can even imagine how her death will be reported. “Chicago Daily Tribune journalist in fatal accident at top secret opening of Sanitary and Ship Canal. Alderman Brody is shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of a true champion of Chicago. He personally undertakes to fund the funeral procession and provide the flowers.”

  “Get away from me,” she hisses, heaving her elbow into his stomach with as much force as she can muster before hurling the firebrand toward the dam wall. She feels him shove her in the back and the next moment, struck by an attack of vertigo at the sight of the drop, she trips forward, scrabbling for purchase in the hard earth. As she slips toward the edge, she screams.

  * * *

  I began this Alternative History with an investigation into the shady dealings that led to the first recorded land sale in Chicago in 1800, and I am closing it here, precisely one century later, with the botched opening of an immense sanitary engineering project. I have chosen these two bookends for a reason, as I shall shortly explain. First, though, let me assure readers that I make no apology for the approach I have taken. I do not doubt that the topics on which I have chosen to dwell, and my interpretation of events, will often put me at odds with my fellow historians. However, I hope that on closer examination, they too will see the value in what I have done.

  To be the chronicler of the fastest-growing city in American history in its tumultuous first century is, obviously, beyond the capability of any one pen. There are too many stories to tell, too many threads to follow, too much material to condense. All that anyone can do is plot a course and do his best to follow it. I do not deny that I have occasionally digressed, that I have spent more time on some people than on others, but I hope that in large measure I have managed to present what might be described in contemporary terms as a “moving picture” of our history over the last century that is truthful and informative, revelatory about the lives of some remarkable souls involved in its creation, and peppered here and there with moments of personal enlightenment.

  To those who charge me with the omission of important people, I say this: consider the characters that I have chosen to follow, great and small, as representative of those I have left out. To those who complain that I have cast too cynical an eye on the behavior of our politicians and business leaders, I say look about you. To those who object to chapters that touch on the mistreatment of laborers, on civil unrest, on disparities of wealth, on poor health and sanitation, on governmental and judicial corruption, and go on to claim that our institutions have since matured and that our democracy has since strengthened, I say beware. As we know only too well, history finds ways to repeat itself. And to those of my fellow historians who persist in perpetuating myths, such as the one about a white man settling Chicago, or the one that pretends the opening of the Sanitary and Ship Canal was an unqualified triumph, I say I disagree with you, and here in my Alternative History—over and over again—are the reasons why.

  To return, then, to my two bookends. I have said elsewhere that I believe a beginning sets the tone for what follows. Let us reflect, then, on that long-gone game of chess between Pointe de Sable and John Kinzie. Two intelligent people face each other across a checkered board to play one of the most deceptively complicated games man has ever devised. At stake is ownership of the substantial estate and trading post that has put Echicagou on the map. One of the contestants is a mulatto, one is white. One is honest, one is not. One is blindfolded, one is not. They play the game according to the rules. But when the honest man wins, the dishonest man breaks the agreement he has signed. He imposes his will by force.

  In that chess game and its aftermath, I see seeds of a conduct and attitude that have been repeated ad nauseam throughout the century. On the one hand, what a fine thing it is that we can claim an honest, self-made man of culture as our founder. On the other hand, how shameful that he should have been driven out and replaced in the way that he was. If I were to choose one theme that underlies everything else in this Alternative History, it would be the continuing struggle between the Pointe de Sables and the Kinzies of the world.

  As readers will have noticed, my eye has been drawn above all to the land on which Chicago stands, and how it has been used and exploited. I still find it hard to credit, in my perambulations around the modern city, that these few square miles of former swamp land could have been so dramatically transformed in but a handful of decades. And yet they were. That is a complicated marvel I have done my best to illustrate, as I hope these pages testify, with a series of carefully chosen excerpts.

  Among those excerpts, I have often dwelled on the problems of water and sanitation created by the city’s rapid growth. The ability to provide its citizens with fresh drinking water is a basic requirement, in my view, of a city’s competence and its leaders’ sense of civic responsibility. The fact that it took so long, and so many needless deaths, before the city allocated the necessary resources to the problem is an indictment of our politicians and the clique of businessmen and ward bosses who keep them in power. That fact should be noted, and remembered, and remembered again.

  While I am happy to applaud the Sanitary and Ship Canal as an engineering triumph, any such praise must be tempered by the knowledge that it was a long-overdue investment. The historical record demands, too, that the true story of what happened when it was finally opened be told. I refer, of course, to the events of January 2, 1900, not to the grandiose civic party that was staged at a mock opening some two weeks later.

  I have chosen, therefore, to bring my Alternative History to a close at the moment when Mrs. Hunter throws the firebrand at the kerosene-soaked timber lying along the base of the dam wall, seconds before an enraged Alderman Brody attempts to push her over the edge to her death. He does not, I am glad to report, succeed. Some of his fellow aldermen, alarmed by what they are witnessing, apprehend him. Sadly, Mrs. Hunter is too shaken to fully register what must have been the extraordinary sight of the dam going up in flames and giving way, as a torrent of canal water plunged into the river and began to reverse its flow. That should have been a moment to savor, the true realization of the deceased Mr. Ellis Chesbrough’s dream. How unfortunate, then, that the characters on the spot were diverted by Burner Brody, whose attempt at yet another murder, we should remember, was originally prompted by nothing more than an old grudge whose origin I witnessed in person, by chance, roughly forty years before. In such curious little aberrations and coincidences is history forged.

  I would like to end by reporting that Burner Brody was arrested, tried, found guilty of all charges and imprisoned. Alas, it should be clear by now that this is not how Chicago functions. Although Mr. Brody was indeed arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Mrs. Hunter, by the time the case was ready to go to court, so many witness statements had been withdrawn or changed, it was decided by a frie
ndly judge that no case could be brought against him. And, regarding the death of Mr. Swanson, the broken baseball bat on which Mr. Brody’s fingerprints were impressed in dried blood was handed to the police, only to be subsequently misplaced. Mr. Brody was duly acquitted on all counts and discharged. At the time of writing, he is still the alderman for the Eighteenth Ward; he still drinks and gambles with the chief of police and plays golf with the mayor at the Lake Forest Club. He still keeps his poorest constituents in coal over the winter in return for votes.

  It took Mrs. Hunter a long time to recover from her ordeal. I am pleased to report, though, that the experience inspired her to delay her retirement from the Chicago Daily Tribune. She continues to use her column to fight for the causes she has always espoused. We live in dangerous times. As our political and business leaders become ever bolder in the corruption they practice, I believe it is in reporters like Mrs. Hunter in whom we must place our hope. I trust she may yet find a way to bring Mr. Brody to justice and, in doing so, finally liberate the ghost of her great-grandfather, Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable.

  I am conscious that at the end of such a long book, readers may expect me to bring matters to a grand finale with a shining vision of the future, or offer a sagacious denouement on what we have learned from the century gone by. Far be it from me to attempt anything like that. But if I could mention one small thing I have noticed, it is this. Historical events are never as simple as they may look. Nobody acts alone and nothing happens in isolation. And not much occurs as a consequence of reason and good sense. And I believe it is in the cluster of smaller events, and in the lives of those who, in more traditional studies of the past, have been consigned to footnotes, from where we can retrieve our history.

  With that passing thought, I shall bid you farewell, offering my gratitude to all those voices from the past who have spoken through these pages. This book is dedicated to them, and is written in their memory. These are their stories, as best I could tell them. And whenever I have taken the liberty of using informed supposition, I have tried to remain true to the spirit of the truth, and to the unique, particular history of Chicago that has been my lifelong obsession.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In between periods spent living in the UK, Kenya, Gambia, Greece and Louisiana, JONATHAN CARR first visited Chicago in 1983. A graduate of Cambridge University, he has worked as a travel correspondent, a book reviewer and a teacher of English. He holds a PhD from Bath Spa University in Creative Writing. Make Me a City is his first novel. He currently lives in Bologna, Italy. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Part 1 (1800–1812)

  1. The First Settler

  2. Promises

  3. A Doctor in St. Charles

  Part 2 (1834–1835)

  4. Next Year Will Be Even Better

  5. Letters from Chicago

  6. Drunken on Love

  7. Farewell, Chicago

  Part 3 (1846–1852)

  8. The Long Tests

  9. The Clochan

  10. The Lobbyist

  11. Truth Facts

  12. The Automaton

  Part 4 (1856–1857)

  13. The Last Stim

  14. People from the Past

  15. A Visitor from Long Ago

  16. You Can Be Anything You Want

  Part 5 (1861–1871)

  17. On the Up

  18. The Masoner

  19. The Haunted Tunnel

  20. The Perils of Compromise

  21. The Background of a Salesman

  22. The Great Fire

  Part 6 (1873–1874)

  23. Browse for as Long as You Like

  24. It’s Pointless to Look Back

  25. In Memoriam

  26. The Pennsylvania Asylum for the Insane

  Part 7 (1876–1877)

  27. The Adventures of James P. Cloke

  28. Editorial: Chicago Daily Tribune

  Part 8 (1879–1886)

  29. Reception for the Settlers of Chicago

  30. A Female Reporter

  31. Notes for a Photographic Exhibition

  32. An American

  Part 9 (1893–1900)

  33. The Smiling Ghost

  34. An Interview

  35. The Massacre Tree

  36. Preposterous Tales

  37. My Lifelong Obsession

  About the Author

  Copyright

  MAKE ME A CITY. Copyright © 2019 by Jonathan Carr Ltd. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.henryholt.com

  Cover design by Nicolette Seeback

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Carr, Jonathan, 1957– author.

  Title: Make me a city: a novel / Jonathan Carr.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018021728 | ISBN 9781250294012 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Chicago (Ill.)—History—19th century—Fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6103.A72726 M35 2018 | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021728

  e-ISBN 9781250294029

  First U.S. Edition: March 2019

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  1 I am indebted to Mr. Quigg, secretary to Mr. Ogden, for providing me with an excellent account of what took place that afternoon, to which I have occasionally added some informed guesswork.

  2 The reader will remember that this painting had been a favorite of Chicago’s founder, Pointe de Sable, and that he named his horse after Lady Strafford.

  3 Pointe de Sable believed it to be an oracle. As mentioned here, he believed Lady Strafford to be a worried lady. The times were changing, trouble lay ahead, and she wanted to find out from the oracle what would happen to her property, to her horses and her hunting dogs, to herself and to her family. Precisely the questions, of course, that Pointe de Sable was forced to ask himself.

  4 In 1848 John Wright bought two properties from a Mr. Bronson for a price of $82,000, said at the time to be more than double the rate he should have paid. They were considered foolish, improvident purchases. But a decade later, without even taking into account the value of the buildings or the substantial amounts of rental income he would have received, the land alone would be valued at $400,000. In other words, it would prove to have been an excellent investment.

  5 This was the same St. Clair where Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable once worked for the British at the Pinery, before he moved to Echicagou.

  6 I do not intend to denigrate the real Crib’s size or ingenuity or purpose, but it was a very familiar structure to the narrator, which was doubtless why he chose not to describe it. The Crib was pentagonal in shape, stood forty feet high, and was ninety-eight feet in diameter. Inside, it was divided into fifteen separate watertight compartments where the pumping equipment was housed, and at its center stood a shaft that went down to the bottom of the Lake. It will be down this shaft that the Eng
ineer descends.

  7 At this point, the delivery of Professor Winship’s lecture was delayed due to an uproar among guests, outraged by the charge that Chicago was not founded by Mr. Kinzie but by an unknown person of color.

  8 Professor Winship was unable to continue his address beyond this point due to heated objections from the guests about the unflattering portrait of Mr. Kinzie, and in particular the allegation that Mr. Kinzie, the first settler and the man considered by many to have been the founder of Chicago, committed murder.

  9 Professor Winship notes that in Juliette Magill Kinzie’s Wau-Bun, the “Early Day” in the North-west (1856), the author claimed that the band played the “Dead March.” As Mrs. Van Voorhis says, it is inconceivable that Captain Heald would have ordered this to be played at a time when his primary concern would have been to raise morale.