She could hear the old lady shouting at the men. How many, London couldn’t tell. All she could see were boots surrounding the woman’s ratty slippers. London struggled to make sense of what was happening. What had she done? What had the Missus done? Besides the old lady’s hooch, London could think of nothing. Why would a crowd of bulls be interested in a couple of bottles of illegal whiskey?
The cops dragged the Missus from the floor and tossed her back into her chair. London’s head cleared. She could now see there were three cops, making five of them inside the small room, and they seemed to be talking about her. The entire scene was beyond anything London could understand. No one had ever taken any notice of her in her life, except for Alby, and that hadn’t turned out so well.
“I told you what would happen if you didn’t cooperate, you hag,” the silver-haired cop shouted into the old lady’s face.
She responded by spitting into his.
London closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see it, but she sure as hell heard it, as the woman’s head struck the window frame again.
London stumbled to her feet toward the Missus, but one of the badges grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her toward the door. London kicked and bit, fighting mightily to keep herself inside the room, but the cop was a genuine baby grand, and with his fist locked in her hair, her body followed her head, her boots scraping across the floor.
The cop stopped abruptly in the doorway, and London, hanging from his hand, finally caught her first solid glimpse of the old lady. Her face was bloodied, her gray hair was a tangled mess, and her dress’s collar was ripped off one of her shoulders, but her eyes shone more brightly than the electric streetlamps in Scollay Square.
“This dago bitch is a moron,” barked the cop holding London by the head, and he shook her in response to his words.
“Piss out your ass!” London cried.
London could hear the old lady’s cackling laughter over the crack of her own skull against the doorframe, making the pain more than worth it.
“Not only are you a moron,” the cop said, turning London’s head to face him, “but you’re also a knocked-up little slut.”
His words struck her harder than her head had hit the doorframe—hearing it like this, out in the open. Pregnant. Yes. She was pregnant. How this man could possibly know, or care, London didn’t have time to ponder. She went limp with confusion as the man jerked her out the door…. The last thing she saw was the old woman’s fists striking out at the gray-haired cop.
London threw herself back toward the room, grasping for the doorframe but only succeeding in slipping off her feet. Her cheek struck the umbrella stand, which spun down the sticky steps, cracking into loud shattering pieces.
“My umbrella stand!” Thelma Dumas screeched. “You broke my stand! That was from Chicopee!”
As London was dragged down the stairs past the shards of clay, the old woman’s voice rang in her ears over and over.
“Chicopee! Did you hear me! Chicopee, goddamn it!”
After London was tossed onto the floor of the waiting police wagon, she could still hear the old lady shouting the word “Chicopee”—that is, until the metal door was slammed and locked, and the vibration of the truck’s motor thumped into action beneath her chest.
The gritty floor felt cool against her throbbing cheek. It was dark in the metal box, and the girl in the iron lung sprang back into London’s mind. For a moment, London imagined she was there, curled up inside the lung, but then the truck ground into gear and jumped forward.
London leaped to her feet and beat the hell out of the locked door of the police wagon as the vehicle took off toward the tracks.
Later, she wished she’d taken one last look up at that window.
Maxine woke from her dream. She had been there again.
Home.
Maxine often dreamed of home, though home hadn’t quite been the stuff of dreams. The shadows of the meatpacking plants of Somerville had been a solemn spot to be born—a spot where reverence and duty reigned, and strict discipline took the place of humor and caresses. But there had been love, too. Even if that love had been rigid and abrupt. How could it not have been, with their mother needing to care for all her brothers?
Lying awake on the cot next to her sister, Rose, Maxine longed for home. It was such a familiar sensation after four years at the institution that it had become as comfortable to her as her dreams. Born just one year apart, she and Rose had been taking care of each other since they were fidgets. Their mother had taught them early that life was responsibility, a world of set routines and conduct. Rose excelled at both; Maxine, neither. Maxine preferred to change what life was, even if only inside her head.
Maxine closed her eyes and listened to rustling sheets, snores and snorts, and the heavy breathing of the dormitory around her, slowly returning to the last scene of her dream. She had been watching her mother as she leaned over the sink, the spot where Maxine best remembered her. Yet instead of her head being bent over the dishes, her mother stared out the small back window into the tangle of weeds behind their rented rooms, where they hung the laundry. Her face stern, and her lips running parallel to the line of worry across her brow, just as they had back then, but Maxine saw something else in those lines. A yearning for her two daughters. Though, her mother knew she couldn’t get to them. Not yet. Not now when the boys—so many boys—were still young. But soon. When the cold-water flat wasn’t so crowded. When their father wasn’t so tired from the packinghouse. Soon. She’d forgive Maxine. And that other expression her mother had worn, the one Maxine never dreamed of, would finally fade from Maxine’s memory.
Rose wiggled on the cot, pulling Maxine once again from her dreaming.
“Did the whistle blow?” Rose asked.
“Shhh,” Maxine soothed.
“Did it blow, Maxxie?” Her voice echoing across the sleeping dormitory.
Maxine tensed, at once looking around for Ragno while at the same time searching their narrow cot for Rose’s stick.
Alice woke on the cot next to them. Mimicking Maxine, she first checked to see if the night attendant had been roused by Rose. Then she plunged her hand into the small slice of space between their two cots to feel about on the floor for the stick, both girls knowing it was the only thing that would settle Rose.
Alice found it.
She quickly handed it off to Maxine, who had been staring at the dark and empty entrance to the dormitory, as if closely watching it could keep it dark and empty.
Maxine handed the worn maple branch to Rose, who immediately grasped it to her breast, and then reached out and tapped Maxine four times on her chest where her heart was.
“I love you too, Rosy,” Maxine whispered. “So very much. Now close your eyes.”
Maxine ran her hand softly over her sister’s eyes, just as she did almost every night when it came time for bed, hoping that Rose wasn’t too much awake to slip back to sleep. Nature seemed to step in and help as the wind jostled the windows of the dormitory and prompted Rose to clutch her stick close and nestle in against her sister, where she drifted quickly off to sleep.
Rose’s outburst and the fear of Ragno might have had the power to sweep away any pleasant dreams for the rest of the night for anyone else, but Maxine was a practiced dreamer. It helped that Alice had allowed Maxine to squeeze her fingertips in thanks for finding her sister’s stick. Touching was against the rules. Touching Alice was even more against them.