Flint & Kent was quite cheery inside. It featured enormous plate glass windows on every floor looking out over the hubbub on the street. These brightly illuminated the interior, as did also the ornate stained glass domed skylight over the center piazza. Jim admired the architecture of the place, designed by Buffalo wunderkind Edward Austin Kent, and would come to learn five years hence that Mr. Kent gave up his seat on a lifeboat only to sink into the freezing Atlantic with the ship Titanic.
Jim shook his head in dismay at the prices people were willing to pay here. The customers were all well-heeled and very finely dressed, looking nothing at all like shoplifters. Disappointed, Jim concluded he might find better luck snagging a cutpurse or two down the street at the more affordable Wm. Hengerer Co., or perhaps the Adam, Meldrum and Anderson store that looked out on Lafayette Square. AM&A’s attracted more your average shopper, and more potential thieves. Not that AM&A’s was low end by any estimation. The state of the art emporium had been a pioneer in its implementation of electricity twenty-one years previous with the installation of a Westinghouse generator. AM&A’s main floor was laid out in a logical grid allowing for unobstructed flow of foot traffic through and among the departments, but this plan also attracted thieves by offering a clear escape route. Unless a detective was immediately adjacent, the thief could exit and lose himself among Main Street’s flow of humanity in the mere blink of an eye.
Detective Sullivan entered the store. Straight ahead were discreet displays of ladies’ corsets and underwear. A sign read, “Old Home Weekers: Your Rail Fare Refunded On Purchases of $25.” He slowly walked around to the left and toward the back of the store past the bookkeepers office, the ladies’ toilet, and into the carpets and tapestry department, where he pretended to be perusing oriental rugs, but keeping an eye toward the front and the ladies departments with their small, easily concealed items.
He spotted a dowdily dressed middle aged woman at the underwear counter acting suspiciously. She walked hurriedly, looked about nervously and altogether seemed to be very much ill at ease. She was so little that she really could have passed under his outstretched arm, and Jim Sullivan was by nobody’s estimation a giant. The woman then walked the whole length of the floor, crossed over to the other side, and started back again. At the underwear department the detective saw her deftly conceal a sum of fine silk underthings beneath a bundle which she carried, and start for the street door. He headed her off at the exit.
“You’re my prisoner,” commanded Sullivan.
The woman gave a faint moan, turned pale and staggered as if about to faint. Jim caught her. She revived quickly, and then vehemently refused to be arrested. A concerned protective crowd had gathered around attracted by the commotion and her plaintive shouts. A painful scene seemed imminent. Jim tried to quickly herd her out into the street.
Then, the odd little woman suddenly became quite calm. She offered no further resistance. She acted as if nothing at all unusual had occurred. Jim congratulated himself. It began to look like an easy arrest. In order not to attract any more attention and to save his prisoner from any unnecessary embarrassment, he neither handcuffed her nor kept hold of her. She was permitted to walk free by his side.
The pair proceeded down Main street where Detective Sullivan turned to begin crossing the chaotic thoroughfare. He reached out to take the woman by the arm to conduct her across when she suddenly glided past him like a flash and threw herself onto the trolley car track. She prostrated herself there on the rails and stiffened like a board, eyes shut tight, anticipating bisection. Women shrieked and men gasped visualizing the inevitable bloodbath. There sounded the rattle of a brake and the sharp hiss of escaping air, but the jam-packed car that was running rapidly south had too much headway to be stopped in time. It looked as if the crazy woman would surely be crushed under its deadly wheels. Those aboard the trolley who had witnessed her diving into its path began screaming for the motorman to stop. The attentions of the crowds on the street were riveted on the bizarre proceedings. Jim, stunned and bewildered, stood shocked-still for just an instant before reacting and leaping forward. He dragged the woman from her perilous position just as the car passed over the exact spot that she had a split second before occupied.
“Do you want to kill yourself, woman?!” Sullivan screamed at her.
The woman stood pale and trembling for a moment, then replied “Indeed! It doesn’t make much difference anymore what happens to me now!”
Jim secured her by the arm and shook his head in consternation. He walked her the rest of the way across the street and continued toward Police Headquarters. At Niagara Street they turned to the west in order to make a shortcut down Church Street. A trolley car had just turned the bend as the two reached the track. Jim hurried forward in order to cross the street in front of the car. Just then the prisoner gave a sharp, quick tug, tore herself loose from the officer’s grasp and rushed headlong toward the approaching car. Jim, realizing her intention, dashed after her.
The woman had a lead of ten feet on him when the race started. She ran like the wind, bending over as if preparing to dive between the tracks. It was clear she intended to catapult herself beneath the cow-catcher installed at the car’s front. This net stretched across and iron frame was deigned to “scoop up” any human, canine or other obstacle safely who might appear in the path of the racing vehicle. Sullivan shouted at the top of his voice, fairly leaping through the ether.
Crowds of people came to a halt to watch the transfixing event unfold. Squeals and shouts filled the air. The trolley motorman had his eyes focused straight ahead, and because the detective and his charge were approaching from the side, he never saw them. Sullivan shouted at her again as they neared the spinning wheels. The prisoner was within a few feet of the track with her arms extended towards the car, as if heading in for a swim. Sullivan made a reflexive spring, clutched her skirt, and threw himself back just as she dove forward. When the car glided by she was so close she could have touched the tracks with her fingertips.
The detective dragged her to her feet.
“You really do want to kill yourself now, don’t you, lady?” he shouted.
“Yes I do. I don’t care to live any longer! I can’t stand this disgrace!” moaned the prisoner, and she began to cry and sob hysterically. She then went weak in his arms. Practically carrying her now, he and his suicidal charge reached headquarters without any further ado.
The woman gave her name as Florence Mazie Armour. She said that she was married, but did not live with her husband, whose home was in Niagara Falls. She claimed she was a housekeeper for a family that lived on Delaware Avenue. She was placed in the Women’s Cell.
That evening at about 8 o’clock, not having paid precise attention to the exact address on Delaware, Detective Sullivan set out to visit the house. As he re-checked the house number on his approach, he was surprised to discover that the structure was the former home of Sam Clemens where he had been employed as a boy thirty seven years earlier.
The family living there currently consisted of just a man and his son. Wealthy and respectable, they expressed shock when informed of the arrest of their housekeeper.
They invited Jim in. He passed through the familiar ornately carved oak doors inset with beveled plate glass. Memories flooded back as he recalled the way the house looked when Sam and Livy Clemens owned it.
He scrutinized the parlor with its fine furnishings, wood shutters, and heavy drapes, and was dumbfounded by how remarkably similar it looked to the way Sam and Livy had decorated the same room. Jim peered up the wooden balustrade of the carpeted staircase leading to the second floor. He recalled how badly he wanted to see the upstairs as a boy. Yet still he would not be viewing it since the housekeeper’s room was on the main floor at the rear of the house off the kitchen. Its window overlooked the carriage house.
Jim’s view out the housekeeper’s window was somewhat obscured by closed lace curtains, but he could still imagine himself out there as a boy cle
aning the carriage house and raking the back yard. He once again conjured an image of the Clemens’ servant Ellen White busying herself inside this very room. He had been so happy here. He looked around the quarters. Jim was astonished at the amount of dry goods, silks, furs and cutlery stocked there. The piles covered half the small bed, the dresser, the table, and more piles were stacked on the floor. The owner stood expressionless in the doorway unfazed by the bounty.
“Have you been in this room recently?” inquired the detective.
“Why yes, of course I have.”
“And did it occur to you, sir, when you saw these piles of silks, furs and whatnot, to ask how your housekeeper could possibly obtain these things on her salary?”
“She told me that her husband made good money and that he bought her nice things.”
Jim, the cop who thought he’d heard everything, paused a few beats to absorb the man’s ludicrous justification.
“Why would she be working for you as a live-in housekeeper if she had a home and a husband who bought her silks and furs? Does that not seem illogical to you, sir?”
“Yes, somewhat, I imagine. But she said they were separated and he was trying to win her back with gifts because he had badly mistreated her. She told us she didn’t want to go back with him and that she felt safe here with us. She is a very good housekeeper, an excellent Episcopalian, and no trouble. My son lost his mother two Christmases ago. He has become quite fond of dear Mrs. Armour.”
Detective Sullivan looked him straight in the eye.
“When I arrested Mrs. Armour she attempted to throw herself under the wheels of a speeding trolley car—twice. Does that sound like the kind of individual you want influencing your son, sir?”
He looked at Jim blankly as if to say, what difference does that make?
Most of the items still had their store tags and prices attached and clearly appeared to have been purloined. Jim jotted down some notes.
“Some officers will come by here in the morning to collect these items for return to their rightful owners. Someone must be home at 9 o’clock when they arrive. Can that be arranged?”
“Yes, of course. I will be here. But what will happen to poor Mrs. Armour?” asked the stricken-looking man.
“She’ll go before police court. Until then she will remain in jail.” he answered.
“What about a bond?”
“She has no money to secure a bond.”
Without hesitation the homeowner replied, “I will summon my driver and go down to police headquarters at once and inquire about a bond.” He then pivoted quickly on his heel to ring his driver.
As long as I live I will never understand rich people, Jim thought to himself.
He left the house the same way he arrived. The man quietly closed the heavy front door behind him with a secure muffled thud. Jim walked down the five front steps on which he had often sat as a boy to empty yard debris from his shoes. He turned around and looked up. The elm trees were still there, only much bigger now. There were no longer elegant carriages passing by with nose-in-the-air coachmen at the rein, their horses clip-clopping proudly down the Avenue. Everyone living there now had an automobile. Coachmen had been replaced by chauffeurs. The bedroom windows looked the same. He imagined Livy Clemens up there, asleep with her newborn Langdon in her arms. He suddenly grew very sad, turned, and quickly walked away. He couldn’t wait to get home and climb into bed with Hannah.
Free Michael Jackson
◆◆◆
Michael Jackson had spent the night in a jail cell. In the morning he was taken before Justice John Rochford. He pleaded not guilty to the charge of corner lounging and requested that the Judge permit him to keep his old whitewash stand.
He repeated his story about having been there 23 years, and his father before him for 46 years, but Rochford sided with the arresting Sergeant Jordan and told Jackson to keep away from that place he had long occupied in Shelton Square.
“Why, your honor, if you drive me away from there I’ll have to leave the city. There’s no other place here that I can have,” pleaded the poor laborer.
“Don’t make no difference,” ineruditely sputtered the judge. “We got to have things lookin’ respectable ‘round here for Old Home Week and yous don’t look no good standin’ there with all yer stuff. Why, yer splashin’ the church fence rails with your whitewash. I’m a-goin’ to convict yous of corner loungin’, but I ain’t a-goin’ to be hard on ye. Go, git outa here now, and don’t let the police git yous agin.”
Dejected, Jackson saw that it would be useless to make any further plea, especially to someone who spoke English even worse than he himself did. So he walked wearily out of the station house and started to trundle his barrow away.
But in less than half a block he changed his mind, turned on his heel and reappeared. He made his way to the office of the Chief of Police, his wheelbarrow’s one worn wheel clickety-clacking down the corridor. There he waited on a bench for two hours before finally being allowed in. He explained his troubles to Chief Michael Regan.
“Why, that’s all right, old man,” said the chief cheerily. “We’ll have you back there in a jiffy and no one will bother you. I’m sorry that I didn’t hear of this before.”
Michael Jackson was surprised that the Chief had agreed to see him, let alone so quickly determined that he was entitled to have his spot back. Chief Regan called Jackson “a Shelton Square legacy.”
Captain Notter was instructed by Chief Regan that the Negro Jackson was to be permitted to have his old stand. Notter was commanded to tell the policemen under his charge not to bother Jackson again.
Tears of joy obscured Michael Jackson’s vision as he left the chief’s office. His faith in humanity was renewed. Back at his old stand on the Shelton Square side of Saint Paul’s Church once again sat the professional whitewasher on the edge of his little wagon, sturdy braces holding up his trousers. At hand he had all his buckets, his brushes and all the other implements of his trade loaded into his barrow ready to go. He was in possession of a wide smile and the official permission of Police Chief Michael Regan to stand where he was for as long as he liked, so long as the congregation of St. Paul’s did not complain against his presence.
They never had before, and they never would.
◆◆◆
The Chief headed over to a special meeting he had called of all the Department’s officers. The purpose was to fix in everyone’s mind the schedule of planned events for the upcoming Old Home Week, which was a bit overwhelming, and the criteria for handling situations from the emergent to the mundane. Part of Jim Sullivan’s duty would be pickpocket and molestation control among the crowds, something at which he and his partner Jerry Lynch excelled.
Chief Regan addressed the great gathering of peacekeepers, reading from his lengthy notes:
“Gentlemen, beginning midnight Saturday, all officers of the Buffalo Police Department will be on duty until further notice.”
The entire force had known for months that this would be the case, but still the Chief waited for the expected one or two errant groans, which this time, came from Sergeant Sean Maloney.
“Maloney, shall I have someone go and warm up your baby bottle for you?” sighed the Chief.
The house erupted in laughter.
The good natured joker Maloney waited for the hilarity to die down, then answered, “Would you sir? I am feelin’ a wee bit of a crank this mornin’.”
Chief Regan tried not to laugh but couldn’t help himself. Maloney could always be counted on to keep things light.
Regan continued. “All officers except those on special detail in citizens clothing will wear the regulation uniform at all times on the streets. Policemen detailed on Main Street and at railroad stations and steamer landings will not carry batons during the day.
“All officers are particularly enjoined to be courteous to strangers, assisting and directing them in every way. Give information distinctly, briefly and accurately. Any who may become
lost or overcome from heat or other cause, and need assistance, will be given special attention. Except when people are stationed along the curb to witness parades, the crowds will be kept moving. Do not lose temper, and use force only in the most extraordinary and extreme cases. Officers at all times must pay strict attention to duty and not loiter or visit with friends.
“Officers on duty at stations and steamboat landings will protect strangers from hackmen, boarding-house solicitors, runners, et cetera. Ascertain what section of the city they wish to go to and direct them to the proper streetcar lines. A strict surveillance will be kept on street fakers of all kinds. If they are found peddling any articles without the city license they will he arrested, and they will not be allowed to hold permanent positions on the sidewalks unless they have permits. Every man will constitute himself a detective in looking after any pickpockets or suspicious persons in the crowds and they will bring to the station houses or headquarters any person they may have reason to suspect.
“Men on post, day and night, will be extra vigilant on the lookout for thieves and duplicate key workers. All members of the force are ordered to arrest on sight all known thieves and vagrants, have them committed and held for the week.
“On Main Street and the other principal streets downtown, while all latitude will be allowed to the people to enjoy themselves, it must be done in a manner that will not be a discomfort or annoyance to the general public. Horseplay of any kind, boys and young men forming chains and rushing through crowds, throwing confetti or blowing of horns or ticklers at ears of passersby, especially women, will not be tolerated, and officers will take prompt action to prevent it and arrest offenders.
Murderers, Scoundrels and Ragamuffins Page 32