by Bill Albert
So we became delivery boys at October & September Johnson’s. Strictly speaking it wasn’t October or September Johnson’s, as the latter had died all the way back in 1890 and the former was caught in the Black Bear snow slide of ‘94. And strictly speaking I wasn’t a delivery boy, more an apprentice delivery boy, being too little to drive the wagon, which is what Benny did. In fact, I think Miss April and Miss Jan took me on only as a favor to Aunt May.
April and January Johnson, October’s skinny, high-starched spinster daughters, ran the store, a wooden building with a false second story on Seventh Street across from Samuels Hotel. The Johnson family had been there since old Colonel Wallace set the town going in the mid-1880s. After the Great Fire destroyed most of the place in 1890, the Johnson brothers, who, for reasons that got lost somewhere in the telling, hadn’t spoken to each other for twenty years and ran competing grocery stores on opposite sides of the same street, were forced to combine their money in order to rebuild.
“Poor Uncle Sep,” said Miss Jan. “He never did live to see the winter. Fever took him, may he rest in peace.”
“Still hadn’t caught up on all their talking when he was called to his Reward,” added a solemn Miss April.
The Grand, as it was called, was not far from Cedar and Fifth and many of the store’s customers worked in the dance halls, saloons, casinos, variety theaters, brothels, and cribs that filled up the district between those streets and the river. I was surprised at Aunt May not being put out by us working there after what she had said to Harry about the sinful goings-on up the Canyon. Either she didn’t know the details of the Grand’s clientele, and she knew about everything and everyone that moved in Wallace so I don’t reckon that was likely, or she trusted the strict Miss Johnsons to keep us boys on the straight. The peculiar thing was that, despite all their church ways, neither of them seemed to care what kinds of sinning their customers got up to as long as it didn’t come through the front door of the Grand.
“Father said that no one should set themselves up to judge another,” Miss Jan told us primly. “That’s God’s business, not ours.”
Their business was selling groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, liquor, and lots of other stuff to anyone with the money to pay. By not setting themselves up as judges of sin the sisters set themselves up pretty good in business.
The Grand was crowded with heady smells, stumbling over each other and fighting for room. Briny bay leaf pickle, salty cracker, thick coffee, sulfury dried fruit, toasted tobacco, sweet licorice, apples, onions, and spicy pepper. One after the other they mingled, separated, reached out for you. It was tough not staying hungry, especially as the Miss Johnsons could remember the level of each barrel and each candy jar, the number of licorice sticks, red apples, and bottles of pop. They had had delivery boys before and knew the A-to-Z-and-back about temptations and how to defeat them.
“Turn your pockets inside out,” ordered a cheerful Miss April on our first morning at the store.
It was five-thirty and well below freezing when Benny and I slithered down the stairs to the town and then kicked through the snow to the Grand to be met on the threshold by Miss April with that ominous and strange greeting. We did as we were told.
“Back ones too. Come on . . . Good. Now as long as you’re working here that’s how those pockets are going to stay out in full plain view.”
“We can’t have you boys eating up all the profits, can we?” Miss Jan said, smiling sweetly as she came out to join her sister.
Still, their bite didn’t get even close to that first sweet-smiling bark, and as for eating, things worked out none too bad. When one of them was out of the way the other would give us crackers, raisins, hard candy, or a piece of fruit. Always with a wink that said, “Don’t tell my sister.”
I had a lot of jobs at the Grand, like scraping the meat blocks, washing the marble counters, keeping the floor swept and fresh sawdusted, and sand-cleaning and polishing the brass spittoons. Cleaning those spittoons had to be just about the very bottom of life. It made me reflect on how far I’d fallen from my gold perch on the Upper West Side and whether I might not be better off back on it. But there was no way I could get back and so I didn’t reflect on that for very long. I reckon it was a measure of how much I’d learned about surviving in those few months. Besides, I got used to the cleaning quick enough so I didn’t hardly notice after a few times. Benny showed me how to take the half-full spittoons out back, shovel sand into them and then dump out the whole lot. Half-full was the important part, he said, otherwise you’d run smack into all kinds of worrying problems.
The part of the job which I enjoyed was making up the orders. The Miss Johnsons would give me lists and I’d go around taking things off the shelves and putting them in the big wicker baskets. Meat I collected from Rupert Clutter, the butcher, a dapper little man, bald but for a patch of slicked-down hair at the front. He had thin freckled arms and rimless eyeglasses and seemed to be always sharpening knives and having urgent conversations with himself.
Conversations there were aplenty at the Grand and stories too, one tied on the tail of the last until it seemed there wasn’t an end to them, especially in the winter when the big potbelly drew men in from the cold. The Miss Johnsons didn’t care if miners or others hung around gabbing, but if a pimp or saloonkeeper or a professional gambler was seen to be joining in he was given his walking ticket double quick.
“We may have to take their money, but we don’t have to enjoy their company,” Miss April said. “Give the Grand a bad name it would, having such people congregating.”
The stories and talk around the stove was mostly about the weather, wages, the union, other mining towns, or that big gold strike missed by a whisker. Mining accidents were a big favorite too, the more dead the better, train wrecks, bank robberies, murders, hangings, and unfaithful women all got their share of the telling. But it was politics that most often led to raised voices and then warnings from the sisters to behave or else.
At that time it was war that had them all pushing and pulling at each other. Of course, the war with Spain was already finished, but Buffalo Bill’s friend General Miles was in some sort of trouble in Washington because he had complained about the rotten meat supplied to the troops and that had put the cat among the pigeons good and proper in the Capital and around the stove at the Grand. Every mention of “Miles” or “meat” brought Rupert Clutter hustling out from behind his counter to run up the flag for Miles.
“Thieving Chicago packers are a bunch of dirty . . . dirty thieving, no-good dirty . . . no-good thieves, dirty! Should be giving Miles a medal they should, not, not . . . whatever it is they’re fixing to do. Embalmed beef! That’s what that is. One day soon everyone’s going hear about how really it is. Then they’ll sit up and take notice. Embalmed beef! Dirty . . .”
Although he fumbled some with his indignation, Rupert never got a whisper of an argument about General Miles. Could be everyone agreed with him or maybe it was the bloody apron and angry, quivery cleaver that got Miles his one hundred percent backing at the Grand. What did get the “potbellies” worked up in opposite directions was the new war that had just blown up in the Philippines. Most people thought the Filipinos should have been grateful, just like those Cuban and Porto Ricans were, for us freeing them from the Spaniard. But they weren’t. A bunch of them attacked our troops in Manila. Killed a lot of soldiers and took a lot more captive.
“McKinley’s just doing what’s good for the country. Savages and heathens out there is all they is.”
“You ever hear of this damned Aqa Naldo afore?”
“It’s but a short step from imperialism to the throne, boys. Soon be having to call Bill McKinley His Majesty, we will!”
“No appreciation for what we done for ‘em. None at all.”
“White man’s burden, boys, that’s what she looks like from where I sits.”
“Mark m
y words, the Republic is in danger! Remember what Washington said.”
“Stands to reason. Manifest destiny I calls it.”
“What you calls it, my Aunt Fanny!”
One man tried to win the argument by singing loud and off key:
Shoot up the colored rockets
Turn the searchlights high
See the name of Dewey
Ablazing in the sky.
And so it went, until they got worn out or thrown out for the shouting.
I enjoyed listening to all that talk and the tall tales, smelling all the smells and, of course, doing as much eating as the sisters allowed. But what I looked forward to most in my first days at the Grand was going on the wagon delivering with Benny. I figured to get my first close-up view of those mysterious, dangerous, genuine Western places that I’d read about. Saloons and gambling halls where the double doors swung open, gunfights broke out, and Black Dan and Treacherous Tom did their dastardly deeds. About those others—the dance halls, parlor houses, and cribs—well, I’d never read about them and I wasn’t altogether sure what went on in them, except it was something to do with fallen women. Fallen women were pretty much a puzzlement to me and Benny’s explanation didn’t make any sense. At twelve years old doing that seemed repulsive enough, but paying to do it! I laughed and punched Benny on the arm thinking he was funning me.
“No, I swear it, Mouse,” he said with a smirk. “Didn’t ya know? Didn’t ya? Dumb stupid kid! Shit!”
Like I said, Benny did the actual delivering. I got to help brush and currycomb the sad-looking gelding that pulled the wagon. I was also allowed to tag along if things weren’t too busy at the store. The one thing that worried me was that Benny would play one of his damned angles and get us in Dutch with the sisters. That would have led quick as bad luck back to Aunt May.
“No percentage, Mouse. Figure this here job’s just what we needs for the push; so does Tom and Tim. Sort of a place to watch out from. All that stuff I’m seein, ya knows what I mean? Doors, soft locks, loose windows in them back alleys. Nobody sees the damn delivery boy. Shit no, they don’t!”
Benny might have picked up good inside dope for the nighttime forays of the O’Malley Gang, but for me, delivering around Cedar Street was a sore disappointment. Most of the saloons were filthy and smelled of sour beer, stale tobacco, and unwashed bodies. A lot of them had stupid-looking red-white-and-blue bunting hanging everywhere, for the war with Spain, I was told, and large, heavy-framed paintings behind the bar, mostly of naked fat women or Custer’s Last Fight. All the men were hangdog weary and the few women haggard and empty-eyed. I never saw anyone who looked even close to being Black Dan or Treacherous Tom. Benny assured me it was a lot more lively at night.
As for the cribs and parlor houses, the Miss Johnsons checked Benny’s list before he went out and if any of them were on it I stayed behind at the Grand. That was fine by me. For what went on in those places I had to rely on Benny and over and over again I heard the same story.
“I tell ya, Mouse, I seen ‘em almost altogether naked as jaybirds, times down to here, bare legs up to there, just sittin around smokin on skinny black cigars and shootin the breeze like it was as natural as I don’t know what. Je-sus!”
Panty, red-faced and goblet-eyed he was, too damn excited about it for holding onto his health. I couldn’t work up much interest in Benny’s naked women or the stale and lifeless daytime saloons. I much preferred being with the warm smells that filled up the Grand and, of course, with the stories.
12
I must have been homesick. Just a tiddler, like Al said, and out there at the back of the cabin alone, looking down on the railway yards in Wallace and crying like to bust but, of course, being throat-choked quiet with it. I didn’t know exactly why I was bawling but I knew I didn’t want to stop. I guess it must have been all those days and weeks since I’d left my soft rich-boy’s home and suddenly finding myself where I was, the adventure of the Wild West gone forever, the real West squeezing me tighter and tighter and seeing no way back and nothing in front of me but grunting, tough times, and strangers. My belly was heaving and the tears were gushing out with how cruel and hopeless things were.
“You got that kindling fixed yet, Little Hy?”
Aunt May was standing over me. She moved so light on her feet for a big person that if you weren’t paying attention she would sort of appear next to you, rearing up like a mountain range out of the fog.
“What the Sam Hill’s the matter with you? You sick or something?”
She bent down for a closer look. I pulled away, fighting to stop the tears that were shaking me so bad. Aunt May grabbed me by the shoulders and shook so hard I thought my teeth would break loose.
“You stop that right this minute, Little Hy. You hearing me in there? Stop it!”
I did try, hard as I could I did, but it only made the crying worse. Tears and snot were sliming down my face and I was gasping real rough. Finally she stopped shaking me and backed off a step or two to get a better look.
“You surely are one hell of a mess! Jesus and Mary! Sound like a death rattler to boot. And no damn kindling done either! Where in tarnation has that Benjamin Shorter got to?”
I shook my head, snuffled back the tears, and wiped my face with my sleeve.
“Damn me, that boy does roam. Should be doing his chores is what he should be doing. Not too old to get his backside tanned and that’s flat. And what about you? Smart as a whip you are and no doubt about that, but still a damn baby, never mind all the smart that’s in you.”
Hands plumped wide on her hips, she gazed over my head at the town below. It was near the middle of April and the brown and gray of the mountainsides were beginning to patch out through the snowcover. Somewhere above us a woman called out in a harsh, angry voice and as if in answer a train whistle blew long and steamy, the noise echoing up the hill.
“Could be that’s Al,” Aunt May said as wistfully as she could, which wasn’t what most folks would spot right off as wistful.
She took the axe from where it was stuck in the splitting block, brushed the dirt off and sat down, legs spread apart under the folds of her skirt, big hands rumbling at each other.
“You know, Little Hy, there’s no one ever made their way by feeling sorry for themselves. Who wants to stop for someone like that? Not me, not anybody. World’s too damn tough. You listening to me? Good. I’m not saying you got it easy. Few in this world do. Maybe some children of the rich living back East or even in Denver, maybe they got it soft. Jay Gould’s daughter, say.”
She gave a sudden laugh like a goose honking, then leaned forward and laid a thick hand on my knee, looking at me all serious and sermony.
“Little Hy, I’m going to tell you about someone who had it tough for real but never cried about it and came up with a full set of trumps in the end. I want you to listen good. It’ll make you see your troubles for what they are.”
Aunt May sat back and straightened out her skirt.
“Knew her when I was up there working as a cook in Murray. Her mother called her Maggie Hall but she called herself Molly Burdon and most other folks called her Molly B. Dam. She was a lady of the night, but a genuine twenty-four-carat lady.”
Aunt May went on to tell me a whore-with-a-heart-of-gold story to beat hollow all whore-with-a-heart-of-gold stories. I know that for a fact because I’ve heard so many of them.
Of course, innocent Maggie had been wronged by an evil rich man and brought low. Of course, Molly was stunningly beautiful, clever, outspoken, and generous, took in hungry children, abandoned mothers, and sick miners. Of course, she never rolled a drunk and always had a kind word on her lips. Of course, she died, eyes lifted to heaven, assisting the people of Murray during the smallpox epidemic of 1888. Molly B. Dam was a saint, of course.
Not all of Aunt May’s heroes were full-blooded saints, but most were heroi
nes. At the top of her list were those suffragette women like Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Scott Duniway, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Those ladies wouldn’t have been caught dead with the likes of Calamity Jane, Creede Lily, and Poker Alice Ivers, all tough professional gamblers, but despite her strong feelings against gambling, Aunt May had time for them and their grit. Pearl Hart, the stagecoach bandit, was a special favorite of hers. After busting out of jail in Tucson, Arizona, Pearl announced to the world, “I will never submit to be tried by laws that neither me nor my sex had a hand in the making of.” That was pure music to Aunt May, never mind that Pearl Hart was an outlaw.
Right then, feeling as bad as I did, that story about Molly B. Dam didn’t make me see my troubles for what they were. But being that it was Aunt May, I tried hard as I could not to let on.
After pausing a couple of extra long minutes to let the story sink in she started up again.
“Lots of orphans in this world, Little Hy,” she said sharply. “Got a cabin full of them right here, don’t we? Sure, there’s not much new in that. And that other thing you got? Well, lots more people have to get by without an eye, without a leg or even two, without an arm, fingers, ears, noses, even tongues. Whatever can be blown off, busted off, torn off, cut off, gouged out, even burned off, there’s them around without. A one-legged man I knew back in Ohio, who got his pin hacked off at Bull Run, told me that God gave us our bodies on loan, temporary like, and some of us had to give them back a piece at a time, which you got to admit is better than having to do it all at once. Mind you, that one-legged man was crazy as a damn bedbug!”
She was finally turning me around, away from wherever it was I had got myself tangled up. Seeing I’d stopped crying and was winding down, she reached into the pocket of her gingham apron and pulled out a piece of paper. I had the same feeling then that I got now about McParland’s telegram.
