Swede Hollow

by Ola Larsmo

  For a while it looked like folks would back away even farther. The street in front of the station was now almost deserted because everyone had fled from the spraying water to the side streets. Then some of the men got mad. Suddenly a rock flew through the air, right over my head, and landed at Oskarsson’s feet. He ignored it, but the two other policemen took a step back. Then more rocks were thrown. They struck the brick wall above the policemen, doing no damage. But the next one hit an officer, making him yell. He stood still for moment, grimacing as he rubbed his elbow. Then he seemed to go crazy. He ran at the nearest group of men, hitting them again and again with the billy club he was holding in his uninjured hand. His other arm hung limply at his side, and I realized it was probably broken and it must have hurt like hell. More rocks flew through the air, but none seemed to hit their targets.

  Then one of the men from the truck came over to us—I think his name was Olsson—and he said, “Give me a hand, boys.” We followed him over to the fire hydrant, where men were in the process of unrolling another hose they’d taken out of the fire engine. They handed us one end of the new hose and told us to carry it, and I think at least one of the men standing there was from the fire brigade, but I didn’t know who the others were. So we picked up the hose and carried it a short distance away until others in the group came to help and we lifted it over the heads of the nearest bystanders. That’s all we did. I tried to grab the arm of the lamppost again to see what was going on, but that was harder to do now that people were coming back from the side streets. Oskarsson must have figured out what was happening, because he said something to his men, and they ran forward, swinging their billy clubs at the arms of the men carrying the new hose so they dropped it just as the water started spraying out. For a while there was a lot of commotion, with people backing away from the entrance to the police station, so I let go of the lamppost again. Even though water was spraying everywhere, I didn’t really get wet.

  After that something changed. It was like the men standing in front decided not to be scared of the hose Oskarsson was holding. Instead, they banded together. The crowd surged forward and somebody screamed loudly, not from pain but from anger. Maybe it was Oskarsson, because then somebody else was holding the hose, and I saw it was turned in a different direction, toward the front entrance, and water was spraying over the brick façade and splashing over the closed doors. Somebody shouted, “Get the windows!” and when the water was aimed at the big window with the words DULUTH POLICE in gold letters, the glass broke almost instantly. Then they sprayed the other windows until all of them were broken. Now everybody pushed forward in order to see better. We did too. And when we reached the entrance, the door was already open, and water was running down the steps to the street. Water was still spraying from the hose, splashing through the broken windowpanes and doorway, and people were shouting angrily. I wanted to see what was happening, so I went inside with the others. It would have been impossible to turn around because of everyone shoving us from behind. When we got inside, there was water all over the black-and-white checked floor, and through an open door I saw that two soaked constables had put Oskarsson in a chair and were pressing a bloodstained handkerchief to his face. Water kept pouring in until somebody outside must have turned off the hydrant, and when it stopped, everything got so quiet that you could hear water dripping from the ceiling and stairwell. For a moment I wondered why the police were only using billy clubs when they had pistols and even shotguns at the station, but then I didn’t give it any more thought. I didn’t know where Lester and the others had gone. At first I thought they were with me, but when I looked around, I couldn’t see them, and I couldn’t go back down the steps because there were too many people. I told myself that I’d never been inside a jail before, so I wanted to have a look at the cells.

  For a while there was a lot of noise on the second floor, where one of the constables was still swinging his billy club, until some of the bigger men in front were able to push him down the steps. He landed with his back against all the people crowding onto the stairs. They parted to let him through, shoving him all the way to the bottom. It looked almost comical, as if he were some sort of toy that could climb down ladders. Then he was gone. Somebody shouted after him, because the wooden doors to the cells on the left were locked and the keys were probably still in the policeman’s pocket. Someone started pounding on the door panel with a rock, while several young guys that I didn’t know caught sight of a fire alarm box farther down the hall, and they ran over and kicked it in. They came back with a sturdy axe, and somebody cheered. Soon they’d broken a hole in the door, and they kept hacking off big pieces of wood. But they still couldn’t open the door.

  At that point I got bored with the whole situation. I was standing so far in the back that I couldn’t see much, and things almost seemed to be returning to normal. So I went over to the opposite end of the corridor, where a door was ajar.

  The room inside was only dimly lit, and it smelled of piss. The bars of the cells gleamed in the light from the doorway. I heard what sounded like someone whimpering, so I went in.

  The bunks in the first cell were empty. I thought the other one was empty too, until I noticed something move in the far corner. It was real dark, but I stared hard until I was able to see a colored man huddled on the bunk, rocking back and forth. I hadn’t seen him at first because he was holding his hands in front of his face and sitting in shadow. He was the one making that whimpering sound. I just stood there, not saying anything. When I turned I saw he wasn’t alone. On the other bunk sat an equally dark-skinned boy, a little older than me. He didn’t move as he sat there, leaning forward with his hands between his knees, the palms pressed tight together. He was looking at me with wide, red-rimmed eyes, and the acrid smell of sweat was suddenly very strong. He didn’t say a word as he stared at me.

  All I did was shake my head and back out of there. He kept looking at me until I was out in the corridor. Then I closed the door behind me.

  At the other end of the hallway they’d made a big enough hole in the door panel that they could lift up a small man wearing a white shirt and help him through. I knew who he was because he worked at the shipyard. His name was Lundstrom, but he was always called Shorty. By the time I rejoined the crowd, he was already inside. He peeked out and said there was no key there either. The whole stairway was packed with people, and there was no way to get out, so I stayed where I was, wanting to see what would happen when they broke down the door. They began hacking at the panel again, taking turns, and before long only a splinter of wood was left hanging from the hinges, and the rest of the door was in pieces on the floor. Now everyone poured inside to the cell area. It looked about the same as the one at the other end of the corridor, but there were more cells. I couldn’t get any closer. Somebody screamed. I couldn’t tell whether it was one of the prisoners or someone outside, but I thought it was one of the Negroes. Then I heard some sort of ruckus on the stairs and somebody yelled, “Let us through, goddamnit!” A couple of men appeared, carrying sledgehammers and hoes they’d found somewhere, and the others actually let them through. Then the crowd closed in front of me again, but I heard them hammering at the mortar on the wall, not on the locks to the cell doors. It took a while, and for a time everyone was pretty quiet as they watched the men slowly make a hole in the wall. Somebody threw chunks of concrete into the hallway, right in front of where I was standing. Above the pounding and hammering only one voice could be heard. It must have been one of the Negroes in the cells, and at first I thought he was singing. But then I recognized the words and realized he was saying the Lord’s Prayer.

  After a long time everyone around me began cheering, and I realized the men were now inside the cell. No matter how I craned my neck, I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard the men inside the cell shouting, long and loud. Then the crowd parted in front of me, and three men came forward, dragging one of the colored circus workers between them. He was twisting and turning in their grasp, bu
t when they got to the stairwell and he saw all those people gathered there, the fight went out of him. No one spoke. Then someone on the steps shouted, “They’ve got them!” and everybody started talking at once. A gap opened up along the wall so the men could take the circus worker down. Leading the way was a big, fat man wearing a hat. I knew his name was Anderson. He kept telling everybody blocking the way to let them through. The men standing closest kicked at the thin prisoner, and several landed punches on his back. I hurried to follow along with everyone else to see what would happen next.

  The floor in the foyer of the police station was wet and muddy, with broken window frames and shattered glass everywhere, so you had to watch where you stepped. It felt good to get out into the fresh air again. At the lamppost I ran into Lester, who seemed surprised to see me. “Were you inside?” he said. I asked about the others, and he said they’d gone to see what they were going to do with the prisoner. So we hurried up the street after them.

  The whole mob, and now there were several hundred men, had stopped at the corner of Second Avenue. I don’t know why they’d chosen that spot, but there was an open space between the buildings and a tall lamppost. When we got there, a boy had already climbed up the post. He was my age, and afterward a lot of folks said I was the one up there, but it wasn’t me. I was with Lester the whole time, and we soon found George and Larry too. The boy was straddling the lamp, waving and laughing, as if he’d come to perform some kind of strange circus trick. Somebody shouted to him, “Here, grab this!” and tossed him a rope with a loop. I think it was the same rope I’d seen from the truck, but I’m not sure. The boy grabbed it, but then he hesitated and just sat there. The men standing underneath yelled at him to hurry up and wrap the rope around the section below the lamp, where an ornamental iron piece was meant to look like flower stalks. Then the boy made up his mind and pulled the rope through. After that he slid down from the lamppost and disappeared, and I don’t know where he went.

  As we were standing there, someone grabbed my shoulder. When I looked up, I saw a priest wearing a black coat and white collar. I realized he was from the Catholic church, because Lester had taken off his cap and said, “Good evening, Father Powers.” The priest didn’t return the greeting. Instead, he said quickly, sounding out of breath, “Come on, boys. Help me before something terrible happens. Give me a boost up!” Lester knew at once what he meant and bent down with his hands clasped to form a stirrup, and the priest put his foot on his hands. Then I did the same, and George came over and squatted down next to us. Then we lifted the priest up. He wasn’t standing steady but rocked back and forth, and it must have looked funny because a bunch of men started laughing.

  But Father Powers shouted at the top of his lungs, “Think what you’re doing! This is murder, this is a crime, it’s forbidden by the laws of God and man!”

  He kept on like that, but no one paid any attention. Most people simply turned away. A few shouted, “Shut up!” over their shoulders. A young man wearing blue overalls said calmly, almost politely, “This has nothing to do with the law.” Then he turned his back.

  Now something was happening up ahead, and no one was looking at us anymore. We put Father Powers down. He said nothing at all, just stood there for a moment, white in the face, before pushing his way through the crowd to try and reach the lamppost from another direction. But I saw how he was shoved aside.

  At first I couldn’t see what was going on until there were screams and shouts over by the lamppost. A forest of hands rose up in the air, and after a moment I realized they were all reaching for the end of the rope, trying to pull on it. Then the black boy came into view. They had ripped his shirt so it hung down his back, and they’d used it to tie his hands at his waist. Several men dragged him into the open space, and those standing closest kicked at him, striking his stomach and head until Anderson hauled him to his feet again and placed the rope around his neck. The boy’s face was bloody, and he kicked his legs wildly. Slowly he was hoisted into the air, but he kept on kicking as he hung there. I couldn’t see his face, which was tilted straight up by the noose. I don’t think his neck broke, I think he was strangled, because he kicked for a very long time. I heard some people cheering, and more were laughing than when the priest spoke. Then the boy stopped kicking and hung there, motionless. There was just a slight twitching in one leg. When his body went limp, they pulled on the rope and lowered him down until his feet dangled just a short way off the ground. Then they tied the rope tight again.

  It was starting to get dark and there was a chill in the air even though it had been a summery temperature just a short time ago. I backed away, thinking I’d seen enough and didn’t want to be there any longer. But Lester said, “Where are you going?” “I was thinking of going home,” I told him. “But that was only the first one,” he said. “There are more. You can’t leave now.”

  As I stood there, not knowing what to do, they brought the second Negro from the circus. A big man wearing a sailor’s uniform walked behind him, holding him by the shoulders and pushing him on ahead. The Negro was struggling and screaming, “No no no no,” trying the whole time to look around, but the sailor just smiled and kept shoving him forward. They passed us as we stood there, and then the crowd around the lamppost parted to let them through, and when the boy saw the other Negro who had already been hanged, he seemed to go limp and sagged forward, not saying another word. I think he might have fainted. Then the wall of people closed again and I saw nothing until I heard a scream and the second Negro was hanging there, kicking his legs, just like the first one, but I think this time it took longer before he was hanged and stopped moving. Some people cheered, but not as many as the first time.

  I moved a short distance away because I really didn’t want to see any more. I made my way around the edge of the crowd, looking for my pals. I didn’t see when they brought over the third Negro, but I heard it. After fifteen minutes or so I found Larry down on First Avenue, and then Lester and George showed up. I wanted to go home, but the others wanted to look at the bodies one more time, so we went back and pushed our way forward. More and more people had started to leave, so we managed to get almost all the way up to the lamppost. When we stood there looking at the dead boys, the man from the newspaper came over and took pictures. That was how they knew we’d been there. More people were walking away. The three colored boys hung very still, high up in the light from the streetlamp, with their feet dangling off the ground. Finally we headed down to Third Avenue West and waited for the streetcar. It arrived on schedule, and I still had money in my pocket, so I could afford to take it all the way home. We didn’t say anything more to each other before I got off at my stop.

  It took several days before the police came to get me. They showed up at work, and then I sat in jail for a week before the trial. But I told them over and over, just like I’m doing now, what happened. And I never held on to any rope.

  I don’t know how much the letter from my mother had to do with the matter, but several days passed and then Varshey told me he was going to talk to the lawyer. After a week Carlson came back, and this time he was decent and laughed as he unlocked the door. He said, “Congratulations, Hammerberg, you get to go home.” They gave me my things wrapped up in brown paper and tied with a string and enough money for the train with a little left over. Onboard the train I sat next to the window and looked at all the snow while I kept on trying to untie the knot but without any luck. Then I walked all the way from the train station because I wanted to try and save a few cents so I wouldn’t arrive home empty-handed.

  Somebody else had taken my job, and it was hard to find another one. Nobody talked about where I’d been, but once you’ve been in prison, you can’t hide the fact, even if it’s a place like St. Cloud. One of my first days home, I ran into Lester and talked to him for a while. He said he was in a hurry, but he stopped and we stood on the street corner, talking like we used to do. George and Larry had moved away and found some sort of work in St. Paul
, while Lester was still employed at Riverside. He didn’t ask me about how I’d been or where I’d gone, though I assumed he knew. But he did tell me one thing. He’d met that girl who people said had been attacked by the circus workers. She was married now and lived in Superior, and there was nothing wrong with her, as far as Lester could tell. So the people who claimed she’d almost died had made up that story. I thought a lot about that later on, even though I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it. Those thoughts kept creeping into my mind. When I asked Lester whether there were any jobs out at the shipyard, he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. But he promised to let me know if any came open.

  My mother continued to take in sewing jobs, and sometimes she worked at one of the laundries down by the harbor, but it hardly paid anything. And there were plenty of people who wanted those jobs too. Lots of the Negroes in town decided to move away, and then we thought there’d be more work, but it hardly made any difference when they were gone. Finally Mother wrote to Aunt Ellen and told her the situation, and how we couldn’t keep on like this, and she asked her whether she could help. Ellen came to visit, but she was in a really bad mood the whole time she was here. She had a little money, and she paid our bills at Spencer’s, but she kept on talking about how she had to go back home to her husband and children. And I didn’t like the fact that Mother and Aunt Ellen wouldn’t let me go out when I wanted to. I said that if I didn’t get out and talk to folks, I’d never find a new job, but they insisted that I should stay home as much as possible, especially in the evening. And I didn’t feel like arguing all the time. But there was one thing I figured out from what Mother and Aunt Ellen said: we had ended up in Duluth because that’s where they thought my father had gone. So he was the one my mother had been looking for, and then we just stayed on. No one knew whether he was alive or not, and I thought it would have been simpler just to say he was dead.