The Last Days of Dogtown (13 page)

“Anne never told a soul until it was her last breath, and it was me nursing her at the end. That secret gnawed on her all them years.

“Did they take care of you all right in Providence?” asked Easter. “She sent you there, to some cousins she never met. Anne wondered after you all her days. She never quite trusted that Henry would do what she’d told him.”

“He did,” Ruth said.

“Well, that would have given her a measure of comfort,” said Easter. “Knowing you grew up with them, free and all.”

Ruth turned her face to the wall. She was too tired to talk, and besides, there was no point in burdening Easter with that bundle of sorrows.

Mimba would have told Easter the whole of Ruth’s story, accompanied by sighs, and tongue-clucking, and tears. Easter would have listened, keen and respectful, and then she would have filled Mimba in on what had happened to Ruth since she’d arrived in Massachusetts. Easter would talk about the fine walls that she had built and about her stubborn silence, which was just as hard on the shins as granite.

They would get a laugh out of that. Indeed, the two of them had the same kind of laugh: a high and girlish
hee-hee-hee.
Easter would ask Mimba if there really were sea monsters off the coast of Africa. They would look Ruth in the eyes and, with a single voice, tell her that it was time to rest.

Easter put her hand on the sleeping woman’s back. “This is your home, Ruth,” she said. “Long as you want it. Long as I’ve got breath, anyway. You got that, at least.”

Stanwood Reformed

S
AMMY
S
TANLEY
perched on the branch of a beech tree and stared at the sea. The timid child of six who’d trembled at the thought of Abraham Wharf’s corpse had grown into an eleven-year-old who would climb thirty feet up without a moment’s hesitation. Sammy scanned the horizon north to south, wondering if this might be the color “sapphire,” a word he knew from the Bible. Under a milky sky, the water looked like a whole summer’s worth of blue had been collected before him. But then, quick as a blink, a gust of wind changed everything, sapphire turned to ink, and a ruffle of white lace foamed across the waves. The air in the forest turned over, too, and fall arrived for good.

Until then, the day had felt more like April than October, though there was no mistaking the autumn smell. A yeasty mulch of oak leaves carpeted the forest floor and quieted the woods to a dry hush.

Sammy rolled down his sleeves and gathered the white apron over his shoulders for a little extra warmth. He reached for the five new dimes in his pocket, a sensation that soothed him more than anything. The night before, when everyone else was fast asleep, he’d counted seventy-eight dollars in the old strongbox hidden under the floorboards beneath his bed. Some of it he’d earned doing odd jobs for the widows of Sandy Bay, who doted on his good looks and nice manners. But much of it was stolen from the men who passed through the whorehouse that was his home.

He was an object of fun to many of them, who mocked him for the apron his grandmother made him wear and the long, blond hair she forbid him to cut. But others stared at him and asked Mrs. Stanley if Sammy was “good for a go.”

The first time she heard that request, she let a full minute tick by with Sammy’s ear pinched between her thumb and finger while he guessed at what the question meant. She’d finally let him go and whispered something into the fellow’s ear, causing him to turn crimson and hang his head till Sally Phipps came over and pulled him into her curtained corner of the room. Sally was the smiling, fair-haired whore that the sailors liked better; the farmers favored Molly, who was taller, dark, and had less to say.

Ever since his arrival on Cape Ann, barely out of diapers, Sammy’s blond curls, dark blue eyes, pink cheeks, and rosebud mouth had attracted attention and desire. He still turned heads when he walked Gloucester’s streets or the rougher paths through the villages on the northern reaches of Cape Ann. Women would stare and then turn to whisper about the shame of a boy like him trapped in a Dogtown brothel.

If Sammy was embarrassed or sorry for himself, he never showed it. He carried himself tall and reminded himself that he could climb a tree faster than most boys, was quicker with figures than the merchants’ sons, and knew his Bible better than any preacher’s daughter. It was simply in his nature to master whatever he tried; he even kept house as well as the best local wife. Indeed, Mrs. Stanley’s linens were cleaner than might be expected of such a place, and the floor was swept right to the corners, every day.

Sammy was also an accomplished thief. He was barely into his first trousers when he found three cents under Molly’s bed. He hid them under his pallet, savoring the feel of the wreath pennies and liberty caps between his fingers.

Sammy waited for more coins to appear, but men were not so careless with their money and when he realized that happy accidents would be too rare to count on, he took to stealing. He’d wait until the last candle was snuffed and the only sound was snoring. Then, rising from his place against the wall, he slipped beneath the burlap sacks hung to make a separation between the “parlor” and the tiny bedrooms. There might be a man lying on the cot with Molly or on the mattress with Sally; sometimes there’d be one with each. Sammy was quiet as a shadow, and the slightest rustling from either bed would turn him to stone. He could swallow a cough or kill a sneeze or squeeze off the need to piss for as long as it took for the silence to thicken and settle again. Only then would he move toward wherever a coat had been flung. No mouse could tread lighter than his fingers as they slipped in and out of pockets.

Sammy took only one coin at a time, and while he sometimes stole a half-dime from a full pocket, he usually went for pennies. No man set off a fuss over a lone penny, though he’d never pinch a man’s very last cent as that would be asking for trouble. Sometimes a week would pass when he found nothing at all. Mrs. Stanley’s guests were not a wealthy crew, and some paid for their pleasure with a half-full bottle of gin or a gutted rabbit.

Mrs. Stanley did not entertain as many guests as Molly or Sally, and when she did, she took her callers to the closet-size room she called her “salon.” It was not much better than the rest of the cramped little house, but it did have a real door on it. Sammy had no interest in trying his luck there, even though those pockets were more likely to yield nickels. He was born more cautious than greedy, and besides, slow-and-steady was working fine.

From his roost in the golden beech tree, Sammy squeezed his dimes tightly. He wanted his own business, and a granite house with a banister and a staircase, and a parlor with a piano in it. He’d be rich enough to pay someone else to do his laundry, too, and his linen would be spotless every day.

The boy in the tree was so absorbed in these plans that the sudden groan from below nearly cost him his footing in the tree, and his neck. He grabbed at a branch just in time and spied John Stanwood on the ground, only a few feet away. He was on his hands and knees in a pile of leaves, retching a stream of yellow bile, a display that ended in a fit of coughing and panting, which was immediately followed by another long, disgusting puke.

Sammy’s eyes narrowed. Serves him right, he thought. Stanwood liked to make sport of the boy’s hair. The last time Stanwood spent the night, he’d set out his foot to trip Sammy, who’d split his lip in the fall.

Stanwood moaned and heaved again, though nothing issued forth. He hung his head for a moment and then sprang up, struggled with his trousers and crouched to loosen his bowels in a noisy torrent. It was a sight that would otherwise repulse Sammy, but as it was Stanwood, a smile flickered across his lips. Perhaps the greasy bastard would empty his guts from end to end until there was nothing left but a sack of dry bones. There might be a coin in the scoundrel’s pocket yet, he thought, eyeing the stained waistcoat flung over a bramble.

The wind kicked up again and hit Sammy full in the face so that before he could catch himself, he sneezed a high-pitched, “Achew,” a sound that alerted Stanwood, who was still crouched like a dog in the bushes.

He struggled to his feet, pulling up his trousers in front, and turned so that Sammy could see his narrow backside. Had Sammy not trained himself to silence, he would have laughed and revealed himself for sure. But the breeze did it for him, blowing dust up his nose and making him sneeze three times in quick succession.

Stanwood heard a treble voice above calling, “You, you, you!” and glared up into the green boughs of the fir trees. Seeing nothing there, he turned and scanned the half-bare oaks until he faced Sammy’s autumn-gilded birch, glowing like a blazing candle in the midmorning sun. Sammy retreated to a branch on the far side from where Stanwood stood and was still as stone. But the wind had loosened his hair and blew it around his face, billowing the apron as well.

Peering through eyes addled by a long drunken binge as well as the curtain of yellow leaves, Stanwood saw a gauzy shimmer of white and gold. He squinted up, shading his eyes, to figure out what he was seeing. In the past week, he’d swallowed enough brandy, cider, rum, and beer to kill a larger man, and he suspected that his eyes and judgment were not completely trustworthy.

Much as Sammy tried to stay out of sight, the breeze conspired against him, ruffling the branches and revealing glimpses of his golden hair, his white shirtfront, all through a veil of shifting, sparkling leaves. As Stanwood stared, the image came to look more and more like a snowy robe and a floating halo. He fell to his knees and started blubbering words that Sammy couldn’t make sense of until he heard, “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven…”

Stanwood stopped, unable to summon the rest of the prayer. His eyes bulged in fear and his jaw hung open, making him appear even more an idiot than usual. Which is what set Sammy off: only that much stupidity could make him angry enough to risk his safety.

Shifting his weight against the tree trunk, Sammy cupped his hands around his mouth and crooned, “Oooh.” In the highest note he could reach he sang, “Oooh, thou sinner. Base sinner, art thou.”

Stanwood clasped his hands at his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. “Mercy,” he squeaked. “Oh, angel, have mercy!”

“A sinner who loves his sin shall burn in hell forever,” Sammy warbled, drawing out the words in a broad imitation of the British accent. “Fornicator,” he chanted. “Drunkard. Gambler. Thief. Thy sins are manifold.”

Stanwood dropped to his knees and flung himself facedown into a pile of leaves, his naked ass to the air.

“He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul,” said Sammy, trying to sound menacing and angelic at the same time. “Ooh. The man that hateth me loveth death. The pit shall be his portion!”

He knew that he was not being the sort of Christian that Reverend Jewett described in his sermons, but Sammy couldn’t stop himself. Stanwood was vile and crude, and Sammy was afraid of him. Perhaps it was even God’s will that he be an instrument of Stanwood’s instruction.

Stanwood raised himself up to his elbows, hands clasped, and wailed, “Oh, angel, you’re right. I’ve done bad things. But I repent. I swear it. I’ll mend my ways.”

“The liar finds no home in heaven,” Sammy trilled. “Ooooh.”

A dark cloud moved over the sun, extinguishing the birch’s ethereal light and plunging the woods into an autumnal gloom.

Stanwood shivered and peered up, searching for another glimpse of his vision.

Sammy hugged the trunk, willed himself not to sneeze, and prayed mightily that Stanwood wouldn’t have the gumption to circle around to the other side of the tree. Silently, he prayed, “Lord, make him go away.”

But Stanwood stayed where he was, his pants around his ankles, openmouthed and pop-eyed. He wasn’t so sure that he wanted the angel to return. Perhaps it would be best if this vision were just one more phantasm of drink, like the flying pigs and ghastly green faces of past sprees.

But another part of him wished for it to be true. He’d never heard voices before and the angel’s words had been thrilling. Perhaps this messenger was sent to save him from the pit, and wouldn’t that just be a poke in the nose to the high-and-mighty nobs that stepped off the curb when they saw him approach. A personal visitation would be quite an impressive proof of his worth, wouldn’t it?

Stanwood got to his knees and drew up his pants, woozily unsure whether to stay or run. For nearly an hour he kneeled, craning his neck upward. “Angel? Are you still there? I heard your warning and I’m repenting. I swear it. Do you hear me, angel? God save ye.”

The clouds thickened and a steady drizzle began to fall, but it took a thunderclap to finally convince Stanwood to leave.

Sammy waited a long while before he climbed down. Tucking the soaked apron under his shirt and tying back his wet hair, he decided he didn’t want to be there if Stanwood stopped in to tell Mrs. Stanley about his “vision.” He’d better spend the night with one of the widow ladies for whom he often did chores.

The farther Stanwood walked, the more convinced he was that he’d seen an angel, and while he couldn’t recall them precisely, the angel’s words seemed increasingly sublime, her voice a whole blessed choir. Stanwood’s amazement grew as he began to sober up. He stopped in the middle of the path, clasped his hands and whispered, “Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

“Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” As the words came to him, he recited the prayer faster and louder until he bellowed, “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Forever and ever, Amen.”

Stanwood shook his head and blurted, “Goddamn it to hell and why the blazes couldn’t I have remembered it back there and shown her. Or was it a him?”

A gust of wind sent a cold shower down on his head and Stanwood looked skyward in horror. Maybe the angel was still near enough to overhear that fresh blasphemy. Frightened, he put his head down and barreled straight home, not even glancing at Mrs. Stanley’s door as he passed.