My Notorious Life (5 page)

Through the long night kids was crying for their mothers. There were infants needing milk, and several others were crawlers, fast as centipedes across the floor. There was a pair of brothers with a juicy vocabulary of curses between them, they were all eff you and eff ess eff. Them two Dix was run ragged chasing down the little ones and shocked out of their drawers at the mayhem and the language. —You are vessels of blasphemy! Mr. Dix blustered. —Your speech is so vile even the farmers won’t take you.

I worried, if the farmers would not take us, what then? We’d be left to roam the prairie, carcasses for the ants. Every day, to avoid such a fate, the Dix chastised us for cursing and made us to practice proper words for a servant, yes ma’am and no ma’am, please and thank you. —Now you will not be savages, they said.

—When will we be there? Dutch plagued me. —Where are we going, Axie?

—Illinois, I said, over and over. To me the place had the sound of ANNOY and ILL but that’s not what I told my sister. —Every lady there has a feather hat and a coat of fur. Their dogs is poodles with haircuts like lions, their horses got ribbons in their manes.

—For real? she asked. Her eyeballs moved over the scenery outside the window. They went to the right, then back left again to reload on something new, and this motion gave her a dreamy sort of insane look as she listened to my tales.

—In Illinois you will sleep on a feather bed soft as this eyelash on your cheek. Feel, I said, and blinked my eyelid against her face. —Mam says this is the kiss of a fairy’s wing.

—Mam will be in Illinois, said Dutch.

—No she will not.

At this Dutch began to cry again and it was all I could do not to join her, as just then Joe made a sick sound and threw up his dinner. The mess landed at our feet and the reek of it soaked the air. Orphans moved away, holding their noses, jeering remarks. I was left cleaning. —You big lump, Dutch, I said, —get a rag so’s you can help me.

—I want Mam, she said, and put her delicate head back against the seat cushion with Joe whimpering at her side.

There I was with the two of them. One useless, the other sick. Knowing Joe, in a minute he’d be bouncing, never better. The boy was a handful. He whined and fretted. His droozle went all over us, and he could not learn to use the privy. We had to hang his drawers out the window to dry, as there was nowheres to wash them. Every minute he was insane to run off. —Get down! he said. But there was no getting down. There was only going forward on the train, the fear and the panic and the boredom.

*  *  *

For days we traveled, stained and weary, past the date of my thirteenth birthday and further after that. The Dix tried to pass the hours, preoccupied with did we know the Bible? Morning, noon, and night, we sang There’s a Rest for the Weary. Mr. Dix moved along the aisle of the train talking about the Lord. —Let us pray!

I prayed for him to stop his effing sermons.

As Dix talked, we three mimicked his expression, top teeth over the bottom lip, like a rat, scrumping up the nose, making a rat-squeak by sucking air through the space between teeth. Charlie the Bulldog saw me do it. He laughed and tried it, teeth exposed, nose wrinkled like he had whiskers. I stuck my tongue out at him. He smirked and stuck up his middle finger so I cocked a snook at him, thumb on the nose and the fingers waggling. The two Dix was happily preaching and did not notice.

—God has smiled on you lucky children, Mr. Dix said. —You will trade the sewer gasses of the city for the fresh breezes of the countryside. Let us sing all together:

From the city’s gloom to the country’s bloom

Where the fragrant breezes sigh . . .

O children, dear children, happy, young, and pure—

We was not pure, but a raggedy chorus. Passengers from the other cars came to listen with a tear in their eye. —Oh the innocents, they said. Truth is, while the orphans sang, I worried, what would happen? We would be separated. Sold off and parted. They would whip us, feed us like dogs. These thoughts of loneliness came over me like steam from the grates in the street, and like the steam it held a memory of heat that turned damp on the skin, sinking through your clothes into your bones. How I wanted my Mam.

O
ne warm day toward the end of May we were awakened to the feel of slowing. We heard the sharp metal sound of the brakes, the shush of steam. The bell clanged and there was the lurch of the stop. I put my hand out across my sister’s shoulders. My brother’s head was a damp weight in my lap.

—Illinois! Illinois! The conductor was calling out the name of a town. Half cooked with sleep, I didn’t hear it. —Illinois!

—Children! Children! said Mrs. Dix. —Tidy yourselves. She herself was none too fresh. The spaniel-ear hairdo of hers had come loose long ago. She had a bun like a knob of potato now pinned to the back of her head. —Quickly, we must disembark.

—Oh Axie, said Dutch, —this is Illinois?

We peered out the window and saw nothing but a depot in the midst of nowhere. No buildings to speak of, just a sorry wooden rectangle with a door, a window, and a cold chimney. That was the station house. A dirt trail wandered along in front of it. That was the main street in town, called Rockford. There was not all that many rocks to speak of and beyond the one building was only: long grass. We had seen so much of the stuff out the train window, and now we come to find out we traveled all that way for more of it.

Climbing down off that train we was rusty as old people. I set Joe down, and away he ran in the direction of the grass. His fat legs showed in a pale
flash below his trouser cuff. —Joe! I called. —Come back! He skipped and twirled. He didn’t know to be worried about what Fate lay ahead, dumb and free as a dog. That boy Charlie chased him down and swang him up, so our Joe laughed and laughed. —Here’s your brother, Charlie says, and handed him over to me. He and the rest of the Big Boys were all for going to find the plum trees and especially the cows.

—I bet money I could milk one easy, says Charlie, so cocksure and bawdy, how he described you do it, squeezing his hands in the air. He mooed like a cow and said UDDER and TEAT. Mrs. Dix put her fingers in her ears.

—Enough of that talk now, Mr. Dix said, covering the delicate ears of his wife.

The boys continued anyways, and when Charlie seen me laughing he winked at me and I felt caught, my cheeks red.

Mr. Dix rang his bell. —Children! Children! Line up.

We set off carrying the babies, marching toward the steeple, a white spear down the road. What a sorry raggle-edge group we was with our paper luggage, our shoes with no laces and our faces with no clue where this was on a map. We came to a clump of plain raw buildings that Mrs. Dix said was the town. We grumbled it did not look like no town. We passed a store. It featured a sign tacked to a porch post that read:

Arrival of ORPHANS from New York City

Thursday, May 31st

First Congregational Church

Homes on FARMS are Wanted for

CHILDREN cast FRIENDLESS upon the world

Those desiring to acquire a child please INQUIRE

of the Screening Committee.

We were notorious already. At the church, a crowd of people in country clothes stood around. They stared at us as we came up the road. We climbed the steps and they whispered and pointed, goggle-eyed.

—The New York orphans. Well I’ll be, said one fella.

—The poor dears, said a woman, shaking her head like we was lepers.

Joe hid his face and Dutch clamped my hand. That showoff Charlie grinned, waving at all the country people.

Inside the church, up front, was a half circle of chairs. That was where we would be sold, no doubt. First, however, we were given coffee and biscuits. They had plum jelly, and bits of ham and butter to fatten us and dull our senses. Some of the ladies came to take the babies away, to coo at them, but I was d***ed if I would part with Joe.

—Here, let me hold him for you, says a woman smelling of licorice.

—This is my brother, says I, and clung on.

—He’s a little red-haired lamb, she says, sucking a horehound drop.

As soon as the townsfolk had us well stuffed, they brought us to the front and sat us down to be inspected.

—Lookit the queer shoes on that one.

—That’s a little oliveskin boy. Are you Eyetalian?

—Are you one a them New York hooligans?

—Lookit her hair.

Their eyes on us were terrible millipedes crawling. One man pulled Mr. Dix aside, asking questions. —Are they able, strong and willing? Or are these all young thieves and hoodlums?

Two big men made Bulldog Charlie stand up. —Show your arms, the bearded one ordered him. Charlie stuck his jaw out and flexed his muscles like a fighter. He grinned right at me, so I seen how he enjoyed to make me squirm. It was then I was approached by a desperate old article with raggly strings of hair circling the bald spot of his head. He paced around where I sat, with Joe on my lap. He circled Dutch.

—You are brother and sisters? he asked.

—Yes sir.

Joe began to whimper.

—Stand, said the b*****d. —Turn around.

I did.

The geezer chewed something as he made the tour of me. His lips were stained brown, his teeth dark in the cracks, and his mouth appeared like it was leaking mud.

—You’re a fine young lady, said he. —So’s your sister.

He was squinting, sucking his lips. —I want to see about your teeth. Open your mouth, say ahhhh.

The hinge of my jaw was rusty. —Ahh, I said barely, and at that he stuck his stinking finger in my mouth and ran it around the gums.

That SONOFAB****. I bit him, right down through the gristle to the bone.

He roared like an animal. —She’s bit me!

—Axie Muldoon, what did you do? Mrs. Dix came rushing over.

—This fiend has gone and bit me! cried the old scoundrel. —That she-devil!

—Let’s go Dutchie, I said, carrying Joe. —We’re on the train home again.

—Calm down, Mrs. Dix said, soothing me. —We’ll find you a nice home.

The church ladies milled about, inspecting us. One of them lifted pieces of Dutch’s hair, while some others started gossip about me. —She’s wild. Bit a matron at the orphanage, too, they say. Curses like a sailor.

It was a terrible spectacle. Mag was getting sized up by a woman with an eyeglass on a stick. People were at the windows looking in. One lady squeezed the meat of Joe’s thigh. A man in farmer overalls touched his hair like it was a curiosity.

Now a dark-bearded gentleman in a waistcoat began talking to Dutch. She smiled up at him from under her lashes. —How old are you? he asked her, with kind eyes.

—Seven, Dutch replied.

—Seven? He beckoned to a petite lady with combs in her pompadour. —I’d like you to meet my wife, he told Dutch. The lady’s eyes were the same sky blue miracle color as my sister’s. The husband remarked on it. —Why you could be our own child!

The wife smiled. —What is your name?

—Dutch, said she, already forgetting the Muldoon.

—She appears to be just the right age, darling, said the man, as his wife sized up my sister with a faraway look on her sad face.

Joe squirmed in my lap. —Down, he said, and got himself off me. He was making his way back to the biscuits so I had to chase after him. But too late. One of the ladies had him, that same licorice-smelling one who tried to get him before.

—Get down! Joe cried, struggling and reaching for me. —AxieDutch!

—He’s a sturdy little fella, said the woman, a blast of odor off her as she handed him over. —Would he like a horehound drop? Would you?

I should’ve had my guard up, but I was preoccupied about Dutch, left with the gentleman looking her over. Not to mention I had to find the privy. The horehound lady directed me to go outside, around the back of the church.

—I will keep an eye on your little fellow, said she.

It was my mistake to let her.

Outside, I seen the pocky farmer herding Bulldog Charlie toward a team of mules, and watched as he swung himself up onto the wagon seat. When he saw me he lifted his hat, and grinned very contagious. —So long, Ax! he says, and was gone.

So they just take us off like that, then, I thought, in a panic now, and raced back to guard my sister and Joe. But Mrs. Dix snared me and steered me over to a pinched crab of a woman. —Mrs. Hough, said Mrs. D. —I’d like you to meet Axie Muldoon.

—Axie? said Hough. —What kind of a name is that?

—The name my mother gave me.

—You can call me Mother now, she replied with a simper.

—Mrs. Hough has agreed to take you in, said Mrs. Dix. —And your sister and brother have found places too.

—I’ll go with them, I said. —It’s the three of us Muldoons as a package.

Mrs. D. took me aside. —Please reconsider. It’s not easy to place three at once. At least you would all be here in the same town. Otherwise you’ll have to travel on to the next location with the others.

The others. These were the ones not chosen. They had to get back on the train and go farther on. —You can choose to stay with Mrs. Hough, Mrs. Dix said, —or come with me on the train in the morning.