Secrets In The Smoke (eBook)

Chapter 1

May 1890—Jack

Young Jack Quinn knew he was not supposed to be in the gardens, but the warm breeze and the scent of springtime air called to him. His ears strained to hear his mum’s voice in the whispering wind. The previous winter had been fierce, even for Pittsburgh, and he was enjoying every little bit of sunshine as it filtered through the budding tree branches. The boy studied the carefully tended beds, the borders of buds and blooming flowers, the neatly trimmed shrubs, and the flat stone path that snaked through the gardens.

To Jack’s nine-year-old mind the abundance of so much natural beauty in a place so close to manmade ugliness was almost unimaginable. The town of Hazelwood, part of the east side of Pittsburgh, where Jack had been born, consisted of buildings and streets that were dirty and gray, blackened by the smoke that spewed from the steel mill. Families depended on the mill for jobs—it was their lifeblood. So, the people tolerated the grime, no questions asked. The dark river bordered his neighborhood: the deep water ran gray and brown, full of shit…and who knew what else. He didn’t think so much as a flower could grow near the riverbank, nor among the chunks of black coal scattered by the railroad tracks.

Here, up on the hill in this world of shade trees, he could forget all the suffering and sorrow. This serene place was Jack’s refuge. He removed his wool cap, lifted his face, determined to feel her touch, her hand gently stroking his rumpled dark hair. Just like the old days. Before she was gone.

It had been two weeks since Mum’s funeral and he had watched the pallbearers lower the wooden box into the ground at St. Stephen’s Cemetery. He couldn’t remember the words of the prayers.…He had stood speechless and numb as the shovels threw dirt and the priest sprinkled holy water. They said prayers, and the words swirled in his head: something about “ashes to ashes” and “dust to dust.” The soul of Annie Quinn. Departed. Eternal rest. Words that did not patch the hole in his heart.

Now all that was left were questions, and sadness. “Why…? Why did she have to die? Why did she have to leave him?” He sobbed softly.

His mother had been sick for so long, and now she was gone. His sisters said she was with the angels. Wondering if Heaven was like this garden, he tried to picture Mum in the sky with the holy angels, surrounded by bouquets of flowers. Tears were trickling down his cheeks. Jack wished there was a stone path he could follow to take him to her. If only, he thought.

“Mum always liked flowers,” he whispered to himself. He remembered how he used to pick two or three and hide them under his shirt. When he went back home, he would put them in a tin cup of water, setting it on the table next to her bed. She would smile at him and say, “Thank you, Jackie…they’re so pretty.” And then he would hold her hand. Flowers smelled good. She liked purple flowers the best…tiny violets scattered on the ground in the woods, and the bigger lilacs from the bushes. He hoped that she had lots of flowers in Heaven. Another tear slid down his cheek and he quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand. He bent down to pick a small purple crocus. Just then he heard heavy footsteps on the stone path and a deep voice shouting: “You there, you little Irish shit, git on home! Go on now, git on home. You don’t belong here! Damn dirty ragamuffin!”

Jack turned and took off like a shot down the hill. The old caretaker couldn’t catch him, and never tried very hard, figuring it wasn’t worth the trouble. The man chuckled, satisfied that he had done his duty by putting a little fear of God in the young fellow. He contemplated putting up a sign that said NO TRESPASSING but didn’t know if the Irish children could even read. He leaned against a tree trunk and watched how fast the boy could run.

Young Jack Quinn was only nine, but he was tall for his age, with strong legs that had outgrown his thin cotton trousers months ago. His dark hair blew back from his forehead as he ran as fast as the wind.

The sky turned gray and cloudy as Jack crossed the intersection of Second Avenue and Elizabeth Street and raced toward the railroad tracks. Or was the dark sky just a result of the black soot in the air? The smoke from the smokestacks and the resulting grime permeated every inch of his neighborhood.

He slowed to a walk as he entered the dirt alley that ran parallel to the tracks and Second Avenue, wiping his runny nose on the frayed cuff of his gray shirt. He bent over to catch his breath, hands on his knees, and then stood tall and looked at the rows of wood-framed two-story houses. They had been constructed by the steel company for its workers. He quietly slid into the backyard of the fifth house in the second row, quickly passed by the wooden privy, and opened the kitchen door. Skipping school was getting to be a daily occurrence for Jack since he had decided two weeks ago he would much rather look in the shop windows on Second Avenue, throw rocks at the coal barges in the river, and sneak into the gardens of the big brick and stone houses situated on the hills overlooking Hazelwood. Jack’s older sisters sometimes went to the big houses—mansions, they called them—to sew and clean for the wealthy families. Dad called the rich people cake eaters. Jack mumbled, “I like to eat cake, and my sister Mary can make really good cakes. So why aren’t we called cake eaters too?” Nobody answered his question.

He had heard somebody call him a river rat once, although he hated the river. It was dark and smelled bad. Mum always told him, “Stay away from the water…if you fall in, there’s no getting out; you’ll drown and get washed all the way down to the Ohio River.” He wondered if rats could swim. None of his friends knew for sure. Nobody wanted to find out.

Inside the house, fourteen-year-old Margaret Quinn was sitting at the table peeling potatoes. She glared at him. “Take your filthy shoes off, hang up your cap, and then you best wash those grubby hands.” Margaret was awful bossy and frowned a lot, but Jack figured that she was always getting told what to do by Mary and Florence, the two oldest sisters, and that would make most anybody grumpy. Dad told Jack, “Let your sister talk. Margaret likes to think that she’s all grown up. Just cause she’s grumbling and bossing you doesn’t mean you have to mind her. But you better listen to Mary, especially now with Mum being gone.”

Mary Quinn was eighteen and the oldest of his three sisters; Florence was sixteen. They both usually worked at one of the big houses on the hill but came home around three o’clock in the afternoon. They would walk down Elizabeth Street and stop in St. Stephen’s Church to light a candle for Mum, then cross Second Avenue and hurry along to one of the markets. Mary was determined to take care of her family now that Mum was gone, and she liked to look for the freshest meat, cabbage, and potatoes. Sometimes she brought home a bag of apples too. It was a good day if Mary had a big chunk of cheese in her bag. Always hunting for a bargain, she was friendly with old Mr. Holdsworth, the butcher, who saved her the best soup bones and, occasionally, some lean cuts of beef.

“It pays to be nice to people, especially where I shop for our food,” Mary had remarked one day. “Jackie, remember…it doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and if you add a smile, then that just sweetens the pot!” Then Jack overheard Mary tell Florence, “I know not to smile at that butcher man, Mr. Holdsworth, when his wife is hovering nearby. She gives you moldy cheese if she thinks you’re winking at her husband, as if any young woman would want that grisly old man.”

At six o’clock the whistle at the mill blew and ten minutes later Dad was home for supper, always hungry from working a twelve-hour shift. Sometimes he stopped at one of the bars along Second Avenue on the walk from the mill. Most of the men liked to wash down the dirt of the mill with a shot and a beer. The older Irishmen called their beer “stout” and would drink a pint or two, and they all liked their whiskey.

When Dad got home, Jack watched him take a swig of whiskey from a bottle that he kept in the kitchen cupboard. Especially the last two weeks. Jack studied Dad’s solemn face and knew that he missed Mum. They all did. Dad, Mary, Florence, Margaret, Jack. The entire Quinn family.

Every evening Jack climbed the stairs after supper and fell asleep in his clothes. He had a recurring dream where he pictured his family drifting, lost at sea in a small boat, with Dad pointing up at the sky, saying, “Jackie, look at the stars. We’re not lost, your Mum is up there, guiding us. Every star is an opening to Heaven, and she can see us. Aye, for sure, she can.” His Dad’s words always made Jack feel a little better, especially at night when he woke up and stood at the window looking at the night sky…trying to catch a glimpse of the stars through the darkness of the smoke and clouds.

Jack used to ask Dad about the old country, where he had come from years ago, before Mary was born; but Dad would get quiet and just say, “It doesn’t matter where you’ve been, what matters is where you’re going. I’m just happy to be in America—and this is where I’m staying...