transportation, and I have to give some to my church on Sunday—”
“The boss has you going to his church in Brooklyn. All the way on the ferry there and back every Sunday. Isn’t that a little excessive just to lick his boots?”
“It’s a decent church. I feel at home there.” He liked strict hellfire and brimstone sermons, just as in the Congregational churches of his childhood and the commanding revivalist preachers that had swept through, saving everybody again and again. That was real religion, religion that smote him to his bones. The fear of hell could make a man feel truly alive.
“Ah, Anthony, tonight after work, come with me to the Melodeon. It’s a concert saloon. There’s a fight on tonight and Katie Sullivan is going to dance with her Girly Girls. Enjoy yourself for once.”
“You go there every Friday night.” For Anthony, it was as if Edward plunged into darkness and vanished. Was it his duty to accompany him once, to see what so fascinated his friend? Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he suspected. Maybe he was unfair to Edward.
“Because it’s fun, Anthony, fun.”
Anthony was eyeing Edward’s pocket. Something yellow with printing on it. Edward succumbed to the dirty books that were sold everywhere in the neighborhood where they worked, on Pearl Street. Anthony had tried to reason with Edward before and gotten nowhere. Edward’s reading would have corrupted a far stronger soul.
“It’s a good-time place. Let yourself loosen up for once. Relax with the boys.”
Anthony passed those concert saloons, drab as empty warehouses by day, lit up at night with every window ablaze, men staggering in and out and women too on the arms of ruffians, sometimes alone as only a lady of easy virtue would appear. He should investigate. “All right, Edward. I’ll go with you tonight after supper.”
Edward clapped him on the back. “You won’t be sorry! New York has a lot to offer a young man, even sports like us with scarcely two dollars jingling in our pockets. There’s lots of pleasure to be had by sporting men, Anthony, a whole world of excitement. We work from eight till eight, and we deserve some fun.”
It was time to go back to work. They were both shipping clerks in a big dry goods importer, working at adjacent desks and going home at night to a dingy boardinghouse eight blocks away. Edward and he would probably never have become friends if they did not share that walk every day from boardinghouse to work and back again. Every day together they ate meager lunches that left them hungry. Edward was like the men in Anthony’s regiment in the Union army, who had teased him unmercifully, mocking his religion and his temperance, one of whom had actually knocked him down when he spilled his daily rum ration on the ground rather than passing it on. He had to fight Reddiger then. The ring of men gathered around them, one on the lookout for the sergeant, egging on that bully, jeering him. They had expected Reddiger to squash Anthony, although they were both big men. The men had mistaken blustering, drinking, whoring and playing cards on the Sabbath for real manhood.Anthony could admit to himself how much satisfaction he had taken in laying Reddiger on the ground. He had proved that godliness did not make him a marshmallow. Years of hard chores on the farm had given him power in his arms and shoulders. He had sparred with his older brothers many times out behind the barn.
Not that Edward was a bully. No, he was simply weak, like so many of his fellow soldiers had been, without backbone to resist the temptations surrounding them. Prostitutes followed armies, and even the officers accepted that as a fact of life instead of a way to moral death—sometimes with the terrible diseases God would smite them with, actual death. Corruption sent out tentacles a hundred different ways, through obscene books, postcards and picture books the men passed around to each other and kept in their mattresses, through rum
“The boss has you going to his church in Brooklyn. All the way on the ferry there and back every Sunday. Isn’t that a little excessive just to lick his boots?”
“It’s a decent church. I feel at home there.” He liked strict hellfire and brimstone sermons, just as in the Congregational churches of his childhood and the commanding revivalist preachers that had swept through, saving everybody again and again. That was real religion, religion that smote him to his bones. The fear of hell could make a man feel truly alive.
“Ah, Anthony, tonight after work, come with me to the Melodeon. It’s a concert saloon. There’s a fight on tonight and Katie Sullivan is going to dance with her Girly Girls. Enjoy yourself for once.”
“You go there every Friday night.” For Anthony, it was as if Edward plunged into darkness and vanished. Was it his duty to accompany him once, to see what so fascinated his friend? Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he suspected. Maybe he was unfair to Edward.
“Because it’s fun, Anthony, fun.”
Anthony was eyeing Edward’s pocket. Something yellow with printing on it. Edward succumbed to the dirty books that were sold everywhere in the neighborhood where they worked, on Pearl Street. Anthony had tried to reason with Edward before and gotten nowhere. Edward’s reading would have corrupted a far stronger soul.
“It’s a good-time place. Let yourself loosen up for once. Relax with the boys.”
Anthony passed those concert saloons, drab as empty warehouses by day, lit up at night with every window ablaze, men staggering in and out and women too on the arms of ruffians, sometimes alone as only a lady of easy virtue would appear. He should investigate. “All right, Edward. I’ll go with you tonight after supper.”
Edward clapped him on the back. “You won’t be sorry! New York has a lot to offer a young man, even sports like us with scarcely two dollars jingling in our pockets. There’s lots of pleasure to be had by sporting men, Anthony, a whole world of excitement. We work from eight till eight, and we deserve some fun.”
It was time to go back to work. They were both shipping clerks in a big dry goods importer, working at adjacent desks and going home at night to a dingy boardinghouse eight blocks away. Edward and he would probably never have become friends if they did not share that walk every day from boardinghouse to work and back again. Every day together they ate meager lunches that left them hungry. Edward was like the men in Anthony’s regiment in the Union army, who had teased him unmercifully, mocking his religion and his temperance, one of whom had actually knocked him down when he spilled his daily rum ration on the ground rather than passing it on. He had to fight Reddiger then. The ring of men gathered around them, one on the lookout for the sergeant, egging on that bully, jeering him. They had expected Reddiger to squash Anthony, although they were both big men. The men had mistaken blustering, drinking, whoring and playing cards on the Sabbath for real manhood.Anthony could admit to himself how much satisfaction he had taken in laying Reddiger on the ground. He had proved that godliness did not make him a marshmallow. Years of hard chores on the farm had given him power in his arms and shoulders. He had sparred with his older brothers many times out behind the barn.
Not that Edward was a bully. No, he was simply weak, like so many of his fellow soldiers had been, without backbone to resist the temptations surrounding them. Prostitutes followed armies, and even the officers accepted that as a fact of life instead of a way to moral death—sometimes with the terrible diseases God would smite them with, actual death. Corruption sent out tentacles a hundred different ways, through obscene books, postcards and picture books the men passed around to each other and kept in their mattresses, through rum
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