Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

Father Larkin’s tufted eyebrow goes up, “Johanna Walsh? Do ye mean Johanna Connolly? They’ve been married many years now.”

  “Connolly?”

  Why is Father Larkin wearing violet? Daniel wonders. This is no time for penance. Does he know what I did? Is he sending a message to me through his vestments?

  Doirean demurely walks down the stoops in heels and holds the black metal railing with a black gloved-hand, the other hand tucked under the round of her belly.

  Obediently, the crowd steps back and separates to make a path for Doirean and Father Larkin who proceed softly, heads bowed.

  Captain Sullivan calls out, “Attention!”

  His voice echoes off the tenement walls down Navy Street toward the shore and up the hill along the Navy Yard wall. Every policeman click their heels on the cobbles in unison, turn to face the flag and stand in sharp military salute, caps tucked under underarms. A great many of them know drill commands due to their being trained for battle in the Great War. Most hardened by combat.

  The silence enthralls Daniel. The discipline. The quietude amongst a thousand policemen and a thousand wives and more children. They stand solemnly along the far sidewalk and up into the stoops of other brick and low rise tenements. A steam hammer slams in the Navy Yard and rattles the casket on the dray, reverberating in Daniel’s chest. As he takes his place aside the hearse carriage, Commissioner Enright touches his shoulder from behind. Wordless, he bends down and gives Daniel a half-hug while shaking his hand. “He was your father, is that right?”

  “No, father-in-law,” Daniel curls a lip at the commissioner’s ignorance.

  “Ah, well I’m proud that all the work we did over the past year to improve the policemen’s retirement system will help your family.”

  Daniel nods and turns his eyes to Captain Sullivan, Why not get his papers prepared, he thinks, but instead he simply says, “Thanks.”

  As Mayor Hylan shakes Daniel’s hand, flashbulbs pop as photographers jostle for position, elbowing each other in ribs with nary a sound but the shuffle of feet. When Daniel moves to take his hand away, the mayor holds onto it and smiles to allow every photographer to get their best shot.

  “Pakenham,” Daniel calls out when he sees him.

  Pakenham approaches and they shake hands in front of the crowd.

  Booooooom, the steam hammer comes down again in the Navy Yard and the remains of William Brosnan shake in the flag-draped casket.

  Of a sudden, Daniel’s voice breaks the silence, “I have released a statement from our fam’ly to Mr. Pakenham, the most honorable o’ all the journalists among yaz.”

  The other reporters glare at him, but say nothing.

  “I want to say a few words now,” Daniel speaks out.

  Pakenham comes to his ear, “That’s not what Wolcott said to do, just let the statement speak for itself, Daniel.”

  Daniel smiles and whispers back, “I am in charge here.”

  He then sprints back up the stairs as Doirean gives him a look of shock, as do the captain and the commissioner. Though Mayor Hylan seems unaware.

  “Thank yaz all for showin’ up to honor the ol’ Bear,” Daniel yells out as all eyes turn to him, even those in the windows across the street and directly above him.

  “Daniel,” Doirean whispers angrily.

  But he ignores her, “We all know who is responsible for Detective William Brosnan’s death.”

  Captain Sullivan’s voice growls under his breath, “Daniel, ya get down from there, now.”

  “We need no inquiry to learn what we already know,” Daniel calls out on his tiptoes. “The White Hand Gang did this to us. Dinny Meehan—”

  The name floats down the tenement streets until the steam hammer slams down yet again to drown his words. From the river some seven blocks away comes a breeze as the sun is blocked by cloud cover, darkening Navy Street. In a window two buildings down a woman’s voice heckles Daniel while the wind swirls amidst the army of blue and black. A whirlwind then dances above the crowd and sucks loose papers, coal ash, a police cap and a metal garbage lid along with rotted food into a pirouette of refuse. The garbage lid spirals away and crashes against the building above him and falls onto the sidewalk with a clamor.

  “Dinny Meehan an’ Wild Bill Lovett are behind this as they have been behind many other such murders, double-dealin’s, automobile an’ fact’ry thefts, beatin’s an’ much more. He tried to kill me his-very-self not long ago when I was on reconnaissance. I saw’r Meehan wit’ my own two eyes on Hoyt Street. He shot up the place an’ burnt it down. If it hadn’t’ve been for my partner Patrolman Ferris, yaz all would be here t’day to mourn two downed soldiers in the war to win back Brooklyn from the lawless gypsy gangs that infest our streets,” he stretches his arm out. “Ferris is the hero!”

  Patrolman Ferris’s confused face changes into humility when he is named the hero of Hoyt Street. Though Doirean mutters despairingly, “Daniel, get down from there.”

  “I also want to thank Police Commissioner Enright for his incredible work in improvin’ the police retirement system.”

  Twenty to thirty people reluctantly clap as the crowd looks round at each other, unsure of where Daniel is taking them.

  “It has come to our attention that Captain Sullivan is upon retirement himself an’ will be well-taken care of,” Daniel notices Sullivan’s nose has turned crimson as he stares back. “To replace him we need a man who has gone above an’ beyond his job’s requirement to hunt down the enemy an’ collect inside information about their comin’s an’ goin’s. A man who has good sense an’ keen instincts an’ is willin’ to meet the threat o’ the gangs an’ their influence over Brooklyn labor,” Daniel fingers the blackjack on his belt. “I believe the best man for Captain o’ the Poplar Street Station is myself, Daniel Culkin. I stand before yaz t’day humbled that ya would consider me—”

  Quickly, commissioner Enright storms the steps and Mayor Hylan speaks over Daniel, “We thank you all for coming today—”

  “I’m not done,” Daniel protests.

  “You can keep your mouth closed,” Enright tells him.

  But Daniel pushes to the front and yells over the commissioner, “Let us rejoice in the memory o’ Detective William Brosnan on this day, thank you! Let’s head to St. Ann’s now, thank you, thank you.”

  Down the steps he goes, slapping Father Larkin on the shoulder too hard, “Let’s go, thank you!”

  Toward Doirean, he sneaks a peek as the perplexed procession begins to move, though he cannot see her face under Father Larkin’s round shoulders, who has moved between them. He throws his left arm round Patrolman Ferris and thrusts a right hand into the crowd to shake with as many people as he can, thanking them again and again.

  As the cortege turns from Navy Street west on the cobbled hill of Gold Street toward St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church, a rattling sound comes to Daniel’s ears.

  What is that? Chains? Chains dragging on cement?

  He looks behind him but can only see police blue. On either side mourners seem unaware of the ringing.

  Is it in my ears only? Can no one else hear that?

  The sound may be obscured by horse hoofs and boot steps, but the shake of a chain sends chills down his spine, cling-clang, cling-cling-clang.

  The street and sidewalks are packed with somber faces that stride along with the trundling hearse, but none seem to hear the shrill ringing. The funeral procession eases and shifts through the streets, sometimes stopping, and still the chains haunt Daniel with a sense of terror and a volatile excitement that churns upward from his groin and backside to his lower belly.

  “What is that fookin’ noise,” he turns to Patrolman Ferris.

  Ferris leans forward and points up ahead to the right.

  Maureen Egan’s ratty hair moves through the crowd, red in a sea of navy blue and black. Booooooom the steam hammer echoes in his chest again.

  Fucking red slattern, Daniel curses her quietly.

  And then she wai
ls, “Ahhhhh, Noooo, Ahhhhh, Noooooo!”

  Daniel is sweating now and looks for his wife, but still Father Larkin looms over her with his violet cloak and headpiece.

  She moans again with a sound so grating against his ears that he covers them. When he takes his hands away again, she is screaming at the height of her lungs. Maureen’s eyes find him through the passing bald spots and slick-back, military haircuts. Mourners walk round her on the sidewalk as she holds up her chains to him and keens again, “Ahhhhh, Noooo.”

  “For chirstsake Ferris, go get her,” Daniel mumbles his fury. “Arrest her. Shut her up.”

  Ferris runs ahead and grabs three other men who tackle the red-haired woman but fail to shut her up.

  “Doe! My little Doe!” Maureen screams. “I did not die for naught! I died to give ya life! When death is due, life is wrought!” Her pitch goes so high that the glass in the windows above rattle in their frames. “It was him! It was him all along! Ya’re right. Ya instincts tell it true! My little Doe! The ol’ bear died for you! Died for you!”

  Suddenly part of the crowd collapses into itself over Maureen Egan.

  “Maureen!” Doirean screeches, but is blinded by the slew of mourners.

  Blackjacks wave through the air and the sound of fabric tearing replaces her muffled moans. Daniel watches as Maureen is gagged and dragged behind the casket dray and the crowd back toward Navy Street from whence they came.

  Where are her shoes? Daniel wonders.

  Her feet bleed from the bottoms, and between her legs a tail of chain-links drag through the yellowed, gap-toothed cobblestones. Her hair is a red tussle of dirty locks and stringy strands like a weeping willow that covers her face and gives the appearance of a head too large for her thin frame. Her dirty sack dress had been torn down the middle, though only the chains that cross her chest can be seen.

  “Moe is that you!” Doirean yells out again, then asks Father Larkin. “Was that Maureen Egan? Where is she? What did she say?”

  The cortege moves on as Doirean mourns louder now with yawning howls. In the windows above the Irishtown narrows all faces stare upon them.

  These are Dinny Meehan’s people? Daniel nods.

  In the old days gangs like the Velvet Caps would rush and fight them off with shillelaghs and cudgels and fists, forcing the tunics to collect their wounded and retreat. Irishtown was much more violent in those days and would never allow any patrolmen within their imagined walls.

  The old bear would oft tell those stories on rainy nights with a Na Bocklish between his teeth and a North Dublin accent on his tongue. Gone now, is he. And soon to be forgotten.

  Booooooom, the steam hammer drops yet again. Further away now, though Brosnan’s casket clatters as if the dead Irishman was banging away inside, struggling to escape.

  The old-time Irish in this neighborhood have dwindled over the years, which makes it the perfect time to jettison their feckless ways into extinction for good and ever.

  When I come into my captaincy, it will be my first priority to starve old Irishtown and scatter the rest to the wind, he cranes his neck up to the old wood-frame tenements that were built before the civil war. My captaincy, he smiles at the thought of it. Captain Culkin of the Poplar Street Station.

  No, Captain Culkin sounds silly. I’m no character in the newspaper comics. I won’t allow anyone to call me that. It will have to be Captain Daniel Culkin.

  Daniel has to wipe the smile off his face when he realizes that a group of wives watch him.

  It will happen, it will happen, he tells himself. It’s divine providence. God is on my side. The cruel god that wins, not the fake god that the weak pray to. No, the god who preys on the weak.

  Behind him he hears the howls of Maureen Egan through the click of horseshoes and boots. Then his wife’s sobs as the dray struggles over the cobblestones. A cool gust blows off the river lifting more caps into the air along with papers until it whistles his name in a windy whisper.

  “Daniel,” it seems to say. “The archons.”

  Daniel hears the wobbly voice of a very old man with words like birds that whistle through the wind. He searches round himself to see if others had heard it too, but the faces of the funeral cortege are still somber and silent.

  A hard and lengthy gust halts the procession in place this time, and a police cap slaps against the side of Daniel’s head.

  “The archons make him known as the demiurgic son,” the old man’s voice appears again, though it’s as loud as a scream in Daniel’s ears.

  “Who? What?” Daniel calls aloud and pulls off his blackjack, wheeling round and wielding it threateningly. “Who said that?”

  “It’s just the wind,” Ferris says with his hands outstretched, showing palms. “Put that away.”

  “What’s an archon?”

  “A what?” Ferris attempts to grab at his wrist, but Daniel pulls away and rears back.

  “Get away from me!”

  “Daniel!” He hears Maureen’s moaning voice, though when he looks it is Doirean who is yelling toward him. “Daniel, put that down.”

  Captain Sullivan pushes through the crowd and finds him. Then Commissioner Enright and Mayor Hylan appear over both shoulders.

  Daniel quickly connects the blackjack onto his belt and gives a sheepish nod, “It’s alright everyone. Everythin’s fine. No cause for alarm. Let’s move out. Move it!”

  Towering above is the steeple to the Catholic Church amidst the blacksmith shops, the farriers and the lead paint manufacturers.

  Voices. Whose voice was that? Daniel wonders. Who haunts me?

  Across the way Daniel spots his son Little Billie Bear with both hands being held by policemen as if he were under arrest.

  A darkness creeps over Daniel’s thoughts, That boy looks at me as if he knows. Who told him?

  As the crowd in blue and black gather round the steps of St. Ann’s, Father Larkin ascends ahead of everyone. A few blocks away the Manhattan Bridge rumbles like thunder in the distance and lingers, mingling for minutes with the keening slumbers of his wife. Then the faint sound of rattling chains comes to his ear again, he gulps and turns to look behind him.

  At the top of the steps Doirean stands next to Father Larkin. What is being said, however, Daniel cannot hear due to the wind in his ear.

  “You must repent,” the wind says.

  Next to Father Larkin and Doirean above are some twenty to thirty policemen with their caps under their arms. But one of them, the one standing next to Doirean is wearing civvies. The same clothes Detective Brosnan wore the day he was killed on the tug. And under his arm is not his cap, but his own head.

  “You must repent,” the voice in the wind says.

  “You have no power over me,” Daniel mouths while staring Brosnan down.

  “I know son, I know,” Brosnan’s hands move his head up to face Daniel. “That was always the problem. Now I become what ye want, what ye choose to remember. Ye? Ye will remember me for bein’ weak because I showed ye that I loved ye.”

  “I’d prefer someone beat me for what I’ve done. Ya’re nothin’,” Daniel refuses to look at his father-in-law’s face and curls a lip to show his discontent. “I have to go back to Kit Carroll. When she hurts me, only then I will be repentant. On my terms.”

  “What are ya sayin’ over there, Daniel?” Doirean’s cold eyes turn to him.

  I don’t feel good. I feel very, very bad. I need to be punished soon, he realizes. If only I could find someone to hurt me, badly. Very, very badly. Only then will I feel better.

  Hoo-hooooo, a tugboat hails from the river.

  Inside St. Ann’s the echoes come alive. A cough here and there, or the sound of kneelers being dropped whirls in the barrel vault ceiling, rushes round the carillon, careers through the balcony seating and bounces back down into the transept.

  Daniel inspects the slew of mourners with a bewildered scowl as if he were looking for a hidden gunman.

  You will not awe me, you bastards, Daniel rat
ionalizes before sitting.

  In the front pew, Doirean sits to Daniel’s right. She keeps the boys away though and nods her face at him to scoot down and make room, and he does so. To Daniel’s left is an empty seat on the bench.

  At the altar Father Larkin asks everyone to stand and Daniel rolls his eyes.

  Sit, stand, kneel, make up your fucking mind, priest.

  Irishtown’s old Roman Catholic Church is filled to the rafters with well-wishers and weepers and wailers subdued by the admiration of the man all hail as some perfect being, in his absence. Daniel spots five, six others he personally heard speak ill of Brosnan while alive, but the old man can do no wrong in their memories now.

  Policemen from every precinct in Brooklyn and many in Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, The Bronx and even parts of Long Island have come. Overwhelming the old church in Irishtown, they stand three deep behind the pews and along the walls.

  My soldiers, Daniel thinks to himself with pride.

  Father Larkin raises his arms while reading from the large, open bible, “Day of wrath and doom impending. David’s word with Sibyl's blending, Heaven and earth in ashes ending. . .”

  In his peripheral vision Daniel feels someone stand next to him on the left with his hat under an arm.

  Across the aisle Mayor Hylan sits next to Commissioner Enright and near Captain Sullivan as well as Daniel’s partner Ferris and other so-called important figures. Daniel sneers at the onlookers behind who treat them with reverence.

  When Father Larkin allows all to sit, the man next to him whispers, “Daniel. . . Daniel.”

  But Daniel lowers his eyes to look at his own crossed hands and ignores the man.

  “Daniel, it’s me.”

  He moves his eyes to the side, then turns to face the man sitting next to him, though the fellow does not have a cap in his lap, but his head instead.

  “Dad?”

  “I’ve been sent to talk with ye, son. One way or another, we’re gonna talk.”

  “Sent by who?” Daniel whispers back.

  Detective Brosnan’s hands turn his face upward in his lap to look in Daniel’s direction, then speaks with a gurgling voice, “Do ye believe in ghosts? In gods?”