The Badger Riot (42 page)

Mama's mouth was a round “O” as she listened. I looked away from her frightened eyes.

“The ferocity of the clash was incredible. It was almost dark, and police and strikers grappled viciously with each other. I was as bad as anyone.”

It was very hard for me to tell them what had happened. I couldn't look into their faces as I spoke. “Papa, I struck Rod. On his shoulder, with my nightstick. Maybe I broke it.” I started to cry. “Oh God, oh God.”

Both of them jumped to their feet. “What?” Mama came rushing over to put her arms around me.
Without sparing myself, I told my parents all of it, even the part about the
berserker
feeling. My shame was heavy on my heart. “I have to go and tell Audrey and Ruth now.”

Papa went over and grabbed his coat. “I'll come with you.” Mama pushed back the dishes. “I'll come too. The little girls will need me.”

So my parents and I walked up the street to my house where Audrey, Ruth and the girls were happily getting ready to start their day, unaware of how I was about to spoil it.

Tom came back in the afternoon. “Pastor Genge,” he said, “thank you for putting yourself out for the boys last night. You saved them from going to jail. The union is shipping guys out of town as fast as they can.

“There's a freight train down at the station going east. We have about thirty men in one of the boxcars. My father knows but, like the rest of us, he wants to get this town cleared out as soon as we can. As station master, he'll turn a blind eye.”

The men thanked me for my hospitality. Hospitality? Hah! Jonathan would've laughed at that one. Then they filed out the door.

Somehow, with the resilience that all human beings have, and with the help of God, the people of Badger, the former strikers and I, got through the day after the riot. A pall hung over the town as everyone held their breath, awaiting news of the stricken constable. If he died, it would be an entirely different tale than if he lived. I heard nothing further from the police.

Well, Father beat the shit out of me. Unknown to me, Father was up in Badger on the very picket line that the taxi tried to crash through. He was among the picketers who were brought in to swell the numbers.

How was I supposed to know that? No one tells me nuttin'. When I walked into the house, after the Mountie let me off, there
was Father. I don't think he had gone to bed at all. “Well, Cecil, you snot-nosed little good-for-nothing, I seen you. Yes I did. You was in the taxi. Is that what you've been up to these past couple of months? There's me on a picket line, fighting for my rights, and you behind my back, working as a scab.”

There was Stepmother over by the table smirking at me. I didn't know how to answer Father. I couldn't. Just stood there and looked at him. Father was taller and bigger than I was. I don't know why I didn't grow much, but I was always the smallest in the family. Jesus, I was more scared of Father than I was of the Mounties, the crazy picketers and the legless man all put together.

He had his big old leather belt in his hand. I was no stranger to that belt. My sister wasn't either. Neither were the children that Stepmother and Father owned together. Father used that belt all the time. Perhaps Stepmother was beaten too, but I never had no pity for her.

He let me have it – right across the side of the cheek. I dropped down on my knees, covering my face and head. My arms got it then. There was no escaping the angry swish of that belt. He went on and on, all the while yelling at me. “Your stepmother is right, you
are
a useless, stupid, good for nothing.”

There! Stupid. I was stupid. Father believed what she had told him all along. My last hope was gone. If Father thought it, well, it had to be true. I was stupid and no good.

His arm must have gotten tired of swinging the strap and he stopped, but not before I was bleeding in what seemed like a million places. Every inch of me was burning. I crawled away, sobbing like a ten-year-old. Come to think of it, I wasn't very far from ten, being only seventeen, but I felt like I'd been around forever. Last words I heard before I passed out was that friggin' stepmother: “What a big baby, crying over a lickin'.”

When I awoke, it was night again. I'd been asleep or unconscious for all day. I heard Emily's voice. “Cecil, wake up. Everyone is gone to bed except me. Wake up.”

I rolled over. When me sore, raw back touched the mattress I
almost died. Emily was bending over me. “Get up, Cecil, and I'll tend to your back. Shh, be quiet. Don't wake anyone.”

There were three bedrooms in the house. One was for Father and Stepmother, one was for Emily and the two baby boys while the third was for the three older boys. I slept on a daybed in under the stairs off the kitchen.

We crept out to the kitchen table. The house was dark. Even though there was electricity, Emily wouldn't turn on the light for fear that it would wake Stepmother. She lit a small candle.

“Take off your shirt now,” she whispered.

I hauled off my shirt and singlet. The singlet was stuck to my skin with the dried blood. When the singlet came off, the welts started bleeding again and I could feel the warm blood running down over my back. The pain was almost enough to make me faint.

The water in the kettle was still warm from Father's nighttime lunch. Emily poured it into an enamel pan. From somewhere she got an old cloth – not one of Stepmother's good face cloths – and sponged my back. I was used to being belted, but this one was the worst yet. It smert – it smert real bad. I wanted to cry, but I was brave.

Stepmother kept Mecca Ointment up in her cupboard. Emily reached up and got it.

“No, Emily. Stepmother will beat you if you uses that.” “To hell with her,” my sister answered as she gently applied the soothing ointment to my skin.

I was so astonished to hear my meek young sister say a word like
hell
that I almost forgot about me back.

“You swore on her,” I whispered. “You did! She'll wash your mouth out with Sunlight Soap for that.”

“Shh. Be quiet, Cecil, and stay still.” Emily finished me back and put the ointment back in the cupboard. She sat down at the table across from me.

“Cecil, I have something to tell you. I'm leaving here. I can't stand it any longer. I have a job as housekeeper to old Mr. Soames.”

“Wha . . . ? Stepmother is going to let you go? Who'll look after
the kids and do the housework for her?” Suddenly I was frightened all over again.

“I don't care about that. I'm going, Cecil, and that's that.”

“Emily . . .” I didn't know how to say it. “Uh . . . you know . . . fellas at the pool hall sez that Mr. Soames is a dirty old man.”

Suddenly Father's yell could be heard upstairs. “What's that light? Is someone up down there?”

Quickly, Emily blew out the candle. “Hurry, get into your bunk. I'm gone to mine.” And she disappeared like a shadow. I crawled in under the stairs and onto the daybed.

In the evening of March eleventh, rested, and with Ma's good supper in me, I walked up the road to the meeting at the IWA house. But more pressing than any meeting was my anxiety over a question.

Was I responsible for that cop being in the hospital or not? My dream hung over me like a mantle. So strong was it that I only paid half an ear to what was being said at the meeting – me, formerly so passionate for our cause.

The union boys were there. There was no further news on the fallen policeman, they said. Then they told us that the IWA was accepting defeat. Landon Ladd would make it official later on, but for now we were to consider there was no other option but to go back to work and hope that our sacrifices had not been in vain. It was a hard decision, but we all knew it had to be. We had made our last stand at the picket line, and we well might have won, had it not been for a policeman struck down in the snow and, for all we knew, dead by now. It had taken the heart out of us.

When we disbanded, I came outside. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jennie going into the Catholic Church across the road. Should I follow her? This might be my chance to get her alone and ask her what had happened after I ran away.

The church was empty. It was almost dark outside, but the lights weren't turned on. In the niche of the Sacred Heart, a red light glimmered and some small candles flickered, lit for the souls of the dead.
At first I didn't see her, but I knew she was there. I always knew when Jennie was nearby. Over to the far right, up near the front, I saw her faint outline. I walked up.

She jumped. “Ralph,” she whispered. “I never heard you come in. How are you? I've been worried about you.”

I sat down beside her. “This is a hard time Jennie, a hard thing for us all to accept. You can pray all you like, but it won't change the fact that we are finished as a union. We're wiped out. The men are in a terrible state.”

“I know, Ralph. I have been with the women. There's a lot of tears have been shed the past twenty-four hours.”

The Sacred Heart's red glow illuminated her face a little. I could smell her more than see her, her special scent that had been with me since I was twelve years old. I couldn't touch her. I couldn't even hold her hand. But we could talk as we always had.

She leaned forward and looked into my eyes. “You were just in my mind, Ralph. I was thinking of what you said when you hit the cop to get him off me. You said you had dreamt it at one time. Did I misunderstand that? Or did you really say it?”

“I dreamt that scene, Jennie. In it was an older me, an older you and a black figure choking you. Remember the time that I went up Hodges Hill and found the pearls? I spent the night in the little cave where they rest. I think I told you that part, didn't I?”

“Yes, you did, Ralph.”

“Well, that was when I had the dream. Grandfather warned me that handling the pearls could make a person dream the future. Perhaps that's how Grandfather himself knew so many things.”

Jennie was paying close attention. We were so close that I could see the lashes on her eyelids, her moist lips, feel her breath on my face. I forced myself not to tremble.

“My God, Ralph, all those years and you never told me.”

“No, maid. To tell the truth, I thought the black-caped figure was Death coming to get you.” I laughed, a little embarrassed. “It was a police officer's greatcoat instead.”

Being so close to Jennie was unsettling my head. I slipped to my
knees on the kneeler. My back was to her and she couldn't see my face. “Jennie, how did you get on after I ran away from you? I'm some ashamed of that, you know. I should've stayed. To hell with the consequences.”

I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Ralph. That was my fault. I was so scared for you. I didn't want you to go to jail.”

“We're not cowards, you know. My family are not cowards.” I couldn't look at her.

She patted my back. “Come on, Ralph. Sit back. Let's get past this and go on. I don't think you're a coward. And I am sure no one else thinks so. I shouldn't have been up there, I suppose. I should've been at home like any good housewife, like Missus Suze kept saying all along. She told Tom I was too bold, mixing in men's affairs.”

I sat back in the seat. “There's one thing I haven't asked you, and you have to tell me straight. Is the cop that's in the hospital the one I hit or not?”

I startled her. Her eyes and mouth formed “O's” together. She sucked in her breath. She reached out . . . she reached out and put her arms around me. I was as still as a little sparrow in the hands of a giant. Except I was no sparrow, I was an eagle, even if I was a beaten one. And Jennie, she was no giant. She was my Amazon Beothuk Woman, bigger than me, yes she was, and the feel of her was some good. And she held me.

“Ralph. Oh my son, I am some sorry. I never realized . . . oh my God. No b'y, you didn't. You are not responsible for that. Oh God, I should not have told you to run. Oh Ralph, I am so sorry.” I could tell that she was crying. “Afterwards, it never came to my mind that you weren't there when the other cop was struck down. How'd you ever get that in your head? Didn't Tom tell you about it?”

What could I say? She still had her arms around me, but I had to move sometime. We couldn't stay like this forever and ever, frozen in time, dust gathering on us, perhaps becoming statues, like St. Theresa and St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary. People would light candles to us in a hundred years' time, thinking we were holy saints
or something. Jesus, what a weird thought! Being in Jennie's arms had really unhinged my mind.

It took every bit of my willpower to do it, but I had to move away from her. “Tom didn't know that I hit the guy to get him off you,” I said. “He was whirled away with the crowd and into the crush. You were on the outskirts, by the snowbank. He never saw us.”