Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  “Dad rarely works anyway,” Anna sneers. “Richie’s been the breadwinner for years, an’ I aim to help him do even better.”

  John licks his lips and looks into the face of his daughter, “Is it true?”

  Anna’s anger turns to shame, and the pit of her stomach tumbles with her father’s question.

  “That’s where ya got all that money over the winter, right?”

  Anna looks over her shoulder to Richie. Then slowly back to her father, “Ya’re not capable o’ supporting a fam’ly, Dad. Step aside so Richie an’ I can take care o’ things from here on out. Even she’s worthless now,” Anna says turning to Mary.

  John looks to Richie, then back to Anna, “Everything’ll be a lot better when ya walk out that door wit’ a broken face.” John balls up his fists. “That’s when everyone outside’ll know what happens when a daughter turns into a slattern. Then I’ll get my honor back in the eyes o’ men. Only then.”

  Anna moves in closer, daring him. Sticking her chin out.

  I don’t care anymore. Beating me means nothing. Do it.

  “Oh my god!” Mary screams.

  John flies at her and grabs a handful of hair, pulling her to the ground where he sits on top of her. Anna claws up at his face but her father’s hand closes round her throat. She watches as he winds a fist from behind his ear and crashes it down onto her mouth, breaking the skin.

  Anna spits her blood back up at him, “G’ahead, kill me! Kill me!”

  John punches her again as Anna sees her mother come from behind her abuser in an attempt to catch the fists before they come down on Anna’s face.

  Anna can’t see her brother, but calls for him, “Richie!” Another punch falls onto her face, “Richie!”

  “I’m in charge here,” John screams at her. “Richie listens to me, not ya’self.”

  As John pulls back for yet another punch and lands it, all turns black. Anna’s eyes are open, but all is black. She reaches out with her hands to touch something, anything, but she cannot see. Then there is a doorway. It’s a pier door and both shutters are open. Outside is the water and beyond she can see the Statue of Liberty. The sound of a gun clap scares her. Then he emerges from the darkness.

  “Neesha?” Anna calls. “Neesha, ya’re bleedin’? Ya’re head is bleedin’.”

  She holds Neesha’s amber hair, but all she feels is the slick blood that flows from the back of his head.

  “They killt ya, my love. They killt my love,” Anna says.

  Anna’s eyes blink until she can again focus to see that her father is suddenly pulled off of her. He lands on the ground next to her with a thump. Richie had yanked him by the collar and tossed him aside. Before John can get up again, Richie is in his space, mauling him with lefts and rights though Richie’s face is devoid of emotion and he never loses his breath. When John tries to roll to one side, Richie cuts him off and plants knuckled fists into his father’s face, five, six, seven times. Upper cuts and back fists and finally a knee up to his nose while Mary is still on the ground rolling round like big baby stuck on its back.

  Richie falls to his knees next to Anna and with a strangely placid voice, he asks, “Are ya uhright?”

  Anna pulls long strands of hair out of the meaty chunks of skin from her bloody mouth. Her big brother helps her sit up as he squats over her and thumbs blood from under her eye.

  Again Anna searches in Richie’s eyes, but cannot find much of anything inside. She looks closer still, and still nothing.

  “Richie,” she says calmly. “Don’ ever let no one do that to me again.”

  “Uhright,” he answers.

  “Richie,” Anna repeats without a sign of tears on her face nor anger in her voice. “Not even Bill.”

  Richie looks at Anna with a simple stare and nods, “No one'll do this. Never.”

  “Help me up.”

  Richie stands and offers his hand until they clasp at each other’s wrists. He pulls her up easily, his grip strong as iron. Thoughtless, he pulls her close and looks down at their father sprawled on the ground and puts an arm around her to help her walk.

  “I love ya Richie,” Anna hears herself say and is as surprised as her brother by it. “Ya my fam’ly an’ I’ll protect ya too. I promise, Richie. I do.”

  Richie’s eyes move and his mouth wiggles as he searches for the right thing to say.

  He is my brother and I don’t care what is wrong with him, Anna thinks. He could never say the wrong thing. Even when he says nothing, it’s fine. He is my brother. My blood.

  As brother and sister step outside under a cobalt gray sky, Tim Quilty and Abe Harms step aside. Up the Bridge Street hill a gust of wind ripples through their clothing. Anna’s fox-colored hair whips behind her and stands on end and swirls and dances six-and-a-half feet in the air like dragon flames.

  “It’s true, ain’t it?” Petey Behan speaks in the direction of Anna and Richie, though his eyes are at his shoes. “Ya’re still pure, ain’t ya? Matty told me so.”

  Before Anna can answer, Richie speaks, “It is true. An’ if I hear anyone say otherwise ever again, they will die screamin’.”

  Petey turns to Anna, “I’m. . . I’m sorry Anna. I was wrong. I didn’ know. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” Matty takes off his hat and holds it in a hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry Anna,” Timmy stands awkwardly to the side attempting to cover his buck teeth with his lips.

  But Abe Harms offers only a slight, congratulatory smile, salutes her with a half open hand and steps back into a genuflecting curtsy, “My lady.”

  Vercingetorix Reborn

  Inside the covered pierhouse it smells of dead fish and vomit. The arched iron double doors creak on rusted hinges as Non Connors opens them and tells Darby Leighton to sit down in the chair at the small wooden table where a ball-peen hammer lay on its side.

  “Don’ touch that,” Connors commands.

  Outside the arched loading doors the New York Harbor moils and churns round Governor’s Island. And beyond, the Statue of Liberty reaches above amidst the current of steamers, barges, docked warships and tugboats that crisscross through the harbor traffic’s shipping lanes.

  Darby sits in the chair and looks at the hammer on the table. On the floor in front of the loading doors is enough dried blood to evidence a murder had occurred.

  Mickey Kane.

  The name rings through Darby’s head. The memory of that night is enough to make him shudder. The storm raged and Colleen Rose entered into this life as Mickey Kane exited. This is where it happened. Right in here after I gave the gun to Richie.

  Bill Lovett comes in through the pier entrance behind Darby, walks round him, then sits at the chair across the table as Non Connors closes the entrance door behind him, leaving them.

  “What ya find out?”

  “About Anna?”

  “Did ya tell anyone about the secret mission?”

  “No,” Darby answers as his mouth squiggles slightly.

  Bill raises his hand, “Talk.”

  “Well uh, nobody seems to know much about who Anna slept wit’. People are takin’ bets though.”

  “Bets?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So everybody knows about it, but nobody knows who it is?”

  “Not everybody, just the tunics. Petey an’ a few others have backed off ever since Richie sorted them out.”

  “Tunics?”

  “Before Brosnan disappeared, I asked—”

  “So ya only asked Brosnan?”

  “No, I asked others, but only Brosnan was makin’ bets wit’ his son-in-law’r.”

  “Dead man’s words,” Bill growls to himself.

  “How do ya know he’s dead, Bill?”

  Bill eyes him and grits, “Ya name me a cop killer?”

  “No, I—”

  “What did Brosnan say before. . . Before he disappeared.”

  “He said he didn’ know, didn’ care. Here’s the thing, Bill. Women, they like to
share their uh, emotional experiences in life, right?”

  Bill’s brow furrows and confusion turns his face blank, “They do what?”

  “Ya know, they talk things out, right? That’s just what they do. So my next move is to sneak into the Henhouse an’ make them slatterns tell me. If someone bedded her—”

  “They’ll tell ya, I get it,” Bill pulls out his .45 caliber and drops it on the table next to the ball-peen hammer with a thud.

  He kill you, Ligeia’s words echo in Darby’s thoughts. If you no have information, he kill you.

  “So ya still don’ know then,” Bill puckers his lips and pushes his chin out. “Ya fail me?”

  “Nah, Bill.”

  “Seems like it to me.”

  This is the time to save yourself, Darby thinks. But how? I can’t even bring up the mysterious man with the Windsor glasses because I still can’t put a name to his face.

  Darby stammers, “Bill. . . This kinda. . . This kinda information don’ come out so easy—”

  “We don’ got time for patience, we’re surrounded,” Bill leans into that word. “Surrounded, Darby. They got their fookin’ noose round our necks an’ we gotta go on raids to weaken their ability to pull it. Because once they pull it, we choke to death, see?”

  “I know—”

  “Tell me about Sadie, then.”

  Darby’s teeth clatter in his head until he clinches his jaw, “What about her?”

  Bill gives a half shrug, “How much money does she give ya?”

  “She has given me about two hundret dollars.”

  “She really wants Pickles released? Why does she want that?”

  “Because we’re fam’ly. Pickles an’ I paid for her passage an’ now that she’s escaped—” Darby swallows before saying the name, “Now that she’s escaped Dinny—”

  “Some people think ya’re bribin’ her. That ya gotta secret she don’ want nobody knowin’ about.”

  “Abe thinks that.”

  “So does Thos Carmody. So it’s true?”

  “It’s a secret. I can’t tell ya. It’s a fam’ly secret.”

  Bill’s hand immediately goes to the big Colt .45 on the table. He palms it, but let’s it go after biting back his anger, “Where’s she stayin’ now, Sadie?”

  “In hidin’.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell ya that either, Bill.”

  “Ya fookin’ Leighton bastard fookin’ asshole cunts,” Bill picks up the .45 caliber with one hand and the ball-peen hammer with the other. “The whole fookin’ lot o’ yaz. Sometimes I think it’s the Leightons that hold the noose round my neck, ya know that?”

  “Nah Bill—”

  “Pickles won’t give me the soldiers, ya won’t give me information an’ Sadie’s fundin’ somethin’ I got no evidence is even in the works.”

  “The retrial’s in May, Bill. It’s comin’.”

  “Oh it fookin’ better be,” Bill waves the hand cannon in Darby’s face, then pets him with it. Darby blinks when he feels it touch his eyelashes.

  “Ya know,” Bill pets him again. “When I look in ya eyes, all I see is. . . indecision. Ya got no fookin’ discipline, no sense o’ duty, no loyalty,” he stops on that word, then moves on. “I see doubt an’ worse, I see ya doubt ya’self. Ya know how that makes a surrounded captain feel? Furious. On the front we executed men who had eyes like yours. Shell shock, some smart guys wanted to call it. But shell shock’s just another word for weakness, cowardice. At war, there’s no room for weakness. No time for cowardice. So we tied them up an’ put a bullet in the back o’ their heads an’ made sure everyone in the comp’ny watched for the example in it. We all have a fate. Is that gonna be ya fate, Darby?”

  The desperate turn to fate or destiny as their claim, the thought appears in Darby’s mind, but he can’t remember exactly where it came from. Yet Bill Lovett falls for fate, hook, line and sinker.

  Bill pushes his tongue into the side of his cheek, “I wanna be clear about somethin’, so sit there an’ listen. I want two things from ya, an’ I need them both. One: The man who stole Anna’s purity from me. Two: Pickles released. Is that clear?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s the thing; if ya don’ get me both I’m gonna make ya stand up right there,” Bill turns round and points at the dried puddle of blood in front of the arched loading door. “An’ let Petey Behan shoot ya in the head. Right in the back o’ the head an’ ya brains’ll come out ya eye sockets an’ ya nose an’ mouth an’ ears. Petey wants to be Fifth Lieutenant, see? But he’s never killt nobody either. Well there was that Joe Garrity affair, but it wasn’t him that dealt the fatal blow.”

  Darby again shudders at the memory of it.

  “The worst thing ya can have as a soldier on the warfront is a imagination,” Bill says. “The thing is, I need ya to prove ya loyalty to me now, Darby. Because I don’ see it. My lieutenants don’ see it. Even the Shit Hounds don’ trust ya. Prove me ya loyalty right now,” he pets his face again with the .45. “Prove me it. . . or take a swim wit’ Mickey Kane, ya will.”

  “Wanin’ Gibbous,” the words come to Darby’s lips, but he can scarcely believe he heard them himself.

  “The what?”

  “It was a sign. A sign to be interpreted by he who sees it.”

  Bill’s mouth opens and his shoulders drop, “What kinda sign?”

  “When we all gathered under the stairwell in the snow,” Darby sits up in the chair, his eyes aglow. “We thought ya was dead, Bill. I stood among ya men an’ heard their words. An’ when ya appeared above, they knew ya had been brought by the white mornin’ moon over ya shoulder swimmin’ in a blue sky, just like. . . Just like the old augurs o’ Irishtown had predicted. They been tellin’ them stories since. . . Since before even I came to Brooklyn in 1895. They saw ya comin’ from a distance, Bill. An’ ya men? They knew ya took the life o’ Irishtown’s prince an’ heir. Don’ let ya’self think they can’t see the symbolism o’ that. I know ya believe ya’self a Captain. But the men, an’ myself. We know ya as Vercingetorix, King o’ Gaul, an’ that ya’ve come back to unite the Celts an’ set the Romans straight. They see ya as the seed o’ their hope. The seed o’ the people. Do ya understand, Bill? We see a king. A king reborn. Ya must forego ya captainship, see,” Darby’s opens his eyes as wide as he can and whispers. “Become the king. Only a king can sit at the desk, the seat above the Dock Loaders’ Club, under the bridge. The seat where power pulses, then emanates down into the Brooklyn docks like blood through arteries so that the money can flow back up through its veins. Ya got Non Connors an’ one-arm Flynn to lead the troops, but ya’self? Ya gotta give the men what they have been told since they were little boys. Ya gotta be the man they prayed for to return when Mickey Kane,” Darby moves his eyes to the bloodstained floor and nods. “When Mickey Kane was dockboss here, an’ the men were lost. Now that they are found, ya gotta give them what they see. An’ everythin’ that’s happened in ya life was but to prepare ya for this moment. Be the king, Bill. ”

  “I uh,” Bill is at a loss for words and holsters his .45 caliber. “I never listened to them fookin’ soup stories in Irishtown. Did they really foresee my comin’?”

  I think so? They speak of five archons and three orphans who raise up a hero.

  “They did,” Darby assures.

  Bill lowers one eye and shakes a pointed finger at Darby, “You. . . Ya see ya’self as some kinda druid or somethin’? Ya eyes, they look different now.”

  “I have not changed, Bill,” Darby sits back. “It is ya’self that can see now.”

  Bill laughs, but Darby continues, “I can see the signs too, but I’m ya shadow agent, remember? It’s what ya named me. The thing is; how do ya ever prove a spy is loyal? How do ya test it? A spy moves between the enemy an’ the ally an’ no one can ever tell the difference. The thing is, Bill. I’m not here to show ya loyalty. My message will not always be well-taken an’ oftentimes it’ll be too difficult for ya to he
ar the words an’ the. . . visions.”

  Bill sits back down at the table without taking his eyes off of Darby’s eyes, “The moon was a sign? To them?”

  “It’s called the Wanin’ Gibbous, a sign o’ great turbulence an’ a changeover from the old to the new. When the men saw’r it, they knew ya were reborn by their hopes.”

  Bill reveals a half-embarrassed smile, then turns his eyes back to him, “When? When will it happen? When will I be king?”

  “The signs often take time to interpret. We often don’ notice them when they occur, it takes the eyes o’ a hawk to see them. Ya see, there is a reason why I lost most o’ my hearin’.”

  “Wha? Why?”

  “Because when we lose one sense, our other senses become stronger.”

  “Ya fookin’ crazy, ya know that?”

  “Bill,” Darby stares him down. “I am at ya service.”

  Bill’s jaw moves until he turns round and leans an arm against the arched door, “Ya know when I was in France, I could feel him.”

  “Who?”

  “Vercingetorix, like his bones spoke to me through the earth. A man experiences things in battle, an’ I felt him as if we was fightin’ together on the same blood-soaked soil. An’ where we were in the Argonne forest? It was not too far from where the great Battle o’ Alesia happened in 52BC against Caesar. What’s two thousand years to a ghost? Nothin’, nothin’ at all, ” Bill grunts and leans his back against the wall now. “Everyone tells me I died there. I dunno. I don’ remember that. But there is a long time period where I don’ remember anythin’ at all. If I did die, I know the soul or the ghost o’ Vercingetorix was runnin’ round my body, waitin’. Waitin’ to leap in an’ animate me again so to square things up wit’ the I-Talian, see? An’ Anna. Anna was there too. Shit, she was just a girl when I left, an’ I never once felt a thing for her growin’ up here in Brooklyn. But on the battlefield she became my angel, ya know? Like a white angel all pure an’ innocent an’ uh, matronly an’ nurturin’ wit’ a heart made o’ kitten fur. An’ Vercingetorix? He was my black angel.”

  Darby listens closely.