Of Prophets, Saints and Sinners - 11. Chapter 11: Trapped in History

Chapter 11: Trapped in History

Occasionally a weightless feeling came to Jacob Jordan. For all of its burden of memory, remorse and periodic pain, life could be an effervescent experience once the mind was relaxed. When taken away from the sensations and pressures of everyday experience, a meditative freedom seemed to wait just beyond the veil.

He felt that now, while the strings of the orchestra played a very slow and very soft vibration. Twelve chimes, as if sounding from a faraway belfry, wafted one by one over the new-fallen snow, representing the music of change and anticipation.

Jordan glanced around the audience; others appeared to feel it too. One slow strike after the other, with everyone on the edge of their seats, knowing magic was about to happen. One could feel it quivering on the edge of existence.

He made reference to his program.

From within their bedchamber, the children safely tucked away in slumber are barely aware of the tolling hour: midnight sounds peacefully across the vast expanse of snow. It is Christmas.

At the yielding strike of the final bell, shimmering strings began a melody line faintly redolent of a familiar hymn – segments savoring of Adeste Fidelis added to the suspense, but helped reinforce the image of children carefree and dreaming under their sheets.

And then a jolly theme led by the oboe appeared. Sleigh bells joined it, and eventually, the crack of a whip.

Santa Claus had arrived, flying through the air with sleigh and reindeer. Down the chimney he came to carefully fill each stocking so lovingly hung from the end of the children's beds.

This great centerpiece of the symphony had the choir kids watching the percussionist shake the bells and pick up the pony crop he used to make the cracking sounds.

In Jordan's eyes, even the magical thought of Saint Nick had power to translocate the kids on stage to a place where dreams of all descriptions come true.

The notion of what lie in store for these children – including his precious Mina – after the concert quickened his pulse.

Excitement was in the air as Santa went about his work, and then got ready to board his sleigh to move onto the next house and its slumbering young ones. He was the busiest man of the night, and the return of the bells and whip-cracks told all assembled he had to be on his way again.

As the sound of the journeying faded, the music of the happy visions within the sleeping children's heads returned.

Jordan lifted his sight. The snow outside was falling more heavily, and it – coupled with the glowing points of lights from the Christmas tree and the children's enchanted faces – could not have been more endearing or special.

Coming full circle, the melody returned to the shimmering allusion of the hymn that opened it.

Holding the program up the light, Jordan read:

The chorus of angels welcomes the weary traveler into heaven, where he is presented to the Christ child. He falls to his knees and adores Him along with all the heavenly host.

Glancing around this majestic room, and having the festive music in his ears, put him in mind of a similar musical evening in the fall. October 5th, 1880, was one never to be forgotten – a night of intrigue, of the parade and swelling crowds in the streets, of balls of every stripe happening all across the city, and especially, of the one held at the Exchange.

It was Miss Waverly who had presented Jacob Jordan with the final piece of the puzzle, a gift which the store's guests and the general public were about to experience in the flesh.

'And,' Jordan thought, 'it happened all right here, in this very grandest of spaces….'

˚˚˚˚˚

The clock is ticking, dear readers, and how are our city's Belles and Beaux counting down the final hours till the year's greatest society event – the Veiled Prophet Ball? Let's take a look.

Sunrise and the start of a normal, humdrum day finds a particular sort readying himself for a night of pleasure. Dressed all in black, and capped most carefully to hide his head, he has a self-appointed mission to fulfill.

In contrast to the nearly palpable thrill he feels preparing for the Veiled Prophet festivities, the 'Religious Spiff' pays penance beforehand with greater evangelical, overly serious adherence to his church work.

As a type he is rather tall, rather thin, and most certainly beardless. To compensate for the pleasures he will soon feast upon, he extra-scrupulously volunteers at the Baptist, or the Unitarian, or the Presbyterian to hand out pre-printed, soul-saving tracts of the most damning variety upon the public thoroughfare.

One may tell he's merely indulging in a Sunday fervor by the complacent look on his face; it's one bound to inform a tract-taker that the young man thinks high of himself and the wealthful guarantee of his own salvation – no matter what his private dealings are. Behind closed doors or sample room curtains, his very perfect locks, combed so neatly behind his ears, are allowed to come undone.

If our early morning hours are spent with the Religious Spiff, we have just enough time to see our next Belle stir from her bed – if we are lucky – at noon.

Behold in all her glory, the 'Society Belle.'

She rises to greet the post meridian with her hair still in curling papers and a cross expression as spoiled as any child upon her face. A ring of the house bell had interrupted her over-morning 'nap,' and now a maid hands her a calling card. "That horrid Nellie! I wish she had stayed at home," snaps the far-from-amiable young lady.

In forty-five minute's time she is extending her hand and pressing her cheek with her friend's to the strains of: "My dearest Nellie. I am so glad you have come!"

In truth, she is too. Miss Nellie is a successful, retired Society Belle there to advise which accouterments for the ball are de rigueur this season; the ones needed if a young acolyte wishes to successfully mash frail masculine hearts. As a veteran of 'a few' seasons, Nellie mashed them by the score until her mission was complete by hooking some unlucky man and making him miserable for life.

As we leave these two to their battle plans of silks and laces, we should draw up closer to the venue. There's no trading at the Exchange on the day of the parade and ball, but at the nearby Federal Courthouse, behind the stately Doric columns and under its magnificent rotunda – second in the nation only to the height of the Capital's dome – we may spot another Beau sure to be at the ball.

The 'Legal Aspirant,' as he is known to all, is a son or nephew to a Circuit Court Justice, Governor or Senator, and has the highest legal aspirations for politics. On any given court date he may be found in the gallery holding a sort of levée of his own, for his ambitions to be the next Calhoon or Honest Abe cannot be understated. At the ball itself, Society Belles and their near-cousins will be seeking his attention first and foremost.

Night will fall, and the city will come out of doors. Great crowds will line the streets, and indoors later on, great romantic adventures will be launched.

˚˚˚˚˚

POW!

A pink and yellow stream of fire shot thirty feet in the air, bent over, blossomed, and rained back over the heads of spectators like shreds of living confetti.

Monk McDonough stood among the crowd on the Levee at the base of Walnut Street. In front of him was an incredible scene. A steamboat had just moored, and as its twin stacks lightly bellowed black smoke into the even blacker night, the entire craft below was lit up. Lanterns and colorful decoration of Moorish and Arabian-Nights flare hung from the posts and railings of every deck.

As more fireworks were shot from the top deck, the central figure of the evening stepped forward. For also up there was a retinue of exotically dressed men, chief among them, a fully-covered figure of a man in golden silk robes with a lace cassock beneath. He raised his arms beneficently, and cheers from a thousand voices greeted him all at once. The Veiled Prophet had arrived in the City of the Saint from his mystical lands, and his people adored him.

While he continued to acknowledge their greetings, a volley of more fireworks went up to illuminate the mighty Mississippi at his back, and through it, the light pierced the gossamer finery of his chest-length veil. This extended 360-degrees around his head from the bottom of a golden-winged helmet.

Monk felt it all at once: Charles Slayback's words in the lumberyard about how people need pageantry and hope in their lives were here in magnificent, three-dimensional reality. Standing as the reporter was, in white tie and tails, covered from the chill of the early October air with his long black overcoat, he indeed knew he and the tens of thousands on the streets tonight were themselves participants on the stage of a living operatic experience.

The crowd surged forward as boatmen affixed the gantry into position. Monk resisted the forward motion and instead glanced up the Levee, in the direction of the dark shadows forming Eads Bridge.

Near the disembarking place for the Prophet and his fellow members of the VP Organization stood the sixteen-horse team of the final float in the parade. In a few minutes, the guest of honor would board his palatial bower, and the other great leaders of the Saint Louis business and political world would board their own conveyances.

The newspaper color man pulled out his watch; he had to go.

Fortunately the swelling throng was mainly interested in taking up positions near the front edges of the sidewalks, so Monk could move relatively quickly along the paths left clear closest to the buildings.

Traveling up Walnut, he could peek around heads and see the great phalanx of floats lined up and waiting. Attendants – a man for every single one of the hundreds of horses – stood by patiently waiting and holding the bridles in their hands to steady the massive beasts. The usual teams comprised eight horses, and the pair of grooms at the front used lead lines to steer the first set.

Periodically, he also caught glimpses of fire. The 'illumination bearers' stood about with their staffs waiting for the signal to light up.

By the second block, the great diversity of the reporter's home city became abundantly clear. It was manifest in the manner of folks out to welcome the Prophet. Rich and poor, the masses of the middle class and those who work in the industries fueling the city's prosperity and international reach, young and old, were all are equalized on this night; all are democratized and brought up/down to the great middle level of spectator here to enjoy the same experience for themselves.

'Yes,' he thought. 'It is like Christmas Eve transported to the start of October.'

Just as he dashed across Broadway and turned north, the parade began. He glanced over his shoulder, back to see the massive, dark shadow of the Federal Courthouse dome and its brooding Doric columns. The crowds swelled, impeding his progress slightly, and more fireworks lit up the sky behind him. Thunderous cheers, punctuated by applause, rang out as the lead float turned the corner onto Broadway. The effects on the senses were spectacular and otherworldly; Monk could almost hear languorous, sensual chords, as if by Richard Wagner himself, being played from somewhere.

More percussive echoes off the buildings sounded from fireworks, and a slight backtracking of the wind brought the smell of gun smoke to raise an anxious feeling in Monk. He pressed on.

Eventually he got to Olive Street, where he turned and headed west. In half a block he could see his destination. The five acres of William P. Barr and Company was eerily like the VP's steamboat: fully illuminated and decorated for the festival night, with people gathered at all of the store's open windows to see the parade. At sidewalk level, people admired the contents of the display windows, or swarmed in and out of the large entrances to see the store or get refreshments. Barr's was the only retailer in town to host an open house tonight, and their ad running in the morning paper went so far as to inform the public that all are 'Cordially Invited,' but 'No Goods Will be Sold.' Such a drastic step for a store – let alone the nation's freshly minted largest – was extraordinary.[1]

Monk craned his neck and looked up ahead to the Julia Building's corner at Sixth and Olive. There were tall granite columns here and a curved entablature. He felt a swelling tide of relief and tenderness, one that was much too real to suppress, for standing atop this choice spot – several steps above the pavement – was a certain young woman and a little girl.

He made his way up to Miss Waverly and Mina. 'Firebrand' smiled at his approach while he spied a colorful slip of ball gown beneath her plain wrap of black.

"Good evening, Miss Waverly, and you too, Miss Mina. I trust I haven't kept you waiting."

"Good evening, Monk. Not too long. Mina accompanied me, as she wanted to see the store and parade but her mother and grandfather are wanted at the Exchange for the ball preparations."

He crouched down to her level. "My, Mina, what a handsome dress you are arrayed in this evening. Someone told me peach silk crepe was 'in' this season." He winked at Elizabeth as he stood.

Waverly gripped his arm in good humor, saying, "We ladies of this city are kept up to the minute, are we not, Mina, by likes of Barr's and the fashion pages of the Globe-Democrat."

The girl chuckled; even she knew that was going too far. "Or – we just have good taste."

"Well, you both look very lovely this evening," the reporter affirmed.

The little girl hopped on one foot. "I know! I'm so excited. I get to stay up and see the Prophet."

After Monk laughed warmly, he felt Waverly's inspection of him.

"How dashing you look, Monk. With your hair slicked back and you dressed in your fine evening clothes."

"Well, I can't dance in my sack suit, can I, Elizabeth?"

"No, sir – nor I in my schoolmarm uniform."

He joked. "I almost didn’t recognize you without your chatelaine."

She scowled in reply, but her brown eyes twinkled.

Just then, an auditory wave crested along the channel of Olive Street. Tall arcs of living fireworks led the vanguard of the parade and cheers, whistles and applauds followed instantly in its wake.

Monk tensed; it was involuntary. The heady mixture of excited crowds, percussive explosions, and the saltpeter burn of smoky air activated Monk's bad memories. As his heart rate accelerated, part of him wanted to flee, and the rest wanted to dash into the fray.

Again he discovered Miss Waverly closely inspecting his features; she seemed awash with concern and sympathy.

Mina bounced all around. "I can't see; I can't see."

Concurrently with the first float turning the corner onto Sixth, Monk bent down and hoisted the girl. She settled comfortably on his left shoulder to watch the spectacle quietly.

"She's so carefree, isn't she, Monk?"

He glanced up into the girl's rapt face before answering the grown woman. "Yes, she is."

"But you're not, are you?"

"No. I have difficulties on parade night."

A loud boom went off – Monk flinched, gripping onto Mina as a large fire flower burst thirty feet in the air over the intersection. Sparkles rained down, people erupted into cheers, and several of the horses whinnied and pulled mightily in fear against their handlers' grip on the bridles.

"It's all right, Monk," Waverly said tenderly.

The reporter was astounded. "Is it?! She wasn't supposed to die, Elizabeth. My fiancé came out the final night of the strike once word reached her parents' home that there might be trouble. She sought me out, she…she threw herself in harm's way to save me. She died. And she died in my arm as I was helpless to do anything about it; as the bombs went off; as the strike organizers were crushed along with my hopes and dreams."

Monk was anxious, but as he felt Miss Waverly's hand slip into his, he experienced another sensation too. He felt understood.

A glance at her face enforced the affection he sensed there as well.

Her second hand came up to touch his upper arm and her head followed. In another moment, he raised his arm to embrace her, and the three silently watched the parade together. In this stance, Monks slowly let his rage and sorrow dissipate into the night's darkness.

McDonough's training as a correspondent kicked in, as he'd have to write up this event to telegraph to the several national dailies for which he also reported, so he better commit some details to memory.

The horses of the dragon float rounded the corner. Ten in all, each liveried in silky mantles bearing the same blue and green peacock feather designs of the fanciful creature they pulled. Plumes dyed in equivalent colors surmounted their proud heads. Their grooms wore matching costumes – broad Sinbad trousers and vests. They were shirtless. The light bearers were in the same clothes. These men marched slowly along with the float, forming single-file lines close to the sidewalks. With both hands they gripped a sturdy wooden pole, the lower end of which was fitted into a leather holster mounted to the front of a wide belt each man wore. The top end of the staff rose about four feet above their heads and bore a large rectangular tin reflector. As shiny as newly minted silver, the backs of each were stamped with the VP mark; the fronts housed half-a-dozen bare flames fed by a single kerosene reserve.

The mobile stage-lighting cast on the float and horses was breathtakingly theatrical.

Fireworks soared in the sky, and the dragon's eyes seemed to follow them. The moment the pyrotechnics exploded high overhead, the toothsome grin of the beast appeared. Children screamed, adults laughed, and a double puff of smoke erupted from the dreadful lizard's nostrils to silence all.

And then, slowly, the applause and hoots of delights followed.

A Moorish palace appeared next. A man wearing an exotic costume sat on a throne while huge plumes of white ostrich feathers languorously fanned him. Monk couldn't be sure, but he suspected the gentleman was Samuel Davis – Barr's rival – or perhaps William Lemp, the great beer baron.

The float behind was led by horses dressed in white – including the plumes on their heads – and again the equestrian grooms and light bearers were burly men in sparse costumes, this time of an Egyptian variety. Golden bands and blue nemes scarves covering their heads, jewel-toned collars nearly extending to shoulder tips came down to sternums. Wide belts and linen kilts with broad gold embroidery came down to their knees, where the tops of stringy sandal-boots ended.

On the float itself, a full-sized replica of a Nile boat glided high above Sixth Street. A silky sail, inscribed all over with hieroglyphics, flapped gently in the breeze. Under it presided a seated gentleman, while a drummer and taskmaster beat out a rhythm from near the mast. Six rowers toiled around them with ballet slowness and precision to ply the craft through the air with leaf-shaped paddles.

"What do you think, Mina?" Monk asked.

"It's beautiful! Joseph was Pharaoh's favorite in Egypt, you know."

Miss Waverly chuckled. "It's true, Mina, but perhaps not even Joseph had a pleasure boat as fine as this one."

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

"Mina, I think it's time we start making our way to the Exchange. I promised your mother we wouldn't be out too long."

"Ah, but Miss Waverly, I want to see the parade."

Monk lifted her off his shoulder and set her down. "Your teacher is right. Come on, we can still see it as we walk along."

The girl appeared dubious, but halted her complaints.

As they walked north along Sixth Street, the action of crowd and parade pulled Mina's attention in one direction, and the interesting displays of VP-related banners and information in Barr's show windows drew Elizabeth's interest in the other.

Eventually they passed the entire long block of the store's perimeter and made it to Locust Street.

They decided to cross over and follow the parade route east along this street. On the far corner was the Mercantile Library, while over Monk's head the twelve-foot-tall cast iron statues atop Eads' Mutual Insurance Building played moody havoc with him. They were silhouetted against the eerie light coming from the street, and the wispy clouds of gunpowder smoke already drifting up the eight stories to them.

The three had to walk single file as they began heading east to Broadway. The press of humanity was getting thicker, and so was the reporter's trapped feeling.

Trapped in history, the horrors of the final night of the General Strike found him all unbidden.

He relived the terror of seeing the police phalanx turn down the wide expanse of Tucker Boulevard and begin inching their way to the last pocket of protesters and strikers. They had already attacked Schuler Hall – Union Headquarters – busted heads of all inside and illegally arrested the duly elected officials of the half a dozen labor groups organizing those peaceful demonstrations.

As the armed cops approached, out of the dark off to his side, Monk heard a frightened voice; the voice of 'her.' He ran, ran towards her just as the police charged at full gallop.

The men and women of the Strike were mowed down where they stood, batons and billy clubs spilling blood indiscriminately, and that's what happened to…to…Sarah. Monk's own, dear, sweet, Sarah.

He cradled her in the street as she bled to death.

A shell burst. Fireworks went off on the ground and the parade crowd panicked.

The next thing he knew, Waverly and Mina were separated from him.

He struggled to get through, but the frightened stream of folks trying to go the other way prevented his progress. The woman and girl were impelled in the opposite direction.

Another shell misfired and landed dangerously close to the lead horse of a float.

"Elizabeth!" He pointed once he got her attention.

The horses reared the instant the fireworks exploded and sent sparkles of various color all over the pavement.

The crowd lurched, and as the attendants lost control of the horse, Mina was pushed into the street.

She stumbled and tripped on the cobblestones.

The people on the float toppled and held on for dear life as the heavy wagon careened towards the eight-year-old girl.

Waverly screamed and dove towards danger.

The line of light bearers broke. The uniform procession of metal reflectors tipped widely atop their unwieldy staffs, casting gaunt shadows in the eyes of the raging animals.

Monk freed himself from the counter-moving crowd and swept in to grab both. He wrest them back onto the sidewalk just as the horses veered, slowed and altered course only inches away from the curb.

The grooms shushed the snorting beasts and calmed them to the point where they could be led back to the middle of the street.

"Are you all right?" Monk helped the woman and girl stand.

Waverly inspected every inch of Mina and nodded with an embarrassed smile for the reporter. And in that expression, that beautiful expression, was Monk's redemption, his heroic second chance. He realized Waverly's selfless actions to save Mina were every bit as good as Sarah's noble instincts to save Monk, and now he felt the wound of her loss touch the fresh air and begin to close. He also stopped denying to himself that his regards for Miss Waverly of the City's Board of Education did not engender strong and affectionate feelings in him.

Back moving again, they headed north on Broadway to take a circuitous route to the Exchange, one out of the path of the parade and spectators.

"Come here, Mina." He picked up the girl and walked with her sitting in the crook of his arm. "You'll stay with me until we get you back to your mother."

She didn't seem to understand, for she told them with bubbly ease, "Thank you, Miss Waverly; thank you, Mr. Monk. I had much fun this evening."

The adults laughed, knowing the girl's memories would be good ones. Elizabeth told her, "Well, as long as that's the case, I'm glad."

Waverly's smile was back for the reporter. "Children's spirits are indomitable, and some young men in the House of Refuge are as well."

"So are the spirits of some adults I know."

"Why, Mr. Monk, I would say it appears you're blushing."

He felt his own sly grin blossom. "You must be mistaken, Miss Waverly. Newspaper color men never blush, only 'glow.'"

She laughed unguarded. "You know you're supposed to think of me as Elizabeth, don’t you?"

"Yes, and I do, my little firebrand."

Mina offered her own sweet little comment after watching the two gown-ups exchange cow eyes for several, silent paces.

"Are you going to kiss her on the dance floor tonight, Monk?"

"I don’t know, Mina. I rather suspect she'll not hold back and kiss me first."

"Yes, Mina," Waverly confirmed. "You never know. It is 1880 after all." She restored her attention to Monk. "Now, come on. No mawkishness, if you please, sir. We still have important work to accomplish tonight."

"Indeed we do. Very urgent, important work." He extended his arm for her to take. "Shall we? The ball awaits, Milady."