Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  The boxing judge, Father Croix, sucked on the tip of his blue scoring pencil between rounds. His subjective powers hadn’t had much work. The majority of matches ended in one of three ways: with one boy cowering under Maxi’s long wingspan, with a spectacular nose and eyeball explosion of blood and mucus, or with a knockout. None of these required Croix’s crisp numbers to separate the winners from the losers. He was encouraged by the stamina of these two boys. Poise and enthusiasm weighed heavily in Croix’s scoring, as did making the sign of the cross prior to each round, though the latter didn’t appear on the official scorecard. After one round, Damian, the Catholic, held a slight edge.

  Will couldn’t catch his breath. Like his grandfather Otis, he suffered from shallow lungs. Between rounds, Tommy rubbed out his arms and poured water down his gullet, but Will gagged, spitting most of it out. “Where’s Helen? Where’s—”

  Tommy pulled Will’s chin forward; their two foreheads touched. “Concentrate, or he’ll knock your block clean off.” Tommy pointed across the ring.

  Will gasped, “If no one sees, it never happened.” Will peered over his shoulder, and Tommy pinched and twisted the younger boy’s right nipple. Will slapped Tommy’s arm and squinted into the dark recesses of the tent.

  Tommy couldn’t believe his baby sister stood between him and fifty dollars. “He’s over there,” he shouted, and then, “She said she’d be by after running dinner pails.” Will snapped back around. “And you better be whipping him when your girlfriend arrives. She’d kick his ass.”

  Tommy spat out instructions for the next round, and Will rubbed his gloves down his hairless twelve-year-old legs to stop his thin calf muscles from quivering.

  Damian didn’t lift his head between rounds. The young priest working his corner repeated the command, “Punch, move, punch, move,” and attempted to get Damian to take some water.

  When the boy pushed the water away, Pete Newton exploded off the bleachers, his ruddy cheeks burning their usual crimson. Rumbling down the aisle, he forearmed the popcorn vendor into a row of spectators. Pete hung onto the ropes to steady himself. His cup of beer sloshed over the canvas. “What kind of sissy did God deliver me?”

  The young priest said, “Knock it off, Pete.”

  “Sissy,” Pete hissed.

  Little Patrick dangled off his father’s belt. “Stop,” he called. “Leave him be.”

  “Sissy.”

  Father Croix shouted, “That’s enough, Pete.”

  “He’s pissed.” The popcorn man marched toward the ring.

  “Don’t come home if ya loses.”

  “Find him a seat,” a spectator shouted. Others start throwing cups and programs.

  The popcorn man and a parishioner from Saint Anne’s dislodged Pete from the ropes.

  “Kick him out!”

  Pete threw his cup at the ring hitting the young priest square in the chest. “Orphanage for you, boy.”

  * * *

  Taft continued: “I congratulate you on your city. It is a city of enterprise, happy with the hum of industry. It is a city with men at the head of it with energy and foresight, so that when the textile industry was threatened with competition in other parts of the country, they devoted their brains and their skill and their keenness of intellect to improving the industry and devoted themselves to its higher branches.”

  * * *

  Joseph peeled away from the grandstand, disappearing into the throng, all shoving forward to get a glimpse of Taft. In the street, boys who usually swept floors or collected discarded tin raced up the block, weaving between gaps in the crowd. Ladies shouted at them to slow down. Many didn’t earn enough to enjoy the carnival rides or eat the vendors’ fried dough balls, so Joseph was pleased to see them enjoying themselves just the same. On North Main Street, he looped back to City Hall Square and dipped under the canvas tarp draped around the grandstand. Joseph nearly tripped over a mound of seaweed and rocks for that afternoon’s clambake. Flies buzzed past his face then returned to the seaweed pile. Wooden scaffolding poles rose from square blocks like a line of toy soldiers. The stifling hot air choked him, and he began to retch. Joseph nuzzled a handkerchief to his mouth and glanced up at the stressed bleachers that bent toward him each time the crowd moved. Shafts of light shot between the gaps in people’s legs as if beamed from the projector at the Savoy Theater. The president’s voice was muffled, but Joseph could still make it out. He spotted Matt Borden’s soft leather heels.

  “Over here, Captain.” Joseph turned to see George Pierce standing ten spaces up in a sea of fallen confetti, crepe paper, and empty bottles of King Philip lager, licking a swirl of cotton candy off a wooden stick. Pierce wore two buttons on his lapel: a Taft campaign button from the previous election and a souvenir keepsake printed with the carnival’s slogan, fall river looms up. Years of police batons rapping against his knees and shoulders had taken their toll on the fifty-eight-year-old. He walked mechanically and sloppily, like a windup toy soldier missing a part. His shock of white hair and wide, thin smile ever present. He was the happiest foulmouthed anarchist Joseph had ever met.

  “Enjoying yourself ?”

  “Bingo bingo.” Pierce licked cotton candy off his thumb. “Want some?”

  “Got a bad tooth.” Joseph wondered how Pierce managed to keep all his teeth. His tongue gingerly explored the far reaches of his mouth, the tip wedging between the gum and root of his top left wisdom tooth. His mouth was full of salty spit.

  “I got a piece of string.”

  Joseph snorted, and then arced a bloody glob over his shoulder. He said, “I hear your parade float won the union division.”

  “I hear Cleveland’s was dead last.”

  “We’ll get them at the next centennial.”

  Pierce narrowed his eyes and then choked on some cotton candy, getting the joke. “Yes, the next great one hundred years of cloth in Fall River.” The irony of the statement was greeted with a wave of applause in the grandstand. Joseph, Pierce, and perhaps Borden were the only ones who could imagine an end to Fall River’s textile dynasty. Joseph flinched when the crowd stood; at any moment the weight of his well-fed competitors and their bejeweled wives might crush him.

  Pierce said, “These fat cockwinders won’t last another twenty.”

  “My boy, he’s boxing. What do you want?”

  Pierce handed Joseph a leather-bound book. The binding was sticky. The name Cummings Mill was embossed on the cover.

  “How did you . . .”

  “We stole it.”

  Joseph raised his hand. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Cummings announced that he’ll be putting more looms on the idle list and shutting down for four weeks this summer—a vacation my union doesn’t need—because the price of goods in the market was below the cost of production.”

  “Prices are down. That’s no secret.” Joseph ran his fingers down the rows. He couldn’t tell someone how to run a business—“independence,” another Cleveland mantra—but he was pleased to see Cummings paid a few cents more for his dye.

  Pierce tapped his cotton candy against the ledger and said, “Look at the advanced sales figures, lines ten through twenty-five. The brokers are paying far above the costs of production. The association is going to produce to the deadline, then sit on inventory for four weeks to raise prices for inflated profits.”

  “You can deduce this all from one ledger, from one of the smallest mills in the association?”

  “No, my friend. History foretold the scenario. This is just concrete intelligence. Bingo bingo. No more lectures about temperance with operatives living in rat cellars.”

  Joseph snapped the ledger shut. He didn’t need a history lesson from Pierce. “The twenty-five percent curtailment may be extended. I told you that months ago.”

  “The spinners and others are already running low of curtailment benefits
. The loom fixers and weavers are in dire straits.”

  Joseph tapped the ledger against his thigh. He had grown tired of being the go-between for Pierce. And right here, right under the other agents’ noses. Pierce’s ego had no bounds. Bingo bingo up his ass.

  Joseph said, “You should unite all workers. Cause a real ruckus.” In Fall River, the powerful Manufacturers’ Association only worked with the United Textile Council, Pierce’s council, and its five established craft unions. The unskilled workers—weaker, less organized—weren’t recognized. Joseph’s small operation wasn’t immune to union troubles, but years ago Jefferson Cleveland had stuck his nose up at the Fall River system and made sure the Cleveland Mill worked with labor. The association carried antiquated mills and spendthrift treasurers on its back. Their board’s crossed bloodlines had given birth to deformities. Heck, Borden lived in New York to stay away from his bumbling clan.

  Pierce repeated the council’s mantra concerning wages: “The weaver for the weaver and the spinner for the spinner.”

  The grandstand crowd cheered. A few men stomped their feet. The entire structure shook above them. Joseph hoped the Planning Committee hadn’t cut corners on construction. A wax hot dog wrapper floated down from above. Pierce stepped closer to Joseph to be heard over the racket.

  “We can handle another ten percent, short term, but nothing more. And no shutdown.”

  “Borden won’t shut down. I won’t.”

  “Don’t speak for Borden.”

  Joseph removed his hat and wiped his eyebrows with his handkerchief. When had it gotten so goddamn warm?

  Pierce said, “The association will. We’ll strike before allowing them to build up rich inventory on our backs.”

  “Then a wage concession.”

  “No.”

  “Where’s your compromise?”

  “Just arrange a meeting.”

  “This could have waited.”

  “Do it today. The owners are buoyant. You’d think it was dividend day. If they can entertain a president, then they won’t worry much over one little labor—”

  “Agitator.”

  “They’ll want to pound their chests in my face. They think they created all this cotton candy on their own.”

  Joseph said, “I’m headed to the boxing tent.”

  “That’s another way to settle matters.”

  Joseph gave Pierce a sideways glance.

  Pierce licked the cotton candy. “Then a little heat. Inventory burns so eas—”

  “Never another fire.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. Then perhaps a kidnapping will get their attention?” He licked the pink corners of his mouth and winked. “Send word by the end of day. Bingo bin—”

  “Just shut up.” Joseph clenched his jaw and grimaced. “Now, my boy, he’s boxing.” He stepped to the edge of the tarp. “He’s a champion.”

  “If only we were all Highlands boys,” Pierce said, tossing his cotton candy to the flies. “If only.”

  * * *

  Hollister pressed his ear to the wooden door. Freak. He jumped to his feet. A broom handle smacked a tin bucket. The floorboards rattled outside.

  “Spider. Spider.” Maria pressed her face against the famine panel.

  Hollister braced his hands against the jamb.

  “Please. Spider. Spider.”

  Her breath dampened Hollister’s palm.

  Hollister fingered the latch, paused, and then leaned his shoulder into the door. He could wait all day.

  Maria tapped her forehead against the mirror. Near tears, she whispered, “Spider. Spider.”

  Hollister sniffed his palm. He frowned, and then wiped it down his trousers.

  “Someone comes.” Her voice cracked. “I’ll tell.”

  Hollister snapped the latch up, yanked the door open, and grabbed Maria’s forearm, jerking her into the storeroom. She gasped at the darkness. The door latch dropped as a gang of kids stomped into the Hall of Mirrors laughing and spitting insults. Fatso. Pumpkin Head. Two-face. They ran through the entire litany of names the mirrors encouraged.

  Hollister spoke through his teeth, “Why didn’t you go away? You’re so stup—”

  Maria cupped his mouth. “Shhhhhhh.”

  Hollister grabbed her wrist and bent it back. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  Maria took a deep breath but didn’t scream. He twisted her arm, and Maria’s knees buckled. She clutched two fists full of his trousers above the knee, began to hiccup.

  “Quit that.” He pressed his palm over her mouth.

  Hollister double-checked the latch, and they both froze, as the gang stopped at the famine panel. Pencil neck. Pinhead. Flat butt.

  * * *

  “You’re late.” The priest manning the east door waved Helen through.

  “Work,” Helen said. She tossed him a bag of roasted nuts she’d nicked on the street. She leaned close to his ear. “Who’s Will Bartlett’s next victim?”

  But the priest didn’t flinch or wave his finger and say, Now now, Helen. Boxing is for exercise. He smiled and said sarcastically, as if Helen was the last person on earth to know, “Damian.”

  Helen coughed up a nut. The Damian who bit off Billy O’Brian’s earlobe last summer at Bliffin’s Beach? The Damian who dragged a coffin from the undertaker’s motorcar? The Damian who urinated in Sister Mary’s pea soup?

  The priest popped a hot nut into his mouth.

  * * *

  “Who’s there?” Evelyn jolted awake, Oliver Twist smacking the floor as the cats scurried under the bed. She wiped a trickle of drool with her sleeve. She glanced at the window. The cats had overturned the soup, and her patient still slept. The lukewarm soup was sprayed across the hardwood. Dirty fur balls, she thought. They washed with their own spit, for Ham’s sake.

  Evelyn righted the bowl with her toe and wet a towel in the china bowl on the washstand. She knelt to slop up the mess. Shiny eyes followed her movements from under the bed. “Bad girls,” she scolded. “No more fish for dinner. Bad girls.” At a minimum, Evelyn thought, they could kill mice like the tabby at the apothecary. Evelyn crawled toward them, wiping up their radish-colored paw prints. Suddenly she was a big-game hunter stalking prey on the Dark Continent. Or rather, leading the mercy killing of a wounded beast. She, and Elizabeth, and the adventurer Margaret Bullock sporting mosquito-net hats and khaki trousers cinched at the waist with large leather belts—three sisters of adventure—leading a band of shirtless natives deep into the bush.

  Evelyn sighed and then hoisted her knees up in two labored motions. She wanted everything perfect. Standing, she saw a trail of crimson paw prints leading over the sheets to Elizabeth’s pillow. She paused. The word “queer” zipped across her mind. Lifting her skirt, she shuffled quickly around the bed, and the cats raced out of the room.

  “No! ”

  There was a streak of blood under Elizabeth’s nose. Evelyn covered her mouth. They’d attacked her sister! “I’ll kill them!”

  She snorted back tears and cradled Elizabeth’s chin in her palm. She said, “Elizabeth, dear,” dabbing Elizabeth’s nose and lips. Evelyn grimaced, half expecting to see a scrape on Elizabeth’s porcelain skin, but there was no gash.

  Evelyn sighed; she replaced the pillow with the fresh one she kept nearby. Elizabeth’s head flopped to the opposite side. A bitter smell filled the room. Evelyn crouched down and slipped her hand under the sheet and mattress pad. It was wet. Criminy. Joseph would be livid. Evelyn tapped Elizabeth’s shoulder. She had to move her to the divan.

  “Dearie,” she began. “Come on, droopy eyes.” Elizabeth was still. Evelyn knotted her fingers together to suppress the shakes. She squinted. Another shallow pool of redness had collected under her patient’s nose. As Evelyn reached to wipe it away two canals of blood burst from Elizabeth’s nostrils.

  Eve
lyn screamed.

  * * *

  In the dark, Hollister licked the moist hand that had covered Maria’s mouth. She smelled nice—something soapy, something peppermint. But she was a freak, like the others. He clutched her thick black hair and massaged her head. Her cheek brushed his thigh as he pressed his nails into her scalp. “Nothing to fear,” he said and eased up the pressure.

  She jerked, pushing against his knees, but he chopped down on her shoulder blades with both hands, and her body collapsed as if suddenly punctured. Her head fell into his groin; he smothered it against the beating shaft of his penis. Maria stiffened. He rose up on tiptoes as his body shuddered. Maria’s arms dangled at her sides. As his heels lowered to the floor, he released her head, and they both exhaled.

  Hollister pinched his damp trouser leg. Far off, a marching band played. Voices outside passed through the Hall of Mirrors. He whispered, “Maria,” and began pressing down her hair with both hands as if she were a doll.

  He could now make out the outline of her small figure. Her head swiveled in his hands; he squeezed her earlobes. By touch, he straightened the seams of her blouse directly over her shoulder blades. When his fingernail caught on a tear in the cotton, he stopped to pinch the two ends together. “There,” he said, thinking he’d mended the rip. “You can be my secret girlfriend.” She was as pretty as the girls on the postcards hidden under his mattress. He thought of buying her something expensive on the midway—a hand-painted cameo perhaps. It’ll be the most expensive thing she’s ever owned. He cupped her face in his hands. “Hey,” he whispered, “I’m talking to you.”