Eastland

Eastland by Marian Cheatham Page B

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Authors: Marian Cheatham
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out about
the robbery?”
“I sent my own sweet Maggie to hang a crepe of mourning
flowers on their front door.” Mrs. Mulligan wiped her nose with
her sleeve. “Maggie peered through their parlor window and
what did she see? The devil, I tell you! Looked like a gang of
hooligans had turned that house upside down.” She shook her
head and wailed, swiping at her runny eyes and nose with both
sleeves now. “What has this world come to when we rob the
dead?” She sank onto the sofa with a heavy plop.
Mama got up from her Singer and sat beside her. “There,
there, now, Mattie. We must stay strong.” I caught Mama’s eye.
“May I?” I mouthed, nodding toward the door.
Mama shooed me away.
I slipped outside to see for myself what was going on.
Three doors down, neighbors had gathered in front of the
VandeKipp home. Officer Kennelly emerged from within the
house at the very moment a paddy wagon pulled up to the curb.
The assembly erupted in questions and jeers. Kennelly held up
his arms.
“Easy now. We’ve got the situation under control.”
“Control?” argued Mr. Czarnek, who lived across the street.
“You call this control?”
“Their landlady is checking now,” said Kennelly. “She’ll let us
know if any valuables were taken.”
“And then what?” countered Mrs. Ivanko. “They’re all dead.
Even if you find the thieves, who you gonna return the belongings to?”
“Right!” Mr. Czarnek retorted. “Who?”
“Who?” the crowd echoed.
Their “who’s” soon turned into an angry chant. Kennelly
signaled to the driver of the paddy wagon. Six more policemen
piled out the back door, every one of them brandishing a billy
club. The cops encircled my neighbors, smacking their clubs
against their opened palms. My neighbors pressed outward
toward the cops, still chanting.
I was inching back toward my front door, when a whistle
blew.
“Stop! Please!” Kennelly held his whistle to his lips as the
chants fell away. “We’re all on the same side here. And we’re all
justifiably angry at people who could take advantage at a time
like this. We’re grieving for the VandeKipps. Even the police.”
Kennelly looked at his fellow cops. They nodded and lowered
their clubs. “This neighborhood, why, the entire city of Chicago,
has been devastated. We don’t want to add to that heartbreak,
do we?” Heads shook. “Good. Then let us finish our investigation. You good people go home. Be with your loved ones.”
People muttered and shook their heads as one by one
they drifted away. The six cops quietly disappeared into the
VandeKipp home. Kennelly stood alone on the porch for a moment, watching, and then turned and went back inside.
I wandered along the deserted sidewalk wondering what had
happened. Neighbors I’d known my whole life had gone berserk.
Friendly coppers had threatened violence. Burglars had stolen
from the dead. And what about the Miller Brothers, those two
pickpockets from the armory? So much evil.
Then I remembered Lars Nielsen and how he’d risked sliding into the river in order to save me from myself. What about
Karel? If not for him, I would have drowned in the capsizing,
along with those two teenagers and that baby he’d pulled from
the river only minutes later.
There was Mrs. Mulligan. Many a day she and her children
went hungry. Yet somehow, she’d managed to scrounge together
enough pennies to buy a crepe of ribbons and flowers for the
VandeKipps’ front door.
At the end of the block, I’d turned back toward home, relieved to know that good still existed, when something flickered.
I looked at the corner house. Through the parlor window, a
candle glowed, a notice for the neighborhood that someone in
that home had died. I stared up and down the street.
Candles blazed from dozens of windows. Not in every home,
but in every other, maybe every third or fourth. Crepes hung on
the doors of those candle-lit homes, a further sign of the torment
within. I thought of the joy of last Saturday

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