Kiss Me, I'm Dead

by J. G. Sandom

  “Don’t say it, Otto,” Bering said.

  “Say what?” Goldstein answered with frustration. “How can I say anything when you keep interrupting me?”

  “Let him speak,” said Max.

  “My son,” said Goldstein with a nod to Max. “How can I put this? Well, he’s not always been one hundred percent honest with me. There. Are you happy, Hans?” he said to Bering.

  “Are you?”

  “This bickering is pointless,” Munch said. “We have to act. Kleindeutchland demands it. Where is this boy?”

  “I don’t know,” said Goldstein.

  “How can you not know? He’s your master brewer’s son. Ask Arvin. He’s here someplace. I saw him earlier,” said Max.

  Goldstein sighed. He whispered an order to one of his servants and they returned, minutes later, with Arvin Brauer in tow.

  “You called for me, Herr Goldstein?” Arvin said with a smile, wiping his hands on his apron.

  Arvin was the finest brewer he had ever known. Goldstein hung his head. “You know what my son has been saying?”

  “Yes, Herr Goldstein. About Dustin. But it’s not true, sir, I swear it. My son didn’t do it. It wasn’t his cigarette–”

  Goldstein raised his hand. “That may be so. But, until we know, until we’re absolutely sure, we’re bound to harvest the truth, isn’t that right, Arvin? Honor bound. Make no mistake. There will be an inquest. A Kleindeutchland inquest. There are facts here which need to be uncovered.”

  “A Kleindeutchland pogrom, you mean, sir.”

  “Be careful, Herr Brauer. Please don’t make this about your religion.”

  “What facts?”

  “Where’s your son?” Pieter Max said. “He’s not at his job. Leonard Meer hasn’t seen him all day.”

  “I don’t know. Is he falling behind in his work?”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Goldstein said. “He lives in your house, does he not?”

  “Not a house, sir. The Delancey Gardens. Quite modest, really.”

  “Does he live there or not?”

  “Last night,” Arvin said, “Dustin never came home. He must be staying with friends.”

  “What friends?” Bering asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “In Kleindeutchland?” added Max.

  “I don’t know.”

  There was a collective sigh. Everyone looked back at Goldstein. He shrugged and took another sip of his ale. There were too many options, he thought. Inconclusive and vague. Too many pieces on the chessboard. “Well,” he said. “See to it that you inform me immediately, as soon as your son returns home.”

  “Of course, Herr Goldstein,” Arvin answered with a small bow. He backed his way out of the crowd, away from the table. He scurried through the door and was gone.

  “He’ll never tell you,” Hans Bering continued. “Just like my general managers. I bet he’s laughing at you right now, as we speak, behind your back. He knows where his son is. You think he doesn’t? He just isn’t telling you.” Bering sucked on his stein. “This is how it always starts. Always the same,” he bemoaned. “How many more members do you think we’ll lose to workers’ clubs if we let Arvin Brauer thumb his nose at us? How many, Otto? We must do something.”

  “Draw a line,” said Max. “As Bismarck did with the socialists at home. Mark a boundary.”

  “You said it yourself,” added Keifer. “Let them have their inquest, and Kleindeutchland will have hers. Do we deserve less? Otto, you must call it.”

  “But my son–”

  “I lost my son,” Max cut in. “He burned to death on the deck of that ship. But I’m not thinking of him, or of my wife, or of my daughters who burned there beside him. And certainly not of myself. I’m thinking of this Council. Bering is right. It is your duty, Otto, as chairman. It is your obligation.”

  And so it was. Goldstein hung his head. He thought and thought, but nothing came. The outcome of Kleindeutchland’s inquest was irrelevant. He’d lost already. “Very well,” he said. “But, since my son is involved, and since I will not preside over anything that smacks of bias, I call for an investigating board. All of you. Each one of you, who seems to care so much, must be provided with a way, a means to defend your interests. A voice, if you will.”

  “In other words,” said Pieter Max. “If you burn, you want company.”

  And they sat there and deliberated. I watched them orchestrate the future. I watched them cogitate and strategize, conduct scenario planning, whine and prognosticate, and finally define. By the time it was over, everyone was on the hook for something. Goldstein had seen to that. Although it brought him little comfort.

  He sat by himself in his private dining room later that night, curled like a question mark by the fire. He sat there and stared at the flames. There had been no way to counter, no way to deflect or respond. As soon as Bingham had opened his mouth, the game was already complete. Finished. Kaput. Checkmate. The workers’ unions and collectives and clubs. These were mere frosting. The cake was Arvin Brauer. The man who held the key to Goldstein’s personal treasury. The brewer of the Golden Rose’s most infamous pale ale. Otto had nothing. He didn’t even own the beer garden. He’d ceded the deed to Ula on their wedding day. And then that ghost, that ancient ragged specter crawled back into view.

  Arvin Brauer and Ula Goldstein. What a couple they made. They were the ones who ran things anyway, or so everyone believed. Arvin and Ula. Ula and Arvin. Goldstein watched the old fears prance in his head. Ula and Arvin, that time in the kitchen. That awkward pregnant pause. Arvin and Ula, descending the stairs. Her laughter, that giggle, delightful as church chimes, which ceased just as Otto approached. Ula and Arvin by the kegs in the basement, managing assets. That Jew! There was a will somewhere. Someplace, there was, Otto knew. Ula had drafted one right after Heinemann’s death. That Jew was probably in it. He was probably her beneficiary. Ula owned the tavern. Arvin, the recipe. And Otto . . . Yes, what did Otto own? Who was he but the crack where two great fortunes converged, the space in between, a strand twixt the land and the sea?

  It hurts to be in Otto Goldstein. So why do I return? It stings. It stings!

  Or Bingham might be the beneficiary. He was her son, after all – Ula’s natural heir. And then the deepest fear of all: But who was Bingham’s father?

  Let me go.

  Chapter 8

  June 20, 1904

  New York City

  The gallery was crowded with people. All of the hot summer air in the chambers seemed to have coalesced near the ceiling, confounding their heads, making them dizzy. They could barely move. They could barely breathe, it was so humid. And the inquest started late.

  The chambers were modest. Citizens of greater influence and representatives of the press sat together on the main floor below. There were so many small tables and chairs that it was hard to maneuver through the room. The coroner, or the manager of the coroner’s office, Stanley Sikorsky, presided over the events from a raised platform at the head of the chambers. A serious young man, with long mutton side burns, sat beside him – the official recorder. Throughout the trial, he never changed his suit. And at the edge of the platform, by the coroner’s table, sat the witness. The jury had been corralled into a narrow wooden frame made of pine by the dais. Ten gentlemen sat, while five more stood behind, in reserve.

  And it struck me, as I looked down, that except for a witness occasionally, all on the main floor were men. Such a thing would never have occurred to me previously. How strange that in my sexless incorporeal state, it should become so glaringly obvious. Perhaps that’s why. Perhaps you have to be outside of gender to see it.

  I watched my mother and my father watching from the balcony at the rear of the room. I watched them through Louisa’s eyes. She sat on the edge of her seat, craning her neck for a superior view. We knew all the families: Otto and Bingham Goldstein; the willowy Hans Bering; Kiefer Munch; and Pieter Max; and Herr Brauer sitting off to the side. But Dustin wa
s nowhere to be seen. Dustin was hiding.

  Then came the parade – all the witnesses. After a while, the memories began to merge, to blend and overlap. In truth, the people all began to sound alike. They all began to sound like me.

  “I saw the crew at the fire hose,” said the woman. She was fifty, and fat, and wore too much rouge.

  “And did they turn it on? The hose. Did they turn on the water?” asked the coroner.

  “I don’t think they knew how. Finally, a white officer came out and turned it on. That’s when the hose burst. It was too old. I suppose it couldn’t stand the pressure.”

  And then: “The lifeboats weren’t lashed to the deck. I know somebody said that before. One of your other witnesses. That isn’t true,” said the man.

  “Are you sure?” said the coroner.

  “Much worse.” He was a former naval officer, a man with some experience.

  “What could be worse?”

  “The brackets were rusted. Frankly, I doubt that they’d ever been used. And the bolts. They were falling apart. They were oxidized.”

  “Rusted?”

  “Yes, through and through, sir. The bolts and the washers were fused. The lifeboats, all of them, weren’t lashed to the deck . . . except, perhaps, by neglect.”

  And then: “It was chaos,” said a woman. “It was hell.” She wore a spring bonnet with flowers. “I witnessed a wave of small children descending. The clothes on their backs were on fire. And they screamed.” She brought a lace kerchief to her face, blew her nose. She took another deep breath. “I watched them jump into the water. There was a little opening behind one of the lifeboats, and they entered it one by one. Then they jumped. Some hesitated, afraid – I suppose – when they got a good view of the water. But they were pushed by the crowd nonetheless. I watched them fall into the river, still blazing. I watched as they floated and bobbed, as they slipped through the waves. All of them. One by one. There must have been fifteen or twenty. One by one, they all drowned.”

  “And how old were these children?” asked the coroner.

  “Three or four. I doubt any were older than five. Some were younger.” She paused. “They looked like they’d just learned how to walk.”

  By the late afternoon, I had wearied of words. My father had gone back to work. My mother still sat there, still worrying her gown. And Louisa – she languished beside her, her cheek to her forearm. I could feel the moisture where her skin touched the wood of the rail. She was tired. She hadn’t slept in a week. Perhaps it was my own I was thinking of, as I reached out reflexively, and pressed my fingers to her eyes. I could not close my eyes. I had no eyelids left to close.

  But my fingers, they slithered right through her. So I reached out again. Again, and again. I imagined her eyelids, the soft ivory skin. I imagined them kissing my fingertips. I could picture it, and they closed. They closed!

  “We call William Van Schaick.”

  Louisa woke up. She straightened and stretched, leaned forward and peered down from the balcony at the seaman who was mounting the dais.

  Captain William Van Schaick was a slight man, narrow-shouldered, with delicate features offset by a bushy mustache. Handlebar. He had translucent eyes, hazel-colored. Or eye. For the other still carried a bandage, where an ember had flown in and damaged the pupil. He made his way up the small steps. He laid his left hand on the Bible and brought the other aloft.

  “Do you solemnly swear . . . ”

  And he did. He sat on the chair. He took off his cap. He gathered the room up, the faces. The way the audience looked at him, he would remember their eyes for the rest of his life. Perhaps longer. He curled a thumb in his collar. The material was pinching his skin. His lapels were drawn tight at the neck. His uniform, double-breasted and wool, was buttoned from nipple to navel. It was hot in the courtroom, and by the time he had settled, his forehead was covered in sweat.

  “You’ve been Captain of The General Slocum steamboat for how long, Captain Van Schaick?”

  “Since she was launched – ’91. Thirteen years.”

  “And isn’t it true that the unfortunate event which transpired last week was not the first time the Slocum’s been . . . how should I put this?” the coroner said. “Damaged?”

  “No, sir,” Van Schaick replied.

  “How many times?”

  “How many times what, sir?”

  “How many incidents, accidents, whatever you wish to call them? How many has the Slocum suffered since she was launched?”

  “In August of our first year of operation, there were two accidents: She ran aground in Rockaway on the fourteenth and, three days later, backed into another steamer.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No. Seven years later, on July ninth, ’98, to be exact, she rammed the Amelia near the Battery. Then, in 1902, she ran aground at low tide on a sandbar in Jamaica Bay – while trying to avoid hitting a yacht, I might add. And she bumped another party boat as the two tried docking at the same pier two months later.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Traffic accidents . . . ”

  “What’s that? Did you say something, Captain?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sure I heard you say something. Come now, Captain. Don’t be coy. What did you say?”

  “I said ‘traffic accidents.’ That’s all that they were, those events. With any working ship, these kinds of things happen.”

  “Well, I would hardly characterize the death of more than a thousand innocent men, women and children a ‘traffic accident.’ I would venture to guess the survivors of the Slocum – many of whom are with us here today – don’t care to recall what transpired in precisely that way.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Van Schaick. His eye rolled about in his head.

  “I’m sure,” said the coroner. “Captain Van Schaick. Tell us, then, in your own words, what happened last week. From the beginning.”

  The Captain composed himself. He sat back in the witness chair. He looked at the crowd. Well, not quite at the crowd. In truth, he looked above the crowd, over their heads, at the long blank wall behind them, at the door, the invisible hallway, the street, and the quickest way back to the sea.

  “We set sail in the morning. Locust Grove was our heading. And, at first, everything went smoothly. As it always did. It was the end of the Sunday-school year, and we had a large group of passengers from St. Mark’s. There was music and singing and dancing. It was . . . beautiful. But in less than an hour, as we passed Hell Gate channel, right across from Astoria Park . . . ”

  And I heard the waltzes again. I saw people still dancing in the soft morning light. They were laughing and singing and planning their outings. They were already ashore in their minds.

  “The fire began in the Lamp Room. There’s no doubt about that,” said Van Schaick. “How, we’re uncertain. A careless cigarette, perhaps. Or a match. We’ll probably never know. A box of straw caught on fire, and the fire spread. The Slocum. She’s a fine . . . she was a fine ship. I was proud to command her. She was built by Devine-Burtis of Brooklyn, at the height of the market. But the way the stairwells were designed, they served as chimneys to the fire. They drew the flames aloft.”

  “How long before you knew about the fire?”

  “It took several minutes. Perhaps as many as ten–”

  “Ten minutes!”

  “The fire had to be discovered. And then the men spent several minutes trying to put it out. But they failed. The fire spread.”

  “And why, when you found out about the blaze, didn’t you put in somewhere – Manhattan or Queens. Why keep on sailing to North Brother Island?”

  “The shore was busy with oil tanks. I feared a secondary blaze.”

  “A secondary blaze.”

  “That’s right. The last thing I wanted to do was steer the burning Slocum into an oil depot. North Brother Island was just a mile away.”

  “I’d venture to guess that a mile seemed like a long way away to the peo
ple burning each and every second on your decks.”

  “Hundreds survived. None would have if I’d brought her to shore by the oil tanks.”

  “Is that an expert opinion? Are you trained in the forensics of fire?”

  “No, sir,” Van Schaick said, gritting his teeth. “But I’ve been a licensed captain for almost twenty years. And I was there. Don’t forget. I was there. I’d probably do the same thing again, if faced with the same situation.”

  “Probably. Please continue your story.” William O’Gorman leaned forward. He looked fascinated.

  Captain Van Schaick swallowed hard. It was a gesture so painful we could see it from the gallery. He started and stopped. He breathed and he said, “By the time we got to North Brother, the vessel was lost. The fire had spread. Each deck was ablaze. I ordered the lifeboats be lowered. I told them to hand out the vests.” He smiled grimly. “The life vests.”

  “What about them?”

  “I knew they were in need of replacement. I’d been complaining to the company for months.”

  “You’d requested new life vests from Knickerbocker?”

  “On more than one occasion.”

  “Go on.”

  “But the fire . . . The fire just kept coming. There was no time for anything. So I beached her.”

  “On North Brother Island.”

  “Yes, sir. I beached her so the passengers could try and get ashore, away from the fire. Many had jumped already, but more still crowded the decks. There’s a contagious-disease hospital on the island, currently being renovated. Nurses and patients came running out to assist us. They brought ladders from the renovation. They used them to bring people ashore. Some caught babies in their arms, thrown down from the decks. Many were burning. The babies. I saw things . . . things that no man should see.” He paused and looked out at the crowd. “When it was clear she was done for, me and my crew went below. There was naught we could do any longer. Somehow, we made it to the ladders. The smoke was very thick. And the smell . . . I remember sitting on the rail, my foot tucked in a scupper, looking back at the pilothouse. I remember hearing the decks. They uttered a great groan, then a wail, and gave way. I saw flames shoot up from the holds. She just broke apart. Just . . . broke, like a toy. Her decks split and I saw people shower down into the opening. It was grotesque. All of those arms and legs and bodies tumbling down. Into the heart of the inferno. As if a crack had opened up in the earth, like a doorway to hell. I’ll never forget it, as long as I live. I’ll never forget.”