Haymarket (20 page)

Though I can’t remember the last time I actually went to one of their meetings, I’ve never lost my emotional attachment to the Knights’ founding principle: An injury to one is an injury to all. That still seems to me what the labor movement is all about, or should be. Unfortunately, though, the Knights have elected Terence Powderly as their new Grand Master Workman. He’s a mere reformer, preferring arbitration to strikes, eager to downplay class antagonism rather than organize around it.

September 5

I walked in on Lucy and Lizzie having the most amazing discussion. There they were, cutting out and basting the body of a dress—and casually chatting away about the comparative merits of spermicidal douches versus
pessaries (which I’d never heard of), and of sheaths made from animal intestines versus rubber condoms! I tried to beat a hasty retreat as soon as I got a whiff of the conversation, but Lucy practically ordered me to sit down. “Why you old prude,” she said, laughing out loud. “You’re like all the others—quick enough to do it, but not at all quick to talk about it! You’re as bad as Anthony Comstock!”

“What’s it?” I asked, bidding for a little time to regain my composure.

“Sex, of course. I thought that much was obvious! Lizzie needs some advice, and though I’m far better equipped than you to provide it, you might have something worthwhile to contribute.” Lucy was enjoying herself hugely, and I was beginning to have a pretty good time myself. No Texas farm boy is really shy about sex; he learns to play coy in the city.

Still, when they told me the actual news, I was flabbergasted: Lizzie is pregnant. By William Holmes, of course. It seems they’ve been amorous since first committing themselves to each other, but neither is eager to get married. Lizzie has been married before—another piece of surprising news—to a Mr. Swank (I had thought that was her family name). He died of tuberculosis after they’d had only a few years together, so her associations with marriage are morbid. For his part, Holmes feels a strong responsibility to his invalid father; the whole family migrated here from England twenty-five years ago and remains close-knit. Marriage not being an option, not for now, anyway, Lizzie and William have decided on abortion. Lucy urges her forward: “There’ll be time for babies later on,” she told Lizzie.

Turning to me, Lucy said, “These days you can’t even find out how or where to get the procedure done. It’s become a scary business since Comstock persuaded Congress to mandate a twenty-year sentence for the death of an aborted fetus.”

“Comstock drove that New York abortionist to suicide two years ago,” Lizzie reminded me. “Since then skilled practitioners are so fly-by-night you can’t find out who’s a quack and who isn’t.” She sounded frightened.

“Meantime, our upright medical community,” Lucy heatedly added, “has no hesitation performing clitoridectomies on women who have what they call ‘over-excited’ sensual appetites—meaning, God help us, that they enjoy sex! The whole subject makes me crazy! They’ve gotten women to believe that sexual passion’s a sign of disease, so the poor souls end up
willingly offering their bodies for mutilation. Well, the doctors might persuade middle- and upper-class women, but us poor women know better. We’ve got few enough pleasures—they ain’t takin’ sex away from us, too! Being poor is in their minds already a hopeless disease.”

Lizzie herself sounded more resigned, maybe because she’s from a middle-class family, to say nothing of being from pioneer stock. One of the most endearing things I ever heard Lizzie say was, “I’m as American as a person can be who’s not a full-blooded, copper-colored Indian.” I got the feeling she’s letting Lucy lead her in all this; she fidgeted with her hair the whole time we talked, and didn’t say much herself.

“Comstock won’t stop us, try as he might,” Lucy said. “The papers are full of advertisements for ‘infallible French female pills’ and the like, and I been asking around among our women friends. Several told me that the most reliable is a quinine extract called calisaya, and that it could be purchased commercially, no questions asked.”

“Lucy bought a supply this morning,” Lizzie said timidly, “and I took the first pill just before you came in the room.”

“Do you feel okay?” I asked her. She looked pale and guilty.

“I suppose so,” she answered, getting up from her chair and collecting her sewing materials. “But my Puritan forebears are kicking away in there,” she said, patting her stomach, “letting me know they don’t approve.” It was a brave little joke, and Lucy and I tried to laugh, though it came out sounding hollow. Lizzie looked more unwell with every passing minute, and said she thought she’d better go home. Lucy insisted on accompanying her.

“Poor Lizzie,” she said after she’d returned, her eyes filling up. “She loves children as much as we do, and badly wants some of her own.”

“It will happen,” I said, trying to comfort her. “She and William have many years together.”

“Isn’t it strange that she and I got pregnant at nearly the same time? It makes me feel a little eerie, like I’m carrying both our babies.”

September 12

Lizzie’s had a most difficult time. We don’t know whether it was the calisaya that caused the bleeding, or some deformity in the fetus itself. But two days after starting on the pills, she soaked through the mattress and, in great pain, discharged a small mass from her uterus that we presumed was
the aborted fetus. But the pain didn’t abate, and she started to run a high fever. Holmes—at Lizzie’s bedside every second—insisted at that point that we take her to the hospital. None of us wanted to risk the Central Free Dispensary, but we didn’t know if we could collect enough money for one of the small private facilities operated by doctors or religious groups that give far superior care. In fact we raised the money quickly and with no trouble; every friend we asked immediately gave us all they had. Sam Fielden even took out a lien on his team of oxen.

Lizzie refused to go to any hospital run by the religious, and our first choice among the physician-run hospitals, Garfield Park, refused to admit her. The desk nurse claimed they didn’t handle cases relating to “female trouble,” but the sneering way she looked us up and down made it clear that what they didn’t handle was poor people.

We had better luck at Woman’s Hospital, and a good choice it turned out to be. Oh, a few of the nurses there turned up their noses, too. One of them picked up Lizzie’s garments as if she was handling hot coals; maybe she thinks pregnancy—or poverty—is catching. But an agreeable (at least initially) young doctor named Michael Fenton took charge of Lizzie’s case and quickly managed to control her bleeding. Within a few hours, her fever subsided.

Once Lizzie was out of danger, Dr. Fenton sat down by her bedside and politely asked permission to discuss “with you and your husband a number of delicate matters.” Lizzie and William gave their consent, without pausing to correct Fenton’s assumption about their marital status. But Lizzie did say that she’d like her two closest friends—us—to remain in the room during the consultation: “We have no secrets from them,” Lizzie said sweetly, “and their reactions to your advice will greatly assist our future determinations.” Fenton looked disapproving but reluctantly agreed, on condition that Lucy and I refrain from speaking until after he’d gone. I saw Lucy raise her eyebrows, but she held her peace—even after Fenton informed us, with considerable pride, that he’d taken his medical training in Paris, completing it “just before the barbaric Communards nearly destroyed that beautiful city.” Lizzie thanked her stars at that moment (she later told us) that she hadn’t offered our last names; the good doctor, on hearing the name Parsons, might well have called for our eviction.

Dr. Fenton’s ensuing lecture was such a patronizing mixture of high-flown theory and practical absurdity that we had difficulty holding our
tongues, but mostly succeeded. He began with a general statement—apparently the latest word in Paris—that “marital intimacy should occur only when the two parties are in a calmly rational state of mind. The blood must be unheated, and the stomach empty.” (“He wasn’t describing sex,” Lucy said later that evening when we were alone, “he was describing a discussion of the family budget.”)

Fenton then offered a truly odd prescription for producing “strong and beautiful children when you feel the time has come to raise a family.” The prescription consists of the wife eating large portions of red meat while preparing for conception and the husband lying in hot baths while drinking orangeade. If Fenton hadn’t already saved Lizzie’s life, we would have whisked her out of there on the spot. Lizzie dryly responded, “Red meat’s a bit expensive for us, but as we prosper in life we’ll hold your excellent advice in mind.” By this point Lucy was so tickled that I was afraid she might laugh out loud. Having the same thought herself, she moved to the far corner of the room, out of Fenton’s immediate view.

He next warned Lizzie to steer clear in the future of all abortive preparations currently advertised in chemists’ shops or by traveling salesmen, and to focus on “preventative” methods. The need to turn to dangerous abortion nostrums, he said, could be avoided simply by avoiding pregnancy in the first place. He pronounced “extra-vaginal ejaculation” as “far and away” the preferred method of contraception. “If your husband,” he said, looking sternly at Holmes, “refuses that practice, then I would urge you to employ the barrier method. The condom, you know, now costs but a few pennies, and is most effective.”

“And as for you, sir”—here he turned directly to William—“let me offer some blunt advice.” (Before he even heard it, William flushed crimson; unlike the three of us, he’s apparently never discussed such intimate matters openly). “I presume,” Fenton went on, “that you’re familiar with established scientific facts about the perils of self-emasculation.” William quickly nodded his head in the affirmative, but the truth was that none of us had ever heard the term before. Sensing our confusion, Fenton elaborated: “A man’s semen, which is purified concentrate of blood, is of precious and limited supply. Excessive emissions through masturbation will unbalance your spermal economy, destroy your life force. May I ask you, sir, if you have noticed bloodshot eyes, fetid breath, or any rise in pitch in your voice?”

“No, sir,” William replied, blushing so deeply that I thought he might burst a vessel.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Fenton replied. “Those would be the first symptoms of excess. You might want to hold them in mind. Well then,” the good doctor said, rising from his chair, “I’ve laid out all the essentials, I believe. I now leave it to your own good judgment, reinforced”—here he nodded toward Lucy and me, a slight sneer at the corner of his mouth—“by the wise counsel of your dear friends, to avoid a second unhappy episode such as this.” Dr. Fenton bowed slightly and left the room.

Lucy immediately went over to Lizzie’s bed and embraced her. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you to wash out your privates with lye,” she said. It wasn’t an especially humorous remark, but we all started to laugh—with relief, really, that Lizzie had passed safely through her terrible ordeal. She was back home the next day. Now she’s on her feet but still feeling melancholy over the loss of the child. She says the experience has deeply shaken her—and “put an end to my modesty.” To which Lucy, trying to coax a laugh out of her, added, “but not, I hope, to your sex life.”

I thought Holmes handled himself impressively throughout. He never left Lizzie’s bedside. He’s a quiet man, as unpretentious as Lizzie herself, yet deeply attentive and affectionate. A fine mate for her. I’m glad to have gotten to know him better, however awful the circumstances.

September 20

We decided to give ourselves a full day’s outing in celebration of Lizzie’s recovery. Lizzie’s sister, who returns back east today, offered to take care of Albert Jr., so we jumped on the chance to have ourselves some fun.

The four of us spent last night planning the day—and it took all evening! Lucy refused absolutely to go to any of the dime museums. She said the exhibits were all shams, and what’s more, she couldn’t stand the idea of fat people and other unfortunates, like “Krao, the Monkey Girl,” being displayed as “freaks.”

We all agreed with that, but then Lizzie started to giggle and confessed that when she was a girl, before the Great Fire of ’71, her aunt had once taken her to Colonel Wood’s famous Chicago Museum (which burnt to a cinder in the fire). Some of it, Lizzie declared, was actually educational, especially the cases of birds, reptiles, and insects from around the world. At that, Lizzie stopped, looking vaguely ashamed, but we egged her on
and insisted on hearing about the
non
educational stuff.

“Well, there was a reconstruction of the Parthenon,” she said hesitantly, “lots of ship models and, in a display case of its own, Daniel Boone’s rifle.”

“Wonderful, wonderful,” Lucy said. “Now let’s hear about the
really
silly stuff.”

And for the next half hour Lizzie regaled us with descriptions of the mummified Egyptian princess who rescued Moses from the bulrushes—“but changed her mind and tossed him back again,” Lucy added with a chuckle—and the Great Zeuglodon, a ninety-six-foot-long skeleton of a “prehistoric whale.”

“When its authenticity was challenged in the press,” Lizzie said, “Colonel Wood organized a group of ‘scientists’ to present erudite testimony on its behalf. But then, alas for Colonel Wood, a ten-year-old boy who’d briefly escaped his mother’s surveillance, dug his knife into one of the Great Zeuglodon’s ribs and gleefully exposed the pine wood underneath the coat of paint.”

We had a great laugh over that and William, opening another pint of beer, offered a toast to the “Great Wooden Zeuglodon.” “And,” Lucy interrupted, “to the disobedient ten-year-old who brought him down!”

William, it turns out, is something of a horse-racing fan, which surprised me in so gentle a man, and he suggested we spend part of the day at Garfield Track, where we could have lunch at the café while watching the sport.

“It isn’t a sport,” I said, my voice a bit sterner than I’d intended. “It’s a form of cruelty to animals. Their trainers beat them, their stalls are foul, and their food is the worst kind of slop. These are noble beasts, and they’re being treated worse at Garfield Track than any place I’ve ever seen. Do you know who Garfield’s chief owner is?”