Blue-Tail Fly

The Bone Boiler

38 The Bone Boiler 1. Down the street—on Seventh—the bone boilers. Steam clots and heats the air to misery. Dark as wet wool—the limp rags we collect always feel moist to the touch. A white scab grows under my nails and it hurts to sort cloth from the bins, the back rooms, the wagons, wherever we can, my brother and I. We sleep in a room with the little ones, all four of them too young to be useful. It’s Ben and I that picks the rags, and fights the dogs, and we keep scraps on the table. The children of the bone boilers don’t beg— they get just enough and don’t have any truck with us who don’t speak any German. 2. My brother is a man. Though not as tall as most men, he is fierce in the alleys. He punched an older boy, a bone boiler who looked at me too long and too lustful when I stooped to handle crates. I was bent for those eyes but didn’t tell my brother. Yesterday, I learned the bone boiler’s name— Schroeder—he’s helped his father all his life. He doesn’t mind my Irish tongue. He gets most of what I say by gesture—a nod, a hand motion, a kiss. I hate this life. Benjamin is my brother. Side-by-side we two have kept our family alive, but I need more than a brother’s handling. 3. Benjamin has been called in by the draft. He went it seemed with half of the city. We’ve had no news of him since his leaving— I have to go and I want to get out of this city, away from you, from us. 39 He did not shed a stone tear. Nor did I. I wore my hair in two buns, not the one he was used to seeing. I smelled of bones. The three standing with me looked guiltily at their big brother, then clung to his legs. Schroeder was out working with his father, so war was not with him, but war waited down south, a war for Irish broken hearts. Dying for the Union—Where are our subs? 4. The smallest one died last night—coughed up black jellied lumps just like our mother who died after the last of us was born. Gave up was how our dad put it. Then he died too. I ran all the way to Germantown. God how I cried out. Jill was my favorite, but my prayers went unheard, so I am grown enough to seek a poor woman’s comfort— Where is the shame in a willing man? None dare judge me. I mean to leave these alleys and take the children too. If Schroeder comes we’ll have a chance. West we’ll find a city not ruled by pointed tongues and teeth gnawing us, bit by bit, ’til we are less than bones. ...