Curse Of The Blue Tattoo Part 31

"We have rented a bigger and better hall, the very Fen-wick, itself, for the season, have we not, Mr. Fennel?"

"We have, indeed, Mr. Bean, and therein our gallant troupe shall reach even greater heights of theatrical glory. We plan to do the complete Lear, not just the ending! How fine will that be! We shall be the toast of Boston!"

"Yes, and come summer, we shall take the whole thing on the road and then become the toast of the entire coast, from Boston to Richmond, shall we not, Mr. Fennel?"

"Yes, Mr. Bean, we shall. Now, dear, once again we beg you to take the role of Cordelia. What say? You would be perfect for the role. Hmm.?"

I shake my head. They had wanted me to do Cordelia in the bit of Lear they have been doing, but I just couldn't do it. The part where Cordelia is hanged at the end, well, I can't even watch it, let alone play her. As written, that part of the play takes place offstage, but Fennel and Bean have staged it in full view of the audience for the shock value. And shock value it has, for sure-they have devised a dress, a black one, that has a bunch of straps inside it that go around various parts of the actress and then up her back to a loop, and the noose hooks on to that, not to her neck. But it sure looks real. When the Executioner kicks the chair from beneath her feet and Cordelia falls, the shriek from the audience can be heard clear out on the street, which is where I'm at during this part, covering my ears with my hands and trying to keep old memories from wellin' up.

I did see it done once, when they first rigged up the actress, and when they did it, I had to run outside and throw up. I hear they have several faintings at each show. "No, Sirs, I cannot do that," I say firmly. "Best let me keep doing the small parts as I have been doing with great joy, for who knows where I'll be come summer." Maudie brings me my tea, and I thank her and sip at it.

I joke with the merry pair for a while, but the pull of the new spring sun is too much and I bid them and Maudie a good day and I'm out the door. I take Gretchen's reins from the hitching rail and walk dreamily along beside her, my face held up to the sun.

We walk past the alley next to the Pig and a clawlike hand reaches out of the shadows and hauls me in. Gretchen whinnies and s.h.i.+es away and I drop the reins and try to get at me s.h.i.+v, but ... A familiar smell hits my nose like a hammer.

"Gully?" I say. "Gully, what?..."

If it's possible, Gully MacFarland is even dirtier than last I saw him. There's a wild, crazy gleam in his eye, and I waste no time in stickin' my finger in that eye and snarlin', "Gully, you miserable son of a b.i.t.c.h, where's my money? I'll have it right now or I'll call the constable and have you hanged for a common thief!"

He bats my hand away from his face and something like a grin splits his grimy face as he says in a cracked and ravished voice, "We got us a job, Moneymaker." He has even less teeth than before, and what teeth are left are green and rotten. His rancid breath would put our cesspool to shame.

"I ain't playin' anywhere with the likes of you, Gully, not now, not ever. You stole my money, you lyin' b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"Back up on the top of the world again, ain't-cha, Moneymaker? A fine lady again, you are, I can tell by how ye're dressed-and fine dress it is, Little Miss Tidymouse."

He is unsteady on his legs, but still he reaches inside his coat and pulls out a bottle with a vile-lookin' greenish milky juice in it, and he puts it to his lips and swallows long. It is disgustin' to see his gristly Adam's apple bob up and down.

"How long you think you'll be in that fine gear when I tells your schoolmistress what you been doin'...playin' in low taverns, showin' of your legs, spendin' nights at Bodeen's ... entertaining gentlemen..."

"That ain't true and you know it! I'm gonna tell Maudie and Bob you're back, and they'll fix you good."

"You tell them that and I'll go straight to your school-marm."

"How could you be so mean, Gully?" I says. My mind spins around but all it comes up with is I'm trapped.

He shrugs and says, "I'll meet you here on Thursday night, Moneymaker. There's some s.h.i.+ps in. We'll make some money."

"Right, which you'll steal, you drunken sot..."

He puts the vile bottle to his lips again. That stuff is a new one on me-it ain't rum nor whiskey, that's for sure-and it don't seem to be doing Gully much good. I ain't never seen him this bad, and I've seen him pretty bad.

"So, meet me in front of the Plow and Anchor at ten Thursday night and just bring your whistle-it's mainly the dancin' you'll be doin', anyway. We'll be playin at Skivareen's."

"Skivareen's!" I shouts. "Gully, that's the lowest dive in town. Even Mrs. Bodeen won't allow her girls in there!"

"Ten o'clock. Here. Don't be late. We go on at half past ten. Remember, Moneymaker, you show up or I'm on the steps to your school first thing in the morning with many a fine tale to tell."

He lurches off down the street, clutching his bottle. The Lady Lenore is strapped to his back and it looks all forlorn hanging there amid his rags.

d.a.m.n! And everything was goin so good!

Chapter 39.

I've got my serving gear on, cause I can hide my s.h.i.+v in my weskit, and my whistle in there, too, and 'cause I certainly don't want to be in Skivareen's in my school dress, as I sure don't want to be before Judge Thwackham on my knees in that dress again. This evening, after supper, I went up to my old room and took out my serving clothes and laid them out on the bed. Then, after prayers and lights-out, at nine, I lay there in the dormitory for a while, and when all the breathing about me is slow and regular, I pull back the covers and creeps out of the room and up the stairs.

I'm pullin' my nightdress over my head when I hears a footfall. As I pokes up my face, I sees that it's Amy standin' there, wringin' her hands.

"Please, Jacky, tell me you're not going out," she whispers. "Please tell me that."

"I got to, Sister. Gully MacFarland is back in town and he wants me to play with him."

"But you can't! You're upstairs again!"

"He has threatened to go to Mistress and tell lies on me. d.a.m.ned lies, to be sure, but lies he can make stick. All he has to do is accuse me and I'm expelled. He is a changed man, Amy. A very sick one, too."

"Oh," she wails. "This is going to turn out badly, I just know it."

"Hush, you'll wake the others." I've finished dressing, and after I put in my s.h.i.+v and my whistle, I pull up my skirts around my waist and say, "Wrap those lengths of rope around my waist and hips now. Tight, so they don't slip down. Now, don't ask, just do it."

Whimpering, she does it and I fix the ends so they won't fall out.

I put my regular escape rope around my shoulder and go to the window.

"I will wait here for you, Jacky. Please be careful."

"This will be the last time with Gully, I swear. I'm gonna take care of that," I says, and then I am gone.

Gully is sitting at the appointed spot, his back against a wall, mouth hangin' open and legs sprawled out on the cobblestones. I nudge him with my foot and says, "This is it, Gully. I ain't doin' this no more."

"Yeah, yeah," he says without listenin' to me. "Le's go." He struggles to his feet and we head down to the lowest part of town.

The fleet is definitely in, 'cause I can see their mastheads and rigging hangin' out there in the gloom on Long Wharf. Looks to be four of them, one a First Rater with two decks of gun ports, one over the other. Eighty-eight guns, what a thing. Plenty of sailors, too, on the wharf and thronging the streets. Maudie should do good tonight. I don't bother asking Gully why we ain't playing in no decent tavern-it's plain none of them would let him anywhere near their places, the condition he's in now. If Maudie found out he was back, she'd have her Bob beat him half to death for running out on his room and board.

I see a lit doorway at the end of Market Street by Sprague's Wharf, where some dirty little tubs are tied up. Skivareen's don't even got a sign. Gully goes in first and then I go in, and already I don't like this crowd. There's a cheer upon seein' me, but I look around and don't see none of my regulars. I see some men smirk and point at me and some wink at Gully and he winks back. What's going on here?

Gully takes his fiddle out and tunes up. He steps to the low platform that serves as a stage in this h.e.l.l. The place stinks of p.i.s.s and sweat and some other things I don't wanna know about. I step up also and pull out my whistle-the sooner we get this over with, the better.

Gully says "Saddle the Pony" and we tears into it and then we do "The Pet o' the Pipers" and things seem to be going all right, and though my heart ain't in it, I does my best, 'cause I hates to give a bad performance, no matter what. But then Gully turns from the fiddle tunes and the funny ones like "New York Girls" and calls for a whole string of the dirty songs, which he know I don't like to play. Things like "The Cuckoo's Nest," and all the men are lookin' at me funny, like they're expectin' somethin'.

I'm glarin' at Gully after the last number and he says, "Put away the whistle. Just dance from now on."

Then he plays a long, long jig and I'm bouncin' up and down and clatterin' me feet as fast as I can. Then he brings that one to an end and plays another jig and I look at him all curious.

Then it happens and all comes clear.

There's a disagreeable-lookin' cove, who looks like he ain't washed in a month, at the table next to the stage and he gets up and comes over to me and holds a fiver up in front of my nose.

"Ain't you just the prettiest little thing, bouncin' around up there so gay." Before I can do anything, he stuffs the bill down my s.h.i.+rtfront. "Now let's see how you bounces without yer s.h.i.+rt!" The rest of the house roars its approval.

I turn to Gully with my mouth open and say, "What?" and he just shrugs and says, "Why not?"

I look back at the crowd and another bloke has pulled out another crumpled bill. He throws it at my feet. It's a twenty, and we ain't never been tipped a twenty before.

Really scared now, I looks to Gully for help, but he just looks at me real hard and says, "Do it."

I look hard back at him. "So now you're a pimp, as well." I pull the bill out of my bodice and throw it on the floor and ram my whistle back in my vest and heads for the ...by G.o.d, they're tryin to close the door I I'll be trapped in here! I whip out me s.h.i.+v and hold it out in front of me and the bloke who's closin' the door thinks better of it and moves back and I'm out the door and into the cool night air.

I put me s.h.i.+v back in its usual spot in me vest and stand there, my chest heavin' with the anger that's ragin' through me. Then the door is jerked open and Gully lunges out and I rushes at him and sticks my finger in his face and shouts, "What the h.e.l.l were you thinkin' of in there? What kind of girl-"

The back of his hand hits my face and I go to my knees.

He pulls my face up to his and says, "Listen, b.i.t.c.h. You're gonna go back in there and do exactly what they say. Understand? Exactly what they-"

Through the fog of my shattered mind, I realize the men are pouring out the door, calling out to Gully.

That's it, teach her a lesson!

Show 'er 'er place!

d.a.m.n b.u.m show. Waste of time, it was...

Gully yells after era, "Wait! Wait! Come back. She'll do it ... d.a.m.n, they're leaving! G.o.ddammit! Twenty-five dollars and that was just to start! Now, nothing! You..." And he rounds on me kneeling there helpless, and he b.a.l.l.s his fist and brings it cras.h.i.+n' down on my eye. My head explodes in pain and shock, and he lets go of me neck and I fall in a heap of weepin' misery to the cobblestones. He gives me another curse and goes back inside.

I lie there for a while and then I get up and stagger over to an alleyway. I get in there and I lie back down 'cause I'm so dizzy with the force of his blow that I can't stand right. I put my hand to my eye and feel that it is already beginning to swell. In a while I get up and go to the Pig.

When I get there, I don't go inside but instead go around the back to Bob's work shed and take his wheelbarrow from where it leans against a wall. I set off rattlin' back down to Skivareen's, and when I gets there, I puts the wheelbarrow back in the shadows of the alleyway. I can hear Gully rantin' and ravin' inside, and I sits down to wait.

He's thrown out into the street at about two o'clock in the morning, barely conscious. The Lady Lenore comes flying out soon after, but I manage to break her fall.

I bring the wheelbarrow up next to him and I say, "Come on, Gully, we've got to get you home. Up now." I put my hands under his arms and help him to his feet.

"Moneymaker?" he says, his voice all thick and stupid. "Where you been?" He tries to focus on me, but he can't. "Lenore?"

"I've got her, she's safe. Over here now, Gully." I get him between the handles of the barrow and eases him back. I need him far enough forward with his weight over the wheel so that I'll be able to lift him. There. That's good. "Lie back, Gully. Lie back and sleep."

He does. Soon he snores.

I lift my skirts and untie the lengths of rope that I had tied there. I tie each of his ankles to the wheelbarrow handles then I tie one end of a piece of rope around one wrist and pull that arm over the side of the box and I take the rope underneath and wrap it around the wheel housing a few times and then bring it up on the other side to his other wrist. I tuck in the ends so they will not drag.

Then I take the small ball of rags that I had put in my pocket and I pinch Gully's nostrils shut and when he gasps and opens his mouth, I crams the gag in.

There. Time to go. I sling the Lady Lenore over my shoulder and I grab the handles and lift. Not too bad. I've got about two hundred yards to the water. I can make it.

I rattle off down the street and the jarring motion of the hard wooden wheel over the cobblestones wakes Gully and he looks about in confusion. He notices that his hands and feet are tied and he starts struggling.

"I knows how to tie the knots, Gully, as I've been to sea. The more you struggle, the tighter they'll get." He struggles anyway, mumbling into his gag.

My eye is almost completely swollen shut, and now I can't see out of it at all.

"You hit me, Gully, you did. You was my partner and was supposed to look out for me, but you didn't. What you did was take me to that place where I didn't want to go and try to make me do something I didn't want to do, just so's you could buy more of that green stuff."

Gully's shaking his head back and forth.

"You prolly don't even remember doin' this to me, Gully, right? I see you shakin' your head, but you did it, Gully, you put your mark on me, and you'll do it again the next time you get drunk and I can't let that happen, I can't. I got to get rid of you, Gully. I'm sorry, but I do."

At this, his eyes grow wide and he cranes his head about to look where we're goin' and he sees that we're goin' toward the water. The look in his eyes changes from one of confusion to fear. He makes a loud sound into the gag and redoubles his thras.h.i.+ng about. It don't do him no good.

'Cause of my tiredness and my throbbin' eye, I'm startin' to ramble and sometimes I make sense and sometimes I don't.

"What's it gonna be like if I lose me eye, Gully? If my Jaimy comes again for me, will I lift my face to him and show him a gaping empty eyehole? Or an eye that's all filmed over, disgustin' milky white, staring out all blind at nothin'?

"You don't know this about me, Gully, but in some quarters I'm known as b.l.o.o.d.y Jack 'cause I killed two men by my own hand. Yes, it's true. It's also true that they had it comin' just like you got it comin', Gully, but it still weighs heavy on my soul."

The fear in his eyes has been replaced by pure terror. He cranes his head and twists his neck around again and sees that we're about halfway to the water. He makes mewling sounds.

"You know, Gully, it's such a shame. We had a really good act. People really liked us. Good people, not like those sc.u.m back there. And, yes, I know you're sorry and you'll make it right and I know you'll say that we'll get the act back together again and it'll be like it was, but we won't, Gully, 'cause you'll just get drunk again and mess it up."

I stop and put the barrow down for a second to rest. "Surprised I can do this, Gully? Well, I'm little, but I'm strong, I am." Then I lift him up again and we press on.

His eyes get bigger and bigger and he looks frantically about for some pa.s.serby to save him, but there ain't n.o.body out this late, and if we do run across someone, well, I got a story already cooked up: Poor Dad, when he's like this, it's the only way we can get him home. What a trial he is to poor Mum, Sir, you can well imagine...

"Yes, Gully, it's a shame. You were a great fiddler, you just weren't much of a man."

Gully groans in despair as we roll up onto the planks of the wharf. We go on for a while and then I pulls up next to the eighty-eight-gun HMS Redoubt, looming up there above us in the gloom of the early morning. I put down Gully and the barrow.

"Ahoy, the quarterdeck!" I shouts up.

An officer steps out on the gangway and says, "What do you want?"

"Beggin' your pardon, Sir, but this here gentleman has expressed a desire to return to sea."

The Officer of the Deck barks out a short laugh. "He has, has he? He looks like he's right tied up in knots about it."

"Aye, Sir. He is Gulliver MacFarland, a prime seaman and a British citizen-Scottish, he is-so you won't anger the locals by takin' him. He was foretopman on the Solstice-that much is true-the rest he tells you will be lies."

Other men are called and they start down the gangway. Gully, his fear of death gone, looks at me with cold hatred.

"They're finally getting the Hero of Culloden Moor, ain't they, Gully," says I. "I found out about that, too. You warn't the Hero of Culloden Moor, you warn't the hero of nothin'. You only found glory at the bottom of a bottle. What a fool I was."

The sailors come and stand around Gully. "You are sure he is a Scotsman?" says the officer.