1. The College of Wooster
WORKINGMEN! TO ARMS!
by
Joshua Nicholas Ware
Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements of Independent Study
English 451-452
Supervised by
Daniel Bourne
Department of English
March 26, 2013
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2. 2

3. WORKINGMEN!
******
TO ARMS!
A Correspondenceof Three Men All Working
AgeAn Their TroublesWith Spc. Attentions
Paid to Labor an Industry an War an th Fate of
Immigrants an th Descendentss of Them esp.
With Regard to American Irishmen.
SIGNED, YOUR BROTHERS,
Mick Finn an Mr. Richmond an their monk by th name of Saint Patrick
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4. dedicated to th former keelboatman
wherever he chance t be
this month of Our Lord
March 2013
4

5. TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Prologue; War Breaks Out. August 17th
1861. 2
WENDING TO GEORGETOWN, entry dated Sep. 23rd
, 1865. 3
Interregnum I; Run on the Banks. 1873 20
ON TOWARDS WESTERN PARTS, entry dated July 20th
, 1877 24
Interregnum II; The Fateof Mr. Richmond. 1885 37
THE HAYMARKET, entry dated May 2nd
, 1886 42
Epilogue; Into the Chicago River. 1887. 60
Critical 64
Acknowledgements ` 80
Works Consulted 81
5

6. August 17th
, 1861.
We were in a tobaco field and it was a hellish hot afternoon in the middle of
August.
“It mought be a mistake to be out here when the boys go marching off”, Mick
Finn come right out an said.
“I em the best shot in the South an the Union boys don’t stand a chance. I don
want the boys to get too riled before they done their duty to Mr. Richmond here who aye
does his thing well but seeing as he does it himself. They mought get caught up thinking
they ken be like ol Mick Finn shootin from the hip an punchin in man’s faces. Aye we
must been making our own way for ever an that is fact an I tell it right as I am a canal
man.”
Still the day was hot an we were getting on in years. Mick Finn an I an Mr.
Richmond in Mr. Richmond’s tobaco field felt earth bein turned up as th kids marched
into the heat. Away from the smokehouses an cool crawdad streams they were marching
on up to meet Mr. Lincoln in his backyard at Antietam.
“An so’s the Cows I believe”, Mr. Richmond guts out lookin up from some
parchment paper map.
No they was not cows but rather men. Mr. Richmond had that map with fanciful
colors on it like old Joseph’s coat in the slave quarters over there. So we followed Mr.
Richmonds finger as he trace the route our boys was marchin all the way to Washington
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7. where they’d sneak a bullet in Mr. Lincoln’s backside if they had anything to say about it.
Finn pull out a pipe an he ripped up a plug of tobacco leaf an he stuff it down in his pipe
an he turn away from us an look out to those boys marching through th trees. Then he
turned around with a slyest grin on his countenance.
“Now hol’this can of whiskey on yor forehead. Lay down on that patch of
ironweed yonder. I’m goin to shoot a hole in it an so prove what I say”, Mick Finn spat
out along with raw scraps of smokeplant stuck t his teeth .
Well I was standin up and he tol me to lay down with that whisky. I laid out and
he shot off the hip like he does an the cool licker came from the bucket into my mouth like
a river bein born. Mick Finn said it was a good shot an more modestly I believed in him.
“That mought be a mistake in a country you still don’t know kid”, Mick Finn said
through puffs of th worst smoke.
“Bound t get you killed out here where a rivermens business is dryin up. They got
these big wheels that churn the water almost good as I can. They got big men who think
ther goin’t’get bigger than me runnin the factories. All you that Ireland sent over here are
goin’t fight in this place an books won’t know yore names.”
I accepted this but not with no questions asked.
“If I get you two barrels peach brandy Mr. Finn you will you tell me what that
day might be that I have my story told?”
An Mick Finn put on a smile like a mask of th truest jester.
7

8. “Yes sir Dooley I will gladly tell you when that day shall be.”
September 23rd
, 1865.
Th day was hellish hot an as near as th clothes on my back. I was in that tobaco
field an eternity. Birds were flying over my head like they were bits of the clouds that
detach and form up their own body as I rustled out of my burlap pack some hard tack an
th last of my grits which I did eat barehanded. Around me gentle tobaco plants danced
with leaves for arms an damned the moles underfoot an they was numerous enough t
wreck a good crop if you ask me. Dirt was upturned for it was the month of September an
the boys were comin home to find everything plowed by Yanks. Standin under the sky
breathin something desperate as that make you want t believe in the old fables they tell
you about growing up about leprechauns an haints living out upon our land waiting t lap
up any child which come into contact with em an even th first High Kings of Ireland
whom marry th land an protect it as jealous men even in death. Theres things worse than
a damn myth however for I know a gaggle of Yanks is goin be here soon an they shall
wonder on these ol scraps of Rebel cloth I am clad in if I don’ leave soon so I step up in
that field where I been asleep for a long time.
Lots of boys take t the train tracks. I better get goin too.
I may have been asleep one hundred years or only hours but it hardly makes one
difference. A hundred years happened sure over the course of these last couple months.
Northern men come to th old fields now. For when I returned from my former post of
trying t chase down Genl. Kempner I took a tour of what our Grand Confederate Army
had been defending an found it in a sorry state. Riding in some rail-car acrossed th former
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9. nation left me in a reflective an maligned state for everywhere they had burn down trees
an villages with good mens corpses left up in those trees. I could not discern if they was
black men or white men burnt for both were hanging sacks of ash held together by
bandoliers an leather in some cases only white bone held em in a piece. Enough t make a
man alright with giving up a journey t some disbanded army aye an from then out I took
up for my own t Richmond determined.
Well I left the Bannon crossroads roun’ bout noon which was comin on near th
outskirts of my destination. Some folks stood outside on porches an I walked on to the
dirt road outside town. Some Yanks were coming through town ridin on steel black mares
an their gallops pounded on my head like the rifle butts down on Cedar Creek. I walked
down the dirt road all into Richmond th former proud capital of the Confederate States.
The tobacco fields was far behin’ me now. I can’t remember when last I spoke out loud so
I whistled a jaunty song to lift my spirits “The Irish Brigade”. Out here you come t know
those outlying fields. As I gaze acrossed it on occasion I seen a tree all by itself an I did
wonder if th spirits of the old country was in there. All like them trees they was alone in a
strange land even I didn’t know this land no more. The trees stood like guards an I think,
there’s not any way that the spirits of my old land are in those trees. Some new spirits live
in there that don’ take to the ones coming in from the old continent an her islands. We got
enough trouble for one continent aye.
As I walk by another group of Yanks catches up to me these ones officers all
bedecked in blue an gold. I’m in open-sole black boots an so they think it funny to gallop
alongside and poke fun at my worn-through getup. I tell them I had it with their coarse
manners an get out of here back to the north as they was a bunch of terrible minded
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10. scalawags. To this one of em a blond lieutenant by th look of his shoulder insignia an
with a scoundrel mustache continued to jest at my uniform and tol me,
“Secesh, what you are wearin’ is a disgrace to the white man. You ought to see
your reflection on that stream over there. You look like you’re wearin’ a dead Negro!”
An th whole group erupt into laughter an I shant describe other invectives beat
into my head over th course of my shuffle to Richmond proper for they followed me th
whole half mile in.
I approach th city an all around is shopkeeps tryin t go on as if th war had not
touched us which is nigh funny as th city is still smellin like smoke an th shopkeeps is
Northmen anyway. When the leader of those Yanks come up behin’ me who was some
kind of jayhawker obvious by the look of his scarred or burned face neither which I had
desire to confirm saw me try an melt into the crowd of people all around he call out to the
crowd sayin,
“If anyone finds a rebel captain dressed up as a nigger you come to me and I’ll
reward you for your troubles”.
None object to his fool notion to ask for help finding me an I am sad t say it was
only by virtue of sheer exhaustion an want of food that none drag him down an beat out
his skull from his skin. Well he headed off after that with his scoundrel twin th Blond. We
in Richmond was together in our hatred of the northern men so we all shuffled together
though some were white and others migrants and others negroes. We all wore open-soled
boots an the caps wer all different even on th whites. An it all had to do with the war,
none of the depots ever give us anything standard which is t say th Confederate supply
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11. depots. We wore kepis an straw hats on marches an collars up high to hide scars that look
like cobbed webs on some of the men. This scarring from buckshot an shots not properly
connected to a mans back.
I walk on up to th old Randolph book store an the store is closed. It says on th
door We Are Out Of Business. I torn down that sign as my eyes did not quite believe such
a thing- this store been open an my family did come here ever since I been a kid. Well I
place all blame on the bluecoats an their black mares stomping over this land. I feel that I
am not far off in that assessment. Bluecoats on horseback flit around through th spaces in
the buildings an rubble-strewn foundations.
In th dusk its almost like th stories you were told about as a young child about
little powerful men who come down from th mountain and vales to take th valuables from
the towns an steal them away into a keep somewhere up north. Well those tall tales are for
th little ones. As a Captain in the Confederate States Army I feel duty-bound not to fall
for such comparisons but I have faith in the One Above an judgment will come from on
high one day soon. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want sure that’s grand but what
happens to be right now in Richmond I know Jesus Christ sees it. And the ones in power
ought to shake in those fancy soled leather boots kickin on top of th black mares of theirs.
I walk on past J.W. Randolph former booksellers establishment and go on
wending through Richmond toward th Georgetown road. My father told me all about the
place my family spring from back in the darker days that had rolling hills steep canyon
and even more secessionists than here he’d joke. That was Ireland.
“No British in Richmond”, I’d retort, “over here we are free men!”
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12. But he would get a look behin’ his brows that tell that something troubled him. I
still can go where I want I’m walking over the dirt road in the middle of Richmond aren’t
I? An even the blue coated men know to leave me be as th gray tree left standing in a
farmers field. I am more trouble than they will to get into ha ha. Georgetown can wait I
think I have need of walking about these streets one more time. Yanks cannot take my
freedom even with their new harping on about machines t do their work in great big
factories. Well machines aint goin t take a mans immortal soul will they?
I decide to push through those spaces in between th buildings an see those spaces
with my own eyes. I can see cows at pasture as though it were still summer. Well it’s an
Indian summer I think. An I’m walking toward those spaces I know they can’t take that
nor th sky from me can they. They can beat us in war but they cant beat our souls because
our souls are made of finer material than they know. I remember a thing Pa once tol me:
“A trade not properly learned is an enemy” A trade not learned is going t be th enemy to
them someday an I tell you right that trade shall be fighting. Someday they learn about
what a machine look like when people make it up cogs in a big tawny nightmare with
gray an black caps and feathers in those caps by God.
From those fields I come back down into th lane again. I had to stop in the
marketplace. I stop an stare at the many people all goin about their business. Mothers had
kids about em an the men in worn bandages on their foreheads. Some men walk in
crutches for they prolly caught the broadside of some cannon in the siege that just lifted
not too long ago. Like th mist off a cliffside when it roll down into the sleepy towns of
the south their breath comes out in ragged gasps an settles on the dirty muddy ground. I
continue on down into the marketplace center. Cows pullin wagons of hay and the
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13. farmers sit up top and scowl down t me. I believe it to be on account of the fact that I
have all my arm and leg intact but I tell it fierce I am a patriot. The cows go silent
forward into the cracks between those houses I guess that pass for roads now-a-days.
Every blade of hay on that hay wagon had a story like every soldier I heard talk
over the campfires on the trail. Some of those blades were cut down on the trail some
were cut down on the field an others still were pushed down by all manner of people
marchin over an under an through things. I used to sleep on it an count the stars if I had a
lucky night. I’m still standin in th marketplace square wonderin how many of my kin will
come through these ruins just to get away. The lucky nights seem a long place from here
now. My soles have holes in them and the mud seeps on in even when it doesn’t rain
straight t my heels an my heel bones. Th stars shine like bits of glass caught in my eye
like th windows on the shops when there was street fights in th final months of war.
Though I was not one of those fighters I heard it told after I come back from those
soldiers able to tell. An before them memories come back I believe I am done with
communion with th town.
I remember my goal in all this walking. I am goin to Georgetown to join the
seminary. Communion is talkin to blades of grass an broken stars and mist comin down
off cliffs. Times like these you can say it straight that God has his hand even in war or so
I have come t believe.
Like the carpetbagger Yanks in town earlier I too decide to make it scarce. I been
standin in this square for longer than I ought to any way. Somethin held me back here
tellin me th market would be mighty important but there’s not a thing I needed t buy an
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14. beside that all I have is my name an a few bits of CSA scrip. Georgetown is just a day’s
ramble from here along with a ferry ride an sufficient amount of food is stuck inside my
gut fast. Grits an corn and enough biscuit t choke a horse if I am bold enough to say it. I
pass on through the market and forget the blades an ghosts of what might come to pass an
I head far past th streets of Richmond just as such a specter might. The puddles have th
eyes of ponds now-a-days they are large enough to house a spinning miller wheel in
them. I remember when the millers had the lay of the land in their pocket, now that age
seem to have passed away. I had the strangest dream of a man in a straw hat th other day.
I cannot help but think that I see that man from that dream in that puddle as I put my foot
in my reflected face it did remind me of a man I once met in th Johnson Island prison
sitting atop Ohio in Lake Erie.
I stop. For th strangest reason I believe it to be for th slightest second an
embodiment. Of some higher or lower power that much is unclear but the face is watery
an shifting. First I see th worn but thoughtful creased face of my Pa old man Dooley.
Then th clear complex face of another man manifests itself in that hole. His cheekbones
can be seen through the water’s cool gaze an he has one of those hats I seen in th sqaure
th straw kind not unlike th ones we was forced t use on th marching to Gettysburg. Times
so long gone yet they feel as though they could be today or even dare I say tomorrow for
the past sometimes gets that quality to it in that it could happen all again in different
manifestations. There is nothing new under the sun says the Good Book of Proverbs.
Those hats I seen all over the land as I marched around but it gets to me deeper than that.
The hat sits upon that cool blue skull an I can see it to be one of th canal workers or one
of the boathands on the docks outside Richmond. His hair could be red if he weren’t
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15. composed up of water but it may been black as well. Th water shifts a final time an I just
seen my own reflection in it this time. I step away from that water hole.
I continue on for another hour and a half. The cows all around are beginning to
lay down upon their front legs and all stare down at the ground as though they had no
idea the stars come out at night. Of course by this time th sun is setting but th stars can be
glimpsed through th cracks in the clouds. The ruined Confederate States lay behind me an
I feel as though I am one of th men who passed by the beat man on the road, the second
man to pass by before th Good Samaritan. It is a shameful feeling t be leaving for th
North on one sense but on th other hand it is Gods service I plan t enter. I wend on and do
my best to get past th wagons busted in the road some with burns an some of them
shackled to skeletal passed mares. As I passed the signpost pointing North and back behin
me South a shiver settled over my shoulders like a chain-link coat of arms. Th world is in
such a sorry state when th cows in th fields don’t look up to see the work of the Lord’s
hands tearing down the sun an I can’t help but recall the words the man on Johnson’s
Island up atop Ohio far north waxed to me.
“Every pebble a stone; every stone a boulder; every boulder is a mountain to us
Irish. But this world’s prisons are no pebble,” he said.
The fields are nearly full-on enveloped in darkness by this time. I believe I tarried
too long in the marketplace square making my observations an I don’t believe they are
worth recording in my journal of the war years. No I’ve written enough about th war an
the time is coming I must lay down my weary body what with th fables an all. I stop my
footsteps in one of th burnt tobacco fields in-between th ferry and Richmond’s old road.
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16. The fires burn intense in the fields out in these parts. I know it to be other families tearing
down th trees setting on th outskirts of their neighboring properties for heat. Well I need
sleep I decide. I set myself down upon a stump nearer to the road North. When I stepped
from that dirt road North I feel as if I crossed over some boundary but I know that’s a
fool’s notion for no Mason-Dixon line runs through Virginia. Over those fires off in th
distance I see the constellations an stars I was taught in school.
Rising smoke an heat dances underneath an forms up a barrier between th fire and
th sky an rightly it does give me pause I can’t quite recall what caused all this to come
about looking beautiful after all those horrors done to Richmond. The landscape is
hainted. I content myself by allowing th images of braves doing battle with the
cavalryman out west to settle over my thoughts. An the great warrior Orion slaying th
hydra washes over my mind as I slouch back on this stump and see the heat waves rising
forever upward. An I can feel the powerful pull of sleep come on almost as if I am that
boathand I seen in th puddle. I’m bein pulled out on the river onto a jetty drifting out
from some quaint canal in southern Ohio. I know I cannot make it into Georgetown
tonight but the weather is pure an crisp. I slide off from the stump to the mudcaked
ground an I curl into a fast doze.
Images from before th war come back up to the surface of my mind an ripple out.
I can’t help the man walkin up t me from th field. If this be sleep I do not know.
“Mought be a mistake to think you can go on to Georgetown in the morning,”
says the man.
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17. “Name’s Mick Finn. I helped on the path back at Richmond. I seen you staring
down at me. It’s true I haven’t much height Dooley but you need understand only that the
road yore walking is the final one your descendants ever will walk down. You go on up to
Georgetown and your descendants will keep on going that way til they get to the big
cities where no soul knows your name an the masters always will scorn you. Now you
listen close Cap. John Dooley. You go on to Georgetown and you study what the Lord
tole you to. An like Abram long before you and like Cerbaill after him youll marry the
bloodsoaked land to th North. An like Abram and like Cerbaill old high king of Eire
nobody in th land will know yore name.”
I shifted. In my vision I seen the hand of some shepherd come down over me and
touch my forehead near th spot I was nearly shot clean through by a Yankee bullet when I
was foraging in Petersburg. I gaze up an hes much taller than th pictures in my old home
make him out to be. I seen he was wearin no flowing white robe but in my dream I knew
it was God Almighty. He had about him a ruffled brown cloak as though he may be a
monk of some order with which I am not familiar. His sleeves flowed over his arms like
the streambeds I seen my friends strewn about at Cedar Creek. An just like my friends in
that creek there were splashes of brown an red an green color on those cassock sleeves.
There was a peculiar sheep wrapped around his shoulders which Mick Finn stroked upon
th neck with his hands. I had occasion to see the eyes of the sheep an was astonished to
see they had irises and the holy white of human eyes! An what is more than I could bear
the irises were th color of my Father’s eyes. I could hardly believe what I was beholding.
Well I awoke like a tree bein planted an what is more Id sunk into th mud a bit
leavin a print of my body in the earth. It was early morning an autumnal chill was comin
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18. on strongly. I could see hints of mist playin around hangin over th corners or the field as
far as I can see around. Off somewhere I cannot see are the farm livestock though the
shadows play by on th edges of my sight. It’s like in that dream how that sheep on Mick
Finn’s hands cast no shadow. Or it is rightly like the stories Father told.
I walk down th path. I see mist an it rolls on in front of me as though it were a
river mouth gently rolling on. I walk on toward th next town. Spotsylvania hills full on
bodies peek out from th trees along th path I’m on. T’ be truthful this place north of Mr.
Richmond feels like it is asleep on th battlefield trying to be mistook for a dead man. I
can see no birds but I can hear a train’s whistle somewhere mournful fierce and tender all
at the same time. Such as it is with th time being as early as it is and my limbs being nigh
frozen from sleeping on th cold earth I feel just false as th land. Chills my ankle bones
just to think of th mist rolling around like this you ought to think it could be the clothing
on th backs of the towns’men and women. I feel that strange chill travel up-ward to my
poor skull and it makes me want to lay down with it. But I will do no such a thing. I will
continue walking on toward Georgetown.
My thoughts drift as the angels did in those days carrying away the old souls who
were spilled out on the battlefield. They drifted over us, and still drifts lazier than the
world below to which all we poor travelers are consigned. This fog obscures Purgatory
deep in Sheol if what I have read and heard whilst in the camps is true.
Th path is becoming much rockier in place of th previous mud bits. Now corners
of stone detach from their ground and tumble down the path’s steep sides. I am
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19. descending somewhat slowly into a gross abyss but for the smell of th cold depths of the
Chesapeake Bay and the boat man I feel will be there.
When I approach through the pass there are two tall cliff’s sides. In those cliff’s
sides I see roots tangled as a body might be when falling from a great height. I see stones
pushed together and laying in quickly assembled heaps up top, and they speak their
stories from a place no man can fully hear but can see with their eyes be they inclined to.
It is an inaccessible place like th spot between rousing for th work day and being in the
tight grip of sleep. I can not remember why I noticed these stones but I feel deep in my
bones that it transpired as if in the same field where the boat man and the sheep and the
saint stood. It was something of a revelation for me to realize this place was linked so
stronger in my mind as I descended. Th closer I got to the bays edge th more strongly I
felt that no man could hear my voice. An outline materialized out of the wisps of wind an
fog on th riverbank.
I approach on foot. My eyes can now make much of th fill-in detail but I cannot
describe what the man standing on th riverbank resembled to my weary eyes. He holds
his hand across his chest like th pictures in th story books I was read to as a young child.
Wearing a fashion that is from some other time and place he whistles quickly the jaunty
song or as I say tune that evoked in me that dream again. This cools my racing heart that
has I feel some apprehension. But oh! What a violence comes over me and paints pictures
of th future. A violence of calling after someone leaving this life for th next as I did call
out for my men on th field at Gettysburg. They ran up the hill By God we all did in Genl.
Kempner’s Brigade. It is almost as if I am venturing back down to their graves from th
thick bushes an scrub up Cemetery Hill an it was th high water mark when we nearly
19

20. made it. Th slain men I feel I run from. Irish with Mick after their names, others still with
barbed epaulettes an machinery sputtering out in their hometowns spreading wings as
butterflies in spring do. Kempner in his splendid gray leading the charge from horseback
and men falling like leaves. Th trees spit them up as used chaw.
This man at th rivers bank speaks.
“Can see you need t’ cross the river son.”
I’m close to him now an can smell his pipe clinging to his clothes. A tiny fleck of
brown slicks from th side of his mouth. I wonder if he has been doing all right since th
time the man that look like him appeared to me before the War Between Th States.
“Theres a mighty lot of people needing passage,” I speak up,
“Some getting called away still fewer precious others getting saved. Th war took
most of what we work for all these years an I am consigned to travel North to th land of
the aggressor. But others among my kind in th South cannot find their old homes in th
ways they once were. I’m needing to get t’ th other side of this bay an I am willing t pay
what you need me to pay.”
At this th man turned an cocked his head. I did notice his hat in that moment. A
kind of felt covering which drooped low on the right side it was wide-brimmed. After a
most tense minute in which we judged each other’s competency and I indeed realized this
was th same man which Mr. Richmond had introduced me to all those long battle worn
years ago and I held out my hand to shake his. It was a pleasure to meet in this way says
Mick Finn as his head cocks even deeper than before in a bow. I recognize that it was a
20

21. gesture from some other time and place that Father had once done th same to an old
plantation man when I was a young child. An that old man’s coat was covered in dust
much like th man standing in the dirt in front of me.
“It’ll costs three Confederate dollar bills to cross this bay”, he says from under
that bowed hat but his eye focused from under th side toward me.
“What need do you have of those worthless scraps?” I exclaim. I could not see for
the life of me why this man would want such paltry fare though I kept those thought
inside me.
“These are th spiritual banks sir. All pay accepted. My days went out wit the
canals. Now-a-days if it weren’t fer th’ accepting of various form of pay I would not have
a job. O Hell last ride th’ man paid with one half-flask whisky but he did attempt to add a
piece of coal to this. I tore in at that point by God an took down that whisky an tole that
man get in.”
I was not sure how long he would continue an if he was elevated possibly from
spirits. I shift upon the gravel of th river bank an let my gaze drift out to th covered bay
which was drenched in a deeper sort of fog.
With a spit to clear his narrative he did continue.
“ I tell you one point I was able to bring forth men from th’ south to th’ north on
th’ Mississippi. From Natchez to Paducah and every beggars’ hole in between I carried
them an tricked the men and bedded the women on the banks. But now a days there are
hardly a man left to tell how Mick Finn the river man cleared the way for th’ ironclads t’
21

22. fight. They taken th’ ironclads an turn them into factories for these new rich boys to play
in as though they were th’ saints of some new smoke and metal world. Perhaps more
properly a world made of smoke an metal. I tell you I find more value in three
Confederate dollars than all the authentic greenbacks they push on us now a days.”
At this point I did speak. I felt some fact in my bones that my question could be
borne without any increase in th fare an aside from it all th venture down through those
fogs had left my head in a bold enervated state.
“Mr. Finn this still seem to be a very inexpensive fare for crossing over such a
wide expanse. T be honest which is more rare a Confederate dollar or a Greenback.”
To this his response was a scathing thing.
“I tell you the Secesh dollars but it is not any great love for those plantation men
or the army they raised nor is it in any sort an affection for Mr. Richmond. It’s the fact
that it stand for a time when I in deed stood for something that seem to have faded in
recent time an nothing more than that.”
I had hardly even expected such a thing. This Mick Finn was some new man I
figured. No where in his tirade did I sense the same raw incarnation of tomfoolery that he
showed years ago. But he did appear with his head like that an his leather brown coat as
though he were a rabid dog like those dogs on Cedar Mountain. No those were not dogs I
thought had lived in those hills. Those fogs had charged with us when we went up on to
th hill an each had a leatherbound hide that looked like some sort of terrible curse but
when I look down on them as I charge it seem time had come to a close. It was a dreadful
emotion that come over me when I looked down on those hounds and realize none looked
22

23. back up to me. When we got up to that peak there was foam that come out of those
mouths and they all kept running even running in place at th top of Cedar Mountain.
Captain said simple exhaustion of being on the trail without sleep in so long had made me
believe in eye tricks. Maybe this man in front of me was some person in th same leather
skins.
As he reached for my bills in payment I had notice of a blue overlay of veins in
his hands. He was older an it did cause a certain discomfort t swell in my breast. No time
for melancholy so I lay it by. Now by this time of day th early fog was lifting toward th
sky, dispelling like vespers whispered to th Lord at the earliest hours, I was on my way t
Georgetown University to learn those vespers by my God! No amount of battles nor
death in its complexity nor birth by means of rebirth could take me from His patient
waiting arms.
Finn thumbed th bills I gave him into a pocket tucked to the underside of his
brown coat. In that moment I studied him closely as I could. His beige cap hung low an I
got th feeling he had staggered out from a woodcut some roof thatcher or carpenter had
made for his great grand father. It was in th way he bent his head to find th pocket. There
was a slight deliberation before his purpose became clear. A level of near imperceptible
dust flickered from his overcoat as he shoved in th bills an I dare say that cows could
dance upward in th coming rays of sun an it wouldn’t cause me to alter my gaze away
from Finn in that one moment. I saw myself also in this way he fingered th bills, it was a
specific kind of faith that could move mountains once but no longer. I felt as close as I
could t sharing a common fate with another man in that moment.
23

24. Even in the action of unclasping th pocket I saw reflections of th legendary loch
masters standin on the docks from Father’s stories. It was a watered down faith bogged in
th misery of experience but strong on deft living.
What had th priest told me on my first Mass? He had told me that in this world
more than one person has been transfigured. An in my private moments I took that t be
sacrilegious and in moments where I am closer t myself I realize that it’s the way it
always has been. But I will fight for this nation America an what I had need of it t be. I
fight on in for th Lord even if he is Anglo. I nod at Mick Finn an I step not hesitant into th
rocking boat crushing stones under my open sole boots. Finn steps light upon th bank and
leaps in as though he were some ancient animal. Th sun is out full force an this inlet
glistens with fish.
We push forth from th banks and th fog is disspated entirely. It is an earthy day in
late September but the sun still shines an the water just flows by. I drift my hand through
that water. Mick Finn issues a cough an dust colors the sun rays. Seems like dust covers
up a lot of things now-a-days. Well I was yawning as we headed towards Georgetown far
down past this place.
1873
24

25. I stood upon that square in th Capitol of these United States. Off in th cold
somewhere I could still see trees dropping their leaves as though they were downtrodden
folk disposing of their rich brown coat for some other kind of covering. I know they
approached death but as trees do they shall be born again new. Women an men in their
coats seem to be goin faster on th walks by th road at this time an if you saw their faces
you would know that there was a bank panic or rather a run on th banks as all papers are
calling it. Mr. Richmond stood over to th left side of me as Mick Finn come bounding up.
Mr. Richmond was holding a copy of th daily paper where in big black letters th words
“ECONOMIC WOES ARRIVE ON AMERICAN SHORE” glared at all th heads beneath
th hats walking by. What is more I realize I have never met these men as I stand in that
square but still I know their names. The names came from somewhere though so I think
perhaps I seen them in a ships manifest somewhere an just happen to get it right.
Th bounding stops an Mick Finn had planted himself in the midst of that square
alongside myself an Mr. Richmond who took off his gray felt suit an underneath he seem
more haggard than he once was but whether from some emotional display or a fight
where he was torn down I do not know. His face held a scar I beheld from th side of my
field of vision. It was large enough t distract me as I opened my mouth t talk to this
newcomer Finn.
“Been a few years aye since I seen you last.”
Mick Finn bowed down an as his hand crossed th front of his tattered beige coat.
I seen he also bore some kind of injury but his injury took th form of a long lash acrossed
each palm. It was only when he drew back that hand an it disappeared into his sleeve
25

26. that I notice a clanking sort of noise off to my right side on over th buildings of
Washington. A group of gray men in top hats an black coats began crossin the square all
in a large procession an standing my ground on that spot in th square those men go by an
so conversation did begin to present a difficulty. It seemed as though a veritable
stampede was picking up for these men an it became a flood all of em running to th
nearest bank.
Truth be told I had no ideas as to their destination but in a manner of speaking
their unease seemed to be a palpable thing. They were capsized an thrashing
economically of course. No comfort found itself in my soul though I held my ground there
in that one square so as not t be swept into th crowd. But I do try to make a way for these
men to bypass my humble trinity of me and my companions. Some of those coat men
wove direct through us like we simply did not exist. Whenever I tried for contact with any
of their eyes it seemed I was unable to discern any facial feature beyond a long gray
beard or a slight glinting of eyeglass.
“I seen you were making a go at crossing here”, this Mick Finn said as he thrust
down his other hand into a coat pocket, “an I thought t humor you with a few words.”
I could see his face. I thought for one split rail second there could have been an
element of humor to his complexion that then went out like some river that was flooded
and some bridge taken out. Now all that could be seen upon his face was a mask but of
what I did not know.
But in any case I did not know why I knew him though I did.
26

27. “I am not crossing here yet sir. I am Jack Dooley an I do have a feeling we have
met once before though I do not know where. Are you called Mick Finn sir?”
Th shuffling an clanking an shifting of coats roundabout me hollered roughlike in
my ears still. Finn choked back a barking sort of laugh before his response. Mr.
Richmond was meanwhile takin off his coat an attempting t hand it off to some black man
crossin in th crowd surrounding our midst with Mr. Finn now our midst. Peeking out from
under his beige cap with his brown eyes he swore to Mr. Richmond who nowabout had
torn off his ragged shirt as well th blood stains caked into great bluish splashes on his
shirt. Mr. Richmond begun shouting about some allegation about that man.
Well I turn my head back to Mick Finn who was viewing this cacophony with a
great interest. He spoke up as a slow smoke began pouring in from somewhere on the
western side of town.
“Aye you have it right, I am Mick Finn an many faces have crossed my path. I
doubt you have met me in person: though I am widely known around in th southern states
so I believe y’may have seen me mayhaps on some travels in th area or else heard talk of
me in some bar out West.”
A coat man then brushed violent past Mick Finn who was balanced upon his left
foot with th other over it. I was glad of this distraction since Mr. Richmond was fast
becoming a pitiable wreck waving his stained shirt in th air an callin over th crowd. He
was callin for some sort of order but it seem to me that order was off running into a bank
an drowning an here still I was standing in this one square as though I were a phantom
no body had summoned.
27

28. “Well Mr. Finn I ask you what kind of man stands around in this square as a great
herd of men goes forward on into th banks as we are?”
I spoke loud an my voice reached a pitch I hadn’t known I was capable of. But
these men did not look in my direction, They only kept up their mad stomp to th nearest
bank an despite it all we were not being run over or splattered it seemed.
Mick Finn was standing on th flat cold stone on that square. Coming in from th
distance all that smoke I had mentioned earlier was washin over the top hats of those
stampeding men rushing off to their banks. Mick Finn took out his hand from his pocket.
Mick Finn took down his brown floppy cap from off of his head. And Mick Finn said,
“Got to get out of th way when th market bulls are rushin’on those banks.”
July 20th
, 1877.
28

29. At the whistle th train began clackiling off down th tracks. You might be thinkin
some god was guiding me from above but how I got this job even He don’t know. I was
poking my head around th market one day an just so happened I seen an advertisement by
a certain train line looking for a job with need of being filled. I did answer that call for a
new type of enforcer on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway to be called a railroad enforcer
which is some kind of policeman of th tracks.
“As long as it pays”, I had said to that man in th office room full of maps an a big
clock which sat facing me from th other side of th table.
My thoughts did drift in that meeting but I found time t speak to th clock or rather
it felt that I had been speaking to a clock whose hands did not move as normal. A man
beneath that clock said my experiences living all roundabout on tracks during wartime
would certainly be helpful and I did agree with him but absentminded. Still I couldn’t
escape this feeling of time slippin by an the clock made it obvious it was so.
Although it felt a long time I suddenly realized it took less than an hour. I walked
from th clock room out to th street in a haze as I was now employed by th Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad as a watch man. The District of Columbia had not ever look to be this way
before because at once I took notice of th seeming skeleton of metal framework up above
me on th sidewalk. It was a simple strange bit of building. Perhaps it had been or would
be for holding an awning of some sort. Almost like a web over my head but I just began
thinking what form of roof would come to be over my head after this out on th tracks?
We were told to keep a look out for the James Younger gang as a joke but rightly I
did not believe any kind of crime was going to befall me out on those lines. Still my job
29

30. was at stake an so even one crime was too much to let slip me by so I kept a watch out. I
say any crime too much to bear only because as an Irishman crime was already said t be
in my blood so an added amount of vigilance had to be observed so as to defeat that sort
of illusion. Now I take no stock in such fool notions but I tell you many do. As these
things go however I soon found out that there were less crimes to be seen than that office
man had made it seem. Most days I could find myself in th back of th train which is t say
caboose watching time flow on by th passing of each station with aid from a tarnished
copper pocketwatch. I did have workers there with me an on occasion we engaged in
discourses on recent events both political and labor centered. I often took to the opinion
that my job was the most important thing I could be engaged in an so be it if others took
to organizing I would not be a part of any such organization. Most like for fear of losing
that job I was lucky to have got in th first place.
One such of these men was a Negro porter in the Pullman cars we pulled who did
go by the name of John Abraham. He did have a quiet nature but on the topic of working
rights what could be said of him was that loyalty to the company was one priority which
he cared to make first. John had a way of using the right words to describe situations in a
piercing fashion. One such occasion introduced me to the man. It was in the year of 1875
an I had just been hired as th railway watch man. What I now known as a time of
economic troubles was gripping th whole country over an rightly we did fear for our jobs.
As was often th case I was making my rounds through th Pullman cars on a Friday as we
were waiting on passengers in th Cleveland station. I chanced to come upon John in that
car as he was doing something for which he would not be paid which is t say cleaning out
th cabin an making up beds.
30

31. I walked to him as he was standing an I said,
“By God get out of this aisle an let th whiteman through”. It was not so much as I
put supremacy in my race as it is that I was knackered after a long day an aside from that
he was beneath me on this train. But there he stood all th same as still as an icon in some
forgotten church an he said t me
“I’m not getting paid”.
It did seem t me that none of those of us working about th railroad were t be paid
that week. I watched his hands as they took out th corners of that sheet and I stood there
paying my attention to th way his eye never left th corner just t make sure that all corners
were even though the corners made an attempt to fold or rather bunch up. Th first corner
was held in one hand an he brought over t meet it at th next corner but he did hold th
sheet in th middle as he did so. All this time I failed t meet his brown eyes as they stared
at me an as he lay that blanket down I said to him
“We aren’t being paid”.
Now I am seated in front of this Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers character
by th name of Donovan McFoley an we are on a rare break an hes tellin some sorry tale
about when th Railway Union struck out against th big houses of riches. House
Vanderbilt- House Carnegie- House Astor. I am tryin t eat a sandwich an get some sleep
an this bindlestiff goes on about workers rights an unionizing an how it shall help us. I
am staring out th window as this man jaws off but I listen only a small bit. Mostly what I
am concerned about is my previous state of affairs which was before I got a job. This
windbag made it seem like we was just pawns on a patchwork board with bombs strapped
31

32. to our hands as fruit with all th chaos he spoke of. Well I had more independence than
that by God.
“There’s a way to get out from under a belly-up strike, aye, but I don’t think we
found it yet”, this great blatherskite mumbled from out under his brown moustache.
I just look out th window some more as us railroad watchmen are wont t do. You
know I hesitate t associate myself with a union man from th beginning an what is more a
worthless fellow Irishman t boot. I let spit fall from th corner of my mouth down t th
creosote floor as I chew my tobacco. This fellow had a gift for gab as we call it.
Despite my negligence toward a full hearin of his tales of strikes against railroad
baron Gould he persists in tellin me some cock-and-bull story for which I had my own
experience. Said a character named Finn visited durin that strike an arrived with some
other man who had a whip an they rode through on mares tearing down into th hired
guards as well as th strikers in about equal measure. Old Jay Gould an rightly everyone
present including th teller of th tale had nary an idea of what t do. Well I look that
blundersmith in th eyes as he told me it all an tell him that he sounds like a Protestant all
right for how much hes griefing. Well that stops his cannonade well enough.
I been on these tracks for days. What kinda Irishman gets a job on th tracks? Th
kind who caint find a job working th soil or tilling it- something he can come back from
home to see a wife an kiddies. Times like these make a man pine for th old country. Men
like myself that is t say. At times I get me a chance t gaze out on that big Mississip
country when we are tracking through th South. A place of rollin green hills an hollows
an then times other we are tracking through Penns Woods which is t say Pennsylvania
32

33. where th coal gets sucked out through human veins. Yea you do not need be a windbag t
know its us that has t suffer for th sake of th big houses of riches I believe. Th late
afternoon sun is comin in through th slatted windows of this rail car lulling me an I admit
it makes my eyelids droop as we head on out from th Cleveland station.
I hold out th days paper from my hands an see th sun cut through th faded type.
Th Plain-Dealer looks almost like a window in this light. But still I bring it over and lay it
on top of my legs. I got t get me some sleep. I yawned.
As my head nodded downward I gaze at this paper. On th front page it has some
news of th continuing rebuilding of Chicago after its blaze oh about five years back. It
says some Irish broad named McGrath fell asleep on her watch of her cow and th cow in
question kick over a lantern th small fire ended up making off with th entire City of
Chicago. Life has changed fast in that American city. Then I look through those words
and see a world on fire out on th passin landscape as well.
Well the fire took me over too because I did fall asleep in that moment. Th clitter
clatter over the tracks lull me time to dozing even if it goes against th regulation. I’m only
a watch-man at any rate and trains you cannot watch. If its on th tracks you have done
your job an well I might say. So I have no objection to letting my lids close and this
vision opens up frightening.
It was hard t take all of it in. By way of words I will set down what I seen. Th
envelope of wooden benches roundabout me give way to a black room an at first I did
rightly infer that it was a prison cell of some kind. Chains was stuck to th wall as though
they were cows internals as I seen once in the packyards on our way into Chicago. In
33

34. those chains there was a man in perhaps his early forties or perhaps fifties. I was in sterns
affront of him an he was draped down across cold brick. Groggy I open my eyes but I felt
caked blood upon my cheek. Across our bottom halfs was laid a funeral shroud tied
across as in pictures of Jesus Christ. Water ran down from th single window which I saw
to be about fifty feet higher than my cell-mates head but I could feel no rain an rightly th
sun seemed t be pouring in in equal measure.
I open my mouth.
“Where is this place?”
To this simple question I received none an answer though my companions mouth
did move somewhat. He had on an old tan jacket an had a white beard but I seen he had
brown hair mix in with some black too. Blood stained his face too a he appeared out of
sorts. I look up to th window with bars over it an light shone down but it is a cold light. I
feel myself ascending on through that window an leaving that man behin’ me. My chains
rattle down an as I flow up I feel as a soul must feel. It was th strangest dream as I could
have sworn a song was sounding in my ears as I flew an it had something t do with
marching on t Richmond.
I seen a landscape rolling by. Sage-brushes an cactus an tumbleweeds which I
seen only in my mind. I know it to be th West where tall tales I hear oft from my co-
workers come from. But quick goes by that barren place to be reflected only on th loch
waters of a place I feel myself to be a distant part of. I am flying at a speed I cannot
describe in English over those waters. I seen a man in a boat going through those waters
at a speed going th same as me. His flopped brown hat turns up an he looks up an faces
34

35. me an I feel a peculiar affinity to that boat man as both of us take people home. Or at th
least to a place closer to where their homes may be.
I can only see white or more properly opaque waters underneath but when I turn
my head I seen a field of sheep being led about by some man who smoked a pipe. He was
dressed in a queer manner of an earlier time when men could be seen t wear frilled things
an black overcoats. Which is what caused the alarm whistle t go off in my head? How is
it that this high society man is leading around all these sheep?
As it often happens a feeling came over me that this man was of Southern stock.
He held a cane and a tall stove pipe hat as he shew the sheep where to place their hooves.
I come to be idle over this verdant rolling space an saw a procession of sheep marchin
lockstep as though they were soldiers. At a certain point sheep reach from one end of th
field to th other an th water was not far off but they kept up that march. Th man cracked a
whip over th heads of tardy ones an t be truthful I had a tough time remembering how
long I had tarried there before they all stopped at waters edge. A mirthful grin did appear
on th man’s face when he cracked his whip once again and th sheep first hoof started in
on th water. No sound that sheep is known to make came out but I notice the back of th
procession was breaking formation an what sounded like a human mimicking a sheeps
plaintive baas begun floating up to where I was.
By this time th Boatman had shored up his to th right of this procession which I
come to see was on an islands edge though northern parts of it was covered over in cloud.
I gaze back around my own head or at least back of behin’ where my head should be. He
got on out of th boat an walked up t where the old strange-coated man was. The two of
35

36. those characters conversed in a joking sort of way as they for sure had seen me by this
time. I couldna shake th feeling that they had known I was there from even th beginning
an from even afore that hatted boatman seen me. An it was then that I look back at th
flock as I float over th sheep tearing each other apart underneath an in disgust I turn
upward where I see what I only seen in previous times as a statue in some yards which is
t say a man who looked to be a Saint. His crook stretched down from th sun feeling out th
territory for a place t come down. Saint Patrick it was surely an he appeared to emanate
from that sun when comin down an reachin for what sheep there were left.
As th crook reach the worlds surface a stronger breeze than I could understand
struck me.
In that moment I was torn from that strange place to what I felt was th flesh and
bone world. Th wakening was anything but peaceful however for I jerk up my head and
see th train bouncing fast to its final stop which as I recalled was to be th Chicago station.
There would have been no way out of this final destination whether I was ready or not an
so I stumble out of th watchmans cabin.
In an instant the prophetic word of th Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
comes to me. By God sometimes life does just grab you by th horns and as the saying
goes it throws you out to a place you do not want t be. As we pull in to th station I steal
many glances out th window as I can between my checking of th end of trip manifest an
at my pocketwatch. It appear t me that folks are milling about on th platform in a
tumultuous sort of unorganization. Some are shouting an some have even begun throwing
things around or at least it appears that way. That ole B&O train slowly settled to its final
36

37. rest as it first seemed th Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineersmen were all over this
place causing a ruckus. I was worried irrationally that th James Younger gang coulda
come that far East an was now mucking up th crowd outside th windows.
As railway watchman I am responsible for ensuring that the crowd inside my rail
cars disembarked in a safe fashion. Well they th Youngers had killed several railway
watchmen in Missouri an who knows how bold they may be a gettin. Well it was not my
time to join those defenders gone on before so I did strap on my gun-belt. I step from th
caboose across th clanking gap in-between cars. I enter my first passenger car with
everyone in their seats staring worried out th window same as I have been. As I paced
down th aisle on my way through to th front of the cars I pass by th Brotherhood Man
McFoley. But it was not th time for conversation any more so I pass on by McFoley who
is seated facing outward into th aisle. His face looks pained an normally he is stationed
back in th caboose lord knows why hes up here in with these passengers but mayhaps he
was goin up t see th conductor. Now he sits panicked looking an sippin at his flask for
one last bit of whisky.
Next car had all manner of folk reacting in many a way. One lady was sharpening
her nails an her daughter observing her face in some pearl handled mirror. I pass by a
couple who seem to be doin nothing but staring into each other’s eyes. I was wonderin
how some man and woman could fall to be that way as I often fervently hope for a family
but know a travelin man t not be th kind which can found any family worth staying off th
track for. As my job was at stake if I continue thinking this malarkey I go through to th
next car.
37

38. Now on this car there was a visible tumult hangin about in th air as passengers
look out their windows an I can see out through those same windows to th crowd
gathered in th station. Th glass cast a strange reflection of worried faces mix in with some
man throwing a burning cudgel at a car a few ahead. I check at my side if I have th baton
given to railroad watch men on this line an I am rightly assured these scenes are real so I
tear my eyes away from th window and move on. Just to be sure I take off that baton
from my belt loop an heft it. It does reassure what uncomfortable feeling lies in my gut
but truly its like drawing shut th curtains after a passenger already has seen raiders
gaining ground.
I step over th woodboard floor with shillelagh in hand an in my other hand I
occasionally grasp to th edge of a seat. Passengers run by with hats in hand pushing past
despite my calls to order for seats t be taken during this crisis. I cannot look into th eyes
of any person here for I feel I may see some other world of fear to which I do not want to
become accustomed. I seen enough of that world in dreams an dyspeptic rhetoric
grumbled by Mr. Donovan McFoley. After gaining back my wit I leap through to th next
car. I hope to God that crowd knows what it is doing.
All shades are drawn but in trying to see clearly what I perceive as cigar smoke in
this cabin stings my eyes. Now in this car a palpable feeling of dread sits down as though
it were a passenger itself. It is still some time before I manage to grope my way through
this black space to find a handhold to continue pulling myself forward to exit through th
lead car. Against th side I hear men being struck already by men an if my ears did not
deceive me I did just hear a bottle shatter an glass drip as a bit of rain might clap over a
tin roof. I cough out loud an when breathing in am stung by th smoke flowing in through
38

39. windows opened. I hear no sound other than what I have described which is to say a
mass of people banding and scurrying to attack some other people. Aye this car is slowly
catching fire an as I approach closer to its exit- behind me a few first licks of fire sprout
up. This has quickened worse than any attack by th James Younger clan.
I come out through th blackfire car an step down in to th space between it an th
coal-car.
Light on my feet in th space between I stand there catching my breath from that
smoky hell. I spy through th crack here an go prone. Ash floats about catching in my
eyebrows burning me. Men run past an cannot see where I hide though I crouch down all
th same lower an lower hoping I do not have t defend against this assault. Theres all
manner of shouts and objects thwacking against th side of th enormous black engine up
ahead about five yards. It sounded as though some horrible inventor made up glass
muskets and give em to these people. Then I hear shouts from that locomotive cabin an
reckon that there is an altercation between a leader of this ragtag crowds an Hollywood th
Conductor. He was using his cupped hands to louden his hoary voice.
Now I stand up on my own two feet an I head out towards this cacophonic
assembly. It is probably my job to make sure that Hollywood does not reach harm so I
trample my way through by that platforms edge trying my best t avoid th ugly writhing
crowd. I hear th conductor’s voice. But I plainly do not hear him as I normally would for
his voice became muffled out by th crowds. He really spoke! Th noisy human landscape
is spewing out invectives an curses. In that moment I enter into th center of th crowd up
on that platform an by God I feel as though a tempest surges round but a tempest of blood
39

40. an sweat and beards. Fists fly but at no one in particular. Suddenly I feel no compulsion t
using my night stick against these men but even though one turns t face me and we see
each other eye to eye.
I desperately glanced up above this chaos trying to gain my bearings an catch
sight of th conductor whose wavering voice now falls across th heads spattered all around
me. But I am now being enfolded into a terrible wall of human bodies an can no longer
refrain at em from smacking at these nameless people an so I swat at their arms an legs an
I am Samson fightin with th jawbone of an ox. I yell out for Hollywood but those arms
then start reaching to take away my weapon but I keep flailing. A body is tossed up in
front of me then it falls down to th crowd around me beneath feet an beneath cold
railroad track an finally beneath th engine out of sight.
Then on that black engine is th conductor batting away at all reachin up angry
toward his legs. He is demanding that crowd to disperse which is leading to no effect at
all an at th foot of that cow catcher which is to say th gargantuan steel grate pushing out
from the front of that locomotive I leaned back and had to beat off climbing rioters from
reaching th conductor. I began to climb up th locomotive myself.
“Clear out! Clear out! In the name of all that be holy disperse!”
Hollywood choked on his words when my hands cover my ears an I clearly did
understand that this man was th incarnation of th company man that th Brotherhood man
was talkin about an so took my hands across his face.
I tore into that face with my nightstick an felt th flesh ripple beneath my hands.
40

41. I beat that man an by God I beat him down to death an down into th pit of
screaming rioters.
1885
I am standing in th dirty Chicago market place an hay flutters all around
scattered on th wind like votes on voting day when th Carnegies and Rockefellers sit up
an handmake th ballots so they can stuff all of ‘em into a ballot box and so secure
41

42. Chicago for th rich man. I have come acrossed such reports in th papers such as in this
Tribune I find on th way to work. In days like this all papers take a tumble in th wind so
in that wind I let it go an it tumbles an work is where I gotta get to now. So I set on down
from this street past th dirty Chicago town where th cheapest housing I’s been able to find
is which is t say a small two room affair with torn wallpaper an no toilet an fires starting
due to poor-made houses frequently.
An I go on down West 31th
Street an on down th road or I suppose th sidewalk. Th
market place is far behin’me now but straw keeps whiskin past my ears an stinging when
it hits my face. I have come t notice th hay is on fire in places. It was in th early dawn
hours an I hoped no fire should be rushing at this hour. It all seemed like an otherworldly
prank of sorts. I think on a certain bitter level fire just has th same sort of godhead as
does a boss or general an what is certainly more t say it has th same sort of appetites for
fuel just like th Great Fire that had its cause found in a single cow. I lost all prior
thoughts of that kind as well as supposing on what was to be done about this whole
ordeal when a suddenly burning clump of straw or grass grazed my beard which alerted
my nose to a dreadful smell of burnt hair. I realized I had a terrible singe to my beard but
it was not th same kind of fire that had burned th whole city of Chicago but could still
burn me. A fiery hay that caused me t slap my own face until th smoke stopped its
smoking.
Then I look down th street an then up at th mountainous buildings surrounding
my body. Over in th distance loomed th new bases of what is t be called a sky scraper.
Well I’m walking towards th meat packing district at Armour & Company. Th place
boasts itself as th most productive livestock slaughterer in th world an I was on th
42

43. livestock detail. I roped th animals an took them down to th killing rooms in with th sharp
knives of th butchers. More than once I had thought on it that we were all chained on this
conveyor going towards a great sharp hole despite different clothes an taking different
manners of habit. But right at at that moment of realization I come out onto th
intersection where the trees stand upon th corners as though they were soldiers retiring
from active duty an movin in to collect their pensions. Then I seen that figure in a tree.
Was it only some kind of morning mist perhaps coalesced into a mans shape? As I
moved into th street an as more of that damned fiery straw blew past an I still smelled
from my own beard fires stench. So it took awhile before I realized it was truly a man. But
this man I felt was someone I had known even before my fathers father’s father had
arrived from over th Atlantic Ocean. Aye this man wore a breeched coat with an
assortment of handmade buttons of no kind producible by any mass factory in Chicago
nor in any city I had known. At first I took that shape t be new leaves bursting forth from
upper branches was a man in a scarecrows cap sitting on th middle branch of a tree to th
upper left of my sight. His back was curved downward looking at me an I could have
sworn he looked haggard as an old dockhand. In th morning dark it was nigh impossible
t see him by th eyes but his head was so inclined as to be staring straight into me if he
had any sense to him.
I called out,
“How did you come t get up there?”
At th beginning I received no response from this stranger. That face was deep in
shadow. It looked down on me from a height of about sixteen feet an both hands were in
43

44. th pockets of that great breeched coat. I did see by this time that th sun was beginning its
crest over from the east from in th direction of Lake Michigan where boats crews must be
awakening an goin out onto decks t secure cargoes bound for all manner of godforsaken
places. Th light got in my eyes and did force me to squint some what. Well I took it as a
trick of th light but take shape in those piercing rays from th mornings rising sun I started
seeing a queer procession up there in th sky. I had not gotten on with much sleep in some
time which I accord t overwork so all of my observations must of course be taken with a
natural caution. But I swear I saw a holy man leading heifers down into th city from th
direction of the sun. An as each one touched th street I heard there be let out a long
human groan which did unsettle me a great amount. For what it means I have no
presumption however as th beef cows approached with that ugly murmur I saw th man in
th tall brown cap turn his face direct t me an suddenly I knew his name was Finn.
Once th final cow touched ground it let out its terrible insides all on to th
surrounding streets. Mick Finn stirred on his branch. I perceived him t be bending th
branch which he sat upon up an down as though he were testing its ability t bow before
breaking off complete. This was th last thought I had before that branch finally did snap
an Mick Finn dropped right down to th sidewalk an I stepped towards him of my own
volition though I knew full well that I was late an in danger of losing my job which is to
say my livelihood an my only means of surviving in this entrail-filled city. To tell it true
this place can be as cold as th English.
Mick Finn took th shorn branch he had drop down from and stood it up on one
end as I approached. At th same time from behin’a creaking tenement on his right side
came th man who had herded th cows who looked like an elder priest but in th wrong
44

45. epoch an rightly I thought perhaps I am not turning insane after all for this cleric could
be from some order which aims t reduce th suffering in this crowded an smoking ruin of a
city. Well he took to Finn’s right side at any rate. Neither of them ever spoke up when I
told them I must go off an be on my way t work. An then th most frightening of anything I
had ever perceived or felt in my life emerged straight from that tree trunk behin’Finn an
th cow shepherd. Finn twisted off a thin offshoot from his former perch an gripped it
tight.
It was as though some terrible abomination from a novel had just emerged from
that trunk an that thing had these full moon eyes which pierced me surer than th sun had
minutes ago. Seein it was like swallowing knives through th gullet of my skulls eye
sockets. I realized it was Mr. Richmond. This was beyond fright as I may have felt in th
stockyards. Time was not passin as it should have been in an ordered world. This bastard
walked as a man but wore only one pants leg for th other side had been torn asunder
from th hip down an by God that leg was raw red bone with wee gibbets of meat stitched
on. Its top portion was composed of slats of assorted flesh from bulls an pig an every
piece to every animal I had ever had seen killed an men I had ever seen butchered an
digested in th innards of Armour & Co. From my eyes corner I seen that heavy brown
robed cleric mouthing a prayer or a curse unto God or perhaps I was who done this. I
swear by that morning light I seen African fingers an hands reaching out from that
demented monster’s rib cage. But it seem that every time th white eyed creature took a
sharp intake of air those hands would get drawn in along with breath. On its bloodcandy
head it wore a stove-pipe top-hat.
45

46. I could not take my eyes off this. I was compelled to it. I put down roots in that
roads center. With a cantering affected walk that give it an alien feel it drew nearer.
Mick Finn asked one question an I was rooted to that spot thinking myself in an
ungodly profane place. An yet like th boulder in front of Christ’s tomb I could not be
moved by human hands. Mick Finn asked me one question however an his beast was
almost at my throat so I answer it in as succinct a possible way as I could. Mick whipped
that branch an leaned forward as he ask th question
“Pardon an old man do you know how to get on to Jefferson and Desplaines? I
‘ave a shipment of Men I need unlatched waiting on th Canal...”
I nodded towards th direction I was going prepared t be added to this gory
abominations hide.
It was th monk who embraced me.
May 2nd
, 1886
So its begun I s’pose that is t say my work shift at Armour & Company doing the
killing and general hog tying of all th meats t be produced on the days shift. I know
definitely that what I had experienced this morning was not some mind trick but was an
honest to God apparition of some kind. Haints are th last thing I need at this time as many
men had been stomping roundabout th city raising a ruckus for months calling out “eight
46

47. hours of work for ten hours of pay”. Well that sounded all right an even luxurious but that
hog killin line would not kill itself so as long as I was a line worker thats what I would do
despite my need for a better life for my wife an our younger one on his way into th world.
My wife an I was very much in love an her name was Mary. Th child we just didn’t know
of what t call yet although it was in th old tradition of my Catholic ancestry from Ireland
to wait until th christening to bestow that important marker of maturity.
That melancholic madness that one can get after a long night without sleep now
was my ever present companion or at least it did feel that way. I stepped up to th steps of
th buildings front an pushed open that door an prepared t relate in simple terms that there
was some sort of macabre procession that had happened on that cold street that morning.
Upon my entry to th slaughter room th floor boss glided on over t me. He went by
th name of Samuel McCall and had migrated over to Chicago from th eastern seaport of
Quincy that is very close to th city of Boston an was of th Northern Irish originally before
his great grandfather set out against th Atlantic. His buttonless copper-color coat was
drooped over his shoulder like some bird of prey such as a jayhawk that had died upon
him an his mustache seem to be the rat or rabbit that had been that bird of preys final kill.
Now th jayhawk had much in common with the Northern Irish man and more especially
this Northern Irish man for the jayhawk flies about in th dark stealing th eggs of all birds.
I say of course Northern in th sense that he was a Yankee an it seem to be that
Yankees still harbored a resentment of sorts for my race. Well without th God-damned
English none of us would be here would we now? However as portions of my stock did
come from Richmond an as that thief king Hayes had stolen th election I did see some
47

48. enmity between ourselves on that point for McCall was a Massachusett Irishman through
an through an so supported Hayes. Well it was fact that th jayhawk was known to kill
other birds for th reason of acquisitioning th property of those other birds. So I s’pose I
cannot blame him for his eyes which had a hungry razor-bound look about them that only
served to boost that carrion feeder image of him. When he opened up his ponderous beak
it was like a face staring back out at you in those horrid stained teeth. He inhaled damn
near all th poisonous air in th kill shack for the whole morning and when he spoke bloody
splashes were fixed all across his mustache due to his being on the line. In truth it just
gave him more menace than he was worth. McCall spoke up.
“I can hardly excuse ye for such an impertinence in attending to the kill fields but
as it is the first offence ye have made on this an on account of how many years ye have
been here I feel some mercy in my heart. Were it not fer the amount of damn street
parades and happenings about city involving the cursed anarchist element we been having
to hear all week I may been less generous but as it stands Mr. Dooley I will leave ye to
yore slaughtering for I must go over to the foreman’s office for the day.”
I did watch him float past me with his feet squashing light in his leather boots of
terrible make all sopped with th blood of th floor that even now was swishing up against
my own.
This was th beginning of a days labor which I would have no recollection for my
mind was taken up by th question Mick Finn asked of me about where th corner of some
streets was. Where was that place I directed him to? Might have been th old Market. I
stepped on out to th enclosed field which had filaments of wire guarding all animals
48

49. within from hurting themselves for that was my job. Th line of dead and dying hogs
affected us all in equal measure. But Mick Finn’s inquiry from that morning was surely
what gave me a trembling sort of emotion right then. Mick Finn had asked where could
he unload his human cargo? I felt a lump growing in my throat an thinking back to th
Southern ways gone twenty years past Th upper crust of society had indeed profited from
it or used it to spring themselves into th upper reaches of class. Had we not as Dooleys
been part of that system as hungry merchants? We too was responsible for putting the
strap to th hand of th black man. Well perhaps I am gettin what I had comin to me but
slaves fought back too an so shall I. As I walk down th aisleway to get to my proper work
of this day which is t shear off hogs skins I feel a little like both slave an master.
A block of stone was set outside th entryway for employees as a step t get down
safely from th upraised doorway. Well I felt my boots slip up in th mud on that first step
down anyway. I coulda busted my damn ankle but saved myself though I did
overcompensate an so dig my other heel deep into mud an pig slop. I extricated myself
from that muck an wiped off that mud on th side of that stone block which shifted slightly
in th mud upon my foot’s contact all th while hearing around me th squalling of hogs an
th snuffling of their noses gouging out their own holes in th mud. Then I look at my boot
an an tried to wipe off th mud which was in a sense pointless as th whole yard was awash
in th stuff. All hogs in th yard was even covered even their eyes. I slid about in it but still
kept my balance as th pigs started massing an runnin through th yard like a crowd
dispersing. But I tell you it was a slow motion. It was as if there were a great tremor in th
yard an so I decided to get a move on.
49

50. But due to that tremor I felt a bit of th older wary soul in myself an tried knockin
upon th wood of th door thrice for that was my own great grand-fathers way of ceasing th
activity of any evil around him. Knocking on wood or so it was he had called it. Then
going on through th door I strode th wooden floors of the slaughterhouse where on great
chains above our caps dripped th guts of several hogs a minute each with his scrubby
snout an mud spackled back which various standers on th line first had t clean before any
further operations such as skinning an knifing with as much effort as five minutes could
muster up. Now it came on my conscience that each of the hogs killed up on that chain
may as well been th fellow workers I seen come an gone through that same door for
many years. An as I take up my knife t carve up th still writhing pigs which have not all
been killed as deep as they should have been I think wire was wrapped all around all of
us. We are all them smashed brains or else th entrails pulled fresh from th belly an
slopped in th drainage gutter on th floor.
I stood on that killing floor carving up those damn beasts an it was thoughts of
Mick Finn’s world came back on me. If a boatman he truly be then that was th world of
the old Richmond an the old Mississip. All over in those days they had canals that pull
down th boats an on em stood th river men. They pulled themselves and their cargo along
by th hoisting of poles into water some of which could reflect a mans true soul in th sense
that it reflected a man’s honest toil against th elements. All day he would work at getting
by much like myself but in those days still there were times for merrymaking and loafing
on th banks of th river dragging on a well-packed cob pipe. I had learned all of this up
from my father Jack who had been a rail way man out West somewhere.
50

51. There was a sort of socialist thinking I knew was present down in Bridgeport
where I lived an it was talked of in meetings throughout the South Side. It had been near
on a decade since th Battle of th Viaduct which had occurred down near my small
lodgings which was a frightful affair of gunfire from the police on to honest working
men. Come t think upon it it there were a various number of scuffles going on throughout
this city as recently as this past night on account of this combination of thinking an
reaction of th authorities against it. I heard there was some sort of a commotion down on
near to th McCormick plants earlier in th week.
“Heard true,” said a fellow toil-man living down in Bridgeport th Irishman’s part
of this here city of wind, “Heard true that many a man was killed by th coppers in that
skirmish which was outside of that plant. An ya know true too that damn Cyrus is not th
least like his old man an he is all for th greenback dollar an does not care one bit about
his men some of whom been working on those reapers since before his own wretched self
even came into existence. Truth be told I think all this may just be about th presence of
new machines because they can control machines but they cannot tame mans soul at least
not in such an easy way.”
Now this man I should mention is both my fellow working-man and my closest
ally here. Ever since I moved on up from where my ancestors come from (who did some
time in Virginia where an altogether different sort of wage was paid to th working man)
an ever since from th time before that when th patriarch come over from th emerald
island over th ocean (where th working man was an honest man an so it went with even th
shopkeep) I had always felt less an inclination to rebel an more of a simple sense of
justice an Lord let me say unto my dark cold grave that this was no justice. This friend of
51

52. mine was named Blackie for he was th one who went up lock stock an barrel into th
reapers for th oiling of th individual parts. But I had not the slightest clue where that sort
of name come from other than a passing fact which Blackie himself threw out in
conversation one day that th Irishman in th mines out in Pennsylvania was called as such.
That was that.
There was agents in th street in those days an by God they pulled both th billy
club an th th handle of th gun on any man or woman whom they thought might give them
guff. Even to a child would these mercenaries stoop down to club. They was named
Pinkertons an in my estimation th name conjured up flashing images of gun fire lodging
into faces all paled up from death. McCormick had hired the Pinkertons t stand all
guarded outside of his reaper works where th farm machines were soon to be made by
other machines that may as well a-been running over men an children in th process for all
he cared. On account of them workin for less the company brought in poor negroes from
th outer belt of th city to work instead of white men. I did not feel the blacks was given a
fair shake to begin with but at th hands of both striking men an putting up with th
McCormick men an also having to go on through th ranks of Pinkertons these poor
fellows were taken for a terrible spin. An even th lower class of whites McCormick got in
there to boost along production an they were of Bohemian stock an none had any sort of
clue that they were killing off their own jobs by setting it all up so th machines could take
it all on instead. For those Bohemians was th ones installing them machines. An we was
all workin for Cyrus McCormicks Junior.
Blackie ministered all these goings-on to me as we walked along that night on
Archer Avenue. All along on that street were th cries of children forced out from
52

53. underneath trash barrels an slops of food hung off from their typhoid lips all miscolored
like th children of Israel besotted with flies in th desert of Jordan somewhere back then.
Now I was no man of regular faith but I attended to my upbringing at times when a mans
life was in just this kind of danger. Times like these try a mans soul down to th quick an
no more had I any excuse for Pinkertons were going to come on in to th killing house of
Armour an kill men instead of beasts if I did not join up in some assembly to stop it. Th
crowd outside of McCormick’s Reaper Works thinned never in face of threat but only
from lead an brunt force. I call a pox on them private dragoons hired by the worst of th
Royal Houses of Chicago- th spoiled Prince Cyrus Junior. An so to resolve my questions
that night I am off to learn all I can. An so I head off down Lake Street to th saloon
Zepf’s Hall.
This place lay on th corner of 122nd
Street an Lake. Many a man versed well in
labor disputes an their ultimate causes an even knew such a thing as a book read in
earnest for pleasure rather than a book utilized for purpose. In appearance it looked like
any other bit of town which us Irish was known t inhabit. Blackie led me here once back
when my family had first come up from th bays on th East coast back in th time when I
had first scrambled for a job of any sort an that was oh near ten years ago. Yes around th
time of th Battle of th Viaduct an th men being cast off from that viaduct to their watery
ends in th Chicago River by cops. A pox on em all.
Zepf’s Hall was in reality a German sort of place. It had many a Dutchlander
imbibing even during th day; it stood tall made of brick an mortar though th men inside
had an inkling of things gone deeper. I gaze up at th sign outside that mortal place an feel
a breeze blowing but what was strange is that it was much like th wind I had felt on th
53

54. morning of my Finn encounter which is to say a warm wind. In truth it was May an I
scratch onto my mind that this is normal. However th religious portion of my soul felt it
uneasily.
An I enter through its sagging doors an my lungs fill up with th stench of th great
unwashed. Tobacco stained heads some balding some in slouch- hats of brown or black
an some with hair of white an some with an unkempt shock of burgundy or flame or used
tea leaf brown I known from my own sort. All were listening to a man up on th bar who
had a sort of small goatee an a day or twos worth of stubble on his reddish neck. I could
see it from my place standing beneath th bar as I strode on up to take in his words. An he
had a high part in his hair which did resemble a bread-line. An his fist came down like a
hammer on that spilt-beer yellow countertop. An I known all this due to th whispers of th
men beside me who had heard this man speak before.
His name was August Spies.
“Workingmen, held down by the buyers of flesh, the capitalist bloodhounds! Your
bones are not your own, and never have they been! When your grandfathers worked in
ceaseless labor on the land, the landowner lorded it over you, and where the freed black
man stands before you in this place you see a physical being evincing a time when the
enemies of free labor were not so modest in their aims. These leeches seek to take what
honest work they can from the working men who power their never ending conveyor belt
of flesh, whether it be lost on the line, or in the very signing of the contract that binds him
to the factory- to the land as in the case of the sharecroppers- or to the gallows, if he be a
carver of wood!”
54

55. An as he spoke he gestured roundabout taking in all th men assembled all of us
rapt up in his vitriol. One of Spies’ hands sought refuge in th’ coat pocket an I couldn’t
help but have known that same mannerism from another time. But for th most part I stood
linked to that man’s angry soul- angry on behalf of wronged men such as myself. I feeled
a kindred for him an though it was true he held a Germanic name I considered that no
man wronged stood different from any other before th Highest Authority of em All.
Spies moved t talk.
“Working men, the events of the past days have shown us with a clear head, even
when under the duress of an entire social class bent on breaking down our wills, and
grinding our hard gains into dust. Will it be as it was in the days of 1866 when the first of
these laws, these laws which the pernicious crucifiers of labor and self-styled persecutors
of a free wage oppose with every fiber of their consumptive being, though the slave be
free not even an entire year? It will not and shall not be gentlemen! Likewise, it shall not
be as in the headstrong days of 1877! The railroad barons quaked before the power of the
engineer and the porter and even began to apportion to him what was due before the
cursed dogs of capital, Jay Gould and his hench-men Pinkertons, struck from behind at
the heart of the noble coal slingers and even the unaffiliated railway watch men-
employed at his own request but to be thrown down into the crowds with wounds all the
same!”
As he said the Pinkerton name aloud an audible bit of violence escaped up
through th mouths of th men seated beneath him at the bar.
55

56. An then Mr. Spies turned down his hardtack face to th crowd an declared it t be th
appointed time. “Gentlemen” is one word I notice he used continually though I think he
would rather court that animal instinct which I known man was capable of an it was a
horrible thing. At least I know that animal instinct in myself having on th line an roping
up those mud addled hogs an uncoiling their innards which Mr. Armour bragged of
having a use for in just about every product we sold. Animal instinct was being called up
this night an Mr. Spies with his delicate bristly head of black an I felt he shared some
more kinship with those animals of Mr. Armours. Just like men with knives an bombs
hogs had tusks an teeth an just like men they had no compulsion against eating their own
kind.
In hindsight if we see backwards into our smelly behinds this was t be th realness
of th flesh of discontent. August Spies poured out fire I admit he poured fire an vitriol an
laid out on th heads of many a working man in this bar- Irish an not Irish an German an
not German Norwegian an not Norwegian Polish an not Polish American yes all of us
even th mongrels such as myself. By this point I am not even sure that I can be called an
Irishman for so mixed my blood is in with this soil none can see no more. Overhead there
was an old sort of lantern swinging in th breeze comin in off th street where to be sure
men were comin off from th midnight shift down th street from th Square that they called
Haymarket. According to Spies a meeting was t be held there shortly. I turn away from
that man as he got down off of th bar top an excuse himself hastily.
Then everyone roared out an I turned out with em toward th street an th street had
many types striding down th sidewalk of Desplaines. Men an women in black an gray an
beige even some with cravats which was a rare thing. Perhaps they was clerks in some
56

57. office downtown come to see th trouble brewing here in this part of this city we called
our own. Suits of many colors but all dull like animals dying an this I knew th color of
quite well for keep it in your mind I am a slaughter man. I follow down a man in a small
folded over cap of poor make an it had a hole over th eyes on th brim probably from
grasping it so many times. A darker frame of mind might suggest it was a bullet hole.
Well its not such a distant thing t have a bullet in a hat nowadays.
We walk down th road in tight procession he with his black frayed woolen coat an
me in my blood stained working apron which for th life of me I had forgot to take off
after my shift today. A great babbeling of language clotted over my ears as we all shifted
grim in through th mud pushing ever toward a man on a wagon raising hell an going
down on capital an big business. By his side beneath that wagon stood two men willing to
add in their two bits. Already there was a gathering out front bigger than I had ever seen
an rain began fallin in a coarse sort of way. I cannot say it was a comfortable dousing at
all for it felt like fire more than water. An th man in front of me with th bullet hole in his
cap got lost in th crowd yet I think on him no more.
A man in a black suit stamping on top of hay in th year our Lord 1886 on a small
wagon open to th winds which were picking up speed. They were warm- an occurrence or
an omen I know not which. Workingmen seem to be at arms though no weapons was
drawn out or even present in the marketplace square. Well many of them were shouting
capitalist this- government that! Y’wouldn’t know it from the mill-abouts but half these
men seem t be Dooley stock an I was among them. All of us stood in that square listening
to th man on th podium as he shook his vengeful fists around. His name I believe was
Sam Fielding. His beard shook a bit an his fists shook more t compensate for what seem t
57

58. be a lack of word planning. At least his loud denunciation of th shooting yesterday down
at McCormicks gave off that effect. For his words were unrehearsed. He pointed down
Jefferson Street an th crowd turn an look t see some procession which I earlier took t be a
funeral but I suddenly realized that no funeral took up that whole street not even when
Abraham Lincoln himself or rather th body of him crossed this ground.
So it was that th 152nd
Regiment of th Chicago Police Dept come marching up
with us t the muddy market grounds. Seven had targets on their heads an would perish
but who an where an why they had targets on their heads was th domain of historians an
the ghosts that go along with his trade. Pools of what I perceive as scalding dark
rainwater gathered round our feet an we kept up listening to Sam Fielding who smiled an
we were giving shouts when it seemed appropriate an nodding our heads all at once.
Workers kept on working somewhere off in th distance both at McCormick’s Reaper
Works an at th Armour Plant I’m sure while beef cows kept right on marching through
dark pools sinking lower into the ground in places they couldn’t avoid. I felt much th
same as the steers so I joined in the cacophony an th general muttering. The days in
Bridgeport where I had laid fallow of ideas on improving my condition were as the mist
had been this morning. Those days joined in to the swirl around my head along with the
words Sam Fielding on the podium was shouting an forthwith th words surrounding us
clustered together as the voices of the spirits did in the forests once upon a time to my
forefathers. I have forgotten th names of those forefathers. They are forgotten somewhere
I imagine in th logbooks kept by th men on th platforms in ports. My cousins told me
their tales. Knock on wood so th fairies forget- but I ask you is it good for a mans nation t
forget where it is he come from an forget that he is a man?
58

59. Well now I am washing off in the rain an words keep slipping from my lips
unbidden while slander likewise crossed th lips of lined-up cops jus waiting for a shot at
this man. I shout affirmatively when th man asks,
“Have you been oppressed here?”
Yes by God. I shout even more so in the affirmative when he asks,
“And have you worked your honest share? Have you put in fourteen hour days,
twelve hour days without resting?”
Yes by my God yes!
An I know there is more to life than struggle no matter what the Holy Church
Fathers said in their treatises with th first Christians. I see because the man on the podium
has th know-how t speak it right as we know it and hes got th support of no bosses which
is easy t tell because those blue guttersniping police keep up their grumbling down
Jefferson Street a-ways. Coppers is always on bosses sides much as Protestants is always
at Englishmens sides. Loyal lapdogs all. Well Fieldings keeping on point as a bloodhound
asking questions to us an th more positives we respond with th more th policemen nudge
each other an wink an carry on an the more of them unholsters their weapons an load
bullets in. This I seen by glints of silver on their persons in th rain slowly givin out.
Well by this time th rain was ceased falling an most listeners had gone on home. I
stayed to hear the climax of th man’s speech an received something else entirely. Now as
th drops cling to buildings tall above us falling fat upon th sidewalk plain a policeman
59

60. with th trace of a grin I feel sure I saw somewhere long time ago looks up at th man an
interrupts,
“If we’re so similar Mr. Anarchist what reason have ye that we stand over in blue
making sure you lot don’t take us over? If we’re all oppressed workers oughtn’t we be by
your side? “
“Well yore listneng aren’t You?!” scuttled out Fielding.
And the policeman does not wait for an answer he thumbs the side of his trousers
and theres a flash of heat lightning off outside the city limits. The man on the podium
glanced from his iron-spectacled eyes to th lined up cops. Here we seen a union of a
different sort which is t say th union of scalawags an I cannot help feelin proud to be up
against bluecoats much as my grand-uncle John Dooley was once even though it was a
cause for doom in his case. Well Richmond was striking too during this time as it was
then like a flint starting a Great Eight Hour bonfire ready to swallow up th whole of these
United States. At this time I realize we were in the same boat regardless of if we
recognize the fact. I seen th commander of these police silence his companions an turn
back to Fielding.
That cop raised up his right hand like some honest man an he identified himself as
Captain William Ward.
“I command you; in the name of the people of the state of Illinois, immediately
and peaceably to disperse!”
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61. Some man shoveled us over here an now we’re fighting th same battles against
each other if we realize or not. I step forward an I do believe both men which is t say
Fielding an th cop Ward look to see my approach. The officers in the lineup are nervous
and thumbing their nightsticks around their fingers. My voice was meant to cut into th
two of those men one standing high and mighty the other on cold earth like a curse but I
had no time before th end of our pitiful battle of words. At th moment I opened my mouth
t speak lightning struck the ground in front of me an seven lined-up souls tore apart in a
blinding flash. Some workman was screaming out that dynamite was ripping into his
bursting cows but they was not bursting natural an they was not cows they was not pigs
they was seven coppers an a workingman torn down like ragged bedsheets blown off th
clothes line in Bridgeport. A racket like I had never heard before nor since assaulted my
ears with terrible force. An then the shots started washing out against those cows an
people alike. Marketplace oxen were barreling down on the fray unknowing of where
they belonged but dying all the same in the crossfire.
Later th Tribune would scream out that Sam Fielding had chucked up from his
trousers a six-shooter or revolving gun of some kind an had shouted out
“Workingmen! At arms to defend yoreselves!”
Well I know better than that. I tell you he said no such thing but some man did.
Chaos was piercing into th eyes of th steers an they was loose for all brittle iron shackles
had shattered apart in that blast. Those cows was loose an they were stampeding an they
was running over men an men was running over th bodies of policemen. Mud sopped into
th face of a man holding a hat with a hole in its brim an I had no time t see if that was th
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62. man I had followed before. Then Fielding rushed down from th wagon an herded a few
men off to th side an they was tryin to cut a swath through th mangle of th Haymarket th
living an the dead gettin cut open by bullets though they was carcasses attended to by a
dunderhead butcher an it was his first day on th job an he was makin a damn fool of
himself. I tell it clear that dunderhead should have been a police man. For remember I am
a slaughter man an I seen some damn fool butchers an truth be told those police was
doing a terrible butchering.
I come to my senses an leaped out for to hide behin smoking hay bales come
loose off that wagon which no more than a minute ago Sam Fielding had topped. Bullets
slapped into th side of that wagon causing great holes to form up an knotting th wood
with human force taken over for natures job. I prayed out loud
“Dear Merciful God let me live an let me work but let me not perish on this shit
field in some forsaken marketplace as a dumb sacrifice. Amen.”
An as I finish up that entreaty a man with a brilliant grin an a scarecrows cap like
a farmer might wear hopped over th fiery bale I hide behind. His mug looked pained an
elderly an on his hands he bore lashed scars such as one might get carrying cargoes. But
it still retained traces of picaresque character. This man had in his hands a piece of piping
or perhaps some sort of stick made of clay an he was ready it seem to throw it into that
maelstrom. He was wearin a strange brown breechcoat an in his mouth there was a corn
cob pipe stuffed up with old ashen tobacco. He took a bit of fiery hay off from th bale in
front of us an lit up th remnants of his pipe with it then turned t me an wished me
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63. godspeed. Then he took th pipe to his clay stick an he made t light a spiral fuse on that
clay stick which I realize now was dynamite.
In th span of a moment Captain William Ward officer of th ordered world of law
crested our short embankment an there in between that mans eyes lodged a bullet.
I tore up out of that hiding spot an ran an feared a bullet would find its mark
inside my ribs afore I could reach for a store front or get behind some wagon holding its
cargo safe as I hoped t be. Th sound was like some thunder storm striking every tree in a
forest an setting off fires as it hit. I stop out of breath an I had managed t clamber up into
th awning of Morelands Goods on Jefferson Street for I was beyond sense an then as I
clamber up th awning detached with a shriek of metal an covered me up as I fall down to
hard stone steps out front an it knocks me cold. As bullets fly on down th street I notice I
am losin blood an could not tell if I had indeed been struck by some malignant force
other than stone an mud or if some Officer having discharged himself all over th crowd
was now looking for sport an I had given over t shock an passed like a knife into a gut
from my consciousness an for now life was black.
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