by Betty Smith
Katie Nolan was neither a mental nor a physical coward. She tackled every problem masterfully. She didn't volunteer sex information but when Francie asked questions she answered as best she knew how. Once when Francie and Neeley were young children, they had agreed to ask their mother certain questions. They stood before her one day. Francie was the spokesman.
"Mama, where did we come from?"
"God gave you to me."
The Catholic children were willing to accept that but the next question was a sticker. "How did God get us to you?"
"I can't explain that because I'd have to use a lot of big words that you wouldn't understand."
"Say the big words and see if we understand them."
"If you understood them, I wouldn't have to tell you."
"Say it in some kind of words. Tell us how babies get here."
"No, you're too little yet. If I told you, you'd go around telling all the other children what you know and their mothers would come up here and say I was a dirty lady and there would be fights."
"Well, tell us why girls are different from boys."
Mama thought for a while. "The main difference is that a little girl sits down when she goes to the bathroom and a little boy stands up."
"But Mama," said Francie. "I stand up when I'm afraid in that dark toilet."
"And I," confessed little Neeley, "sit down when..."
Mama interrupted. "Well, there's a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man."
That ended the discussion because it was so puzzling to the children that they decided to go no further with it.
When Francie, as she wrote in her diary, started to change into a woman, she went to Mama about her sex curiosity. And Katie told her simply and plainly all that she herself knew. There were times in the telling when Katie had to use words which were considered dirty but she used them bravely and unflinchingly because she knew no other words. No one had ever told her about the things she told her daughter. And in those days, there were no books available for people like Katie from which they could learn about sex in the right way. In spite of the blunt words and homely phrasing, there was nothing revolting in Katie's explanations.
Francie was luckier than most children of the neighborhood. She found out all she needed to know at the time she had to know about it. She never needed to slink into dark hallways with other girls and exchange guilty confidences. She never had to learn things in a distorted way.
If normal sex was a great mystery in the neighborhood, criminal sex was an open book. In all poor and congested city areas, the prowling sex fiend is a nightmarish horror that haunts parents. There seems to be one in every neighborhood. There was one in Williamsburg in that year when Francie turned fourteen. For a long time, he had been molesting little girls, and although the police were on a continual lookout for him, he was never caught. One of the reasons was that when a little girl was attacked, the parents kept it secret so that no one would know and discriminate against the child and look on her as a thing apart and make it impossible for her to resume a normal childhood with her playmates.
One day, a little girl on Francie's block was killed and it had to come out in the open. She had been a quiet little thing of seven, well behaved and obedient. When she didn't come home from school, her mother didn't worry; she thought the child had stopped somewhere to play. After supper, they went looking for her; they questioned her playmates. No one had seen the child since school let out.
A fear wave swept over the neighborhood. Children were called in off the streets and kept behind locked doors. McShane came over with half a dozen policemen and they began combing the roofs and cellars.
The child was found at last, by her loutish seventeen-year-old brother. Her little body was lying across a busted-down doll carriage in the cellar of a nearby house. Her torn dress and undergarments, her shoes and her little red socks were thrown on an ash heap. The brother was questioned. He was excited and stuttered when he answered. They arrested him on suspicion. McShane wasn't stupid. The arrest was a blind to put the killer off guard. McShane knew the killer would feel safe and strike again; and this time, the police would be waiting for him.
Parents went into action. The children were told (and to hell with finding the right words) about the fiend and the horrible things he did. Little girls were warned not to take candy from strangers, not to speak to strange men. Mothers took to waiting in the doorways for their children when school let out. The streets were deserted. It was as if the Pied Piper had led all the children off to some mountain fastness. The whole neighborhood was terrorized. Johnny got so worried about Francie that he got a gun.
Johnny had a friend named Burt who was night watchman at the corner bank. Burt was forty years old and married to a girl half his age of whom he was insanely jealous. He suspected that she took a lover in the nights when he was at the bank. He brooded over this so much that he came to the conclusion that it would be a relief if he knew for sure that this was so. He was willing to exchange soul-destroying suspicion for heartbreaking reality. Accordingly, he slipped home at odd hours during the night while his friend Johnny Nolan watched the bank for him. They had signals. When, in the night, poor Burt got so tormented that he had to go home, he asked the cop on the beat to ring the Nolan bell three times. If Johnny was home when the signal came, he jumped out of bed like a fireman, dressed hurriedly and ran to the bank as though his life depended on it.
After the watchman slipped out, Johnny lay on Burt's narrow cot and felt the hard revolver through the thin pillow. He hoped someone would attempt to rob the bank so he could save the money and be a hero. But all the hours of his night-watching were without event. There wasn't even the excitement of the watchman catching his wife in adultery. The girl always was sleeping soundly and alone when her husband sneaked into their flat.
When Johnny heard of the rape and murder, he went over to the bank to see his friend Burt. He asked the watchman whether he had another gun.
"Sure. Why?"
"I'd like the lend of it, Burt."
"Why, Johnny?"
"There's this fellow loose that killed the little girl on our block."
"I hope they ketch him, Johnny. I sure hope they ketch the son-of-a-bitch."
"I have a daughter of my own."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, Johnny."
"So I'd like you to loan me a gun."
"It's against the Sullivan Law."
"It's against some other law for you to go away from the bank and leave me here. How do you know? I may be a robber."
"Aw, no, Johnny."
"I figure if we break one law, we might as well break another."
"All right. All right. I'll lend it." He opened a desk drawer and took out a revolver. "Now I'll show you. When you want to kill somebody, you point it at 'em like this," he pointed it at Johnny, "and pull this thing."
"I see. Let me try it." In his turn, Johnny aimed it at Burt.
" 'Course," said Burt, "I ain't never shot off the God-damned thing myself."
"This is the first time I ever held a gun in my hand," explained Johnny.
"Watch out then," said the watchman quietly. "It's loaded!"
Johnny shivered and put the gun down carefully. "Say, Burt, I didn't know. We might have killed each other."
"Jesus, you're right." The watchman shuddered.
"One jerk of a finger and a man is dead," mused Johnny.
"Johnny, you ain't thinking of killing yourself?"
"No, I'm letting the booze do that." Johnny started to laugh but stopped abruptly. As he left with the gun, Burt said, "Let me know if you catch the bastard."
"I'll do that," promised Johnny.
"Yeah. So long."
"So long, Burt."
Johnny gathered his family around him and explained about the gun. He warned Francie and Neeley not to touch it. "This little cylinder holds death for five people in it," he explained dramatically.
Francie thought the revolver lo
oked like a grotesque beckoning finger, a finger that beckoned to death and made it come running. She was glad when Papa put it out of sight under his pillow.
The gun lay under Johnny's pillow for a month and was never touched. There were no further outrages in the neighborhood. It seemed that the fiend had moved on. Mothers began to relax. A few, however, like Katie, continued to watch in the door or hallway when they knew the children were due home from school. It was the killer's habit to lurk in dark hallways for his victims. Katie felt that it cost nothing to be careful.
When most of the people were lulled into a feeling of security, the pervert struck again.
One afternoon, Katie was cleaning in the halls of the second house away from her own. She heard children in the street and knew that school was out. She wondered whether it was necessary to go back and wait in their hallway for Francie as she had been doing since the murder. Francie was nearly fourteen and old enough to take care of herself. Besides the killer usually attacked little girls of six or seven. Maybe he had been caught in some other neighborhood and was safe in jail. Still.... She hesitated, then decided to go home. She'd be needing a fresh bar of soap within the hour and could kill two birds with one stone if she got it now.
She looked up and down the street and grew uneasy when she didn't see Francie among the children. Then she remembered that Francie went further to school and came home a bit later. Once in the flat, Katie decided to heat the coffee and have a cupful. By that time, Francie should be home, and her mind would be at peace. She went into the bedroom to see if the gun was still under the pillow. Of course it was and she felt foolish for looking. She drank the coffee, took her bar of yellow soap and started back for work.
Francie got home at her usual time. She opened the hall door, stared up and down the long narrow hall, saw nothing and closed the solid wood door behind her. Now the hall was darkened. She walked the short length of hall towards the stairs. As she put her foot on the first step, she saw him.
He stepped out from a small recess under the stairs that had an entrance to the cellar. He walked softly but with lunging steps. He was thin and undersized and wore a shabby dark suit with a collarless and tieless shirt. His thick bushy hair grew down on his forehead almost to his eyebrows. He had a beaked nose and his mouth was a thin crooked line. Even in the semi-darkness, Francie was aware of his wet-looking eyes. She took another step, then, as she got a better look at him, her legs turned into cement. She couldn't lift them to take the next step! Her hands clutched two banister spokes and she clung to them. What hypnotized her into being unable to move was the fact that the man was coming towards her with his lower garments opened. Francie stared at the exposed part of his body in paralyzed horror. It was wormy white contrasted with the ugly dark sallowness of his face and hands. She felt the same kind of nausea she had once felt when she saw a swarm of fat white maggots crawling over the putrid carcass of a rat. She tried to scream "Mama" but her throat closed over and only air came out. It was like a horrible dream where you tried to scream but no sound came. She couldn't move! She couldn't move! Her hands hurt from gripping the banister spokes. Irrelevantly, she wondered why they didn't snap off in her tight grasp. And now he was coming towards her and she couldn't run! She couldn't run! Please God, she prayed, let some tenant come along.
At this moment, Katie was walking down the stairs quietly with the bar of yellow soap in her hand. When she came to the top of the last flight, she looked down and saw the man coming at Francie and saw that Francie was frozen to the banister spokes. Katie made no sound. Neither one saw her. She turned quietly and ran up the two flights to her flat. Her hand was steady as she took the key from under the mat and opened the door. She took precious time, not aware of what she was doing, to set the cake of yellow soap on the washtub cover. She got the gun from under the pillow, aimed it, and keeping it aimed, put it under her apron. Now her hand was trembling. She put her other hand under her apron and steadied the gun with her two hands. Holding the gun in this way, she ran down the stairs.
The murderer reached the foot of the stairs, rounded it, leaped up the two steps, and, quick as a cat, threw one arm about Francie's neck and pressed his palm to her mouth to prevent her screaming. He put his other arm around her waist and started to pull her away. He slipped and the exposed part of his body touched her bare leg. The leg jerked as though a live flame had been put to it. Her legs came out of the paralysis then and she kicked and struggled. At that, the pervert pressed his body close to hers, pinning her against the banister. He began undoing her clenched fingers, one by one. He got one hand free, forced it behind her back and leaned hard against it while he started to work on her other hand.
There was a sound. Francie looked up and saw her mother running down that last flight of stairs. Katie was running awkwardly, not balancing well on account of having both hands clutched under her apron. The man saw her. He couldn't see that she had a gun. Reluctantly, he loosed his hold and backed down the two steps keeping his wet eyes on Katie. Francie stood there, one hand still gripping the banister spoke. She couldn't get her hand opened. The man got off the steps, pressed his back to the wall and started sliding against it to the cellar door. Katie stopped, knelt on a step, pushed her apron bulge between two banister spokes, stared at the exposed part of his body and pulled the trigger.
There was a loud explosion and the smell of burnt cloth as the hole in Katie's apron smoldered. The pervert's lip curled back to show broken dirty teeth. He put both hands on his stomach and fell. His hands came away as he hit the floor and blood was all over that part of him that had been worm-white. The narrow hall was full of smoke.
Women screamed. Doors banged open. There was the sound of running feet in the halls. People in the streets started pouring into the hall. In a second, the doorway was jammed and no one could get in or out.
Katie grabbed Francie's hand and tried to pull her up the stairs, but the child's hand was frozen to the spoke. She couldn't open her fingers. In desperation, Katie hit Francie's wrist with the gun butt and the numb fingers relaxed at last. Katie pulled her up the steps and through the halls. She kept meeting women coming out of their flats.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" they screamed.
"It's all right now. It's all right now," Katie told them.
Francie kept stumbling and going to her knees. Katie had to drag her on her knees the length of the last hall. She got her into the flat and onto the couch in the kitchen. Then she put the chain bolt on the door. As she put the gun down carefully next to the bar of yellow soap, her hand accidentally touched the muzzle. She was frightened when she found it warm. Katie knew nothing about guns; she had never shot one before. Now she thought the heat might make the gun go off by itself. She opened the washtub cover and threw the gun into the water in which some soiled clothes were soaking. Because the bar of yellow soap was mixed up with the whole thing, she threw that in after the gun. She went to Francie.
"Did he hurt you, Francie?"
"No, Mama," she moaned. "Only he...his...I mean it...touched my leg."
"Where?"
Francie pointed to a spot above her blue sock. The skin was white and unharmed. Francie looked at it in surprise. She had an idea that the skin would be eaten away there.
"There's nothing the matter with it," Mama said.
"But I can still feel where it touched." She moaned and cried out insanely, "I want my leg cut off."
People pounded on the door demanding to know what had happened. Katie ignored them and kept the door bolted. She made Francie swallow a cup of scalding hot black coffee. Then she walked up and down the room. She was trembling now. She didn't know what to do next.
Neeley had been loitering on the street when the shot sounded. When he saw people crowding into the hallway, he, too, worked his way in. He got up on the stairs and looked over the banisters. The pervert was huddled where he had fallen. The crowd of women had torn the trousers from his body and all who could get near were grinding t
heir heels into his flesh. Others were kicking at him and spitting on him. All were shrieking obscenities at him. Neeley heard his sister's name.
"Francie Nolan?"
"Yeah. Francie Nolan."
"You sure? Francie Nolan?"
"I tell you I seen."
"Her mother went and..."
"Francie Nolan!"
He heard the ambulance gong. He thought Francie had been killed. He raced up the stairs sobbing. He pounded on the door, screaming, "Let me in, Mama! Let me in!"
Katie let him in. When he saw Francie lying on the couch, he bawled louder. Now Francie started to bawl. "Stop it! Stop it!" Katie screamed. She shook Neeley until he didn't have a sob left in him.
"Run and get your father. Look all over until you find him."
Neeley found Papa in McGarrity's saloon. Johnny was just about to settle down to a long afternoon of slow drinking. When he heard Neeley's story, he dropped his glass and ran out with him. They couldn't get back into the house. The ambulance was at the door and four policemen were fighting a way through the crowd trying to get the ambulance doctor in.
Johnny and Neeley went through the next-door cellar into the yard, helped each other over the board fence into their own yard and climbed up on the fire escape. When Katie saw Johnny's derby looming up outside the window, she screamed and ran around frantically looking for the gun. Fortunately for Johnny, she had forgotten where she had thrown it.
Johnny ran to Francie, and, big as she was, he picked her up in his arms as though she were a baby. He rocked her and told her to go to sleep. Francie kept insisting that she wanted her leg cut off.
"Did he get her?" asked Johnny.
"No, but I got him," Katie said grimly.
"Did you shoot him with the pistol?"
"With what else?" She showed him the hole in her apron.
"Did you shoot him good?"
"As good as I could. But she keeps talking about her leg. His..." her eyes slid towards Neeley, "...well, you know, touched her leg." She pointed to the spot. Johnny looked but he saw nothing. "That's too bad it had to happen to her," Katie said. "She's such a one for remembering. She might never get married, remembering."
