Rumors swept through the Green during those days, stories of Rebs just over the hills and the surely calumnious rumor of our Great President’s capitulation of the nation’s Capital to the southern forces of darkness. My brother James did not allow me to be swept up in any of these stories, but then James has always been a man of stronger faith than me. By the fifth day, conditions in the camp had become quite unbearable. We were left at that time to stand or squat in the shadows beneath the old elms that encircled our encampment, and the smells grew worse as each day passed.
On the seventh day, the Colonel mustered us all beneath a platform erected for the occasion. There were hundreds of us by now, all come from the farms and fields and mills of our great state of Massachusetts. All six of the Danforth brothers had come with four of our own McNeil cousins, whose ten-year-old twins were elected to serve as flag and drum boys. All twelve of the Chathams had come, brothers and uncles, cousins and nephews, and all carried with them that same blood fever of vengeance.
We talked together late into the night of our plans to settle the matter which had torn our nation asunder quickly, and once and for all. We swore blood oaths to each other that we would return to our beloved hearths and homes this same year in time to celebrate the birth of our Lord.
The speeches began early this day, preceded by a call to prayer from the Reverend Smithee, and although he were a Baptist whose soul had already been ceded unto Satan, we all bowed our heads when he invoked the name of the Lord unto our good cause. He was followed by the Reverend Jasperson, like ourselves a good Lutheran, whose elegant entreaties to the Lord on that day must surely have been heard.
A moment of great mirth ensued among the gathered crowd after the next speaker took the stage, a papist with the temerity to call himself a priest. The crowd jeered and hooted him from the stage amidst a hail of brown apple cores, beseeching that he should drown in his holy sea.
As an aside, when he ascended to the platform, my brother James and I attempted to draw closer, neither of us having seen a Catholic before. On a subject that my brother had always told me was untrue, on which I had chosen to remain agnostic, I can report to you now that we saw no evidence of any horns upon the man’s head.
After the invocations, the speeches went on all day and into the night. The Mayor spoke for hours underneath the lush April skies, however much of the crowd soon lost interest. It was during this speech that I and some of the other boys entertained ourselves with a vigorous game of base ball on the far edge of the green. I returned to listen later in the afternoon as Mr. Franks spoke, he being the fine publisher of our own Grantham Gazette, and he brought us the latest news of the rebellion.
He told us that even now, as the brave men of Massachusetts gathered here on the Green, the rebel horde approaches the sacred soil of our nation’s Capital. He reported other tales of murder and mayhem that followed in the wake of that gray swarm, but it was his ghastly retelling of the forcible surrender of a generation’s worth of our own young ladies’ virtue as they marched that made the crowd’s blood boil. It was only after the sun went down and the throng was screaming to spill the blood of the southern transgressor that the Colonel in his finery ascended the platform to speak.
The flames of the surrounding torches reflected on his pale countenance, making him appear to be consumed with fire himself but O, how the old man inspired us! I shall endeavor to report his words as best I can recall, however I, too, was swept up in the emotion, and by the surely soul threatening fury that his words invoked.
The crowd by that time had become unruly with the strain of the long day, and truthfully, some were now overcome with strong drink. But the assemblage quieted as the great man took the stage and during the five minutes that he stood looking upon us in silence, visibly beseeching the Lord for the strength to address us, we became completely hushed to listen as the great man began to speak.
“Tonight, as we stand together in common purpose, I tell you do not be deceived into thinking our enemies consist solely of our southern brothers, who have sold their own souls to keep other others forever in bondage. No, I tell you here tonight that it is evil itself that walks our great Nation. It is evil that walks the woods and the fields and the swamps of that southern portion of our country, an evil conceived of pride and borne of avarice, but not content with the mere taking of a man’s soul, it is the Devil himself who has ascended from the pits of Hell and taken on human form, and I tell you that it is Satan himself who has stoked these southern fires! It is HE who walks the earth. It is HE who we fight.”
A great quiet came over the crowd and I became afraid in that moment. I looked toward my brother to see that he too was greatly swept up in the Colonel’s words, a look of such determination on his face as I had never before witnessed, as the Colonel finished his speech.
“All of you congregated here, in preparation for the long journey ahead of us, at the end of which we shall meet these forces of darkness…in solidarity with that great and Holy and JUST cause before us…to all of you who have gathered here, I say to you again, that every man and boy among you are well and truly to be called MEN…and as MEN… tomorrow…we MARCH!”
A magnificent roar rose up from the multitude when the Colonel left the stage. I turned to my brother and we embraced and joined in the shouts. To the UNION! To the UNION!
After the Colonel spoke, we returned to our Grantham encampment to share with each other the fiery emotions that the Colonel’s speech engendered. I say to you now that the passion and the certainty in the justice of our cause has not waned, can never wane, however I confess that a melancholy afflicts some of us this night, brought on perhaps by the knowledge that it is tomorrow we leave.
After my brother and I bedded down together by the light of the campfire’s glow, he reached into his satchel to retrieve a package wrapped with brown paper, and in that paper was this book that I now write into. My brother said the gift of this book was my mother’s idea, and that I should record for posterity the glorious victories that surely lay ahead. I swore to him that I would not fail or shirk in this endeavor.
Before he fell asleep, my brother reminded me of the surely good omen that tomorrow, the day we begin our march, also marks the sixteenth anniversary of my birth. It is after midnight now and my brother sleeps next to me. Tomorrow…no, it is today we march.
May 5, 1861
Only now do I find the strength to make another entry in this journal. How shall I tell you of the exhaustion I feel, that every man among us must feel, after the journey of this past week? For march we did, our wagon train as large as any active duty regiment. March! March! Along the narrow roads and through the deepest woods of Massachusetts, onto the serpentine trails of Connecticut and into the great city of Hartford.
I tell you here with some embarrassment that I had hardly left the confines of our farm, nor had I wandered any great distance from my own town of Grantham, so to see the sights of such a city, the tall buildings, its fair citizens standing three-deep on balconies four and five stories in the air, O, what a sight to behold!
On one of these balconies stood a large number of women, some of them older but some of whom appeared close to me in age. These women wore bold layers of powder, and their hair was coiffed to high points, and they smiled and then bared their shoulders as we passed and blew kisses our way! I confess that I turned my head to stare until my brother stepped between me and the women and told me to look away.
As we marched south, we began to collect fine men from other cities and towns, who had gathered themselves on their town greens to await orders, wanting to be led. The Colonel implored these men to join us in our cause and join us they did, in the thousands. Men on horseback and men with wagons, men with pitchforks and men with shovels. Men! And it was in Hartford that we first began to see the huge cannon and artillery that would join us in the journey southward. It is here in Hartford that our regiment will catch the train that will carry us further south, into the belly of the beast
, and I confess to some excitement and nervousness about traveling for the first time on the railroad. For the UNION! For the UNION!
2
Michael’s house
Everyone but Dugan was surprised and a little disoriented when Harris continued to join them at their table. Conversation was awkward and stilted for a while after that, but Dugan and his friends soon returned to their usual lunchtime banter.
One day not long after Harris joined them, Moon clumsily spilled milk all over the table, and most of it went into Larry’s lap. Larry stood up and looked down, horrified to see that it looked as if he had pissed himself. Everyone started laughing except Larry, who got mad and lashed out. He called Moon a fat dickhead and looked poised to call him much worse, when Harris broke the tension by looking up to ask, “Imagine if we really had dickheads?”
After they all turned to look in his direction, Harris raised his arms slowly above his head and then clasped them together in a mushroom shape. After that, he began to open and close his mouth like a fish. It was ridiculous, and hilarious. Nobody expected it and everybody laughed, including Larry, but mostly Jimmy, who laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Harris put his hands down and went back to his lunch. Never again did he say as much as he did that day, even when they tried to include him in conversation.
Harris surprised Dugan again by suggesting that the two of them get together over at his house some day after school to work on the project. Dugan tried to beg off, but he thought he heard something desperate in Harris’ voice, a kind of unspoken plea, and ultimately relented.
Although the project wasn’t due for another month, Harris had already shown him a twenty-page draft. It was neatly typed, with footnotes, citations, and a bibliography. Dugan felt guilty sometimes that he hadn’t done much of the work, but that seemed to be the way Harris wanted it. In the end, it seemed to Dugan that accepting the invitation was the right thing to do.
Dugan waited by the south entrance on Thursday afternoon for Harris to show up. When he arrived and saw Dugan waiting there as planned, Harris smiled and looked a little surprised. The two began walking silently through the drizzle, and after a few blocks, Harris turned the corner into Rosemont, the closest Grantham came to having a rich part of town.
“You live out here?” Dugan asked. Harris nodded.
They walked down the wide street, past the nicest houses in town, and when they were about halfway down the street Harris turned right into a long driveway. Dugan saw a large, two-story white house at the end with a connecting three-car garage off to the right. The green expanse of lawn leading up to the house had been recently tended, and Dugan thought it was probably big enough to land a helicopter safely. The smell of fresh woodchips and wet mulch got stronger as they passed the elegant landscaping and exotic plants arranged in small oases surrounding the home.
Harris walked them around to the back. An Olympic size swimming pool was buttressed against a fenced in tennis court toward the rear of the backyard, with plenty of room left over for another house. They walked underneath a large deck. After Harris put his key in the door, he turned around to look back at Dugan.
“If my parents come home, you’re gonna hafta leave. Okay?”
Dugan didn’t know how to respond to that, seeing that he didn’t want to be here in the first place. But he nodded his head and secretly hoped one of them would turn into the driveway right about now. Harris turned the key and they walked into the house. They went through an unfinished area of the basement, empty except for the furnace and a large water heater. Harris took off his shoes and Dugan followed suit. He followed Harris through another door and found himself in a sunken family room. It was filled with elegant leather couches placed deliberately throughout the enormous space.
Tucked into opposite corners of the room, Dugan saw billiards tables and foosball tables. A big screen television was placed against one wall, kitty cornered to an even larger fireplace. An enormous jukebox with neon lights dominated an entire wall. The deep, lush red carpet looked and felt to Dugan as if it had never been stepped on. Harris went over to the couch closest to the TV and sat down, before noticing that Dugan hadn’t followed. He looked over and smiled.
“Come on in. It’s okay.”
Dugan walked over to join him on the couch, and Harris switched channels on the TV for a while before settling on the afternoon movie out of Providence.
“I’m gonna grab a soda. Can I get you somethin’?”
Dugan answered that a Coke would be great, if he had one. Harris bounced up from the couch and walked over to a far door.
After Dugan heard him pound up a few sets of stairs, he turned away from the TV and noticed a series of photographs that hung on the wall to his left. He stood up to have a look.
Most of the pictures were of the two brothers. The oldest showed a two-year-old Stephen in a sailor suit propping up his new baby brother. As Dugan moved along the wall, the years went by, and he began to notice something in Michael’s expression change. The happy toddler turned into a wary little boy who became the unsmiling thug that Dugan knew. In the later pictures, Harris looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world, but Stephen’s half smirk didn’t change at all through the years. Dugan saw that Stephen’s flat looking, dead shark eyes had been with him for a long time.
There were other pictures too, the two boys each holding up a small fish while standing next to a river, action shots of family ski trips, and the like. What looked like a recent family photo was in the center of the display. Dugan saw that Harris’ father was a nondescript looking type, with glasses and a narrow blond moustache, receding hairline, and baby teeth. Harris’ mother was blonde and perhaps beautiful once, but this photograph showed a woman who was washed out and tired. Dugan saw reflected in her face the same kind of desperation he had heard earlier in Harris’ invitation, and thought this was a woman who needed rescue.
“Here ya go.”
Dugan jumped, turning around to see Harris standing by his elbow holding out a Coke. Dugan smiled sheepishly and grabbed it, saying thanks as the two of them walked back to the leather sofa. Harris had brought down his pile of papers, notes, and other documents and photographs in support of their project. He leafed through them and then handed something over to Dugan. It was a copy of the latest version of the report.
“It’s pretty much all done,” Harris said. Dugan looked at it and then set it aside, thinking it was past time.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked. Harris looked down and away from Dugan and shook his head. Dugan took a long sip from his Coke and another long glance around the room. “Nice place you got here.”
Harris shrugged and folded his arms.
“You were there that night,” Dugan said. It wasn’t a question.
He looked over to Harris and watched him nod. “Whaddayou think happened?”
A grim smile slowly appeared on Harris’ face before he answered.
“I know what happened.” A long moment passed before he added, “The Colonel took ‘em.”
Dugan didn’t know how to respond to that. For a moment, he contemplated sharing his discovery of the Daniels diary with Harris, but thought better of it. He would tell him all about it after he was finished reading it.
Stalling, Dugan said, “I gotta pee. Can I use your bathroom?” Harris told him sure, it was up the stairs and to the right.
Dugan walked over to the door that Harris had gone through earlier. He went up the stairs and entered a living room that was even more elegant than the downstairs. Snow white carpet covered the floor, and white couches with plastic coverings decorated the room. Dugan looked down and saw an ugly yellowed runner crossing the carpet. He followed that into a huge bathroom with a black marble stand up shower. There was a matching tub mounted on a pedestal at the back of the room. He unzipped his fly, thinking he’d never pissed into a black toilet before.
When he finished, he went back downstairs and rejoined Harris on the couch. Harri
s had the remote in his hand and was wandering the UHF band. The silence between them lingered until Dugan couldn’t stand it.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
It was a few minutes before Harris answered. “I see them sometimes,” he said in a flat voice that sent a chill up Dugan’s spine.
“Who?”
Harris went on as if he hadn’t heard the question. “They come to my window at night. They scratch at it and bang on it. But I think they need an invitation or somethin’, least that’s how it works in the movies. One night, my father even came into my room and told me to keep it down. Can you believe that? Same as ever.”
“You mean…you see your brother?”
Harris nodded. “Yeah. Him. Walshie and Cotter too. I can hear Walshie callin’ me a homo through the glass, just for old times sake.”
He began to laugh and before long lost control of it. Dugan watched him pull his legs up and clutch them to his chest, rocking back and forth as tears rolled down his cheeks. But he kept on laughing.
“And lemme tell ya,” he said between giggles, “they ain’t lookin’ too hot neither!” A moment later, the laughter turned into deep sobs and he covered his face.
Dugan was embarrassed for him. Having no idea what to do or say, he just looked away to give him some privacy. The sobs trailed off after a while and Harris began to speak once again.
“They want me to join ‘em. I know it. I can feel it. Sometimes they pull at ya. The other night, I’m layin’ on my bed, and the next thing I know I’m standin’ at the window. I was just about to open it, until I saw Cotter open his mouth…”
Applewood (Book 1) Page 13
