Chapter 7
San Francisco, California
I had never, in all my life, been at a funeral like Bess Kendal’s.
As I stood in the front room with Hazel at my side, we watched countless men enter the room, wait in line, and then pay their respects to Bess, who was laid out on two sawhorses and several wooden planks.
It was the best we could do, and I realized quickly it didn’t matter to these men.
My thoughts had been on Spencer earlier that morning and our time at the speakeasy. It had been a surprisingly pleasant evening in his company, despite our surroundings. He was easy to like, and the conversation had flowed freely.
The room was silent except for the shuffling of feet, the soft murmured prayers, and the occasional sniffle from those who tried valiantly to hold back their tears.
A queen in a palace could not have been more revered or loved.
Yet, death was such a commonplace thing in California.
It wasn’t the first of these funerals, nor would it be the last.
A group of women entered the room, and I put my hand on Hazel’s shoulder out of instinct.
They were clad in expensive clothing, though the décolletage was dangerously low and their faces were painted with makeup.
In 1929, makeup was just starting to become widely accepted, but in 1849, only actresses and women of the night applied cosmetics.
The men stepped aside in deference to the night workers. But when the women saw me, they paused.
The leader of the five was older than the others. Under her makeup, expensive clothing, and the air of importance she tried to exude, I saw her shame.
Sam stood nearest the door, with Johnnie at his side, greeting people as they entered, while I stood on the opposite side of the room, closest to the kitchen.
The line had stopped moving as the women waited for my response to their arrival.
Did they think I would insist they leave?
It wasn’t my place to turn them away, nor would I do such a thing.
Everyone who cared about Bess had a right to be there.
“Go on, Sadie,” Sam said to the leader. “There are others waiting.”
Sadie kept her eyes on me as she lifted her chin and approached Bess.
Sam caught my gaze, the scar on his eyebrow especially intimidating today with grief lining his face.
Was he watching to see how I would respond to the prostitutes?
In Massachusetts, especially in a small town like Concord, if a woman of ill repute entered a room, a proper young lady would excuse herself and would not return to the room, or the building.
But we weren’t in Massachusetts, and I had never turned my back on anyone. I didn’t know how Sadie and her friends had entered this lifestyle or what kept them there. I had a feeling that if they’d been given a choice, they wouldn’t be prostitutes. I had no right to judge them.
I lowered my eyes, wanting to be anywhere but here.
In both paths, I was forced to face the immorality of life head-on without much choice.
It was a lot easier to pretend it didn’t exist when I’d been cocooned inside our home in Concord, surrounded by moralists and transcendentalists who sought to transcend the material world and better understand the spiritual.
Even in 1929 Hollywood, at the height of the Jazz Age and the progressive ideas that had reshaped culture, my parents had worked hard to shelter me from the worst.
But here, and last night with Spencer, I’d had to face the world in which I lived.
It reminded me that all of us were human, and we had choices to make.
I’d been admonished all my life to live in the world but not be of the world.
To attain to a higher standard, not only for my safety and health, but to honor God’s best plan for me.
It wasn’t always easy, but after seeing the consequences of people’s actions, both good and bad, I knew it was necessary.
Sadie and the others stopped at Bess’s side and paid their respects, then passed by without looking in my direction.
Hazel’s wide eyes followed their every movement. “Ally,” she whispered in a loud voice, pulling my arm. “Who—”
“Shh.” I put my finger on her lips, afraid she’d say something to embarrass everyone.
She was too young to understand who they were, but she would be curious, especially because she had seen precious few women since we arrived.
The canvas walls shifted like they were breathing as hundreds of men passed through the front room. At noon, I took Hazel and Johnnie into the kitchen to scramble more eggs.
The children stood next to me, cracking eggs into a bowl. “My mama died, too,” Hazel said. “Are you sad, Johnnie?”
Johnnie didn’t respond.
“I’m sad about my mama. But I know she lives with Jesus now, and Ally is like my mama. She can be your new mama, too. Right, Ally?”
They looked up at me.
What could I say? Johnnie had so much pain in his life. I couldn’t reject the question, but I also couldn’t promise to stay with him and care for him forever. That would ultimately hurt him, too.
“No one can ever replace your mama,” I said, putting my hand on his soft cheek. “But I will take care of you and keep you safe as long as I can.”
A gentleness filled his eyes, and though he didn’t smile, it was as close to a smile as I’d ever seen on his sweet face.
After we ate, I took the children back to the front room and let them sit on two chairs while the funeral continued.
Paddy stood silently in the corner, acute grief and pain on his face as he stared at Bess’s still figure. A single tear rolled down his cheek from time to time, and he wiped it away, never taking his eyes off her, as if he was trying to memorize her face.
There was a commotion outside the building, and Sam straightened as English Jim appeared in the doorway.
I hadn’t seen him since we’d arrived at the dock that first day.
He was surrounded by several men who looked tougher and meaner than all the others.
Scars, missing teeth, and weathered faces glared at those who had come for the funeral.
These men walked with a peculiar gait, like several men in Sydney Town, and a few of them had the same branding that Sam did, except theirs were on their faces. I saw Ms, Fs, Ts, and Bs, though I wasn’t sure what they meant. All of them carried weapons in holsters around their waists.
Cole was among them, though he stood out because he didn’t look as fierce or menacing as the rest. Nor did he walk with that strange gait.
Jim stepped into the room and faced Sam. “There was a time when I would have heard about Bess’s death from you.”
The muscles in Sam’s jaw worked as he stared at the newcomer. “I told you. Those days have passed.”
“I come to pay my respect.”
“I won’t stop you or your men, but I will stop Cole.”
“He’s one of my men now.”
“Since when?”
“Since today.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s not welcome here, and he knows it.”
The air crackled with tension, and I held my breath.
Now more than ever, I wanted to know how the original history was supposed to play out between all these men.
If the fire had happened and Sam was in jail right now, would Cole have joined Jim’s gang?
The movie had portrayed Cole as a victim of circumstances, and if I remembered correctly, he had left San Francisco after the fire and made his way to Sacramento to start over.
The movie ended with him riding off into the sunset.
But that had been the version he’d told.
“Stay outside, Cole,” Jim said. “Wouldn’t want there to be any more trouble today.”
I had a good view of Cole from where I stood, and despite everything, I saw the grief on his face. I wasn’t sure what had come between him, Bess, and Sam, but he had cared for her.
Paddy took his eyes off Bess and glared at Jim and his cronies.
Not for the first time, I wondered how all these men knew each other.
I wanted to find out, but who could I ask?
Paddy struggled to communicate, and I hadn’t befriended anyone else, so that only left Sam.
Though he appeared intimidating, his tenderness toward Bess and Johnnie, and his kindness toward Paddy, told me that I might have been wrong about him.
He was a criminal. I knew that much from the movie.
But was Cole’s account of the story true?
Could I trust anything I thought I had known?
I wasn’t sure if I would find the courage to ask Sam my questions, but he was the only one who might answer them.
The viewing lasted for several hours. Just before sunset, Sam and Paddy laid Bess’s body into a simple pine coffin, and we proceeded to the North Beach Cemetery, though calling it a cemetery was a courtesy.
There were few headstones, and the graves, some still fresh, were dug at odd angles and in haphazard places at the base of Telegraph Hill near Sansome Street.
It looked more like a scrapyard where discarded items had been thrown among the graves.
I walked behind the mourners, holding Johnnie and Hazel’s hands until we came to a freshly dug grave in the corner of the cemetery.
Sam and Paddy, with the help of a few others I didn’t know, lowered Bess’s coffin into the ground.
There were at least fifty men standing around the burial plot, their heads lowered and their faces somber. They took off their hats as Sam stepped forward while a gentle breeze blew from the bay.
Tears gathered in Sam’s eyes, and he took a moment to compose himself as he swallowed and let out a ragged breath. It was humbling to watch a strong, masculine man openly mourn. He wasn’t being stoic or detached, but he was showing his emotion with vulnerability and honesty.