Trolley No. 1852 (3 page)

Too often I mused that if the stone-faced
sergeant were abstractly correct, and that my faultless sister had
reached the psychic saturation-point and succumbed to
self-annihilation, I too might well soon follow.

Days of useless searches
bled into smoke-sullied gloaming, for another night of monotonous
labor which after interminable hours would then bleed back into
days of more useless searches. I’d ride grim trolleys and
wretch-piloted coaches, scouring every passing flinty face and
scowling countenance in the dead hope that one would be Selina;
walked soles off my very shoes searching still more, only to be
rewarded by slipping on a bum’s blood-marbled sputum or being
bumped, shoved, and cursed at in a dozen hateful dialects by scores
of hateful faces. Even the churches closed their doors to the
uncontainable throng… God, indeed. What true
god
could turn his back on a woman
as goodly as my sister and allow her to be sucked up, swallowed,
and digested into this irredeemable abyss of stench, cacophony, and
illicitness? How could any “Supreme Being” exist so coldly and
unconscionably as to relinquish kind and life-praising souls as
Selina to this metropolic spittoon of human wretchedness? Where
eyes in my beloved and stately Providence shined in hope and
kindredship, hither they only glimmered dully in turpitude and
greed.

After two long years, then, my spirit was
all but done. Evening time closed over me like a casket’s lid,
where then I labored in my cubby till my fingers raged in pain,
only to know that the coming dawn would bring no surcease. Day
after day, the clocks ticked in a semblance to dripping blood, and
I felt as though my soul had metamorphosed to the blackest sand,
spilling ever away through some morbid existential hourglass that
had no bottom.

When I slept I dreamt of the hangman’s
noose.

At my place of employ, I
took care to befriend no one but instead oversaw the nightly duties
of all with a stolid, vigilant face; anything less would be
fraternization and, hence, unprofessional. On the same hand, my
deflated spirit left me in no desire for comradeship. There was one
soul, though, with whom I did feel something of a connexion: the
sullen building’s custodian, Robert Erwin. Thirtyish, I’d estimate,
a great ox of a man yet amiably demeanoured, Erwin (brief
after-work chats and the shared walk to the B-Line trolleys) would
most often leave me uplifted via even his most stray comments. Many
were the occasions when his simple positivities left me prickly
with guilt, for here was a man who never had anything less than a
smile to offer, even after having lost his wife to a malignancy,
then one daughter to tuberculosis and a second to murderers. “You
can be sure, Mr. Phillips,” he regarded me once, “that every day I
wake up, and the sun’s still shinin’ and the world’s still turnin’,
and I’ve got a job when millions of others
don’t—
that’s
a
day to give thanks for. You see, Mr. Phillips, every day is a
celebration…” The tenor of his voice left no denying his
conviction, while most days I stewed in sentiments opposite,
becoming poisoned now by my own misanthropy and self-inflicted
gloom. We both lived in the district’s west end—hence our sharing
the B-Line. “Truly it’s a great God that can see fit to shine His
light on me,” he said once. “You’re a religious man, I take it?”
came my dark question but he answered, “Not religious enough, but I
don’t s’pose anyone can be, not tainted as we are by Original Sin.
All we can do is repent, right? We’re all human bein’s and we’re
all sinners. Yet God gives me my job and my beatin’ heart, and you
too! So I do my best to give Him my faith.”

Such evangelical spouts I
tried to avoid, yet something about his soft-spokeness, still, made
me heed the words in spite of my resolute
dis
belief in his god. How could I,
with my righteous sister likely dead?

But conversely… how
could
he,
in all
his tumultuous loss?

On the night in question Erwin and I chatted
innocuously after-shift as we walked to the trolley-stop. Somewhere
unseen an old iron-striker bell tolled four a.m., a plaintive,
dismal sound. At this hour, as was usual, the ill-litten streets
looked abandoned, and no rabble-rousers or “rummies,” as they were
called, were afoot, which always relieved me. A silence that seemed
nervous, though, held dominion within the foetid air that hung
between the leaning, rust-streaked edifices on either side. It had
been a grueling shift, with my company’s transcription quota rising
to defray incremental costs. Erwin, likewise, had been passed over
for a modest raise, for synonymous reasons. I couldn’t help but
poke some implied fun: “Could it be that your god’s light isn’t
shining brightly as it once did?”

With a scoff, he replied, “Brighter! Are you
kidding? Neither of us, Mr. Phillips, got cause to complain. Did
you know that in Russia, they don’t make but a nickel a day?”

I should’ve known! More of his
positivity.

“But, you know,” he continued, “I got to
admit, maybe I didn’t get that raise ‘cos I’m bein’ punished. God’s
way of reminding me who’s boss.”

“Punishment?” I questioned as we stood
beneath a bleak town-gas lamp at the stop. “You’re about as free of
error as anyone I’ve met.”

The pallored gas-light seemed to drain his
ever-optimistic expression. “I can’t be a hypocrite, Mr. Phillips.
I’ve done my share’a sinnin’—always been sorry afterward, but
still… Been thinkin’ about it lately, to tell ya the truth.”

I laughed aloud on the
nighted, trash-strewn street. “Really, now? So if I may ask,” I
mocked, “what
grand sin
have you been contemplating?”

His seriousness, tinged by guilt, did not
waver. “Sins of the flesh. What else?”

He must mean either
salooning or whore-mongering, two activities I’d never partaken in.
But I maintained my good-hearted chastisement. “Succumbing to the
desires that your Creator gave you? Surely, Mr. Erwin, your god
can’t be so disingenuous as to refuse to forgive
that.
”

“Oh, He forgives it—the
pastor says so—but only to those
worthy
of His
forgiveness.”

“And how on earth does one
gauge
worthiness?
”

Suddenly, he looked lost. “I don’t
know.”

But his words had me
thinking, not his words of forgiveness from sin, but his
implications.
“So you
mean you frequent the speakeasies, Mr. Erwin? The rot-gut some of
those places pass off as illicit liquor can make one blind’s what
I’ve heard. Only days ago I read of one such den that served up
devilish bad rum, and several died. There’s that risk, compounded
by the simple risk of being caught by violating the laws of the
Eighteenth Amendment. Federal men are all over the city, I
hear.”

“Oh, I don’t mean speakeasies, Mr.
Phillips,” and then he gulped. “Spirits are a vile polluter of the
God-given human body. What I’m talking about… are the Red
Houses…”

I nodded while keeping
reins on my personal disapproval of such iniquitous havens. Though
I recognised immorality when I saw it I was also thoughtful enough
to refrain from judgments, and I could even compel myself to
overlook Erwin’s obvious hypocrisy: the stalwart Christian but one
tainted by a weakness for ladies of the night. Of my own case, I’ll
say that so- called sexual congress caused me to harken back to the
wise quip of Lord Halifax: “The price is damnable, the pleasure is
momentary, and the position is ridiculous,” which bespoke my views
as well. I myself had thankfully never suffered from a high state
of libidiny but I could hardly condemn others affected by more
heightened—and notably
normal
—states. How was a good man
such as Erwin expected to satisfy his natural primordial drives
with a wife long dead? At last, I commented, “I must say, I can
hardly picture a moral man as yourself frequenting such
places.”

“I can’t say I frequent them, Mr. Phillips.”
He shifted his stance within the feeble shelter. “In fact, I’ve
only been to one particular house ever, and only three times
total.”

It was not even a
conscious thing that so grotesquely piqued my interest; it was the
inundating pragmatism stoked instead by
unconscious
considerations. I was
prepared to accept
any
circumstance that might lend credence to my hope that Selina
was still alive. The unkindly booking sergeant’s words creaked back
like old ship timbers in my memory:
Lots’a
women have took to sellin’ thereselfs, ya know…
Had such a demeaning fate been my sister’s lot? Certainly she
was well-figured enough to be viable for such a trade, her figure,
yes, and most notably her bosom. I only hoped that this might
actually be, for if it were, it meant that she’d still be among the
living and, hence, retrievable.

A sudden surge in the
coal-gas intensified the streetlamp’s brightness,
just as the idea had surged in my mind:
I could go to this brothel… and
investigate…
Indeed, and not that I
suspected Selina might work in this
particular
bordello but surely there
stood a more-than-minute chance that some of the women therein had
seen or even knew of her. I could s
how my
picture around whilst maintaining the appearance of a “john,” as I
believed the suitors of prostitution were called.

For the first time in months, I had
hope!

But, lo, even as the trove of my hope may
have just trebled, simple realities proved another matter. Came my
whisper, “I’d be interested in attending this ‘Red House’ with you,
Mr. Erwin, but I’m afraid I’ve precious little money for such
indulgences.” My fingers fished through stray coins in my pocket.
“How, uh, how much would be requisite on my part for, say, minimal
services?”

Erwin’s face loosened in a manner of relief.
“Thank you for not disowning our friendship, Mr. Phillips. I
thought sure you’d think me a cad for admitting this—”

“Not at all. We all have
our occasions for urges oft beyond our force of will. But, hear me.
How
much
will I
need?”

He paused at the distant
bay of a foghorn from the harbour, a seemingly unearthly dirge of
murky, falling notes; but when it passed, he answered, “Well, the
place I’ve been to, it’s called the 1852 Club, and it’s a strange
place, I’ve got to say. You see—and you’ll find this hard to
believe—it’s
free.
”

I eyed him in the wavering pallor of
gas-light. “Did I hear you right? Free?”

“It’s free, all right, Mr. Phillips,” he
assured in a whisper. “I been there three times, like I said, and
haven’t spent a penny.”

How could I not scoff now? I argued, “That
makes no sense whatever. Any commercial enterprise, licit or
illicit, exists through the conduction of services or merchandise
rendered in the exchange of some monetary source! A bordello that
doesn’t charge for the services of its women would be the uttermost
negation of logic.”

“You’ll get no argument from me, Mr.
Phillips,” he maintained his whisper as if in fear of being
overheard on the vacant street. “I’m just tellin’ ya how it is. I
know it sounds like a tall tale but… ,” and then all he did was
shrug.

A tall tale, yes, but I trusted in my
judgment of men to be convinced that Erwin was no such teller.
“Well,” I said next. “Where exactly is this 1852 Club located?”

Erwin spread out his
hands. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. Sometimes I think it
must be near Old Greenwich and other times it seems it must be
Lower East. It’s the trolley that takes us, see—maybe a ten,
fifteen-minute trip, but the
route…
”

“What about the route?” I insisted.

“It’s all this way and
that, and up and down, and through alleys I never seen before. It
moves through these courtyards that look so
old,
and, and… Even a tunnel, where
there’s no light at all. Gettin’ on by mistake one night’s how I
even found out about the place.”

“That’s very… strange,” I uttered.

“Well like I first
mentioned, it’s a strange place.” Suddenly he looked dreamy even in
the smudged darkness. “The women, Mr. Phillips, it’s just one
looker after the next, and they don’t wear nothin’ about the house,
I ain’t kiddin’ ya.” His whisper grew heated. “And they do
anything,
and’ll have ya
as many times as you can go.”

“All, as you ensure, for nothing,” I
reiterated.

“For nary a red cent.”

By now the proposition seemed farcical, but
I simply refused to believe Erwin would lie so cockamamily. “In
that case, I’d like very much to join you tonight.”

He seemed to shudder. “I just feel so…
guilty, Mr. Phillips—”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” I
complained. “
Guilty?
”

“It’s hard enough staying
on a Godly course, and I
do
try, but sometimes… sometimes—” He shook his head
in remorse. “It’s been more than six months since I’ve… well, you
know…”

Six MONTHS?
I thought all too stridently,
It’s been more than six YEARS for me!

Erwin composed himself out
of his conflicting sentiments. “I only do it when I
have
to, but I see I’ve
brought you right along into it. Not only are
my
sins on my hands but
your
sins,
too.”