by Ola Larsmo
But whenever it was necessary to write something down, she would almost always get help from Mrs. Janson, the neighbor lady who lived on the first floor of the yellow-painted building. She was also from St. Paul and Swede Hollow. I didn’t like it when she came over, because she talked so much. But Mother seemed to enjoy her visits. After Mrs. Janson left, I would ask my mother what they’d talked about, and she said it was nothing, mostly about what things were like in the Hollow in the old days. Once I asked her about my father, and at first she didn’t reply, just busied herself with something with her back turned, probably waiting for me to leave. I usually didn’t ask about him, so I don’t know why I did that time. Mother had never said he was dead, but if others assumed he was, she didn’t deny it. So when I asked her what he’d done, she didn’t answer. When she got quiet like that, my only choice was to go out, even though Mother disapproved.
Every morning I’d walk down the hill. During the winter of the year when the circus came to Duluth, I would walk all the way out to the shipyard if there wasn’t too much snow. It was always hard going back up the hill on the way home, but Mother said we were lucky to be living so close to town.
I never had any reason to go up to the heights on a daily basis. The higher you climbed, the quieter it got, with fewer houses and fewer people. When I was out on my own, I would come to the intersection of Grand and Central and sometimes go as far as Highland. There was a big, flat rock far from the nearest lit window, and that’s where I used to stop for a while. From there everything looked different. The lake gleamed in the moonlight, and the aerial lift bridge in the harbor looked like the skeleton of a horse against the water with the lights from Superior glittering on the other side of the sound. The late-night streetcar going to Proctor would clatter past down below with flickering spotlights, like a little electric toy. I don’t know why I went up there. Then it was a matter of returning home and going to bed until I was awakened by all the noise and voices of the Tamminen family just before dawn. They had once owned a farm and still acted as if they had animals to care for.
When I was an apprentice at the Radford & Wright carpentry shop, I didn’t have far to go. Only a few blocks. I would go up to Grand and walk along until I had to turn off a few blocks before the high school’s tower. The city was different in the morning. Quiet and subdued if it was still dark, but in motion. I walked along the street with the others, surrounded by dark-clad people and the sound of wooden soles scraping on ice and pavement. Some might exchange a few words, but mostly we were silent until the factory whistles blew. That’s when we had to wake up. Then we entered the big hall that always smelled of newly sawn wood and varnish. But when times got bad after the war, I had to start working at the Riverside shipyard. I was lucky they still had jobs there, but it was like starting over again for me. And Riverside was farther away. It took me forty-five minutes to walk there. I would take Grand, though in the opposite direction. There were lots of others who also walked all the way there, though two or three streetcars would occasionally clatter past. Sometimes I considered hopping onboard, but then I wouldn’t have had enough money to pay for a ticket into town when Saturday rolled around.
During that winter and spring we built two barges. When you’re standing at the bottom of a ship’s hull you can imagine yourself indoors, even though you’re not. I started out as a rivet catcher, which takes skill, even though it may not sound like it. You had to be ready when Jonson the “cook” (or stoker) yelled, “Rivet!” and tossed it from the hearth. Then you had to catch it in a bucket and swiftly lift it out with a pair of tongs before it got cold and take it over to the riveter. At first I was really slow, and everybody got mad at me, but in the end I got to be real good at it. You end up not thinking about what you’re doing and just do it.
I turned sixteen while I was working there. Almost everybody out at Riverside was older. Everyone on my work crew was married except me. But there were a few guys my age on another crew, and we used to meet up on our way home. George and Lester were eighteen, but Larry was twenty. They lived a bit closer to town, and sometimes I’d go with them for a short way, before I almost always headed for home. Larry liked to play dice, and he used to go to some speakeasy, but I never did. Then he used to brag about how much he’d won the night before. I would go home and eat supper with my mother and leaf through the Swedish newspaper, which she got when the Jansons were done with it. Sometimes they’d clip out a section, and you had to guess what might have been there. Mother would sit with her mending on the other side of the table, and sometimes she’d stare at me so hard it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Then I’d tell her I was going out for a while. “You be a good boy, now,” she used to say as I went out the door. That was a habit of hers.
In the spring it got easier to walk to and from the shipyard. In the morning it was often foggy, but in the evening we’d linger a bit on the way home, especially when it started to stay light and there was no wind blowing off the lake. We might stand at the intersection of Grand and Ramsey, chatting for an hour or so, until we got hungry. Lester had a harmonica, and he used to get it out and play a quick little tune whenever any girls from the high school walked past, but they never paid any attention to us.
On that Monday in June we knew that Robinson’s circus had come to town. Everybody was talking about it, but they had set up their tents in the field out by Vernon Street, and I thought it was too far to go. When the circus parade passed through town, we’d been at work, so none of us had seen it. George and Lester wanted to go out there, but Larry thought it was childish to get so excited about a circus. It wasn’t like they had elephants or anything. But George wanted to see the woman snake charmer. I realized that Larry hadn’t been having much luck with the dice lately, but later I found out he’d gone out there after all, because if there was a circus, there were bound to be dice.
I was allowed to borrow Lester’s harmonica overnight, and I sat out in the yard trying to play tunes until it started getting dark and Mr. Tamminen told me to stop. Then I went inside. I didn’t hear anything about the rape until I went to work on Tuesday morning. By then it was all anyone was talking about.
The other men on my work crew were furious and kept shouting to each other above the din of the compressor. Things like, Have they caught them yet? and Those bastards! I didn’t know what they were talking about until break time. They were angry but also indignant. Apparently the news hadn’t appeared in the papers yet, or maybe no one dared write about it, which is what stoker Jonson said. But he also said that folks would still hear all about it. Apparently it had happened the night before. The victim was a girl from the west part of town. They said she lived on Seventh Street, and “she’s only a few years older than you.” That’s when I felt cold with fear, because it meant I might know her. It could be one of the girls who used to walk past when we stood and talked on the street corner.
The girl and her fiancé had gone to the circus and then strolled among the tents to be on their own for a while. That’s when they happened upon a bunch of Negroes who worked for the circus, and an argument had ensued. It ended with six of the Negroes rushing at the couple and knocking down the fiancé. One of them had threatened the pair with a gun. Then they attacked the girl.
When the older men at the shipyard got this far in the story, they stopped talking. The break would soon be over, so I asked them what happened to the girl. When no one answered, I repeated the question. “So what happened to the girl?” “Well, what do you think?” replied Jonson, looking scornful. “What the hell do you think? There were six of them. It’s not certain she’ll make it through the night.”
The men got up even before the whistle blew, as if they didn’t want to say any more about the subject. But for the rest of the afternoon they worked harder than usual, and they were much quieter. During the supper break some of the older men went off to a corner of the yard. I asked Larson what was going on, but he told me curtly to mind my own business, because this was a ma
tter for grown men. But I was stubborn and kept asking questions. From what I gathered, after hearing a few remarks here and there, the police had stopped the circus train, which was about to leave town, and arrested some of the Negro circus workers. Now they sat in jail over on Superior Street.
“But they’ll soon be out of there, just wait and see,” said Larson.
The fact that the other men stood there talking with their backs turned made me feel stupid. I tried not to let on, but I kept thinking about it, and that slowed me down so much that Larson yelled at me and called me an idiot. That usually made me feel bad, but this time I hardly noticed.
We talked about the incident on the way home, wondering if it could be one of the girls from the high school. Larry said he knew who it was, but she wasn’t anybody we knew. She was a little older, nineteen, almost as old as him, and she didn’t go to school anymore but had a job in town. But when we urged him to tell us her name, he got mad and told us to shut up, he didn’t want to say. “She might die,” he said, and then we didn’t talk for a while. Nothing was the same. It was hot for that time of the evening, and all the men were clustered together in small groups, keeping their voices low as they walked along. That wasn’t normal. And most of the men didn’t turn off at their streets but continued on into town, still in groups.
We stopped at the street corner as usual, though none of us said a word. I thought, a bit stupidly, that I should have brought Lester’s harmonica to give back to him, but he didn’t mention it. Larry stood there, punching at the nearest fence post, which was made of old, worn wood. He kept muttering to himself through clenched teeth, “Damn, damn, damn.” Then he got a splinter in his knuckle, but he pulled it out with his teeth. He glared angrily at the rest of us. When he lowered his hand, there was blood on his palm, but it didn’t seem to be hurting him. “Who wants to go with me into town?” The others nodded and set off. At first I followed close, but eventually I started to lag behind so they ended up a good distance down the hill. Then Larry turned around and shouted, “Are you coming or aren’t you, Hammerberg?” That was near the old maple tree at the widow Lindstrom’s place. I stood at the fence, not sure what to do, so I said, “I don’t have any money for the streetcar. Not on me.” “Go home and get some money,” said George. “We’ll wait here.” So there was nothing to do but go home. I had hoped that Mother would be over at Mrs. Janson’s, but she was sitting at the kitchen table, and I realized she had already heard that something was going on, because she looked worried. I went over to my bed and pulled out the tin box from underneath. That’s where I kept my money. She said, “You’re not going out again, are you?” And I said, “It’s nothing special, Mother. Lester and George and Larry and I are just going into town for a while to see what happens.” She threw out her hand, as if to say what a dumb idea that was, but she didn’t say anything as she looked out the window. I stuffed the coins in my pocket, grabbed my cap from the table, and left. She was still sitting there. “Don’t do anything stupid, Carl,” she called after me. “Of course not, Mother,” I said without turning around.
The others were waiting under the maple tree, all three of them, exactly where I’d left them. Then we went up to Grand to catch the next streetcar. I think it was ten minutes before we heard it coming down the hill. No one said a word.
The conductor wouldn’t take our money. “Not today, boys,” he said. “Not today.” Then he turned away.
The closer we got to town, the more people we saw on the streets, and everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction. When we reached Twenty-second West, a big crowd filled the middle of the street, and the streetcar made only slow progress as the driver clanged the bell, and Larry said, “Let’s get off here. It’ll be faster to walk.” So that’s what we did. Lots of other folks got off too, so we weren’t the only ones.
It seemed like people didn’t really know what to do. Some of them stayed up on the sidewalk while others gathered in groups in the middle of the street, standing there and talking without paying any attention to the cars and streetcars. The whole time more and more people kept showing up. Then we heard the sound of a car engine, and someone honked. The crowd parted to let the vehicle through. It was a Ford truck with an open bed, and a sign on the side said Dondinos in white letters. It drove real slow and kept on honking, but people didn’t get mad. They just moved aside to let it pass and then regrouped.
When the truck drew even with us, I saw something trailing behind. It was a rope with a big loop at the end, as if the truck was pulling some invisible load. The man in back was big. He wore a suit and had a thick black mustache. He caught sight of us and motioned us over. We walked along the side of the truck for a few minutes until he leaned down and asked, “You boys want to come along?” Larry said yes, and the man in the back of the truck leaned down and held out his hand to him. The rest of us ran after and jumped in too. We sat down on the wheel housings and looked at the crowds lining the street. Larry stood with his arms draped along the side, talking to the man with the mustache. I’d never seen him before, but afterward they said his name was Lindberg. He smiled and laughed and offered Larry some tobacco, but he didn’t talk to the rest of us. It was nice sitting there, with the sun peeking out and people looking at us as we rode along Grand, though we were going awful slow. I sat and looked down at the rope and the loop hopping over the cobblestones behind us, and it looked a little like when you skip stones across the water. I wasn’t tired at all.
Finally the truck stopped. We were really near the police station now. We jumped out, and I remember how the friend of the man with the mustache got out of the driver’s seat and rolled up his sleeves. Then he began winding up the rope in coils around his elbow and shoulder, and I thought he looked really strong. When I glanced around I realized I was about to lose sight of Larry and Lester and George, so I dashed after them. They were making their way through the crowd toward the police station, and the only reason I could see them was that Larry was taller and he was wearing his cap. We couldn’t get all the way up to the police station because there were too many people. George and I jumped up and tried to hold on as long as we could to the arm of one of the streetlamps in front of the station. I managed to hang on for a few minutes, but then I had to let go and rest before jumping up again. The old guys standing around me got annoyed, but then one of them said, “Can you see anything, boys?” And we could, although not much. There were three or four policemen lined up outside the front entrance, and I saw more through the window. None of them seemed to be carrying a gun, but the ones outside were holding billy clubs. The officer in the middle was taller than the others and bareheaded. He had thick blond hair, and I thought I recognized him. He looked angry, and his face was red, but the men standing at the front of the crowd almost seemed to be joking with him, saying something like, “Oh, come on, Oskar.” He raised his billy club, but not to hit anyone. It was like he wanted to warn off the nearest men, who then stepped back, forcing the crowd behind them closer together. I asked George if he knew who the blond guy was, and he said it was Sergeant Oskarsson, who lived a few blocks away from him. The men in front shouted to Oskarsson, “We want to talk to Murphy, Oskar. Ask him to come out.” Oskarsson shouted something back, but we couldn’t hear what he said. “Give us the Negroes,” yelled a man next to me, over and over again. Then I saw Larry backing away from the group in front of the door. He didn’t stop, just yelled at us to get down from the lamppost, so we followed him, wondering what he wanted. He said it was impossible to see anything there, so he and Lester were thinking of trying to go around back.
There weren’t as many people in the alley, and when we got around to the back we saw that the parking lot behind the police station was empty. Not a single vehicle. And only about twenty or twenty-five men standing below the loading dock, where two policemen holding billy clubs stood blocking the big steel doors. I saw big dents in the metal, so somebody must have tried to get in. The officers seemed less tense than their colleagues
out front, though they didn’t answer when anyone tried to talk to them. Lester asked some of the men where the police cars were and they said that Chief Murphy and the others had left early in the morning to bring back more of the Negro circus workers who had continued on to Virginia, because it was clear that more of them were involved. So the constables were the only policemen left at the station. Then the man added, “Along with the ones they already arrested.”
At that point there was a commotion in the alley and someone shouted, “The fire engine is coming!” Almost everyone ran back to the front of the building. The crowd had parted and farther up Superior Street the big fire truck was slowly approaching, but I saw only two firemen. The truck stopped a short distance away, and the firemen jumped out and began working to attach the fire hose to a hydrant on the corner. The people who stood closest got nervous and backed away, clearing a space so we could see what was going on. The firemen finished attaching the nozzle to the hydrant and then rolled the hose toward the police station. The crowd let them through. Then the man standing next to the fire truck turned on the water, and the hose came to life. Now folks realized what was about to happen, and they quickly backed away, so that a wall of people came toward me, and nobody looked where they were going. I almost fell over, but I grabbed the lamppost and regained my balance.
While everyone started running in different directions, I saw Sergeant Oskarsson grab the hose and hold it the way you’re supposed to, tucking it firmly under his arm. Then he twisted the nozzle and water came spraying out, glittering in the evening sun. He moved the hose from side to side and cleared the space in front of the police station, and nobody dared go any closer. Oskarsson was already soaking wet, with his hair hanging in his eyes, but he couldn’t let go of the hose to push his hair back. He shouted over his shoulder for his men to do something, but they looked uneasy and they stayed where they were on the steps, holding their billy clubs.