Bread and Roses, Too

Maybe she would notice him again. Not merely smile this time but pick him out special-like, tell him how brave he was—just a boy, too—to stand up to the owners, to suffer hunger and cold and homelessness, so that he could go on being a part of this great strike.

He snuffled. His nose was always running these days. As he wiped it on the back of his sleeve, he saw to his horror how dirty his shirt was. If his clothes were that filthy, what of his face? He'd never bothered about bathing before—didn't really believe in it. But she was so clean, so white and lovely, her cheeks like roses on fresh snow. What would she think of a boy like him?

For the first time in his life, he needed to know what his face looked like. The only mirror he knew of was in the sacristy of Saint Mary's. There was also running water in there, in case he decided to wash up a bit. He wasn't about to wash in the canal. Not only was it frozen and smelly, everyone knew it would make you sick to death if you got a drop or two in your mouth. There was nothing for it. He'd have to go into Saint Mary's and hide out somewhere inside until after dark.

He went to noon Mass. Well, it was warm in there, and nobody paid attention to him. He slid under the pew afterward so the sexton wouldn't see him as he came down the aisle, checking for trash. Without meaning to, he fell fast asleep. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep since he could remember, and the church, though drafty, seemed almost toasty compared with a trash heap. When he woke up, it was pitch dark except f

or the little light on the altar and the tiny candles—not so many lit now that people had no money. He felt his way down the aisle and up on the platform. It was like being a blind man, and he wouldn't have minded, but he had the urge and he wanted to get into that priests' secret little toilet as fast as he could. He found the door, fumbled at the knob, and opened it. There was an electric bulb hanging from the ceiling and he managed to find the chain and pull it, which gave him ample light to find the privy.

The basin had a mirror over it, so after he had relieved himself, he went to study his face in the shadowy light. His eyes were the thing that struck him. He leaned close to the mirror. They were blue, surrounded by whites that were blood streaked. His face was dark as a Spaniard's—but that was probably the dirt. He ran water into the basin. There was a towel hanging nearby, so he wet it and began methodically to wipe his face. Eventually, it came a lighter shade, but still, in the shadowy light, it seemed to him that he looked as gray and tired as an old man. Why would someone so beautiful lower herself to talk to the likes of him? He didn't want her pity—though with a face like that he might get her pity—he wanted her to like him, to think he was somebody good and brave, somebody on the way to becoming a hero like Joe Ettor or Big Bill. With this face, she was likely to see him as just some bum kid, somebody who slept in trash piles and pilfered poor boxes. Of course, he knew that that was what he was, but he had to be, didn't he? Had the world given him any choice? Well, it was going to be different from now on. He'd stick with the strikers, eat at the halls when there was food, and find someplace decent to sleep—maybe at Angelo's or at the shoe girl's.

He grabbed some of the paper crackers from the cabinet, took a swig, just a small one, from the priests' supply of wine, turned off the light, and went back into the dark sanctuary. As he felt his way across the altar toward where he thought the stairs must be, his foot hit something, something soft. He gave a little squeak of surprise. At the same time, the lump he'd tripped against rose up from its knees and grabbed his shirt. He was pulled right off his feet until his face was next to a much larger face, so close that when the man spoke, the spit from his mouth hit Jake's carefully wiped cheek.

"What are you doing in the sacristy, you little thief?"

Jake's feelings were hurt. How could it be stealing to take a little water, a few crackers, and a small, very small, swig of wine? "Nothing," he said. "I ain't no thief."

"Mercy, boy, you smell like a canal rat." The hand put Jake's feet to the floor but held tightly to his shirt.

"Don't," Jake said. "You'll rip me shirt."

The hand moved to take his arm. "Come with me, son." If there had been any choice, Jake would have hightailed it out of there, but wriggle as he did, he could not break the steel grip on his arm.

He was dragged out a side door, across an alley, and into another building, where there was enough light for him to see that his captor was none other than Father James O'Reilly, who was head of Saint Mary's and, by rumor, the real boss of every other Catholic church in town.

"Mrs. O'Sullivan!" his captor roared. A small woman came scurrying from somewhere, wiping her hands on a large apron as she ran.

"Yes, Father?"

"Take this little heathen and clean him up for me, will you?"

"But I'm in the way of fixing your dinner, Father."

"Dinner can wait. Put him in the tub and scrub him within an inch of his life."

"But, Father," the woman was turning quite red, "he's not a baby. He's a growing boy. It don't seem proper—"

"Oh, woman, get Father Donahue, then. He's got to be cleaned. Can't you smell him from there?"

"But why, Father? Surely, he has a home and parents who—"

"I very much doubt that they, if they exist, have ever bathed him, and I won't have anyone eating in my kitchen who smells worse than the rubbish outside the door."

***

Jake's first impulse was to struggle, but the warm water in the tub was surprisingly soothing, so he just sat there and let the young priest scrub away. His back was still sore, and when the priest's hand reached toward it, he winced. The priest shook his head at the sight of the welts and was very gentle there. Even Jake's hair was doused with water and scrubbed with the strong yellow soap. The water in which he sat was almost as black as the water in the canal, and before he was done, the priest let it all out and drew clean water to rinse off the soap. He dried Jake with a large towel and then wrapped the towel around him.

"Now," the young priest said, "don't you feel better?"

Strange was more like it. He felt strange, as though he were no longer himself, that the yellow soap had scraped Jake Beale clean away and revealed someone else, someone he'd never met before.

The priest left the room. Jake would have escaped at that point, but his clothes had disappeared and he didn't fancy going out into the winter evening with nothing but a towel wrapped around him. And besides, hadn't O'Reilly said something about supper? In a few minutes, the young priest returned, bringing with him a pair of trousers and a shirt.

"They're not new, but better than what you had, I dare say." He turned his back to let Jake put on the clothes. The cuffs of the shirt were a bit frayed, but Jake had to roll them up anyway. He folded the pant legs a turn or two as well.

"I'm sorry we've got no shoes for you or underwear. But, then, you don't seem accustomed..."

Jake shook his head. "No matter."