Edward Lee - The Black Train

There you lived with a lot of children whose parents were killed during various Indian wars or died from diseases. It was mostly widowed women who taught you how to sew, cook, tan hide, and any other duty that was needed around the camp. These women also taught you how to read. That’s when you were able to read in your mother’s diary about your name. “Walter wanted to name our wonderful baby Harriet after President William Henry Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe. ‘He’ll be the finest president we ever have,’ Walter always said, ‘and it’ll be good luck to name our beautiful daughter after him.’” At least your luck had lasted longer than President Harrison’s. He died during his first month of office.

Because the camp had calendars, you always knew what day it was. On your sixteenth birthday, you snuck out of the camp and never came back. You got real skinny living on roots and berries but eventually you were taken in by a charcoaler. He was a strange little man who lived in a sod hut and spoke almost no English—he was from some weird place called Germany. You cooked for him and sewed his clothes while he spent the whole day chopping up wood and turning it into charcoal to sell to blacksmiths. He was always smeared black with soot. Every night he put his thing in you just like the soldiers but he also taught you how to do other things to his thing, too, with your mouth. You guess you did it very well because sometimes he’d bring you little presents from the nearby town called Branch Landing where he sold his charcoal. Several times you got pregnant but the baby usually died in your stomach and came out early, but one time it lived, and you were overjoyed. By then you understood that this happened most of the time to pregnant women, so to actually have a baby that lived was a great gift. You named your baby Henry, after President William Henry Harrison, and maybe that was bad luck, because a week later the German man took the baby to town and sold it to a couple who just lost theirs. They gave the German man thirty dollars, a big sack of flour, a brand-new cast iron skillet, and a pig.

That night you killed the German man for selling your baby. He fell asleep after you used your mouth on him, and then you collapsed his head with the skillet. You buried him in the giant ash pile and let the pig go, and then you left. You’re not sure how old you were then but you were probably around nineteen, because a trapper’s wife you met on the road to town told you it was 1859.

You didn’t know how pretty you were. You hadn’t seen a mirror since the camp. When you got to the town, a jolly fat woman named Bella took you in. You were dirty and covered with charcoal soot. She washed you vigorously in a tub, chattering, “Oh, my good Lord, aren’t you just the most precious thing to ever walk in here!” It was a wooden building with two floors, which you never knew existed, and it had a swing sign out front that said BELLA’S. There were a lot of other girls there who didn’t look very happy to see you.

When you’d crushed the funny German man’s head, you took the thirty dollars he got for Henry, plus more money he got for his charcoal, but Bella took it. “It’s for housing and training, dear,” she told you. “All the girls have to pay, but lookin’ at you I can tell you’ll be earnin’ your keep a right fast.” This was when you learned what a whorehouse was.

You learned a lot more here than the camp. You learned that there were men who pay money to pretty girls who let them put their things in them. You learned that if a girl squirted vinegar in herself after a man put his thing in you, then you sometimes wouldn’t have a baby. You learned there was a thing called an abortion that would kill a baby growing inside of you, and lots of girls did this because they could make more money at the whorehouse. There was a doctor in town who could this for a girl but it had to be a secret because it was against the law.

You also learned that the town wasn’t called Branch Landing anymore; it was called Gast, after a tall man in nice clothes who brought lots of money to the town. Most of the men who came to Bella’s worked for Mr. Gast, and they got paid lots of money because they were building a railroad for him. Mr. Gast never came to Bella’s whorehouse, though, but he did build it, so his men would have a place to put their things in girls.

The other girls didn’t like you, and one day you learned why. “It’s ’cos you suck better,” one of the rail workers told her one night after she’d done just that for two dollars. “And, shee-it, girl, you’re the best-lookin’ whore in this place.” You figured that was a compliment, and it must be true because you seemed to make more money than the other girls. Some men paid extra for…other things, like putting it in your bottom. One time a nutty man with a beard even paid you to let him squirt his jism on your feet, and he paid three dollars! But the funniest one was a little man weirder-looking than the German. He had a nose made of gold and wore a red hat that looked stupid, and he paid to watch you move your bowels into a bucket. That’s when it came to your mind that lots and lots of men were really weird.

Then there were other men who were bad…

“You take him, bitch,” Jane snaps, glaring at you. “You the only whore here that likes suckin’ it. So go suck his.”

“Fuck you!”

You go to hit her but she runs away.

“Yeah, you best run! Ain’t no man wanna pay you with two black eyes’n I’ll knock the rest’a your teeth out to boot!”

“That’s enough’a that, Harriet,” Bella orders from the velvet couch. She was eating sugar balls from the baker’s.

“Is it that man I keep hearin’ ’bout?”

Bella just raises her brows and keeps eating.

“The one that’s so mean?”

Bella licks her chubby fingers. “Oh, Mr. Morris is a good customer, and he pays good. He just gets a little rough sometimes, but you’ll be all right. You’re a tough girl, ’cos that’s how I taught ya.”

“I don’t want him,” you declare.

Bella lurches up and slaps you hard across the face. “Do as you’re told, girl. Don’t get high’n mighty just ’cos you’re the favorite ’round here. I made you, remember? You were eatin’ grubs’n drinkin’ creek water when I brung you in. And I remember that day well, hon, how you were all covered with soot. I never told that to no one, even after I heard ’bout that charcoaler they found in the ash pile near ’Bethstown.”

You wilt.

“Am I gonna get any more sass out’a ya?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I need my girls to be reliable. Bunch of Mr. Gast’s rail men come back a few days ago so’s we’ll be busy. I need girls who wanna work, ya hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So get in there’n take care’a Mr. Morris.” Then she shoots you a big, jolly smile. “He’ll probably give ya five dollars, and he’ll only last five seconds!”

You share a phony laugh, then turn for the waiting parlor. But as you’re walking you glance in the pantry and notice Teeta, who’s mulatto. She’s dipping a tin cup into the spring barrel, and she’s only got one hand. “Mr. Gast’s railroad’s done is what I heard,” she says.

“Really?”

“They’se all comin’ back over the next few days, so we’se’ll be gettin’ lots of business.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Some’s back now.”

“I know. Bella told me.”