The Dark

by Claire Mulligan

  Where has the loyalty gone? John thought. Ambrose lying; Clement, Jeb, and Erastus fallen to the Church.

  Ambrose poked at the failing coals. “You reckon there’s any left?”

  John studied the bottle. “Half or so.”

  “I meant Indians. You reckon there’s any left hiding in the woods and that? Not just living in them museums?”

  “How in Christ’s shithouse should I know?”

  The next morning John found a note on a whisky label: I shud nevr hav left them. They was more famly than my famly and I just got to find them and beg forgivnes from her, thats all, I swer. Good luk to you, Ambrose York.

  John crumpled the note and fed it to the fire. Hoped the Indians would do the same to Ambrose.

  Wasn’t there a child’s rhyme? About sparrows or crows and how they fell off the branch one by one until only a solitary one was left? John felt alike that last one. Alone and unrhymed.

  Jeb O’Doul had been the first to fall. Returned to the Morning Star hefting a bible. “They’re giving them out free of payment. Gratis,” he said, astounded.

  “That’s right, all theys want is your ever-loving soul in return,” Erastus said.

  “That’s not the case, that’s not it at all. Besides, a real man of learning knows his bible as well as his almanac and his Latin.” Jeb explained that he’d been raised a Catholic and the Catholics didn’t hold with the ordinary man reading the holy text. “Not that my kin could read anyhow. And I’d go to church and there’d be the priest reading out bible passages in Latin. You can see how it wouldn’t hold a boy’s interest. But this …” He smoothed his hand over the black cover and settled on his stool by the prow.

  “Don’t open it,” John warned, but it was too late. Jeb was already reading, was already muttering and arguing with the book, as if it were any other. John was not surprised when Jeb attended a Reverend Finney sermon later that week.

  “Finney, he talks a blue streak, but he has no true poetics in him, not like the King James did,” Jeb reported, his bible tucked under his arm.

  Two weeks later John and Erastus spied Jeb in a chophouse with some dark-dressed tradesmen. He was in an ardent discussion over a point in Leviticus. He didn’t see them and they made no attempt to lure him back to the Morning Star. They’d both seen the fanatic’s cast to his eyes. He was done and gone.

  Clement fell next. A clucky aunt of his arrived at the boat armed with currant cakes. “Come with me to a sermon, Clemmy, I need your strong hand to guide me. Ah, but we’ve missed you.”

  “You have?” Clement asked. Four days later and he was packing up. “I don’t feel lonely when I’m with all those people praying, that’s all. And I felt like God don’t care about this hideous face I got. It was like an invitation to a party, but a party with lemonade and tea only. And butter cookies. And currant cakes.”

  “Lonely!” Erastus yelled. “Sweet screwed Mary! Lonely!”

  Then Thomas told Erastus and John that plodding all day with a mule for company and then listening to the same drunken rants was, yes, lonely. He was tired of counting stones and multiplying them by the number of boot steps it took to walk a mile. His aunt was going to pay his way to college, he said, so long as he kept to the righteous path. She thought he might be good at algebra, or even the ministry.

  Erastus grumbled over that for days, then suggested that, to rouse their spirits, they visit a grocer that sold liquor on the sly. Erastus, Ambrose and John had their boots up on the back table, a dram before each heel, when the two women walked in. The one woman was overtall, with a pinched look. The other wore a fur-trimmed cloak, a velvety plum gown with a matching bonnet. Underneath the bonnet were curls so perfectly spiralled they might have been carved from gold. Erastus gaped and stood. John and Ambrose followed suit. Plum-Girl fiddled shyly with her gloves. Her pinch-faced companion said that they were going door to door to spread the Gospel and would have a word with the lady of the establishment.

  Erastus pressed back a greasy strand of hair. “Door to door? Now there’s a da—a real catchy phrase.”

  The grocer reported that the “lady” of the establishment was at market. To which the pinch-faced lady said, “Then we shall return on the morrow. Good day, gentlemen.”

  “Hold up there, please,” Erastus said. “We can listen well as anyone, can’t we, boys?” He turned to John and Ambrose with what was likely a fool’s grin under his mass of beard.

  “We’re not allowed, obviously, to preach to canal men,” said the pinched-faced lady.

  “But I can pray for you if you tell me your name,” Plum-Girl put in shyly.

  “Pray for me? You? You’d use my name? I’d like that, I surely would,” Erastus said, and gave her his name, though he might as well have torn his heart out and handed it over.

  The next morning Ambrose and John walked a funereal pace behind Erastus back to the grocer. Erastus had gone to the barber directly after the encounter and got far more than his ear hairs trimmed. The beard that had spanned his chest and crawled up his cheekbones was entirely gone, as was the long hair and its wrappings of twine. Revealed was a jaw that a level couldn’t have made as square. He’d traded his sack coat for a frocked one and his straw hat for a top hat of beaver. His hair was pompadoured out of his eyes, and these eyes shone like emeralds. He was a damned handsome man, even John could see that. The owner of the grocery stared at this transformation.

  Erastus opened the door for the women when he saw them approach. Gave a clumsy bow. Plum-Girl stared in puzzlement, then blushed when Erastus said her praying must have worked its wonders.

  “Ah, I would not have recognized you,” she said. “Not for all the world.”

  … I wouldn’t have thought mortal love had such power, Leah-Lou. But it did. And it seems God uses mortal love to direct us. Now that I’m thinking on it, it were Brother Able who told me this fact …

  February of 1831. John was balled up in the niche-bed below the decks of the Morning Star with only a banked fire and horsehair blanket for warmth. He couldn’t tell if it was morning or afternoon, not from that muzzy light at the top of the hatchway stairs. His teeth were loosening in his aching gums, his hair littered his pillow, and his eyes were often so itchy he wanted to claw them out of his head. Likewise his skin so itched he longed to shrug it off entirely, as if he were some grimey moth inside a tattered chrysalid.

  He scrabbled for the bottle. Only two finger-measures of medicinal brandy left. This he promptly and despairingly swallowed. It was the last of his stash. John would have to forage in Rochester. But how? His legs shook when he stood. He cursed Erastus and his children to be. Shivered. Prodded at the coal fire. Only a few coals were left in the box. He supposed heat might be as important to his survival over the winter as liquor. He’d have to forage for both.

  Boot steps above his head.

  “Thank shivering Jesus,” John muttered, thinking it was Ambrose come back from a failed mission to find the Indians. John lurched out of the hold and onto the tilted deck.

  Brother Able staggered back with a cry. He wore the same overlarge homespun coat along now with mittens the size of paddles. Wore the same too-small black hat, the same pop-eyed look of astonishment. He had a scribble of beard and matted hair and red-rimmed eyes. Looked, in all, as if he were faring even worse than John.

  “Son of a poxed whore! What the hell you doing here?”

  “I—I, that was, M-Mr. Bearcup, he s-said, y-you were s-still here. Th-that y-you are s-still r-renouncing G-God.”

  “Not ‘renouncing’ any fucking thing. Want nothing to goddamned do with it.”

  Brother Able’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I—I h-have a p-proposition, M-Mr. F-Fox.”

  It took some time for Able to make himself clear. Seemed he wanted John to come with him to one of Finney’s sermons so that John could pray with those who were with the holy spirit. Seemed that Brother Able was taking John on as a personal cause. “C-Come with me. N-No man can l-listen to R-Rever
end F-Finney and n-not be c-convinced.”

  “And how damn many you converted? I mean, you personally?” John asked slyly.

  Able shifted his feet. A tannery stink wafted in on an iced wind. February sleet splattered on the deck. “N-Not a one.”

  “Hah, that’s ’cus you don’t offer any enticements.” John scratched at his cheek. “Here, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go with you to this here fucking sermon and if I ain’t convinced, you got to buy me a gallon, no, two gallons of whisky. I’m damn clean out of money, see.”

  Able stammered a protest.

  “If you’re so cunt-certain no one can resist this Finney, what were you fussing about? Mayhap he’s not all he’s damned lathered up to be.” John enjoyed watching Able flinch after each foul and blasphemous word. But wasn’t expecting him to stammer out, “A-All right.”

  “All right? That what you said?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  “And?”

  “A-And?”

  “You got to drink the whisky with me. Don’t fancy this damned drinking alone. Even your sorry company might suffice. Not that you’ll have to. I’m gonna see the light, ain’t I?”

  Brother Able swallowed. “A-And y-you’ll pray w-with us?”

  “On my fucking knees, as is the fashion.”

  Able stammered out that they could make it to the sermon by ten if they walked briskly.

  John-Before studied the grey-lit sky. “Ten? I’ll be buggered. Is it morning?”

  Central Presbyterian on Plymouth Avenue was crammed to its naves. Able guided John into a back pew and sat aside him as if to stop him bolting. John was a filthy, stinking wretch and the congregation cast the two men grouty looks. And not just for the stink, John knew, but for his stubborn, cross-armed slouch, his disdainful glances at the cross above the pulpit. The Reverend Finney wanted only those who were on the cusp of conversion. His was not a Broadway show that one attended out of curiosity or for a lark, but a revelation of God’s will. So John had heard, and so John couldn’t give a rotter’s arse.

  John yawned and closed his eyes as Able stood and was greeted by those Rochesterians who had seen him attempting stump preaching. On the walk over Able confided how he preached every day, no matter the weather, but that it was hard to hold a crowd, what with his impediment—at least, John supposed this is what he’d said. John’s mind had been too pre-occupied by thoughts of whisky, by the certainty that Finney could not possibly move him to contemplate his own navel, never mind God’s grace.

  The church fair steamed with expectation. A hush fell as Reverend Finney strode in.

  … You couldn’t imagine a form more fit for the Pulpit than this Finney, Leah-Lou. He towered over all men and had eyes like blue torches that burned sinners at the far reaches of the crowd. He preached without text and used common talk, but then there was his lawyer mind and lawyer training and those allowed him logical explanations of Hell and Heaven and of the ways of Redemption that were open to all and sundry. He preached on how Salvation was a free choice and how a body could not be forced to it by rule and dominations, only by constant prayer with true believers, often for days upon end, and with women praying freely with the men, and I tell you these new ways were some scandalous to the conservative-minded. And how those old-style Preachers despised that phrase—Born Again. They snided that Finney must reckon himself a midwife or a nursemaid. I suspect they were trepidatious, was all.

  Curious, isn’t it? How religions and revivals flame through this upper corner of the Union and one idea rises fertile from the ashes of the other, and I suppose that’s one reason folk aren’t wary of this so-called Spiritualism of yours, my girl, and why you had the gumption to fashion it from a prank, no less. And yet if Finney’s converts and yours were lined up side to side, I reckon your line would be far longer, and this thought gives me pride—a sin, sure, but then I am a sinning man even yet …

  In short order Finney was hurling up his arms as if to raise a whirlwind and dropping his finger down, down to show the descent to Hell, at which the congregation gasped. He spoke softly, persuasively, then thundered out the message: constant prayer would cause a change of heart. It would cause you to be saved, for you were the agent, the genesis. Man was not passive afore a vengeful, capricious God. There was no elect, as the Calvinists would have it. Even that word elect reeked of brimstone.

  The congregation sniffed in terror as if smelling brimstone for themselves. John roused himself awake and picked his teeth with an overlong thumbnail.

  God’s intentions were clear, Finney insisted. He loved every soul. And even the most recalcitrant soul could be pried open to God’s mercy. In America any man or woman, no matter their past, no matter how poor, could lift themselves up and be saved.

  “It was a fair show,” John admitted when Finney was done. He and Able were waiting in an alleyway that was troughed with cold. The back door to a warehouse stood ajar.

  Able was a sad huddle within his large coat. John was nearly cheerful. “My, my, all the shakings and hallelujahs. And that ‘anxious bench’ was a nice touch. Even the naming of it. Gets people all, all, well, damned anxious, don’t it? My knees, mind, are damned sore from all the kneeling. Worse was my throat.” John rubs it theatrically. “All that praying. Sure need some damned lubrication, that I do. Ah, here’s the good man now. Milk containers? Swell idea. That way we won’t be attacked by the God-fearing. Pay the man, will ya, Able?”

  Able did so, complaining weakly that it was all the money he had.

  “God will provide, Able my boy, just see if He fucking don’t.”

  Back at the Morning Star, John-Before grubbed up two glasses. Able perched on the stool beside the stove. The last of the coal was burning hot, but Able still clutched his great coat about him. “I—I’ve n-never imbibed a-anything s-stronger than a-ale. And that j-just once.”

  “Horseshit. Musta drank cider like any child. Musta had some brandy. Who ain’t had that for sickness?”

  “My m-ma didn’t h-hold with e-even weak spirits. We d-drank water.”

  Water? John admitted that women could be peculiar. He poured a full glass for both of them. Felt elated. He had nearly begun to shake in the church—not from the Holy Spirit; only from the lack of more familiar spirits. Finney’s words had coursed round him like midges, annoying but hardly lasting. He was immune to it all. Inoculated by stubbornness, he supposed.

  “D-Do you n-not worry about y-your soul in H-Hell?” Able asked. He sipped his whisky. Spluttered and made a face.

  “Those are tales to scare children into behaving,” John said, though in truth his imagination never stretched up to Heaven nor down to Hell. It only reached to the bottom of an empty bottle, which was hell enough for him.

  “Toss it back now. Like so. It’ll make the burn less. That sipping will be naught but a sister-fucking torment.”

  Able sighed, then nodded with an abrupt determination. Drained his glass. He coughed, eyes streaming. John couldn’t recall enjoying himself more. Convert John Fox? The whippersnapper would find his own self converted for his impertinence, and to the worship of Libation.

  Able shook his head like a dog shaking off water. Chuckled. “My brother, Willing, he used to pull chairs out from under me. Bam! Down I’d go howling like a banshee. Never learned. Think I woulda … Well, gosh darn, eh?”

  They were both stunned to silence. Able ogled his glass. Cautiously opened his mouth again. “I’ve never spoken clean like that. Like now!” He thrust the glass at John, who obligingly filled it.

  Able drained his second glass, then a third, a fourth. Stood and swayed, his head knocking on the low roof. “I can talk! I can talk!” And talk he did. In a torrent. Told John of his father and how when drunk he’d beat his children, but was in general a kind man, and that he’d lost all he owned to drink and left his wife and children penniless and they had to live above a butcher shop and his mother had to work as a maid, though she was not born to such work, and she died only a year ago from labou
ring so hard. “So when Mr. Bearcup saw me and told me you were a wayward, drunken husband and father, I thought of mine own pa, and I knew I had to keep on trying to save your mortal soul as mine were saved, and that started with my brother Willing’s death a while back. See, his dying turned our ma near lunatic with grief, but I wasn’t troubled. No sir! I even knew some relief and, my wordy word, but I felt terrible for that. That’s about when I started turning to God. I’m gonna tell you a secret. Mustn’t tell a soul, promise like an honest Injun? I didn’t start praying ’cus I felt sorrow, it was ’cus I didn’t and I was sure my soul would roast in Hell’s fire because of that. Willing would make fun of my talk, see, be right mean about it. He always called me Bother Able, and I thought he was saying Brother, but he wasn’t. Bother. Bother. That’s what I was. But I liked Brother Able, that’s why I kept it, not ’cus I’m a monk or damned papist. Oh, Willing! If you could hear me now! Listen. Hear me talk like anyone else!”

  Able was shouting by now, and cutting a shuffling jig in the confined space. John made no move to shush or stop him. There was no one close by these cold days to hear, not that he gave a tinker’s damn if others were irked by drunken ranting.

  Able wagged his finger at John. “You’re a good man, Mr. Fox, yes, you are. Here I thought you were the worst kind of bastard, ’scuse me. Here I thought you were even some kind of evil man who’d blanked out God,” Able whispered. “I even considered you might be the Devil himself, or a minion of him. No real man could be so stubborn, could he? But I was wrong, wrong, wrong, wasn’t I? ’Cus you’ve cured me!”

  Able dropped back on his stool. Held out his glass. John eyed him warily. He’d never seen anyone get so drunk so quickly, but then it was new to the boy. He filled Able’s glass only halfway, but Able jiggled it angrily, so he filled it to the brim. Able tossed back the liquor as if he’d been drinking all his born days.

  “Now I can preach! Hah, I’ll find me the highest soap box! Nobody’s gonna stare at their pocket watches because I’m looking like a fish caught on a hook. You know, I spent three months on the canal byways talking and preaching, but your crew was the only one who even let me aboard. But I didn’t convert even a one of yous. It were other auspices, as they say. I haven’t converted a single soul. But I will now. Hah! I’m gonna be alike to Finney himself with words flowing out like the river of Babylon!”