And still Bill didn’t budge, and the cop hands held me fast and the other hands held Jimmy, and while we struggled and sputtered, the crowd began to part and the chattering died away, and here came Egan and Fat Eddie and their pals, walking out through the gap: crooks first, and then priests and Senator What’s-his-name.
But it was Egan everybody was staring at. The famous Mr. Thomas Egan. The Rat of all Rats himself, squinting at me in the sunshine, so close I could smell the smoke from his last cigar.
He just stood there for a minute, surveying the situation.
A halfhearted boo floated out of the ballpark.
A gust of wind knocked over a tin can and sent it clattering down the gutter.
Egan looked from me to Jimmy . . . to the mashed-in Chalmers . . . to Fat Eddie Farrell and his toothpick. And then he did the last thing I ever expected him to do.
He busted out laughing.
“Ah, no. Now, ain’t this rich? Ah, Eddie, you big lug. We’ve been robbed by a gang of midgets?”
If I hadn’t hated him already for half my life, that would have done the trick.
“We ain’t midgets!” Jimmy hollered, but it came out in a high-up squeak, which only caused Egan to break out in fresh guffaws.
“Jimmy Brannigan?” Father Dunne stepped forward. “What in the name of . . . That’s one of my boys, Officer; surely there’s been some mistake.”
“A mistake, is it?” Egan wheezed with laughter. “More like a miracle, Father. Will you look at the size of ’em?” He took out a rumpled handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes, then sighed and put it away. “A mistake, he says. Did you hear that, Eddie?” And then without warning he snatched Eddie’s derby right off his huge head and started whacking him in the chest with it. “How’d they get past you, you great galoot? Did the little people tie you down? I leave you for—what? A few miserable innings? And before I can finish me popcorn, you’re off waterin’ the water closet and handin’ out car-smashin’ badges to a band of half-pint circus midg—”
“We ain’t midgets!” Jimmy yelled again. “We’re the D and Ds—that’s for Doyle and Delaney—and it ain’t your car in the first place ’cause you’re a crook and a rat; you’re all a bunch of rats!”
Thomas Egan turned around.
The wind was picking up.
It swirled the dust on Dodier Street and climbed the pole and set the flag to flapping.
Father Dunne took hold of Jimmy’s shoulder. “Close your mouth, Jim,” he said quietly. Then he looked at Egan. “The boy’s nine years old, Tom. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
But that was a lie. Jimmy knew exactly what he was saying, and the whole world knew he knew it. And anyhow, it was too late to take it back. At the word “rat,” Egan’s head had snapped to attention. Now he narrowed his blue eyes at Jimmy. “My, my. Ain’t it a cryin’ shame to be so misinformed?”
There were dogs in the Kerry Patch who’d smile at you like that, just before they sunk their teeth in your lip.
“Rat,” Jimmy quavered.
Egan lifted his trigger finger and aimed it at him. “Father’s right, sonny. Best watch that mouth. You wouldn’t want me to lose my temper, now would you?”
Then he chucked Jimmy under the chin. “And all of us having such a grand time on this fine fall day.”
And before Jimmy could work up a good spit (though I could see him trying), Egan turned back to Fat Eddie. “Midgets,” he muttered, giving him another thump.
“We ain’t—” Jimmy began, but Officer Doyle interrupted him. “These children aren’t your ringleaders, Mr. Egan,” he said, dragging me a step closer with his great steely mitts. “It was all the older boys’ doing. They’ll pay for their foolishness, I promise you that.” He nodded toward the police wagon, already rumbling down the block toward Spring. “There’s one on his way to the hospital right now.”
“Is that a fact?” Egan reached in his pocket and took out another cigar. “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish. He had it comin’. That car’s worth ten of his sorry—”
But I never heard the rest because of the roaring in my ears. My eyes went blurry and the world went red. And with one sharp elbow to Pop the Cop’s ribs, I broke loose and flung myself at Thomas Egan; I lowered my head and charged with all my might into his flabby stomach. “Take it back!” I yelled, as best I could with my throat so thick and my nose running and the hot tears starting to spurt. “Take it back, ya big rat face! Bill’s worth ten of you—”
“Oh dear God, it’s his sister. . . .”
“Whose sister?”
“Can you breathe, Mr. Egan?”
“Well of course I can breathe; get off me, ya stupid—”
“Father Dunne?”
“Miss Downey!”
“Whose sister?”
“Oh, hello, Daniel. . . .”
“Stop that girl! She’s stolen my binoculars!”
Chapter 11
Purgatory, the orphans called it. The Sin Room, where you paid and prayed. Just four square walls and a locked door—too big for a broom closet, too small for much else—in the cellar, below the kitchen, at the bottom of a narrow stairwell, directly across the laundry from the coal hole.
Marcella had told me weeks ago I’d end up here.
“Ah, you’ll love it, Your Majesty. The old S. M. and C. The Sorrowful Mysteries and Corn bread. Hail Marys till you’re blue in the face and no supper till you swear you’ve said ’em.”
But then I wasn’t really hungry.
I sat on the only chair, rubbing my arms. You’d think it would be warmer in Purgatory. No doubt the laundry girls all roasted down here in July, but now the wind was kicking up again, creeping through the cracks in the plaster above the chamber pot in the corner, rattling the frame around the nailed-shut window. I’d stood on the chair and checked, first thing, but I couldn’t budge it, or see through it, neither. Its panes were so thick with street dirt, I might as well have been looking through ashes.
If a person was walking past, up there on the sidewalk, one good kick of his boot might shatter it in a million pieces.
Was Bill awake yet?
There was still a glimmer of daylight pushing its feeble way in—unless it was the moon, or lamplight maybe, spilling down from the nearest pole. Surely it was hours since they’d hauled him off in the wagon and turned Jimmy and me over to Father Dunne. The priest had cadged us a buggy ride with the couple from the dollar box—Miss Cora Downey and Mr. Daniel Hanratty-Maguire—who appeared to know the whole crowd, somehow or other. We’d taken Jimmy back home to the newsboys’ first, left him with the scowling cook, then come directly to the House of Mercy.
“She did what?” Sister Maclovius had thundered. She was sitting in the wing chair in her office when we found her, reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass. Her left foot was propped on a stool, wrapped up like a fat cocoon. “She stole, Mister Han—” she began, half-rising. And then she winced, and clenched her jaw, and eased herself back in her seat. “You say she stole from you, Mr. Hanratty-Maguire?”
“She did,” said the handsome man, standing beside me on the purple rug, chin in air, derby in hand, moustache all aquiver.
“Not on purpose,” I muttered. “I never wanted the damn—”
“Wait your turn, Julia,” Father Dunne warned me in a low voice. He was on my other side, his big right hand firm on my shoulder.
But now the hat lady was pushing forward, all in a rush. “Pardon me, Sister, but surely this is only a misunderstanding. I don’t believe there was any theft intended. They’re actually my binoculars—you gave them to me, Daniel; don’t you remember?—and I had loaned them to—to Julia”—she nodded my way—“and her friend with the—that is, the little crippled boy. And then when all the commotion began—well, as she said, it was never her idea in the first place; if I’m not mistaken, it was the boy who was holding the glasses at the time. So you see, it wasn’t really—”
“Say no more, Miss—?”
“Downey. Cora Downey.”
“Say no more, Miss Downey.” Sister’s hands on the chair arms were gripping so tight now, her knuckles were white as chalk. “Don’t be taken in by her excuses.”
“Oh, but I’m not! That is to say, I’m only trying to explain—”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Miss Downey. Excuses and explanations—they’re one and the same. We don’t hold with ’em here at the House of Mercy.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“I understand you perfectly. It’s your kindness that clouds your judgment. A tender heart is the cross of the well-intentioned. But a girl of this type—a girl with a vicious streak—did they tell you she bites, Miss Downey? Well, suffice it to say, she wouldn’t think twice about stealing your binoculars. She may look like a lamb, I’ll grant you, but don’t let yourself be fooled. There’s a wolf under that sheepskin, with teeth to match.”
“Oh, now, Sister,” Father Dunne began. “I wouldn’t say—”
“Well of course you wouldn’t, Father. We all know you’re the first to turn a blind eye. There’s not a soul in St. Louis who’s unaware of your fine reputation in the blind-eye department. And far be it from me to say a word against your methods when it comes to your boys and their affairs. But here at the House, you see, Father, we find it’s more perspicacious to look the devil in the face and cut off his horns. Isn’t that so, Julia Delaney? We don’t shilly-shally about with excuses and explanations. If we began saying this one has a temper because her grandmother slapped her, or that one steals because she learned it in the cradle—well, now, where would it all end?”
“Exactly,” said the handsome man.
Father Dunne cleared his throat. “I see your point, Sister, as a general rule, but surely in this case—”
“In this particular case—” The hat lady’s face was bright pink. “I scarcely think—oh, for heaven’s sake, Daniel—”
“Say no more, Miss Downey,” said Sister Maclovius. “Thinking will get you nowhere. I myself was a Mercy girl once. And if my betters hadn’t taken me firmly in hand before my character was hopelessly misshapen and malformed by all manner of excuses and explanations—well, I shudder to think, that’s what. I tremble at the thought, Miss Downey. There but for the grace of God . . .” She looked at me and smiled.
Even my bones felt cold.
I wasn’t entirely alone in the Sin Room. All around me in the half-light, I could see ’em: saints and martyrs in their robes and halos, watching me from the walls. Saint Michael brandishing his flaming sword, Saint Francis blessing the birds, Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate.
Gran had told us about those eyes.
The ancient Romans had poked out the pair of ’em, for spite, when Lucy wouldn’t pray to their gods, but then the real God gave her a new pair, better than the first. So now all of her eyes—all four—were staring down at me, as if two weren’t bad enough. No matter where I moved my head, the whole gang followed.
There’s no use looking at me like that. You know I never meant to steal those glasses. Go look at Jimmy, that dope, or Mickey Doyle, if you can find him. Go look at Bill—he’s the one needs watching. City Hospital—you can’t miss him—the tall boy with the red hair. I have his lucky marble right here in my pocket—
The eyes didn’t say a word.
I took out the moonstone and squeezed it in my fist. Ah, crikey, why’d I ever let him give it to me? Maybe if he’d had it with him today—if he’d only had a little luck for himself—
But he didn’t, did he? Ah, Bill. Ah, crikey. . . .
I brushed away the tears with my knuckles. I should have given the damn marble to Father Dunne. He could have taken it to Bill at the hospital; he said he was going there from here. “I’ll be back,” he’d promised. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to tell you how he is.”
But tomorrow was a long time coming in the Sin Room, and four-eyed saints weren’t the worst of it, neither.
The devil was the worst of it.
He’d been there all along, though I’d tried not to look at him, sprawled on his belly at the bottom of Saint Michael’s picture—the dark angel himself getting stomped on by the bright one, kicked all the way from heaven to hellfire.
But not beat.
Not yet.
Only biding his time till his time came, with that sneer on his puss and his bat wings flapping.
Glaring up from the flames like he knew me.
I knew him all right.
I’ve looked you in your ugly mug before, remember? I saw you at the great World’s Fair. You and your Rat friend Tom Egan. But I was too little to cut your horns off then, and Saint Michael wasn’t there to do the kicking.
Another gust shook the window. Were those raindrops I was hearing now, drumming on the sidewalk, pattering like a million tiny feet?
Meet me in St. Lou-ee, Lou-ee . . .
“You don’t remember the fair,” Mary always said. “You were too young. That was ages ago.”
But she couldn’t see inside my head, now could she?
And somewhere in there I’m wearing a white dress, with lace on the sleeves like snowflakes. The Sin Room is gone, and behind my eyes it’s summer back home. And here’s Papa at the table and Gran by the stove; she’s come four thousand miles to boss us; she’s saying, Ah, no, Cyril, the child should wear black for her poor mother. And who gave her those silly shoes? They’re two sizes too small.
No they ain’t, I say, they’re grand shoes; the church lady brought ’em in the basket, and Papa says, Hush, for God’s sake, Kitty, will ye all ever hush? But Kitty is Mama and Mama is dead. She’s dead like the twins, I tell him, and still he won’t listen, he never listens anymore. He only looks at me all bleary-eyed and sits there, playing his fiddle—playing it and playing it and playing it—“Julia Delaney” and “Haste to the Wedding” and the one with the peculiar words he sings over and over: “Ó’s a Thomáis Bháin Mhic Aogáin, sé mo léan thú dhul i gcill”—bowing and plucking till his strings break and his fingers bleed.
“You must have dreamed it,” Mary would say whenever I tried to tell her. “You were four. You’ve only heard us talking, that’s all. You just think you remember.”
But four or no, there I am in the dress and the shoes, and our kitchen door’s busting open, and here’s Bill coming through it, fresh from sneaking into the Fairgrounds with Mickey Doyle. The pair of ’em chattering up a storm, bounding in to the table all lit-up-looking, like they’ve swallowed the moon. They’ve been to heaven and hell and the Streets of Cairo and ridden a two-humped camel; they’ve gone from the Galveston Flood to the North Pole and back again, and watched a horse poaching an egg. And after sights such as these they feel sorry, they do, for the poor misfortunates whose idea of a good time is stickball with the Murphy brothers. And that ain’t even telling the half of it, they say. You have to see it to believe it, that’s all.
“Then we’ll see it, by God!” Papa lurches to his feet and lifts me out of my chair so suddenly, he knocks over the teapot.
And the next thing I know, there it is, rising up before us, like some great glittering city in a fairy tale, with towers and turrets and a huge wheel turning and turning in the sky over our heads. (Bill’s head and Mary’s head and Papa’s and mine, that is; Gran wouldn’t leave the kitchen, and Mickey Doyle had to go home when his ma hollered, and I was glad.) And there are lights twinkling, and music playing, and crowds of people jabbering away, and fountain after fountain shooting up sprays of water all the way to the stars.
“Is this heaven?” I ask Papa, but he doesn’t understand, and Bill says, “No, no, this is just the dull stuff; heaven’s over on the Pike.”
And now my grand shoes are squeaking along the red bricks of the Ten Million Dollar Pike (and pinching my toes till the blisters come, but I never say a word), and here are the camels, just like Bill promised, chewing their cuds and braying like humpbacked donkeys, and a snake in a basket that flicks his tongue at us when a man toots a flu
te, and a bow-legged zebra, and elephants dancing—sweet Mary and Joseph, how the elephants do stink!—and a monkey in a cap who steals a rattle right out of a baby’s hand, and runs away chittering.
Still they ain’t what I’m looking for.
And then all at once I spy it—the head of an angel looming over a gigantic door—an odd sort of angel, with no arms or legs, neither, but a pair of wings so wide, they stretch clear across the sky. And in the shadow of those wings there’s a man in a striped coat shouting at us: “This way to Paradise, ladies and gentlemen! See it now before you see it later! Don’t miss the world-famous River of Death in the Great Here-After!”
“There it is, Papa! There’s heaven!”
But he’s looking in the wrong direction.
“Please, Papa, can we go?”
“Five minutes,” he says. “Wait here.”
And then he’s gone, and we wait and wait and watch a clown play an accordion and listen to the shouting man shout till our ears are aching, and still no Papa. We can’t sneak in the front gate, because there’s a giant in a white hood guarding it, and the back door’s locked tight, so we wait some more. And finally a sausage man walks by pushing a hokey-pokey full of sausages, and our stomachs growl so loud even he can hear ’em, and there’s no use just sitting here, so Bill stands up and asks him if he knows where a person might be having a pint or two.
“In the Alps,” says the sausage man.
“The Alps?” says Mary.
When he smiles, there’s a seed in his teeth. “Do you see the mountains?” He points down the Pike. “There’s a beer garden there.”
So Bill and Mary take my hands and haul me to the Alps between ’em, though both my feet are throbbing like thunder, and sure enough, there’s the beer garden smack in the middle, and there’s our father in it.
We hear him playing and singing even before we see him: “Ó’s a Thomáis Bháin Mhic Aogáin” again. But where’d he get the fiddle? This couldn’t be his; he must have borrowed it from the bandstand there. He’s playing up a storm on another man’s fiddle and changing the words now, to boot, so they’re different this time, without the peculiar sound to ’em:
The Year We Sailed the Sun Page 7
