The Ballad of James McKenna

Day Eighteen: ABC's

Day Eighteen
         ABC's
Word Count: 975

Alabaster clouds lined the sky above them, rich and fluffy cream-puffs that seemed to bode well for the day to come. Between they and the sky and the cool breeze, Jimmy was almost positive that something good had to happen today. Considering that just about everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, something good was bound to happen; the law of probabilities practically dictated that something good happen to them eventually. Despite the optimistic feelings within him, however, Jimmy couldn't help but think that this was just another red herring, another means to ultimately disappoint him and keep the case going indefinitely. Everything within him was at war. Fear mingled and repelled hope, and he wasn't sure which one to give in to, afraid as he was of disappointment. Getting home, getting back to his life where everything was normal and controlled and together; ultimately, that was what he hoped for. Home.

It was an obsession with him now, getting home. Just getting back to Chicago and something resembling normalcy, a place in his life where none of this had happened and he hadn't been dragged through a gauntlet of emotion. Knowing what he knew about himself now--just how emotional a creature he was, and how far away from what he'd always thought of himself he could go--he supposed was worth it, but it made things hard for him. Life was hard enough for him, between taking care of his family, working for Pinkerton, and navigating a changing world that was almost never what it was the day before, all the while struggling to be a good man, the right man for the world now. Mother and Father had taught him well, he knew, and he wanted to live up to what they wanted him to be. Now, with the world turning upside down, and everyone struggling to keep their world their world and prevent change, it was harder than ever to do what it was that he was. Owain was dead, and Jimmy had only just now realized just how much that had shaken him to his very core.

Perhaps this would be a good day, after all. Quite the opposite of what everything else had been recently. Really, if they could find a single person to talk to them today, it would be better than anything else that had happened. Seeing all of those doors slam into their faces back in Harlem, that had been heartbreaking for Jimmy, and quite possibly for Nate, too. They had never thought the Negro communities would prefer to remain silent rather than explain their fears and their hopes to them. Usually, at least one person was willing to speak (and Jimmy frowned to remember that, among the white community, it had been Horatio Moody), but Harlem had shut itself off to them. Venturing forth into the Tenderloin was their last chance, their last ditch effort to solve this case. Without some measure of success here, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would have to declare it a lost cause and head back to Chicago, case unsolved. Xavier Lotson, Betsy Monroe, Hyacinthe Lackland, Lot Johnson, Eugenie Baker...they would be forever forgotten, they and the other five victims the Tourist had mutilated, and Pinkerton's will have failed. Yes, the great Pinkerton's would have failed. Zeppelins would take Jimmy and Nate home to Chicago, and nothing will have been solved.

And as much as Jimmy wanted to go home, he didn't want to go home a complete and utter failure. Because that would be failure, and Father would not abide by such failure, not when so many people were counting on Nate and Jimmy to bring closure to their lives and lock the threat of bogeymen back into the closet. Could Jimmy really afford to go home under such ignominious circumstances? Didn't he owe these people, these victims, both the dead and those they left behind, some sense of tomorrow? Everyone deserved to live their lives without the fear of being mistreated and hated for nothing more than being who they were. For some, that meant the freedom to worship, for others that meant the freedom to walk the streets with their heads held high despite the color of their skin.

Gazing around him, Jimmy glanced over at Nate, whose face was grim and determined. He had as much invested in this case as Jimmy, if not more. In his case, he had the stigma of being from a slave-holding family to overcome. Jimmy had always believed in the sanctity of freedom for all, in equality for everyone despite being different or unusual. Keeping that in mind, Nate must have felt like he had something to prove. Letting the victims down was also, for Nate, a declaration that he had not left behind the Southern mentality (and Northern, too, as Jimmy had found) of racial supremacy and prejudice. Much was riding on their ability to solve this case. Nothing less than complete success, the Tourist trussed up in chains and dangled from the gallows, was good enough for them. Of course, that meant that someone had to talk to them today. People had to be willing to share with them what they knew about the victims and their neighborhood. Quite the task, given what they'd experienced so far.

Right now, all Jimmy felt they could do was screw on their smiles, hold their hats in their hands, and look as nonthreatening as possible. Someone in this neighborhood would speak to them. They had to, or their investigation was done, and they were on the next zeppelin back to Chicago, failures in every fashion. Unless someone was willing to open up to them today, Jimmy would forever be haunted by the victims and his life could never, ever, go back to the way he so wanted it to be.