Spindle City

by Jotham Burrello

  “Excuse me.” Tommy peered down at the name on the envelope, suddenly his tone unsure. “Could you deliver—” He stopped midsentence. Could Helen handle the truth?

  “Give it here,” the postman said, plucking the letter from Tommy’s hand. “I’m behind.” He tipped his blue cap and continued on his route. Tommy shrank down on his hunches and let out a long whistle. Game on, little sister. Time to ante up.

  the only moment that counts

  Michael Murphy’s father pleaded with his overseer at the Cummings Mill to hire his son, but by the fall of 1918, dual-appendaged women and children were preferred for most unskilled jobs. When Michael’s teenage sister took ill with Spanish flu, he sought out Hollister Bartlett. After surviving the best Kaiser Willie could throw at him, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let his little sister take him out. Michael moved into Will’s old room on June Street in late October.

  He found his friend trapped in a minefield of canvas. Hollister had painted himself into a corner; unframed paintings lay three deep. Many were dreadful. Michael believed his friend’s mind had what he called black splotches. Evelyn was the only patron to Hollister’s gallery. She’d rearranged the pictures by subject—landscapes, portraits, war and death—when he was out walking, and on one occasion, she stole a rare, sunny print of two girls playing hopscotch. The only canvas now hanging in the room was of his mother, vibrant, confident, and rosy cheeked. Evelyn called it his Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. He’d torn a picture of the masterpiece out of a photo magazine at West Point and carried it in his rucksack across France until it literally disintegrated between his fingers during a rainstorm outside Paris. Similar to Sargent’s model, Hollister had painted his mother sitting in a languid pose. Evelyn couldn’t determine the location; neither the June nor Snell Street homes had such drapery. Elizabeth’s face seemed all possibility: the right side of her mouth, flat and pensive; the left, up in a teasing smile; her eyes, slightly widened and inviting. Hollister’s love for his mother was palpable, and so, too, Evelyn dared to think, his love of the female form. Unlike his lead sketchings, the oil portrait had taken a week to complete.

  Michael convinced Hollister to work in his father’s library. Each afternoon, Michael stretched on the sofa, eating ginger snaps and sipping tea that Evelyn replenished every hour, watching Hollister paint variants of the gray afternoon light slanting across Tiffany lamps, a ship’s brass bell clock and compass, the complete works of Shakespeare, and his mother’s old Minnesota Model A sewing machine. By the third afternoon, Michael moved to a high-back leather club chair behind Hollister, eating cookies and sipping tea that Evelyn replenished each hour, but now he was commenting on light, perspective, and color. Hollister chain-smoked and sipped his tea. On the morning of the fifth day, Michael arranged a vase of blooming burgundy grasses on an end table at a forty-five degree angle from Hollister so he could turn and fondle the grass, then turn back to the canvas a foot in front of his face. By the end of the day, Hollister was drawing with one hand on the grass and his nose nearly touching the canvas. Michael whispered instructions from behind, some Hollister acknowledged with his lead pencil.

  Michael hatched his get-rich-quick scheme after Hollister began to solicit his advice on shadows and angles and hues. And the third Sunday in November, he humped Hollister’s easel and pencils and paints to the South Park Pavilion. Hollister’s only request was that he be home before dark. They wore their army uniforms, thinking that alone might attract attention. He instructed Hollister in the creation of a sign: veteran’s portrait gallery. immortality guaranteed. $2 per sitting.

  The wind whipped up the hill from Mount Hope Bay, blitzing the open-air shelter with arctic blasts. Hollister camped in a corner, sometimes burning sticks in an old coffee tin set between his feet. The touch-and-whisper system, as Michael called it, had yet to be perfected, and Hollister took a minimum of an hour per canvas. Ladies went numb posing. They sat on a round stool in front of Hollister for the first five minutes—the touch. Hollister ran his hands over the face of each sitter. At first, this scared away all but the most adventurous. Next, the model moved to a stool across from Hollister—the whisper. The women—they were mostly women posing for their doting husbands—sat out of earshot, so Michael could freely detail their God-given endowments and deficiencies to Hollister, who sometimes sat for long minutes staring down the sloping park into the bay. Michael came to accept this as part of Hollister’s process; he didn’t rush his partner, as long as the pencil returned to canvas. The only sign that Hollister enjoyed the work—the money he handed to the children outside Saint Anne’s on his walk home—was his stiff nod and wiry grin when the women gushed over their portraits, many leaning on his shoulders as he signed his name in the lower right corner. A gallery of gawkers standing three and four deep generated attention. Michael arranged for the Troy Store to deliver canvas and frames every week. As word spread, they added Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to the schedule. Michael tried offering smaller dollar portraits, but quickly learned that Hollister’s limited sight did not adjust well to quick conversions in scale. (The one small canvas he attempted became known as Turtle Woman. The sitter’s irate husband haggled the price down to fifty cents.)

  In mid-December, the weather turned unseasonably warm, and Michael extended the hours of the Veterans’ Gallery through the holidays. He contracted another army pal to sell hot nuts, and a third warm cider. To advertise, Michael hired another pair to walk the surrounding neighborhoods wearing sandwich boards.

  The week before Christmas, the Sunday Globe ran a photo with a short caption written by Tommy Sheehan: One-armed sergeant and blind veteran of the Great War make a living painting portraits at South Park. Michael read it to Hollister at breakfast, and then presented him with a wool beret.

  Michael said, “Looking sharp, maestro,” and his partner laughed. It was the first time Michael had ever heard Hollister Bartlett laugh.

  * * *

  Just north of the park, on Dover Street, Joseph sat on the granite steps of Saints Peter and Paul, waiting for Mary Sheehan to finish wrapping the orphans’ Christmas presents. Flashes of sunlight poked through a steel-gray sky. The overnight dusting of snow had vanished, and coatless children zigzagged between strolling couples. Joseph slumped over his knees, fingering the brown-stained silk liner of his old derby. Will’s letter from New Haven burned a hole in the breast pocket of his greatcoat. Will had left abruptly for Yale the night of Hollister’s return, the smashed window unexplained. Throughout the fall, the Sheehan boys hinted at Will’s row with Helen, but no one knew the details that had pushed them to opposite ends of New England. Helen retreated to Westport, and her holiday plans in Provincetown were well known. Then this morning, on his way to church, Joseph had found Will’s letter hidden behind the porcelain bowl in the breezeway where Evelyn set the mail below the portrait of Otis.

  Dear Joseph, it began queerly, I’ve applied for a clerkship at a New York law firm. I won’t be coming home. I won’t be working at Cleveland. I prayed to Grandpa Otis for forgiveness. The second jolt unleashed sweats that dampened Joseph’s skin: Cousin Pete is no cousin. He’s your son. I’ve seen evidence, you philandering son of a bitch. What followed were two searing paragraphs that sunk Joseph’s heart two levels, like a stalled lift suddenly dropping once, then again. Joseph knelt down in the breezeway. The letter dropped. He stared down at the last line until his eyes blurred. Why did this happen? “The fire,” Joseph whispered, “burned us all.” He fingered Will’s signature. There was no one left to lose.

  Absolution had not come the night Elizabeth threw the ledgers, the evidence of Stanton Cleveland’s corruption, into the fire. Her consternation simply forbade him from ruining their future, all the while securing him a slot in hell. Without her, the punishment was far worse than any judge’s sentence. He reread the letter. Secrets are like a small hole in a boat, you can bail all your life, but the cracks never stop taking in water, and eventually
you sink. June Street had cast a green dye in her blood, and no matter his disdain for the establishment, the success of Cleveland Mill had secured his fate. Under Pete’s Irish freckles, he had the Bartlett features, Joseph’s features—it was plain to see. So why deny it? Joseph had played along with Mary’s game, allowing her unspoken sacrifice to hide the boy’s true lineage. He realized this now. With Pete’s bloodline no longer a secret, he and Mary were the only ones left hiding, and it ate a hole in his stomach. He pocketed the letter and turned into his study and lay on the couch. Mary Sheehan had not a wanton bone in her body. She’d kept Pete a secret; he’d kept the fire. They were far from even.

  As a boy, Otis had caught his son lying about breaking a neighbor’s window. Joseph had worked Saturdays in the Cleveland cardroom to pay for a replacement. He closed his eyes. He’d heard the haunting voice of his father with each sweep of the broom: “A life built on a lie is sure to crumble.”

  “Ready?” Mary Sheehan stood two steps below him on the limestone stairs.

  The scent of sandalwood incense filled Joseph’s nose. “How long have you been standing there?” Joseph said, startled. He donned his derby and scurried to his feet.

  “I started walking.” She turned her round face toward him and sighed. Her cheeks were flushed, and she gripped the ends of her woolen shawl tightly over her shoulders. “I hope your daydream took you to an exotic place.”

  “No. Just this place. Spindle City.”

  “If only those old men in the association cared as much as you for this darn town,” she said.

  “I don’t know how far all that caring has gotten me.”

  “They’ll be sorry when you Bartletts are gone.”

  I will be the last one, Joseph thought. He bit the inside of his cheek as he remembered the summer he’d booked Will on the Textile Club’s annual European tour. While the other boys toured museums, Will searched the textile markets to buy cloth samples for the mill. How did this happen? Joseph knocked his derby against his hip. Helen, he thought, loony bird turned socialist puppet. She’s probably delivering babies with Sarah Strong. Helen turned Will against me.

  “Something wrong?” Mary grasped his elbow.

  Joseph scratched the hair on the back of his neck, tipping his hat forward over his eyes. The phrase “philandering son of a bitch” taunted him. “Wrong? God no.” He straightened his hat and said, “Perhaps we can teach young Pete to carry on the tradition.”

  Mary bit her lip. “I . . . I hadn’t considered that.”

  He said, “Pete’s a smart boy. Ray can show him around when he’s ready.”

  “But what of Will? I thought he was next in line.”

  “His love of Fall River is waning.” Joseph shook his head. “They have no idea what we’ve done for them.”

  “Young people today.” Mary’s voice faded.

  He set a hand on her shoulder. “I’d like to speak with Helen when she comes back.”

  “No,” Mary said, her voice gaining strength. “She’s not coming back. I raised her to take care of herself. Had no choice but to get her out of those mills. I’m saddened, but regret nothing since Tom died.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I miss my boys,” he said.

  “It’s our lot as parents. And there is nothing we can do but love them anyway.” Mary turned down the stairs. “Are we going to walk or not?”

  Joseph bit his cheek again.

  She tugged his sleeve. “Is something wrong?”

  “Where’s Pete?”

  “At the neighbors’.”

  “I’m his father.”

  “That’d be news to Meara,” Mary quipped, as if she’d been expecting the question for years.

  Joseph hesitated. Why didn’t she trust him? They shared holidays, Sunday dinners, and on the rare occasion, a bed. He peered down at her, focusing his energy between her eyes, willing her to tell him the truth. A pressure grew inside him, and he struggled to be still, thinking that if Mary didn’t tell him this instant, he didn’t deserve to know. But if we lie to protect those we love, is it really love? And whom are we protecting? Joseph had worked tirelessly to protect his workers. Perhaps they were his real family.

  She said, “The child is happy. I like a happy boy.”

  “And that’s enough, is it?”

  “We raised the older children to think, so let them think.” Mary waved to two women leaving the church. “Now, are we walking or not?”

  He had a strong desire to kiss her on the church stairs, secretly hoping Father Curley was spying on them from the vestibule. But he doubted it would close the distance that would always exist between them.

  Mary stomped her foot on the stair. “Take me to South Park this instant.”

  They walked to the Middle Street trolley. At the Broadway stop, a crowd had gathered around an assembly of suffragists in their white hats with yellow ribbons. Two women stood in the back of a Buick playing trumpets. Joseph expected to see a few on horseback. Stepping off the trolley, Mary whispered, “The Providence posse is back.” Unlike Fall River, Providence housed a storefront suffrage headquarters that outfitted ladies in marching outfits. The women waved the Stars and Stripes with their votes for women pennants and passed out buttons and pins. The mother hens, Joseph called them. There were a few chicks like Helen in the ranks. Most were well-to-do ladies trying to recruit middle and immigrant classes to the cause. They’ll get their vote, Joseph thought. Wilson wanted it, and after winning the war, he’d get anything he wanted. A woman extended a button to Mary. She shooed her away. “Baloney,” she said, and directed them around the bottleneck. “Can’t we have one day of peace?”

  The park consisted of two large rectangular tiers bisected by Broadway Street. The pavilion sat in the lower, larger rectangle on the esplanade that ran downhill toward the water. Joseph thought it best they keep moving. He led Mary down to Bay Street, then turned back up the hill. The weather had emptied houses; a large crowd was out. Mary smiled to the passing couples. Joseph focused on the ground before him as always. He’d walked the park hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times and cared little for its charming detail; he didn’t grasp the craftsmanship of Frederick Olmsted’s design. Of course he had never visited the man’s greatest works in Chicago or New York. Joseph took the boat to New York every other month, but he’d never walked Olmsted’s parks or been to the Met. He knew he must before he died in a mill fire.

  Mary turned up a serpentine path toward the esplanade. “I have grown used to your long silences,” she said. “But for some reason, I need you to speak. Did the Protestants have service today?”

  “I think it was canceled.” Long ago Joseph had accepted his damnation, while Mary believed her fate was still negotiable.

  Mary stopped and squinted at the sun. “On account of the nice weather.”

  “That was the rumor.”

  “Father Curley considered that, but said we Catholics never get a day off.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  Mary pinched Joseph’s arm, and he trotted ahead. When she caught up, she said, “Now, bore me with details of the mill.”

  “You find the mill boring?”

  “All except the profits.”

  “After all these years, you’re showing your true colors,” Joseph said.

  “I thought you would like that.” Mary laughed. “Long ago, even before Tom died, I lost interest in the whole enterprise.” She looped her arm around his. “But I know it’s in your blood.”

  “Yes, my blood.” Joseph stopped, squinted at the sky. “I’ve gotten farther than any of them. And now it’s over.”

  “You’re not dead yet.” Mary squeezed his elbow and they continued down the path. “Let’s stroll by the pavilion.”

  “Fine,” Joseph said, then thinking of Hollister, his spirit improved. He had
n’t seen much of his boy. Hollister was either at the park or in his room. Evelyn provided room service for food, cigarettes, and art supplies. “I’ve yet to see the portrait enterprise I financed. I’m told it’s become quite the entertainment.”

  “We won’t join the fray,” Mary cautioned. “I’ve learned to let them think they’re on their own, no matter their age.”

  They found a bench near the start of the slope that led to the water. The pavilion was fifty yards off, but a crowd had gathered, and they couldn’t yet see inside. The air smelled of hot nuts and cider. Suddenly the pavilion shook with applause and laughter. Moments later, a woman with her hands in a muff burst from the crowd, followed by a man holding a square canvas. He paused at every step to display his wife’s new portrait. Onlookers nodded their approval. The man beamed.

  Joseph swiveled to face Mary on the bench. He felt his lungs constrict and forced himself to breathe. “There’s one more thing.”

  “You may not have my portrait painted,” Mary chided. “Will you look there? It’s Tommy.”

  “Where?”

  “There.” She pointed. “No, there. Darn. There are too many people. He’s walking into the pavilion.”

  “Don’t see him.”

  “He said he was working on something important today. When I asked him what could be important enough to skip Mass for the last month, you know what he said? ‘If I’m right, and I hope I’m not, you’ll see me every Sunday from now on.’ Now isn’t that a funny thing to say?”

  “It was a nice thing he did, writing about Hollister.”

  “We’ll let him be. He likes playing detective once in a while. Gets him off those boats.”

  A boy screamed. People whirled. The child laid facedown, sobbing on the cobblestones. The other children hovered over him. One boy held an orange ball. Then a man emerged from the crowd, pushing a baby carriage. He dropped beside the fallen child and hoisted him to his feet. He brushed the boy’s knees and fanny and pushed him back into the game. The man had his back to Joseph, but the shock of black hair was familiar. And the children, they were Portuguese. João. That was his boy. His daughter was farther off with pink ribbons in her hair. A white christening gown flowed over the edge of the baby carriage. Where was Maria?