My Notorious Life (21 page)

*  *  *

One late afternoon in September, on the excuse of running an errand to Hegemann’s the chemist’s, I walked toward Printing House Square, up Nassau Street, past Beekman. Outside the
Herald,
I stood at the revolving door to the building and watched men leaving in their workaday togs. The ones I picked out for the writers was rumpled and distracted, sallow, with pocky skin, patchy beards, and scrags of hair poking from under their hats. The typesetters and press operators had fewer teeth and more swagger, more plaid in their coats and more dust on their boots. I looked at their faces to see was any of them Charlie, and looked at their hands, next, to see if they was stained with ink, for these would be his colleagues.

The first inked hands I saw belonged to a ferret of a man with his features bunched in the center of his pointy rodent face, his eyes small and shifting. His hair was red.

—You, mister, I said, stepping in front of him. —Please do you know the whereabouts of a typesetter named Charlie Jones?

—I might just. He looked me up and down with his polecat eyes. —You’re a pint of ale, ain’t you? Tell me your name I’ll tell you the game.

—Axie Muldoon.

—Bricky Gilpin at your humble service.

—Where is he? Charles Jones. Where could I find him?

—He’s locked up, Bricky Gilpin said with a smirk. —In the Tombs.

At this news the fish of my heart flapped entirely off the dry dock where it had laid injured and gasping and now swam in cool water again, seeing as
how I had been wrong about Charlie. He was not a renegade but a falsely accused prisoner of the law. Oh, happy day, it was all a misunderstanding, and I went from jilted to worried in a snap.

—Why did they take him? I asked Bricky Gilpin. —How could they?

—He was in the crowd that seven weeks ago attacked the Colored Orphan Asylum.

—You’re a liar. Charlie would not attack nobody, least of all an orphan.

—It was a whole mob of us. Bricky shrugged. —We was all over the city banging pots and closing down the streets.

—I heard it. You was a bunch of mongrels.

—Why should the blackies get off the draft and not us? Why should we pay three hundred dollars to get outta the Army, and the darkies and Knickerbocker boys getting off? Found a whole mess of colored children in the asylum and burnt it to the ground.

—You didn’t, I said.

—They excaped, them pickaninnies, said Bricky, and sucked his teeth. —But Jones didn’t. The traps picked him out for the ringleader.

—He was never there.

—He was there and he’ll admit it himself. Claims he was doing a report for Mr. Horace Greeley at the
Tribune
. Told the traps he was writing up the riots so the paper could print it. Which ain’t a bad alibi, writing a report. Was he?

—If he says so, he was.

—He has only to prove it in a court, said the miserable messenger. —The
Herald
won’t help him since he says he was writing for the
Trib,
and the
Trib
never heard of him. Meanwhile, Bricky Gilpin is here at your service. His leer was such that I could see the spaces for teeth he was missing. —If I was you, miss, said Bricky, —I’d just invite me for a cheese samwich and forget about Charlie Jones, because he’s gonna be cooling his heels in the quod for a while unless they draft him outright.

I turned on my own heel and walked fast away from that Gilpin.

—Not even a samwich for my trouble? he called after me.

If I had a sandwich, I’d have given it to him, just for bringing me the message that I was not jilted. Only when I was safe away from Bricky with his leering, did the news settle on me like a layer of ash. Charlie was locked up or drafted into war.

*  *  *

Every day now I stared into the distance full of rage, at policemen, judges, warmongers, the rebs, God, and experts from Aid Societies who deprived me of every solitary soul who knew my real name. I posted letters to Charlie in the Tombs and for what? No reply. I smashed the pots in the kitchen and cursed with the mouth of a sailor, until Mrs. Browder said, —Watch your step young lady or we will be looking for your replacement.

I did not give two tacks what she threatened. Charlie was in jail and I did not hear a word from him. Greta the German was my companion now. The two of us was soaked in a lovelorn marinade of rage and longing. She pined for her own sweetheart, Mr. Schaeffer. She blushed when she described his attentions and flowery courtship. We hung the wash while Greta went on about him.

—I cannot even eat, she said. —I am sick with luff.

—Luff never killed no one, it’s what comes with it that’ll snuff you.

—Och, she said. —I told you your fella was a no good dangler, didn’t I?

—He’s not.

—You said yourself he is locked up, she smirked.

—
Pugga mahone
. Charlie will get away. He’ll be back here to me fast as can be.

—Don’t count the days. She reached in her bosom and withdrew a lace handkerchief. —From Mr. Schaeffer, she said, showing it off.

—Will he marry you?

—I expect yes, she said, with a smile like chocolate was melting in her mouth.

Perhaps it was. Her sweetheart gave her truffles and mint crèmes, until such time as he gave her a case of the nerves. By October, she sat and bit the inside of her lips, so that her red Kewpie mouth skewed sideways, little teeth gnawing on herself.

—Oh Annie, she said one day when the leaves were nearly gone. —I cannot see him. We cannot meet.

—Why?

—He is married already. Her eyes were feverish.

We two was hopeless. Through the cooling months toward winter, us young housemaids sneaked out after dark, into the razzle-dazzle of
Broadway. The windows of the hotels and shops were full of pretty things right at our fingertips. We were boiled in longing, and also contempt for ourselves, just two creatures of the wretched classes each with one dress to our name, and no money for a new one, let alone the Hindoo muslins or the French crepe maretz, the Llama jackets for sixty dollars and the princesse day robes for two hundred, the traveling skirts made of pongee or piqué for a hundred and sixty, or the evening robes in Swiss muslin and velour that would cost you three hundred. The stores had fashions for croquet-playing and for horse races and yachting. They sold Saratoga trunks the size of coffins. To Hold Sixty Dresses, said the ticket featured with the price tag.

Sixty dresses. Without no pay nor inheritance I did not know how I would ever get a new one let alone so many. When I was not dreaming of cream-colored satin I was filled with boiling resentment. I would never know the feel of these soft and shiny materials. I’d be apprenticed and sleeping alone by the stove for the rest of my days.

*  *  *

It was fall, now, and Mrs. Browder’s legs was worse than before. She had an inflammation of the lymph, she said. The old badger would not go up the stairs for love or money which left Yours Truly toiling at the old up and down. Mrs. Evans was in her bed half the morning. Mostly it was the doctor’s callers who rang the bell, no more than two most days. But one December afternoon the bell rang and there was a woman with a bruise on her face and paint on her lips. —I’ve a pain, she said.

—Whereabouts?

—In the cellar, she said, glancing downward. —Is Mrs. Evans at home?

I shown her in. —Wait here.

Upstairs, Mrs. Evans lay in her daybed, a layer of sweat on her brow, and did not stir when I spoke. —Mrs. E., a lady’s here to see you.

—Examine her yourself, please, she said, her voice languid.

—Myself? How would I, missus? I’ve not had that lesson.

My teacher sighed and rousted herself out of bed, her hands trembling. Her translucent red nose glistened with dew drops, and she wiped them away with her little pocket square, beckoning me to follow.

Down in the clinic Mrs. Evans appraised the patient, a peach-skinned
woman named Beatrice Kinsley, with powerful limbs and a swelling midriff outlined under her skirts. She stared about the room like a spooked horse as Mrs. Evans questioned her about her monthly turns until at last my teacher instructed the patient to remove her underthings.

—It’s just a small pain, Beatrice said, most reluctant.

—Small pains have a way of becoming bigger pains, said Mrs. E. quite firm.

After some persuasion, Beatrice did as she was told, first removing her scarf. We seen bruises on her neck with marks that resembled the print of fingers.

—Come here, Annie, Mrs. Evans says to me, —for your lesson. Explaining that I was the assistant, she secured me by the patient’s knees. To my mortification, she took my hand and first placed it over the patient’s abdomen and ran it up toward the wishbone of the chest, where she placed two fingers across. —Now, the fundus is here, you feel the rise, yes?

When I nodded, feeling the hard round under the ribs there, my instructress showed me how to measure. —Shush there Miss Kinsley, she said, —we’ll only check your condition. Then despite my discomfort she took my other mitt and shaped the thumb and forefinger into an L, then guided this under the skirt toward the patient’s monosyllable like it was only us out for a Sunday stroll. How studiously I looked away into the ether as the patient gasped at my touch. I likewise gasped, for how surprising was the warm animal feel of what lay under the petticoat, how familiar and yet unnatural.

As my teacher instructed me I waited, mortified, for the floor to crack open and suck me down to the root cellars of h***. My hand came away bloodied and when I blanched Mrs. Evans clucked, saying I was not the cause of it. To my teacher this lesson and her own cheerful intrusions on the poor lady seemed as ordinary as stuffing bread crumbs into a chicken. She cleaned her hands on a tea towel and I copied her, not knowing where to look.

—Sit up now, love, said Mrs. Evans to Miss Kinsley, who hid her scarlet face in her apron, weeping. Mrs. Evans put her arm around the patient and indicated I should do the same. We held her up like bookends.

—You are going to have a little baby in about three months, Mrs. E. told her, while poor Beatrice shook her head and said No no no, like Mrs. Evans could be talked out of the verdict. —I can’t have a child, she whispered.

—Have you interfered with yourself? Mrs. Evans asked her.

—Ma’am?

—Some damage has been done to the internal apparatus, said Mrs. E., —which is the cause of your pains and of the bloody show.

—But you will fix me up? cried Beatrice.

Mrs. Evans’ eyes was wet with either sympathy or the effects of her Sanative Serum, and as she stroked the bruised cheek of her patient, she shook her head sorrowfully. —I’m afraid I can’t help you, love, until such time as you are to be delivered. Then as midwife I will ease your trials as best I know how.

—But Mrs. Watkins on Lispenard Street sent me to you, Beatrice pleaded. —She said you could CURE it. You could fix me up if it’s not quick. It’s not a crime.

—The law is written, said Mrs. Evans, —such that quick or no it IS a crime.

—But you’ve fixed everyone, she says. —If it’s a crime, why aren’t you arrested?

—The police don’t bother with the law. Mrs. Evans shrugged. —They leave us alone. Nobody who comes to me complains. Would you? And second, who can prove anything? Women bleed and sometimes don’t, and blood is blood, and no one is to say why she’s bleeding or not, and nobody
would
say. It’s her own business, isn’t it?

—So you will help me.

—Not if it’s quick, said my teacher.

—It is not, whispered Beatrice Kinsley.

—I’m afraid it is, said Mrs. Evans, very sad. —You can’t deny you’ve felt a kick within and that’s the sign you’ve quickened.

—I can pay you what you want, Beatrice cried.

Apologizing, Mrs. Evans left the room while her patient sobbed on the table.

I stayed quiet, and after a minute Beatrice asked, quite proud, —Do you know Peter VanKirk? He is first assistant to the governor, with a house on Fifth Avenue. He has kept me two years in a grand place off Washington Square. She fingered the bruise on her cheek. —But if I continue in this condition, he’s through with me. He has a wife and two girls and I told him I’ll spill everything to the wife if he won’t help me.

—I could give you tablets for the Obstruction, I said.

—I have tried tablets already.

—I have tried them, too.

—Have you? Her face brightened. —And did they work?

—They must have done.

—I’ll try them again then, she said. —Because if I don’t, he’ll be rid of me.

Her stockings sagged about her ankles. She pulled at them, reaching over the protrusion of her midriff. —If he does throw me away, where will I go? she wept. —I’ve no family at all. With a child nobody’ll have me. Not even as a servant.

I sat alongside with nothing to offer. —Could you go to the poorhouse?

—Phh. She looked at me full of scorn. —The Womens House of Industry? Never. They chain you in pens. They farm you out as wet nurse for the rich mothers and your own child left to starve, stuck till you die on Black-well’s Island with the lunatics and the smallpox and murderers and thieves.

She cried and cried. —Why won’t you help me? You’re the assistant. You fix me up, then. Why not? Please, miss. I’ll pay you anything.

The room was wet with her tears and I burned up with pity listening. —I don’t know how to do a fix. If I did know I’d help you.

—Oh dear God, she wailed and pulled my clothing, fell to her knees on the floor so awkward and fat praying to me like I was powerful. —Please miss. Try. Do it please.

I couldn’t stand it. I left her and ran after Mrs. Evans.

—Missus, please, the woman says her fella will kill her. She got nowheres to go. Help her, why not?

—But the child is quick, Mrs. Evans said, shaking her head. —I cannot.

I stared at her. —Did you never do a murder, then, missus?

—Murder? Mrs. Evans looked at me, her old eyes watery. —No! No, child, not exactly, no. But in her swallowing and perspiring and the break in her voice was a complication to her answer that she did not explain. —Listen, she said, —always help them with the premature delivery if they come to you early. Just to restore the natural functions. Otherwise, they’ll do it on their own and—