Pete Hamill - Forever

On many nights, Cormac went sleepless with rage.

On Evacuation Day, the victorious army of George Washington came into New York through McGowan’s Pass. They moved down the east side of the island, and Cormac, Quaco, and the others joined the ragged troops near the grave of Big Michael in Kip’s Bay. At the head of the long line of soldiers, Washington sat high on a pale gray horse, shoulders squared, head held as erect as a Roman statue, his uniform pressed and clean and sparkling. Other officers trailed behind him on horseback and his soldiers came on foot. Their uniforms were tattered and patched, their shoes held together with rope. Some of the men limped along, swinging on crude crutches. Some wore bandages across foreheads. Some were hunched and weary. All carried rifles. There was a small band of musicians, but no music. Hundreds of people came out to see them, most of them women and children, some of them cheering, many just peering at this rabble in arms, as a British general had called them. The children tagged along with the soldiers. The grown women stared with arms folded across chests, as if wondering what would happen on the morrow.

Cormac said good-bye to Quaco and slowly moved toward the head of the long column as it entered the Bowery. Then they all stopped. Washington dismounted, ran a fond hand on his horse’s brow, and walked into the Bull’s Head Tavern at Bayard and Pump. Here they would wait until the last English soldier had boarded the last English ship and moved out toward the Narrows. The general turned to his army and waved. He did not smile. The soldiers cheered him, and cheered themselves too. A cool November wind blew from the east.

“General Washington!” Cormac shouted from the crowd at the foot of the tavern’s wooden deck.

The general turned, smiled slightly, showing his caried yellow teeth. His nose was puffier, his hair whiter. He looked straight at Cormac.

“I’m the man who saved your life at Kip’s Bay!” Washington squinted. Two guards flanked him, bayonets at the ready. The general seemed to be searching his memory for one dangerous night out of two thousand. Then he nodded.

“Of course…. Do come in.”

He waited for Cormac to join him and then led the way into the crowded tavern. Everybody hushed. Washington was taken to a small table against the far wall. The air smelled of beer and sweat. They sat down while attendants created a small human fence around them. His officers remained standing against the wall to his right.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Washington said.

“And I’m glad to see you too, sir.”

A fat man brought a pitcher of water and two glasses. Washington poured. The exhaustion seeped from him like fog.

“You grabbed the bridle of my horse,” he said.

“I did. Cormac O’Connor is my name.”

“You slapped the haunch and sent me flying.”

“That actually was done by a man named Bantu, one of the Africans.”

“A brazen lot,” Washington said, an amused smile on his mouth. “But you have my thanks.”

“We needed you alive, General.”

“Not everyone agreed with you—including some of my officers.”

“The men knew,” Cormac said. “Including my fellow soldiers.” Washington sipped the cold water. “You were commanding coloreds, if my memory serves me.”

“I served with five African soldiers, sir. We were irregulars. There was no commander.”

Washington’s nostrils widened and twitched, the old hunter detecting hostility.

“And where are those soldiers now, Mister O’Connor?”

“Dead, sir.”

Cormac quickly told him about the deaths of Big Michael and Bantu, of Aaron, Silver, and Carlito. He mentioned the great fire, and the Bridewell, and the escape, and the long campaign within the city.

“God…”

“But those soldiers had children, sir, three of them had children. They had wives. They talked sometimes about the future. About going to free schools. About working their own farms as free men, about opening shops…”

Washington drummed the fingers of his right hand on the tabletop. His mouth tightened.

“Yes?” he said, as if knowing what was coming.

“I hope, sir, that you will do all in your power to honor the promises made by our Revolution.” Hating the self-righteousness of his own words. “I told my men of those promises. I read them the Declaration of Independence, one that you read to us here in 1776.” Appealing now to Washington’s vanity. “They fought for those words, for ‘inalienable rights,�� for ‘all men are created equal…’ And right now, General, Americans are roaming New York, chasing their former slaves as if they were dogs gone astray….”

Washington sighed.

“All of that will be debated, I assure you,” he said. “But not in a tavern.”

He took a longer sip of the water. Cormac leaned forward, his anger rising.

“Debate will not be enough, sir,” Cormac said. “There can be only one decision. Slavery must end. Or all those men will have died for a lie.”

Washington was now annoyed. He was waiting for a ceremony of triumph, waiting to mount his horse and ride majestically into New York. He was waiting for the British flags to be lowered and the American flags raised. He was waiting for a moment of immortality.

“For now, all of that is in the future, Mister O’Connor.”

“This is the future, General Washington.”

The general stood up, his chair scraping on flagstones. He offered a hand to be shaken. Cormac gripped his large hand but didn’t shake it.

“If you don’t give the slaves their freedom,” he said, “this country will die in its crib.”

“Thank you,” Washington said in an icy way, withdrawing his hand and motioning with his head to his officers. “I have much to do now.”

Washington turned his back and moved to his waiting men. The guards stepped between him and Cormac. He had been dismissed. Cormac turned and walked through the crowded tavern into the American morning, hoping he’d live long enough to heal his aching heart.

He wandered alone to South Street to watch the last British ship leave. There were American flags waving now on some buildings, looking tentative and modest. Many Americans were moving toward the river and the Battery, some joking and laughing, others solemn. There were no Africans among them.

Around noon, they saw the ship easing from its pier above Wall Street, its decks crowded, its flags and pennants waving as if in triumph. Cormac could not read the name of the ship as it floated slowly downriver and he felt nothing. The crowd cheered and blew whistles and small horns, and then grew quiet and started moving toward Broadway to wait for the procession of Washington.

Cormac eased to his left outside the doorway of the basement room at 7 Cedar Street, trying for a better view of the slaughtered woman on the bed. A tall mustached policeman barred his way. Floor-boards creaked above his head, the heavy tread of a detective named Ford, who was speaking to the owner of the bordello. Cormac put a hand on the stone wall beside the door, trying to steady himself. The wall was scummy with a decade’s worth of damp. He felt as if some dark yellow fluid were beginning to drip through his veins.

He made notes, using pencil on a small cut pad, forcing himself to concentrate on what lay before him. About twenty-five, perhaps younger. Dark brown hair, thickened by blood. Rouged cheeks beneath the drying blood. A red dent above the brow. Her throat cut from the left ear to the right clavicle bone. Her tongue jutting from her mouth. One ear severed. Puncture wounds in her small left breast.