Pete Hamill - Forever

As they rode, they attracted some attention. Young boys looked up in awe at the black stallion, its massive rider, the boy in front of him, for Thunder had never been seen before in the town. Women paused and widened their eyes. Men nudged one another and whispered.

They arrived finally at the waterfront, where a hundred masts rose beside Donegal Quay. There for the first time Robert saw ships in full many-masted sail, and docks covered with crates and boxes and barrels. Rough men unloaded cargo as they watched: sugar and tobacco from America (his father told him), along with hemp and pitch and tar and timbers, all for the building of new ships. Cotton and silk, spices and dyes from Asia. Salt and wine, silk and fruit from Italy and Spain. The workingmen paid them no heed. They had seen fine horses before, and strangers too. Their hooded, squinting eyes seemed to have already looked at all the strange people and things offered by the world.

Da told Robert where the ships were going, and the names sounded like the words of a fairy tale. Liverpool and London. Cherbourg and Marseilles. Bilbao and Morocco and the Canary Islands. And yes, America. For the first time the boy felt the tug of the world beyond the world he knew, moving in him like a tide.

“Those buildings are full of men who live off the sea,” Da said, pointing at the low brick houses that lined the far end of the immense waterfront square. There were chandlers making candles and coopers shaping barrels. There were wheelwrights and sextant makers and stevedores. But he called his son’s attention to the second-floor offices above the shops. “Those are the companies that run the ships. They have the power here. Usually,” he said, “there’s a group of rich men who pool their money and share in the profits of each voyage.”

“And the sailors, Da? The men on the ships? Do they get rich too?”

“Never,” he said. “They die. Or they live. The voyage begins, the voyage ends. If they come back alive from the sea, they get paid. They never get rich.”

Many of the storefronts bore names elegantly lettered on signs above the doors, and through panes of glass Robert could see men in business suits, some wearing wigs, waving paper, sipping tea, writing with quill pens, or talking to clerks. One such business was called the Royal African Company.

“Do they sail to Africa too, Da?”

“Aye,” he said. “To our eternal shame.”

“And what do they trade for there?” Robert said.

“Men.”

“Men?”

“And women and children too.”

“What?”

“Slaves,” he said. “They go into the Gold Coast and the Gambia River and they hunt men. And then they take them to America and sell them the way some men sell donkeys.”

“Do they come to Belfast too?”

“No. They just have their offices here, son. They sign the papers and send the ships to Africa, and they pick up their cargoes and then sail on to America. Then the slaves must work for nothing for the people who buy them. They become property. Like dogs or horses.”

He nudged Thunder and they trotted closer to the offices of the Royal African Company. Coming out of the front door, engulfed by six other men, was the Earl of Warren. He was taller than he had seemed in the dim recesses of the black coach, but his body was fleshy, like his face, and soft under his clothes, unlike the lean men of the countryside or the men who worked the ships. He paused for a moment, surrounded by other men, including the man with the eye patch who drove the black coach. He said something, smiled, and they all laughed. Small boys in ragged clothes began to arrive, as if this were a daily ritual, and then from side streets came two women in rags, one of them using a tree limb as a cane.

The earl took from his pocket three small balls, red, white, and blue, and stepped back, an amused look on his face. He planted his feet wide apart and began to juggle the balls. And Robert noticed the change that came into his face. The earl looked younger, like a mischievous boy in a schoolyard, his brow furrowed in concentration, his mouth smiling without showing teeth, and his eyes beginning to sparkle as he moved the balls into a blur. Then, one at a time, he snatched the balls from their flight, smiled broadly, and took an exaggerated bow.

The group around him cheered and Robert wanted to cheer too. He’d never seen a man do such things before, to stand and make people shout in thanks or clap their hands in delight. The scary face of the sneering earl who’d passed their house now vanished. He saw only the smiling man who could juggle. And then another side of him: The small boys crowded around him, and he put a coin into each of their hands, wagging a finger at those who pressed too hard. Then he called the two old women to him and used fingers to pry more coins from a vest pocket and gave one to each woman. The crippled woman bowed in reverence, the other curtsied. The earl said something and looked concerned about the health of the women, while the men nodded in approval.

Then the earl led the way to the corner and went into a public house. Through all of this, Da was silent and still. He explained the function of the public house to Robert in an amused way: “They go to a publican and order courage by the pint.” But he said nothing about the skill of the juggling act or the giving of alms. He and Robert looked at the man with the eye patch, waiting outside the front door, arms as thick as thighs folded across his chest.

“That’s one of your slavers,” Da said as the small crowd dispersed, and he turned Thunder to go back. “Not the boyo with the patch. His commander. The Earl of Warren. The juggler. The man handing out the ha’penny pieces. English, he is, and he doesn’t even know that he’s insulting Irish people with his public charity.” He shook his head. “They say he’s full of charm.” He humphed. “They say the women love him.” He sighed. As they trotted away from the wharves, Da explained that the earl traded in linen and land. “It’s said that he’s buying choice lots out by the river, knowing Belfast will grow. And the News-Letter says he’s bought land in America, without ever seeing it. Land in New York, the News-Letter says. But mostly it’s the African trade that brings in the money. They say he wants to become the richest man in Ireland, and maybe he will. He’s done very well for himself. Out past Carrickfergus he’s bought a huge demesne, with a mansion and stable and huts for his help….”

“And does he have slaves working for him?”

“Yes, but not from Africa.”

They could feel Belfast growing in their direction, even if they could not see it very clearly. Robert imagined the earl as part of that growth, standing on once-wooded hills, juggling, smiling, bowing to applause. On quiet evenings, he heard his father talking to his mother about the people they were seeing more often on the road, with their earthly goods piled in tottering wagons. “They’re being driven out of Belfast,” Da said, “by the bloody taxes.” His voice quivered with anger. By some royal grant, Da said, Belfast was the absolute property of the Lord of Donegal, one of the Chichester family, people who did nothing for Belfast except collect rents while living grandly in London. The taxes were fixed by the local government and then were added to the rents of ordinary people, rising higher and higher year after year.

“Whoremongers,” Da called the people who collected rent and taxes. “The whoremonger Chichesters.” He gestured toward the people with the carts and said, “They’re coming out here to move beyond Chichester’s greed.” Robert didn’t completely understand all of this, such vague words as “rent” and “taxes,” although he was pleased to hear from his mother that they owned their land and thus paid no rent. What Robert did know was that month after month, more houses suddenly appeared, scattered around the once-empty fields. Strangers arrived with saws and axes and chopped down the trees and soon a house stood where woods once marched toward the Lagan. There was more traffic on the Dublin road now, wagons, horses, carriages, and new faces. Twice more, he saw the black coach, once racing for Dublin with women inside the cabin, their hair rising like frost off pale faces. A few weeks later, the Earl of Warren returned alone. The boy wondered if the Royal African Company had offices in Dublin too and imagined the earl juggling for the women and bowing to their applause.