Read Online The Banished Children of Eve by Peter Quinn - Free Book Online

atop the boy’s ears to the base of the neck, stepped back, and looked Stephen in the face. “Amazing!” he shouted. He put his right hand back on Stephen’s head, the palm resting on hisbrow. He pushed down so hard Stephen had to close his eyes. “My good man,” Dr. Mordowner said to Stephen’s father, “the frontal ridges on this child’s head are the most prestigious external disclosure of the Organ of Tune that I have ever encountered!” The palm of Dr. Mordowner’s hand felt hot. The heat seemed to grow more intense. Dr. Mordowner pressed harder. He had his other hand at the back of Stephen’s head. The vise of prophecy. Stephen sensed something melting in his brain. River ice in springtime, breaking, a force of nature coming alive, rising, sweeping everything before it. An industry was being born. Minstrels in every city strumming his music, schoolchildren memorizing it, lovers serenading each other, even pious congregations borrowing it to praise the God of their manifest destiny, all their rhythms indebted to the boy whose head is held so tightly by Dr. Mordowner.
    Foster fingered the bump again. It was right on top of his head. It was sore, probably from the other night. A soldier did it. Having gotten drunk in McSorley’s, across from the Seventh Regiment Armory, Foster reverted to the southern accent that he used whenever he was sufficiently under the influence. The cadences of a southern gentleman. An affectation from his days in Cincinnati. His minstrel songs led many people to insist he must be a southerner. He obliged, especially when liquor slowed his mind to a crawl. He wasn’t talking politics, he never did, but this bear of a soldier came from behind, lifted him up, turned him upside down, and banged his head into the floor. He lay on the floor. The soldier stood above him. “Goddamn cracker,” he said. “Go back where you came from.”
    Foster rubbed his head. He pushed more hair aside, ran his fingers down above his ear. Another convexity. Was this what the phrenologists called Matrimony, Desire to Marry? It was a very small bump. Next to it was a slight depression. More likely this was Matrimony. He moved his hand to the back of his head. A large bump. Dr. Mordowner had called this Amativeness, Sexual Love. “Unnaturally large in a boy this size,” Dr. Mordowner told his father. “Make sure he is occupied in healthful activities and does not spend a great deal of timeby himself. The dimension of these amative proclivities could lead the boy into danger.”
    A great deal of time by himself. Then and now. Lonely. George Cooper had joined the Army, their partnership dissolved, all their songs sold outright, no claim on royalties, or on each other. Daly the music publisher was nice enough, but hardly a friend. The diminutive Mr. Dunne, who lived on the second floor of the hotel, was cordial in his way. Offered his umbrella and was good for the occasional loan. But a secretive type. Very young, very quiet: an odd marriage of attributes. Like Mulcahey, he seemed animated by resentment. Mulcahey at least was talkative and attentive. Tall, slim, long-legged, with the body of a dancer, he was generous with his encouragement and his money. Foster felt affection for him. He could afford far better than the New England Hotel. But there between the Bowery and the Five Points, Mulcahey was safe to do what would be dangerous elsewhere. He shared a room with his mulatto mistress, Eliza. They paraded the hotel arm in arm. She was almond-eyed and beautiful, coffee-colored, with a deep wave in her hair. The fullness of her lips made her face look as if she were pouting. But she was sweet-tempered.
    Sometimes, when Eliza sat in the small chair by the desk in the lobby waiting for Mulcahey, Foster would stand at the far end of the hotel barroom and stare at her. She was unaware he was looking at her. How much she resembled Olivia. Even the