Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  At Point Judith, Joseph ordered a pot of coffee and a slice of sponge cake. He reread an article in the boat magazine about the decline of New Bedford whaling.

  In August of 1894, Joseph and Borden had worked their last bit of magic. The Southern menace had driven prices on printcloth to a low of two and a half cents a yard. When Fall River mills refused to sell to Borden, he went to his contacts in New York and Philadelphia to buy cloth for his American Printing Company. His triumph was reported in the Fall River Globe. Borden “shipped prints enough to supply customers’ demand out the front door, sold cloth in the gray from the back door and made money on both deals.” While the markets in Fall River and Providence scrambled to sell off their cloth before the season ended, Joseph accepted Borden’s offer to vacation with him in New Hampshire. It was there that he first met the niece of Borden’s sister-in-law: Elizabeth Durfee. Six months later, they were married at the First Congregational Church on Rock Street. Their reception at the Quequechan Club was followed by a weeklong honeymoon in New York, courtesy of Uncle Matt. The wedding guests stood on the wharf under the shadow of the Iron Works as the Commonwealth’s paddlewheels made waves into Mount Hope Bay. The following week, Joseph had started as the Cleveland secretary, working alongside his father. Everything had gone as Otis had envisioned.

  A loud knock woke Joseph. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. He slid the blue porcelain washbowl under the bed with his bare foot and took a deep breath. He called, “I almost swam ashore in New London.” He paused beside the porthole as the Goat Island lighthouse signal swept across his face. It was two-thirty in the morning.

  Before Joseph reached the door, it sprung open.

  Borden marched past, elegantly dressed in his silk bedclothes and smoking a cigar as if this appointment was just another in the long queue that filled the day of a textile king. His hair was coiffed, and his handlebar mustache looked recently waxed. “Money problems in Philly, dear boy. Sorry to rob your sleep.” The steward who had shown Joseph his room shut the door. He had changed into a business suit, and his hair was combed back, exposing a foreboding brow. He held a thick ring of bronze stateroom keys. They must have weighed five pounds. Joseph smiled. Of course. The man was Borden’s. He called them lookouts, but they were spies.

  “The man is a bad seed,” Borden began, starting right in on Stanton. He stood by the open porthole and pointed his cigar at Joseph.

  Joseph cleared his throat. He nodded toward the steward turned cotton mole.

  “Don’t mind Sullivan.”

  “I’d prefer.”

  “Sully, wait in the room. Have the girl heat up some warm milk. I won’t be long.”

  When Sullivan’s footsteps were out of earshot, Joseph said, “He’s changing our relationship with the association. I found out from the colonel that he canceled an order for new looms and will instead recycle Gower’s old ones and received a kickback. The operatives are clamoring.” Joseph paced the room. “He pulled a trick on the clergy with those books. I’m convinced of it. There’s a second set.”

  “He thinks you played Otis and his father when you worked for me.”

  “Played?”

  “Tossed them bones but never any meat. And though this is a poor excuse, he enjoys the company of those dimwitted owners. Those are the boys he rode ponies with at birthday parties.”

  “I’ve noticed their agents don’t trust me as before.”

  “They trust the mighty dollar and only the mighty dollar.”

  “It’s bigger than that.”

  “Hogwash.”

  “At Cleveland, Otis . . . he considered our workers’ welf—”

  “Double hogwash.”

  “Uncle Matt, I’ll stop Stanton for everyone’s welfare.”

  “As you wish, dear boy. Just find the goddamn books.”

  “I know.” Joseph clucked his tongue.

  “Where does he keep things? He’s not very bright. You can wait until he pays you a handsome dividend and buys your silence, or attack and use them against him.” Borden threw his cigar out the porthole and sat down. His voice rising, “I’ll never deal with him again. Shutting me out. Your father would have flattened him. I threw an ink blotter across the office when they told me he wouldn’t sell. I worked with Jefferson for thirty years. Outlandish!” Borden coughed, struggling to catch his breath. He set one hand on the side table and placed the other to his chest. His flushed cheeks puffed. Joseph poured a glass of water and Borden drained it.

  “Do me a favor, dear boy,” Borden said in a raspy voice. “Look after my boys. I fear they’ll get caught up in their own hubris like Stanton when I am gone.” He wiggled the glass.

  “If they’ll listen,” Joseph said, refilling the glass.

  “Fine.” Borden sipped his drink and stood up. “You must distract Stanton somehow. When he’s in Newport this summer. No, this must be done sooner. When he goes to take a crap, ransack his office; when he goes to bed, ransack his house. Find those books, Joseph, and you’ll run Cleveland Mill. Your way. Understand?” Borden clapped his hands. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “And if I can’t find them?”

  “If you can’t”—Borden gripped Joseph’s shoulder—“then those workers you care so much about will lose everything.” Borden winked. “Time for my milk. Keep in touch.” Borden disappeared out the stateroom door.

  Joseph poured himself another bourbon and slumped on the bed. He scratched his chin; his tongue lapped his mouth. Borden’s plan was seriously half-cooked, but the yarn began to spin. At the Hog Island light, Joseph picked up a pen and outlined his plan to break into Stanton’s office the night Cleveland installed the new Corliss steam engine. He knew just the man for the job. It was four-thirty in the morning. The Commonwealth would make the Fall River wharf within the hour.

  * * *

  It was just past suppertime. A good breeze crept up the granite hills of the city. The rain had held off another day, but the gray overcast sky, thick and brooding, held out the promise of the first good drenching of spring. The green nubbies of Elizabeth’s first crocuses had just broken the surface of the black dirt in the front garden. Soon the daffodils would follow, then the dogwood would bloom, then the lilac, and the chives in her kitchen garden. Then a parade of perennials: bleeding heart, peony, shasta daisies, monkshood, phlox, Japanese lantern, and into chrysanthemum. During the growing season, Elizabeth attempted to teach Joseph each plant’s botanical name. Candytuft is Iberis. Doesn’t it look like candy? Just try saying it. Is it sweet? Eye-beer-is. Why couldn’t everything be as intuitive as bleeding heart? From May till September he could approximate the date by looking at what was blooming. To participate in his wife’s hobby, he tended the rose beds. But now, in early April, roses were months away. Only the crocuses took a chance against a late frost. He moved between the mounds of manure he’d dumped over the roses’ root balls the previous November, careful not to topple the petrified globs of shit.

  Joseph steadied himself on the garden bench. The extra whiskey had settled his nerves but upset his balance. He’d give João Rose another minute to get into place.

  Joseph knew safe combinations, which key fit which hole, the number of stairs between landings, the time it took to run from the front gate to the road, the carelessness of Stanton Cleveland, the black cover of a moonless sky, that the night watchman sweetened his coffee with bourbon. Even with all this intelligence, Joseph realized his plan was pretty bush league.

  Stanton had kept him busy in Newport and Providence brokering cotton and fine cloth goods for the better part of the year. Actually asked Joseph to stay out of the office so Joseph’s business at the mill was confined to one morning every other week, usually in Stanton’s office, where he’d leave signed contracts for the safe. Like his father, Stanton scribbled the combination in his desk drawer.

  Joseph had purchased a similar safe
from the Troy Store. One weekend, with Lizzy and the boys in Boston, he instructed João to break into his own house and steal books from the safe. The first night Joseph fell asleep at two in the morning on the parlor divan. When he woke at seven he twirled the dial of the safe: 9 -13 -16. The books were gone. There was no sign of a break-in. His first thought was that João had lied about his farming past. The next night, he fell off at ten o’clock. At five the next morning, the books were back in the safe in the same order, aligned at the same angle but for the movement of the bookmarks. The boy was made of smoke. Operation Magellan was planned for the night of the Corliss installation.

  Joseph walked down the dimly lit walk to the corner where his carriage waited. He asked Wiggins if there’d been any mishap at the stable, and Wiggins gave him a funny look.

  “No, sir,” Wiggins finally answered, surprised. “I’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes.” Joseph stood below the coach expecting Wiggins to extend a hand; when none came he hoisted himself up. Wiggins snapped the reins.

  Joseph tapped his heel on the floorboard. Immediately João lightly reciprocated from below. Not only was the boy made of smoke but he was also a contortionist. Joseph slumped back into the leather bench and released a long sigh and dozed off. This was an ugly business.

  “Wake up!”

  Joseph opened his eyes expecting the police. It was only Wiggins.

  “Why are we stopped?”

  “Show him your face.” Joseph leaned out from under the carriage awning so the light from the gas lamp struck his face. With union bandits threatening unrest, all the mills employed twenty-four-hour security.

  “Good evening. Here to see the new machine? They say it’s a wonder.”

  “They’re sure making a racket, Mr. Bartlett.”

  Joseph slid a bottle of bourbon to the man. “It must get cold on such a raw night.”

  The man tipped the throat of the bottle against his forehead in a salute. “Not tonight, sir.” He pulled the gate open and stood aside. Joseph heard the chain rattle behind them.

  Wiggins tied off at the office tower while Joseph walked across to the mill buildings. The office tower had formerly been a fix-it shop, and the subflooring was saturated with oil like the hardwoods in all the mills.

  Joseph called back to Wiggins, “When you’re done, take a walk to the guard. That’s good Kentucky bourbon.”

  “I brought my cup,” Wiggins said, already making tracks toward the gate.

  At the factory door, Joseph turned back to the carriage. He made out a figure scurrying across the lawn, but as soon as he zeroed in on it, it disappeared in the shadow of the office tower. He checked his pocket watch. João had twenty minutes.

  The new turbine generator was the largest investment Cleveland had ever made, and Stanton wanted to be on hand when Tom Sheehan and his boys installed the beast. The two-thousand-horsepower Corliss steam engine wasn’t the largest in Fall River (a larger one ran Matt Borden’s looms), but it was by far the largest in the Cleveland Mill. Like Borden’s, the giant steel crankshaft had been forged by the Bethlehem Iron Works in Pennsylvania. Stanton had thought to plan a celebration, but the fun went out of the idea when Joseph reminded him of the hoopla Borden made when he threw the switch on his first steam engine in 1895. He had chartered the Fall River Line’s flagship steamboat, the Priscilla, for his New York and Philadelphia business associates. Otis Bartlett and Jefferson Cleveland were two of only five Fall River men at the champagne lunch to dine on littlenecks, oysters, beef filet, and capon with truffles. Phrases like “Boss Borden” and “Fall River’s greatest son” were tossed around like cigars between tables. Mayor Greene ruffled when one Philly banker questioned who’d be dumb enough to rebel against Borden’s princely rule. Nearing the end of the lunch, the usually taciturn Borden addressed his admirers. He removed a check from his vest pocket as he spoke.

  “Gentlemen,” he began. “I believe in success—”

  “Hear, hear!” a man shouted.

  “—the greater the better.”

  The crowd roared.

  “I believe in the accumulation of wealth without any limit. But unusual success in the accumulation of wealth brings with it extraordinary responsibilities. Mr. Mayor, would you please come up here.” Necks craned to Mayor Greene’s far table. “It is with great honor, Mr. Mayor, that I can live up to my great responsibility. Today I present you a check for one hundred thousand dollars to be distributed amongst Fall River charities.”

  The men at Otis’s table jumped up to their feet with cheers. Cigars hung from every lip. It was a thunderous sound and kept on for a bit. No man wanted to be the first to quit flapping his wings for the Boss.

  Instead of a party, Stanton had chilled a case of champagne at his mother’s house for a brunch on Sunday for the company officers. Tom Sheehan would be the only exception in attendance. Sheehan was Cleveland’s lead engineer. While most carried slide rules and wore cotton shirts and ties, Sheehan preferred the dress of his men: leather boots, rough cloth trousers and blouses, and over it all he wore the operative’s black apron. And the men copied his style by hiking their trouser cuffs up over their ankles and knotting their shirt sleeves above the elbow with short cuts of thread so the fabric didn’t catch in any of the whirling belts. Sheehan’s men were easily recognizable on the shop floor. Most were broad-chested, with arms as hard as iron. Some joked that they’d follow Sheehan into battle. In the last three years, Cleveland Mill had suffered only one shutdown due to machinery failure. A stray cat had birthed a litter of kittens atop a warm generator. Sheehan brought one of the three that had survived the fan’s blades home to his daughter, Helen.

  Bright light and the echoes of clanging wrenches and machine parts filled the shop floor. The air was heavy and smelled of cowhide. Joseph walked to the edge of the assembly area and stood next to the old power supply and a mountain of worn leather belts. For a moment, no one acknowledged him. A team of men, mostly skilled Frenchies, worked a winch as another group bolted the Corliss to the reinforced floorboards. The new hardwood shined next to the old oil-soaked floors. Joseph noticed that one of the newly hired security guards had removed his coat and cap and joined the men at the winch. That left one guard unaccounted for. A man shouted that the bottom was secure and motioned for a ladder. Then the man climbed up above the new steam engine to unbolt the winch’s cables. When the man was down, the group stopped to admire the new device. A silence followed. None of them had ever seen such a machine. A few stepped forward and ran their hands over it. Joseph craned his neck up and down. The future had arrived.

  A voice called down from temporary wooden scaffolding towering above the engine: “Now put the damn thing together.” And the men began phase two of the installation. “Keep us on schedule, Tom.”

  Tom Sheehan gave Stanton a half-salute. He spotted Joseph at the foot of the scaffolding and waved. Joseph felt Stanton Cleveland’s eyes upon him. Purchasing the Corliss, the mother of all steam engines, had been the first significant step Stanton had taken without Otis’s or Jefferson’s counsel. And unlike the majority of his decisions, this one appeared not to be guided by caprice. Joseph knew the old boy reveled in such sweeping changes, but this would be his last success before the company’s correction.

  Their eyes met between the swinging cables. Stanton proudly surveyed the giant device and then returned to Joseph. After a beat, Stanton slowly nodded his head and flashed a wide grin.

  Joseph tiptoed across the floor and stood under his boss. “How goes the fight, Stanton?”

  “This is a historic day for us. No longer in Borden’s shadow are we. No, sir.”

  Joseph didn’t know exactly what Stanton meant by that. It was like comparing the Boston Red Sox to Saint Anne’s baseball team. Borden still had five thousand more employees than Cleveland. His output was quadruple theirs. His agents numbered ten to Cleveland’s two. Ordering automatic Northrop
looms, keeping wages high, thinking without the association’s blessing—that’s the ticket.

  “There’s light burning in the offices,” Joseph said.

  “Been going back and forth. It’ll be a late night. But Sheehan promises we’ll be up by morning. I’m staying for the assembly. The fifth biggest part Corliss has ever sold.”

  “I’ve come with news from suppliers in Chicago. My man there—”

  “Not now, Joseph. I can’t think of that. But perhaps you should go there. To Chicago and Saint Louis. Find us some markets. Take Elizabeth and the boys.”

  “I was actually thinking of pitching an office in the tower. Managing accounts from here.”

  “Won’t do. That won’t do at all. A man wants a warm handshake after inking a deal. You’re our representative to the customer.” Stanton turned from the activity on the shop floor to Joseph. He winked. “My man out there”—Stanton pointed at some imaginary horizon—“needs to be out there.”

  There was so much of this business Stanton had never stopped to understand, and Joseph couldn’t help but admire the man’s total lack of concern for anyone but himself. The status of the Corliss excited him more than its output. But all it meant was that Stanton could write a check with many zeros. Joseph looked at him closely. Scared he’d end up with a woman like his mother, Stanton had never married, preferring the company of spinsters in Boston and New York. His stomach hung over his belt, and an extra roll grew under his chin. The corner office suited Stanton. Chops and whiskey lunches too. As boys, they’d once smashed up old farmer Bud’s weather vane with rocks. Under interrogation, Joseph spilled his guts. But Stanton produced a cousin who vouched for him—a real actor that cousin—and said they’d been fishing in Richmond Pond. Joseph had always wanted to be the boy who got away with something. Hollister was such a boy. In this moment of triumph, Joseph envied Stanton, standing on the scaffolding like some king on his balcony. But this is a tragic play, Joseph thought. The emperor had no clothes. A strand of lint hovering in the air lodged in his throat, and he turned and gagged. He checked his watch. He coughed. Stanton tossed down a flask, and Joseph took a swig.