by Ami McKay
“Which one do you prefer?” she asked.
“Oh, I can’t afford to buy anything, thank you,” I said.
She chuckled at me again. “Then I guess I’ll have to let you steal it from me, eh, little thief?”
Accepting her invitation, I reached out and touched the wool shawl. “This one.”
“Wise choice,” she said, nodding with approval.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“And I thank you,” she said, holding up her arm and shaking the bracelet around her wrist. “Do come back if you ever find anything else.”
Nestor had said that the Birnbaums were the best fences in town. They were hidden in full view, and benefitted from a long-standing friendship with the police. “It’s the murderous, hotheaded crooks the cops want—the type of criminals who disrupt the day-to-day of the city. New York would be a far worse place without the Birnbaums. They understand the importance of being fair.”
As I went to leave, Mr. Birnbaum came in with a young woman who was unfastening her cloak to reveal large, deep pockets in its lining. Reaching into one of them she pulled out a silver comb. “There’s plenty more where that come from,” she boasted, teasing Mr. Birnbaum with a wink.
I nodded to them as I headed out the door. Then, slipping my hand inside my pocket so I could feel my share of Nestor’s plan, I found four quarters, three nickels and a dime—tiny and thin and mine.
The vagrant and neglected children of the city, if placed in a double file, three feet apart, would make a procession eight miles long. From Castle Garden to Harlem Meer. From Wall Street to Fort Washington. Nearly thirty-thousand little souls.
—DR. SADIE FONDA,
The Annual Report of The New York
Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, 1871
A nickel would buy a plank in a crowded basement. Six cents would buy a night in the girls’ Christian lodging house on St. Mark’s Place. It was four cents more if you wanted a plate of pork and beans. I wouldn’t have minded spending the four cents, but then, while my mouth was full, they’d go and tell me I was nothing but a sack of sin.
The lodging house ladies called every girl they met an orphan. It made perfect sense to them, even if it wasn’t true. If a girl had no family, then they had an excuse to catch her and treat her soul like it needed fixing. As soon as all those wretched r’s started coming from between their lips—refuge, reform, religion—I would be out the door. The lodging house ladies could keep their prayers and their pork and beans.
For three pennies I could get a place on a floor. Tin on the door, open floor. A cup, a can on a string, a colander, an old kettle hanging on the latch—those were the things that told any wanderer they’d found a house with room to spare, a place to lay their head for the night. Even Mama had tied Papa’s dented mug to the handle of our door whenever we needed to collect extra pennies to make rent.
We’d get as many as a dozen women in one night, some with children in tow. In the morning, I’d see them sleeping on the floor, or leaning with their eyes closed against the walls of our front room. Even asleep, there was sadness in their faces. Maybe they had no home, or the mister was angry, or somebody had held tight to the handle of an iron skillet while saying something they shouldn’t have. Mama didn’t ask. All that mattered was that they had three pennies and no place else to go.
The money I’d gotten from Mrs. Birnbaum bought food, a bit of time off the street, a kerchief for my shorn head, a knife for my pocket and a new pair of boots. The kerchief was a square of Turkey-red calico, and the knife, although rusty and dull, made me feel secure. The boots were second-hand, of course, from a cobbler’s stall at Tompkins Market. I’d picked them off one of the long poles the shoe man had propped up along the back of his place. He slid fourteen pairs off the end of the ladies’ stick before he got to the ones I wanted. They were black with red leather at the toes, and while not pretty, they fit me far better than the pair Caroline had given me to wear at Mrs. Wentworth’s. I’d gladly traded that pair for the cobbler’s, sure that the new ones would be sturdy enough to last me through the winter.
October arrived along with empty pockets and the need to think ahead with every step. Mama had always said October was her favourite month of the year. “Another fine month ending in an r, safe to eat all the oysters you want without having to worry about a troubled gut.” I’d loved autumn for different reasons—for sunsets and candlelight coming sooner every evening, and the way people forgot all the terrible things that summer made them do—but this year, October’s uncertainty, its days of rain with no end in sight, and first fires in dirty chimneys sending homes up in flames, worried me to no end.
Hot-corn girls sang on every corner, their baskets perched on their hips.
Hot Corn! Hot Corn!
Here’s your lily white corn!
All you that’s got money,
poor me that’s got none,
come buy my hot corn,
and let me go home!
They were sweet-looking girls around my age and I hoped I could become one of them. I envied their steady pay and their ability to carry a tune while being badgered by sporting men and roughs.
“I’ll come home with you!”
“I got some hot corn for ya, girlie!”
“How about some butter for that corn?”
The men gladly paid their three cents an ear, but it wasn’t the corn, harvested dry and bloated back to life by boiling, that they were after. Blushing cheeks, hot with embarrassment, were what they craved.
Arnica Liniment.
Add to 1 pint sweet oil, 2 table-spoonfuls tincture of arnica; or the leaves may be heated in the oil over a slow fire. Good for wounds, bruises, stiff joints, rheumatism and all injuries.
I went to Mr. Pauley, the man who hired the girls to sell his corn, but he had no interest in taking me on. My kerchief covered my hacked-off hair, but the bruises hadn’t yet faded from my face. He took one look at me and told me to go away. “I need girls with fresh faces, not pathetic-looking waifs.”
Mr. Finnegan, the flower girls’ boss, said the same.
My first night on Chrystie Street, I slept on the roof of Mama’s building, relying on its bricks and mortar to give much-needed warmth in the chilly autumn night. I knew I should’ve gone away from there, but I found great comfort in being close to the place I’d once called home. In summers past, Mama had let me tent on the roof. I’d used piles of newspaper for my mattress, and an old sheet thrown over a wire as a shelter for my head. I knew where the handholds were in the brick on the side of the building, which ones were loose and which ones weren’t. I knew just where to catch the fire escapes to make it the rest of the way to the top.
That night I spotted a wooden barrel on the next building over. Making a bridge with a stray board across the space between the two rooftops, I rolled the barrel back to my spot. Putting bricks on either side to keep it steady, I made my nest inside the thing by lining the bottom with newspapers and mouldy burlap bags I found in the rubbish. Other people came and went from the roof, mostly boys looking for a spot of their own for the night. The knife I’d bought from the junk man wasn’t sharp enough to do much harm, so I kept a length of board by my side to use as a weapon. It had three nails sticking from one end and I named it Pride, hoping it would swing true before a fall.
In the mornings, I’d sit at the edge of the roof, watching for things to start squirming under the garbage that overflowed from the bins along the street. I’d make guesses as to whether something was a rat, a cat or a baby. Even if a bin was a little too far away, I could still make a pretty good guess as to what was inside it. A rat will wiggle and crawl all around, but then hold dead still if it’s startled. A cat will dig and stop, then dig and stop, keeping at whatever it’s after for quite a long time. A small child almost always goes straight in, trying to reach one precious thing. If they can’t get to it, or can’t find their way back out, they break down and cry.
I spent my days begg
ing on the Bowery, only a short walk from Chrystie Street. Mama had always discouraged me from going there, saying it was a terrible place for a girl or anyone else for that matter. “If you’ve money in your pocket when you arrive, you can be sure it’ll be gone when you leave.” But I didn’t have any money left to lose, so the thieves and temptations of the lively, broad thoroughfare didn’t worry me.
Every building on the Bowery was flashy and loud. There were dance halls, third-class hotels, variety theatres, concert saloons and any number of amusements. Shooting galleries opened up to full view, shadow men and beasts waiting under striped awnings to get shot through the heart. One popular spot boasted a cut-out of a lion that let out an awful roar when fatally wounded. The place was always busy, scores of barefoot boys lined up to try their luck. A shiny knife would be their prize if they hit the bull’s-eye painted on the snarling creature’s chest.
Ragged organ grinders scolded their monkeys for chattering too much. Sad-faced boys sat on stoops, leaning on banjos or harps, plucking one string at a time and holding out their hats for a reward. “Copper, sir? Spare a penny?” they cried. An old man played the fiddle and danced, his eyes squinted shut to make people think he was blind. He could play just about any tune anyone asked of him, making his fiddle sound like ten. When he was finished, he’d laugh and smile and talk to himself, his mouth all gummy—not a single tooth in his head. I thought if anyone deserved charity, it was him. I promised myself that someday when I had money enough to share, I’d find him and put at least a quarter in his hat.
It takes equal parts of desperation and courage to beg well. Passersby look at you and think there must be laziness in your blood, that you’ve a secret sense of ease and glee with every penny that comes your way. Oh, if only that were so. There were as many kinds of beggars on the Bowery as there were storefronts, each one—man, woman or child—merely looking for a way to get through to tomorrow.
Some were lonely grandmothers worse off than Mrs. Riordan. Some were soldiers who’d been injured in the war. Most of them were missing at least one limb. Mr. Dillibough’s right leg was gone all the way to his thigh. He had a polished wooden replacement the government had given him to help him get along, but he left it at home when he was working the Bowery because, as he liked to say, “Empty trouser legs have more appeal.”
Maggie the Borrower paid young mothers for the use of their children. She could fetch quite a lot of sympathy with a babe swaddled in her arms, half again as much if she had a second child toddling along at her side, holding fast to her skirts.
Mr. Tomas was a weeper. He came out from the alleyways at night, a dark cloth covering his face. He’d whisper in a hoarse voice, “Don’t come near, I’m a leper.” Then he’d ask for spare change. “You can drop it on the sidewalk. God will bless you for it.”
Old Beckie was my favourite beggar of all. She was jolly and bright, and knew the hallmarks of any malady you could imagine. She’d fall ill on a street corner at the drop of a hat. Writhing in pain, holding her head or clutching her belly, she never asked for money. What she wanted was to be taken to the nearest hospital (preferably by swift horses pulling a doctor’s carriage) and to be given food and shelter and attention for the night. I found it hard not to send her off each time with a round of applause.
I tried my hand at picking a gentleman’s pocket, thinking that because I’d gotten away with stealing from Mrs. Wentworth I might have some natural affinity for thieving, but my first time at it, I got caught. The gentleman whose money clip I’d lifted took me by the arm and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” at the top of his lungs. Frantic and scared, I dropped the money, and squirmed out of his grasp and ran away. No policeman had been near enough to hear his cries, but his anger had frightened me so much that I vowed not to try the trick again.
After that, I fashioned myself into a nibbler. I liked the gambit because it wasn’t a trick or a lie. I simply had to make my hunger visible for everyone to see.
Late mornings I’d buy an apple from Mrs. Tobin’s green-cart. Sitting on a nearby stoop, I’d eat the thing down to the core. At the noon hour, I’d sit myself on the curb in front of the windows of Mr. Mueller’s bakery. Clutching the shawl Mrs. Birnbaum had given me, I’d stand there, looking sad, sucking and gnawing on my nicely browned apple core. Customers and passersby who felt sorry for me put pennies and nickels in my hand.
Once, I spotted the crooked-eared young man who’d been sitting next to Mrs. Birnbaum the day I’d visited her. He was moving through the crowds, elegantly tipping his hat to people along the way. He even stole a watch from the pocket of a gentleman who was bending over to give me a penny. His fingers dipped under the man’s coat, the watch chain glinting, slithering out of its pocket like a golden, charmed snake. The boy looked at me and winked, then was gone like a ghost.
Every other day (precisely at one, according to the clock in Mr. Mueller’s window), a pair of girls would come to fetch a large box from the baker. “Hey there, what’s your hurry?” the bootblack on the corner would shout each time they strolled by, ever confident, even though the girls never bothered to look his way. They were far more interested in the gentlemen at the oyster bar two doors down from Mr. Mueller’s.
The girls wore their hair piled on top of their heads, curls pulled out from under their hats here and there to make them look knowing, yet sweet. Their dresses had been cut to make them look like ladies, but their faces still held the freckled innocence of youth. I’d watch them pass by, admiring their flounced skirts, Nestor’s voice sounding in my head. I should hope you’d think better of yourself and of me …
Did he know how little I’d get from Mrs. Birnbaum or how fleeting the money would be? Those girls had nice dresses and, I was certain, soft beds. They were the ones thinking better.
The lodging house ladies often paraded behind them, handing out broadsheets to all the girls on the street. In thick black letters across the top, the notices read, Girls, don’t go with strangers! WHITE SLAVERY IS REAL. Underneath was a picture of a girl standing behind a barred window, pleading for her life. Dear God, if only I could get out of here. Staring at the girl from the shadows was a man, the brim of his hat crooked, a cigar held tight in his smirking lips.
I took one of the sheets back to the roof and hid it between the newspapers in my barrel, not because I was worried someone would try to steal me away, but because I thought the girl in the picture looked beautiful, even in her fear. She was neat and clean and there was something about the lace along the neck of her dress that said it wasn’t too late for her. Before I’d fall asleep at night, I’d practise being like her, clasping my hands together at my heart and rolling my eyes up to heaven.
One morning, just three weeks after I’d come back to Chrystie Street, a man grabbed me tight around the waist as I was climbing down from the roof.
“Gotcha!” he said as he pulled me to the ground.
I struggled, but his hold was far too strong.
“Where’s your mother?” he asked, his breath hot in my ear.
Mr. Cowan had found me and had come to collect the rent.
“Let me go!” I twisted in his arms to face him, my back against the brick, my arms pinned so I was unable to reach my knife.
He put his face close to mine. “I knew it was you, Princess, sneaking around on my roof.” Then he licked my cheek and hissed in my ear. “Tell me where your mother’s got to.”
He used to visit her on the last day of every month, like a hungry tick. He’d show up, his big liver-coloured dog at his heels. Mr. Cowan and the dog looked alike—both of them shovel-faced and wheezing—only the dog’s eyes were yellow, which meant he couldn’t hide in the dark. Mama would lead Mr. Cowan to the corner of the room, leaving me to sit with the dog. The dog and I would watch each other for a while, the animal pacing and sniffing the air between us. Then it would settle down in the middle of the rug to growl and whine at me.
“Such a pleasure to see you, Mr. Cowan. Is it the last of the m
onth already?” Mama would ask, sidling close to him. “I’m afraid I’m a bit short today, but if you come by on Friday, say around supper hour? I’ll give you the rest then. I’ll cook you up a plate of sausages and cabbage for your trouble.”
He sat at our table and ate our food a few times. Twice he’d gone with Mama to our backroom.
I’d looked through the keyhole once and seen Mama on her back, the weight of Mr. Cowan pressing her down into the tired straw mattress. He had pushed and grunted, and Mama’s head had lolled to one side, turned away from his breath. I could’ve sworn she was staring right at me. Her face looked just like it did when she was counting the coins in her pocket with her fingers, or remembering her way through a nursery rhyme she half knew—Oh that I were where I should be, Then I would be, where I am not; But where I am, there I must be …
I’d closed my eyes to the dark arch of the tiny hole and thought, “And where I must be, I cannot.”
Not long after that he told her he was tired of her.
“The end of the month is the end of the month,” he’d say, before putting the tip of a pencil to his tongue and making marks in his thick black book. The only time I saw him come close to smiling was when he was writing in its pages, his long, dark beard bristling against his collar. “I’ll be back tomorrow to collect the balance, plus a quarter’s penalty, for my trouble.” Before leaving, he’d rouse the dog with his cane, and say to me, “Penny and penny, laid up shall be many. Who will not save a penny, shall never have many.”
Now Mr. Cowan’s dog circled my legs and sniffed at my skirts.
“I don’t know where she is.”
Rubbing his body against mine, he kept at me. “How about you give Mr. Cowan a fuck?” he said. “Then we’ll call it even.”
