For Our Future
"Congratulations on making it back from the battlefield in one piece. You look damn healthy."
"You look worse off than I do, Vice President..."
Patrick, a bandage wrapped around his head, waved it off with a hearty laugh.
"Yesterday's reporting got a little rough. Anyway, you're from Chicago?"
"Lived there until I was four, then moved to Marceline, Missouri."
"So you're pure small-town stock. Not one of those KKK types, I hope?"
"Of course not."
Bleeding Kansas.
The guerrilla war between the Jayhawkers—abolitionists—and the Border Ruffians, or Bushwhackers as they were also called, the pro-slavery faction. The violent history of Kansas and neighboring Missouri that sparked the Civil War was a story every American knew by heart.
Because of that past, some people, like Patrick, still lazily painted Missouri as a nest of white supremacists and KKK dens. That perception had only grown since the Klan rose again in the shadow of the European war. They were spreading like poisonous mushrooms, starting not in the big cities but out in the countryside.
"So what was your specialty in the army?"
"Red Cross ambulance driver. I hauled medical supplies to the front and transported the wounded."
"Shouldn't you be looking for work at a transport company then? There's SCL..."
Disney shook his head hard.
"Making a living by drawing is my dream. Before I enlisted I did illustrations for the school paper. If you give me space in the Flea Market, I guarantee the circulation will climb."
Patrick cracked a faint smile. The Boss had already ordered him to meet every condition the young man wanted, so there was nothing to deliberate.
"If a cartoonist starts worrying about sales numbers, how is the work supposed to turn out right? Just focus on drawing with a clear mind."
"Then..."
"Starting pay is eight dollars a week. As long as the Flea Market illustrations come in on time, the rest of your hours are yours."
"Thank you!"
Decent wages and guaranteed freedom. For Disney it was the best possible arrangement. On top of that, after a few days of researching the Flea Market he had learned its circulation was solid. Meaning it wasn't about to fold anytime soon.
"Look at the time already."
Patrick glanced at his wristwatch and suddenly stood up. He stepped out and bellowed at the staff.
"This is Walt Disney, who'll be drawing illustrations for the Flea Market from now on! Help him settle in!"
"Yes, sir!"
"And get the senior reporters ready!"
Chairs scraped. Half a dozen men rose. Like Vice President Patrick they were bandaged, looking ready to collapse at any second. The junior reporters bowed carefully to them and made sure to add the customary "safe and sound today."
Once Patrick and the senior men left the office, one of the staff clapped Disney on the shoulder.
"Welcome to the Flea Market."
He led Disney to a desk. Right by the window, big and solid—Disney liked it immediately.
Pier 36.
Over the brutal scars of the previous day, the workers once again stood with pickets in hand. These were not hired sluggers; they were ordinary dockworkers.
When the violence had broken out, Tanner and Duffy had evacuated the regular laborers so they would not get swept into the fighting. It was a gesture of consideration. It had produced another effect as well.
The workers now stared at their own sluggers, still bandaged, with complicated eyes.
"I heard it was chaos yesterday. You sure you're all right?"
"Take the day off, why don't you?"
"If we rest during a strike, it ain't a strike. We die here if we have to."
The sluggers' fighting spirit, their passion and sense of duty, left the laborers' eyes wet. Mixed guilt, shame, and heaviness settled over their hearts.
"Damn it! No matter what happens today, we hold this ground! They're still fighting looking like that—how the hell can we run?"
"Tanner, Duffy! Stop making cowards of us! We fight together!"
The heavier the friendly casualties, the tighter the strikers closed ranks. I watched the workers' resolve ring across the docks with quiet satisfaction.
"Boss, where do you want us?"
Gavin asked for the group. Come to think of it, my first meeting with him had also been at a picket line—outside a tenement basement sweatshop where the owner had stiffed the workers their pay and then deliberately declared bankruptcy. We had raised pickets then, and Gavin had taken a cracked skull and bled freely while fighting Johnny Spanish's crew.
"Positions don't matter. Just don't break formation."
"Got it, Boss."
Gavin relayed the order to the new rookies. Then something interesting happened. They huddled in a tight circle, heads together, and started hashing out a strategy. I quietly pricked up my ears.
"First assault team: Lev, Isaac, Hans. Second: Eamon, Marco, Vytautas. Punch through to the enemy command. If we bog down, third and fourth waves drive in right after."
Twelve men including Gavin, working as a coordinated strike force to surgically hit the enemy leadership. To these combat veterans a strike was simply another war. Their fire and fighting spirit pleased me, but the plan needed a little adjustment.
"All fine, except finishing too fast is a problem. What we want is the strike to spread."
Yesterday's battle had already bought us the workers' iron solidarity.
"Our job is to get pickets raised from New York to every corner of the country."
Russian-born Lev narrowed his eyes and nodded.
"Expand the front, form an allied army, draw them into the fight. That's the idea."
German-born Hans's eyes lit up.
"The most extreme way to expand a front is catastrophic friendly losses. Say a bomb goes off right in the middle of a picket line..."
"The workers would go berserk. And just like that you get your allied army..."
These sons of bitches were getting dangerous. I had considered the idea myself, but the conversation was sliding toward the extreme.
"A bomb is overkill. The principle is to use the psychology that the more you get stomped, the tighter you band together."
"Psychological warfare is one of the most important parts of any war. So, extremely speaking—"
"I'd appreciate it if you stopped using the word 'extreme.'"
"Then devastating, annihilating losses..."
Do as you like. I clicked my tongue inwardly and walked over to Tanner and Duffy. Duffy was clearing his throat for another round of agitating; Tanner sat on a wooden crate reading a newspaper.
"Kieran, the New York World finally started running pieces on yesterday's violence."
Tanner handed me the paper. The gist was simple: management, refusing to negotiate the five-cent hourly raise, had overreached trying to crush the strike early. And the moment the ILA had kicked Paul Kelly out, they had withdrawn the wage talks entirely, stoking the workers' rage even higher.
Compared to the earlier articles that had savaged the strikers for "insulting the returning war heroes," this was quite satisfactory.
"Give it a little more time and the politicians will start feeling the heat, don't you think?"
"Then we start steering the line that way."
In the end the politicians had to move if anything was going to change. The current mayor of New York was John Hylan, elected only last year and not yet a full year into the job. And this year there were city council elections as well. We needed pickets aimed squarely at ballots and campaigns.
The union officers, Tanner, and Duffy put their heads together and decided to remake the signs around a few sharp keywords.
When the meeting broke up, Duffy's booming voice once again launched the day's picketing with full-throated hope.
"A fair wage for the sweat of our brows! Politicians, answer us! Justice for the hungry worker! To the traitors who break their promises—defeat at the polls!"
"We vote for politicians who stand for us!"
At three in the afternoon, with the demonstration in full swing, the opposing sluggers reappeared and blocked our path. A different crew from yesterday.
"Management's pouring money in. Two days straight is a bit much, isn't it?"
"I don't know. Feels different from yesterday."
At my words Tanner studied the workers. Their fighting spirit and resolve were shaking the entire waterfront.
"Today we don't run like cowards!"
"We fight together! We've got the numbers!"
The two sides collided again.
I drew the club Hazel and Roa had cleaned for me the night before. The wounded veterans fought with desperate ferocity; the newly joined rookies charged the enemy lines without hesitation.
Blood sprayed. Anyone who went down was trampled.
Two straight days of open street violence, and still the police did not move.
"We'll see when they finally decide to step in."
Whoosh.
I stepped into the melee, club swinging. Hit and fade, slip past blind swings, and land precise blows only on the targets' skulls.
Unrestrained violence ruled the docks. The bandages the men wore were dyed solid red. I half-wondered whether someone would mistake us for Reds and haul us in. Useless thoughts flickered through my head and vanished while my body kept moving on pure instinct.
About ten minutes later the last of the enemy was crawling on the ground and the fight ended. As the management-hired sluggers staggered off the field, the workers' roar shook Pier 36.
"We won!"
"You worthless bastards! Come back anytime!"
Fewer of us were down than yesterday, and more still stood on their feet. Looking at them, I was certain even more laborers would join tomorrow.
While I caught my breath and scanned the area, short-haired blond Lev walked up. His face was swollen, and blood ran freely from a cracked scalp.
"Today's pay better be double."
"I told you to work double, not take double the beatings."
"I took them extremely for the sake of spreading the strike. Wasn't that the mission?"
"...All right. Double it is."
The corner of Lev's mouth lifted and blood seeped between his teeth. After tasting it he gave a chilling smile worthy of a human weapon, then collapsed straight to the ground.
"Looks like his durability is lower than it appears."
I checked the other rookies. None of them were as bad as Lev, and there was a reason.
"Lev was the same on the front. Always the first to charge, always the one doing the body work."
"And yet he never took a single bullet. Still can't believe it."
Every army has a few like him—soldiers who charge through a hail of fire convinced they walk under divine favor. Lev still carried that conviction into this new war.
"Somebody patch this guy up!"
The less battered workers brought bandages and disinfectant. As they tended Lev I dropped a casual remark.
"He's a war hero who just got back a few days ago. Take good care of him."
"What? He came straight home and started fighting for us?"
"All of these men are returning war heroes."
The workers' eyes turned to the rookies. Heroes who had fought for freedom were now fighting for them. A grim determination settled into their gazes. They cursed the bosses while they cleaned Lev's wounds. Some of them walked over to the rookies, shook their hands, and poured gratitude and loyalty into the grip.
Two days into what had begun as small-scale violence and was rapidly becoming a full-blown disturbance, we threw a modest welcome party for the new men.
The location was the second basement of the Twin Buildings. The moment the rookies saw the shooting range they could barely contain themselves and immediately asked for guns.
"There's a place like this under Manhattan!"
"Boss, can we shoot right now?"
"No. The range owner already left. Tonight we concentrate on eating and drinking."
Beer, whiskey, and plenty of snacks were laid out. Maddox from the first-floor workshop joined the party as well. The old hands welcomed the rookies and finally caught up with the conversations they had never managed to have with Gavin, Teddy, David, and Drift after their return from the war.
I only set the table and then slipped out. Once more I headed for a tavern near Pier 36.
PIER HOUSE
The noisy tavern was packed with customers. In a private room farther back, Tanner was already drinking with a group of men.
"Kieran, come on in."
Tanner introduced me around. New York Harbor customs officers, port security men, supervisors, ship inspectors, and the bureaucrats who handled the paperwork—every last one of them was present. Among them was David Johnson, the Red Hook security officer who had been promoted the previous year and now oversaw the entire Red Hook district.
While I exchanged greetings with the officials, another man entered the private room. Paul Kelly, who stayed out of the picket lines themselves but was deeply involved behind the scenes. He traded a silent nod with me, then shook hands with the civil servants as if he had known them for years. They were all in the business of pushing and protecting one another; in the broad view their goals overlapped.
Paul Kelly raised his glass.
"To our future."
"To our future!"
By day we stood with the dockworkers on the picket line. By night we sat with the port officials. Tanner and I were not about to waste the grace period of Prohibition.