Fingy Conners & The New Century Read online

  Lunch was called.

  The Alderman re-imagined drifting toward the Muldoons’ bright pretty dining room, the large table set in white linen and beautiful white bone china devoid of any embellishment, the colored waiter standing quietly at attention. On both sides of the room the windows were wide open to the gentle breeze of that summery day, providing beautiful views out toward the flower-filled garden. A tamed forest of maples and elms thickly repelled the sun’s stifling rays. In birdcages along the room’s perimeter sang yellow canaries, and in a large brass cage placed in the open window a green parrot clung to the vertical bars and shrieked “God damn you bastards!” joyfully out over the countryside.

  A pork roast fragrant with rosemary and mustard seed was brought out, with braised potatoes and asparagus for the guests, the spuds forbidden to John L. They laughed and talked, interrupted by Nellie Bly’s tiresome questions. Luckily she would have to be leaving soon after lunch.

  ...

  JP’s dreamy reliving of that day was almost entirely accurate rather than the result of pharmaceutical amplification. He had found it remarkable that the Muldoons’ barns were kept cleaner than many people’s own homes. One barn was fitted out after the latest improved athletic training methods. Two horses were stabled at one end in immaculate stalls while training equipment occupied the rest of the space. A rugby ball hung suspended from the ceiling waiting for John L. to beat the tar out of it daily, pretending it to be Jake Kilrain’s head. A Herculean medicine ball of ponderous weight tempted, promising to tax the abilities of the men who hefted it back and forth to each other. A white wrestling pad covered the floor in the loft where John L. and trainer Muldoon clambered up and grappled every afternoon. In the corner stood a rack with dumbbells and several sizes of Indian clubs. Fastened to the wall was a chest expander.

  “There you go Alderman, said the nun as she set the tray on the table. “Can you sit upright to eat? Would you rather sit in the chair?”

  JP was not so loopy as to be unaware of how loopy he was.

  “Uh, uh, umm... Oh, hello. Was I asleep?”

  “Yes, Alderman. Can you sit up now?”

  “I don’t know. Leave it there, will you, Sister? Let me think about it for a while. Is there any cake?”

  ...

  As the morning special from Hornellsville raced into Buffalo and the snow turned from country white to city gray, Jim began preparing himself to disembark. A few hundred yards ahead a one-armed railyard detective dragged a struggling young man across the tracks quickly in order to get out of the way of the fast-approaching behemoth. Ed Moylan, on his way to the Tifft Farm rail yard office to reclaim his job, had collared the youth loading up a haul of fifty journal brasses from a compromised freight car.

  “Let me go, you circus freak!” shouted the man-boy a half second before the single-armed man brought the butt of his pistol down hard on his skull. The youngster collapsed, dazed, but the iron grip of the railway detective elevated him to a more or less upright position again and half-dragged his sorry carcass a full quarter mile through the snow toward the Tifft Farm office. Moylan’s ribs were shot through with pain, as they were yet unhealed entirely.

  “I’m back, Boss!” Ed Moylan lustily shouted to his wiry superior as he entered the warm room attempting to disguise his tormented and winded condition. He threw his capture to the floor. “Here’s a present for ya, Jess. Happy New Year. Caught this here thief makin’ off with a load of journal brasses from an Erie car.”

  Jess Maloney just stood there, speechless.

  He was having his first look at Ed Moylan since his employee had lost his arm. In truth he never expected to see him again, especially not here of all places. He assumed Moylan would be spending his final days at home, a cripple and a recluse, attached to a gin bottle.

  The man-boy lay moaning on the floor.

  “Shut up, ye little shit!” Moylan threatened. “I ain’t near done wit’ yous yet.”

  “Uhh...yeah. Okay. Good work there, Moylan. Yous all right?”

  “Course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be? I ain’t gonna let a little inconvenience like this stop me from doin’ my job,” he said, nodding downward to indicate the void. “That ain’t what you was thinkin’ was it Boss?”

  Maloney scratched his temple. In fact he had thought exactly that, but was now forced to reconsider as he faced the undefeated Ed Moylan.

  “Want me to drag his ass down to the precinct or what?”

  “No, I’ll telegraph the cops,” replied Maloney. “This might be the same lad who’s been hittin’ the yards pretty hard lately. The coppers’ll be only too happy to drop by and escort him to his new lodgings, I’m sure.”

  “What’s on the ledger for today?” Moylan asked.

  Still wondering how to handle the newly reconfigured Ed Moylan, yard manager Maloney’s normally smooth syllables tripped a bit on their way out.

  “Uh, um...Johnson’s out with consumption, so between you being out, and him, we’ve been really short-handed lately,” Maloney said, pausing to reconsider his choice of words.

  “You just take up Johnson’s schedule, Moylan. But stick close to the office and come back on in when you see the coppers show up. They’ll need to take your statement on this little asshole. You warm enough? Come, sit by the stove a few minutes. There’s coffee.”

  “No. Yeah, sure I’m warm enough. In fact I’m sweatin’ thanks to our boy here.”

  Ed pulled out his handcuffs and dropped his knee securely on the man-boy’s back.

  “Oof!” expelled the criminal in response to the shock and the pain.

  “Hands behind your back!” Ed Moylan demanded.

  The culprit obeyed and skillfully, Moylan, to the astonishment of his boss, deftly clicked the cuffs around the prisoner’s wrists in a fluid one-handed motion. Maloney’s lingering doubts concerning Ed Moylan’s ability to resume his job were quickly melting away.

  In anticipation Ed had practiced for two days on his sons at home, and when they had tired of the game, he practiced on eager little Frances, handcuffing the children over and over again, until he was able to perform the maneuver one-handed and swiftly.

  Maloney was quite impressed.

  “With only one arm, Moylan, nobody woulda blamed ya if you’d a just shot ‘im,” laughed the yard manager.

  “Nah. He might have a family at home waitin’ for him,” explained the one-armed man, freshly awakened to his own mortality.

  ...

  Jim waited patiently for the train to come to a complete stop at the Terrace Station. On his last trip he had jumped off as the train still moved and slipped on the icy platform, almost going under the deadly car. Such accidents happened all the time, but Detective Sullivan never thought it could happen to him personally. But it just about did.

  Before heading home he stopped in first at Police Headquarters, it being located just a few steps from the Terrace Station.

  “How’s the Alderman doin’, Sully?” asked Superintendent Bull as Detective Sullivan walked in.

  “Yeah, how’s JP doin’?” echoed Chief of Detectives Patrick Cusak in his Irish lilt. Cusak had been noticing Jim Sullivan’s work favorably more and more lately, impressed by his resolve and his photographic memory for faces. The match had been clinched when Cusak learned of Jim’s boyhood friendship with the great Mark Twain and found himself seduced by Jim’s stories about the man.

  “I ain’t real sure. He’s doped up real good still. Can’t even finish a sentence before fallin’ back t’ sleep. But his doc says he’s doin’ great and expects a complete success.”

  “The Democrats are waitin’ so tell him to hurry the hell up,” said Supt. Bull. “Says so right here in the newspaper.”

  The boss showed Jim the Buffalo Express news article stating exactly that. JP was the chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, and they were waiting on his recovery and return to set a meeting to prepare amendments to the party rules. His unfortunate illness was also bad timing d
ue to the fact that JP needed to be present at the new year’s organization of the city government’s new Common Council.

  “Well, you’re just in time,” said Bull. “There’s been another shooting on Mansion Row, and we need to keep it quiet, considering the names involved. So I’m sendin’ yous down there with Cusak to investigate.”

  “Okay, but give me a minute to call my Hannah first,” Jim said, heading for the telephone box. “I just got off the train and came directly here. She’s worried sick,” he lied.

  Cusak whispered, “Psst! We’ll be stoppin’ at yer house on a detour, Sully, if ye don’t mind. Bull’s coffee is pure shite, ye know. Ask yer Hannah if she wouldn’t be mindin’ puttin’ on a nice pot fer us.”

  What if?

  “The folly of what if,” stated Annie,“ is that people are always convinced that if they had only done things differently that the outcome would have been better, when in truth it’s just as likely the outcome might have been worse, or at least, just as unsatisfactory in a different way.”

  “Worse? How could it possibly have been worse, Annie?” shouted Hannah angrily. “I lost three babies. I managed to keep them alive for two years or more, and then they just up and died! Each one. My first three did just fine, but the next three died, all at the same age. Why? What did I do so wrong? What changed in me?”

  Hannah was suffering another dark episode. It was happening more and more these days, Annie noticed, always when Jim had to go out of town.

  “That’s not what I meant, Hannah. You are deliberately searching for ways to blame yourself. You can’t go on doing that!”

  Between keeping vigil over his brother in the hospital and scurrying about retrieving and delivering suspects and prisoners all across New York State and beyond, Jim had been absent quite a bit during the preceding eighteen months.

  Hannah was alone in that big house with only little David for company much of the time. Junior and Nellie were in their teen years now, out and about in the world, busy with school activities, creating a life independent from the family. Hannah was feeling isolated and abandoned. With little David thankfully having survived—and having passed the heretofore dreaded age of two years still thriving—Hannah’s worried mind had wandered more and more away from concern for him and toward other things. Unfortunately those other things were her four dead children. She renewed her self-flagellation for the drowning of seven year old John. She thought of two dozen things she wished she had done differently that very day, as futile as such an exercise in hindsight was. And who knows why or how the babies got sick? Only God could say, all had agreed. None of it made any sense.

  In her mind Hannah meticulously went over the weeks preceding when each toddler became ill, reexamining her every move, her every decision. Did she not boil their drinking water or Hygenia bottles long enough? Did she not wash her hands often or thoroughly enough? Did she not fetch the doctor soon enough?

  Annie had lost just one baby to Hannah’s four, and Hannah was convinced that there must be some logical reason for that. Tom Nunan’s wife had five babies and all were healthy and happy still. Was it the smoky air right here across the street from the ironworks? The filthy water in the river just yards away? Are germs floating on the air, infecting her family living so close to the polluted air and water?

  “Hannah, JP and I live one house closer to both the river and the smokestacks than you do. You must stop torturing yourself!” Then, in an attempt to steer Hannah’s mind away from the morbid thoughts, Annie got an idea.

  “Why don’t we take the children out to the Exposition property to see how they are progressing with the Pan? We can do that this coming Sunday,” she proposed brightly.

  “The Pan” was popular shorthand for the 1901 Pan American Exposition. The ambitious work of clearing and leveling the site adjacent to Delaware Park and the digging of lakes and canals had begun during the winter. Temporary rail tracks were laid down to bring in the mountains of building materials that would be required to construct the colossal undertaking. The urban railways had added extra streetcars to accommodate the additional thousands of workers commuting to the site. Men from all over the East and Midwest had emigrated to Buffalo in hope of finding work. The city was booming, changing and growing on a daily basis.

  Annie had succeeded in calming her.

  Hannah herself was aware that she was adrift. She felt it in her gut. She realized she was spending too much time by herself. She was disheartened that the older kids didn’t need her the same as they used to. She was sick of keeping her mind occupied with thankless repetitive housework. The Church had offered some comfort for a while, but again she was turning away from it, angered by the things she witnessed firsthand, angered by Jim’s stories of that hypocrite of the pulpit Father Brian O’Brien, repeatedly arrested on Canal Street for laying with prostitutes. He also told her that the new priest from St. Stan’s was lurking down there as well in the Chinamen’s opium dens. She was sickened by these stories. She felt personally betrayed by the hypocrisy.

  Additionally she was remembering how intruded upon and resentful she felt when Jim would stop by the house unexpectedly with Mike Regan or Pat Cusak or John Geary. Then she’d holler at him for dragging some of the Mutuals home for a beer or two after she’d just finished mopping the floor.

  “You’ve got that expensive boathouse right there back of our house! Why aren’t you dirtyin’ that place up instead of tracking up my nice clean floors?”

  And so Jim stopped bringing the boys over, and now she missed the clamor and the laughter and the banter, their gentle kidding and scintillating gossip. These days she’d welcome all of it. Or any part of it.

  “Be careful what you wish for, Hannah,” Annie always liked to say.

  Annie was right again.

  When Jim came home from work that day she stood straight and tall as he collapsed at the kitchen table with a cold bottle of Beck’s.

  “I need to apologize,” she said.

  “What for?” he asked.

  For...for bein’ an idiot! For tellin’ you that your friends weren’t welcome here. For me sayin’ my clean floors were more important than any of it. I miss them and I miss you. You can invite them back anytime you want. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, Jim. Honestly!” she said, disgusted with herself.

  “I think I know,” Jim countered. “The older kids aren’t home near as much as they used to and you got more time on your hands now to think about unpleasant things. Don’t get mad at me now Hannah, but I think you need a hobby, and I don’t mean bringin’ home more stuff needin’ cleanin’ and polishin’.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Yeah, I am right. The house used to be full of people and noise. Nowadays we hear an echo when we talk to each other. Nowadays I think you might not even mind it so much if my brother came over to visit once in a while.”

  She fell silent at that.

  “Of course he won’t,” Jim continued, “not since you pulled that knife on him here in the kitchen.”

  “I didn’t pull a knife on him! I just...I...I just...”

  “...pulled a knife on him,” Jim reiterated.

  “Well, he knows I never woulda shanked him, I mean...you know, for real.”

  “Well, I’ll say this much for ye, Hannah. You sure know how to clear a room.”

  The Hamburg-Main Canal

  The agitated conversations among politicians and clerics concerning finally doing away with the fetid Hamburg-Main Canal and the human vermin attracted to its environs had reached such a crescendo that a plan of action was agreeably formulated and a general consensus reached.

  Invigorated citizens congratulated themselves on their good work and shook hands. The worried-sick mothers of mischievous unruly fence-scaling boys sighed in relieved gratification. The Railroad Men salivated at the prospect of the coming bonanza, a central corridor of reclaimed land on which to run new rails, the promised bounty of which was the one and only sustenance c
apable of truly nourishing their empty souls: greenbacks.

  Brothel managers panicked. The Far Eastern proprietors of the city’s most notorious opium dens took to the streets fitfully discomfited. The sanitation department scrambled madly for a plan to reroute the flow of human waste heretofore allowed to mindlessly gush down the sewers toward an ignominious and disease-breeding culmination into the Hamburg-Main.

  The venerable old canal was the furthest reach of the world-famous Erie Canal that had been almost single-handedly responsible for the early settling of the nation. Rather than being cleaned up and restored, as had been the plan of conservationists, it was contrarily to be stricken forever from the maps. Rather than realizing the dream of many a Buffalonian, that of enhancing the historic maze of waterways, slips and canals that spider-webbed the municipality so that the Queen City might rightfully claim her station as the Venice of America, the canals and slips instead were being systematically filled in one by one.

  Only those aeronauts who had sailed the cloud-free rising currents high above the city in their lighter-than-air craft were acquainted with the true breadth and beauty that was the result of the Herculean efforts of the three previous generations of citizen planners, diggers, and haulers who engineered the awe-inspiring system of watery arteries. Only their eyes from a certain altitude could gather in and ascertain the sheer scope of the endless interconnections of ditches, estuaries, bottlenecks, slips, conduits, firths and trenches that lay out far below in such profusion as to fill their field of vision with awe and reverence for the men and women who excavated, navigated, labored and lived upon them.

  On any given sunny late spring day with the blazing orb bouncing its reflections like a billion sparkling diamonds off the breeze-ruffled surfaces of these man-dug arteries hundreds of feet below them, there was no more beautiful sight in America or Europe to these airmen. The sky sailors could practically feel the cool kiss of the billowing clouds of mists rising from the plunge of the grand falls of Niagara. They could see the vast schools of silvery pike and salmon undulating below them just beneath the surface of the mighty Niagara River, the fish valiantly fighting the current of the great flow in its determination to pull them back downstream toward a deadly end over the raging precipice. In one grand sweep of their gaze the airship pilots could gather in a complete census of the population renowned locally as Canal Rats, those who made their homes on the thousands of barges, arks, ketches and tugs, sloops, packet boats, scows and steamboats that jammed the watery surfaces of the vast liquid arterial reticulation of the great megalopolis that was Buffalo, New York.