The Loom of Destiny/Life's Loaded Die
LIFE'S LOADED DIE
For w'ot's bin bred in these 'ere bones,
In these 'ere bones was bred;
An' you an' me is gutter scum
Till you an' me is dead.
LIFE'S LOADED DIE
"BIFF a cop in de eye, if yer lookin' fer trouble, or t'row yerself under de cable, but don't youse ever give our Shanghai de stunt!" was a saying on the East Side long held to be oracular in its unchallenged wisdom. But the East Side in general and this same Shanghai Sharkey in particular had never heard a still older saying about giving a dog a bad name and then hanging it. The Shanghai Sharkey, like all small boys, had an honest and outspoken contempt for anything in the shape of proverb, parable, or text, which same smacked suspiciously of Sunday School and things hateful to the eyes of the urban ungodly, and were, therefore, religiously eschewed.
Yet it was the little germ of truth hidden in the core of that old platitude which made this one boy just what he was. When Destiny flung the Shanghai Sharkey into the world she threw a loaded die on the board, for any New York boy born of the house and name of Sharkey must know that he has a name to live up to and a reputation to sustain.
Timmie did not claim direct relationship with the one and only Sharkey, but very early in life he found that the mere name itself was a standing challenge to fight all new-comers. If the Shanghai Sharkey came home three days in the week with black eyes and the nosebleed, his father, who was a longshoreman by profession and a gin-drinker by occupation, was in the habit of saying that it was not the kid's fault, proudly protesting that his son was a regular chip of the old block! Timmie's father himself had been somewhat of a boxer in his day, and even now, when his powers were in the sere and yellow leaf, he at times showed the weight of his brawny arm. This was true especially when his thin-faced, sickly wife, who sewed ten weary hours a day, refused to hand over the last dime in the house, that he might cheer his drooping spirits with another drop or two of Holland gin. Timmie himself, in his infancy, it must be confessed, had been a silent and sickly baby, with his mother's meek grey eyes and an inordinate love for a certain tattered and bodiless old rag doll. It was this disappointment in his son and heir, Timmie's father stoutly protested, that had first driven him to drink.
But if Timmie's progenitor had at first beheld these things with undisguised anger and disgust, he vigorously undertook the child's reformation, almost, in fact, before he was weaned. The boy was taught, by the time he was able to walk, how to guard, feint, clinch, and break away. At the same time he was in the habit of showing him, in a way that made poor Timmie's mother weep for many an anxious hour, how a Sharkey should be able to stand punishment.
So by the time Timmie was old enough to venture into the open street he was master of his two childish fists, and what was more, he knew it. That knowledge is a terrible and a dangerous thing in the mind of a boy.
It was on his very first day in the open that he won for himself the name of Shanghai, or rather, the Shanghai Sharkey,—a name which stuck to him through a thousand battles.
He was, it is said, thus aptly christened because of his ragged stockings and tattered shoes, which, in the activities of warfare, looked strangely like the feathered limbs of some uncouth Shanghai rooster.
When the victorious boy, very bloody and very white, was helped home after his first fight, his exultant father's joy knew no bounds. The child himself, in his pride, accordingly forgot about his bleeding lip, and wondered why his mother should sit by the window and cry. That night, when her husband was asleep, she stole out of bed and crept stealthily over to the child's little couch, listening anxiously in the darkness to hear if he was still breathing. Timmie, whose head was beating like a drum, was awake, and saw her, but said nothing.
Once honoured by such a name, the Shanghai Sharkey found he had, indeed, a reputation to live up to. Thereafter a new boy dared not venture into the remotest boundaries of the Ward, and expect to dwell therein, without first being duly challenged and fought by the Shanghai. This cost the challenger a tooth or two, numerous scars, and a periodically blackened eye, but many battles, in time, taught him not only how to endure, but even how to elude, the severe punishment which customarily comes with all such encounters. The result was that the new boy was usually defeated, while the victorious Timmie went home each time with less blood wiped from his nose by his ragged coat sleeve. Each engagement added one more to that ever swelling army of urchins who came to look upon the Shanghai Sharkey and his prowess with admiring and reverential eyes. And Timmie's father hit him enthusiastically on the back and said with pride that he was a bloody little devil.
So in time it came about that there was not a boy on the East Side who did not fear and envy this lion-hearted and tiger-toothed hero of a hundred fights. Nor was there a girl within twelve squares of the Sharkey residence (and strangely unpretentious was that residence for such an eminent inhabitant!) who did not furtively cast shy glances at the Shanghai. To be the "steady" of one by the name of Sharkey was something for future generations eternally to dream of, and talk over, and wonder at!
Notwithstanding these seductive advances, the Shanghai Sharkey, as a fighting man, publicly and with fitting dignity, proclaimed that it was not for him to waste his time and goodly strength on women folks. Far from it. At his father's solicitation he beguiled Mike Donovan, who kept the "Lincoln Saloon" on the next corner, to give him certain private tips on left hooks and advancing,—points on which even Timmie's father confessed a latter-day ignorance. Mike Donovan had been a boxer of repute in his youth, and even at the present time three stoop-shouldered young men, wearing gold eye-glasses, came to him twice a week and were regularly sent home with puffed checks and watery eyes. The Shanghai Sharkey, for his lessons in the manly art, entered into a contract which ordained that once a day he should polish the brass window rods of his tutor's saloon.
But in this world every rose has its thorn, and every Klondike its Chilkoot. The Shanghai Sharkey, for all his conquests, with all his admirers, and all his fame, was far from being inwardly happy. He was an impostor. In the bottom of his own heart he knew he was a sham and a deception. He was not the thing he pretended to be, and the irony of it all weighed heavily on his heart.
The skeleton in the Shanghai Sharkey's closet was nothing more nor less than a Baby. Over this Baby his spirit brooded with a tenderness that was almost maternal. As a fighting man he knew well enough he should be above all such things! But try as he might, he could not help entertaining a secret and passionate love for this same little shred of humanity, which came unexpectedly into his home one memorable day. As a Sharkey it was both wrong and inconsistent, and a weakness to be overcome, in some way, and heroically lived down. Babies were for women folks to bother about, and were meant mostly for boys to kick. But the loaded die had ordained that Timmie, the man of blood, should, in truth, have the heart of a girl, and that having such, he should lead for all time a double life.
The same hand that had knocked out Dinney Crockett one day might be discovered the next holding, with great care and tenderness, a little oval-shaped bottle from which a hungry infant could be seen feeding. Or at night the Shanghai Sharkey might be found patiently rocking an uncouth looking little cradle, and humming a slumber croon of his own invention to the Baby. The cradle in question, Timmie himself had made of a sugar barrel and a stolen fence-board. But the worst of it all was, that to do such, was the joy of Timmie's life.
Day after day the Baby's mother lay on her bed, counting the figures on the dirty wall-paper, and nervously clutching at the threads in the worn counterpane. Timmie did not mind not being able to go out, and it did not take him long to learn how to warm the milk. But now and then some stray street-cry would enter the quiet little room, and he would remember his old battles, and the thought of them would fill him with a sickening horror.
Still, in some way, his barbaric little heart warmed to his work, and he did his best to forget, and in time he grew to love the little squalling piece of ever-hungry flesh and blood with a love that was wonderful and beautiful to behold.
It was only natural, then, that following the birth of the Baby there was less bloodshed in the Ward than the oldest inhabitant or even the most vigilant policeman could remember.
But one week after Timmie had completed his wonderful cradle, his father came home, exhaling the odour of gin, and kicked the cradle out into the street. When Timmie's mother, who lay sobbing on her bed, wailed that she had no more money to give him, he prepared to kick the woman into the street after the cradle.
"Money, damn you; I must 'ave money!" roared the man, mad drunk. He had been born within sound of Bow Bells, and under drink or sudden passion his Cockney accent and his hunger to kick women came back to him.
"'Old off, you bloody young whelp!" he cried the next minute, for Timmie had seen the act and had flung himself on his father, tooth and nail. "'Old off, I say, or I'll kick your bloody young guts out!"
The man shook the boy off as a bull-dog would shake a pup, roughly, but not unkindly.
"Money! you bawlin' 'ound, money, I say, or I'll—"
Timmie knew his mother was going to be murdered. This time he fought with neither his fists nor his feet. With vice-like arms he clutched his father about the knees, and sank his teeth into the fleshy part of the huge leg he held, till the blood spurted out on the blue-jean overalls, and the taste of it on his lips turned him sick.
The man leaped away with a howl of anguish, recovered himself, and aimed one deadly kick at the boy. The Shanghai Sharkey dodged the great heavy boot like a cat, burst open the door, and screamed again and again for help.
In two minutes a hundred strange feet were tramping about the little house, though it was an hour and more before the hospital ambulance drove up and carried the woman away.
In a moment of consciousness, as they were carrying her out, her feeble eyes caught sight of the police patrol. Then it was she swore to them, over and over again, that it was not her husband who had done it.
Thereafter followed dark and troublous days for the Shanghai Sharkey. Man, at his birth, is the most helpless of all animals, and this fact Timmie learned, in the bitterness of his heart, when he found himself the sole guardian and protector of a motherless baby.
Seldom was he seen upon the streets, and when it did so happen it was always noted that he skulked hurriedly homewards with some strange parcel under his arm. Mysterious washings, too, appeared by night on the Sharkey clothes-line, and endless were the speculations as to just what hand wielded the soap-bar in that depleted household.
As for the Shanghai Sharkey himself, he often all but shuddered as he wondered what the "gang" would think if they ever knew he had turned into a house nurse. For with his own hands he fed and washed and dressed the Baby, and with his own hands he created for it a beautiful perambulator, to take the place of the lost cradle. This perambulator he made of two very wobbly tricycle wheels, purchased from Snapsie Doogan with a broken jack-knife and a paper windmill, while a box that bore the imprint of "Foxbury Rye," the latter being the special gift of Mike Donovan, did duty as body for the carriage.
It was three weeks after his mother had been taken to the hospital, one sunny day, when Timmie was sneaking shamefacedly homeward with a bottle of fresh milk for the Baby hidden under his coat, that he came face to face with Maggie Reilly. That young lady, who for months past had made seductive but ineffectual eyes at the Shanghai Sharkey, was almost bursting with importance, for she had just come from the hospital and was the bearer of great news.
"She ain't a-goin' to die!" said Maggie, gazing at the boy with a yearning that would have melted a heart less adamantine. That was all she said, but Timmie understood. Maggie half regretted this less tragic turn of events, for she had hoped a death in the family might humble the pride of the Shanghai Sharkey and turn his mind to tender thoughts.
Two days later Mrs. Reilly herself called on the abashed Timmie, who was almost caught in the very act of feeding the Baby from a bottle.
"Egschuse me, Mister Sharkey," she said in a tone that cut the boy to the bone, so withering was its sarcasm, carefully holding up her ancient skirts while she spoke, "but Oi've jist seen yure muther, and she's sint down worrud be me fur yez to bring up the Baby in the marnin', shure! Ah, poor sowl! Indade but she hungers for the soight of him!" Mrs. Reilly watched every word strike home. "Will yez do it?" she asked.
"'Course," said Timmie, doggedly.
Mrs. Reilly did not add that the kindly suggestion had been her own. She saw, with much gratification, the pallor that overspread Timmie's face, and she inwardly rejoiced at that pallor, for in days gone by the Shanghai Sharkey had closed both the eyes of her little Patrick, and sent him home with bleeding mouth and broken spirit, to the undying humiliation of the house of Reilly.
So Mrs. Reilly pointed out, with quite unnecessary care and precision, just how such a journey would be watched with delight by every man, woman, and child in the Ward, and gracefully withdrew, after pointedly expressing the hope that he would n't put down a poor, dear baby to fight with any undecent blackguard as would stop to laugh at a boy who was only doing his bounden duty.
Then, as she swept out, she noticed the sudden look of fierce rebellion that mounted the boy's face, and discreetly stopped in the doorway a minute or two to enlarge on the blessedness of filial duty, and hoped "as he was n't a boy as would n't listen to his muther's dyin' wish—or, leastways, almost dyin' wish!"
The Shanghai Sharkey, after that scene, spent a sleepless night. In the throes of that midnight struggle he learned for the first time that the biggest battles of this life are not fought with fists. That knowledge is never good for a pugilist.
In the morning, when he was feeding the Baby, he sighed heavily once or twice. It was a hard world. But in his eyes there was a new light.
With that new light in his eyes and with set jaws, he slowly and deliberately arranged two pillows in the little baby-carriage he had so lovingly made, and over them spread a blanket. With a tenderness quite new to him, and a deftness strange to his gnarled and stubby little fingers, he lifted the Baby into the outlandish cart, and carefully fixed a blanket over him. At first he was tempted to cover him, head and all, in case he might cry. But that, he saw, was a compromise, and he decided otherwise.
Then he opened the door and took one last look at the dingy room, and the walls that had hidden so long his life's disgrace. Once more he sighed!
In another moment the Rubicon was crossed, and the uncouth little baby-carriage was on the sidewalk.
Outside, buildings and street seemed to reel and stagger drunkenly together. For, as he had expected, Mrs. Reilly had not been idle. Somewhere or other he had once heard that he who lives by the sword must die by the sword. As a fighting man he asked no favours. She was his enemy, and if she had got within his guard, why, it was only a part of the game, after all! But it was a hard game.
A thousand curious eyes, it seemed, were staring impertinently at him. Every door along the street was open and filled with waiting faces. On each face was a sinister, pitiless, exultant grin. Godiva riding naked through the streets of Canterbury was happier than Timmie Sharkey that day.
Eyes that had once looked up at him with only awe and undisguised veneration, now gaped at him with mocking laughter and noses he had once triumphantly punched were now turned up at him. Derisive, goat-like cries came from every fence-corner. Even a tin can or two was flung at him, and at each fresh assault screams of delight echoed down the street.
A mimic wailing, as of a thousand suffering babes, came from upper windows and doorsteps. But not once did the Shanghai Sharkey stop. A woman flung a dipper of dirty water at him from a fire escape, and someone threw a watermelon rind, which struck one wheel of the carriage.
Growing bolder with each unnoticed sally, the band of merciless tormentors at last joined in line behind the baby-carriage, and sent volley after volley of coarse raillery at the boy.
Then Pat Reilly openly and ostentatiously flung an old boot at him. The missile smote him heavily in the back and the crowd held its breath. But from the Shanghai Sharkey came neither response nor retaliation.
With that unanswered challenge, both he himself and the entire East Side realised one thing—
The Shanghai Sharkey had fallen—fallen for all time.