The Last Days of Dogtown (28 page)

Molly would thank Sam for his pittance with a dignified curtsy and a set speech. “Me and Sally are real proud of you,” she’d say. “Sally just about busts when I tell her how nice you’re living, so respectable and clean. And so handsome! And I tell her that you’re as good-hearted as you are good-looking. And she says she knows that’s so.”

It was the lying that kept him from giving her more money, or that’s what Sam told himself. He owed them nothing. Molly and Sally were not kin, and although neither of them had ever smacked him or even scolded him, neither of them had ever made a move to help him in all those years of heavy chores. He’d never seen either woman show a lick of interest in anybody or anything but each other. They had no claim on him.

Still, Sam secretly hoped that his charity, which was regular if not openhanded, would serve as a kind of investment in his salvation. Sam wasn’t sure he believed that God paid close attention to what he did with his money, but he noticed that the better sort of people at church let it be known that they gave to the support of orphans and widows. Sam had become a fixture at Sunday worship, sitting in the same pew every week. After the service, Reverend Jewett shook his hand firmly as he gripped his shoulder, which Sam took as a public signal of approval.

A sermon that touched upon Jesus’ attention to the fallen Magdalene had made Sam feel so right with the world, he resolved to give Molly a silver dollar the next time she came tapping. Pondering why it had been such a long time between her visits, Sam reasoned that it had been an especially wet winter, with heavy snows that froze and left big, icy snowbanks everywhere, so walking would have been even more difficult than usual.

But that notion brought on a vision of Molly’s body half-eaten by the awful yellow-eyed dogs in the woods. If they were dead — either of them or both — he would be expected to go up there and clean things up, one way or another. “Damn it to hell,” he said.

He’d been back to Mrs. Stanley’s house only three times in the years since Stanwood had chased him out. The first time was a few weeks after his escape, just to see if he might be able to sneak in and get his extra shirt and stockings. He had crept up to the window on a Tuesday afternoon, which was the only time that the house was ever deserted, and then only on the rare days when all three of them went into town, or for a visit with Easter. But both Sally and Molly were there, still in bed, wearing stained shifts he was sure had not been washed since he left.

He went a second time, on a whim, a few years later. Making his way into Gloucester on an errand, he stopped just to see if his childhood home was truly as awful as his memory of the place. The house was even more decrepit than he remembered it. The roof sagged and the path was overgrown with weeds right up to the door, which hung off its hinges so he could peek inside. The table was piled with dirty clothes and dishes, and the floor was littered with dry leaves. The mess gave Sam a kind of bitter pleasure, and when he got to town, he bought himself a new leather belt, not because he needed it but because he could have whatever he wanted.

His third visit had been just that past autumn. Molly had woken Sam early one morning. He’d leapt out of bed, furious that she’d come in daylight, fumbling for his money so she’d leave before anyone saw her. But, she had not come to beg.

“Mrs. Stanley died last night,” said Molly. “We woke up this morning to the smell of it and you need to come get her for the funeral. Sally and me can’t fetch her in. Besides, we figured you’d want to set it up with that minister chum of yours.”

Sam was horrified that Molly knew of his friendship with Reverend Jewett and feared that if he didn’t agree to take care of the matter, Molly would go to see him herself and provide the pastor with a pungent reminder of Sam’s low connections.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You go back to the house. I’ll be there directly.”

Reverend Jewett welcomed him into his study with a firm handshake and a smile. Sam studied the hat in his hand as he explained the reason for his visit. “Mrs. Stanley of Dogtown has died and her burial, well, it falls to me as I was, I mean, I am, that is…” he faltered. “There was no one else to call. There’s no question of, well, a proper funeral….”

“Master Maskey,” Jewett interrupted. “It is only right that you should come to me on this occasion. It is most generous of you to take on such a commission. You of all people will understand that the work of the parish does not permit me to accompany you. In fact, there is a gravely ill lady who requires my attention today, and some other pressing matters.

“Your…that is to say, Mrs. Stanley was not churched, was she?”

Sam shook his head.

“Why not just bury her out there, near her home. This is not uncommon in such cases,” Jewett said. “Have you a Bible?”

“I could have the use of Mrs. Long’s family Bible, I suppose,” Sam said, mortified.

“No matter,” said Jewett, who turned to his bookshelf and plucked out a volume with a broken spine and frayed cover. “I will make you a gift of this one. You can bring the Scripture to your, that is, to the departed, well, to the bereaved. Here, I will mark a reading for you.”

He found the passage quickly, laid the ribbon on the page, and snapped the book closed with his right hand. “Jeremiah, Chapter Three.

“Godspeed,” he said, but did not rise or extend his hand.

Sam felt the slight.

As he walked into Dogtown, his embarrassment gave way to clammy fear. He hadn’t seen a corpse since the day he was pushed into the close, smoky room at Easter Carter’s house. He made his way slowly, the Bible heavy in one hand, a shovel in the other.

Molly and Sally were waiting outside and led him in. The windows were open and the door was ajar, but no amount of fresh air could clear the stench of rot and rum. Mrs. Stanley was laid out on her bed, her hair neatly combed, her hands folded. He turned away as quickly as he could but not before catching sight of the bilious pallor on her ravaged face.

Sam walked out and said, “Where do you want me to dig?”

“Ain’t we taking her to that nice little cemetery on the hill?” asked Sally.

Sam had forgotten the high-pitched, nasal voice. Sally seemed a faded version of herself, the blonde gone to white, the porcelain skin flaked and ashy. Even the yellow of her dress had bleached to an ivory whisper of gingham. Sam fancied that if she stood in bright sunlight, he’d be able to see clear through her. Her distracted glance was the same, though, as was the painfully sweet smile.

“Now, Sally,” Molly said, catching on to Sam’s plan. “You know we ain’t got time for that sort of funeral. But that pastor must be on his way, isn’t he?”

“He won’t be coming,” Sam said. “He gave me this Bible to read over her. We’ll do it private.”

Once the smile faded from Molly’s face, Sam could see the permanent squint etched around her nearsighted eyes.

“Wrap her in the sheets,” he said.

“No coffin, eh?” asked Sally.

“A winding sheet is plenty good,” said Molly, trying to make the best of it. “We’ll tuck her in.”

“Help me find some place I can plant her,” Sam said.

Molly winced at his language, but pointed to a grassy field that still showed the effects of a bygone plow. Sam picked a likely, treeless spot but hit a boulder with the first jab of the shovel: it took him five attempts before he found a place thawed enough to dig even a shallow grave.

By the time the hole was deep enough to serve, the afternoon was dimming and a biting wind had kicked up. They hurried with the body, wrapped in a sling of yellowed bedding. The old whore weighed more than Sam had expected, and the stiffness of the body made his skin crawl. But when they got her to the grave, they stopped, not knowing how to get the corpse into it.

“You go in and we’ll hand her down to you,” said Molly.

“Not me,” he said.

“Well, I can’t do it,” Molly said. “My knees…”

“Oh for goodness sake, just drop her,” Sally said. “She wouldn’t do half as much for us.”

The plain truth of her statement struck Sam as funny, and he couldn’t keep from smiling when Mrs. Stanley landed with a soft thud. He shoveled the dirt in as fast as he could, and then he picked up the Bible. Sally and Molly bowed their heads as he opened the book and read, “‘Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? She is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.’”

Sally’s head snapped up and Molly gasped, but Sam continued.

“‘And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

“‘And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.’”

Molly cleared her throat with obvious meaning, but Sam only raised his voice. “‘And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.’”

He stopped there, short of the end of the stinging passage. Sally walked over to him and slapped his face as hard as she could. Molly followed her into the house without a glance back and slammed the crooked door, which immediately creaked open.

He started back for his lodgings thinking, Good riddance. It had been cruel of him to read what Reverend Jewett had marked for him; it had been unkind of the Reverend to choose those harsh words. It had been like delivering lashes to Sally and Molly, who were nothing but pitiful and spent sinners anymore. And yet, the prophet’s merciless condemnation of harlots and whoring had pleased him in ways he could barely name. Jeremiah’s anger seemed hot enough to burn away the awful disgrace of his childhood, which haunted him still.

He would have given any amount to forget about his Dogtown beginnings. During the day, Sam rarely thought of his past, but sunset brought back the endless evenings he spent buried under his blanket and coat, his eyes clenched tight, his fingers in his ears. He had pretended not to understand what was going on around him for as long as he could. But by the time he was eight years old, he knew what a whore was, how she made her living, and that his grandmother sold not only herself, but Molly and Sally, too.

He tried to separate himself from the family business as best he could by going to school and spending time with respectable people, but the night belonged to Dogtown. He could smell the men around him, and he heard the bass rumble of their laughter, their oaths, their uncensored cries. He was terrified by the involuntary stirrings of his own member and tried to ignore what was happening to him. He wrapped his hands in the blanket, left his feet out of the covers to freeze in the cold, and whispered the words of Jeremiah. He tried to run wherever he needed to go and to work to exhaustion so that he’d sleep as soon as his head touched the bed.

But his body would not be forsworn. Night after night, he wrestled with self-loathing and a terror of being caught, but need and pleasure always triumphed. Weeping for shame, Sam would loosen his trousers, relieve himself quickly, and swear not to do it ever again. He dreaded nightfall even as he looked forward to it, guilt and anticipation contending.

Unleashing the scripture’s thunder over Mrs. Stanley’s grave had felt like cautery on an unhealed wound. If those words were hard enough to crack an old whore’s heart, then surely they were strong enough to cleanse his heart and soul, Sam thought. He was done with the place and its taint forever. He was free.

As he neared his lodgings, Sam decided that his first act as a free man would be to bathe in the hottest water he could stand. When he opened the door, however, Widow Long was waiting for him with a toddy in her hand. “Dear boy,” she said. “Here’s something to warm you after your sad day.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Sam said, as she sat down with him. Smiling and looking more alert than she had in weeks, she said, “Well, then?”

“Well, then, what, Mistress Long?”

“What did you find up there in Dogtown? What did Mrs. Stanley look like?”

He stared at her eager face and said, “She looked dead.”

“Did she die of a blow or was it the pox? Did you see a wound? And what of the others?” she pressed. “Will they stay up there, those two horrid creatures? Will that Molly woman keep pestering at you for money?”

Sam startled at the question.

“Oh, I know about her visits. I’m not so addled that I don’t know what’s going on under my own roof!” she said. “I remember the first time I laid eyes on those appalling women. Mr. Long used to call ’em city rats.”

The more his landlady pestered him with questions, the lower Sam’s spirits sank. His name would be linked to those two dolly-mops until they were dead and gone. Which is why he could not permit them to starve: as much as he wished for their speedy demise, it would reflect poorly on him if they died of neglect.