In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (39 page)

I wriggle away from my friends and stick my head over the edge of the Balcony and say down to her, “Hey, Connie! How about the Song of Solomon, verse 7? That has always given me great comfort in time of need.”

She looks up at my head hanging over the edge of the Balcony. “All right,” she says, warily. It’s plain that she had a different religious upbringing than did I, for it’s equally plain that she doesn’t know what’s coming. She finds the passage and begins.

Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair!

Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your n-n-navel is a rounded bowl, that never lacks for wine.

Connie falters a bit there, and many other faces have joined mine in hanging over the edge, grinning down at her. There are a few snorts and titters of laughter, but Connie squares her shoulders and soldiers on.

Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two b-b-breasts are like…

She closes the book and falls to her knees and starts bawling.

“I just knew you’d mess it up! I just knew you’d ruin it!” she wails. “You have to make everything a joke, oh, you do, you doooo-hoo-hooo-hoo! How could you buh-buh-be so mean, oh, how could you be so meeeeean?”

Uh-oh.

She’s got her face turned upward, the tears streaming out of her eyes, plain for all to see. There is no more laughter from the girls. Once again, I’ve gone too far.

I get up and jump down to the Stage and kneel down next to her and put my arm around her shaking shoulders.

“Come on, Connie…Please, Connie, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please stop crying. Please. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry, I really, really am.”

And it’s true. I[_ am_] sorry. I have never before thought of myself as[_ mean._] Stupidly impulsive, yes; sometimes thoughtless, yes; vindictive and vengeful, oh, yes. But mean, no. Now I realize that I can be mean and petty and hurtful and I have been that to Connie. I resolve to be better.

Connie starts to quiet a bit.

“That’s better. Now dry your eyes, Sister, please. Know that Anything-for-a-Laugh-Jacky is truly sorry.”

She looks at me through tear-brimming eyes. “Are you really?”

“Yes, I am, Connie. It’s just that I wasn’t brought up proper like the rest of you. I promise to be better. Now,

show that you have found it in your heart to forgive me by reading Psalm 137 before they drop the flaps.” I take the Bible and open it to that passage and hand it to her. “Please, Connie. Stand up. Read it. It’s not another trick. It speaks to our condition. Please.”

She stands and reads.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps, our lyres, upon the willows

that on the banks there grew.

For they that carried us away in captivity, required from us a song;

And they the wicked who hurt us and tortured us, required mirth, saying,

“Sing to us a song of Zion.”

But how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

The flaps come slamming down, and we assemble for Chorus and raise our own voices in song—there in the Hold of the[_ Bloodhound,_] there in our captivity, there in our own Babylon.

That same night, after Chorus, I again took up my Cheapside story.

IT Is A
FINE
summer’s day and me and Nancy and Charlie and Hughie are lain’ about the kip, waitin’ for the others to come back in to report on what they might have come up with in the way of food or coin.

We already have two nice fat pasties that Nancy and I got off a vendor. Nancy distracted him by pulling on his pant leg and whining, “Please give me one, Sir! I’m starvin, I am!” and when he turned to curse her and kick her away, I managed to nip two of the little pies off his tray. Serves the bugger right for bein’ a cruel miser, I say.

Things had quieted down between us and the Shanky Boys since our face-off over that unfortunate drunkard. Words had been said, threats had been made, and eventually rocks had been thrown, but peace had generally come back to Cheapside.

Y’see, though we was a small gang and therefore weak, we had some advantages—we were quick and we were mobile and it was known that we never let a wrong against us go unpunished.

“That, and the fact that we had bold Hughie, here, to help with the punishin’. Didn’t we, Hughie?”
p. The Shankies, on the other hand—and there were about thirty of them and not all were kids—had a permanent headquarters, and so were vulnerable to our attacks. They were led by the despicable Pigger O’Toole, and their kip was the bottom floor of a condemned building on Paternoster Lane, the area around Saint Paul’s Cathedral bein’ their turf. The owner of the property was surely afraid to throw them out and so it became more and more like a stinkin’ pigsty and therefore more theirs to keep. As soon as hostilities broke out, we left our kip and headed for the rooftops, which we of the Rooster Charlie Gang knew very, very well. We knew how to get from low shed to one-story house to the roof of a higher building and thence to yet a higher one, and then to the tops of the highest. We’d spent a lot of time up there, sometimes when the peelers was after us, and sometimes during other gang wars, and we knew how to live up there. We had piles of rocks stored in gutters. We watched out for unguarded pies cooling on windowsills down below, pies that would not cool there for very long, you may be sure. We knew how to sleep in those places where the roofs come together, so as not to fall off.

When we were up there, sometimes the Shankies would try to get up there, too, and aim to catch us and throw us over, but they were clumsy, while we were quick. Once, a bunch of ‘em was chasin’ us over a rooftop on Saint Andrew Street and our gang all leaped over to a house on Carter Street, that bein’ a jump of only six feet between and hardly worth mentioning ‘cept that the drop between was a sheer eight stories. Hughie scooped up little Polly when it come to the jump, like he always did, and so we all got across safe…

“Right, Hughie, you was big, but you was nimble, yes you was…”

Anyway, one of the Shankies, Fast Eddie was his name, thought he could be a hero to his chums and follow us over, but it turned out he didn’t quite have the spring in his legs for it, and so he ended up playing a starring role in the renowned anatomist Dr. Richard Graves’s presentation to some Royal Academy. I heard that one of his legs was cut off from the rest of his corpse and suspended on this rig while the good doctor would send an electrical charge through it, making the muscles[_ jerk—galvanization,_] I think the term was, proving something or other…

“er…[_ yes, Dorothea, you can explain it to us during your lecture tomorrow…”_]

And though I didn’t have much use for Fast Eddie, ending up on an anatomist’s slab was a fate that many of us were doomed for and so we could take no joy in his sad end.

With our rocks, we were able to do much damage on those walking below. We did not have to throw them, no—just lean over the edge of a rooftop, with one of your mates holding on to your shift so you didn’t tumble over to your death, to drop the rock at the proper time, trying to figure the distance traveled by your target before the rock you held would meet him in midstep. It was a very satisfying thing to do. Soon the Shankies were afraid to walk the streets, at least in the daytime, but male pride would not let them call a truce, no. Something else would have to give, and finally, it did.

Once, we were peering over the edge of a house on Old Bailey, ready to drop some stones on any Shankies who might amble past, and we see three of them running up the street. One of ‘em’s got what looks like a lady’s purse in his fist, and there’s whistles sounding behind them. They turn right and head into the alley next to us, not knowin’ it’s a blind alley with a high fence at the other end. They stop in horror to watch the two policemen come poundin’ in after ‘em. It’s the noose for them for sure.

“Hit ‘em” says Charlie, wingin’ a stone, and we pick up ours and are about to wing them, but he says, “The coppers, not the Shanks!”

We wonder at the wisdom of that, but we do it.

The police, amazed at the hail of missiles from above, and having no wish to be brained over the apprehension of a couple of petty thieves, retreat. The Shankies climb over the fence to safety, but before they go, Charlie stands up, so they can see him, and says, “You owe us.”

And they do. The truce is negotiated and we move back to the kip. With only one dead and a mere dozen wounded, we all counted it a decent end to a minor war.

The Rooster Charlie Gang was a peaceable bunch, mostly—content to work our own little patch of the city and take what came our way. Toby Oyster’s crew had the turf to the west of us, on Tudor, but we was always all right with them—even joined up and shared our turf sometimes when times was good, like when the big fairs came to town—and way to the north was Fagin’s crew of pickpockets, but Charlie was tight with the Dodger, Fagin’s head boy, so we got along. No, it was Pigger’s crew that was the problem, them havin’ a prime piece of turf but always greedy for more.

So we’re sittin’ there in our kip that day, eyein’ the two pasties we had stole, our mouths waterin’ up and hopin’ the other two get back soon so’s we can divide ‘em up and eat ‘em, when Judy comes runnin’ in, shoutin, “Pigger O’Toole’s stole our Polly!”

I take an invisible bow down there on the dark Stage and say, “I’ll continue this little tale tomorrow night. Be sure to get your tickets. The good seats are going fast.”

There is the sound of laughter and girls turning over and settling in to sleep. I give Hughie an affectionate ruffle of his hair, and he says, “I like the story, Mary,” and I go up and settle between my mates, where I will sleep until two bells into the midwatch. I will be awakened then to take both Dolley and Katy into the storeroom to be taught how to open the outer door, for they will be the first ones through when the time comes.

But I am too keyed up to sleep right off after the performance, so I put my nose in the nape of Annie’s neck and throw my arm around her waist and feel her comforting hand on the back of mine, and while I wait for blessed sleep to come claim me, I think on things…

Y’know, Jaimy, as I lie here in the dark of the Hold, it occurs to me that I might be able to take this ship—I mean with the

Dianas and the powder and the crew all divided and ready to jump out of their skins—but still, no…I only know a few of the crew—the rest of them stay well away from us as ordered. And from what I’ve seen of them, they are a hard-bitten bunch—not like poor stupid Mick and Keefe—no, they are thugs used to cruelty, to pushing poor terrified people down dark passageways to stuff them into cramped holds, to chain them neck-and-foot to bulkheads and let them never see light nor day nor any human kindness for weeks and weeks on end. No, there’s forty of them and thirty-some of us, so we’ve got to go with the original plan, I know that.

Plus, y’know, even if we took the ship and I got control of it, I could never love it like I loved my
Emerald…[_ or the_] Dolphin…[_ and even the_] Wolverine.[_ Call it wrong, of me, unChristian of me, even, but deep down inside I believe that things, things that ain’t living, can still pick up some of the evil that’s been done by people on them, or near them, or by them, or…I don’t know what I mean, really…It’s like a tree that’s been used for a gallows to strangle the life out of some poor sod, or a lonely grave where some demented lover has slain his poor lovin’ sweetheart and buried her poor remains…or a slaver that has been the witness of countless deaths, horrible agonies, unspeakable cruelties, cruelties one can scarcely speak without such revulsion that…No, I could never love this ship, as it has become a vile thing, a thing that I think even hates itself In the creak of the timbers, in the clash of the chains, I hear the moaning, and I would always hear the moaning…_]

Anyway, I think of you always and of that rose-covered cottage by the sea…But I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to keep me stuffed down in it. You know how I am, Jaimy, but also know that I am yours forever.

“Hooks down.”

I bounce off the Balcony to head down to do my duty, but I don’t have to do it this time. I find my modesty is safe for today, for Mick puts his head over the edge and shakes it and gives me a look. Which is good, ‘cause’ bout the only thing I’m still covering up is my tattoo. I take my fingers off my waistband and attend to the hooks. In a minute I see Mick’s reason for caution—Dunphy’s scowling face also pops up over the edge of the top hatch and looks about for any mischief. I perform the task at hand like a proper seaman and signal for the first tub to go up. It comes back rinsed, and then I hook up the clean-water tub.

While I ain’t stripping today, Mick and Keefe, and even Dunphy, do get a bit of a treat. We have Clarissa set up on the edge of the Stage, once again, with one leg crossed over the other. Pretending she doesn’t know she’s being watched, she takes her right hand and drops the left sleeve of her chemise, and with a wet rag she wipes her shoulder, and then she lifts her chin and very slowly cleans her neck. Now she shrugs down the other sleeve and very,[_ very_] slowly runs the rag back and forth, back and forth, from shoulder to shoulder across the now bare top of her chest. Then she pulls the sleeves back up, rises, and undulates out of sight.

“Oh, my…,” Mick breathes.

“Back to work, the both of yiz,” says Dunphy. I notice that he didn’t say that till Clarissa’s little show was over, though.

“Tubs down, ladies,” I sing out. “Let’s get ‘em back in the privy.”

They swarm down and we get the job done. Several of the girls reach for their hanging washcloths to avail themselves of the fresh salt water, but I say, “Wait. Let’s see what luck we have in fishing today.”

With that, I pull my sleeve up over my shoulder and stick my arm all the way into the clean-water tub and feel around with my hand.

“Yuck,” says Clarissa. “Now it’s contaminated.”