Pete Hamill - Forever

And then he felt a great pity for Mary Burton, seeing her moving tearfully through the snow, slapped down by his words, infuriated by his coldness, a victim in some way of that Irish story, the story of his father, the story he could not tell her. He addressed explanations to her, ones he should have made, and still might make this snowy night. You see, he told the absent Mary Burton, there’s something I must do first. Something that comes before my own life and your life and the life of any unborn child. Something I must do, because if I don’t do it, if I don’t first avenge the murder of my father, I can never be free. My vow comes before Kongo too, and before the rising. It comes before everything.

Then, just past the door, he could see a lean, coarse-skinned man peering through the glass. He wore a crumpled suit, a scarf, a wool hat. Little puffs of steam pushed from his nose. He gestured to be admitted. As if relieved to be free of his anguish, Cormac unlatched the door.

“I need a broadside,” he said. Clipped English accent, accustomed to giving orders. “Quickly.”

“We’re closed, sir.”

“Is your master here?”

“Asleep, sir.”

The man exhaled in an exasperated way.

“Make an exception. This is for a ship arriving in a week’s time. We need two hundred posters no later than Saint Patrick’s Day. We intend to fill the hoardings of the town. First ship in—”

He fumbled in his jacket for a sheet bearing the copy, explaining that the bark was named the Valiant, carrying a consignment of raw sugar, rum, and thirty-six seasoned slaves. The first ship in two and a half months, since this bloody war over a bloody ear got serious. Politely, Cormac tried to explain that the Partridge shop didn’t do slaving business, but they could handle the sugar and the rum.

“Well, in that case… I’ll have to discuss it with the earl.”

Cormac’s heart skipped several beats. “Which earl is that, sir?”

“The Earl of Warren, young man. That’s why I’ve arrived so late. He lives way up in the bloody Bloomingdale.”

“I see. In that case, sir, I’m certain we can make an exception.”

The man smiled, showing crooked teeth, and handed Cormac the sheet of paper.

“Wonderful, wonderful. You can deliver them, of course? Here are the words, in the earl’s own hand. And—”

“I’ll need directions, of course.”

“Of course.”

They briefly discussed price and paper size and type fonts, then the directions to the earl’s mansion, and off the man went.

Cormac stared for a long while at the earl’s cursive writing. In the street, the snow was turning to a cold rain. He dressed in warm clothes and slipped into the night. He moved through the rain-pelted streets all the way to Hughson’s. Slivers of light leaked from the back door, and music strummed in a muted way. He went in and ordered a porter from John Hughson.

“Bloody wet night,” Hughson said. Then leaned forward and whispered: “Meeting tomorrow night.”

“I won’t be here,” Cormac said, glancing around the crowded room, searching for Mary Burton, who wasn’t there. Nor was Kongo or Quaco, Sandy or Diamond. “The master wants me to go to New Rochelle.”

“It’s important,” Hughson said. “Do we have your vote?”

“Whatever Kongo says.”

Then he saw Mary Burton coming in the blue door from the house, her eyes swollen, her mouth loose. She gathered empty glasses from a table. Then came toward the bar, muscles taut in her jaw. Cormac stepped aside, his back to Hughson, and whispered in her ear.

“Give me three days, Mary. I’ve business to clear up. Then we can talk.”

“Feck off.”

“Please,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be so cold back at the shop. I was just, well, shocked.” A pause. “And I’ve been thinking….”

She was listening but wouldn’t look at him. She ordered three porters and a rum flip from Hughson.

“Just, for God’s sake, don’t do anything rash,” he said.

She struggled for control.

“Three days…”

“Go away, Cormac,” she said. “For three days or three hundred.” She turned and plunged into the noise of the room, where three redcoats were singing songs about the King in one corner and six Africans were trying to push rhythm behind the tune.

Mr. Partridge was hesitant about breaking the rule against advertising for slaves. And he knew Cormac’s story. He knew the young man had carried a sword from Ireland to kill the Earl of Warren.

“I suppose you think the posters will gain you access to his house?” he said.

“Aye.”

“And then you’ll lop off his head.”

The way he said this made Cormac laugh. Partridge smiled too.

“I suppose—”

“You don’t suppose . That’s what you want to do .”

Cormac’s voice went cold. “I have no choice.”

Mr. Partridge looked at him for a long moment.

“I suppose you don’t.”

He gazed at the copy and then walked to the type tray.

“He should be killed just for what he does to the English language.”

They both laughed.

“But if you must do this dreadful thing,” Partridge said, “you must be smart. If you go directly to the house and send the wretch to perdition, they’ll have you with the hangman three days later. And I’ll lose the best apprentice I ever had—and the primary investor in this shop. So please: Use your head for something other than parking your hat.”

Cormac thought: He’s right.

That night, after most of the type was set (for there were two jobs even more urgent), Cormac wandered the town for an hour, the weather chilly but no longer wet or arctic cold. Near the Common, he gazed at the town’s two fire engines: side-stroked, goose-necked tub machines, with pump handles and foot treadles. If more than one blaze started at the same time, the town could burn to rubble. He’d seen the volunteers at one small fire, wearing old leather helmets slung low on the back of the neck to protect hair and skin, designed to be whipped around to cover the face. Remembering their foolish looks and clumsy efforts, he understood why the conspirators might believe in triumph. And yet he felt he could not join the rebellion without first killing the earl. Thinking: That’s why I’m here. That must happen first.

Either way, if the rebellion then succeeded or if it failed in a chaos of gunpowder and death, he could escape with Mary Burton. He could lead her across the river. He could try to find some refuge for both of them, and let all notions of permanence wait for the future. As he tried to imagine the future, he strolled through dark streets past the fort, where three prostitutes laughed together in the shadows. Zenger’s Journal called them “courtezans,” but there was nothing courtly about them. In daylight, their flesh was coarse, teeth missing. Better to work their sad trade in the dark. They called to Cormac, offering various services. He strolled on, ignoring them, looking at the high walls of the fort, thinking: This can’t work. New York could be taken without firing a shot; the English, after all, had taken it twice; but only if many-masted ships were in the harbor, loaded with cannon and soldiers. In New York, fear was more powerful than loyalty. But you created fear only with a show of force. The tutorials from Mr. Partridge were alive in his head. Wasn’t the older man right? The English were accustomed to cheap victories in their endless search for loot. But (thinking then in the face of the harbor wind) the Africans and the Irish of New York shared one terrible fact: In their own lands, they were defeated. Thinking: That’s why they’re here. Thinking: Defeat is a habit too.

He circled around through dark streets, where gorged pigs slept in doorways and dogs barked and rats slithered toward garbage. He turned through unlit streets toward Cortlandt Street, planning to enter the shop through the alley. A hand gripped his biceps in the blackness. Like a vise.