Free Mercy Train by Rae Meadows Page A

him once. She’d accompanied them to watch elephants being unloaded from a ship, bound for the circus. He jumped around with twitchy enthusiasm, waving his hands like a magician. When the elephants didn’t appear, he bought Violet a giant pink lollipop and exclaimed she was a picture of innocence and beauty. Lilibeth had switched into her languid southern voice in his presence, much to his delight.
    Violet didn’t much care for him, but she didn’t think he was dangerous. She thought he was foolish, a flimsy paper doll. But Lilibeth grew wan and began to stay away for longer than a night here and there. She was both listless and agitated, sleepy but never sleeping, complaining of headaches and sore hips, disdainful of light. It was Nino who figured it out as they watched Lilibeth duck into the staircase to Madam Tang’s while other fuzzy-eyed customers came out.
    â€œIt’s a dope den,” he said. “They smoke the pipes up there.”
    It shouldn’t have been entirely surprising—Lilibeth had been looking to give herself away ever since they had arrived in the city—but Violet felt like a trapdoor had swung open, pitching her into cold darkness. The world had become newly incomprehensible, opaque and shifty. Lilibeth had taken her out of Aberdeen, but now that they were here, Violet had begun to see that she was too much for her mother, begun to understand that her mother might be better off alone.
    Lilibeth rolled over toward the wall. “You’ll be okay tonight?” she asked.
    Violet nodded, even though she knew her mother couldn’t see her, and rummaged through the odd bowls, jars, and pots. The only thing she could find was an onion with one end gone soft and wet, but then in a coffee tin she found a package of pecans and a roll of dollar bills. Maybe Mr. Lewis was all right after all. She sat for a while, watching the last of the light leave the room, crunching on the sweet meat of the pecans, sipping tea, strong and hot. She felt clean and warm and good. She set her cup in the sink, pulled a dollar from the roll, and replaced the can on the top shelf.
    *   *   *
    The lanterns were lit, the lights on the bridge switched on, the saloons ablaze. It was night in the Fourth Ward, and Violet sat in the alley behind the Water Street Tavern, a dance hall and saloon, with the boys: Nino, Jimmy—just out of jail—and Charlie, fat-faced and short, who spent his days scooping out rendered fat from giant vats boiling bones and offal. They made Charlie sit down a ways because he smelled like rancid meat.
    â€œMikey left on the train,” Nino said, chucking oyster shells.
    Violet took a look at him to see if he was serious. “How do you know?” she asked. “He’ll show up.”
    She reached down to scratch at a scab on her knee; she’d fallen climbing out of the window of the Home.
    â€œHis pops told him he had to go on it. Came at him with a belt. Mikey tried to hide out at the depot, but they must have got him.”
    â€œWhy’d he want Mikey to get on it so bad?” Violet asked.
    â€œThey pay cash money for kids,” Charlie called down.
    â€œI thought it was preachers who run it,” Violet said.
    Nino shrugged.
    â€œWell, shit, where do I sign up?” Jimmy said, laughing. “I never said no to free money.”
    â€œYou’re too old,” Nino said.
    â€œI don’t look a day over fifteen,” Jimmy said, grabbing the jug out of Nino’s hand.
    â€œWhere’s it go anyhow?” Violet asked.
    â€œWest somewheres. Where the farms are,” Nino said.
    Violet pictured the Christmas display she had seen, with kindly animals and baby Jesus in a cozy manger.
    â€œThey make you a slave is what I heard,” Charlie said. “Now pass me that bottle down here.”
    Violet took a swig of the searing rum before handing him the jug. She could not leave her mother, not that