Different Sin (17 page)

He repeated his horror to Elliot as they stumbled exhaustedly from
Leslie’s
late in the night.

“Hell, David, you know the Celts have it in for the niggers, afraid they’ll steal their lousy jobs from them.”

“But these were kids for God’s sake! If you’d seen the way they looked at them— How the hell can they? Don’t they have kids of their own?”

Elliot shrugged. “They’re a bunch of animals, lousy Irish scum, that’s how.” He laughed shortly. “It’s not just the niggers they have it in for. They’ve threatened to hang Greeley for his support of the draft. A bunch of drunken scum tried to burn down the
Tribune
building earlier this evening.”

David stopped dead on the sidewalk. “My God! What happened? Is— Are—” He tried to keep his voice casual. “Have you seen Zach?”

“Nope. I’ve been stuck at my drawing board since I got back, same as you. But I heard Greeley hightailed it out the back way, hid himself under a table at Windust’s restaurant.” Elliot snorted. “I’d like to have seen that—New York’s mightiest editor huddled under a tablecloth.”

“But his staff—”

“They were right on his heels, every last man of them.” Elliot laughed again. “And didn’t set foot back in the building till the police drove off the mob for them. I hear they’ve got a regular arsenal in there now though. They’re not about to be made laughingstocks a second time.”

“My God!” David turned and stared in the direction of the
Tribune.
At this hour the street appeared quiet, a few stolid policemen walking their beat. “Are they still inside? Have they gotten the final edition out yet?” He took a few tentative steps toward the newspaper building.

“By this hour they better have, or they might as well call it tomorrow’s. C’mon, will you.” Elliot glanced at David with sudden curiosity. “You worried about Zach, for pity’s sake? He’ll be fine. He’s probably having a grand time playing soldier.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It was hard to believe only two days had passed since the riots had flared up on Monday. David slogged along uneasily at the rear of a crowd of some fifty hard-drinking, yelling men and women. Thank God Zach was safe! Despite Elliot’s reassurances, he’d been tense with fear till he’d seen him with his own eyes. But Zach had been fine—fatigued, but oddly exhilarated as he told David how he’d spent the night on sentry duty at an upstairs window, helping stand guard for the compositors, once his own copy was in.

Rioting mobs still howled for vengeance on Greeley and his newspaper though; Zach could yet be in peril. There was no telling—David stumbled on a loose paving stone, nearly falling against a burly, unshaven man alongside him. “Watch whereya goin’, goddam ya,” the man growled.

David winced, muttering an apology as he drew back. He’d best pay attention to his own peril now. Though he’d followed Leslie’s caution to his artists to dress in shabby, workmen’s clothing before mingling with the rioters, it would still be all too easy to give himself away. He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the folded pages he’d torn from his sketchpad, and concentrated on memorizing the scenes he’d commit to paper afterwards.

They’d reached Twenty-Seventh Street, a neighborhood of poor Negro shanties. The mob’s shouts took on new viciousness. David shuddered. In the past two days he’d seen some half dozen bodies of Negroes dangling slackly from lamp posts. He’d no desire to witness a hanging with his own eyes.

The street was deserted, its colored occupants fled or in hiding. The rioters milled about aimlessly. There was a sudden shout of triumph as a woman pointed to the end shack of a tumbledown row, where a darting movement had been spotted behind a window. Empty bottles and paving stones were hurled through the window, their crashes nearly lost in the screams of the mob. David shuddered again and edged his way out of the crowd.

A narrow alley ran behind the row of shacks. David circled the rear of the mob in the direction of the alley, peering over the rioters’ heads for a view of the ringleaders. A sudden movement in the alley caught his eye. The back door to the house opened a crack and a Negro girl of eleven or twelve slipped through. She darted a frightened glance around, then stepped inside again, emerging almost immediately with an infant clutched in one arm, a toddler clinging to her other hand. David held his breath as two more youngsters crept out after her—a girl of perhaps nine years and a boy of six or seven, who leaned against the doorframe clutching a pair of slender sticks with crosspieces tied to the tops like toy swords. Oh God, surely the child didn’t hope to fight off the mob with those pitiful toy weapons!

The infant gave a sudden, piercing wail. The mob surged toward the alley, spewing their hatred as they spotted the children. The youngsters stared back, apparently frozen in terror. Run, for God’s sake run! David thought, his voice seemingly paralyzed as well.

The older girl snapped from her stupor, speaking urgently to the others, her words drowned by the mob’s shrieks. Thrusting the infant into the arms of the second girl, she lifted the toddler onto her skinny hip and grabbed the arm of the boy. The second girl shifted the infant to clutch his other hand. The girls strained fruitlessly to run down the alley, dragging the boy between them.

A bottle flew from the crowd, striking the younger girl on the shoulder. She cried out and dropped the boy’s hand. A second bottle sailed just above the children’s heads, showering them with broken glass as it smashed at their feet. The older girl turned, her face contorted with desperation and terror. She loosed her own grip on the boy. The two girls fled, the babies bouncing and shrieking in their arms. A shot exploded. The bullet missed its mark, splintering the window frame of one of the shanties. The man who’d fired cursed as the girls reached the alley’s end and darted out of sight.

The boy stood frozen where the girls had left him, leaning on the two sticks. Not toy swords, David realized in horror, but makeshift crutches. He could see plainly now how the youngster’s right leg hung withered and useless.

The man with the revolver raised it again. A toothless woman next to him shoved his arm down. “Are ya that daft, then, to waste bullets on a nigger brat!” David exhaled, then gasped as the woman squatted, rising triumphantly grasping a heavy paving stone. The youngster’s eyes dilated with fear. A thin whimpering sob escaped him.

More of the women grabbed up paving stones. Men grasped bottles by their necks, made clubs of sticks and revolvers. David forced his eyes from the mob to the trembling child. Oh God, don’t let them hurt him! Oh God, why didn’t somebody stop them?

The toothless woman broke into a furious chant. “Kill the damn little nigger.” Other voices took it up. “Kill the damn nigger! Kill all the bloody niggers!” He could grab him. For God’s sake, he could grab him up and run. He could at least give the kid a chance.

The angry howl rose. Move, goddamn it move! His legs felt like reeds, trembling and useless beneath him. Sharp elbows shoved him aside as the mob closed in on the crippled boy. Stones and pistol butts rose and fell, came up red and slimy, thudded down once again. David closed his eyes and clung to the edge of the shanty, trying not to listen to the thudding blows, the boy’s high, piercing shrieks of pain.

The mob’s cries rose into a victorious shout that slowly trailed off. David forced his eyes open. The last of the mob was disappearing down the alley. The boy sprawled motionless. He took a tentative step toward him. The child’s skull was crushed, blood and brains oozing onto the dirt, his left eye torn from its bloody socket.

David stumbled away blindly. He tripped over the curb and fell heavily, pulled himself to his hands and knees, sank down on the curbstone. Finally he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, managed to unfold it. He stared down at the page, trying to visualize his drawing, then bent forward and retched, covering the paper, his hands, his trousers, with hot, bitter vomit.

After a long time he rose and staggered downtown toward
Leslie’s.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

“I can still hear him screaming. Oh Jesus, God, Zach, I can still hear it.” David lowered his head into his hands and shuddered. He’d stumbled back to the boardinghouse dazed and silent, but once he found Zach he hadn’t been able to stop himself from pouring out the whole, terrible story. At last he’d quieted, drunk the brandy Zach had produced, let Zach urge him out of his soiled clothes into a clean nightshirt. And then the images had welled up anew and he’d started sobbing it out all over again.

“David, steady yourself. Try to put it out of your mind now.” Zach pressed the brandy glass into his hand, steadied it till he finally gulped it down.

He looked up at Zach. “I just stood there. I just stood there and let them beat the kid to death. I didn’t even try to stop them.”

“You couldn’t have done. You’d have been helpless against them.”

“I could’ve tried. I might’ve gotten him out of there. But I was too damn scared to even try. I just stood there—”

“David, listen to me, they’d have served you the same way if you’d tried to thwart them.”

David shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even try to help him.”

A moment went by. “You set it down on paper for the world to see though.”

“On paper— Christ, I don’t even remember walking to the paper. I just found myself there drawing the whole thing right on the blocks. Leslie was pleased. God, pleased. He wants to put out an extra.” He took another shuddering gulp of the brandy.

“And he should. When the public sees what’s been done, they’ll be bound to come to their senses and put an end to it.”

“That’s not gonna help that kid any.” David closed his eyes, then opened them and looked at Zach so he wouldn’t see the crushed skull, the ruined brains dribbling onto the brown skin.

Zach was silent a moment. “Not that one, no.”

“Oh God, he looked like Josh— He must’ve been the same age, he was of a size, and those big eyes— And I just stood there— Christ, what the hell kind of a man am I?”

“Hush, hush now. It’s not your blame. Get some sleep now.” Zach wrapped his arms around David and stroked his hair as if he were a frightened child in need of comfort. David drew in another gulping sob and let himself slump against him. Zach tightened his arms and held him, rocking him gently till he could no longer hold his eyes open against the brutal, bloody images.

“In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, oh Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”

THE WORDS OF THE ANTHEM TRAILED OFF. Stones and sod dropped with a final grating clatter onto the lid of James Harrison’s coffin. David shivered. He stepped back from the edge of the grave and took his father’s arm. The service of committal sounded solemnly over their bowed heads. “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life though our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God....”

The mourners dispersed. His uncle’s body lay in the ground. And his soul? Hell, whatever his faults, Uncle James probably never knowingly sinned. Which is a damn sight more than I can say for myself.

David rubbed a few loose grains of sod from his palm onto his trousers and shuddered again. In the midst of life— How would he stand with the Almighty if he were to be overtaken by death right now? It was right there in First Corinthians: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? ... neither fornicators... nor adulterers... nor abusers of themselves with mankind....”

It had been far too many months since he’d even attended Sunday worship. As soon as he returned to New York he’d see a priest, ask him to hear his confession. Though why wait? He could do it here just as well. The ritual phrases of penitence ran through his mind. “For these and all other sins... I am truly sorry. I pray God to have mercy on me. I firmly intend amendment of life....”

Christ. How many times over the past three years had he promised himself to amend his ways? What would it avail him to make the promise in confession if he fell into sin again the moment he found himself alone with Zach? He sighed. Since that terrible night of the draft riots two months ago he’d clung to Zach’s company and comfort more than ever. He couldn’t separate from him.

“I’m thankful you were able to reach home before James passed on. It meant a good deal to him to be reconciled with you his last years.”

David gave a guilty start, wondering how many of his father’s words he’d missed, lost in thought as he’d been ever since they’d left the graveyard of Christ Church. “I’m glad I was able to see him a last time.”

George Carter nodded, his face growing slack with fatigue as they entered the house. He sank into his wing chair with a sigh and closed his eyes.

David looked at him with concern. He looks so old and worn out. And he must be five or six years older than Uncle James was. “Are you all right, Dad?” he asked.

His father managed a tired smile. “I’m fine, son. It’s just—Troubles seem to follow at one another’s heels, don’t they? Peter missing and then James passing. Crusty as he was, I miss him sitting there. The house seems empty without him.”

“I wish I could stay with you longer, but I’ve got to get back to work.” David drummed his fingers absently on the arm of his chair. “You’ve got Mike nearby though.”

George Carter brightened. “Thank God! He was disappointed to be posted to a hospital in Washington City, instead of out by some field of battle, but I’m thankful for God’s mercy in keeping him safe. Will you have time to see him on your way back to New York?”

“I thought I might.” David slumped in his chair, thinking of his last visit with Mike, in Boston that May. I couldn’t get Zach off my mind then either. And those damn advertisements— He closed his eyes, visualizing their horrors. Still, Mike is a doctor. He might know of some way. If I can bring myself to ask him. But what other choice is there? One of the doctors who sit and gossip over beer at Pfaff’s? At least I can trust Mike. And I’m sure as hell not amending my life on my own.

He opened his eyes again. “Yeah, I can take time to see him, Dad.”