Simon Sobo, M.D.

Chapter 1

Staten Island 1802

             It is very early spring, still weeks before Phoebe’s crocuses will emerge, the kind of day farmers hate, dark, gray, winter like. Most of the snow has melted, leaving the fields muddy, which make trudging through them difficult.   There is a steady drizzle, rotten luck for nine-year-old (Cornelius) “Cornele” Vanderbilt.  He, and his father, also named Cornelius, would have taken shelter from rain, but his father insists the drizzle, cold as it is, is not enough to leave the fields. 

            The farm borders New York’s Upper Bay.   A storm may be coming.  High mean waves crash into the shore sending a spray of icy saltwater into the air.  This joins the already freezing drizzle, as gusts of wind bring this bounty from the sea 100 yards into the farm.

 Cornele’s skinny.   A little meat on him would go a long way towards helping with the cold.  His damp wool coat clings to him, providing little protection.  A chill has seeped into his chest.  Every few moments a frozen, aching sensation reaches his bones, especially his knees.

A day like this would further sour the mood of any farmer, let alone the Vanderbilts, with their perennial misfortune.  Old Cornelius started this morning as he does every morning, wanting to call it quits.  After the rooster startled him from his dream, he pulled his quilt tighter, keeping his eyes closed and, if only for a few moments longer, fought to stay asleep.   It didn’t work.  It never does.  He was all nerves, which increased the longer he lay there.

Now, an hour later, angry energy propels him forward.  He is swinging a pick-ax trying to free a large rock from the soil, a man at war, ready to hurl his fury at the enemy (which is everywhere and every thing).  Cornele stands nearby ready to help his father, but he is aggravating him more than he is helping him.

When they first began to work, Cornele played with the frosty air.  He blew out a thin stream as far as it would go and waved his hand through it as if it were smoke.  He tried to make rings.  He hasn’t stood still for a moment. This annoys his father. 

Cornele repeatedly tightens his ungloved fingers into fists, trying to prevent them from freezing.   His knees move in and out rhythmically as if he has to pee. From time to time, his shivering culminates in a quivering moan. He tried to pass this off as a playful sound the first time, but hearing it a second time further pisses off Old Cornelius. He’s convinced his son is exaggerating how cold he is.   He wants Cornele concentrating on what they’re doing, not on what he is feeling.

“The Princess and the pea.  Your mother is raising a princess.”

“I ain’t no princess.” 

His father isn’t listening.  He is intent on showing Cornele his mighty swing, which Cornele gets close up. Each time Cornelius’ smashes his tool into the earth it sends mud flying everywhere.  He’s covered Cornele’s coat and face.  

A fleck of mud hits Cornel just below his eye. He flinches.  Old Cornelius stares at him defiantly, 

“Who told you to stand there?  Are you waiting for something?”

 His son’s eyes begin to water.   “Don’t you cry boy. Damn’ princess with her pea,” he repeats.  “How’d I ever get a son like this.”

Cornele’s first tear finally slides down his cheek, and then many more.  Old Cornelius has seen enough.  He throws down his pick, and storms away in the direction of the house.

“It’s your Ma’s fault.” 

 Watching his father march off, Cornele wipes his eyes with his arms.  He’s determined not to let the tears continue.  He sees the pick lying on the ground.  He lifts it and swings it solidly into the earth. Old Cornelius hears him and does an about face.  He returns and roughly grabs the pick-ax away from Cornele. 

His father takes a mighty swing.  The huge rock comes loose. “See what I mean?” is written on his face.  Happy to have another opportunity, Cornele drops to the side of the rock. He digs his fingers into the cold mud surrounding it, and pulls the huge rock completely free. His father brings over a wheelbarrow. His face turns bright red as he lifts the huge rock to the edge of the wheelbarrow tray.  Huffing and puffing he drops it in.  This tips the wheelbarrow over.

“God damn’ it,” he yells.

“Come here and hold this steady.”

Cornele does as he is told.  He stands the wheelbarrow up, and holds it tightly, trying to steady it.  While doing so, he shifts his feet back and forth still trying to keep warm, which is what bothered his father in the first place.

“Pay attention to what you’re doing,” he scowls.  He grabs the wheelbarrow tray and shoves it a bit, “Like this!  Get it straight.”

With Herculean effort, cursing all the way, Old Cornelius again lifts the rock to the edge of the wheelbarrow and drops it in.  The wheelbarrow falls over. 

“Hold it damn’ you,” he shouts furiously, loud enough to be heard in hell.

Cornele pulls the wheelbarrow back up, stiffens his body, and tightens his grip.  His father again lifts the rock and drops it down, this time against the side of the tray.  Using all of his strength, Cornele manages to keep it upright. 

“So when you want to, you can do it,” his father observes sarcastically, but there is a trace of affection as he wheels the rock away. He will add it to the other rocks, which form a wall cutting across the field.  Each rock represents a separate battle.  He glances at the largest one almost every time he brings a new addition.  On nicer days it serves as a trophy, but usually it is too hot, or too cold, too wet too dry–the rock reminds him of just how badly he’s been cursed by God.

With his father gone, Cornele takes the pick and throws himself at another rock.  He is able to get it out. Happily he anticipates his father’s admiration when he returns.

Old Cornelius’ reaction is completely the opposite.

“You are a fuckin’ idiot.  I took it away once.  I told ya.  Ma‘ll blame me if you hurt yourself.”

Old Cornelius once again grabs the tool.  Still intent on showing his son how it’s done, his rage is placated by the ferocity of his swing.  By his third swing, however, a steady stream of cursing returns.  The rock is not loosening. There is a boulder under the rock, which doesn’t allow him to get at the dirt underneath.  He slams the pick into the earth a fourth time but it has no effect.  For Old Cornelius It always comes down to the same thing, futility.  Why bother?  You can’t win.  He throws the pick ax on the ground.

“Fuck you Jesus. You son of a whore. Stuck me on this piece of shit land.  Fucking rocks everywhere.”

 One son sick and the other useless.  Too many mouths to feed.  Daughters not sons.  There is nothing else to say or do other than quit. He heads for the house muttering all the way, “Thinks he’s a prince.  Nothing. You hear me Cornele. You’re going to be nothing.”  A moment later he adds, “Can’t even hold a wheelbarrow.  The world out there ain’t gonna wipe your ass like your Ma.”

As soon as his father is far enough away, Cornele lifts the pick-ax and again starts swinging.   In the distance, his father turns around.  Hands on his hips, he watches his son with the nastiest scowl yet.  As he turns back to the house, he kicks a shovel that had been left in his path. He shouts at Cornele.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to leave the shovel there? How many times?  Almost tripped on it.”

He picks up the shovel, swings it in Cornele’s direction, and then lets go. It falls so short of its target,  Cornele is unfazed.  His father has grabbed him roughly many times, but never actually beat him.

 Fussing and cursing, Old Cornelius heads for the house again.

“Nothing! You hear me Cornele.  You’re gonna be nothing.”

Phoebe watches him through the window as he returns   She is not happy.  She opens the door, stares him up and down.

“Another short day?”

“The weather.”

“So why’d you drag Cornele out there?  You already have one sick son.  Jacob’s coughing started on a day like this.” 

He doesn’t answer.  She isn’t finished

“You managed to come back. Where is Cornele?”

 Noticing his blue lips, her tone softens.  “There’s hot tea on the stove.”

She’s no fool.  He’s regularly disappointed her, but with all his shortcomings, the family could not last 10 minutes without him.   It isn’t easy to chop out their survival against nature’s malevolence.  She wouldn’t want to be out there on a nasty day like this.

 She shouts for Cornele to come in. He hears her in the middle of a swing.  Just in time.  His arms have begun to get heavy.  Her voice sounds like it is coming from heaven. He will soon be warm by the fire and sipping tea.

 The thought gives him new energy.  He stares at the rock that has been his nemesis, rust colored and smooth.  It isn’t budging.  He swings a mighty blow.  No luck.  He loosens some dirt and takes another swing.  Still nothing happens. The next swing does the trick.  He is about to lift it when it begins to pour.  He fixes the location of the rock in his mind so he can return tomorrow. Slowed by the mud, he runs towards the house.  Hail is bouncing off the ground.  That makes him smile. He doesn’t get to see hail very often.

————–

It is dinnertime.  Cornele’s mother, Phoebe Hand Vanderbilt, and her eldest daughter Mary, are bringing food to the large kitchen table.  Phoebe is pregnant. She has a strong face, a straight mouth a little drawn down in the corners, but green eyes that glitter humorously from under thick brows. There is shrewdness in her face, determination, kindliness.  But not right now. Jacob, her eldest boy, is coughing the worst yet, hacking away from deep within his chest.

Old Cornelius shouts out:

“Damn’ it.  Cover your mouth.”

Phoebe brings Jacob a kitchen rag.  He hacks away once or twice more, but then coughs more gently before stopping. They settle down.  She looks around the table.

“What’s with you Cornele?  Why the sad face?”

He glances at his father surreptitiously, before looking down at his plate. Old Cornelius is chewing his food looking as innocent as a priest giving a sermon, making eye contact with no one.   He can keep it up for only so long when she stares him down.  She catches his eye for a fraction of a second.  That’s enough for him to lose his composure.

The portions are meager.  There is not enough food for the seven of them.  After cleaning their plates, they look longingly at the little that remains. Phoebe takes the meat off her plate and puts it on Jacob’s plate. 

“Here, eat this.”

The other children stare at the meat.

“Not hungry,” he replies in a sickly way.

“Try.”

“Can’t. I’m nauseous.”

Old Cornelius and Phoebe exchange a worried glance.

Phoebe puts the meat on Cornele’s plate.

“You take it.”

Charlotte reacts immediately,

“He always gets everything.”

“Men’s work requires more meat.”

“And what do we get?  Sugar and spice?”

“Keep it up and you’ll get the back of my hand.”

Cornele quickly devours the piece of meat. Phoebe pours milk about a third of the way up in each of the children’s glasses.

Charlotte is not finished complaining.

“Can I at least have more milk?”

Phoebe pours the last of it into her glass.  Charlotte continues to look expectantly.   

“There isn’t any more.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Talk to your father about that.” 

She still hasn’t let up on his decision to sell Betsy, one of their two cows, for one of his schemes. As usual, that money brought back nothing.  Late at night, in bed, she’s told him a thousand times.  She doesn’t mind the booze.  It’s the gambling. Just because he loses it over a few months, rather then in one night it’s the same.  He’s gonna land them in the poor house yet. Now with Elsa, their other cow, not producing well…

Jacob starts to cough again.  Old Cornelius stands up and puts on his hat. 

“Where you going?” Phoebe asks him.

“Out.”

Without looking back, he closes the door behind him.

 No need for Phoebe to say anything.  Old Cornelius storming out is a regular occurrence.  She returns from the oven with a plate of steaming biscuits. 

“One each.”

A magnificent schooner, its sails haloed in orange by the sunset, fills their front window.    

Phoebe goes to the window to get a better look.

“Come to the window.”

Charlotte hardly glances.  She knows what’s coming.  She’s heard stories about her grandfather a thousand times too many.

“Like the boat my father had.  Some days I’d stand by the shore.  Waiting…” Cornele can’t take his eyes off the boat. In contrast to Charlotte, each and every time his mother talks about her father he is enchanted.  It brings him to a better place.  Like songs that sometimes play in his head, his pleasure multiplies each time the story gets repeated.

The ship’s deep foghorn fills the airways.

“I could hear him before I could see him.  As soon as he entered the harbor, he’d sound the horn extra long for me.”

The foghorn again sounds its deep extended bass.

          “Still sends a thrill through me… It’s why I fell in love with this house…  to hear the ships’ horns, watch the ships come back from the sea.”

She runs her fingers through Cornele’s hair, as she stares at the boat.

“He was tall and strong like you…

She sees he is uncomfortable.

“Go keep your father company.”

Cornele hesitates.

“He likes your company when he goes walking.”

Cornele is still hesitant.

“Believe me.  He does.  He told me.  He used to like it when Jacob could go out with him.” 

She hands him his hat.  Cornele takes it and reluctantly puts on his coat.

 Phoebe is pleased.  She feels a little guilty for driving Cornelius from the dinner table. This will help.  Cornele needs time together with his father when they’re not working. 

“Here take this biscuit to your father.”  She breaks off another half for him. Preparing for a comment from Charlotte, she goes on the offensive.

 “You can each have another half a biscuit.”

 

Cornele catches up to his father.  He is deep in a dark mood.  They walk quietly along the shoreline, Cornele kicking stones along the way.  The weather has cleared. It is now well into the sunset, the bay slowly changing from orange to red. They stare out over the water as small waves fold into the shore. The sound lures them into silence, quieting their souls.  Cornele throws a pebble into the water.   A thin ping can be heard as it breaks the surface.  Lit by the sunset, circles of color slowly expand from the pebble, becoming less intense, and then disappear.

Cornele measures his father’s mood cautiously; still uncertain what will come next. His father throws a pebble.  It is again followed by a circle of color.  Cornele lets down his guard a bit. His father takes out a flask and gulps down a swallow of whiskey.

Cornele’s apprehension returns.  Could be the beginning of trouble.  Then suddenly, another schooner appears, slowly passing them on its way to docking in Manhattan.

Ordinarily, Old Cornelius lacks the patience to nurture Cornele’s curiosity.  He resorts to lectures instead of interesting details.  The one exception is ships.  Like Phoebe he has a thing for ships. He points:

“What is that called?”

“The bow.”

“That?”

“The jib sail.”

The ship’s flag comes into view. 

“What country?”

“Spain. That’s the Castilla.”

Sure enough, soon is seen, written boldly, La Castilla adorning the bow.

“See I told you.”

“Your Ma says you can name every boat that comes into the harbor.”

“I can.”

“That’s how you use your time?  Watching the boats?”

“They go all over the world.”

Old Cornelius says nothing but it is clear he is unimpressed.

“Your Ma also tells me you like to wear your grandfather’s captain hat.”

Cornele remains silent.

“You’re too old to play baby games like that.”

Another ship comes into view. 

Cornele calls out excitedly.

“That one’s Dutch.  It’s Dutch like us.”

“Don’t you let your mother tell you any different. The English stole New York from us.”  Frustrated, angry, determined he continues,  “It should be New Amsterdam.”

Cornele’s apprehension grows as the anger grows in his father’s voice.

“Telling ya.  I would sell Betsy again. Your Ma don’t understand. Ya can’t get anywhere working with your hands.   No future in it.”

He looks at Cornele, not sure what he understands.  Cornele is, in fact, not listening.  He’s planning his escape route, should the drinking continue

Chapter 2

Late December 1876, a lifetime later.

Cornelius Vanderbilt is sitting on the side of his bed using a cane to support himself.  A doctor has just completed his examination. Eighty-four, thin and pale, he groans in pain as he attempts to stand up.  Yet, sick as he is, he still radiates authority.   His groans are as much shouting back at the pain as feeling it.  When he feels the tickle, his raucously loud coughs take over the room.

Below his bedroom window, a mob of reporters has overflowed into the street at the front of his Manhattan townhouse.  A newsboy can be heard outside calling out the tidings:

“Commodore Vanderbilt dying.  Richest man in America very ill.”

Making it to a standing position, Vanderbilt heads towards the window. An extern, dressed in white, tries to help him, but he is waved away contemptuously.  The doctor begins to stir but thinks better of it.  Outside, someone is shouting “Commodore” over and over.

Vanderbilt mumbles to himself as he moves toward the window.  He rubs away the frost with his pajama sleeve and looks out at the reporters.

“Twice as many as yesterday.  They’re ready to suck on my bones the minute I die.”

An organ grinder, with a leashed monkey sitting on his shoulder, cranks out a tune.

“A fucking carnival under my window.”

One of the reporters catches a glimpse of Vanderbilt and points.  The result is a new round of shoving and pushing as each tries to secure a better position.  Everyone’s shouting.

“Commodore.”

“Mr. Vanderbilt!”

Vanderbilt leaves the window.

The doorbell rings, a series of gongs.

“Pendleton.  Get the door,” he shouts to the butler, as he makes his way to the second floor landing overlooking the entrance.

“Who is it?”

“A reporter,” Pendleton shouts back,  “Mr. Michael Burch.”

Burch leans forward and looks up at the landing.

Vanderbilt moves into full view and straightens up.   Like a bear rising on its back legs, he appears doubly menacing.

“ I ain’t dying you mother fucker.”

Calmly, Burch shouts up to him, “Sir, it’s Michael Burch.”

He waits for a response, but there isn’t any.

“Michael Burch.  You asked me to come here… You liked my story about you in last week’s Sentinel…Said you wanted to tell me the rest…that ring any bells?”

“I read that article.” Vanderbilt shouts to him in a raspy voice. “I don’t remember asking you to come here.”

“Our readers want to know everything they can about you.”

“Sure they do.  Especially, how I got my money.  Probably think I have a secret which I’ll take to the grave.”

“Well, do you?”

“Just one.  I tripped over a chest of diamonds and gold on Treasure Island when I was twelve.  Been living off it ever since.”

“You’re a lucky man.”

“I wanted it enough.  That’s how I done it.”

“Can’t be that simple.   You started with nothing.”

“Actually it is that simple.  It ain’t the stuff you guys write about.  I know it’s hard coming up with news.   Still!  ’Ya ever get tired of bullshit?”

“We’re not all like that. Make you a deal. You tell the story straight and I’ll report it that way.  Let our readers decide.”

“Decide what?”

“How you did it.  That’s what people want to know.”

“There’s nothing unusual about it.”

“Nothing? You were better at making money then anyone that’s ever lived. People want to know about things like that.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“They’re looking for ideas.  What’s wrong with that?”

“I ain’t no ‘how to’ person.”

“ I’m sure you aren’t.  But something made you succeed.  It wasn’t just luck.”

“There was plenty of luck.”

“Not the way you kept multiplying your money.  You did it for 70 years.”

Normally, flattery would turn Vanderbilt off, but since he’s become ill, he’s been more vulnerable to compliments.

“People want to figure out how come, what drove you on like that?”

“I’m trying to sort that out myself.”

“There’s a lot of stories floating around, not all of them nice.”

“Not all of it was nice.  But none of it was crooked.”

“They say you could outsmart anyone.”

“That’s because everyone thought they were smarter than me.  Dumber they think you are, the better you’ll do.”

“See that’s what people are looking for, advice.  You have some more like that?”

“No.  Only other thing is ya gotta be quick.  Act before someone else gets the idea.”

“So you are cagey”

“You want to call it cagey, go ahead.”

“Well what is it?”

“Who the fuck knows.  I just do what I do.”

“Vanderbilt starts to cough.  He clears his chest and gathers his phlegm, forces the gunk out of his throat.  He lets the phlegm fly towards the spittoon.  He hits his mark.

“Getting sick brings out new talents,” he says triumphantly.

“Do you see things differently since you got sick like this?”

“Probably.”

“Like what?”

“The possibility that I’m dying has got me thinking about a lot of things. ”

“Is that on your mind a lot?” Burch asks with some genuineness.

“You really give a shit?”

Burch squirms a bit, which Vanderbilt ignores.

“Some days, it feels like I’m dying.  Other days…I feel like a million bucks.   Like today.”

“You know the Herald is printing a daily report on your health.  Been running it for the last month.”

“I know. The countdown.  You can tell your editor I ain’t dying any time soon.”

Burch isn’t sure what Vanderbilt believes.  His physical deterioration is striking, especially his pallor.  Burch saw him at a function a year ago.  It’s as if the person before him is someone else.

“Since you are feeling good, how about an interview?”

“Truth is when I read your article I thought about doing an interview with you.  Give you this.  Most reporters make up stories to fill in what they don’t know.   In your article you didn’t do that.  What you wrote about me last week was true.  Every bit of it.”

“I do my best.”

“I need that.  I want to set things straight.  Never understood people my age writing memoirs.  Now I do.  I want the last word”

“Good.  I can help you.  People trust what I write.”

Vanderbilt seems perplexed.

“Is something wrong?”

“Sounds like I invited you doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I really don’t remember doing that.  Don’t remember it at all.  I’m forgetting a lot of things lately. ”

“I was definitely told to come here.”

Thinking further: “Was probably my son, Bill.  You got sons?”

Burch holds up two fingers,  “Eight and ten”

“Wait ‘til they get older and become pricks like Bill…”

“You really didn’t ask me to come?”

Vanderbilt isn’t listening.

“I’m sure it was Bill.  The fuck has taken over.  Convinced the doctors I’m senile. That’s put him in charge.”

He clears some more phlegm from his throat.

“Probably I am not all there.  But all that means is I’m not paying attention to what’s going on around here…Who wants to?  I’m stuck with this body that ain’t worth shit.  And the fact is, my memories are a thousand times more interesting than the people around me now.”

He takes several labored breaths, than continues.

“I keep mentioning people my son’s never heard of.  So what?  He thinks my talking so much about the past is proof I’m a goner.  The doctor agrees it’s a sign of senility.  What they don’t get is, these people in the past happen to be the people I spent my life with.”

He hesitates to catch his breath.

“They mean something to me.  I’m sorting things out with them.  Finishing things up between us.  That’s what you do when you might die.”

The extern has followed him to the landing.

“Sir, I think you have to get back to bed.”

He grabs Vanderbilt’s arm trying to force him back to the bedroom.  Over matched, Vanderbilt’s hand tightens on his walking stick as the extern begins to pull in earnest.  He cracks the extern on his head, a sharp glancing blow, and pulls his arm free.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he spits out.  “Who the fuck you think you are?”

The extern retreats.

“Believe me, the people I’m thinking about are god damn’ more important than the assholes in this room.  Including Bill when he pokes his head in.”

“Put that down,” he shouts at the intern.  He leaves the landing to retake possession of the urinal from the intern.  Grabs it out of his hands.  The intern gives him a patronizing glance, the same he gives to all of the old biddies that he sees.

With Vanderbilt busy, Burch questions Pendleton,

“Is he okay?”

“His mind’s sharp as a bell. Remembers everything.  What’s changed is now he tells people things he used to keep private. Doesn’t care anymore.”

“Anything else?”

“The last 7 or 8 years the second Mrs. Vanderbilt had made him into a gentleman.”  Pendleton’s pride swells as he speaks.   “Should have seen him at 80, dapper, erect posture; he looked 60.  They made quite a couple…Up until this illness.  Now he’s more like he was before he married her, yelling and cursing as bad as he ever did.”

Invigorated by his defeat of the extern, Vanderbilt returns.  He shouts down.

“Burch.  You can bring your ass up here.  Except you gotta do one thing first. Tell your buddies to clear out. I want ‘em off my sidewalk.”

“Sir.  The sidewalks are public property.”

“ Fuck you Pendleton.  Who asked you?”

Vanderbilt waits to catch his breath.

Outside someone shouts.  “Burch got in!”

“Try it”

There is a knock on the door.

“ Burch?” Vanderbilt yells down at him.  “Get rid of ‘em.  And get them off my sidewalk.”

“Sir, most of ‘em are not my friends out there.”

“I don’t give a shit.  Next thing – they’re gonna invade this place.”

Two more knocks, this time louder, more insistent.

“Pendleton.  Get that door and slam it in the man’s face.  And none of your bullshit manners.  See if you can catch one of his fingers or his nose.”

“Yes sir!”

“ Then send someone to the precinct.  Talk to Donahue.”   Shouting like he’d like to slap him on the ass,  “Pronto!”

Pendleton mutters to Burch:

“He’s the same man.”

“One other thing, Pendleton. After you send someone to talk to Donahue, I want you to get my revolver from the gun case, walk to the back of the house and blow your brains out.  And don’t make a mess!”

Pendleton winks at Burch.

“As you wish great one.”

He adds cheerfully,“ Burch. You can have my story.”

Burch goes to a mirror, nervously slicks down his hair, straightens his tie, and then rushes up the stairs.  The doctor, looking bedraggled, passes him on his way down.  The doctor shakes his head in frustration. He has a sympathetic look of “you’re next.”

CHAPTER 3

The Atlantic Ocean, August Night 1650

 

 A schooner violently rolls in the stormy sea.  Driven by strong winds, waves of rain swamp the deck, as the ocean’s fury slaps against the side of the ship. Three hundred men, women and children are packed densely in the damp stowage compartment of the rotting interior.  What light there is comes from a few candles.  Nauseous and feverish, children are gagging, crying, screaming in discomfort.  Others hold on to their mothers, whimpering in frightened silence. A ship officer holds a handkerchief over his nose trying to subdue the smell of vomit and unwashed bodies, a dank stench that sticks to their sweat soaked clothes.  In the dim light, even the children have a grey complexion.  Worse horrors are sporadically illuminated by lightning– people with boils, gangrenous toes, toothless, bloody mouths.

Watching the officer, a mother nervously shouts out a steady stream of happy baby talk as she bounces her ten-month-old son.  She watches an old man ladle some water from a barrel. He can’t keep it down.  Nervously, she quickens her bounce, chanting her baby talk still louder.  Amidst the misery, the baby’s laughter sounds macabre.                                                                                                                                                              

Some men are removing the body of a dead woman, still being clutched by her husband and two children.  After initial resistance, the husband relents.  An officer faces the man.

“Her name?”

“Elsa Aersoon”

“You understand what this means?”

“What does it mean?”

“You and your wife each agreed to seven years of indenture for the passage.  You will have to make up her indenture.  You will belong to your buyer for fourteen years.”

“But this ship killed her.“

The officer answers indifferently, “I saw her when she got on the boat.  She looked half dead.”

“She was hungry.  She wasn’t sleeping.” 

“She was dying.”

“She was gonna make it. This hell-hole made her give up.”

“Whad ya expect for what you paid?”

“I didn’t know places like this existed.  Hell can’t be worse,”

“Listen buddy. She and you put your X on the contract.  She took up a space on the ship.  You owe us your 7 and hers as well.”

“That isn’t fair.”

Amused, the officer pokes his buddy.

“Fair?  He must be one of those guys that went to school.”  He stares him down.

“ Look. We did your wife a favor.  She won’t be having any more nightmares.”

Aersoon lunges for the officer but is quickly subdued by his men.

 

Burch sits in his chair leaning forward, while Vanderbilt leans against the bed, half standing.  Vanderbilt clears his throat and spits into his spittoon.

“Elsa Aersoon Van Der Bilt , meaning from the village of Bilt,  was my great great grandmother.  In those days half the people who came to the colonies in America were the same …indentured servants. My family goes way back in Bilt. Every last one of them a Dutch working stiff.  It was the first time anyone moved.  They had no choice. They sold themselves because it’s all they could do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Twenty, twenty five years ago a million Irish died of starvation. Good old Mother Nature cooked up one of its special treats.  Famine.  A little potato beetle.  It was the same in Holland in 1650.  You watched your brother, your sister, your mother, shrivel down to bones.  Then they’d drop to the ground too weak to continue.  Then they’d die.  The choice was stay and starve, or sell yourself into slavery for a chance in America.”

“Where did you hear about this?”

“My father talked about it.”

“Where did he hear about it?”

“His grandfather.  Not something a family forgets.”

He spits again.

“They sold the men right on the docks with the rest of the goods brought to market.  Strawberries, potatoes, pigs and men.”

 

 

People are milling around. A good-sized crowd is lined up for the auction of Aersoon.  His hands are tied behind his back.  One of the potential buyers pries open Aersoon’s lips and examines his teeth.  Lunging forward, Aersoon attempts to grab the man’s hand with his teeth and bite him.  He isn’t quick enough.  The customer laughs at him.

 

The auctioneer shouts out:  “This one is special. You’ll own him fourteen years.  Fourteen!  Look at the size of his arms and legs.  Brains too.  He can read and do numbers.   He also has two children that will earn their keep.”

 

“He’s got a nasty disposition.”

 

“The Dutch are stubborn, but trust me they’re no different than horses.  You just have to show him whose boss.  You got the sheriff standing behind you.”

 

For emphasis the auctioneer smiles devilishly as he flips Aersoon’s nose.  Aersoon rattles his chains, which brings a grin to the auctioneer.

 

“How much am I offered?  Do I have forty pounds?” He points at another bidder  “Forty pounds twenty shillings.”

“Fourteen years. That was a lot to pay,” Burch says sympathetically.

“He escaped three times.  Sheriff hired Indians to hunt him down and bring him back for a whipping.  They thought that was fair.  Your master owned ya.   Paid good money.  You agreed to it.  So they could whip you just like they could whip their own children.”

Vanderbilt spits, then continues:

“They whipped a woman if she got pregnant.   Added 8 months to the indenture. That was the law.  It was all laid out.   How many lashes you got for escaping one time, two times, three.  Finally, they put an iron collar on Aersoon’s neck. Chained him to a post at night.”

“Jesus, when was this?”

“Told ya, 1650, at a farm in Flatbush.”

“14 years of that?”

“Well that’s America. You may have to eat shit but at least you know it won’t last forever. You got a chance. That’s the key thing.”

Vanderbilt stands up.  He clears his throat with gusto.  Invigorated he again lets go a well shaped wad of phlegm.  Once again his aim is true. It lands in the spittoon. He’s pleased.  He holds a cigar box up for Burch, who declines.  Vanderbilt bites off the tip of his cigar. Burch lights a match for him. He inhales deeply.

Smelling the smoke, the extern comes in.

“The doctor is going to hear about this.”

Vanderbilt enunciates every syllable,

“Get the fuck out of this room.”

The extern leaves.  Vanderbilt inhales again.  He begins to cough, soon uncontrollably. The extern sticks his head in with an ‘I told you so’ look.’  Vanderbilt reaches for his walking stick.  The extern vanishes.  Vanderbilt puts out the cigar. Catches his breath.

“Where was I?”

“Something to look forward to.”

“Rules were you got 25 acres at the end of the contract.  Thirty years later Aersoon gave money for a church bell in his wife’s name.  He had become someone in Brooklyn..   Then, after he was gone, his son lost what he made and the family was back to square one.  That’s also America.”

He spits again.

“Lately, can’t help thinking about that.  Specially that. How nothing lasts. Families go up n’ down.  Up n’ down.  I got a week, a month, maybe a year.  Then that’s it.  I disappear forever.   Dust blowing in the wind.  That’s what the preachers say we are.  This life means shit.  It’s the one after that counts.

“You don’t believe that?”

“Never gave it a thought until lately.  I don’t know about the life after but the part about us being dust.  That’s really bugging me.”

“I can understand that.”

Okay I’m gonna be gone.  But ya don’t want to leave as if you were never here.”

Vanderbilt continues, “ Keep wondering what’s gonna happen to my grandchildren? What will they have in 30 years?”

“My guess is you’ll have plenty of very rich great grandchildren to spend your fortune.”

“Spend it?  I want it to last.  Being born with money makes you a fool.”

Burch is writing away.  Vanderbilt continues:

“Your whole life can be determined by what you start with…My father never had a chance. Parents dead before he was three.  Raised by an uncle who took him to get cheap labor for his farm.   At least that’s how he saw it. Wasn’t sent to school. His uncle wanted the most work he could get out of him.  The fuck made him work in the rain, wet clothes, chilled to the bone.  When his uncle got in the mood, he had to eat in the barn with the livestock.”

“Jeez.”

“Hate! My father hated most people.  Admitted it to everyone.  Worse than that.  He demonstrated it. Hated me the most.”

“Why you?”

“He was mean.”

Vanderbilt continues “I have this dream which wakes me up. Almost every night… my father coming after me…At least I think it’s him.  It doesn’t look like him.  But when you dream you know these things.   Lately it’s been real bad, a bat goin’ for my eyes.”  As he recalls it he is clearly shook up,  “A bat!”

He takes a few breaths.

“He taught me everything I don’t want to be.  Not letting what happened to my father, happen to me, drove me from the beginning.  Whacked the shit outta that one. Wacked it good…

Trouble is. It doesn’t matter.   I’m trying to make peace with the bastard.  Trying to be fair.  But the bats still come at me.  Lately, I don’t want to sleep any more… They chase you until they get you.  You can’t get away.  That’s begun to sink in.”

“What are they going to do?”

“What do you think?  Kill me.”

He stares at the floor, preoccupied…

“It’s not like my father just took it, let his cousins do whatever they wanted.  He escaped as soon as he could, when he was 14.”

“Where did he go?”

“Landed up as a laborer on a barge.   He hated the barge as much as the farm.  He worked only what he had to do to get by.”

He spits.

“Hate. It’s all he knew. The fuck thought it’s all any of us deserve.”  He shakes his head.   “Can’t put it any other way. A mean fucking bastard.”

Burch scribbles away, happily. He’s getting more than he had expected.   When he is finished he looks up, hoping for more. There is an awkward silence.  Vanderbilt is unraveled.  Embarrassment has replaced his anger.

There’s a knock on the bedroom door.

“Yeah.”

“Sir. Your lunch is ready.  Should I serve it now?

Vanderbilt is relieved by the interruption.  He was losing it.  Talking about his father always does that to him.  Shouldn’t have gone there with the reporter.

Burch waves his hand.  “I’ll be back in an hour.  I want to know about your mother.”

Burch makes it to a carriage and is off.  His favorite saloon is four blocks away.  As usual, Charley is there.  They take a booth.

“So how’s my big shot reporter doing?”

“I’ve got an exclusive with a real big shot.”

“Who?”

“The biggest big shot.”

“Vanderbilt?”

Burch smiles

“I thought he’s dying?”

“They say he is.  But that’s what he wants.  He wants to talk to me.”

“You’d think he’d want to be with people who love him.”

“Who’s that Charley?” someone shouts from the bar.

“You know.  People like we got here at Harry’s.” another answers.

“Well.  He got me.”  Burch answers.

“You.” Charley answers deadpan.

“Me…The public.”

“Right.  Fame and fortune.  He’s the champ of that.”

“You’re still alone.” Max shouts from the bar, a cigar mashed between his teeth.           “No matter who you are.”

“Sounds like an asshole to me.” says the guy next to Max.

“Everyone’s an asshole to you.” Charley shouts back.

Burch lowers his voice so only Charley can hear him:  “I really am interested in what makes a kid on a farm turn into a powerful man, into a Vanderbilt.  It’s gotta be fascinating.  Why him and not a kid on the next farm?”

“Yeah.  It is a mystery.  You think you can find that out?”

“That would be something.  But I’d be happy if he lasted long enough for me to get his story.”

“He’s that sick?”

“Can’t tell.   Frankly if he’s dying he’s got more piss in him than most people I know.”

“This is big for you isn’t it?”

“It’s the best chance I’ve had to go to the next level. To be someone.”

“Come on Michael.  You’re someone to me.  And to your kids… Your wife?  Well.  That’s a different one. They always want more.”

“Well he’s my chance.”

“So just make sure you keep him alive.  But not for too long, otherwise he’ll talk to another reporter.”

“Wish I knew how to do that.”

“When you’re done put a pillow over his face.”

They both smile devilishly.

Chapter 4

Vanderbilt is sitting up in bed, freshly groomed for Burch’s return.  Burch sits down, gets out his pad and points his pencil at Vanderbilt.

“We were going to talk about your mother.”

“The Hands? Right.”  Vanderbilt’s voice is authoritative.

“Exactly the opposite of my father. They were part of a community, a church congregation. The whole congregation came here from Scotland together.  Fled the English who were coming down on them.”

He shakes his head.  “Got plenty of beefs with congregations in New York.   They’re after my money, but my mother’s people were the real thing.  Her congregation helped each other out. Tried to be good Christians. It helps to have a lot of people looking after you…She had it good.  At least in the beginning.  Her father was captain of an ocean-going ship.  He was crazy about her.   My Ma’s name was Phoebe Hand…”

Six year-old Phoebe Hand, is playing with her doll when she hears the sound of a ship’s foghorn, long and deep.

It is their signal.  She smiles and rushes to the window.  She spots her father’s ship entering the harbor. The foghorn sounds again.  Holding her doll, Phoebe runs down the stairs shouting to her mother.

“Daddy’s home!”

“Phoebe Hand.  You act like a young lady.”

Phoebe runs right by her. Exasperated, but equally excited, her mother takes off her apron, and walking at a deliberate pace, follows her daughter. Phoebe races across the Staten Island fields.

Captain Hand is talking to three sailors on the deck of his docked ship. Firm, yet cheerful, he appears a handsome man, although it is less his facial features, which are plain, than his calm way that creates the image.

“Remember. Eight hour shifts. One of you stays on board at all times.”

“Aye-aye, Sir.”

As he descends the gangplank he sees his daughter charging ahead on the dock.  She arrives just as he reaches the bottom, practically knocking him over.  He lifts her up.

“How is my chicken feed? Been a good girl?”

“The best!”

“Excellent, cause I got something for you.”

He goes through his knapsack and produces a new doll, which he hands to her.

“All the way from Scotland where I grew up.”

She gives him a hug.

“Give me your old doll,” he says.

A bit reluctantly she hands it over.

“I’ll put it on your dresser. It’ll be with you every night.”

She holds her new friend tentatively.

“Her name’s Ellie.   My Ma made her for your Aunt Mae when she was your age.   Aunt Mae’s my sister.  She wanted you to have it.”

She addresses the doll “You want to be my friend?”

Captain Hand speaks for the doll.

“Yes. Yes.”

Phoebe hugs Ellie protectively. Her father watches her delighted.  It’s as if his mother is being hugged by her.

 

 

Vanderbilt tone changes.  “Unfortunately, her happiness was short lived. She lost him. She was seven. He got scarlet fever.  My grandfather made it back from Ireland.  Saw my mother, her sisters and brothers.  And then he was gone…

He is quiet for a few moments then continues.

“It wasn’t just losing her father.  After he died her family had to be split up. Her mother couldn’t feed them.”

 

 

The sound of a bagpipe.  The casket is lowered. There are tears all around her, but not Phoebe, who follows the casket with determined eyes.  She clutches Ellie.

“You’re staying with me.” 

As the funeral for Captain Hand ends, and people start to leave, Phoebe and her siblings remain behind with the minister and their mother. Grief stricken, her mother watches as one by one, various cousins and family friends take away her children.

 Phoebe is focused on her older sister, 12 year-old Beth, her favorite, who is being guided away by a couple whose own two children are spiritless, completely broken.

“Ma, who’s that with Beth?”

“That’s your father’s cousin Daniel and his wife Anne.  They live on the island in Castleton.”

“Will I see Beth?”

“She’ll visit.”

“When?”

“When she visits.”

 Beth breaks away from her cousins. 

Cousin Daniel shouts at her,  “Where you going young lady?”

 Ignoring cousin Daniel, Beth runs back to Phoebe. She lifts her chin.  Phoebe looks up.  Beth lifts her own chin high.

“Remember!”

Beth lifts her chin still higher, determined, defiant.

“No matter what!  You do that. Okay?”

Phoebe keeps her chin up.  Beth gives her mother a quick kiss then runs back to Daniel and his wife, Cousin Anne grabs Beth’s arm and tugs on it again and again as Daniel lectures her.  Beth looks back at Phoebe and forms the word with her lips, “Remember.” 

Phoebe watches them until they are quite a distance.  She turns to her mother who looks her straight in the eye.  It is her turn.

“I know you can be brave.”  She lifts her chin.  “You remember what Beth told ya.  Come on. Chin up.”

Phoebe’s hand is put in the minister’s hand.  Her mother walks away without turning back. 

“Ma.” She starts to shout, but then stifles her cry as her mother requested.

Her mother’s pace quickens.

She silently follows her mother down the road waiting for her to turn around. But, she doesn’t, until she is far in the distance, at which point their eyes cling to each other.

She feels the minister’s hand placed gently on her head.  “Phoebe.  It’s time for us to go.”  

 

“She never let go of her father. Never.  I grew up hearing stories about him, the same ones, again and again.  She said that she sometimes saw him late at night.  Felt that he was always near her.”

“Like a ghost?”

“ His spirit.” Vanderbilt continues, “I remember waking up one night, hearing her talk to him.  Don’t get the wrong idea.  She was a completely sensible person.  Intelligent.  Very much in this world.  She just wouldn’t say goodbye to her father.  Or Ellie.  I heard her once talking to her doll.  I know it sounds crazy, but they were real to her.”

Vanderbilt clears his throat, and spits into his spittoon.

Burch is quiet for a moment before he speaks.

“How’d it work out for your mother?”

“She had to earn her keep.  But it wasn’t too bad. Helped the minister’s wife with her chores. She was lucky.  Not all of the cousins were nice.  The minister respected her father and liked her. Taught her to read and write.”

He spits into the spittoon.

“The worst was not seeing each other.  My mother told this one story again and again…She was 16 and walking on Broadway in Manhattan. She passes a stranger. There is something about him.  His eyes also linger on her. They continue walking. Suddenly, he turns back and runs back to her. “Are you Phoebe Hand?”  “Yes.”  He throws his arms around her.  “I’m your brother George.”  She grabs him.  Holds him for dear life.  Neither can stop the tears. “I thought so. I thought so.”

Vanderbilt’s eyes water.

“After that, she didn’t see him for another 30 years.  He had to go back down South.   I actually met him.  Came to the house disguised as a beggar.  Wanted to see if she’d recognize him.”

“Did she?”

“No.  They had a good laugh.”

His eyes continue to water.    An awkward silence follows as Burch doesn’t know whether to look away, or offer sympathy.

Vanderbilt smiles morosely.

“You get old and suddenly the shoe is on the other foot. Lately, that story gets me. Never did before.  Not like this.”

They both wait for the moment to pass.  Burch looks at him sympathetically.

“Here’s something a lot of people don’t know.” he says almost giddily.  “My Ma’s brother in the South was the grandfather of my second wife,”

“I didn’t know that.”

Burch looks over his notes, trying to appear nonchalant.  He feels like a miner who has just hit a new vein of gold.  He decides to put it away for later.

“How did your parents meet?”

“He caught her eye at church.  A lot of girls were after him. Knew how to talk to them. He was good looking.  Like I told you, he couldn’t read or write, and wasn’t ambitious.  After she grew up my mother worked as a servant.  Did a good job, like everything she tackled.  Not him.  He worked just enough to get by.  My mother thought she could change that.  After she left the minister, she had been working in someone’s home but she’d been left a dowry by her father.  Enough to put a down payment on a farm and buy a boat for my father.  That was important.  You know the Dutch have farms all along the shores of Staten Island.  Same thing up and down the Hudson.”

“Yeah…”

“English farmers grow enough to feed their family.  That’s it.  The Dutch are traders even when they are farmers.  They bring what they grow by boat to Manhattan.”

“Did he make use of the opportunity?”

“Like I said. He worked only enough to get by.  Worked the farm to feed our family and many years that was it.  The boat was supposed to bring cash, which you need for things like shoes and tools. But there wasn’t enough of that.”  He spits.  “He’d lose interest.  Sometimes he wouldn’t farm either.”

“What did he do?”

“He’d sulk.  He was unlucky. That’s how he used to put it. Preached brains over brawn, which meant he was a sucker for get rich schemes.  That was really the main problem.  He once took a bigger mortgage on the farm for one of his hare brained schemes.  That put quite a dent in the budget, considering we were barely keeping our heads above water before his deal.  Eventually it sunk in.  Realized he was going nowhere. It made him old early.  Every bother was too much for him.  That’s the person I knew. “

Spits into a bowl.

“You think about him a lot?”

“Think about everyone the last few months.”

“But your father?”

“When he died 44 years ago, I didn’t feel a thing.  Nothing. Now can’t stop thinking about him. Don’t know what I’m trying to figure out.”

“You said you were afraid of him.”

“But it was more. I just remember how we almost went to debtor’s prison. We would have had to live there with him. Didn’t want anyone to find out.   My mother had to go to her sister Beth to keep us out of the prison. Twice my aunt saved us.  She was always there for my ma, looking after us”

“Your aunt?”

“Aunt Beth, the Johnsons.  They worked the farm next to us.  Except they owned their land free and clear.”

Spits.

“The worst year was 1801.  He lost every penny.  Then the crops failed.   The Johnsons had nothing extra.  No one did.  That winter we starved. I mean starved! Have you ever been so hungry that you ate paper?  You got to put something in your stomach…  It got to my father, well all of us, but it got to him a lot.  He was meaner than ever.

Chapter 5

Late morning on a sunny, warm May day.   Nine-year-old Cornele walks back and forth on the shoreline picking up bottles and placing them in a net. Bathed by the sunshine, fifty yards back, Cornele’s Aunt Beth, and his mother, sip tea, taking in the view of the bay.   They watch Cornele from the porch, enjoying his diligence and energy.

His mother shouts to him.

“That’s enough.  Bring here what you have.”

“Let him be,” Beth argues.

“No it’s enough,” Phoebe insists.

 “I’m not done”, Cornele shouts back.

“Doesn’t matter. Bring what you got.” Aunt Beth shouts from the porch.

He drags his net, full of bottles, to her.  As she counts them, she holds up each one, so that he is sure the count is right.

“Three hundred and twenty yesterday, a hundred and sixty this morning.  Cornele, our deal is off.  You’re going to have to pick up the bottles on your own beach.”

Pa won’t pay me a penny a bottle.”

       “Yeah but four dollars and eighty cents.  You’re gonna send us to the poorhouse.”

She takes the money from her cookie jar and counts it.

“Remember.  This is it.  The deal is off.”

Cornele takes the money. As he does so a tin toy eagle, lying on the porch, catches his eye.

“Can I buy that?”

“Don’t be silly.” 

Aunt Beth hands it to him  “Take it.  Go on. Play with it.”

Holding the toy eagle as high as he can, Cornele jumps off the porch, a good leap, letting out a high-pitched eagle’s cry.  He continues forward on the trot.  Then he swoops down, majestically grabbing a shell with his other fingers, and heads for the sky.  He caws, triumphant and menacing.  His mother and aunt enjoy his fantasy with him.

“You can keep the eagle.” Aunt Beth shouts to him.  “Luke hasn’t touched it in years.”

His aunt and mother enter the house.

“That boy is something.” Beth offers.

“You see it too?”

“See what?”

“Dad.  He reminds me of Dad.”

“His eyes, maybe a little. His hair.’

“No I mean his spirit.  The way he soars.  He takes you with him.”

“Phoebe, you were seven when Dad left us.  I was fourteen.  We remember different men.  For you he was a king from one of your story books.  That’s not the person I knew.”

“I’m sure that is true, but-“

“Just be careful you don’t put too much on Cornele to live up to.  That dad in your head is awfully high.”

“I’m not doing that,” she answers a little too quickly.

Beth puts her fingers through Phoebe’s hair, unconvinced she’s been heard.  They are both quiet, reflective.  Then she turns Phoebe towards her.

“Tooortle” she says affectionately.

 

Soon after, 11-year-old Luke arrives and sees Cornele playing with his eagle.  “That’s mine.” He shouts.

He is two years older and much larger than Cornelius.

“Your mother gave it to me.”

“Hand it over.”

“She gave it to me.”

Luke slams his fist into Cornele’s nose, leaving it bloody. More surprised then hurt, Cornele charges his cousin. Luke grabs his arm and twists it behind his back.   Cornele doesn’t loosen his grip on the eagle.

“Drop it.”

Cornele screams in pain the higher his cousin forces his arm up his back, but he holds the toy tightly.  As he transfers it to his other hand, Luke unsuccessfully tries to rip it away.  With the eagle’s talons Cornele scratches at his cousin’s face.  Luke’s forehead starts bleeding.  

“I’m going to break your arm.”

“It’s mine,” he answers in a tearful high-pitched voice.

Luke furiously pulls Cornele’s arm still further up his back,  “I’m going to kill you.”

The pain is excruciating. His shoulder joint feels as if it is being torn apart. Instinct takes over.  Cornele’s fury matches his cousin’s.  They both are trying to kill each other.  This time Cornele scratches Luke’s forehead hard, pulling up skin with the talons of the toy eagle.  Luke loosens his grip and screams in pain.  His hand is over his eye.  Cornele goes to look.  Luke shoves him away.  His eye is fine.

 “I didn’t want it anyway.  It’s for babies,” Luke whines.

Cornele tries not to listen, tries to enjoy his victory, ignore his conquered cousin.   He holds the eagle above his head and starts flying again.

“Your father can’t buy it for you, so you have to steal it from me.”

“I didn’t steal it. Your Ma gave it to me,” he shouts.

“It wasn’t hers to give away.  It was mine.”

Cornele throws the eagle down in front of Luke.

“Fine.  Take it.”

Luke kicks it backs towards him. “You can have the fuckin’ eagle.  It’s for babies anyway.”

Cornele comes over to Luke trying to get a better look at his wounds. Again he’s shoved away but not as hard. 

Aunt Beth returns.  She sees the tears and blood.

“Were the two of you fighting again?”

“What are you looking at?”  Luke scowls at his eight-year-old sister Sophia. She has watched the whole thing. 

Sophia, petite and feminine, goes into the house and returns with a washcloth, which she uses to wipe the blood in Cornele’s nostril.  She sticks out her tongue at her brother.  “You started it.” She says to him

“Watch out Sophia he’ll do the same to you.” He shoots back.

She sticks her tongue out further.

 

Two week later, on a Sunday, Cornele and his friend Owen are playing, when Cornele’s father approaches.

“I know I promised you could take today off but I’ve loaded half of the hay on the boat.  The two of you load the other half and sail it to the wharf.  You can play on the way there and coming back.  Six pence for the job.”

“But you gotta pay us, not like last time.”

“Do the job right and you get paid.”

“We did it right last time.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

Owen murmurs to Cornele, “No way I’m gonna get robbed again.”

“But we get to sail the boat.  Come on.  I’ll give you my 6 pence.”

“I control the rudder.” Owen says as he walks toward the boat.

“We’ll take turns.”

Soon Cornele is busy loading the hay, while Owen half-heartedly paws at it. Cornele doesn’t care.  Whether Owen helps, or not, is immaterial.  He loves sailing.  

The hay is loaded and soon they’re out on the water, Owen at the rudder.  The sail is flapping every which way.  Then he catches a gust, and almost overturns the boat.

At this point, Cornele takes over and they are soon coasting along at a smooth rapid speed.  Cornele is a natural.  Anchored by the weight of the boat and the load, he has a feel for the angles needed to get maximum push from the wind. On the way back, without the hay, the lost weight requires a new angle, a new positioning of their weight.  No thinking is involved.  Like a fine athlete his body automatically makes adjustments from the feel of it. 

He had this talent within a half hour of his father’s first lessons.  He was a natural, although his father would never acknowledge it.  His father still gives him sailing lessons.  Being able to teach and critique his son is one of his few pleasures, although he regularly underestimates his son’s ability.

“It’s my turn!” Owen calls out crabbily.

Cornele relents but Owen is no better than before.  He tries to imitate Cornele, only what he’s imitating is how Cornele stands, where he puts his hands, how he bends.  He doesn’t have a clue about the feel.  Very soon he once again almost turns the boat over.  Cornele takes over.  Owen sulks further.

The next day they are at their one room schoolhouse.  It is Cornele’s least favorite place.  He is stuck there all day.   Has to sit still and wait his turn to speak.  But it is never about anything that interests him.  The teacher usually asks questions about something he was supposed to read but didn’t, so he doesn’t have the answer.  Reading either grabs him right off or it doesn’t.   Even when he likes what he reads his attention disappears rapidly when he hits a dry stretch.

 Especially homework.  He hates being forced to read something that Mr. Van Etten hates, which is most of the material.  He assigns it like he is distributing castor oil, good for you, but torture going down. His attitude is “if I put up with it, so will you.” Cornele gets enough of that from his father.

He’s not alone.  His eyes drop when the teacher scans the room for someone to call on. Half the class does the same.  Few of them have done the assignment.

 The biggest problem for Cornele is they are expected to wear good clothes.  Phoebe provides him with a clean shirt and pants.  They look better on him than they did on his older brother Jacob, before he outgrew them.  Shoes are the problem.  Cornele’s big toe is visible through a hole in the front of it.

Mr. Van Etten leaves the room.  At the blackboard an older student draws Cornele’s shoe and toe. He points to it, then holds his nose.  Everyone else in the classroom does the same including Owen, who avoids eye contact with Cornele.  Suddenly Owen shouts out as if leading a cheer.

“Cornele’s father is a cheat. Cheat cheat cheat!”

The rest of the class picks up the chant, “Cornele’s father is a cheat.  Cheat cheat cheat!”

          Sophia gets Cornele’s attention.  Her eyes are sad.   More importantly she is worried.  She gestures for him to keep calm. That is impossible. Every eye in the room is on him.  He blushes scarlet red, his face so hot it feels as if it is about to catch fire.

Owen continues,  “He’s a lazy bum.  Bum bum bum!”

“Bum bum bum!” shouts his schoolmates.

       “He smells like a fart…

       “Fa-” Cornele jumps on Owen and lands a good punch. Everyone starts to scream, happy for the chaos.  At that point Mr. Van Etten returns.  He grabs Cornele by the ear, lifts him off of Owen, and pulls him to the door of the schoolhouse.  He opens it, places his foot on Cornele’s backside and literally kicks him out of the room.  He goes flying, landing in the mud.

The teacher shouts angrily,

“Two weeks suspension!  I don’t want to see your face.”

Cornele quickly rights himself and stares back at him.

“Ugly face,” one of the children shouts. “Ugly, Ugly, Ugly face.” The children laugh away until the teacher swirls around and quiets them with a threatening stare.

As Cornele walks home he replays every insult, every chant, striking back as best he can with what he could have said, what he should have said.  That half works, but not like the punch he gave Owen.  He is less successful with the look on his teacher’s face.  Contempt. He’s familiar with that look.  He’s seen it many times.  Heard it in people’s voice when speaking to his mother.  Or Charlotte. Or Jacob.  Mr. Van Etten has looked at him like that since the first day he saw him. As soon as he heard his name.  Vanderbilt!  It’s the same with several others in town.  The contempt on his teacher’s face stays in his mind.

 He enters the house by the kitchen door. Phoebe takes one look and knows there’s trouble.

“What’s happened now?”

“They were making fun of Pa”

“Who?”

“Everyone.  Owen started it.”

“Don’t you mind Owen.”

“I hit him good.  He won’t say anything else.”

“You suspended?”

“Two weeks.”

“Well if you’re gonna be home, me and Pa could use some help.  Those dishes there need drying.”

He picks up a dish towel, and lifts a glass out of the sink, but soon tears well up.

“You okay?”

He says nothing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

“Then how come you’re crying?”

He doesn’t answer.  He looks down at the floor. His tears continue.

“Come on.  Out with it.”

 “They always make fun of Pa.” 

This brings a new wave of tears, a depth of sadness that surprises even Cornele.

It goes right through Phoebe.  Old Cornelius’ cruelty towards Cornele has been the subject of many discussions with Beth. But the idea that Cornele is this bothered by his father’s reputation hasn’t occurred to her before.

It isn’t a total surprise.  Her disappointment with Old Cornelius has occupied her on too many restless evenings. They all have been affected by Cornelius’ reputation in the community.  His failure to provide, and hare brained schemes, his being seen not only as lazy, but as a fool, defines the family’s social position. Being a Vanderbilt is a mark against them.    

Phoebe has taught the children that dirty laundry stays at home. Only Beth knows the full extent of the family’s difficulties. Others can only infer. But that is not difficult.  She can’t help discerning a patronizing undercurrent that too often sneaks into conversations with her. She holds her head high, which her detractors see as haughtiness. Her admirers credit her for being resolute.

She is not defenseless. For one thing you can never be sure what people really think.  Moreover,  she and Beth are sophisticated at articulating a reasonable way to view her problems. This generates sufficient praise. For example, she and Beth, can highlight an assortment of comforting adjectives that apply to her.  “Strong”, “determined”, “decent” are attributes truthfully present.  So is the way Beth has put it, “fearless courage for what is right.”   

Matching up to these ideals has helped Phoebe see that she is a person of character. This has gotten her through many a difficult moment. But skills such as these, even with the talent Beth and Phoebe possess, offer only temporary respite.  The facts are the facts.  Many families worry, worst case scenario, that they could fall to the very bottom of the pile, where they would lose their social invisibility. The Vanderbilts have been, and still are, there.  Not only the town’s gossipers, but everyone else suspects.  Most importantly, Phoebe knows her situation only too well. 

It is far cry from where Phoebe assumed she would be. Her father left her believing she came from good stock, but that is a flimsy base for self-regard.  Other than those early years, she doesn’t possess the recollection of any time in her life when her family was held in high esteem. 

In certain ways it is worse now.  After her father’s death, having her family dispersed among strangers was terrible, but there was no shame in it.  Being a servant in the minister’s home wasn’t too bad.  She was treated with dignity.  She was able to nestle her image of herself in her imagination, provide a happy ending.  She assumed her problems would be remedied by marriage. 

 When this didn’t happen, when she wasn’t rescued she had to make major adjustments in her thinking.  Clearly her situation isn’t all-bad. As tight as things have been, she’s living in her own home and her family has remained  together. Plenty of people would be more than happy with that. It’s better than she knew as a child.  But then it was circumstance, now it is a failure of the head of household.  More importantly what has changed is her escape route has been squashed.  In comparison to what she expected she has fallen a long way. 

Perhaps, it would have been different if her father had not died.  With the clear perspective of someone who had been around long enough to understand people, he would have appreciated Cornelius’ inadequacy and influenced Phoebe away from a young and foolish choice.  His good looks would have counted for far less in his evaluation. 

At the time she trusted her own judgment.  She didn’t think she was desperate when she fell for Cornelius.  Or, if she was, in her mind, it was romantic to feel so much ardor, exciting to so control her destiny.  Only now, with maturity, with the silliness of youth long gone, can she see how childish she was.  Only now can she fully appreciate the consequences of not having a father to guide her. 

It just hadn’t occurred to her that Cornele was so affected. It always seemed that if any schoolmate bothered him he would let them have it.  He was tall and strong enough to do it. And did do it.  He wouldn’t let anyone best him. Now she is recalling the time she had sent Cornele to buy flour, while they owed a huge sum at the store.  He had come back empty handed, apparently turned away.  He didn’t want to talk about it and it never came up again.  She stopped sending him, preferring Charlotte, with her trusty mouth to come through for them. She thought he was done with the incident, but perhaps not.  She hasn’t seen him look this hurt since he was a small child.  He’s staring at the floor.

She raises Cornele’s chin and looks into his eyes.

“You gotta’ learn from this.”

“Learn what?” His eyes meet hers.

“To fix it you gotta be a different Pa for your own kids.”

“What does Pa do when people make fun of him?”

“They don’t make fun of him.  Not to his face.  Adults are different than kids.”

“Still.  Doesn’t it bother him?”

“He’s long past caring what people think.  He knows his place.”

 Cornele knows his father’s place.  He has noted his meekness around people outside the family.

“Sometimes…” Cornele stops.

“Sometimes what?”

 “I think I’m just like him.” 

“Well.  You have his good looks.”

“I am like him. Seriously.”

She is relieved that this is the worst of it.

“Well I think you got the better half of him.  You dream like him.” 

“You always tell him to stop dreaming.”

“If he completely stopped dreaming we would be burying him.  I like that he dreams… You know Cornelius, he’s come up with a lot of good ideas.”

          She smiles as she again raises his chin to look at her. “Don’t you stop dreaming.  No matter what. You take a fall?  You get back up again and dream another one.”

“Pa does that. Look where it gets him.”

“Not because of his dreams.  He gets too easily discouraged when things go wrong.  Lands up costing us money.   That’s why I shoot him down when he wants money for one of his projects.”

She thinks further 

“Cornele. You got one thing over your dad.  You decide to do something you get it done… No matter what.  I’ve watched you.  Things go wrong and you work three times as hard.   Ten times.  There’s no quit in you.  Keep doing that and you’ll be fine.”

 

          At harvest time, Old Cornelius has brought his periauger, a twenty-foot sail boat, to the town dock to load. Working efficiently and cooperatively, silently, they load their vegetables on to the boat. The crisp chill of the dawn refreshes Cornele’s spirit.  He loves these mornings. Getting off the farm.   Goin’ to Manhattan!  Adrenaline rushes  through his veins as Cornelius unties the last of the ropes.  Then they are off as the sun slowly rises behind them.  They rub their hands together trying to warm them.  The sound of seagulls, flying alongside, racing the boat, racing each other, climbing, diving, veering off to the side, only to return, crying, crying.  An osprey gliding high above, with its far louder caws, momentarily silences the sea gulls, but soon they reoccupy their province. Cah cah. Busy gauging the wind, Cornele’s expectations multiply as they sail over the water.   Cornelius’ father barks out the orders

“Ready about.”

Cornele is “on alert.”

Old Cornelius shouts happily.

“Hard-a-lee.”

He does as his father orders.

“More. All the way down.”

They catch the wind.

“Good.  Very good”

The boat sails smoothly over calm waters with a gentle breeze.  A schooner passes them.  They ride the wind contentedly, calmly awaiting their destination.

At the marketplace Old Cornelius continues to be in a good mood.  It’s been a good harvest and he’s proud of his vegetables, particularly his celery, peppers and cucumbers. He is busy making sales and making use of Cornele’s eagerness.  He has him cutting off browned leaves, neatening the rows of vegetables.  A customer makes a purchase and moves on to the next cart.

“Notice the look on his face.”  Old Cornelius tells Cornele.  “That’s what you want.  Happy customers.  Don’t sneak in a rotten tomato along with the others.  He won’t be back. If you can, establish a reputation that you are likely to undersell your competitors.  They will come looking for you.”

A new customer comes to their cart.

“Sir?”

Cornele goes off to pump fresh water.  As he fills his pail a merchant warns him.

“Heard a storm’s coming.  You and your Da better get out early.”

          Cornele returns to his father’s cart. 

“People are closing early.   A storm’s coming.”

“That’ll leave more customers for us”. Old Cornelius answers happily.

Later, as the merchants pack up, father and son watch them half-tempted to join them. But very soon the customers are lining up.  

“I told you.”

It is early evening. Old Cornelius serves the last customer.  He counts his money.  Cornele loads the unsold merchandise on to a cart, brings it to the boat, and unloads it. He shouts to his father.

“It’s getting dark.”

Trailing behind, his father is in no hurry.

“I’m coming. I’m coming.   We can use the moonlight to get home.”

Cornele’s already in the boat.  Defiantly, his father gets in slowly.  “Like your mother.  Worry, worry, worry,” he chides him.

Old Cornelius puts down the sack of coins on the bench next to him where he is seated.  Cornele uses a pole to push them into the deeper water.  They are soon catching a breeze and off into the moonlight. 

Half way across the bay the sky darkens. Old Cornelius lights the oil lantern. Suddenly the wind whips up something fierce, practically capsizing the boat. The coin sack goes into the water and sinks to the bottom of the bay.   Their heart has been broken in two, stunned, they hesitate, but there isn’t time to think about it. Hurriedly, they lower the sails.

“You shouldn’t have left the money there, Cornele.”

Cornele knows the truth about the moneybag, but says nothing.  Of greater importance, a squall has snuck up behind them.  The wind isn’t quitting.  Stronger gusts build on top of one another, torrents of unrelenting water and wind, push and grab them.

The rudder goes flying out of Old Cornelius’ hands. He is able to get it back, and hold on, but it is taking everything he has. The cold chilling rain has soaked right through them. One wave after another comes crashing over the top of the boat.

The water is soon above their ankles.  They both hunker down trying to keep warm, Old Cornelius holding the rudder and Cornele the pole so they won’t be tossed out.  But the water is coming in so fast they must act.  Cornele widens his stance and stops thinking about being tossed out of the boat.  He starts bailing the water.   Above the wind and the crashing waves Old Cornelius screams orders, but they can hardly hear each other. 

“Water’s freezing!”

Angrily Old Cornelius jabbers,  “No complaints Cornele. Bail faster!” 

“I said faster! Damn you. We’re going down if you don’t.”

The water has gone up another 6 inches

“Faster!”

“I can’t.”

“You can.” Old Cornelius rages at his son

“You take the rudder.” Old Cornelius shouts nastily, “Give me the pail.”

Old Cornelius throws himself into the task.  But he is a flash in the pan.  He is soon doing far worse then his son, doing more screaming than bailing.  He stops, tries to catch his breath.  For a moment, a bit of energy returns, but as he bends to scoop the water, he slips and falls into it.  Soaked, he gets up, but he’s had it. Cornelius knows that look.  He’s seen it before. “It’s over for us” is written on his face.

          Cornele almost immediately switches gears. He is not going to let them die.  He takes back the pail and starts bailing like a mad man.  He keeps on going, becoming stronger by the moment.  The water level starts going down.  He keeps going.

Then as quickly as it began, the storm ends.  The water remains choppy, but a nice steady wind brings them home.

As they step on to land they are shaken, but grateful to be alive.

They walk from the shore.  Once, just once, their eyes catch each other.  Their relationship has changed.  Son protected father. Ashamed, his father stares at the ground. Then he tries to recoup.

“You shouldn’t have put the money there.”

Emphatically he replies,

“I didn’t”

Old Cornelius jabbers on. Cornele simply ignores him.

Chapter 6

1804

Cornele’s older brother Jacob is dead.  He’s laid out on the bed he shares with Cornele.  Phoebe turns to 11-year old Cornele.

“You’re going to have to sleep in Eliza and Melinda’s bed.  Just for tonight.”

“Ma he snores,” Eliza answers unhappily.

“So don’t listen.”

Phoebe’s eyes return to Jacob. She and Beth have done a good job with him.  He almost looks like he’s sleeping peacefully. Unconsciously, she smiles at him as if he could respond.  Beth moves Jacob’s hair out of his eyes. Phoebe fixes it further.

She addresses the children.

“I know you’re scared, but one at a time, I want each of you to take his hand. Think what you want to tell him. He’ll hear it. God allows it one last time.”

“Go on.” Aunt Beth urges them.

The younger children wait their turn and take his hand dutifully. As Mary holds his hand she stares, waiting for a reaction from Jacob. When there is none her tears turn into sobs.  Phoebe embraces her, strokes her hair slowly, her eyes watering as well.

“Sh…Sh. He’s with God”

Phoebe stares into space, thinking.  She looks over at Beth who looks at her lovingly. Beth takes Phoebe’s hand.

“Go on.  Go on.”  Aunt Beth says to the children.  They leave. The two sisters remain.  Not a word is said between them.  Beth runs her fingers through Jacob’s hair while Phoebe watches her.  They spend the night watching over him, until they doze off in their chairs.

 

It is a cold grey day at the cemetery.  The funeral rituals are followed exactly, which helps numb them.  Old Cornelius seems the most pious of all.  They all feel it.  God’s somewhere nearby.  It’s not a time to piss him off.

Afterwards, the mourners gather in the kitchen.  Phoebe is bundled in a blanket, which she pulls tighter around herself.  The rituals are familiar here as well. They have been here many before times.  In 1804 no family goes for very long without someone dying.  Aunt Beth pours hot tea for Phoebe.

“You’re chilled to the bone.  Drink this.” 

Phoebe sips the tea slowly.

“Wonder how many more God’s going to take?”

Beth frowns,  “Don’t talk that way.  Jacob was always sickly.  We all knew this might happen.” 

Quietly, Phoebe begins to cry again.

“What?”

“I think he knew all along.  He was so quiet.  Sometimes I felt he wasn’t with us. Like he was preparing for heaven.”

Beth listens quietly. Some more tears.  “So now he’s doing just fine up there.”

Phoebe imagines that and smiles at the image.  Beth rolls her thumb across the back of Phoebe’s hand.  Fresh tears.

“Look at the others.  Cornele, he’s a bruiser.”

“I know.  He’s a strong boy.”

Cornele is with his cousin Sophia, who looks at him lovingly. 

       Phoebe smiles a bit, “They’re always together.” 

“You never know.  It would be so nice. Another stitch holding us together.”

 

The family is eating breakfast the next morning.  With a decent night of sleep, and cold water on their face, their morning cheerfulness takes little effort.  They adhere to their routine out of habit, without self consciousness, but there is a strangeness about what they do.   It is as if there is someone else, a foreign someone possessing them, directing them, next to them, watching them from inside.  While unfamiliar it doesn’t seem strange. It  seems soothing to be watched as they do the usual, as if there is an angel keeping them company.

But there are impediments to this feeling of familiarity, for instance, Jacob’s empty chair.   Try as they might not to look, it draws them like a magnet.  They glance, and then look away.  Glance and look away.

“Cornele. Take his seat. You’re the oldest boy now.”

       Before proceeding, he looks to his father.  There is no objection.

Very self-consciously he lowers himself into Jacob’s chair.  It seems strange to all of them.  No one says a word until Charlotte, who always prefers talk to silence, reacts.

“Well what do you have to say Cornele?”

Cornele looks at his mother, then more cautiously at his father.

“If I’m the oldest boy I should do what Jacob did.  Quit school and work.”

“Wouldn’t you just love that?” Phoebe answers.  “I know how much you hate going, but eleven is too young.”

“I can read and write.”

“You can’t spell at all.”

“I spell the way it sounds. That’s good enough.  People can understand it.  And I’m good with figures.”

“Talk to your father about not getting an education.  It’s held him back.”

`         “You want to quit,” his father answers.  “Then quit.  You’re old enough to decide.”

 

 Ever pleased to play the role of curmudgeon, Vanderbilt smiles as he continues with Burch.

“Truth is quitting school was the best thing I ever did. If I had learned education I would not have had time to learn anything else.”

Burch stops writing.  He looks at him disapprovingly.

“You can quote me on that.  He repeats the sentence again expecting Burch to take it down verbatim, “If I had learned education I would not have had time to learn anything else.”

`            “You want me to write that kids should quit school?”

“It helped me and that’s the truth.  It could help a lotta others to know that.  Encourage them to do it and not feel like an imbecile.  Fucking educated idiots.  Too many of them got their heads fucked up by what they learned.”

“Meaning what?”

“That’s all I’m gonna say.”

 

Soon after, early morning, along the Staten Island docks, eleven year old Cornele is strutting about, as if it’s just another day, confident that he belongs with the other much older sailors and workmen. One of the seamen needles him.

 

“Where’s your father Cornele?”

 

“Don’t know.”

 

The person asking, and his buddies, never let up on teasing about his father, and the family name, but at this point, with Jacob recently dead, there is sympathy in their laughter.    Cornele long ago earned their respect with his sailing. They know he is as good a sailor as any of them. 

 

He looks up at the church clock: 6:45, jumps off the dock to the sand, where his father’s periauger is sitting along with a sign:

 

 Manhattan 40 cents.

 

First trip 7 AM.

 

 A potential customer sees the sign and gets in the boat. Others soon join him.  The boat seats twenty. As it fills, Cornele pushes the boat a bit further into the water.  He looks again at the church clock.  The bells rings 7 times.  Cornele starts pushing off.  He has miscalculated. As each passenger was added he hadn’t gone far enough into the water, so that the push off would be easy.  They are stuck in the sand. Cornele jumps out and struggles to lift the end of the boat enough so that it can float.

 

Another boatman nearby, in his early 20’s, also with a periauger, laughs at Cornele’s difficulties.    He shouts out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

“Come on.  I’ll race you.”

 

Cornele nods agreement. He would never pass up a chance to race.

 

The boatmen each have a long pole that is shoved into the ground to push off.  The first boatman is able to get his boat floating, and his sails up.  His passengers let out a rowdy cheer, as they catch the wind.  One of them makes a raspberry at Cornelius who is still having trouble getting ungrounded.  His own passengers are waiting to cheer.  The other boat soon has a substantial lead.

 

Cornele puts the pole into his chest and pushes with every ounce of strength he has. Nothing with the first effort.  Tries again and a third time before finally, he succeeds. His passengers cheer. The sails are up in no time. Out in the water, Cornele does his magic, tacking at an extreme angle, which gets them racing along.  The wind smacks into the sail and lifts the side of the boat, holding it there again and again.  Unperturbed Cornele shouts,

 

“Every one lean to the other side.”

 

The passengers do as directed and the boat is stabilized. The speed at which they are sailing is quite exciting to them.  It is unfamiliar.  Only a horse can achieve a similar speed, but that involves galloping, heavy pounding at the earth.  Despite the sea spray, sailing fast seems light and airy, perhaps what it must be to fly.

 

The lead is shrinking. As they near a Manhattan docking, Cornele is only slightly behind.  With a last burst of wind that he has somehow caught, he pulls ahead and jumps out, slamming his anchor into the sand. He has won.  He half listens to the delighted cheers of his passengers.  He, however, seems glum.  After the last passenger is out of sight, he opens his jacket, revealing a bloody shirt. 

 

In the Vanderbilt kitchen that night Cornele’s mother opens his shirt and washes his chest, revealing a nasty circular wound where the pole had penetrated his chest.  She tends to it.  Phoebe scolds him but is obviously proud.

 

“All this to win a race?”

 

“It’s foolishness.  Showing off.” old Cornelius adds.

 

 

Vanderbilt lifts his shirt to show Burch

“I still have the scar.  They’ll bury me with it.  The main point is I won. Tell your readers that. No matter what it takes you gotta win.”

     Chapter 7

Phoebe is breast-feeding her baby in the kitchen.  The children are outside.  Old Cornelius has an announcement.  He seems quite nervous.

“Finally got a big job lined up. A boat’s stuck near Sandy Hook.  Got a contract to empty the boat and get the cargo to Jersey.  It’s going to require about 20 men, three wagons with teams and drivers.”

“You always said you wanted this kind of job. Why are you looking so down?”

“I am busy with another job.”

She studies him for a moment knowing full well that he is lying. She knows he doesn’t think he can pull it off.

“Cornele will do it.”

“That’s a joke.  He’s 13.”

“13 going on 25.  Besides if you don’t use Cornele you will have to split the profits with an outsider.”

“If Cornele messes it up I won’t get another job like this.”

“Cornele won’t mess it up.”

The boat is stuck at Sandy Hook, a six mile stretch of land jutting out from New Jersey into the Atlantic Ocean, which serves as an opening to the New York Bay. Entirely exposed, the currents and tides can be tricky there, so becoming grounded, particularly a boat loaded with freight, is not unusual. It will take considerable sailing skill to maneuver there, but this doesn’t worry Cornele.  He’s never sailed in water that got the best of him.

  Thirteen, but already over six feet tall, Cornele is extremely energetic and athletic, leaping on and off the cargo and other obstacles.   He directs the men on the abandoned boat as they lift cargo from it on a pulley, and lower it on to the other boat.  So far everything is going well. Time is a factor. When the tides recede further, the boat could become high and dry, which will make it difficult to move a boat directly adjacent to it so as to remove materials.

“Come on, come on, more to the right.”   Cornele shouts.

Its load lurches to the left.

“Fuck.  You fuck.”

They bring it back up under control.

        “ Now down slowly… Perfect”

He leaps down to the boat, and inspects the merchandise, then unhitches the cable and off he goes bringing the material to land. Effortlessly he deftly maneuvers the boat almost as if there were no currents.  He soon returns to the grounded boat for his next load, a palette of bricks.   He climbs back up.  From there he directs,

“Okay slowly.”  He watches them before jumping down.   “Make it even.  Go slower, get it right.” 

“Bring it down again.”

He jumps down, rearranges the bricks. Balance is everything.

“Okay, take it up.”

  “Slowly…”I said slowly!…Okay good.”

He jumps down again to the periauger to guide the load down gently.

“Easy does it.  Slow.”

He pulls the load to a spot he has opened up for it.… Good.  Good.” 

He disconnects the cable and off he goes, sailing his load to shore.

‘How’s it going here?”  He yells to the men on shore as he arrives. He likes what he sees.

“Good.  Keep it up.”  After unloading, he guides his boat back.  The men are stacking some more bricks.  Swinging the pulley he lifts and suspends the bricks above his periauger.

“FU^UUU_UUCK “ He sings merrily as they slowly descend on to his boat.

He leaps down to the rudder, and once again, sails to shore.  As he does so he shouts back to the men.

“Line the fuckin’ crates up ready for when I get back.”

Smiling, the men do as he says.

“The little devil.  Cursing like that, and the milk ain’t dry on his lips.”

 Soon after they are lifting a very heavy load. Cornele is gritting his teeth, same as the guy next to him.  Cornele lets out an animal cry, screaming at the top of his lungs.  It brings his lifting to the next level.  That challenges his pal to match him.  He screams just as loudly, as he pulls with maximum effort. The load glides to where they want it.  They smile victoriously.

Cornele is soon off again, jumping on to land, directing a wagon into position to accept a load. 

Two workers on the shore are waiting to have a sack of flour put across their back. They have been watching Vanderbilt in action.

“You either got it or you don’t.”  One of them observes. “ Getting people so they want to follow you.”

As they each are given their sack a coworker shakes his head, admiringly.

“He’s thirteen.”

“No.”

“Thirteen!” I’m tellin ya.”

A second sack is placed on their backs.  The two together are very heavy.

“Jesus.  Fuck you Cornele.” The first worker shouts to his buddy’s laughter.

 

That evening, with the job completed, the twenty men walk together on the Jersey road.  They are tired but content as they start for home.  They got a lot accomplished, and worked well together. They pass two boys kicking a ball. One of the men shouts to the boys.

“Send it here.”

The boy kicks it to him.  He kicks it to one of his pals who kicks it back to the boys.

They approach a tavern. Cornele stops and reads the posting on the sign.  They can hear the rowdiness inside.

“You men hungry?”

“And thirsty.” One shouts back with a grin.

“You’ve earned yourself the best meal in the house.  Charley get some grain for the horses.”

They sit together at a long table.

“So boss.  Where’s the next job?”

“’Fraid this is it, but I got your names if there is a next time.”

“There’s gonna be a next time.  After people hear about today they’ll want ya’.  You got yourself a good crew.”

“Gotta ask my father about that.”

“You gotta ask your father?” he teases.  Okay boss, ask your boss and get back to me.” The men laugh, as does Cornele.

Back on the Jersey road after dinner, refreshed, and a bit tipsy, the men continue towards home.  They reach the Perth Amboy ferry, a large flat raft pulled across by a pulley.  A sign says 25 cents a person and 50 cents per horse.

 Cornele reaches into his pocket and counts his money.  “Shit” he mumbles.

“What’s wrong boss?”

“Nothing.  I’ll take care of it.”

“Can’t stay here tonight. Mu’ lady would kill me.”

“Any good swimmers here?” Cornele kids.

Several of the men don’t find that funny.

“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.  Striding confidently up to the ferryman he makes his pitch.

“I want to get to Staten Island with my teams.  How much is it?”

He looks over Cornele’s group.

“Six dollars,” he growls.

Not intimidated, Cornele launches into action.

“Tell you what. I have a no-lose proposition.  Here’s 3 dollars.  If you’ll get us across I’ll leave one of my horses with you. And if I don’t send you the money in 2 days you can sell him.”

The ferryman takes them across the river. Cornele overhears his men talking as he looks down at the flowing river.

“Never seen a kid like that!  He could lift the hide off a bull without it knowing it.”

“He could talk money out of the ground.”

 

That night Cornele confidently enters his home.  He’s greeted by his father.

“Git it done?”

“Yes.

“Nothing went wrong? “

“Nothing?” 

He stares his son down.

“Nothing?”

“Well…  I needed 3 more dollars for the ferry.  I spent it buying the men dinner.  I gave the ferryman our horse to keep if I don’t bring him the money within 2 days.”

“You fool.  Suppose something happens to that horse?

“Well-”

 “What if I can’t find the money”  Suppose-“

“I ”-

“You’re an idiot!  Pawning a horse for grub?  Get 3 dollars from your mom and fetch that horse before it’s stolen.”

Cornele growls back.

“The men had to eat. We was tuckered out and the horses were dead beat too.”

“That was ferry money, not eating money!”

       Cornele snarls back,  “I’ll get you the fuckin’ horse. But it wasn’t my fault.  You should have given me enough money for eating and ferrying.  I can’t think of everything.”

At that point his mother intervenes.

“Both of you hush up. Cornele you are not too old for a bar of soap.  And Pa there’s no blame for the boy. Those men would never work for us again if we didn’t take care of them.  And you Cornele, show a little respect for your Pa.  It would make any man crazy thinking of losing a horse in the circumstances we are in.”

They both look like they are about to give her an argument.

“Not a word out of either of you.  And morning is soon enough to traipse back to Amboy.  There’s no sense going tonight. Cornele’s worn to the bone.”

 

Two years later Cornele’s strutting has gotten bolder as he passes several of the other seamen on the docks.  At 15, he is tall and lean with sinewy arms.  Gangly, but there is a certain grace, confidence he can call on when he is being scrutinized.  One of the boatmen nudges the other with a ‘get a hold of him’ look, but, clearly they are fond of him. One shouts,

“You look like you are going somewhere.”

“Yeah to hell.”

“A trip well earned.”

“Been there and back with your Mama.”

He jumps off the dock and continues on his way.

One of the seamen laughs as he says to the guy next to him,

“Fifteen ‘n’ he’s the best sailor on the island.”

“And hungry.  That pisser will go out in any weather and git where he wants to go.”  “People look for him, he’s got balls.”

 Cornele makes his way to his father’s periauger.  There’s a businessman waiting there.

“Where’s your father?  He was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

“I can sail you across.“

“Not looking for that. Had a proposal. Your dad said he was interested.”

“What was your proposal?”

“That’s between me and your dad.“

Cornele has no reply.

“Just tell ‘em Mr. Slaughter was here.” he says, irritated by the no-show.

The businessman leaves. Disgusted with his Dad, Cornele heads back towards town.  He sees his father talking to his Aunt Beth. His father walks towards him.

“I was down by the boat.  A Mr. Slaughter was waiting for you.”

“Oh him.  He had the stupidest idea.”

“So why’d you say you’d meet him?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“This isn’t the first time.  You do it to me. Say you’ll meet me and don’t show up.”

“Don’t like it?  Go work for someone else.”

Cornele goes off in a fury.

Old Cornelius shouts after him.

“I’m serious!”

Cornele returns to the house.  He is there with his mother.    His father enters.

“Knew you’d be here crying to your mommy.”

“Pa, come back later. I want to talk to Cornele.”

He leaves. Cornele waits ‘til he’s sure his father’s gone. Finally he blurts out.

“I’m going to sea.”

“Cornele, you ain’t nothing but a child.”

“I’ll be 16 in two months.”

“What will your father say?”

“I don’t give a damn.”

She weighs the bitterness in his tone and sighs. 

“It’s a terrible life at sea.  I know you are not having an easy time, but at sea you will get knocked around.  They do whatever they feel like doing on a boat.”

“I like that.  I can handle myself.”

“It’s cold and wet. You don’t get proper food.”

“I don’t care.  I’m tired of working for Pa.  He’s holding me back.” 

“Right now we need your help.”

“What’s the use of my staying here?  Pa won’t give me a free hand.  And he never knows from one day to the next what he wants to do.”

Over in the corner the youngest baby starts whimpering.  Phoebe picks it up and offers her breast.

“Cornele, I can’t have you go, not with my blessing, not now. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll never get anywhere with Pa.  He never gets anywhere and he’ll fix me the same way.”

“Just not now.”

He has never defied his mother.   This may be the first time.  He avoids her eyes. 

“If you don’t go to sea what would you do?”

“If I had a boat of my own I could make more than Pa right now.  There is good money in the harbor and I can find it.”

“Honest money?”

“Yes.  Honest dough.  I just know I could make me a heap of money as soon as folks know I am dependable.  That’s what counts. Rain or shine. You’re ready to go. You convince people they can depend on you.  Then they’ll deal with you.”

“But you ain’t got money for a boat.”

“No, but if someone lent it to me I’d pay it back.  And I could help out here even more with what I earned.”

“How much would it cost?”

“There’s a periauger for sale for a hundred dollars.”

She’s quiet.

 “Figure it out. I’ll charge a quarter a trip.  That times twenty passengers. That’s five dollars in one trip.  Everyone else charges forty or fifty cents.  So my boat is going to be full. Twenty trips and I’ll make the hundred back.

“A hundred dollars is a lot of money for a 16 year old. I’ve got to speak to your Pa first.”

“ If you loan me the money I’ll make you a thousand dollars in a year.”

Phoebe smiles indulgently.

“I’ll speak to Pa. You know Aunt Beth’s woods? She offered a hundred if you and Dad cleared 3 acres.  Do it alone and I’ll loan you the hundred.”

 

 

Vanderbilt reminisces to Burch, “Three acres was nothing.  Promised some buddies that I’d let them use the boat when I wasn’t using it and we had it cleared in no time.”

He has a contented look on his face.  For the first time since the interview began he seems calm.

“It was the beginning of everything.  I had no doubt I was going to do well.  None.  I didn’t expect any thing like what eventually happened.   Never occurred to me.  Never!  But at 16 I felt like nothing could stop me.”

He stares into space contentedly.

“Ya know, years later, even after I made millions from a deal, I didn’t feel as good as when I stepped on to that boat.

First thing I ever owned.  Almost 70 years ago and it’s like it’s been an hour.  It was a warm July morning, with a cool breeze off the bay.  I remember that.”

 

It is the first night Cornele has his boat.  Sophia is there with him.

 

 “Feel how smooth this is.”

 

She moves her hand slowly up and down the mast.

 

Their relationship has moved far along.   He still has the look of a gangly farm boy, and she, a farm girl, but the ripening attraction between them gives them an unmistakable glow.

 

He raises the sail.  A gentle breeze glides them forward, parting the water as if it is soft butter.   Thy pick up speed. 

 

“We’re going too fast,” she says nervously.

 

“Daytime I can sail twice as fast.”

 

“Don’t go too far out.”

 

“Have to.  There’s sand bars.”

 

The sail swings in her direction. Trying to duck beneath, she trips and lands on her ass.   Her embarrassment changes to giddiness with the sound of his laughter. She takes off her skirt and hangs it on the pole to dry.    She pretends to ignore his eyes on her long thin legs.

 

He angles the boat to pick up more speed. They race along 100 yards from shore.  Frightened and excited, Sophia shrieks and laughs then shrieks again.    Above, an eagle flaps its wings. Cornele slows down. They both become silent as they search the sky for him.

 

Eagles still excite Cornele, the power of the wings pushing down on the air,  lifting itself before propelling into a dive towards the water;  Cornele had once seen an eagle catch a fish using the moonlight. He was with Jacob on their beach.  “The king of the sky parting the sea.  Stealing it’s bounty.”  Jacob had read that in a book.  Ever since, when he hears an eagle at night he thinks of Jacob.   He’s hoping to see a repeat.

 

 He spots it.  Points, so Phoebe can pick it up.   She finds it, but it is soon gone, landing on a mighty oak by the shore.  That is where the eagles nest, high up, keeping an eye on the fish.  Sometimes, there are ten in that one tree.

 

 Cornel lowers the sail.  She watches him nervously.  His eyes come back to hers. Inviting him, defenseless she allows him to look straight into her.  They kiss. Like a coiled spring, uncontainable, she hungrily grabs his head with both hands as they embrace.  He caresses her breasts, then puts his hands around her and pulls her towards him.  They proceed as if they have been at this point before, but they haven’t.  She has briefly touched his penis, once, inside his pants, quickly pulling her hand away.

 

 This time he takes it out.  She has seen Luke’s penis several times, the first time accidently, but once or twice she stole a glance, and thought he knew and seemed to enjoy it.  It lasted hardly a moment, but she had felt excitement, an excitement she had repeated alone in bed thinking about it and touching herself.

 

   It wasn’t the same.   He didn’t have an erection.  She has seen a stallion with an erection. Excited and ashamed she watched it mount a mare.

 

  Embarrassment fades and instinct takes over. She takes his penis in her hand, brings it to her vagina, facing it down so that it rubs against her clitoris.  She is breathing heavily, as is he ,becoming frantic, passionately out of control.

 

 Straightening out his penis Cornele pushes his way into her.   She freezes up as he pushes against her hymen.  Tears roll down her cheeks.  She looks into his eyes. That is all it takes.  His desperation takes possession of her.

 

Afterwards, they lie in each other’s arms completely still, listening to the sound of the boat rocking on small waves as they fold into the bay.   His breathing returns to normal.  He drifts on the edge of sleep.

 

She listens to the water.  “What are you thinking?” she asks.

 

“Nothing.  What’re you thinking?”

 

“About us.”  She moves her finger down his arm.  “I always knew.”

 

“What?   Us not living on a farm? Me out boating?  Being a sailor’s wife?”                 

 

That isn’t what she had in mind.  She wanted a confession, sweet memories  when he first knew he loved her, things like that, a love song.  She wants to tell him when she knew, how she felt, how she feels now.  It has grown so strong.  But when she realizes he’s way ahead of her, that what he’s thinking about assumes their life will be together, it is enough for now.  Sophia chooses her words carefully.

 

“Don’t know what’s wrong with farming?  My dad always did alright.”

 

“He owns his land.”

 

“But he didn’t always.  He worked to buy it.  Besides we don’t charge your dad very much to lease our land.” 

 

        “My mom always tells my dad that.  But it’s not only that.  On the farm I’m closed in. On a boat, even workin’ my ass off, I’m away! You never know what will happen next.  That keeps you free.  I need to feel free.” 

 

“Yeah free to curse a lot.  I don’t think it’ll be good for you.  Sailors have foul mouths.  And you already have one. Farmers got to behave themselves.”

 

“And be grouchy…  Take a look at any farmer.  He’s stuck.  Stuck on the farm seven days a week. Stuck in the mud.”

 

“So what.  Being at home. That’s worth something.  The way my mother and your mother look after each other; I love that. The two of them, always there for each other.”

 

“Yeah but-“

 

“But what?  They’re not stuck. They want to be together. They know they’ll be there for each other.  Don’t you ever need that?  You ever lonely?”

 

“No.  Never feel that?”

 

“Never?”

 

“I don’t think so.”

 

 “So you don’t know what I mean?  Your mom caring for my mom.  My mom caring about yours?  You can’t see what they have.”

 

She studies him for a moment, then adds.

 

“ Like you have with your Mom.”

 

“Okay, but you can be out on the water and have that.  You don’t need to be stuck at home.”

 

Sophia lets it drop.    If only he cared about her like he cares about his mother.   She isn’t sure it will happen.  Other than when he is aroused sexually… lately there’s been a lot of that and it feels almost like the real thing, but she knows it is just his hunger for sex.  He’s not the loving type.    Not with her, not with any one else.  His mother and that is it.

 

She isn’t upset.  She likes the lovin he’s been giving to her.  It is exciting.  Even if it always ends when he is satisfied.   If she has the love she needs with her children, that would be plenty. She looks at him and smiles. 

 

“Guess I gotta accept things the way they are.  You’re you.  I’m me. You never like where you are.  Always want to see what’s around the next corner.  Or should I say, over the next wave?”

 

He smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

Running his own business completely dominates Cornele’s thinking during the next year.  He is everywhere. 

Cornele puts up a sign at the Staten Island wharf.

 “Passage to Manhattan 20 cents. Round trip 35 cents”

Lately, his competitors have been charging 35 cents one way.

        Peter Van Duzer, a much larger fellow, and long, a hated rival, steps up to him with three of his brothers behind him.  More than anyone else, when Cornele was young and vulnerable, they’d go after him.  They wouldn’t let him forget his Vanderbilt name.  Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as the classroom.  He could defend himself with his fists.  That is why there are four of them.

        “Cornele.  We have an agreement between us.   One way for thirty-five cents is as low as we go. Not just us.  Everyone.”

        Cornele looks around and sees that a number of seamen are watching.

 “I didn’t make that agreement, so I don’t have to follow it.  I can do what I want.”

        Peter grabs Cornele by his front collar and starts twisting it into his neck.

        Cornele doesn’t move a muscle, simply looks down at Van Duzer’s hands on him, then stares straight into his eyes.  Peter’s expression toughens.

        It is over in 10 seconds.  A powerful punch to the top of Van Duzer’s head, followed by one to his paunch, then one to his jaw, and he is out cold. The other three Van Duzers try to grab Cornele’s arms.  He is ferocious, throwing one to the ground and kicking him.  They become tentative. He throws a second to the ground.  The third scurries away.  The first Van Duzer, Peter, is coming around.  The three gather around him looking at Cornele from a safe distance          “Anyone else?” Cornele shouts to everyone there. 

        No answer.

There is no trouble after that. 

 

Cornele, with a full load of commuters, passes another boatman with his boat a quarter full.   They don’t greet each other.  On the way back, the same thing, another competitor is a third full.   Cornele has every seat occupied.

It isn’t just price.  Unlike the others, who wait for their boat to be full enough so their trip will be worth their while, Cornele is making the Staten Island to Manhattan crossing according to a schedule, day or night, rain or shine through 8 PM.  After that, whenever he can find it, Cornele brings freight across the bay. 

He enjoys sailing in the moonlight, enjoys the quiet and solitude, the relaxed pace.  It also gives him a chance to experiment with his boat, to play with the wind and currents.  Occasionally he brings Sophia along for the ride, or, if he has found something in Manhattan that he thinks will interest her, he brings her there.

For the most part, Sophia couldn’t care less about his discoveries in Manhattan.   She finds the noise and tumult unsettling.  She’s a farm girl. She’s used to the sounds of crickets at night, frogs croaking, chickens, the rooster.  Even interruptions in the farm’s tranquility, for instance, their mule, teaming up with their dogs, hee-hawing away when he spots a predator;  in those cases excitement, far more than fear, grips her.  Coyotes, or wolves, howling during a cold winter night can give her the heebie-jeebies, but they unsettle her less than the sounds of the city.  She can’t pinpoint what it is but when she’s there with Cornel, she grabs at his sleeve, made anxious by, she doesn’t know what.  He’s as likely to laugh at her, as reassure her. She doesn’t mind that.  It’s when he becomes irritated.

“Afraid of what? What!”

 He can’t stand when she doesn’t answer.  But answer or not the mood between them can get tense and stay that way.

 Cornele loves Manhattan.  Always did.   As a boy, Phoebe would bring him to Broadway and they’d go into some of the very fine shops.  She always told him the same thing.  Broadway stores were as nice as the stores in London.  That’s what Phoebe’s mother had told her, and having no reason to doubt her mother, she’d repeat it enthusiastically.

 When he was nine or ten, at least twice a month, Phoebe would send  Cornele  across to Manhattan with something she had embroidered, to see what he could sell it for.  While the shop keepers were studying his mother’s embroidery, he’d look around at what was to him a mind boggling array of strange merchandise, jewelry, polished furniture, mirrors, chandeliers…

There are only one or two items in his house that might have been sold in a store, a Delft plate that had been brought by the Aersoons, and a grandfather clock from Scotland that Phoebe’s mother had left for her.  The Vanderbilts, like most farmers, make almost all of their possessions, hand hewn wooden utensils, mutton fat candles, hand-sewn clothes from hand-spun wool.  Some home made crafts like his mother’s embroidery were scattered among the merchandise, but practically nothing else was American made.  At that point America was manufacturing almost nothing. Raw materials were sent abroad and furniture, dinnerware, umbrellas, clothing from England, France and Italy came back.  So even now, when 16 year-old Cornele sees these things he has difficulty placing it in the real world.

He is fascinated by the thought that a sweater, sitting on a counter right in front of him, looking as if it had always been there, was knit in England. Shelves of sweaters. Leather from Italy. A drawing from Holland. Porcelain from China. His mind can grasp the idea of shipping. There is nothing new about it. It’s been going since the beginning of the colonies. But for Cornele as a child, and even now, the idea that the sweater actually comes from across the ocean, is brought over in huge ships, and sold in stores, retains its mysteriousnes, even when he can observe the ship being unloaded, and the sweater sitting in front of him as plain as can be.

Perhaps it is that he can’t really imagine a continent on the other side of the sea, full of strange people.  When he listens to seamen at the pub talk about their adventures at foreign ports, with Dutchmen in wooden shoes, Chinamen in silk, Englishmen with powdered wigs- he knows these places actually exist.  And the people; he’s seen immigrants, but he just can’t connect to the idea that the sweater, something right in front of him coming from a completely different, a foreign place, is just an ordinary thing. It is not a part of the world as he knows it. 

Or perhaps it was the Vanderbilt’s complete lack of money.  They could not  enter a New York store and return home with a purchase.  Now with money in his pocket, Cornele enters the stores to look around. He sees a hand mirror.  It would be a huge improvement over the jagged glass Phoebe uses to look herself over.  More than once she’s cut herself.

On the way home with the mirror he’s excited by the look on her face that he anticipates.  He doesn’t get it.

“No more nonsense.  You might as well not work at all if you are going to throw it away.”

“Charlotte always said you wanted a hand mirror.”

“No more nonsense Cornele.  You are to take it back.”

 But a few weeks later he buys his mother and Sophia some material that they can sew into clothes.  Nice material. Phoebe thanks him. She is not regretting her earlier harshness.  She’s very much in favor of practical purchases.  She just doesn’t want Cornele to get ahead of himself, stretch his money to buy things he can’t really afford. 

He bought boots for himself.  Very nice boots.  Nicer than the any a Vanderbilt can ordinarily afford.  But that was a special case.  Humiliation must be repaired, possibly with excess.  The boots didn’t draw a comment. 

Cornele trusts that his mother instincts for him are exactly right.  She doesn’t have to spell it out.  His plans for his money are exactly where she would put it.  He’s watched her all his life.  She keeps the family’s money in the back of her mother’s standing clock.  She doles it out with absolute authority.  Her wisdom rarely questioned. Not a bit is wasted.  Nonsense is the veto term, its parameters absolute. When to spend and when not to spend, the power of the purse is the only power that matters. His goals are not ambiguous.  He needs to save every last penny. 

Or almost every last penny. On occasions when he’s working late, and is too busy to stop off at home for supper, he sometimes buys dinner in New York at Murphys, a saloon near the dock. Usually it is dried salami, or bologna, on rye, which is cheap enough not to set him back. For him it is a treat.  It tastes special.  A store bought sandwich.

He is entranced by Murphy’s.  Unlike sleepy old Port Richmond, the saloons are open practically ‘til mornin’.   He often works up a mighty thirst with his long schedule.  He feels he has earned a small reward.  A glass of lager.  Sometimes a whiskey.  Sometimes two.  Sometimes three.

He has become a familiar face at Murphys.  Tongues loosened by alcohol, the willingness of seductive women, multiply his imagination.  And testosterone.  The sailors and workmen are tough, opinionated, and noisy. Like Cornele.   His boisterousness draws drinking buddies like a magnet.  It sends a warning signal to those meeker in disposition, or less boozed up.  It also creates a long line of seaman eager to go up against him .  On any given night, more than one sailor is invariably determined to cut Cornele’s cockiness down to an acceptable size. 

Gradually, he learns who to stay clear of and when. Who is crazy and dangerous, whom he can take on and beat.  He’s had his share of lickings, but fear doesn’t predominate.  His instincts tell him when he can win, or, at the very least, leave his opponent a swollen lip and bloody nose.

It is raining very hard.  There are no other boats on the water. Cornele is taking a single person across to Manhattan, a businessman.  The man knows Cornele is absolutely crazy to be operating on a day like this.  But he’s got to get to Manhattan, so he’s willing to risk it.  But Cornele?

  He watches Cornele as he negotiates the waves.   Soaked and cold, the business man is able to ignore his discomfort.  He’s nevertheless enjoying Cornele’s confidence, his zigging and zagging like it is no effort at all.

When they finally get there, Cornele’s passenger hands him a five-dollar bill as he gets off the boat.  Vanderbilt refuses.  This was a scheduled crossing so he should only pay the regular fare, twenty cents. The passenger insists. Vanderbilt still won’t take it.  It would be different if the passenger had specially engaged him for a crossing.                                              

 

One day in January, the wharf is covered by 3 inches of snow, which is not letting up.  Once again he is the only ferryman still operating.  He has a full boat.

 

The snow, it turns out, is the beginning of a blizzard. Sophia has gone to the dock with hot soup for Cornele’s return.  The soup is now turning cold.  She looks out into the blizzard, but can’t see very far.  She looks up at the church clock.  She starts to pace.

 

Twenty minutes later she is completely covered in snow.  Visibility has disappeared on the bay.  At most she can see fifteen feet into the storm.  She blows on her hands as she paces back and forth.  After another twenty minutes, she walks back to Cornele’s house. She opens the latch on the door. The wind blows it out of her hands so that it bangs against the wall. Against the wind’s resistance, she pushes it closed.  The wind roars mercilessly.

 

“No sign of him?” Phoebe asks.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“He’s not stupid.  He wouldn’t try to make it. He’s probably at a saloon waiting it out.”

 

Old Cornelius joins the conversation.

 

“ He should get a room but he is too stubborn to think of that.”

 

“He wouldn’t spend the money. Like his dad.”

 

She turns to Sophia.  “Come by the fire.  You must be freezing.”

 

She rubs her hands reaching out to the warmth. They are all quiet, thinking the worst.  The church bell chimes nine times. 

 

The children can be heard laughing in their rooms.  They know school will be cancelled tomorrow

 

Phoebe calls out,

 

“Go to sleep!  Am I going to have to come in?”  Her threat seems to silence them.   Phoebe runs her hand across Sophia’s brow. Takes a strand of hair out of her eyes.

 

“You can sleep here tonight and wait for him.  Go home and tell your mom.”

 

 

 

A few hours later, Sophia is still awake in a rocking chair by the fire, which is dying down.  The wind continues to blow ferociously.  She is shivering.  Old Cornelius can be heard snoring in his bedroom.  The church bell rings once then a second time.  Phoebe comes out with a heavy blanket and puts it over her.  Sophia begins to cry.  Phoebe comforts her.

 

“Let me tell you something I know.  Nothing can stop Cornele.  Nothing.”

 

“But it is two o’clock in the morning.  Ned Rorem’s father’s boat went down in a storm. The Island’s lost 4 seamen this year.“

 

“I know.”

 

Phoebe holds her niece as she sobs.

 

Suddenly the door opens.  Cornele enters.  He’s a bit loaded.  He smiles foolishly.

 

“That was somethin’.  Sailing right after a blizzard! Waves 6 to 7 feet!”

Phoebe looks at Sophia like Cornele has made her point.