Kings of Broken Things

by Theodore Wheeler

  “No,” Karel said. “I want to keep them.”

  Miihlstein grabbed his suit jacket from the railing. “Let’s go, Karel. Take me to this man Josh. We’ll see what he has to say about it.”

  “You don’t understand. Josh doesn’t live around here. We can’t just barge in on him.”

  “You will explain on the journey. I’m quite convinced we’re leaving.”

  They took the streetcar north. Caught the Lake Street line near the post office. Karel told his father where Josh lived once they were out on Clandish, but the reveal didn’t faze Miihlstein. “That’s no trouble” was all he said. “I know how to get there.”

  Karel was surprised how calm Miihlstein was. Way up there past Cuming Street, what the boys called No Man’s Land. Karel didn’t think his father had ever been to this part of the city, but maybe Miihlstein had a surprise or two up his sleeve as well. And why wouldn’t he? Not only black people lived on the Near Northside—as Karel thought—but it had long been dominated by Eastern Europeans and Jews. For years the most common tongue spoken here was Yiddish. “Many clients live here,” Miihlstein told him as the streetcar rumbled north. Miihlstein reached up to raise a window sash and let a breeze in. “I know my way around.”

  Once off the streetcar Miihlstein went to a little grocery shop in a corner brick building with green awnings. The shopkeeper knew him. Greeted him. “Shalom,” they said. Miihlstein asked what the shopkeeper knew about a Josh Joseph who lived around there. “Der schvartze?” “Yeah. The baseball player.” “No. He shines shoes.” “That’s him,” Karel said. They went on, Herr Miihlstein with his boy straggling behind, embarrassed, sluggish, to a shack set back in the weeds, one with a broken latch, so the door hung ajar.

  Karel didn’t know what to think, headed here with his father. He shouldn’t have worn his new uniform up here, the jersey of the Southside team. He might get trouble for wearing the wrong color letters that spelled out Omaha, the white cloth and pinstripes, instead of the solid gray of the Northside. But this didn’t really matter. Nobody said a thing to Karel about it, even if he did get some second looks from doorways. It was no surprise, the jersey he wore. Was he—a Southsider—supposed to wear the jersey of the black Northside team? That made no sense. What did anybody expect from him? What was Karel to think? Going past these little shacks with Herr Miihlstein, his boxy hat, his straight-laced shoes and skinny black necktie. Kids on the corner watched with equal parts anger and amusement. Miihlstein didn’t seem to notice.

  “Is the man of the house at home?” he asked when the woman answered.

  This was the same woman as before, Karel was sure, though she didn’t wear the red kerchief over her mouth. She dressed nice this time, in a skirt-suit with brass buttons, her hair done up neat. “You mean Josh?” she asked, and waved them inside. “He’s here where he always is.” She led them in and pointed to Josh in the room, said to him, “I don’t know how they find you.”

  Karel watched the woman. The kitchen was quiet this time. A carton of fruit on the table. The woman grabbed her bag and went in to say good-bye to Josh. Kneeled to where he sat on the floor, whispered something to him, then kissed the top of his head. “I got to get.” She smiled to Karel a moment, like she recognized him, or boys like him. “Nice shirt,” she said.

  “We’ve never met,” Miihlstein said once the woman left.

  “They call me Josh.”

  “Do you know my boy?”

  Josh looked Karel over but only shrugged.

  Miihlstein wasn’t fazed at all being here or seeing a man like Josh, the two stumps where his legs had been, his long, bone-skinny arms. It was so muggy in the room that Josh went without a shirt, so they saw his ribs, a long pink mark across his stomach where he was scarred. Miihlstein kept his upright way even here. He sweat, anybody would have, it was wet in there, but he hardly acknowledged his perspiration, just pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away and that was that.

  He elbowed Karel in the shoulder. “Give me the ball.”

  Once Karel handed it over, Miihlstein gave the ball to Josh and asked if it was his. “I’m suspicious this ball was stolen.”

  Josh smiled at the suggestion, like how did this man expect him to recognize one baseball from another after he’d held thousands of them in his lifetime? But Josh took the ball with his colossal left hand and looked it over anyway, perched by the seams on his fingertips like on a pedestal. Black Shinola was smudged on this ball, which gave away who its former owner had been.

  “I gave the boy this ball. I remember. He came to see me one time.”

  “Emil brought me,” Karel said. He turned so Josh could see the uniform he wore.

  “Yes. That’s right. One of Emil’s kids. From the boat to a ballfield. I see you.”

  Josh tossed the ball back to Karel then turned to what he was looking at, the latest weekly digest unfolded out over the floor. The Monitor, which was for black folks. His finger traced over the lines on the page, how the NAACP was having a campaign drive to enlist new members and how colored troops were going to be included in a military parade in Baltimore at President Wilson’s request. Josh’s brown-and-orange eyes going back and forth.

  “Who is this Emil Braun?” Miihlstein wanted to know. “He introduced my Karel here to you, but I don’t know him. What’s Braun up to?”

  “What do you mean? I played ball against Emil. That’s it. He helps me sometimes.”

  “The man who brought my son here. I’m asking you about him. My son tells me nothing. So I’m asking you.”

  Josh folded the newspaper and set it aside, his face twisting at the question. He leaned forward to sweep his body along the floor a few feet closer to look at Miihlstein. “No,” he said. “You’re not this boy’s father. Emil takes care of this one. This is one of Emil’s boys, I know.”

  They stared at each other, both set back by what the other had said. What could Miihlstein think about all this? Karel was knocked out for an instant, that was what it felt like, seeing the look on his father’s face, a little glance between Karel and Josh, then like the wind was thumped out of him. Miihlstein’s mouth giving in to a little droop, his mustache, his eyes beady, sad, behind the bent frames of his glasses. It was just an instant, Karel slipping out of himself. How Miihlstein must have glimpsed that he was losing Karel, there in a dark shack with some legless Schwarzer ballplayer, a hero to the boy, who couldn’t recognize the boy’s father.

  “It’s okay,” Karel said. It was up to him to set things straight. He grabbed the baseball back, took Miihlstein by the arm, and pulled to the door. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, yeah. He’s just a guy. He gave me a baseball. It’s no big deal.”

  “Whatever you say, Karel. But we’re here. You brought me here.”

  “He’s a guy, a ballplayer. That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” Josh echoed. “Just some schvartze, some darky. Whatever you folks say. Go on. Act like I’m the one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Coming in here wearing that! That set of rags! You’re wearing the wrong colors, boy, for this neighborhood.”

  Karel peeled out of his knickers and the Southside jersey and his high-ankle shoes once they returned to the attic of the Eigler house. In just shorts and undershirt he collapsed to the bed and rolled the quilt over himself, hoping his father would leave him alone now.

  “I’m glad you’re home,” Miihlstein said. He sat at the edge of the bed and put his hand on Karel’s leg. “We miss you around here. Anna thought it might have been something she said that makes you stay away. Is that it? Is that why you’re a bad boy all the time? You’re insulted?”

  Karel said it wasn’t that. It was nothing. It was the spring weather. He didn’t look up but stared at the pattern of the green and gold quilt, a puzzle he couldn’t master. Maybe there wasn’t a pattern. It didn’t matter. His father kept moving across the room, little by little, stopping to look around until he rested his hands on the bed frame.


  “I did wonder if little Anna could sour you so. I’m lucky to have such children. Silke and Theresa, Anna and you. Two complete pairs in your manners. What luck, yeah?”

  Karel wouldn’t say anything. He should have run away from Miihlstein before they came up here, but he didn’t think his father would trap him again. The whole streetcar ride back from the Northside they didn’t say a word to each other. They were silent under the rattling of the window sashes, the tinging of the bell. Miihlstein maybe learned better than to ask these kinds of questions, Karel thought, on the streetcar, after the strangeness with Josh. But he was wrong.

  “Anna, you know, is not getting better these days,” Miihlstein said, starting at it again. “The winter here was much worse than I thought it would be. It’s my fault, I suppose. More should have been done to learn what we were in store for coming here, don’t you think? Yet. The house suits us. You have friends. You’ve taken to a sporting life, which is just as well.”

  Miihlstein stopped talking and looked to the stairs, one set of fingers in his mustache. The girls were coming to see what was wrong, but he waved them away.

  “I’ll explain someday. What happened with your mother. Why we were in Galizien in the first place, why we had to leave the way we did. It ruined us, Karel. It nearly did.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Anna told me she blurted out. She botched all she told. The Swallow, you know, that’s what the theater called your mother. It wasn’t the Sparrow, like Anna told you.” Miihlstein laughed to himself. “Surely there’s more she botched. Mädel Anna. She’s an artist’s temperament. Feebleminded when it comes to most plain details.”

  “Shut up,” Karel said, quiet as he wound tighter in the quilt.

  Miihlstein surely heard, but he said nothing in response. “There was something special about your mother” was what he said.

  THE UNINITIATED

  Spring 1918

  Everyone knew Jake was with Evie. Even if they didn’t go out on the town together, folks saw him on the street and figured he was headed her way. They knew he wasn’t spending his nights at the Eigler house, that he only stopped in to shave and change clothes, though he did bring Evie there to visit once. He hired a car to drive Evie over to Clandish on Saturday evening. A bunch of boys were on the sidewalk staring as he helped her out. She dressed formal, something conservative by her standards, laced to the top of her neck, with skirts that brushed over the grimy bricks of the walkway, a dress made from purple crepe with a velvet sash tied across her middle.

  “Jeez, Jake.” “She looks nice. Doesn’t she?” the boys remarked. “What’s the occasion? Your birthday or something?”

  “That’s right,” Jake laughed. “Who told?”

  Jake introduced Evie to the Miihlstein girls. A mere “How do you do?” before Silke and Theresa fingered the lace and crepe of Evie’s dress and asked how she got her hair to curl like that. “She’s beautiful, Jake,” Theresa said. “Where have you been keeping her?” After dinner they played a game that was typical here. A newspaper and map spread out on the rug to see where the war was, a silly thing to keep up with most days, as the trenches didn’t actually move. But the girls remembered enough of Europe to despair over what had been destroyed. Silly little Anna rested against the wall and sniffled, her legs straight so she could rub where her knees bumped out. “It’s sad, isn’t it?” she said. Everyone agreed it was sad. Except she didn’t need to cry. Crying was theatrical. That was little Anna for you. Nobody knew what to do with her.

  The girls doted on Evie that night. “Evie Chambers. What a lovely name.” “Where do you come from, Evie? Where’s your family from?” “Oh. Kansas. That’s where. Just Kansas.” The Miihlstein girls, Maria Eigler, even Herr Miihlstein when he came downstairs—embarrassed because he forgot there was company and had been applying lacquer and now couldn’t shake her hand because his were sticky—they all loved Evie. They said so. Only Karel was gone, and nobody knew where he’d gotten off to. But the rest of them were charmed. The girls walked Jake and Evie to the street when the evening was over and lingered there on the walkway as the two young lovers strolled away.

  That week people on Clandish talked about Evie and Jake a lot. Why didn’t they just get it over with? Why didn’t he ask her to marry him and put her up in a house of their own? Jake flaunted the fact that he had money. It wasn’t his money, of course. Pretty much everything he had belonged to Tom Dennison, but that didn’t seem to matter. He was in love. Life was good. He should marry his girl.

  Of course, things would get worse for Jake.

  Tom Dennison looked like an old priest when he confronted Jake about the money. The way his lips twisted his words, how he cracked his knuckles, ready to berate a sinner. “Fess up, son. Don’t embarrass yourself by saying you didn’t do nothing. We both know that’s a lie.”

  Jake was confused. He thought everything was going swell. So he played dumb and asked what Tom was talking about.

  “You’re sneaking money to your girl. Billy told me about it. He had a line on you. This is what came up.” Jake’s face went blank then. He couldn’t pretend. “That’s stealing. If it’s for your girl, that’s stealing. Don’t ask me what you did. If you want to throw away your own money, that’s your business. But don’t waste what’s mine.”

  Tom stared at Jake a long time to see what he’d do. Jake didn’t say a word. He couldn’t even look at Tom, sitting there, as he tried to imagine what would happen next.

  “You got to drop that girl,” Tom said. “I saw her. She’s not so pretty. Find a new girl. Promise me that and we’ll be square.”

  Tom explained things to Jake. How he wanted to believe in him. He wanted to believe Jake was smarter than the other guys, more grateful. This wasn’t the first time Tom had been betrayed by a young man whose star seemed to shine brighter than it really did. There were others who thought they could pull one over on the Old Man. These things were solvable. If it only cost money to get through this trouble, Tom didn’t care. Money wasn’t so hard to get. Jake was a disappointment. But when you counted who had the most to gain and who lost what, there was no way of figuring that Tom Dennison was the loser of this gamble. It was Jake who’d miscalculated. It was Jake who’d lose if he didn’t drop that girl and put himself back in Tom Dennison’s good graces. That’s how simple it was. Even Jake should have been able to see that.

  But Jake didn’t know what to do. Tom had it out for him. He’d been caught stealing—a cardinal offense, though everything they did was stealing in one way or another, wasn’t it?—and he wouldn’t even try to make things right. Tom wanted to let him off the hook. All Jake had to do was end it with Evie. But he wouldn’t.

  A few weeks prior, Dennison had sent a new summer-gray suit to the Eigler house with a thousand-dollar bill tucked in the breast pocket. On the charge slip it read Happy birthday, sorry it’s late. —T. Maria found the money. Jake didn’t believe it when she handed him the thousand. How was so much money held in a single scrap of paper? He’d received gifts from Tom before—liquor, theater passes, front-row seats at fights and ballgames—but nothing like this. If Tom was so concerned about Jake taking money, why give him a thousand-dollar bill? It didn’t make sense. Jake thought of giving the cash to Evie—to pay her rent out over a year—but then Tom would have his ass for sure. He was trapped. The way he figured, there was nothing to do but hold on to the thousand and remember who gave it to him.

  He was a mess those days before the vote. Unable to keep his thinking straight. Sensitive. He worked nearly twenty hours a day. Trudging through tenements. Up all night in social clubs, imagining lying on Evie’s sofa and listening to records. He imagined making love to her. He tried to convince himself that he should break it off with her until things cooled down with Dennison—the reasonable thing to do. But then he’d recall the way her body fit into his, her shoulder under his shoulder, the flat front of her hips on his legs, the way she walked barefoot on the crooked knuckles of hi
s back, how she soaked his feet in alchemic water when they ached, how she’d cared for him when he was knocked down with the flu. He’d miss her scent in the morning, before she perfumed, a reconfiguration of burgundy wine and sweet rolls.

  Screw it. He couldn’t stand this anymore. What did anyone expect of him?

  He went and bought a ring before he lost her. The jeweler said it was a nice one. The ring had a silver band, which cost less than some of the gold ones, but there was a diamond chip, and that was a special thing, uncommon for an engagement those days. He blew just about every cent he had on the ring. She’d have to be his. Once he had the ring, Jake went home to get the thousand from under his mattress. They’d run off. He and Evie would take a car to Lincoln then catch a train to a city where the Omaha machine had no influence. He’d get out with Evie. They’d leave town. They’d make love in a sleeper car.

  There was a meeting at the Santa Philomena that night. Jake was required to be there, but then he’d sneak off. Tom, Billy, all those machine men who could hurt him, they’d be too busy with the vote to notice. This was his chance.

  Evie acted strange those days. Once Jake got better from the flu, Evie saw herself do plenty of odd things. She was used to lovers who thought they were performers, particularly young men like Jake. While a middle-aged man with middling ambition might be comfortable with what he could and couldn’t do in the sack, a young man never was. Jake aimed for grander feats. Unfavorable body positions. Methods a guy had described to him in a barroom. He never understood that those men were tricking him. Or maybe they were as cruel in the ways they screwed as they were in all other ways. The manner of pinching and poking and tweaking and slapping Jake brought to her rooms. What on earth could he be thinking? And then there was his competitive streak. He wouldn’t let her take control, like she ought to have. She knew how to do things he couldn’t have even dreamt of, if he’d let her. Instead he made sport. He wanted to be on top. He wanted to win. He even said these things to her sometimes in the heat of the moment. “I’m deepest! I’m filling you up!” Evie could deal with his being weird—after all, the sex could be pretty good if he forgot himself long enough to let it happen natural—but she acted peculiar too, she had to admit, and that was the stranger thing. She battled back. She wrestled him under her. Tried to deny him her greater depths. Would come loud and often (sometimes fraudulently) then insist she hadn’t just to tease him. “Eh. I’ve had better.” They were often uncomfortable when finished, somehow not quite spent. They were holding back. Why deny that?