Your friend Bill D.
“I’m sorry,” said Mickey—for what seemed like the millionth time—when we were done reading. “I was there before the hearing started. I was right across Twelfth Street, waiting. I saw the priest taking Bill inside. It was only just the two of ’em, going in. But when they came out, maybe an hour later, my dad was with ’em.” Mickey took off his cap and pushed his hair out of his eyes, as if he was still trying to see it all. “I should’ve known. I should’ve figured he’d be there. He must’ve guessed we’d be planning something—that Bill would run, first chance he got. He had him locked right to him: one cuff on Bill’s good wrist, one on his own, so neither of ’em could go anywhere without dragging the other with him. And Bill saw me. I’m sure he saw me—I stepped out of the shade on purpose and he looked right at me. But then he shook his head, because what was the use? We never counted on the damn—excuse me, the handcuffs. Ah, cripes, I should have known. . . .”
“How could you have known?” asked Mary.
“I know my father,” said Mickey. “He couldn’t just walk Bill to the station and turn him over to the conductor. He had to get on the train with him. He must have stayed with him all the way to Boonville. Any other cop would have seen him to his seat and gone home to his own supper, but not him. Not Tim Doyle. That’s just how he is. He took a bullet once, guarding a prisoner. He wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to get him there safe.”
“For his own protection,” I muttered. I felt sick to my stomach, remembering.
There are worse things than Boonville. . . .
They’d rather be dead than locked up. . . .
Then they might get their wish. . . .
“I’d have followed ’em, if I could’ve, if it’d done any good. Hung on to the caboose, maybe. I don’t know. I stuck around till the train pulled out. Then I remembered Bill’s letter—what he’d said about the two of you. I had to stop you from leaving the nuns’ place. So I went over to Morgan Street, but it wasn’t any use. I knocked on the door, but they wouldn’t open it. I guess you couldn’t really blame ’em. It was dark by that time; half the world was in the saloons. So I figured I’d just wait outside, keep watch, you know, till morning—catch you, if you came out, and tell you what had happened. Only then all hell broke loose with the Rats and the Nixies, and Fat Eddie shot that loudmouth in the alley—”
“I knew it!” Jimmy broke in. “I knew it was him! And he saw you, was that it? Was it Eddie who spotted you?”
Mickey nodded. “He wasn’t more’n five yards from me. I should’ve had more sense. I’d backed up by the dustbins at the fence there, when his gun went off. I was just tryin’ to stay out of the way. I didn’t think he’d seen me, at first. But then he pointed it right at me. You could still smell it smokin’. ‘How’s your pal with the broken arm?’ he said.”
“Dear God,” Mary whispered.
Jimmy’s eyes were bright as firecrackers. “What d’jya do then, Mick? D’jya knock the gun out of his hand? I bet you gave him what-for, didn’t you, Mick? Boy oh boy, I wisht I’d been there! Howjya ever get away?”
“I ran,” said Mickey. “I got lucky, that’s all. Don’t be making me into some kind of hero, Jimmy—”
“But he had the bead on you, Mick! He had you backed into the corner there!”
“Till I tripped over one of the cans, scramblin’, and it rolled right into him. It was nothin’ but dumb luck, Jim; it gave me time to jump the fence, that’s all. And I never looked back, neither. I could hear shouting behind me—people coming outside, I guess—but I just kept runnin’. I got out of there. Bill had asked me just the one thing—to watch out for his sisters, that’s all. And what did I do? I ran.”
He looked so miserable, I’d have felt almost sorry for him, if I hadn’t been so used to hating his guts.
“You couldn’t help it,” said Mary. “What else could you have done?”
Mickey shook his head. “I don’t know. Something. Anything. I wasn’t thinking straight. I got all the way back to the camp before my head cleared. And then I took out the letter, and read it again. You were coming to the bridge in the morning, it said. So I figured you’d be here, if you could get here.”
“And here we are,” said Mary.
Mickey nodded. “Here you are.” He started to say something else. “I wish—” he began, then stopped and stared at the cap in his hands. There was a torn place by the rim, where a patch had come loose. “I’d give anything in the world to change it all.”
Mary lifted her chin. “You did what you had to do. You told us what you had to tell us.” She looked older than herself, even older than he was, though he had a good two years on her, easy.
“And you’ll go back now, then?” said Mickey. “They’ll have you back, won’t they?”
The hackles rose at the nape of my neck. “Go back? Go back where?”
“To the nuns,” said Mickey. “Like Bill said.”
Mary nodded. “I suppose we’ll have to. Where else would we go?”
“Anywhere else!” I grabbed her by the arm. “Anyplace but that place! I don’t know—the camp, maybe. Is that what you called it?” I looked at Mickey. “Ain’t that where Bill would have taken us?”
“He never told me,” said Mickey. “There was only the letter. But I don’t think he’d have taken you to the camp. It’s not just us over there, Julia. It’s strangers, mostly. Rough men—hoboes and such.”
Jimmy stuck out his chest. “It ain’t a place for girls,” he said.
“Or for kids,” said Mickey. He put a hand on his shoulder. “You have to go back, too, Jim.”
“Go where?”
“To Father Dunne’s.”
“Ah, Mick . . .”
“Just for a while, till we get our plans made. You’re our eyes and ears, remember? We need you there.”
“But I can’t go back now, Mick; I brought my kit!”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” I told him. My throat was starting to ache. But I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. I sank down on the edge of the broken box and covered my ears. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. . . .”
Mary knelt beside me. She took hold of both my arms, shook me a little. “You know we have to go back, Julia. You saw what Bill said. We’ve only been gone a couple of hours; it won’t be so bad. And Betty will be looking for you.”
I wiped my nose with the edge of my sleeve.
Mickey knelt down on my other side. “I’ll get him out of there, J. Somehow or other. I swear to you I’ll get him out.”
I sucked in a ragged breath. That was Bill’s name for me. Only Bill could call me J.
But this was his friend Mick, offering me his hand.
He got back on his feet, and held it out, and stood there waiting to help me up.
So after a moment or two, I swallowed hard, and took it.
Chapter 21
Whoso diggeth a pit, shall fall therein.
Whoso diggeth a pit, shall fall therein.
Whoso diggeth a pit . . . shall spend two hours of every day of the next two weeks in the head nun’s office, writing “Whoso diggeth a pit” a thousand times.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
That was nowhere near the worst of it.
“The farm?” I’d said to Mary at the end of the second Saturday, when Sister Maclovius had finally brought her in to tell me. The room had gone icy all of a sudden. Nobody had lit the fire yet. November kept changing on us—on again, off again. Three days ago it had snowed half a foot; just this morning it was hot as August. And now it was winter all over, not three hours later, and getting colder by the second. The wind was rattling the window frame like a wild thing, when Mary came through the door.
“Be quick now,” Sister was telling her. For nearly two weeks, she’d watched me with her hawk eyes, scarcely saying a word beyond “Come in” and “Sit down” and “Work away, Miss Delaney.” Nobody was allowed to talk to me while I scribbled on and on; not even Betty could get past Sister M
aclovius. So it was only Mary she was speaking to, when she said “Be quick.”
“Just say your goodbyes and have done with it. Mr. Lenahan will be here any minute. No doubt he’ll be wanting to get back to the farm before dark, with the weather in such a state.” And then she narrowed her eyes at me and left us alone and closed the door behind her, and all the time I stood there, gaping.
“The farm? Ah, no, Mary—not the farm with all the babies!”
She nodded. “Twins, mostly. The little ones are still fresh.”
“But it ain’t fair! How could she do that? I passed the damn plate, didn’t I?”
“It’s all right, Julia. There’s no use cussing. I don’t mind babies, really. I’ll take babies over laundry any day. And Sister says these people are paying a bit, too. It’s not much, but it’s something. It’s not as if they’re adopting me, like they might if I were younger. So if Bill does get out—”
“When he gets out, you mean—”
Mary sighed. “When he gets out. We’ll need money then, won’t we? You know we’ll have to have money. Even Gran knew that—look here, now—I’ve got her purse, you see? It was in my box; it’s been there all along. Aunt Gert must have put it in. There’s two dollars and fifty-eight cents, all in change. Gran must have had it from her sewing—her button money, remember? ‘Every penny counts,’ she always said, ‘when you’re saving for chickens.’ And if they pay me—well, then it’s not charity; it’s a job, isn’t it? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“How much will they pay?” I asked, taking the little black purse in my hand. It was stitched out of quilted cloth, soft as silk and frayed at the seams, with a bent metal clasp that used to be shiny. If you squinted you could make out bits of goldish paint clinging to the edges. It looked like Gran, somehow; I could still see her patting it in her pocket. And when you opened it, it smelled like her too—like talcum powder, maybe? And something else—I couldn’t think what it was. . . .
“A dollar a week,” said Mary. “Ah, sure, roll your eyes if you like. I know it’s not much. But I’ll save every dime, you see; I won’t spend a cent of it. They’ll give me my meals and a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head. What else will I need? Not a thing. So when Bill gets out—”
“Ah, crikey, Mary. A dollar a week?” The tears were crowding my throat again, so it came out in a growl. “That’s nothin’, is what that is. That’s a spit in the Mississippi.”
Mary lifted her chin. It trembled, just a little. She took back the purse and turned away. “I guess a spit’s better than no spit. It’s not like they’re letting me choose.”
Caraway seeds . . . that was the other smell. Gran used to like those little brown buns from Patrizi’s market, with the caraway seeds on top. . . .
I threw my arms around Mary’s waist. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. It’s just—you’ll be gone, don’t you see? How will I ever find you? You’ll be away out there in the sticks somewhere, a million miles from here. It took us two months to get to the bridge, remember? And that’s just down the street, Mary; it ain’t nothing at all. . . .”
She didn’t pull away. She held on tight, till I settled down some, and put the purse back in my hands. “You keep it,” she said, “in case you see Bill first.” And then she took the blue ribbon out of her hair and bit it, and tore it in two, and tied half of it back in hers, and the other half in mine. “It’s not a million miles, you know. It’s only Jefferson County. You couldn’t ever lose me, Julia, even if you wanted to.”
Whoso diggeth a pit, shall fall therein.
Whoso diggeth a pit, shall fall therein.
Deeper and deeper . . .
Colder and colder . . .
That night, when Betty heard me crying into my pillow, upstairs in the slant-walled room, she climbed in bed beside me and hugged me, and patted my back, and made soft clucking sounds, as if she was comforting a colicky child—a Lenahan, like as not—or Hyacinth, maybe, in need of an apple. Until I was worn-out and raw-throated from so many tears, and I fell asleep finally, or halfway asleep, anyhow. . . .
And here’s Gran, all of a sudden. She’s sitting by Betty, tilting her head at us and taking something from her pocket—is it the purse? Ah, sure it is—her little black purse. And she opens it and turns it over, and coins spill everywhere, and Betty catches them and laughs, but Gran pays her no mind. It’s not the coins she cares about. And still she’s looking and looking; she peers inside and gives the purse another shake, and now a piece of yellow paper comes floating out, and she snags it in the air and hands it to me. It’s folded twice over, so I can’t see what’s written on it, but I start to sweat when my fingers touch it, and the hair stands up on my neck and my arms. Dear God, ah, no, I’ve seen it before, haven’t I? I’ve dreamed it a thousand times. I know what it is but I don’t want to know; I don’t want to remember; I don’t want any part of it. I throw the paper down, but Betty picks it up and opens it for me and hands it to me again, and I squeeze my eyes shut, because I won’t, I can’t look, but still she pushes it at me. . . .
And quick as that, I’m home again, and it’s summer; it’s always summer. . . . The kitchen window is open, though it’s dark outside, and the fog horns are blowing on the river. I can hear them calling to the ferry by the landing, long and low in my good ear. And there’s that sick-sweet smell in the air, the burnt-tar smell that makes my stomach pitch. “Never mind,” Gran says, when she sees me trembling, “it’s only the creosote barges.” And I know I’m still dreaming—it’s the dream inside the other dream—“Oh! Fair Thomas Egan, too bad you’re going to hang. . . .” But I can’t wake up; I can never wake up. Please, Papa, oh, Papa, can’t you make it stop? It’s that night again, all over. We’re done with the Fair and the Fair’s done with us and Gran’s tearing up rags for my blistered feet when the note comes. It always comes. There it is slipping under the door now—you see?—the piece of yellow paper with the circle at the top, like the one on the union banner, the circle inside the other circle, that used to make you sing:
The union will butter our beans now!
The union’s a marvelous might!
I’m the poorest man here, but I’m buyin’ the beer,
And fartin’ through silk tonight!
Only this time you don’t sing when you read it. Why ain’t you singin’, Papa? You shake your head like it hurts you and pass a hand over your eyes; they’re all red and wild-looking and your hand is shaking again too. “The bridge,” you mumble. “They’re waitin’ at the bridge.”
And you turn to leave, and Bill gets hold of you—“Who’s waitin’, Pop? What’s wrong?”—but you won’t listen, you never listen, you shove him away so hard, he loses his balance and trips over backward, and you help him up then and stand there swaying like you might fall down yourself.
“Sorry, son, sorry, sorry,” you keep saying. “It’s the Rats, don’t you see? They’re swearin’ they’ll bust the union. . . . I promised your mother I’d stop ’em, don’t you see, son?”
And we all grab on to you then and Gran takes the yellow paper out of your hand and wags a finger at you and says, “That’s enough now, Cyril. Will you listen to yourself? Have you lost your wits entirely? You’re in no condition to be traipsing about on bridges on a night like this!”
But you go just the same. You always go. You put on your coat and your hat and you kiss Gran’s cheek. She’s mad as a hornet and won’t look at you, but you go out the door anyhow, and the fog snakes around you, and the dark swallows you whole.
“Don’t stand there gaping like a pack of jackfish,” says Gran. Her green eyes are snapping at us. “Go off to bed this minute or you’ll live to regret it.”
“Let the girls go to bed,” says Bill. “I’m going after him.”
“You are not, sir!” she says. “You’ll catch your death in this damp. Don’t you take the first step, do you hear me?”
And he says, “Yes, Gran,” but I know he don’t mean it. He’s only waiting t
ill she’s stomped off to her own cot and shooed the rest of us to ours. And then he slips out the door, soft as a shadow. He thinks I’m asleep, same as Mary, but I’m not. I’m watching him like always and I run quick and follow. “Go back, J,” Bill says when he catches me, but I won’t. He can’t make me. I know the way to the bridge just as well as he does.
But when we get there, it’s no use; we can’t see you, Papa. We can’t see the tips of our own noses. The fog is even worse here, so close to the water, so thick that the streetlamps can’t shine their light through it. They make milky little circles with a million tiny white drops floating in ’em that dot the dark in a long line at the edge of the bridge—it must be the bridge—though they don’t show a thing. And somewhere in the soup ahead, there are footsteps and rough voices, but I can’t make out the bodies they belong to. They move through the fog like muttering ghosts, the ghosts of ghosts, grumbling and shoving. “Pop!” Bill hollers. “Are you there, Pop? Are you all right?”
And the next thing I know, somebody’s got me tight around the shoulders and someone else is grabbing Bill and pushing him back, pressing him flat against the rail of the bridge itself and snarling, “What are you shoutin’ about, ye tomfool kid? Close your mouth or I’ll close it for you. Your pop ain’t here. He never was here. Do you see what I’m sayin’, boy?” And he boxes Bill’s ears and I want to kill him for it but the other one has me pinned so tight, I can’t move; I can hardly breathe; I can’t make a sound. All the air’s gone out of my lungs and I want to wake up, but I can’t wake up, and I don’t understand, I don’t understand anything, what with the fog and the fog horns and the muttering and confusion and the water making the slapping sound down, down, way down in the river below us—it must be the river; I can smell it now—the fish smell and the smokestack smell and the burnt-tar smell from the barges. . . . Oh, Papa, I can taste it now, too; the bile’s rising in my throat, and I know it, I know the river’s down there in the milky dark, waiting to suck me under, and still you don’t come, you never come.
The Year We Sailed the Sun Page 14