Manhattan

by Michael Grant

“All right,” he said, stomping back to his room.

  The next morning, when Michael woke up he could hardly get out of bed. Every muscle in his body ached. With great effort, he dressed, kissed Emily goodbye, and set out for Water Street. As he walked to work, he stretched and loosened his muscles.

  When he got there fifteen minutes before seven, most of the men were already there, milling about.

  Kitch came over to Michael grinning. “How you feel today?”

  “Like I got kicked by a dozen mules.”

  Kitch grinned. “You get used to it.”

  Little gnome-like Dunlap came out his office and consulted his timepiece. “Get to work.”

  In silence, men went to their respective wheelbarrows and began loading up the coal. For the first few trips, Michael’s exhausted muscles screamed in agony, but after a while, they loosened up and he got into a rhythm—shovel, lift, push off, relax arms, move forward. As he developed a rhythm, he found he was fighting the wheelbarrow less and less. It helped that some of the men softly chanted songs whose words Michael couldn’t understand, but whose smooth, rhythmic cadence seemed to make the task of pushing the wheelbarrow easier.

  Around noon, Dunlap came out of his office looking at his timepiece. “Break time.”

  Without a word, the men gathered up the sacks they’d laid aside and hurried out to the piers. Michael followed and sat down next to Kitch.

  As Kitch and the others opened their sacks, he looked at Michael. “We gets twenty minutes to eat. Where your food at?”

  “I didn’t bring anything. I never thought of it.”

  “You ain’t gonna last here long you don’t eat.” He held out a piece of fried chicken.

  Michael stared at it longingly. That piece of chicken certainly looked and smelled good and his stomach had been grumbling for hours now, but he saw that Kitch had only one other piece of chicken in his sack. “No, thanks, Kitch. I’m not hungry.”

  “Don’t be shinin’ me on. I knows you hungry. Who wouldn’t, laboring likes we do? We have an old custom down south. You offer a body something to eat, it ain’t polite to say no. So, c’mon, take it.”

  Hunger overcoming his embarrassment, Michael took the chicken. “Thank you, Kitch.”

  “It ain’t nothin’.”

  When they’d finished eating, Kitch sat back with a satisfied smile on his face. “When the weather is tolerable, we all comes out here to get away from that damn coal dust. You works with that dust sunup to sundown it gets everywhere into your body—your hair, your eyes, your ears, your mouth. “I ‘spect it gets in your stomach, too. It’s so I can taste it.”

  “I know what you mean.” Michael looked at hands. “Last night, I tried to wash it off, but, it’s still there.”

  Kitch studied Michael. “You Irish, ain’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m a freed slave myself,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “You… you were a slave?”

  “Why you lookin’ at me like dat?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve never seen a slave before.”

  “Freed slave,” Kitch corrected.

  “Right. Free. I don’t know much about slavery, but I didn’t think a slave could buy his freedom.”

  “Well, I reckon I did.”

  “But how’d you get the money?”

  Looking proud, he said, “Because I was an artist, that’s how.”

  Before Michael could ask him to explain that, Dunlap came out. “Break’s over. Back to work.”

  Michael came into the kitchen all excited. “Emily, I met a real slave today. I mean, a freed slave.”

  Emily turned from the stove. “Working with you?”

  “Yes. And he told me he bought his freedom by being an artist.”

  “That sounds quite remarkable. How did he do it?”

  “Before he could tell me how he did it, we had to get back to work.”

  “Speaking of work, how was it today?”

  “Better than yesterday. Kitch says I’ll get used to it.”

  “Kitch—?”

  “The freed slave.”

  “Dinner’s almost ready. Why don’t you wash up and tell the children to come down?”

  After the children were put to bed and the dishes done, Emily came into the parlor where Michael was reading the Tribune. It was Emily’s idea. She’d told him if he wanted to learn to read better, a newspaper was good place to start.

  “Anything good in the news?” she asked, plopping down on a sofa by the fireplace.

  “Yes. You’ll be interested in this. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell has just opened her own hospital. It’s called the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The article says the hospital’s mission is also to provide positions for women physicians.”

  “That’s marvelous. I wonder how she managed to open it despite all those obstructionist male doctors in this city?”

  “I’m not surprised. As I remember, she was a very determined woman. Here’s another interesting article. Remember that elevator demonstration we saw at the Crystal Palace back in ‘53?”

  “Yes. I believe the gentleman’s name was Otis.”

  “Right. Well, he’s just installed a passenger elevator in a building downtown.” Michael put the newspaper aside and got that faraway look in his eye. “What I said that day is beginning to happen, Emily. With these elevator machines, the city is not just going to grow out, but it’s going to grow up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Sunday dinner tradition at the Ranahans continued, but since the crash Michael and Emily couldn’t afford to feed such a large crowd. The solution was that everybody brought something. Henrietta would bring a roast or chicken, Letta would bring desserts from her parents’ bakery, Emily supplied the vegetables, and Gaylord always brought the wine.

  “There is something peculiar going on in this city,” Gaylord said, as he poured the wine.

  “There is always something peculiar going on in this city,” Henrietta pointed out.

  “True, but this has nothing to do with sin, vice, or political corruption.”

  Michael grinned. “What else is there?”

  “There is a religious movement afoot in this city. Last week I interviewed the Reverend Theodore Cuyler, pastor of Nineteenth Street Church. He told me he was pleasantly taken aback, if nonplussed, by the number of men suddenly attending his church—during the week, mind you!”

  “During the week?” Cully said. “Well, that is peculiar.”

  “And it’s not just the Reverend Cuyler’s church either. Prayer meetings are popping up all over the city. Last Monday, Mr. Greely hired a horse and buggy and had me ride from one prayer meeting to the next to see how many men were praying. In two hours, I counted more than six thousand men at these noontime prayer meetings. And they were almost all businessmen, and, get this, most of them professed to having no religious affiliation.”

  Emily passed the platter of chicken to Henrietta. “That is remarkable. What do you think is going on?”

  “Something similar happened at the beginning of this century. It was called the Second Great Awakening. What’s going on now has all the hallmarks of that event.”

  “But why suddenly all this praying?” Letta asked.

  “Let’s look at our recent history. Up until this crash, there had been tremendous economic growth and prosperity in the United States. There’s been a population boom, and, as Henrietta has noted on more than one occasion, many people have become quite wealthy.”

  “Nuevo riche,” she corrected with a raised eyebrow.

  “All of which has led to a steep decline in spirituality. Then came our economic crash. It forced thousands of merchants into bankruptcy, banks are failing, and railroad companies are going under.”

  “That’s almost enough to send me back to church,” Cully mumbled.

  “But there is something else even more ominous on the horizon.”

  “And what is that?” Michael asked.

  “The ques
tion of slavery. The abolitionists are growing louder and stronger every day. Mr. Greeley is an outspoken proponent of abolition and he often writes editorials condemning that ‘peculiar institution.’ There are some who believe the issue of slavery could eventually lead to civil war.”

  “I work with a freed slave,” Michael said. “He bought his freedom.”

  “Well, he’s in the minority. Most slaves, even if their masters are willing, would never have the wherewithal to buy their freedom.”

  “Then what’s to become of them?” Emily asked.

  Gaylord thought a long time. “I’m afraid the only answer to freeing the slaves is civil war,” he said, finally.

  “Well, that’s quite extreme, isn’t it?” Henrietta said.

  “It is, but I don’t see any other course.”

  And on that somber note dinner was finished in uneasy silence.

  Every day Michael could hardly wait for their break so he could listen to Kitch tell of his life on a plantation. Listening to the freed slave describe his extraordinary experiences somehow made the drudgery and backbreaking work less burdensome.

  It was a typically cold December day, but the men preferred to eat their meal out on the cold, windy pier rather than breathe in that coal dust, even if it was for only twenty minutes.

  Kitch tossed a chicken bone into the river. “I growed up on Massa Tom’s plantation in Virginia. It was a fine ol’ house painted all white and standin’ in a patch of oak trees. My mammy and pappy came over on the slave ships, but I was born on that plantation, me and my younger brother and sister. Did you grow up on a plantation, Mikill?”

  Michael laughed. “Something like that, only they were called estates and they were owned by wealthy men—landlord’s we called them. In exchange for growing crops for these landlords, we were allowed to build small cottages and grow our own potatoes.”

  “Was your landlord a good man?”

  Michael nodded. “He was. I married his daughter.”

  Kitch grinned. “Ho, you did very well, my friend.”

  “It’s not what you think. My landlord was murdered by brigands and eventually the estate had to be sold off to pay debts. My wife, Emily, and I came out here with only the proceeds she made from selling a ring.”

  “My Massa Tom, he weren’t a bad sort, unlessen he got into the liquor. Lord, Lord, then he become a real rip-jack, sure enough. Anyways, when I was a child and still too young to go into the fields, I used to take a piece of coal and draw pictures on the back of an ol’ shovel. I did that all day long. It was just somethin’ to do, but I loved doin’ it. Mammy used to say, ‘Lord, child, don’t let Massa see you doin’ dat.’”

  “Why not?”

  “The slaves, they wasn’t allowed to learn how to read or write. I guess she thought drawin’ was like learnin’ to read or somethin’. So I was real careful to stay out of sight. But one day Massa Tom’s wife, she spys what I’m doin’. She was good woman. Always spoke soft and never gave a slave a whoppin’. She took one look at the back of that shovel and she brought me right up to the big house. Lord, I thought I was gonna get the whoppin’ of my life. But she did no sech a thing. She sat me down at a table in the kitchen and gave me some paper and a pencil and told me to draw stuff. ‘What stuff should I draw?’ I asked her. ‘Anythin’ at all,’ she says. Anythin’ at all. Well, that puzzled me good.”

  Before Michael could ask him another question, Dunlap came out onto the pier and uttered the five words that Michael had come to hate: “Break’s over. Back to work.”

  The next day flurries came down, but, again, the men elected to take their break in the snow rather than sit in the throat-choking coal dust warehouse.

  Pulling his collar up to ward off the bitter wind coming off the river, Michael began the questioning. “Did you become an artist as a child?”

  “No. But the missus let me draw regular ‘til I was old enough to go into the fields. But den, one day I be summoned to the big house and led to the kitchen. And there on the table was these little tubes of paints and brushes and canvasses and whatnot. I like to die. ‘I want you to paint somethin’,’ she says. Again, I say, ‘what should I paint’ and she say, ‘whatever you wants to paint. You can even paint outside if you wants.’”

  “Well, I tell you, I was mighty puzzled by all of this, but, lordy, I had fun with them paints. It took me a little while to get the hang of mixin’ colors and figurin’ out what brush to use and whatnot, but pretty soon I was a paintin’ fool. One day a week, she would bring me out of the fields and I would paint. There was so much to paint, I didn’t know where to start. I painted the big house, I painted the barns, I painted the slave quarters, which was nothin’ but long rows of cabins. I painted the one room where my whole family lived. I liked the bright colors, so I used the yellows and reds and oranges as much as I could. I didn’t like the dark colors. I never used black or blue or purple.”

  “What did you do with the paintings?”

  “They wasn’t mine. The missus kept them or throwed them away, whatever. But one day, she calls me into the parlor and hands me some coins. I ain’t never held coins in my whole life. I had no idea how much them coins was worth. She say, ‘I sold one of your paintin’s, Kitch. If I sell more, I’ll give you more coins.’ And then and there, looking down at those shiny coins in my hand I realized that if I got enough coins, I could buy my freedom.”

  “I had a similar experience,” Michael said, excitedly. “When I was younger, I wanted to leave Ireland and come to America to get away from the tenant farmer’s life. During the winter when there was no plowing or planting to do, I would trudge from village to village in the cold and the rain and convince merchants that I was a trustworthy lad and they could count on me to pick up and deliver their goods on time and in prime condition. I did that for three long years, saving a shilling here, a half-crown there, until I saved enough for passage to America.”

  “So, that’s how you got to America?”

  “No.” Michael stopped to watch a steamship plowing up the river belching black smoke amidst swirling snowflakes. “Just as I was about to book passage, a disease killed all the potatoes. That was the start of the famine. I had no choice. I gave all my savings to my da so he could buy food for the family and seed for next year’s planting.”

  Kitch scrambled to his feet. “Here come Mr. Dunlap, time to get back to work.”

  After work, Michael went home and recounted to Emily everything that Kitch had told him. Soon, she was as interested in Kitch’s life as he was.

  “Where does he live?”

  “The Five Points.”

  “Oh, my. How dreadful.”

  “It’s all he can afford. Besides, Negroes aren’t welcome in many parts of the city.”

  “Does he have a family?”

  “He had a wife and daughter, but they both died in a cholera epidemic that swept through the Five Points back in ‘52.”

  “How sad. Michael, why don’t you invite your friend to dinner? I’m sure hasn’t had a decent hot meal in quite a while.”

  “I don’t know that he’s ever had a decent hot meal in his life. But that’s a good idea. I’ll invite him to Sunday dinner.”

  “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. He might be uncomfortable around so many strangers.”

  “You’ve got a point. Come to think of it, I’m the only one he talks to at the warehouse.”

  The next morning, Michael invited Kitch to dinner. He tried to refuse, but a grinning Michael reminded him of his old custom down south and the obligation to accept food offered.

  By the time they arrived at the house the children, except Dermot, were in bed. As usual, Dermot was giving Emily a hard time about going to bed early.

  Michael brought Kitch into the kitchen.

  “Emily, this is Kitch.”

  Emily bowed slightly. “I’ve heard so much about you, I’m glad that we finally get to meet.”

  Kitch swept his cap off his head. “Pleased to meet
you, missus.”

  “Please, call me Emily. Oh, and this is our son, Dermot.”

  “Hello, young master.”

  A mortified Emily watched her son stare at Kitch as though he were a creature from mythology. “Dermot, say hello to Mr. Kitch.”

  “Hello,” he mumbled.

  Grateful that her son didn’t say anything embarrassing, Emily took him by the shoulders and spun him around. “All right, off to bed with you.”

  Over a simple dinner of roasted chicken, dumplings, and vegetables, Emily and Kitch got to know each other. Kitch had a hard time making eye contact with Emily and generally stared at his plate. “So, Miss Emily, Mikill tells me you lived in the big house.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “They call the plantation house the big house,” Michael explained.

  “Oh, I see. Well, yes, I guess you could say I lived in the big house. How’d you get a name like Kitch?”

  “They tells me I was born in a kitchen. I guess that’s it.”

  “I’m sorry, do you mind us asking all these questions?”

  “No. Nobody ever showed no interest in me before.”

  “Tell us more about your art career?”

  “Weren’t much of an art career. I kept paintin’ pictures and the missus kept selling them and she kept givin’ me coins. See, I was thinkin’ of buying my freedom so one day I ask Massa Tom what I was worth. He laugh and say, ‘‘Bout five hundred dollar. But I ain’t gonna let anyone buy you. You too valuable.’ Well, that made me feel real bad.”

  “How much money did you have saved up?” Michael asked.

  “I didn’t know so I had a preacher count it. He said it come to three hundred and thirty-five dollars. I kept on paintin’ and gettin’ coins from the missus. I’m just burnin’ to earn that five hundred dollars one way or the other. I remember being in the big house one time and hearin’ a lady from the next plantation over sayin’ how much she admired the picture I painted of Massa Tom’s big house. Next day I say to the missus that maybe I oughta go to some neighborin’ plantations and paint their big houses, too. She thought that was a high idea. She said they would probably pay good money for a picture of their own big house. Next day, she give me a pass and told me to go to Massa Jim’s to paint his big house.”