Free Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties by Renée Rosen

let a man put his hand up my skirt before. I’d always had so much control with other men. I was in charge and no one went where I didn’t want them to go. But something about Tony made me come undone. He couldn’t have touched me there fast enough.
    The conductor clanked his bell as the streetcar jolted forward, scooting along the tracks heading south. I opened my eyes and gazed out the window. At that early hour, the city was awake with motorcars crowding the streets, dodging in and around the trolleys and occasional horse-drawn carriages. People rushed along the snow-covered sidewalks with their collars turned up, hats held in place, all bracing themselves against the winds gusting off the lake. Even the buildings looked cold, as if huddling close together for warmth, block after block. As the streetcar continued heading south, I gazed out the window to the west. The Chicago River had frozen over, frosted on top like a chilled martini glass.
    Farther south the skyscrapers were replaced by less imposing buildings with water tanks on their roofs, separated by alleys strung with clotheslines full of bed linens and union suits even in the freezing cold. The pungent scent of manure, guts and animal blood began to fill the air. I reached inside my pocketbook for a handkerchief to cover my nose and mouth. I was on my way to the Union Stock Yards to see my mother.
    There weren’t many women at the stockyards other than the ones who worked in the canning departments or the cafeterias. Some others may have done clerical work but they certainly didn’t own meatpacking plants. My mother was the exception. After my father’s murder, she had stepped in and taken over Abramowitz Meats.
    She always assumed that someday I’d work for her and was outright offended that I’d wanted to get a job with someone else and move out. Oh, how we argued over that. There were tears and slamming doors before we came to an agreement: one visit per month. And since my mother worked seven days a week, our visits always took place at the stockyards.
    The streetcar hummed along, heading straight toward the center of the stink. Even the Chicago River had not been able to escape the effects of the stockyards. I glanced into its murky waters. It was so alive with the puckering gases of dumped animal carcasses, it was nicknamed Bubbly Creek in this part of town.
    The conductor clanged his bell again as the streetcar came to my stop. I got off and headed toward the main gate of the Union Stock Yards, passing underneath the cow’s head that crowned the massive limestone archway, keeping watch over all four hundred and seventy-five acres. In the distance, to my left, hundreds of rail lines crisscrossed one another like a game of jackstraws. A drover tipped his cowboy hat and gave me a smile as he trotted past on his horse. Train whistles blasted as dozens of other drovers saddled up on horseback, moving the livestock from the freight cars toward the pens. Everywhere I looked there were wire-meshed pens packed with sheep, goats, lambs, cattle, and hogs. Each and every one of them waiting to be slaughtered.
    Abramowitz Meats was up ahead. The company occupied two redbrick buildings. My mother’s was a tiny operation compared to Swift, Armour, Wilson and the other big companies surrounding it. There was a small white sign out front with Abramowitz Meats spelled out in blue lettering. A Jewish star, the Mogen David, dotted the i in Abramowitz.
    It was a kosher meatpacking house, which was ironic, seeing as we weren’t observant Jews. My mother didn’t keep a kosher home. But my father’s father had started the business back in the 1860s. Before he became a meatpacker, he’d been a shochet who traveled to all the packinghouses and performed kosher slaughters. Eventually, he scraped up enough money to open Abramowitz Meats. When my father took over around 1885, he grew the business, married a young bride twenty-three years his junior, and had a baby.
    Four