The Ballad of James McKenna

Day Four: Tears

Day Four
         Tears
Word Count: 1003

The bodies, what is left of them, have been quietly buried, without ceremony and without witness, in the police yard. They've been given the same plain pine box prisoners get and a wood cross with their name scribbled on it in cheap paint. If you didn't know they were victims, you could stroll on by and believe that they were the condemned, the gallows dead, another of the bone gallery on display. You could shake your head and spit on their grave, all the while believing that their punishment has been just, and society is a better place without them.

It is raining, and the sky is a drear gray, precluding any investigation. Jimmy has forgotten his umbrella, a grievous oversight for a gentleman to make, but he has no room in his head for embarrassment and his cheeks remain their customary sun-browned alabaster. There is rain dripping from his nose, and his curls are plastered to his head; this has made him remarkably gaunt, a wool-and-tweed skeleton wandering among his fellow dead. He stands, reverent and bowed, remembering the misremembered and the humiliated.

Perhaps those are tears flowing from his eyes, but perhaps it is the rain. Jimmy doesn't like anyone to know that he cries, which is exactly why this is a pilgrimage saved for those days when the earth washes herself clean and the sky falls. If the gods themselves are crying, who would notice one man, standing among criminals, shedding tears for his forgotten victims?

He has purchased some flowers, ten rings of blue forget-me-nots, clumsily woven as he hasn't done since he left home to join the war. A brief smile crosses his face as he remembers Annibel showing him how, back when things were good and they were whole, before their family and the nation were torn apart by war and left to struggle its way toward salvation. Her fingers are deft, twining the flowers into crowns and laughing as they pile atop Jimmy's mop of chocolate curls. He wears them longer in his memory, and they frame his face in a wild halo.

Jimmy runs his fingers through his hair, forgetting for a moment that it is plastered to his skull and forehead. He remembers cutting his hair after Father died, thinking that untamed masses are too youthful, too childish, immature. He remembers refusing to cry because men don't cry when things get hard, but he also remembers watching tears drop along with his discarded curls into the waste basket. Annibel cries, too, because she has always loved his curls, and because she understands that her brother has been lost to her forever. She is only eight.

There are ten crosses, ten names, ten victims that Jimmy has come to mourn. He knows that he shouldn't. He knows that such feeling is weakness in an agent, like to destroy him, to overwhelm him and drive him to insanity. He has been taught that he must not humanize the victims; he must see them as a quandary to be solved, a set of mysteries to unravel. They are not human and they did not feel pain. This is what he has been taught.

It is something he has never learned, perhaps because he has never wanted to learn it.

Tears, or perhaps raindrops, stain each rumpled ring as he slips them around one splintered cross after another. Each name is a whisper on his lips, a prayer in his heart. A memory, a stain, a marker on his soul. Jimmy has never been able to forget. "Eugenie Baker," he whispers, coming at long last to the latest. Her grave is still fresh, the paint on the cross dripping. They will have to repaint her name in the morning, if they remember. She was only eighteen when she was slaughtered, on her way to work for a brother who hates her even has he cares for her. A Negro woman.

It is for this reason that Jimmy stands alone, though he knows Nate would stand with him if asked. His partner remains inside, staring at what little they have scrambled together until his eyes run red, trying to solve these crimes even as Jimmy mourns them. Ten Negroes dead. Ten cattle dead for all New York seems to care. Ten nuisances dead, for they might mourn the cattle more. Jimmy cries for them, because they cannot find anyone else to cry with him.

"You'll catch your death out here, Jimmy." Nate is behind him, carrying an umbrella like a proper man should. Jimmy stiffens, wondering how long his partner has been there, hoping he has not been seen crying over the graves of ten dead Negroes. He is a man of Pinkerton's and, beyond that, he is a man.

The rain disguises the tears, and for this Jimmy is grateful. "I was coming in soon, Nate. Someone should say a prayer for these poor people."

Nate looks from Jimmy to the graves and stares at them for some time. "Someone has, Jimmy. I was out here yesterday while the boys ran the blood. Watched Eugenie being buried." He turns his blue eyes to Jimmy, and they are calm, steady with compassion. "You know, Jimmy, not all of us can remain impassive when staring at the abyss of human abasement. And not all of us should. Come on in when you're ready. I had the boys buy you something to wear. It's about time you got a new suit, anyway."

Nate claps Jimmy hard on the shoulder, forgetting as he always forgets that he is a much stronger man, and Jimmy fights to keep from grimacing. Then Nate heads back inside, not bothering to offer Jimmy his umbrella, knowing that Jimmy wouldn't take it even if he had. And Jimmy wipes the tears from his eyes--or is that rainwater--before following his partner inside.

There are ten victims to remember, after all, and agents of Pinkerton's don't cry. Agents of Pinkerton's get their man. No matter how long it takes.