Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  She’d gone to investigate, to find this deranged ride operator, and discover all this glass, but the carnival had left town the day after Taft’s speech. Before going to the Sheehans’, Hollister had spent the better part of the morning sequestered in his father’s study. At one point, Tommy disappeared inside only to exit an hour later with a scowl running across his face as long as the Quequechan River. Hollister had hovered around Will’s room acting queerly earnest. Since climbing down from the old oak in the yard, he had dried his tears and stood stoically at his father’s side. He had even assisted Evelyn with the chores; this was something Helen had never seen.

  By today, the stoic, helpful Hollister had regressed into the spoiled Highlands brat she knew well. He’d started calling Will “pig face” on account of his black eyes and swollen cheek, and more than once shouted at Helen to get out of his grandmother’s house. Luckily, Joseph had stopped by and fetched Hollister for a follow-up with Dr. Boyle. She sensed whatever mischief Hollister had cooked up in the fun house would end badly for him. The Bartletts were cursed.

  “You hear that?” Ray said.

  “What?” Hollister said.

  “Shh.” Helen raised a finger. “Footsteps.”

  They eyeballed the creaking boards across the upstairs hallway, down the stairs and through the breezeway. Ray dumped warm juices on Will’s and his mother’s cold meat. He held each plate up as Helen dished peaches, Tommy scooped spinach from the nearly full bowl, and Cousin Pete tossed slices of bread. As the door swung open, each made eating noises. Forks scraped on plates. Will scurried to his seat. Mary stopped, glanced at the flatware on the carpet, but continued to the head of the table.

  “Well, now.” Mary snapped her napkin. “How’s the dinner?” Ray and Pete spoke at once, their mouths full of roast. “Who’s being stingy with their spinach?”

  “Hollister didn’t have any,” Helen offered, sticking out her tongue.

  “Pass it over.” Mary dished out the limp greens and looked at Tommy. “Before you leave, help your brother close the windows.”

  “There’s no rain up there,” Ray objected, always one to avoid the simplest household chores. He would refit the pipes, but not lift a dish. Just like his father.

  Mary set her fork down. How old had Tommy Sr. been when he’d proposed? Nineteen? Twenty? It was high time Ray married. There had to be some ugly duckling out there for the misfit. “My ankles are throbbing. A rainstorm is coming . . . Tommy, you tell Little Doc to drive easy to the dance. No showboating for the gals. It’s gonna be slippery. And you’re in early. I need you in the morning.”

  “I’m just taking tickets tonight.”

  “Take Ray along. Introduce him to a nice girl.”

  “Mother.” Ray groaned.

  “Who’s having pie?”

  Hollister took a deep breath, then gulped down a forkful of spinach. He nodded at Helen and then kicked his brother under the table. Will clutched his shin. “You got something in your eye, little brother?”

  “Hollister, that’s enough,” Mary said.

  “What’d I do?”

  Will’s eyes welled up. Cousin Pete snickered. The older boys excused themselves to take care of the windows. Walking past, Tommy smacked Hollister in the back of the head.

  “Thomas Francis Sheehan!”

  “What?”

  Ray clutched Tommy in a headlock. “Want me to take care of him, Ma?”

  Mary jumped to her feet. “ray, out! tommy, out! hollister, out!” She threw her napkin into her chair. “Pete, stop that laughing. Nothing’s funny.” She slapped Ray’s arm to release Tommy. “I want those windows down in ten minutes.”

  “What about the pie?” Hollister protested.

  “Out!” Mary shooed them from the room.

  “More pie for us,” Helen whispered. She found Will’s hand under the table and squeezed.

  orange revolution

  Joseph sat alone under the South Park shelter, drumming a tall brown envelope off his kneecaps. He picked at Hannah Cleveland’s orange wax seal with his thumb. It was Joseph’s routine to stroll in South Park on Sunday afternoons. Since Lizzy’s death in June, one of the boys or Mary Sheehan would accompany him. He sat in a shady corner away from families and the August sun. There was no breeze off the bay. It was promising to be a scorcher.

  He had just come from his annual state-of-the-mill brunch with Hannah Cleveland, the matriarch and largest stockholder of the Cleveland Mill. He’d known Hannah his entire life but could never shake the feeling that she was always testing him, waiting for him to slip up. He visited her house often as a boy. With her son, Stanton, away at boarding school most of the year, Joseph became his surrogate. While Otis and the colonel talked shop in the study, Joseph would sit on his hands, scared stiff that he might break something valuable. And there were many valuable pieces to break. She claimed to possess the largest collection of hand-painted porcelain waterfowl outside England. Waiting, Hannah would quiz Joseph on his studies. On one visit she went so far as to deprive him of cookies for failing to know the capital of Indiana. She gave birthday gifts but derived fiendish pleasure from hiding them somewhere in the fifteen-room High Street mansion. Joseph spent the better part of each birthday tiptoeing through rooms whose items he dared not touch. Though always eccentric, in recent years her behavior had become erratic. “Crazy” was what Lizzy had called it the time Hannah came for Christmas dinner bearing Easter baskets.

  The state-of-the-mill brunch was held, as it was every year, in the atrium. Jefferson Cleveland had built it for Hannah’s fortieth birthday and stocked it with exotic tropical plants and golden pear and orange trees. The luncheon was mostly ceremonial, like the English prime minster receiving the queen’s blessing on the government’s annual budget, but then again, all queens have their pet projects, and Hannah announced hers before the coffee cooled. Last year she’d grown incensed after reading newspaper reports on the living conditions of female workers in Bangor. The papers were thick with testimonials from fourteen-year-old girls during the strike, and Hannah ate them up. She became convinced that Cleveland could do more for its women. Joseph agreed. Hannah had announced that, yes, she was pleased with her 14 percent return but was willing, in the short term, to earn perhaps 10 percent for the sake of “her girls.” She instructed Joseph to expand the mill library, serve free milk in the lunchroom, devote more money to college scholarships, and provide free medical care for company children. When Joseph reminded her that those were proposals he’d made in the past but that the figures showed returns more like 8 percent, she brushed him away with a wave of her hand. “Make it real,” she’d barked. (The free milk perk received positive coverage in the workers’ publication Labor Standard—a rarity for owners—and Hannah read it enthusiastically, though it drew the ire of other Highlands families who now had to provide free milk of their own.)

  But today’s meeting had not followed the usual script of proposal, caveat, food. This was unsettling, like watching a three-legged dog run. Coffee, muffins, salmon, eggs, all served and picked over, and still, no new pet project on the table. She just sat opposite him, displaying a knowing grin. She wore her usual home uniform, a tea gown of orange china silk with satin trim and the gold chain of her Italian handbag coiled around her elbow—no doubt stuffed with hundreds of dollars. Just in case! she liked to say. Was she angry with him? Wasn’t production up? Hadn’t she approved of the recent wage hikes? Did he forget to deliver her invitation to the Prairie Sponsors dinner? Did she not approve of Lizzy’s funeral arrangements? What did Matt Borden say to her in the cemetery?

  Hannah rang her bell, and Perkins brought out two cups of orange sorbet and then set a thick envelope at Joseph’s feet. Now she was ready.

  “Joseph, I’ve never liked the textile business. It itches,” she began, licking her spoon clean. “I can’t sew. Wool makes me sneeze. All that lint in the factory; it’s b
ad for the lungs. Your father—” she blurted out, surprising herself, then matter-of-factly continued, “Lint. That’s what killed the man.” She paused to take a scoop of sorbet. She pointed her spoon at something down the hill. “My people were whalers, rather chilly people, but fearless. They owned shares in New Bedford boats. No crazy Ahabs in the bunch. When I met Jefferson, he was an average-looking man—liked clementines, ate fish. His father made nice shirts. He was suitable to Daddy because he wasn’t going to move us into his house, and so we married. He improved himself, took risks, became a rich man. Fine. But he loved cotton more than me, Joseph. He loved his looms more than me. He loved ring-spinning frames more than his own son. He knew Eli Whitney’s middle name but not my sister Jackie’s. And his favorite color of dye: blue.”

  “Mrs. Cleveland, please.” Joseph coiled his napkin around his left wrist.

  Hannah raised her palm. “Young man, shush,” she piped.

  Joseph was not prepared for any kind of widow-to-widower regret fest with batty Hannah Cleveland. He knew he’d made mistakes—they happen—but he loved Lizzy. And damn it, Lizzy loved textiles.

  What old Hannah really disliked was living like so many of her Victorian Highlands sisters: stinking rich and no one to enjoy it with. Her arthritic fingers had undermined her last joy: the ladies bridge circle. But who decides which women get to live so damn long while others die in their prime? Joseph tightened the napkin.

  Hannah paused to consider her sorbet. Orange was her favorite flavor and color. In fact, Cleveland had a whole line of orange fabric named after her. Joseph noticed that the tablecloth was orange, and the centerpiece orange yarrow. Come to think of it, they’d enjoyed orange juice, apricot muffins, smoked salmon, runny fired eggs, and even cantaloupe. Could she be suffering from some sort of orange overload?

  “I may be as nutty as Ahab now, Joseph, but I’m done with textiles for good. And I’m done living in this hollow castle.”

  Keep going, Joseph thought. He unwound the napkin and color returned to his hand. Sell the mill and set me free.

  “I’ve broken the trust holding Stanton’s stock. In three months this house will be sold and I will be living with my sister on an orange grove in Saint Augustine.” Her white-gloved finger pointed to the envelope at Joseph’s feet. “You are now the majority owner of Cleveland. She’s yours. When I go, my twenty-five percent will transfer to you as well.” She paused for him to speak. Her eyes narrowed. “You going to be sick? Take a drink, son.” She lifted his water glass. “There now, take a moment,” she said.

  He gulped the water. Sweat glistened on his brow.

  “Just remember, while I’m still alive, don’t mess up.” She caught him glancing at the envelope. “Go ahead, take a peek.”

  Joseph cut the orange seal with his butter knife. Indeed, there was a letter from her Boston attorney certifying the dissolution of the trust and the transfer of Stanton’s stock. He scratched his chin with the stub of his pinkie finger. He tasted his breakfast in his throat. He wanted to move to Middletown, run the dairy farm. Though he knew he’d never had a choice, until now he could kid himself that he was just another one of Hannah’s employees, like Perkins here: Perkins delivered orange sorbet; Joseph delivered 14 percent returns.

  “So? What do you think?” Hannah set her chin in her palms like a little girl. The early onset of cataracts had begun to cloud her blue eyes.

  Joseph mopped his brow and stared down at his plate, at a hardening pool of yellow egg yolk. He took a deep breath and held the air in his chest to keep from collapsing.

  “Now, I know what you’re noodling, dear boy,” she said, standing. “You’re noodling, How can I repay such a generous gift? Well, I’ll tell you: orange patterns.” She snapped her fingers. “Perkins!”

  The butler came forward holding sheets of fabric that had been ripped into strips and then pinned back together in alternating color schemes: orange and white, orange and blue, orange and yellow, and on and on.

  “Take these to my designers and see what they come up with.”—my designers; they would always be her designers—“Questions?”

  Joseph shook his head.

  “Good. Perkins, put these in his automobile.” Hannah picked up her cane and stood. “Now, give me your arm, dear boy. Walk with me.”

  Joseph escorted her into the heart of the steamy atrium. He ducked under its green leaves, the air sweet and earthy. He had a sudden urge to dig his hands into soil, to fill his nostrils with the scent of turned earth. How was it that a man who did nothing but produce never felt like he produced anything?

  Hannah sat down on an iron bench under an orange tree. The back of the bench was forged to resemble grape vines. Tiny fruit hung off the ends of the finely crafted leaves. She scratched the space beside her. “Sit with me?” she asked, more a plea than a command.

  The ironwork dug into Joseph’s back. Hannah reached up and picked a ripe orange off a branch. She held it up for Joseph to sniff and then deposited it in his jacket pocket. She nuzzled her head under his long arm.

  He set his hand over hers. He whispered, “Please forgive me.”

  “I love oranges, Joseph,” she mooned. “I love all things orange.”

  * * *

  A family at one end of the South Park shelter packed their picnic and left. Joseph took a lap around the perimeter. Satisfied he knew no one was hiding in the shrubbery, he slid the stock certificates into the light. A crazy woman had just given him two million dollars. Part of him felt liberated—now he was running his business and not Stanton’s—but then why did he felt so trapped? When he’d finally told Lizzy about his involvement in the fire, she’d quoted scripture: “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.” For six years he had lived faithfully by the words “mercy,” “truth,” and “fear.” He softly fingered the certificates. Perhaps she’d been right.

  “Shouldn’t those be in a safe?”

  Joseph sprung off the bench as if a bee had stung his behind. The certificates scattered over the cement.

  “Look what I caused.” A slim woman stepped forward. The shadow cast by her enormous wide-brimmed straw hat swallowed Joseph. “Can I help?”

  “No.” He blocked her view of the certificates. “It’s nothing. Something for my son. School honor certificates. He’s a wonderful speller. A math whiz.” He scrambled on all fours shuffling the sheets. He rolled them into a cylinder and crawled forward to retrieve his errant straw boater, thinking such a woman had probably never seen a stock certificate—she dressed too simply: straight blue broadcloth walking skirt, plain tucked blouse with three-quarter sleeves and a simple flat collar, chiffon with frayed satin bow. Her white canvas high-top boots were beaten like a boxer’s nose. No, she’d never seen a stock certificate in her life.

  “Hollister or Will?”

  “Pardon?” Joseph dusted off his hat.

  “Who is the math whiz? Hollister or Will?”

  Joseph looked around to see if anyone else had heard. He realized he was still on his knees and jumped to his feet. He smiled in case any of the Sunday regulars recognized him speaking with this pushy woman. Slowly he came to the conclusion he’d never laid eyes on her before. It was none of her damn business what was in the envelope. Though, was she a teacher? When was the last time he’d been to their school? Had he ever been to their school? He stepped back into the shadow of the corner. She was tall. She had a round face with sparkling blue eyes and a toothy grin. Her hands were thick; a band of tiny scars wound over her left knuckle. She’d spent some time outside in the sun. Rather an attractive schoolteacher. He said, “Hollister in math. Will in spelling.” He bounced the certificates off his knee and tucked them back in the envelope.

  “Nice try, Mr. Bartlett.” She playfully poked the nose of her parasol into his shoulder as she backed down the shelter steps toward the water. Two small boys raced p
ast chasing a ball. “But this girl knows a stock certificate when she sees one.”

  Joseph followed her down the grassy slope thankful the afternoon heat had kept the regulars indoors or at the beach.

  She stopped and extended her hand like a man and Joseph took it. He met her eye; a strained expression came over her face. She squeezed his hand. Who is she?

  “Mr. Bartlett, I’ve been meaning to call, but that, as you will soon learn, isn’t possible for a girl like me.”

  No, it wasn’t. Not even now, whoever she was. Joseph felt the eyes of passersby pinned to his back. He eased his grip on her hand, but she held tight.

  She turned her wrist down to inspect his hand. “They say you lost a section of your pinkie finger. I figured it was in a boating accident.”

  Joseph pulled his hand away. “A cotton bale crushed it.” He itched his chin with the stub. “My first day. A long time ago.”

  “So you rode in with the cotton.”

  “My father made me work in each department when I came back to Fall River.”

  “And you didn’t mind going from Matt Borden’s buying house to the shop floor.”

  “Otis knew which way the wind blew before the clouds.”

  “Oh, your famous father. A dying breed of man. I’d have liked to have met him.”

  Sensing more eyes on his back, Joseph began to walk away from the shelter. In the distance, he saw the colored flags blowing on top of the supports of the Sandy Beach toboggan ride. Molten clouds hung over the beach. Will and Helen had taken the trolley down to the amusement park earlier that afternoon. They were surely in the water by now.

  “What do you want, Miss . . .”

  “Strong. Sarah Strong.” She smiled.

  Joseph took another step and then stopped and stared at her. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Sarah Strong—socialist, suffragist, sociopath—dubbed Sarah the Strangler by the Bangor, Maine, mill owners for her ability to choke production and stir violence. Otis had warned him of women like Sarah Strong: greyhounds with wolves’ teeth. His mother called them man-haters. Strong worked for a splinter group of the International Workers of the World, a militant union-organizing machine whose basic tenet was to desecrate capitalism. A skilled orator, she helped the IWW convince Bangor’s skilled workers—weavers, loom fixers, dyers, and spinners, plus scabs—to join the unskilled in their strike last year. Something George Pierce would die before letting happen in Fall River. That move had proved a difference-maker, and the owners finally agreed to wage increases, though Bangor would never be the same. Seven years earlier, in 1904, Fall River had seen a similar walkout. Eighty-five mills, sans Cleveland and Borden’s Iron Works, locked out their workers, refusing to negotiate wages. After six months on bread and water, the workers, many near destitute, returned not more than a nickel richer. To replace the thousands who had moved away, the owners found a new wave of immigrant dreamers. But each generation took the work out of necessity, and each swore their children would never slave before a deafening machine. The Yankees who had worked for Jefferson Cleveland were replaced by the English, then the Irish; since then, waves of French-Canadians and Portuguese had arrived to sweat and die in the textile mills of Fall River.