The Last Days of Dogtown

He was an object of fun to many of them, who mocked him for the apron his grandmother made him wear and the long, blond hair she forbid him to cut. But others stared at him and asked Mrs. Stanley if Sammy was “good for a go.”

The first time she heard that request, she let a full minute tick by with Sammy’s ear pinched between her thumb and finger while he guessed at what the question meant. She’d finally let him go and whispered something into the fellow’s ear, causing him to turn crimson and hang his head till Sally Phipps came over and pulled him into her curtained corner of the room. Sally was the smiling, fair-haired whore that the sailors liked better; the farmers favored Molly, who was taller, dark, and had less to say.

Ever since his arrival on Cape Ann, barely out of diapers, Sammy’s blond curls, dark blue eyes, pink cheeks, and rosebud mouth had attracted attention and desire. He still turned heads when he walked Gloucester’s streets or the rougher paths through the villages on the northern reaches of Cape Ann. Women would stare and then turn to whisper about the shame of a boy like him trapped in a Dogtown brothel.

If Sammy was embarrassed or sorry for himself, he never showed it. He carried himself tall and reminded himself that he could climb a tree faster than most boys, was quicker with figures than the merchants’ sons, and knew his Bible better than any preacher’s daughter. It was simply in his nature to master whatever he tried; he even kept house as well as the best local wife. Indeed, Mrs. Stanley’s

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linens were cleaner than might be expected of such a place, and the floor was swept right to the corners, every day.

Sammy was also an accomplished thief. He was barely into his first trousers when he found three cents under Molly’s bed. He hid them under his pallet, savoring the feel of the wreath pennies and liberty caps between his fingers.

Sammy waited for more coins to appear, but men were not so careless with their money and when he realized that happy accidents would be too rare to count on, he took to stealing. He’d wait until the last candle was snuffed and the only sound was snoring. Then, rising from his place against the wall, he slipped beneath the burlap sacks hung to make a separation between the “parlor” and the tiny bedrooms.

There might be a man lying on the cot with Molly or on the mattress with Sally; sometimes there’d be one with each.

Sammy was quiet as a shadow, and the slightest rustling from either bed would turn him to stone. He could swallow a cough or kill a sneeze or squeeze off the need to piss for as long as it took for the silence to thicken and settle again.

Only then would he move toward wherever a coat had been flung. No mouse could tread lighter than his fingers as they slipped in and out of pockets.

Sammy took only one coin at a time, and while he sometimes stole a half-dime from a full pocket, he usually went for pennies. No man set off a fuss over a lone penny, though he’d never pinch a man’s very last cent as that would be asking for trouble. Sometimes a week would pass when he found nothing at all. Mrs. Stanley’s guests were not a wealthy crew, and some paid for their pleasure with a half-full bottle of gin or a gutted rabbit.

Mrs. Stanley did not entertain as many guests as Molly

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or Sally, and when she did, she took her callers to the closet-size room she called her “salon.” It was not much better than the rest of the cramped little house, but it did have a real door on it. Sammy had no interest in trying his luck there, even though those pockets were more likely to yield nickels. He was born more cautious than greedy, and besides, slow-and-steady was working fine.

From his roost in the golden beech tree, Sammy

squeezed his dimes tightly. He wanted his own business, and a granite house with a banister and a staircase, and a parlor with a piano in it. He’d be rich enough to pay someone else to do his laundry, too, and his linen would be spotless every day.

The boy in the tree was so absorbed in these plans that the sudden groan from below nearly cost him his footing in the tree, and his neck. He grabbed at a branch just in time and spied John Stanwood on the ground, only a few feet away. He was on his hands and knees in a pile of leaves, retching a stream of yellow bile, a display that ended in a fit of coughing and panting, which was immediately followed by another long, disgusting puke.

Sammy’s eyes narrowed. Serves him right, he thought.

Stanwood liked to make sport of the boy’s hair. The last time Stanwood spent the night, he’d set out his foot to trip Sammy, who’d split his lip in the fall.

Stanwood moaned and heaved again, though nothing issued forth. He hung his head for a moment and then sprang up, struggled with his trousers and crouched to loosen his bowels in a noisy torrent. It was a sight that would otherwise repulse Sammy, but as it was Stanwood, a smile flickered across his lips. Perhaps the greasy bastard

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would empty his guts from end to end until there was nothing left but a sack of dry bones. There might be a coin in the scoundrel’s pocket yet, he thought, eyeing the stained waistcoat flung over a bramble.

The wind kicked up again and hit Sa