Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  “You there,” Stanton shouted at a workman. “That’s a year’s wages. Be careful.” Tom Sheehan raced over to help the man set down a piece meant to be handled by three, then lit into him.

  “Take it all in, Joseph. Take a deep one.” Stanton took back the flask and swigged. He surveyed the complex matrix of new leather belts that the new engine would power to drive the looms. “I’ll leave a mark regardless of what happens now,” Stanton said. “Tomorrow we jump headlong into the industrial revolution.”

  Joseph cracked the lid of his pocket watch again. “It’s actually been going for some time now.”

  “You know what I mean,” Stanton barked.

  Joseph had heard Stanton’s spiel at board meetings and billiard clubs for the past six months. Stanton’s ambition had no memory. This was what made the man dangerous. Let the competition wade in the past, he told Joseph. The past was always someone else’s mistake.

  The men began hammering two metal joints of the Corliss. Joseph shouted over the racket. “When can we talk about the high inventories we’re sitting on?” When Stanton didn’t respond, he repeated the question. Still nothing. He walked over and stood beneath the scaffolding. He tugged Stanton’s trousers. “What’s the bin for?”

  “What’s that, Joseph?”

  “I heard you’re building a new storage bin.”

  “Heard right.”

  “Extra inventory. I must not be selling well enough.”

  “So Chicago must be a sign.”

  “Unless you’re stockpiling to weather a lockout.”

  “Lockout?” Stanton climbed down from his perch.

  “A bird told me.”

  “Never been a lockout at Cleveland and won’t ever be one. But . . .” Stanton turned back to the floor. “But if the operatives strike, who’s to stop it?” He climbed back up onto his throne. “You not staying?”

  “What?”

  “You keep checking your watch.”

  “It’s not keeping good time.”

  “New?”

  “What?”

  “The watch, Joseph. Is the watch new?”

  Joseph nodded. “A gift from Elizabeth.”

  Stanton pointed at the Corliss. “My father is planning a visit down tomorrow. He still can’t believe it. Old Otis would have loved to see this.”

  Yes, Joseph thought. Since Borden’s party in 1895, he had encouraged Jefferson to make a similar purchase.

  “I’ll see you in the morning. To throw the switch, as they say,” Joseph said. “If I’m allowed.”

  “The whole town is invited.” Stanton marched to the far side the scaffolding and barked at a man.

  Joseph called to Tom, “Don’t break the man’s new toy.” Sheehan waved for him to hold up and came jogging over.

  “The secret project, Joseph. I’ve made it,” he said, and removed a clear-glass rectangle the length of a pocket prayer book from his apron. “A glass pointer for your presentations. One of a kind. Remember? You gave me the idea.” Sheehan unwound the glass arms. They were fused together by tiny brass hinges. It measured two feet unfurled. He snapped it in the air like a conductor with a baton to demonstrate its durability. His smile glowed brighter with each swipe of his new contraption. He set it in Joseph’s hand.

  Stanton peered down on them, eavesdropping. “It’s a bit opulent.”

  “It’s so light,” Joseph said.

  “I blew the glass myself. Each arm is hollow. That took a while. See how it catches the color of the light.”

  “Like a prism.”

  “Yes. The Mechanicsville foundry made the hinges. They’re the smallest parts ever made. Give it a try.”

  Joseph whipped the pointer through the air.

  “I’m making one now for little Helen’s birthday.”

  “I’ll pay for it all.”

  “Just show it off on the road. Tell ’em it’s one of a kind. I figure twenty-five bucks apiece. Stanton helped with the paperwork. My patent is pending.”

  “Whoa,” Stanton grunted. “Until you make that kind of money, get back out there. They’re lost without you.”

  Tom Sheehan winked at Joseph. Backing toward his men he said, “One of kind, Joseph. Make me a rich man.”

  Joseph snapped the pointer in the air.

  Stanton said, “The man’s brain is in the clouds. He’s an engineer, not an inventor.”

  “Engineers are inventors.” Joseph twirled the pointer, catching the light. He watched Stanton shout to Sheehan’s assistants, but they paid him scant attention.

  “Well, we can’t make do without him. Just look at him. He’s a brute.” Stanton paused to watch Sheehan instruct a group of men. He turned suddenly, studied Joseph for a moment, and said, “Big changes start tomorrow, my friend. We have much to talk about.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I’ll catch the greedy rat and call a truce. Joseph checked his watch. “See you in the morning then. Nine?”

  “That’s fine.” Stanton peered out over the construction. “She’s a beaut.”

  Joseph tipped his hat to Stanton and walked out of the mill, collapsing Tom Sheehan’s wonderful new creation. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  * * *

  Joseph tapped the floor of the carriage. “Magellan? Magellan?” He ran his hand under the seat and then back over the leather a third time. No ledger books. No João.

  “You lose a melon, sir?” Wiggins turned his head upside down.

  “What? No.” Joseph sat on the seat. “Just dropped my hat that’s all.”

  “It’s on your head, sir.”

  “I just found it. You ready to go, or you too drunk?”

  “It takes more than a couple of pulls to lay me out.”

  Joseph nodded. “Then suit up.”

  “As you wish.” Wiggins unhitched old Molly and walked her around. Seated, he said, “Hold on to your hat, sir. Yah.” He whipped the horse into action. The guard at the gate waved the bourbon bottle as they left.

  João wasn’t under the carriage, nor was he waiting at the house. The boy made of smoke had been snuffed out. Joseph figured the police would call before morning. He searched the garden, whispering for João. Finding no trace, he slumped in a chaise longue on the sun porch nursing a drink. Another bottle of Kentucky bourbon stood guard on the end table beside him.

  A metallic scratching came from behind the hydrangea bushes.

  “Magellan. Magellan.” João dragged his nails down the porch screen.

  Joseph sat up. “João?”

  “I start accident.”

  “Come to the door.” Joseph pulled the screen. In the dim candlelight, Joseph could make out the scratches across João’s face and chest. His hair was charred. His bloody fingers wrapped in scraps torn from his shirt. “What happened?”

  João lifted his shirt and pulled two red leather-bound ledgers from his waistband and set them on the first step at Joseph’s feet.

  “You smell of fire.”

  “I start accident.”

  “Speak.” Joseph scooped up the ledgers and tucked them under the chaise longue cushion. When he turned back, he saw João had backed out of the light. The neighbor’s German shepard barked, and the boy jumped. Joseph gestured him to sit. “Those cuts. Come here. What happened?”

  “Glass. The mill fence. I climb over to escape.”

  “Wait here.” Joseph returned with a bowl of water and a roll of gauze. The two men sat side by side on the stoop. Joseph set João’s hand over his knee.

  “Now take it slow, João. What happened in the tower?”

  “They chased me from floor to floor. But the fire fast. It jump from the man’s lamp. Ate the office. Leapt around us. Boards snap. Glass melt behind me when I jump.”

  “Raise your hand.” Joseph had seen fires in the mills before. Building
s lit up like a torch. Firemen feared the oil-soaked floors. “Did the men chasing you get out?”

  João shrugged. “I see only men run in. All them shouting.”

  “Damn Matt Borden.”

  João dropped his head down. “I ruin everything.”

  “You didn’t,” Joseph said. His eyes welled up, and he wiped his face across his sleeve. “I did. Raise the hand again.” Joseph soaked another bandage in the water. “No one got out?”

  João shrugged again.

  Joseph squeezed João’s forearm to reassure him; the boy winced. Joseph wiped another cut. The bowl of water turned red. An immigrant’s life was one of short childhoods. Joseph wrapped the last bandage around his chest. “Change those tomorrow,” he said and dumped the water into the grass.

  João yawned. The first rays of light pierced the horizon. A wet, fog-like mist hung over the lawn. Lizzy’s seashell wind chime rattled.

  “Now, João, think. Did anyone recognize you?” Joseph’s mind clicked into a defensive mode.

  João looked down at the strips of fabric encasing each of his fingers. Shook his head.

  “Did you come right here?”

  João nodded.

  “You’ll go to Kitty’s in Middletown. I have a farm there. You’ve had an accident at the foundry. Working with Manuel. Understand?”

  João nodded again.

  “Did you take all the books in the safe?”

  João nodded.

  “Was there anything else?”

  João stood. “This.” He pulled papers from the back of his waistband. They were damp with sweat.

  Joseph saw the seal of the US Patent Office in Washington, DC, and then read a brief description of Tom Sheehan’s glass pointer, followed by the long number it had been assigned. The patent holder was listed as Stanton Cleveland.

  “Whom are you talking to?” Lizzy stood in the archway that connected the sun porch to the house.

  Joseph jumped up. “The bunnies. You’ve seen them around. I was talking to the bunnies.” Joseph put his fingers behind his head to mimic bunny ears.

  Lizzy laughed. “I know what bunnies are, dear.”

  Joseph turned back to the stoop, but João was gone. So were the bowl and bandages.

  “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “Those papers.”

  “Some work.” Joseph folded the patent in half and set it under a planter.

  “Stomach upset again?” She held the bottle of digestive powder and a glass of water.

  Unlike his tender digestion, her Durfee stomach could handle any shellfish or bad news. Joseph had an inclination to tell her what had happened, but resisted. No need to worry her. The boy could be wrong. A simple fire could be gotten over. It’s what insurance was for.

  “Yes?” she began, anticipating he had something to share.

  This was one thing he’d always enjoyed about marriage: the sense of knowing someone better than oneself, and of course, being sympathetic because the one who screwed up wasn’t you. Perhaps he would tell her. She was too deep into her life to want to start over. Then he broke into a cold sweat thinking of her humiliation if he were arrested.

  Lizzy stepped forward. “Have you been crying?”

  Something rustled in the hallway.

  “Who’s there?” Joseph snapped.

  “Come in, sweetie,” Lizzy whispered, then turned to Joseph. “That’s enough. You’ve scared the boy.” Lizzy moved aside to reveal Will clinging to his mother’s nightgown. “What has gotten into you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Perhaps a cold shower would do you better than that powder.”

  Will walked past his mother and sat on the chaise, rubbing his eyes.

  The moment to share his crisis with Lizzy had passed. Joseph noticed the crickets had quit, and the light had begun to raise the dark cape hanging over the city. A new day.

  “Come here.” Joseph kissed Will’s drooping head, then fell back on the chaise with the boy in his arms. He smelled of sleep. “I’m gonna steal your hotness.”

  Lizzy set the glass on the wicker end table and stirred the digestive powder into the water. The spoon clanged against the glass. “Really, Joseph,” she whispered. “What has gotten into you? You act as if someone has died.”

  * * *

  Months after the fire, Joseph was dispirited and pale. None of his clothes fit properly. His teeth hurt. He’d sent his family to Westport for the summer to give himself space to think over what to do next. As the hot months passed, he slowly reversed the majority of Stanton’s plans—a glass of digestive powder always within reach—worker privileges were reinstituted, the Manufacturers’ Association’s emissaries politely rebuffed. His health had improved, but then talk of a move had reaggravated his weak stomach. His longtime neighbors on Snell Street wanted him to move. When you ran a mill in Fall River, you lived in the Highlands. It was that simple. Lizzy understood this. And in September, she returned to the city with a lead on a fashionable address on June Street.

  The night before the move, Joseph hesitated outside the dining room door, smelling the rubber of balloons and his cousin’s Turkish pipe tobacco. He’d already caught a whiff of Lizzy’s famous pumpkin pie cooling in the kitchen. His back stiffened. What was she up to? A moving party? There was a rustling inside; the hoarse breathing of his sick boy, Will; the mousy squeaks of Lizzy’s cousins. The Durfees knew how to celebrate good fortune. Someone shushed the group. A chair creaked.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Come in.” Her tone was gay. Oh no.

  “Surprise!”

  The door had not swung back to center before Joseph switched direction and marched into the hall, almost breaking his neck on a stack of packing crates. He pushed straight into the parlor only to find his mother, Constance, wrapping a gift in purple and yellow tissue paper. She held a crystal ashtray in one hand. Startled, she didn’t rush to cover the other pieces: a letter opener, penholder, a leather-covered writing tablet. The gift had taken planning. And his mother rarely spent money on this scale. It was probably English crystal that had required a special outing to Boston or Providence. Her shock softened into pride as she approached Joseph with the ashtray.

  “Won’t that look handsome on your new desk?”

  “Why?” He shook his head, then threw up his arms. What weren’t they hearing? He bowed his head.

  “It’s time to celebrate, Joseph. If your father was—”

  Joseph cut her off with his raised hand and exited the room. He stopped in the vestibule to dislodge a strand of royal-blue ribbon from his ankle. The children’s noisemakers still rattled in the dining room. He stepped through doorway after doorway until it seemed to him he was crossing hundreds as he wound his way through walls he had knocked down to make this former three-flat into a single-family house. There were nooks he’d never set foot in. He had given Elizabeth almost three thousand square feet, for heaven’s sake. What number would please her? He’d grown up in one of the original apartments—five people competing for oxygen in little more than eight hundred square feet.

  In a dark alcove at the base of the stairs, Otis was packed and ready to move. He’d always had nothing but contempt for the Highlands. The portrait, commissioned a year before his death, sat half out of a wooden packing crate stuffed with straw. The old man’s stare sent chills down Joseph’s back. There was just no pleasing the man.

  Joseph stuffed the portrait into the crate and stepped to the glass panes framing the front door, stopping momentarily to press his hand to the glass. The cold rain pounded the garden into a soggy gray mud pool, all except for the last blooming roses, a cluster of orange teas called Sutter’s Gold, which Elizabeth had told him not to cut back. But the cold had won. The flower heads were frozen. In years past, by this time, the bush would be pruned and smothered in manure, but s
he’d wanted it to keep blooming until they moved. She’d almost gotten her wish.

  Inside his study, he stopped to listen for the pattering of feet, but all was quiet save the wind. What didn’t they understand? Had he not made his wishes clear? Now they shall know what I mean, he thought. He heard someone calling his name from deep within the house. He slammed the study door shut.

  The study smelled of smoldering wood smoke and the cedarwood cigar box that Hannah Cleveland had presented him when he took over the mill. The Cuban cigars inside had gone untouched. His study would be the last room packed. The bookcases lining the walls held the volumes of books he’d shipped home during his brokering years in New York. After work, he would wander eastside bookshops, then dine alone with a new purchase. He’d read each once, his favorites twice. He wanted Elizabeth or the boys to get the bug so they could discuss them, though now, running the mill, his time was limited. He missed the adventure books most, and the stories of the sea. As a boy he’d imagined himself a famous navigator: da Gama, Cortés, Drake, Cartier. Each time he stepped on a Fall River Line boat for home, he wanted to ask the captain to make for the open sea. To be free.

  Immediately after the fire, he had been stoic, then humble, receiving Jefferson Cleveland’s blessing with modesty and shock. To Elizabeth’s dismay, he’d turned him down at first. The money scared him, he said, though he had handled vast amounts for Borden in New York. Then the responsibility, he confided one night in bed. But he knew the cloth business. She knew the cloth business. Otis had made sure he had learned everything. Borden’s call convinced him to take over the mill. Elizabeth had tracked her uncle Matt down in Chicago. He called Joseph the following day. Borden stated three reasons why Joseph was the man to lead Cleveland: for the stockholders, for the operatives, and yes, Uncle Matt conceded, for Otis. Wasn’t that what we decided on the steamer? Borden pledged his support against the Manufacturers’ Association, but decisions must be made. Others are waiting in the wings. The second set of books had shown all the crookedness Joseph had feared; of course, they were worthless now, but he had kept them anyway, for some reason, locked in the gun cabinet—Otis’s gun cabinet. The old man had been something of a collector. Joseph didn’t have shells for half of them. There was a pearl-handled Colt Peacemaker, Winchester and Remington rifles, a Luger semiautomatic, a Smith & Wesson hammerless, plus an assortment of single-barrel shotguns. No doubles. Otis liked to give the pheasants a sporting chance.