Simon Sobo, M.D.

  

    CHAPTER I

On the third Friday of October, at its annual Boston ceremonial dinner, the Journalist’s Guild announces the winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Journalism.  Since Watergate, it has been a black tie event, held in the Vanderbilt Hotel’s historic Clarkson Ballroom.         

 It’s cocktail hour.  Michael and Deborah Russell are standing near their table along with Michael’s colleagues from the Boston Sentinel.   Michael keeps glancing at a  portrait of Ariana Van Doren, manager of the Vanderbilt Hotel until 1934.  To the left of her portrait is what looks like a Rembrandt, not what you would expect in a hotel, but not completely surprising.  When he built this room Cornelius Vanderbilt had more money than the United States Treasury.   He was the richest man in the world.    He had gone all out, which explains the Rembrandt.   The Persian rugs at the entrance are  among the finest in the world.  The parquet floor ’s rich soft glowing patina  represents two hundred years of devoted,  some say religious care.  The Clarkson has been thought of as the feminine counterpart to the other monument Vanderbilt left for posterity, New York’s Grand Central Station, with its vast open spaces.  In his will, Vanderbilt put aside a tidy sum for the Clarkson’s upkeep in perpetuity.  Quite like him, he also stipulated that it bring in income.  Hence its use for occasions such as tonight. 

          The cocktail hour has never been Michael’s thing.  Gossip doesn’t interest him and over last few years his sense of humor has abandoned him.    With alcohol, his wit flickers, but he distrusts this.  He’s making a game effort, imitating a relaxed smile., only that takes a toll.  He misses half of what is said to him.

 His colleagues have grown used to Michael having his head in the clouds.  The Russells’ recent misfortunes excuse all.  But even before that Michael wasn’t a lively presence.  He hasn’t been one of the guys, for a very long time, really since he left college. Private, respected, he like  it that way.  The quality of his work more than covers his social shortcomings. 

Michael’s eyes dart back to the portrait of Ariana Van Doren, then  return to Deborah. So far, she is doing fine.  Her pal, Esther Pollard, fashion editor at the Boston Sentinel, is by her side.  They used to pair up at these functions and have a fine time judging other women’s outfits.   Now it seems pointless.  Deborah couldn’t care less.  They nevertheless go through the motions, which serves a function.  Routine is boring.  Boring is soothing.  Deborah needs that. 

The Russells  haven’t  made an appearance at the award dinner in years.  They have also stopped going to the Sentinel’s Christmas party.  It is not expected and they are only too happy to be let off the hook.  The movies, here and there, a concert, eating out, a very occasional dinner with Charley and Amy; that’s the extent of  their social life.  They would have been a no show tonight, but rumor has it that Michael is going to win the  Murrow. Esther phoned her with the news.  Michael could have gone alone, but  Deborah’s mother convinced her that if  he won, it might lift her spirits.  It’s been five years since she put on a gown, had her nails manicured, and faced the night.  With Esther  running interference and Michael keeping an eye on her, the verdict was that she’d be fine. 

Michael had forgotten how pretty Deborah can be when the occasion calls for it.  Tiny cobalt blue forget-me-nots sit gracefully on her neck accentuating the sparkle of her beautiful blue eyes.   Where did it come from?  He knows where she got her emerald earrings; he spent long hours looking for them ten years ago.  They had to be perfect for her 35th birthday.  He still recalls her expression as she opened the box, especially afterwards, sitting at her dressing table studying herself in the mirror.  In those days they were on a roll.

“You look nice,” Michael tells her.

It’s not what he says.  It’s what’s in his eyes. She extends her lips forward imitating a sexy kiss, one of her never fail mannerisms.    She used to follow with a raised eyebrow and a Meg Ryan sly grin delivered in perfect rhythm.  It’s gone.  Her timing is off.  She’s edgy.

She smiles as she points to the portrait of Ariana Van Doren  above them. “Your girlfriend.   You don’t know how it turns me on that you are in love with  my great grandmother’s aunt.”

The portrait of Ariana  shows her at seventy.  She is stately, still beautiful.  But he first saw Ariana when she was 18.  She was the inspiration for his Vanderbilt novel,  a project that has consumed him over the last six years .  Deborah mentioned that a duel had been fought over her great grandmother’s aunt.  It turned out there wasn’t a duel.  But Ariana had the kind of beauty that could easily end in a duel.  A portrait that he came across in an old Vanderbilt biography he discovered at the Strand Book Store, when he and Deborah lived in New York  turned him into one of the possessed.  For days he kept seeing her face.  She looked like a young woman that Michael had been smitten by at the Frick, that one painted by Whistler.  The dates didn’t match up well, but he was nevertheless convinced  Whistler had done the painting of her when she was 18.    He wondered what it must have been like to study every detail of Ariana’s face,  hour after hour staring at her in the flesh.

It used to make Deborah laugh.

“I can live with it.  At least she’s part of the family.  I’m a lucky gal.  My husband is having an affair with someone in a book.”

He laughed along,  fully aware that he also was fortunate that Deborah had cultivated a taste for his eccentricities.   Except it was passion.  If he had ever met someone who looked like Ariana he could imagine risking his life in a duel for a chance at having her.  He’s never shot a gun, but if a gun were required he would  get one.  Deborah was reassured when her mother pointed out that he was like a lot of  guys his age.  The duel interested him more than the dame.

Truth is, though, Ariana had appeared in one of Michael’s dreams.  He looked into her eyes and, as they say in the books, he melted.  He ceased to exist.

He gives the painting another quick glance. Seeing Ariana at seventy years old is excellent therapy.  Every year at the Guild dinner he takes another look. It reinforces his sanity, keeps his passion from becoming an obsession.

“Mom and her geneology,” Deborah continues.  “It’s strange.  She asked me to get a look at the portrait.  See if she is wearing Lisa’s ring.  I can’t tell.  Not enough of light.”

“ I can’t tell either.”

Rumor has it that Ariana Van Doren was the love child of  a secret relationship between  Belize Van Doren and Cornelius Vanderbilt.   Michael wasn’t able to establish if the rumor was true.  There were no diaries, or anything in writing that established Belize’s existence, other than a very faded registration for a wedding license, with almost indecipherable writing that was construed by Michael to be her signature.  He knew it was a stretch, but, since it was a novel, Michael decided to indulge his fancies.

Michael’s managing editor, Joe Dyer, returns from the bar.  He hands Deborah her club soda and Michael his white wine. Deborah smiles a thank you to him and flaps a wave to Michael as she turns back to Esther. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael continues to watch her for any indication that she is faltering.  She has been teetering on the brink for so many years that it has become habit.  But especially tonight.  All these people around.  Being in the spotlight.

She’s okay.    He raises his drink to meet Joe’s, tapping his glass lightly.  Joe offers a toast.

“Here’s to getting ‘em good.”

“Not good enough.”

“He’s in jail. That’s plenty good”

“He’s still breathing.”

“That’s what it will take to even things up?”

“No, first I would torture him.”

Seeking justice can destroy a man, but ordinarily, in real life, fantasies suffice.   He used to joke that what he wanted most for Christmas was a hit man.  He doesn’t mention it any longer because it is no longer a joke. Lately,  his fantasies have become increasingly graphic.  He can’t stop these thoughts. Nor is he sure he wants to.  When he watches the news, his anger erupts.  Their dog’s tail goes down.  Deborah has to leave the room. If she doesn’t his anger makes her angry, and then they fight.  So she has learned to simply leave.

Shrill jokes keep cutting through the chatter in the ballroom. TV baritones push to be heard.  The producers  of 60 Minutes and 20/20 ordinarily own the Clarkson on the night of the  Murrow.  Aggressive interviewers from Fox also insist on being heard.  But, tonight  print journalists are  particularly pumped up.    Michael, one of their own, might grab the ring

The master of ceremonies taps his knife against a glass.   Seven hundred guests, gathered together to pay tribute, begin their tribute.  They become quiet.  The Russells, along with everyone else at their table, take their seat.  Harry Wallace, celebrity gadfly, stands at the microphone.  He waves to a buddy in the audience, flashes his always ready smile, now improved by professionally bleached teeth. 

Wallace is a master of timing.  Only a few people are still involved in private conversations. He clears his throat.   The last standing groups find their places at their tables.  The waiters stop shuffling, momentarily watch him.  A palpable hush travels through the room like a vapor, moving from table to table, sucking whispers into silence. Finally, the last conversation ends. 

But then Ricky Meyer from The El Paso Tribune lets out a cat whistle.  It is matched by another one from the back of the room.  Laughter.  Chatter returns.   Wallace waits.   He again clears his throat, subtly, patiently, like he has all night before he will begin.  He learned long ago that trying to command attention can backfire.  It will make everyone tense.   Ignored, the jackals will disappear. 

He is right.   The quiet returns and appears to be  holding.  He waits.   The waiters resume  bringing the salad for diners to pick on.

Deborah is completely and nervously attuned to Wallace.  The event is being broadcast on C Span.  There will be close-ups.  In her mind’s eye she again pictures the gracious smile she will need if Michael loses. She isn’t sure she will be able to pull it off.  Ten years ago she would have practiced that smile once or twice, and known that she would come across as cool and collected as anyone else in the room. No longer.  Her reactions to her surroundings have been simplified by events.  There isn’t a choice.  She is at the mercy of her emotions.

 Michael’s there for backup.  He gives her a “Come play with me” look.  She feels his warmth. She married him for it.  He is like her father, trying, trying, trying.

When Ritchie and Lisa were very young Michael could break into a routine, not exactly vaudevillian, but a routine nonetheless.  It made them laugh. When they fell and were crying, he’d hold them and singing, he’d scold the ground that scraped their knee:  

“Oh what did you do to my Lisa?

My Lisa did nothing to you.

The next time you hurt my Lisa

I’ll call the policeman on you.

Bum-bum”

He would hit the ground twice as he called out bum-bum.  That was the part that worked, the bum-bum.  Fair is fair.  Getting even, hitting back soothed Lisa’s excoriated flesh, slowed her crying to a whimper.  And when Ritchie was little and he got hurt, he also loved that part of the ditty.  He would smile as he wiped his eyes with his mittens. Sometimes he slapped at the ground singing bum-bum along with his daddy.

So if Michael needs to play Deborah will play along, grateful he can fill in her empty spaces. He still hasn’t stopped looking at her with his bedroom eyes, kidding but not kidding.

 ”Stop it.” She waves with her hand.

He continues.

She makes her “get out of here” face.

“It’s the truth,” he says.

He uses that word a lot.  Truth.  Michael is addicted to the truth.  It’s his best quality.  Also his most obnoxious characteristic.  He’s the kid likely to shout out “the emperor’s wearing no clothes” and be proud of it, not noticing and not caring that others think he is an idiot socially. It’s what makes him a good reporter and a lousy guest.

 He continues to look her over, teasingly.  Her eyes narrow.   She raises her voice in a stagy emphatic manner.  “Enough!”

It is enough.  Wallace is very close to again having his silence.  Everyone in the room is  now waiting. The moment of truth is fast approaching. 

 Wallace’s read of his audience is pitch perfect.  He can sway with their ever changing moods, yet when the time comes, take control.    Wallace didn’t write the music. He won’t produce the sound, but like the conductor of a great orchestra, he can heighten the flavor, modulate the intensity, give it any shape that strikes his fancy. He hesitates one, two, and extending the tension, a split second beyond that. He has the goods. He owns the moment. Everyone waits for him to share his secret, announce the winner of the  Murrow.   He loves it. Fifty-five years ago, before going into journalism, he thought about acting, but his mother wanted him to do something meaningful with his life. He listened to her because he didn’t think he was good looking enough.

He’s pushing the edge tonight.  He is in that kind of mood. Wallace remains quiet for yet another moment. People are getting a bit irritated by the delay, but this is his patented trick.  It rarely fails him, his ability to bring very serious focus to  the importance of now, this very second. His intonation was mastered  during a 6^th grade school play, when Wallace read the Declaration of Independence to the colonists for the first time.   Slowly and clearly he speaks as if what he is about to announce will be a moment in history.

 “ For two years this year’s winner of the  Murrow hammered away.  For two years we ignored him…  Finally he got our attention… Something had to be done and he did it. Our winner joins Katherine Graham…” The applause begins.   “H. L. Mencken , Samuel Clemens,  Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow,  Bernstein and Woodward,  … He has sent a clear message, cutting through the noise which forever threatens to engulf us… 

“The keyboard is mightier than the sword.”

 Wild, wild applause.  He practically has to shout.  “The Edward Murrow Award for investigative journalism goes to Michael Russell of The Boston Sentinel.”

  Deborah  freezes.  Her heart is racing uncontrollably.   She lightly pushes the knuckles of her clenched fist into her lips.  She stares in front of her, seeing only a blur.  Her mother’s fierce efforts, years and years of battles with her and too many tears from her, all to teach Deborah how to put on a mask, the right hair, the right make-up, how to feel nothing, or appear to feel nothing you don’t want others to know about.  Everything she thought she hated most about her mother, she now treasures. A good beginning.  Her insides are on fire, yet she looks radiant. The applause swells and grows and grows until it surrounds Deborah and Michael, and like a wave, seems to lift them from their chairs into a congratulatory embrace. Esther Pollard is delirious.  She is crying.  So are others. Deborah molds into his surrounding arms, finds her spot in his neck.  Victory tears run down her cheeks.  Then, too soon, fear repossesses her.

It is not a surprise.  In recent years fear has been more of a companion than composure.    Deborah has always been strong and energetic, but for a while it took everything she had to stay afloat. It was not a small accomplishment. Not everyone could have survived the Russells’ misfortunes.   She’s better now. Yet she still can’t be certain the spells won’t return uninvited.   During the last two weeks she’s been an instant away from tears.   The tears came out of the blue.  Sad thought or happy thought or no thought, her eyes simply began to water.

 Most of the time her tears have occurred while she was alone.  That wasn’t too bad.  She has learned to savor them.  Last night she was crying lightly, satisfyingly.  She needed a cry.  Only they built into deep wrenching sobs, which took hold of her before she could stop them.  She hadn’t had that happen for a very long time.   She holds Michael more tightly as the applause continues.

Michael hit a nerve with his articles so right now he is a sentimental favorite, but Deborah is not enjoying the attention.   She is not wrong.  Many people with the scoop about the Russells have whispered their story to their neighbors at their table.   Yes many clap and smile as they would in support of any good cause, or with a warm place in their hearts for the Russells, but others watch them with morbid curiosity. She is beginning to question her decision to be here tonight.

Michael whispers a nothing, and pulls away.  Deborah watches him as he makes his way towards the stage, relieved that he seems okay, that he seems happy with his victory.  She dabs at her eyes.

Turning to the crowd on the dais, Michael brings a new burst of enthusiasm to the applause.  Ever so slightly he rocks, the hint of an ancient doven still in his limbs.    Not knowing what to do next he imitates something he has seen on TV.  He quietly studies the inscription on his glass statue.  The applause continues.  His eyes meet Deborah’s.  Her sadness threatens to overwhelm him. He looks away, looks around the room.

He didn’t know he had so many friends.  Faces that have always ignored him, or scorned him, even scared him, are beaming “good job, good job.” Sally Field accepting her Oscar flashes into his mind, “They really love me.  They really love me.” He tries to laugh at that.  Thinking it will be funny, he parodies something else he has seen on TV.  He bends over the microphone and says “Thank you”  and then he waves the statue in the air like an athlete securing victory at the Olympics.  Only it isn’t really funny.  He is totally into it. He never became the Mets’ shortstop.  He gave up in high school.  But here it is, the major leagues, a home run in the bottom of the ninth, long after he thought he learned how to stop wanting it. And he likes it. He points the statue at Deborah. He holds it tightly, savors the feeling of his hand gripping the glass.  It is his.  No one can take it back.

She can’t register where he is, what he is doing.  He looks her way.  She has regained automatic pilot, rendering a  version of a gallant New England lady.  She isn’t altogether succeeding. She tries her best to imitate a strong resilient smile.   Her eyes drop.  When she returns to meet his eyes, they have gone elsewhere.    He is in his own orbit.

Handshakes on his return to the table, hugs, salutes, winks, a kiss on the cheek from Esther Pollard, thumbs up from Joe Dyer, a glance Deborah’s way.

She’s gone. Esther points Michael in Deborah’s direction.  She’s hurrying to an exit from the ballroom leading to the outside. She turns around.  They look at each other.  Mascara has run down under her eyes.  She mouths the words to him, “I’ll be back”.  She looks as if she is angry with him. He isn’t sure why.

She had to get away. She  She has gone outside to a veranda, and from there into the welcoming darkness, down a path through a garden at the back of the hotel and then further away, down into the night.  As far as she can go, to a gazebo by a  pond, Deborah sits inside the gazebo on a bench far, far away.   She takes her shoes off, brings her knees close to her. She leans against the wall almost in a fetal position.  Still struggling to keep in control, she wills herself to breathe very slowly.  After a while a hint of calm returns and then it grows. She looks around, notices a small bronze sign above.  Ariana’s Kiss.  Michael has that in his book.  She drifts wherever the currents of her mind take her.   In the distance the ceremonies can be heard… A bullfrog croaks.  She closes her eyes. Memories from 12 years earlier occupy her.

 

Deborah and Michael have pitched two tents at a clearing high in the Berkshires overlooking fields and farmland below. It is a day to worship the fall foliage-a symphony of color, bright sunshine, the air has a bite to it, crisp, clear, newly cold. 

Michael is eight feet up in a tree. He’s taped his brand new Nikon on a limb above him from which he can look through the eyepiece while remaining seated on a lower limb. He screws a cable in to the camera, which he specially purchased for this very picture.  The cable will run to the spot he has designated for himself in his soon to be family portrait, so he can snap it from there. This shot has been in Michael’s plans for a year. He told Deborah about it before they arrived.  It was hatched while they were making their first visit here and Michael sat on this exact tree trunk, saw this great view as he looked down at Ritchie, and wished he had a camera.  This time he is prepared. She watches him play with the shutter speed.

 Twelve years younger Michael is a devil with light green, deep set eyes. Deborah’s striking blonde, almost hippie curls are the first thing that catch people’s attention.  She is petite. She moves like a cat. The children are adorable; six-year-old Ritchie is quiet and observant, seven-year-old Lisa feisty .  Each of the Russells  have great hair, great eyes,  great teeth, great skin, and a grace of movement that makes effort silent.

Lisa has done enough posing,

“Dad, how long do we have to stand here?”

In complete agreement, Deborah gives Michael an “enough already” look.

“One more second,” he shouts back.

He looks through the lens.  It is a weird shot, the family, as seen from above.  The valley, thousands of feet below, acts as a backdrop.

“I love it.”  He mumbles to himself.

“ Okay, everyone stay where you are and look up.”

Ritchie breaks ranks.

Lisa grabs her brother, “Ritchie get back here.”

He obeys. She looks up at her father. Michael winks his appreciation.  Still sitting on the limb, he positions Ritchie first to the right, then Lisa to the left. Then he moves Ritchie back left again.  He reminds everyone  that they have to look up.

Lisa is getting more exasperated.

“Daddy take the picture already.”

 They are very close to perfection.  Lisa’s arms are thrown around Harry, their mutt. Just one more moment.  Ritchie could be up a little higher. But Deborah’s look of frustration has finally registered.  Michael will have to settle for the picture he has now or get nothing at all.  He hurriedly fiddles with the cable one last time, then swings down and hangs by the branch.

“Careful,” Deborah shouts.

He drops to the ground almost bouncing up as he lands. Score one for him against the nay- sayers.  Extending the cable he joins them. 

“Okay everyone, Look up… Cheese”.”

They shout, “Carrot juice.”  “Carrot juice” has become a tradition since it made them laugh the first time. This time is no exception. He clicks.

“Okay, one more”

It is the signal the kids have been waiting for.  They are outta there.

“Wait!” he yells

Lisa yells back ,“No way.”

Ritchie imitates Lisa.

“Yeah. No way.”

Happy noise: laughter, barking, Ritchie emits a wssssss, the airplane sound he makes when he flies his model plane. Chin level he wsssses past Lisa.  She drops her coat to the ground, spreads her arms wide so that they resemble air plane wings, and takes off.  She shouts to Ritchie.

“Catch me.”

 He reverses course and runs with his airplane after her as she circles the campfire. Then Lisa turns around and with arms still held wide, she makes Ritchie’s wsssss sound and chases Ritchie.  As soon as Harry comes into the picture they join forces.  Now it is two wssssers united chasing Harry. He gallops far away. Lisa shouts for him to return. He barks at her from a distance.  She once again runs around the fire.  Harry returns to chase her.  Ritchie simply stands and watches them with a big fat grin

In the gazebo Deborah her privacy continues to comfort her.  The microphoned sound of the award ceremonies can be heard in the distance.  She drifts back to her memories…

 

The campfire is dying down, the sun is low in the sky. The children are still going, but exhaustion will follow soon … Deborah yells for them to come to her which they do without a protest. Putting a dab of toothpaste on each toothbrush, she hands the yellow tipped one to Lisa and the green tipped to Ritchie. Lisa inspects hers to be sure she’s been given the right toothbrush.  She holds it up.  From a canteen Deborah pours water on her brush then does the same for Ritchie.  They get to work. Ritchie hums as he goes.   Lisa is a more competent brusher. 

“Okay enough.” Deborah orders them.

          She hands Lisa the canteen for a swig of water.  Lisa gargles noisily then spits it out, aiming for the longest distance.  She enjoys the idea of spitting on the ground.

It’s Ritchie’s turn.  He gargles and spits not nearly as far as Lisa.  As compensation Ritchie sticks his toe on Lisa’s wet spot for good measure.

Deborah’s voice breaks through their procrastination. They know perfectly well what comes after brushing their teeth.  They deliver their toothbrushes to Deborah.    They love the absoluteness of the rules in this routine.  Like a game of Monopoly, “Go to Jail, Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go.  Do not collect two hundred dollars.” The excitement is only possible if you don’t ask why, why do I have to go to jail.  Why can’t I collect $200 dollars.  Why?  No why’s are allowed.  No why’s are needed.  The fun comes from totally living within Monopoly.

“Okay.  March to the tent.”

They march.  When they get to the entrance she calls to them.

“About face.” 

They do so with military precision.

“Wow. Do that again.  No wait.  Let me call Daddy.”

She shouts from some distance away, “Michael”

He shouts back, “What?”

“Watch this.”

Happy marionettes. They repeat their about-face.

“That is cool.”

She yells to him,  “I’ll be there soon.”

She turns to the kids, “Okay.  In your tent.  I’ll come in to kiss you good night in a minute.” 

No protest.  They like sleeping in a tent.  Off they go.

Deborah washes their toothbrushes, listens to the crackling timbers in the fire.

She shouts to Michael.  He waves from the distance.  She inches her skirt little by little up her long legs.

“They’re amazing,” he calls out.

 He loves her legs. He’s told her many times that he married her for them.  She swims miles at the YMCA pool every other day to keep them exactly that way.

She enters the children’s tent, picks their clothes up and folds them. They are excited. This is a treat.  Normally they sleep alone in their rooms at home.

They sit side by side, their legs in their sleeping bags.

 Lisa is wearing a ring that Deborah had found in her mother’s attic and sized to fit Lisa.  She was told that it belonged to her grandmother’s great aunt who had never married. The ring had been given to her by a young man who died before he could marry her and she remained true. Deborah repeated the story to Lisa when she gave it to her.  After that she wouldn’t take it off even when she took her bath.  She loved that story.

Lisa hands her ring to Ritchie, “Put it on tonight. It means we are married.”

Ritchie counters, “I can’t marry my sister.  Right Mommy?”

“Make believe,” Lisa argues.

The boss interrupts.

“Come on guys.”

Their arms disappear inside their bags. Deborah zips them in and gives each a kiss.  As soon as she turns away they give each other a look of complicity.

As she leaves they giggle excitedly. From outside the tent Deborah warns them.

“Shh…”

They giggle again.  She smiles, walks away.  She listens carefully.  Every once in a while she thinks she hears an animal stepping on a twig.   Momentarily a bear jumps out of the darkness until she reassures herself that it is her imagination. She feels a chill. She puts on a sweatshirt and gets closer to the fire.  She sits on the ground, lights a joint, unwinds, stares into space, calming herself with the quiet.  After 10 minutes she reenters the children’s tent. They are asleep. Her eyes embrace them.  She  listens to their gentle breathing.  Lisa coughs. Deborah continues to listen. Lisa’s breathing is clear.  As she parts the door flap of the tent she can make out Michael 100 yards away`.

He is literally seated on the edge of the cliff, where they took the picture thousands of feet above the valley. The ledge is tilted slightly downward. Deborah approaches carefully, gripping the rock with her strong fingernails for extra traction as she slides next to him.  She almost slips a bit but recovers.

“Wo.  That was close,” he says with concern.

“I’m all right.’  She examines her finger.  “I broke a nail.” 

She settles in, looks straight out.

“How is your book going? How’s Cornelius?”

“The Commodore  is amazing- as always.  What a guy.”

‘I still don’t get  what’s so interesting about Vanderbilt?”

“I guess because he came from nothing.”

“But two years on this guy.  It’s like he’s part of our family. Truthfully I think he’s a macho schmuck.”

“ You don’t know anything about him.”

“Is that what you really wanted to be, a macho guy who wins all the time?  You know that means  everyone else loses?”

“Debby” he utters in a warning tone.  Then stops.

They both stop.  Time out.  They have learned to be quiet when tension arises. She bites her lip a bit.  He looks straight ahead seeing nothing.  But within a minute both of them start regaining their connection.  Silently, they  look out straight ahead, far away at the just beginning sunset,  to the clouds now painted with color, to the distant line where the sky touches the ground. They are soothed by the soft whistling wind, occasionally punctuated by  ospreys calling out their dominance over the valley beneath. The minutes pass intensely.  Every moment felt in their fingers, in the air going in and out of their lungs, in their vision- the sky saturated with color deepening and deepening.

 ” How did you find this place? Remind me.” Deborah asks.

“Joe told me about it.”

“Right …It’s something.”

Again they are silent until Deborah laughs to herself.

“What?”

“Something Amy said.”

“What?”

“She said in a past life you must have been Japanese. Always trying to take perfection to the next level.”

“Do you think so?”

They both know it is true. Neither understands it.  He forever reaches for the ultimate, the ultimate truth, the ultimate lie, the ultimate orgasm, the ultimate rose, the ultimate truffle flavored anything, the ultimate barbecued beef, cranberry soda, the ultimate view. Whatever it is that he likes, he wants to bring it to the next level.  And when he gets there he wants something better. “ Why not?” he asks.  “If you are alive why not want the best there is, just so that you know what that is like?”  Greed she calls it. Deprivation, he explains, but understanding will not change it.  It is simply a given. 

She can feel her muscles relax, the grip of her body lighter, almost disappearing. And as she could have predicted, the sunset is a perfect one, the sun huge, the sky now yellow with hints of red. Below, at the corner of one of the fields, orange pumpkins are piled high. Very, very far away workers can be discerned, tiny dots, purposefully doing the necessary. Behind them the autumn leaves catch the fading yellow light as it slowly relents to a vivid  reddish hue.  A sliver of red sun shimmers at the edge of the horizon.  Then it disappears. They both exhale in appreciation.  He hands her a plastic cup of wine.  He is excited.

“I can see why they used to worship the sun.”

“Who are they?” She loves to tweak him.

“Ancient people. People who lived outside. Not knowing how things work, not knowing things through books, just the sun right in front of you, warm and there and huge. You have to admit God’s done a pretty good job here.”

She nods. He lifts his cup.  “To the big guy in the sky.”

Deborah holds her cup up.

“To the Sun God.”

They sip. The wind howls. Leaves fly everywhere. Then stillness. She looks skyward straight above, and is captured by a sliver of the moon, which is already visible.

She whispers to it, “To the god who owns the night with a whisper.”

“Only one god allowed.”

“Not in my religion.”

“You smoked didn’t you?”

She opens her arms.

“Come here Mr. Vanderbilt.”

 

Seated at the table in the ballroom Michael keeps glancing at the exit waiting for  Deborah‘s return. People walk by, wave to him.  He waves back.  But they can tell he wants to be left alone.  The award ceremony continues. He fingers his napkin under the table.  It is rough, which he likes. He can’t get rid of that last look from Deborah.  Was she angry?  The excitement of the award has stirred up his emotions as well, bombarded him with memories. He also drifts in and out of the past.  His thoughts go to seven years earlier.

 

           Two hands slap at an overturned card, a jack. Lisa and Ritchie try to out shout each other.  Michael watches quietly.

“Slapjack!”

Ritchie, now eleven, is sitting on twelve-year-old Lisa’s hospital bed.   Both want to win badly. Happy rock n’ roll plays in the background.  Lisa has mastered her bubble gum, cracking it emphatically, rhythmically, repeatedly blowing small bubbles then sucking them in. With one hand behind her back, she draws the next card.

Ritchie fakes slapping the pack.  Lisa, just in time, freezes her hand.  He points at it.

“You moved your hand.”

She shakes her head, “No!”

“You did!”

They prepare for the next draw. Lisa sneaks a look at the covered card. Another jack! Keeping a poker face she uncovers it. She beats Ritchie’s slap, smiles triumphantly.

Ritchie is not happy.

“You cheated.  You snuck a look.”

“I did not.”

“You did. I saw you.”

“Daddy!

“Leave me out of it.”

She brings the back of her hand to her chest, swallows hard with a little too much theatre. Ritchie watches this and suspects she is playing it up but he isn’t sure.  The discomfort, real or feigned, passes as quickly as it came. Mischievously she smiles as she prepares to turn over the next card.

 She imitates the sound of a drum roll. Ritchie is not amused.

“Stop,” he orders.

Deborah noisily enters the room.  Lisa doesn’t look up. For a crucial moment she tries to stay with her game.  Finally she gives in.

As Deborah’s mother once did to her, Deborah moves the back of her hand across Lisa’s forehead, then puts her cheek against it,  checking her temperature. “How’s the patient?” she asks cheerfully, as she deposits some bags of snacks on a chair.

 “Is the food any better in the cafeteria?  What they bring me here sucks.”

Deborah glares at Lisa. She doesn’t like that kind of talk.  Lisa’s eyes drop.  Michael  tosses a bag of potato chips to her.  Deborah tries to intercept it.

 “Doctor said only hospital food.”

Lisa throws it back to her father, “I wasn’t hungry anyway.”

Ritchie moves off to the corner of the room. He pretends to be busy shuffling his deck of cards, but he is watching everything.

Deborah again touches Lisa’s brow with the back of her hand.

 “She definitely has a fever.”

“Again?”

“I’m pretty sure.  Here, feel her brow.”

Michael ignores her and plops into a chair by the bedside.  He takes the TV remote and puts on the New England Patriots.

Deborah strokes Lisa forehead.

“Are you okay?”

“No different.”

“Does anything hurt?”

“It’s the same Mom, the same.  Stop asking me. That’s the hundredth time you’ve asked today.”

“When did they bring your medicine?  Michael, check with the nurse.”

He reluctantly starts to get out of his chair. Lisa intervenes.

“Mom.  This is a big game.  Ritchie you go.”

Ritchie goes forward with his task.  He leaves the room and heads towards the nursing station.  The once grand hospital is showing its age. The corridors have been scrubbed and scrubbed Harvard style, but the marble trim around passageways has passed the point of a pleasant ivory toned patina to simply looking brown and dingy.  The high ceilings seem to amplify the cold creepy institutional feeling.  Ritchie shuffles down the hall. He shoots a look in the first room he encounters.  A doctor and two assistants are busy preparing for a procedure.  He catches the eye of seven-year-old Billy sitting up on his bed.

“Hey Billy.”

Billy, pale and clearly ill, points his index finger at him, pretending to shoot a gun.  Ritchie returns the gesture. The door closes.  Ritchie moves on down the hall when suddenly Billy’s scream rips through the quiet. 

“OWWWWW”

     “It won’t hurt…It won’t hurt. I promise you. Stay still.”

           Then another scream is heard all over the ward, this one for real. In her room  Lisa looks at her father.  She squeezes her mother’s hand.

               Billy screams again,. “You said it wouldn’t hurt. You said it wouldn’t hurt.  You promised.”

  “Hold him still. I can’t do this if he keeps moving.”

CHAPTER  2

 

As soon as they return from the hospital  to their fifth floor Boston apartment, Ritchie goes to his room.  Michael turns on the Patriot game.  Deborah settles by the window that  looks out at the asphalt playground five stories below. It is late afternoon but the children’s energy has not let up. From up high their  screams are  soothing, like birds chirping in the countryside, each with a different call, talking back and forth to each other through the airwaves.  Laughter, anger, silliness, pleading, a little boy’s voice over and over in Spanish, “Mira! Mira!”, then another and another, “Higher…” “Get away….”  “Stop that Joey…” Then a mother, “Get Over Here.  Now!”

 When she was playground age  Lisa used to call Deborah over to this window.  Within a few minutes their coats were on and they were on their way to play.  They both loved that about the apartment.  The playground right there.

Trying to clear her head she looks for a particular mother and daughter that she has watched many times before on the swings.  They are not there.  She tries watching a different mother.    No use.  The sound of Billy’s cries in the hospital keep pushing into her mind.    She gets up and places herself in front of the TV, blocking Michael’s view.  “Shut it off,” she demands

“It’s the fourth quarter.“

“Shut it off…Please” 

He mutes the TV sound with his remote. She waits for his attention.

 “How can you watch TV?”

“ I like it.”

“ So you can tune me  out?”

“It relaxes me.” 

“Not everyone has that choice.”

“Debby, just tell me what you want.”

She hesitates.  She has started badly, already pissed him off, closed his mind.  In the very earliest years when the current of their love was powerful, there was no wrong moment. His attention was total.  Later she learned to wait for the right moment.  Now even that is gone.  She quickly becomes impatient, plunges ahead, regardless of where he is at.  When she has a thought she has to say it that very moment.    

“I want to take Lisa out of the hospital.”

He waits for what is coming next.  Seeing the anger on his face stops her. She returns to the  window. This time she spots the mother she was looking for before.  She’s  watched this woman  push her daughter on that swing for several years.  She never grows tired of them.  When the girl’s fears of the swing disappeared  Deborah  smiled triumphantly along with the girl’s mother.  “Higher, higher,”  the girl would  shout.  But eventually the mother became the frightened one as her daughter became  a bit of a dare devil.     

Deborah’s voice is calm.   “Amy told me about her cousin who also has a lymphoma.  Everyone said nothing could be done… She took shark cartilage.  They’ve used it in China for thousands of years.”

Michael’s voice is cold. “Yin and yang is just not going to cut it.  Lisa’s not going to be treated with health foods.”

“Oh! Daddy has spoken.” Her voice races through sarcasm to contempt.   “Father knows best.”   Then she raises the stakes.  “Times are changing Mr. Man.”

“Not tonight Debby.  You want to fight, keep it on the subject.  We are talking about Lisa.”

That  quiets her.  She’s goes back to the window, again watches the girl on the swing.  She was a pip squeak when she was 3.  It’s amazing how she’s grown.  But still that mouth. She’s giving her mother a run for her money.  Like Lisa. Like Deborah did to her own mother.   She regroups, faces him, her determination growing.

“I’m not going to let them torture her.”

 “ Torture? Debby.  This isn’t a movie.  Torture?”

“They’re not going to torture Lisa.” She repeats.

“No one’s torturing her.”  He speaks authoritively. Her eyes move to the floor. Grabbing the opportunity he peaks at the  TV, trying to find out the score.    

 “God only knows what they were doing to Billy today.  I swear.  They get off on it.”

She has his attention.

“They stick needles in her.  They  jab and cut into her.”

He’s listening.

“They make Lisa swallow disgusting stuff. Yesterday it was a plastic tube. Swallow a tube?  She has trouble with pills. Where do they come up with their procedures? Tell me.  What stupid person dreams them up?”

“These stupid people are Harvard trained.”

“Oh Harvard.  Mr. Harvard.  There are fewer sadists at Harvard.  Right?  People are really nice there, Soft spoken maybe.” She takes a breath then continues.  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe all that bookishness makes for  better ways to torture children?  They finally get to do something besides read.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You think being smart makes people nicer.”  She looks him straight in the eye.  “It just makes for better bullshit.”

She’s said all of this before. Many times.  It used to get to him.  Not any more.  He waits for what is coming next.

“I know you think Billy’s a cry baby.”

“I was wrong about Billy okay.  I admit it. Last week  I saw him.   They barely touched him and he was screaming.”

“You called him a wus.  Do you know what he has been through?” 

“I was pissed, okay.? I took it out on him. I’m not allowed to get pissed?”

“You said it loud enough so that his mother heard you.”

“You really think she could hear me?”

“Yes.”

 “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know she was there.” 

Deborah knows it was not intentional and that he truly is sorry, but she can’t bring herself to forgive him. He waits.  Her face has not softened. He continues.  “I was wrong,” he repeats. “Okay?”

It is not okay.  She talks about Billy all the time.  The other patients on the ward and their families have become family.  They are the only ones that understand. He knows that but two weeks ago  Michael just let it fly.  He couldn’t  stand the whimpering.   He looks morosely at her.

  “What do you want me to say?  I was wrong. I know Billy’s been through hell.”

She continues to stare at him coldly. 

He answers weakly. “We’re talking about a lymphoma. Dr. Clark knows what he is doing.”

“Lisa’s not going to end up like Billy.   They’re not going to break her.”

“No one is trying to break her.”

“Some of what they do is probably necessary.  But some of it is total bullshit.  I’m sure of that.  One day they are going to do one thing,  which they tell me is important.  Then they change their mind and don’t do it.  Or they do something else instead.”

“To me that’s good.  It means they are thinking things over, not just following a cookbook.  I hated it when they were following those protocols. Would you like it better if a doctor decided to do something and went ahead with it  even if he knew he had made a mistake?”

“Michael, the protocols were when they felt on top of the situation.  Now, they don’t  know what they are doing.   I swear.  Half of it is just to do something.  Anything.  I’m sure of that.” 

“Trying is better than doing nothing.”

“Not when the main thing you are trying to do is prove  that you are a great doctor.”

“That’s not it.  Maybe Dr. Fabian.  But not Clark.  He usually talks to me about it.  He reads somewhere that a procedure worked.  So he goes over it with me.  He figures why not.  Maybe it will help Lisa.”

“Maybe it’s something else.  Did you see those bills?  Every time they do a procedure they get paid a fortune, what you earn in a month.”

“Deborah, the money goes to the school not them.  They are doing their best.”

          He glances at the TV hoping nothing has gone wrong for New England.

She shuts off the TV manually.  

He clicks it on.

“I hate that TV.”

“I don’t.”

“Fine.  You want to watch it. But what about me?”

“Deborah  it’s not to hurt you.  I need to unwind.”

“Okay.  But less… okay?  Less.”

“Okay.”

She has him back.  She softens.  She sits down next to him.  His fingers soon knead  the taut muscles at the back of her neck.

“You  are not at the hospital during the week.”

His fingers stop.

“I have to work.  You remember.  Paying bills?”

“Still.”

           “I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“ Fine, but you miss half of what is going on.”

“Like what?”

 “Everything.”   She stops for a moment,  “Okay, not everything.  But a lot. Coming home I kept thinking about  Lisa’s spinal tap Tuesday.”

 She hasn’t told him about it, mainly because he usually tunes her out, but she’s got him now.

  “She was a trooper… She had that little scared smile.” Deborah is also half smiling,  proudly.

  “Remember…at her birthday party…She was three?  The clown broke a balloon? That loud pop…  That smile.  She was scared but it was her “princess” party.   That’s what she called the party. She was dressed like a princess.  So she had to act like a princess.  Princesses don’t look scared.”

Michael does remember.  It is on video.  Her hands on her hips like she is about to sing out a verse from Oklahoma. Trying not to look scared, she was very cute.

Deborah continues, “She was in control of herself. It was like she had invented  a game.  She always did that. Pictured herself in a story.   I don’t  know who she was playing, what story.  Maybe it wasn’t a story, but she did whatever the neurologist told her to do. No resistance…” Deborah smiles fondly, “She’s a trooper…”  She whispers to herself, her eyes water  “She’s  sweet,” 

Michael is picturing her.

 “The neurologist asked her to lie down on her stomach.  She did it She listened closely.  Waited for each direction.  It was there, a bit of fear but she was overcoming it, trying to completely trust the doctor.  They told her to roll on her side. She did.   But as she did it her hospital gown pulled up.  She didn’t want people to see her underpants. So she tried to pull her gown down. But, suddenly they were in a hurry. The neurologist had had enough pussy footing around. He was on go and she was on stop.   They had her pinned down and they weren’t going to let go.  Her fingers kept moving, trying to catch her gown.  A nurse saw that.  So she held her wrist tighter. I was whispering into her ear, kissing her.  But I could see what was going on.  She’s twelve …I thought nurses are supposed to know about twelve year old girls.  I swear. They aren’t  really nurses.  They’re doctor wannabes.”

“Some of the nurses are good.  Lisa loves Barbara.”

“Barbara wasn’t there. It was that tall one with the braids, and that

other short one. I wanted to shout  let go of her hand. Let go of her

hand.”  Deborah hesitates.  She is fighting her tears. 

“I said nothing.  Nothing…They could have waited two seconds so she could cover up her underpants…She’s twelve.  She’s a girl.“

“I don’t understand why I said nothing.”

“You didn’t want to get them upset.  You wanted them to have a cool head. They were going to stick something in Lisa’s spine.”

Deborah’s face hardens.  “It’s not that.  It’s that they’re in charge.  What time we come, what time we go, what they feed her.  They are just automatically  in charge.”

“It’s their hospital.”

“It’s our daughter.  Lisa’s ours. Michael she’s ours.”

“Debbie, Amy’s health food stories are wacko. Remember that line?  “The more you need the truth the more you must lie.””

“Yeah John Lennon. So?”  She is getting irritated.  She doesn’t want to hear theories.

“You can’t trust true believers. Their cures get more miraculous every time the story gets repeated.”

“Maybe”

“Maybe? Dr. Clark studied for years, studied hard.  He’s not stupid.”

“Good.  He’s not stupid. But you know what? It doesn’t matter… Sometimes the cancer calls the shots. Clark better admit it if nothing is working.”

“He’s trying his best.”

“If he’d slow down. If all the doctors would slow down. Every one of them, they’re like busy like ants… In and out of the room.  Dr. Clark should stop staring at Lisa’s chart and look into her eyes…(Deborah’s eyes water).  Just once. (wiping her eyes) 

She again pushes Michael’s hand away as he  tries to stroke her)

She shouts angrily “He’s gotta tell me if he can’t do anything.”

She looks imploringly at Michael)

“Am I asking too much?”

He doesn’t answer

“Am I?”

“No.”

“Lisa’s there for us. We told her she’s gotta stay there. She puts up with them for us.  For us…  )

“Deborah, No more.  I can’t do this.” 

Deborah ignores her.  “She’s waiting for me to say it. “Come on.  We’re out of here.”  She’s waiting”

“Deborah…”

“I’m going to take her home.”

“Deborah.  Please. We’ve been here.  Again and again”

“What do you expect?  I should have just come home today and done my nails?”

Michael ignores her.

“One more incident like this morning and we’re out of there.”

“Taking her home will make everything worse.”

She stops.  She knows that particular pitch and volume. Michael is about to blow.  She is suddenly very quiet, like she has heard thunder in the distance.  They’ve been here too many times lately.  She goes to the window.  One person is still in the park, a fourteen year old girl on a bench,fixing her hair, waiting for her boyfriend. He arrives.  Together on the bench they talk earnestly.  Biting  her lip, Deborah watches them, gets lost in them, which calms her.

” Remember the time I had that flat tire with them in the car?  Lisa was about six.”

“No.”

“AAA? I had a fight with you that night?.”

“Right.”

“I never told you the whole story…” She has his attention.  “I was screaming at Ritchie and Lisa to stop fighting, I got out.  Opened the trunk.  I couldn’t find the’ jack.  Meanwhile the back door opens. The traffic is buzzing by.  I screamed.  “Close the door.  Close the door.”  Lisa steps out anyway.   ”Get back in the car.  Get back in the car”  She just looked at me and understood everything. I didn’t have to fake that I knew what I was doing.  I couldn’t fake it.   She knew that I didn’t  But she also knew it was going to all turn out ok.  I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen.  Lisa and Ritchie used to get that from me.”

She smiles, “Lisa pushed her body against the car and slipped over near me at the back.  When she was close enough she stood next to me,  “Mom.  Call AAA.”  It was okay that I didn’t  know what to do because she did. Or thought she did. Either way it didn’t matter. She knew I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen.  Lisa and Ritchie knew that. That was my job.  I was good at it.” A tear forms.  She smiles

 “Sorry about  AAA.” 

“It’s okay, Michael. We didn’t have much money back then.”

“Yeah but you were pissed about it and you were right.”

“Well you said no.  I wasn’t going to let you get away with that.”

She refocuses.  Her voice changes. “I understood.  We had to economize.”

“ So okay  we agree?”

“Yes.”

“ One more time like this morning and we are out of there.”

“ No we are not agreed.  We are going to do whatever Dr. Clark says.  We have to.”

She  screams at him  “Clark doesn’t give a shit.  It’s just a job to him.”

 “He takes his job seriously.  That’s enough.”

A new round, but  she answers with a trace of resignation in her voice. They are both tiring. 

 “He better admit it if we’re not going anywhere.”  She trails off,  “Fuckin’ doctors’ egos.”

          She pours scotch into a large glass, straight.  She sips a little, then downs it.  She stares down Michael’s disapproval.

“You think your praying is any different?  You think you’re gonna get a miracle here?”

She downs another, then continues.

          “You think God listens to your mumbling? He’s old Michael. He needs a hearing aid.  Because if he hears okay he’s definitely a sadist.”

“Shut up. Debby”

In his room Ritchie is playing an intense video game which  fills the room with noise, laser gun screeches, grunts from splattered  monsters as they are gunned down.  Every once in a while he can hear his parents, especially the  “shut ups”.  He turns up the volume of his game, obliterates the sound of their fighting  The action gets more furious.  Deborah shouts from the foyer,

“Ritchie do your homework.” 

Ritchie shoots a mutant alien. A groan.

Michael goes to his computer.  He checks the football score.  New England

lost.  He gets back to work on his novel about Cornelius Vanderbilt.  As usual he is blessedly absorbed within  minutes.

                 

 

Chapter 3

 The Vanderbilt Hotel in Boston was unlike any other hotel Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt owned. It was built in 1846, the same year as the Vanderbilt in Philadelphia and one year before the Vanderbilt Hotel in Baltimore.  It began life exactly like them, plush, profitable enough, and of no particular distinction. Then, some time during the 1850’s the Boston Vanderbilt  became the  jewel in his crown.

The change in its status  resulted from a   family gathering honoring Vanderbilt’s nephew, the soon to be married Ernest Van Doren.  They were being called together to meet Ernest’s bride to be, Belize Moreau.  Her entrance into the family was already stirring up controversy.  She was to be the first member of the family who wasn’t Dutch.  Worse still, she was French.

Belize’s position as a family outcast was a familiar one for her.    In Lyon there were questions about her parentage.  Her father voiced his doubts when he had too much wine, and that was not infrequent.  Belize eventually came to the same conclusion.  She had spied her mother once out in the fields with a handsome farm   worker.  She had been suspicious once before when her mother was with another handsome man.  That man had put her own head in a tizzy. Finally she asked her mother who her father was.  She was told her father was her father, but from the way her mother answered, she knew it wasn’t true, and she said so.

“Well. Listen to her.”

“Who was he?” she insisted

Her mother studied Belize for barely a moment before plunging forward, “His name doesn’t matter,  but I will tell you that he was the most gorgeous man I have ever seen.  Absolutely perfect.  One in a million.  You’re father and I weren’t getting along.  Truth is, you can thank me he isn’t your father.  How else do you think you got your looks?  From that old fart that lives in our house?”

It explained the way her father’s treated her, not at all like he treated her siblings.   By the age of fourteen, his flirtations with her were disrupting the household.  Finally, one afternoon, when her mother had gone into town, her father,  completely blasted by his booze,  tried to fondle her.  He backed off when she screamed, but what would happen the next time? Belize’s mother did not want to find out.  She had a sister in Paris.  She gave Belize twenty francs and off to her aunt she went.

She lived in Paris for seven years.  Those born and bred in Paris miss what a visitor sees.  They know all the back alleys, understand the rhythm and know all the steps, but the melody is missing.  Fourteen year old Belize, hormones driving her into a tizzy,  leaped out of  her childhood into  Paris’ unpredictable currents.  It was the perfect place to be.

She was ambitious from day one, enjoyed competition.   If she saw a quality in Parisians that she liked, she made it her own, then improved upon it.  She was blessed with the most important of all qualities in Paris.   If anything she underestimated just how pretty she was, which seems impossible.   All she had to do was look in a mirror. It was plainly visible, but she only knew possibilities, starting points, what she could become, not what she was.  There is no better teacher of young beautiful women than Paris. Nowhere that it is more appreciated. There was not a more able competitor than Belize.

Then she hit a wall.  The owner’s son at the store where she worked was trying to seduce her.   She had flirted a bit, as she did with many men, but usually she could apply the brakes and she was understood.  Not the boss’ son.  He felt entitled to more.  She soon dreaded going to work.  It was her father all over again. 

Not long after she turned  twenty-one, she found a way out.  On a particularly fine spring day at her favorite spot in the Tuilleries she met a nice couple on a bench and they became fast friends.  They convinced her to come to Montreal to work in their store.

 She spent a year working for them, long enough to put legs under her, savings in the bank, some contacts and a passable understanding of  how business is conducted in Montreal.  She had a second job weekends and some evenings.  She was saving for a fabric shop she intended to open. Montreal was even more provincial than Lyon.     You couldn’t buy this year’s styles.    Not even last year’s fabrics, or the year before that.   Canadians didn’t know what to ask for.  She did. She was sure the store would be a big hit.

 That plan was dropped after she met Ernst Van Doren.   She had no regrets. Montreal  had served its purpose,  given her life a fresh new direction.  She now expected Boston to do the same.   She wasn’t wild about Ernst but, she recognized in him what she needed most, a person of parallel ambition, dissatisfied and looking up rather than down for answers. Paris, Montreal, Boston- she had learned from her travels it doesn’t matter where you are.

 Sophia Vanderbilt, the Commodore’s wife of thirty years, disapproved of Belize’s  restlessness even before she met her. She had heard the gossip.  She usually ran her opinions through Cornelius, especially before they turned out the oil lamp at night.

“Restlessness is a dangerous quality in a woman,” she intoned.

“Not always,” he answered.

 “It is if she wants a family?”

“How do you know she wants a family?”

“Then why is she getting married?”

Case closed. Sophia turned out the light on her side of the bed and was soon sleeping soundly.  Cornelius, on the other hand, had a head full of questions about Belize. As a kindred spirit she attracted him.  In the course of building his empire he had conducted business on three continents.  He had gone far beyond his family’s horizons. Nevertheless, when he was at home he came to every family function.   His mother expected it of him.  He couldn’t disappoint her.  But they were tiresome   Everyone trying to get along.  He almost wished they wouldn’t bother.  Belize’s introduction to the family was welcome excitement.     He fell asleep shortly after deciding he would get a hair cut the next day.

On the day of the party, Ernst’s father coached him on how to best approach Vanderbilt.  The strategy was to wait until his uncle was weary of small talk and had disposed of everyone else.  At that point Cornelius would welcome him. 

They had once had a special relationship.   Ernst was the first born in his generation and so his birth was  like a miracle for his mother’s younger sisters and brothers.  One of their own.   A mother!  It wouldn’t be long until they would have children of their own. They took turns holding him, marveling over this new fact of their existence.  They squabbled over him like a piece of candy. 

Cornelius was twelve when Ernst was born, sixteen when Ernst turned four, the  year he went into business for himself and began to see what it feels like to spend his own money as he wished. Sixteen, but  Cornelius could still remember being four himself, remember what he had  wanted, which led to  Cornelius becoming Ernst’ hero. 

Ernst  asked Santa Claus for an outrageous gift, a rocking horse that he had seen in a store window in Manhattan.  For his parents, Staten Island farmers just getting by, a store bought rocking horses was pie in the sky. 

He got the rocking horse.  Somehow, in his mind, Santa Claus and Uncle Cornelius were related.  Perhaps Uncle Cornelius had written Santa Claus a letter.  He didn’t figure it out until he was older and put two and two together. His memory of his mother making sure he thanked Uncle Cornelius clarified the mystery.

Unfortunately that rocking horse served as a signal to Cornelius’ other siblings that he might be good for a buck or two.  It was the very beginning of Cornelius’ deteriorating relationship with them.  The more money he made the worse it got.

By this point, Vanderbilt  knew he was the pride of the family, the one among them who was making something of himself. But, he didn’t like that his siblings   thought he should be sharing his good fortune with them. What he possessed he had earned, taking chances, working his ass off.   He was not about to give away his profits.  His game plan depended on spending as little of it as possible. using freed up money  to invest. 

Ernst father Lambert had once been Cornelius’ favorite brother in law,  but he developed the most envy of all.  “Why him and not me? I’m as smart. I work as hard.     Lambert couldn’t help himself.  And Cornelius knew it.  Things also cooled with Ernst after he became a teenager.  Cornelius found him irritating.  But by then, with the exception of his mother, Cornelius was finding most of his family irritating.  It wasn’t until  Ernst began employment away from home that  Cornelius’ kinship with him returned. 

Cornelius knew that he was  an object of fascination, and debate.  His faults were frequently picked over, yielding whatever comfort that might bring to his family. It still irked him.

Perhaps it was that they felt judged by Vanderbilt, which made them angry.  Not that they all didn’t judge one another constantly.  But coming from Vanderbilt, the power of his judgments was multiplied by his wealth. Later, after Cornelius’ was truly at the top of the heap, he didn’t care enough about his family to bother to judge them, which got them even angrier. 

But then he wasn’t a warm man.  He distrusted charm, saw it as dishonesty.  He preferred being blunt and to the point.   He promised little.  On the other hand, he took great pride in always sticking to his word.  Bottom line was that  Cornelius was not a person anyone except his mother could  join for relaxed conversation at a family gathering.

Except Ernst believed that push come to shove, Cornelius would help him out.    He already had.  He was hired by the Astoria Hotel because he was Vanderbilt’s nephew. Ernst also made his own way.  It had taken him eight years but so far so good.  He was able to support himself in Boston and was  in charge of the Astoria Hotel during the evening shift, a position that usually implied he would one day be the manager of the hotel.  His uncle was resting by the fire.  It was a good time to approach him. 

“ Uncle Cornelius…   Don’t get up” Ernst sat down next to him, rubbing his hands. “Nice fire.”

“How is the Astoria Hotel doing?” Cornelius inquired

“A little slow.  Not much going on in Boston right now.”

“Is nothing  going on in Boston? Or is there something wrong at the Astoria?  Last time we talked you also told me the Astoria wasn’t very busy? ”

“No change.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, but my theory is the Astoria would do much better if it stood for something.  Right now they know people come there because the sheets will be clean, the beds will be comfortable and it is quiet.”

“That is enough for me when I need a hotel.”

“I know, but there are dozens of hotels like that.  What I would really like to see is a hotel that generated a little excitement, like the hotels in New York.”

“You mean clubs and restaurants?  I don’t know about Boston.  The Puritans still have a pretty tight grip.   Except for the Irish, people go to bed by 10.   They have no interest in a downtown hotel.”

“Maybe, but I think even Boston could use a little more excitement.”

Cornelius was interested.  Figuring out what to do with his money, how to make it work for him, was constantly on Vanderbilt’s mind.  He liked new ideas.  He had always been full of questions, always doubted half the things he was told, was rarely satisfied with the ways things had always been done. He counted his dissatisfaction, his desire for changes as a virtue.  But there was another element.  He didn’t understand how people came to most of their conclusions.  He knew that, for the most part, people simply passed on what they were told.   There was always something new challenging him, which pissed him off but also got him going.  As a boy many people found his constant doubts irritating.  His mind was too lively.  He’d keep wanting to talk about issues when everyone assumed a subject had already been settled.  It was a bit of  a joke among several of the uncles.  This young kid didn’t know when to stop.

 But, as annoying as his stubbornness was, his persistence was admired. One uncle had complained about all of the liquor bottles littering the shore of Port Richmond.  Cornelius, at the ripe age of eight  said he would clean them up for a penny a bottle.  The uncle agreed but after 2 weeks  the agreement was off.  Cornelius had collected so many bottles that his uncle told him he couldn’t afford to continue the project.

Vanderbilt liked Ernest’s idea about a hotel with personality.  Before he even thought it over, the words were out of his mouth.  On the spot he offered Ernst the job of running the Boston Vanderbilt.

“Really?”

“Yes.  I need someone with fresh ideas.”

“I’m flabbergasted.  This is going beyond generosity.”

”It has nothing to do with that.  This is a business decision.”

“Still…”

“If you don’t think you are up to it I can reconsider.”

“When do I start?”

“That’s more like it…Take your time.  After your wedding.  Then we will announce your new job.”

“Thank you Uncle Cornelius.  This is a wonderful wedding gift.”

“If you are going to work for me no more Uncle Cornelius.  It’s Corneel”

“ Corneel.” Ernst repeated.

“Good.  One other thing.  Don’t mention this to anyone.  I’ll announce it when the time is right.”

“If that is the way you want it.”

 Vanderbilt’s offer was completely out of character.  No one could remember when the Commodore had done anything remotely like it before.  He was rarely impulsive and even more rarely, generous to his family.  He had learned his lesson.  If he said yes to one, they would all line up outside his door.

 But it wasn’t just family consequences.  Once they heard about it, Ernst’s hiring pissed off several of his men.  For one thing he hadn’t yet fired the current head of the hotel.  No one even knew he had been dissatisfied.  Frank Porter in particular, who had worked for Vanderbilt for a decade, was very unhappy.  For close to two years he had assumed that he was next in line to be made  manager of one of the hotels.  More than that, not just Frank Porter, but all of his lieutenants found Vanderbilt’s interest in Ernst incomprehensible.  Ernst was a stuffed shirt.  People like him were the butt of half of the Commodore’s jokes, Americans with an English accent.  He called them future butlers.  They couldn’t fathom what Cornelius saw in this man, nephew or not.

As it turned out, they were wrong and Vanderbilt right.  For forty years,  until he retired, Ernst ran the Vanderbilt Hotel competently.  He was so honest that after fifteen years, Vanderbilt did away with his usual spy planted in management. More to the point, the Boston hotel was more profitable than any of the other hotels.

 Yet, the truth is, Cornelius could not have predicted this kind of success when he made his offer.  His instincts weren’t that good. His pattern was to stick to his usual cast of co-conspirators, men whom he knew well enough to trust, or, at least, knew their weaknesses so he understood which areas he would have to keep an eye on.  It took at least 5 to 10 years for him to reach that level of confidence, but once he got there, the people he put in important positions got the job done. Yes he had hunches, and some times made decisions on the basis of them, but not when it came to hiring people. 

 Frank Porter’s surprise at Vanderbilt’s sudden decision was nothing compared to Sophia Vanderbilt’s suspicions.  She knew something had to be up. Indeed, Vanderbilt had his wife in mind when he asked Ernst not to mention his offer to anyone at the gathering.  The problem was Belize hadn’t been warned and she profusely thanked Mrs. Vanderbilt for the offer.  Instantaneously, Sophia understood the mystery of Ernst’s appointment.  Earlier in the evening she had seen the way Cornelius’s eyes locked on Belize when she entered the room.  It was a momentary glimpse, and when they formally met he was proper, but she knew her husband well, sometimes, he admitted, better than he knew himself. 

Later that night, as they were getting ready for bed, Sophia double-checked her suspicions, casually remarking that Belize was beautiful.  He answered with his lying voice, the relaxed innocent tone that worked with other people but had the opposite effect on her. A single syllable spoken in that tone and she knew.  He said he hadn’t really noticed her.  No further evidence needed.  The explanation for the job offer was obviously Belize.  Sophia had never liked the idea of a French woman being brought into the family.  Everyone knew about their loose morals and deviousness,.  Her distrust of hedonism had been finely tuned by generations of Dutch practicality.  She would have to keep an eye on her husband’s visits to Boston

 Within a year after the Van Dorens took over the Boston Vanderbilt the gossip began.  More and more things were not adding up.  Vanderbilt was a hard headed, cussin’, tobacco chewing man with a fondness for spittoons.   He quit school when he was 11 because he had learned what he needed to know.  Later, after his huge successes, he explained his decision.  “If I had learned education I would not have had time to learn anything else.”   He was a cut to the bone, no nonsense man.  Yet, the Boston Vanderbilt had become nothing if not nonsense.  It was no longer really a businessman’s hotel, nor a resting place for travelers.  There were too many personal touches, surprises residing in every nook and cranny.  The word that comes to mind is exquisite, which is the same quality that describes Belize after she had thrown herself  into creating the décor at the Vanderbilt.  Each year both she, and the hotel, grew lovelier and lovelier. 

 In the spring and summer, Belize’s flower arrangements were other worldly,  sharp dramatically defined angles, subtle color contrasts, grounding a gorgeous flower.  No one in Boston had seen anything quite like it, especially the Japanese influence.  Like other Parisians, she had been caught up in Japonisme.  Admiral Perry and the Americans had forced Japan to open up to the West.  The French were Japan’s prisoners.  Parisians were totally enslaved.   She succumbed to the graceful lines, the simplicity.  Her long fingers moved like a pianist, quickly,  deftly, lightening decisions guided by her practiced eye.   She had learned this from a Japanese Master that she watched with an open mouth one evening in Paris. She asked if she could watch him prepare for the following day when his arrangements would be sold.  He agreed to her request.

 She did not understand a word of Japanese.  It was the rhythm she absorbed, the intense concentration, the speed of his decisions, but also the speed with which he scrapped an arrangement and began again.  The flowers were either arranged perfectly or discarded.  This became her way.  It was true of her in the earliest years of her flower arranging, when her knowledge was minimal.  It continued years and years later when thousands of arrangements heightened  her skills to a fine edge.   The rule remained the same, perfect in every detail or worthless.

 Small things defined her universe.  Her graceful wrists, her dancing fingers suddenly stopped when she arrived at the end of an arrangement, accompanied by a tiny silent gasp, and there it was.

It was not only flowers.  Morning to night Belize walked through the hotel perfecting the placement of things, moving furniture, statues, vases, bringing items from one part of the hotel to the other, adoring something here, moving it there, looking from every vantage point.  She was possessed by the spirit of generations of ancient Japanese gardeners, who over the centuries working in the great gardens of Kyoto, improved upon every inch of the soil.  

That same critical vision was first developed years before, and further refined every morning, as she studied herself in the mirror at the start of her day.  One might assume that, given her beauty, hardly any effort was necessary, but, on the contrary, her natural beauty was her leap off point.  How she constructed  herself was at least as important as what had been given to her at birth. She knew what every young Parisian woman knows.  A new look is the only way to command continuing interest, including her own.   Style is everything, an  automatic reflex among the young.  Her hairstyle, her lipstick, her eye makeup, were always inspired by the latest Parisian fashions.  She would then improve on them, recreate herself again and again.  But, she was Parisian and then some. She was not a complete slave to fashion.  It stood as her base, the ground under her, solid, but she liked to venture to the edge, defying good taste with her own flirtations with the unallowable.    Like the hotel, her appearance was a never ending work in progress.  Endpoints were a trap, permanence the kiss of death.  Good hair days, if they tempted you to stay there too long, could do you in.  Same for the hotel- while her eyes often widened with recognition that, at last, everything was stunning, the next day she was bored by it and at it again.

  On Saturday nights, when her work was done for the week, her visit to the Chez Girard, the restaurant off the grand lobby, was her piece de resistance.  Her walk across the lobby, from the Van Doren family suite to the restaurant was like a coronation. Not the pomp and circumstance, but the electricity in the air, the anticipation.    Arriving at the restaurant she was greeted by Chef Girard at the door as if she were entering his home.  He was originally from Lyon, one of the reasons Belize hired him. She understood his flavors.  Every week he promised her an unforgettable meal, a promise which he, in fact, kept fulfilling, even if he harbored doubts earlier in the day.

 Diners could hear the food crackling, almost leaping into the air as he sautéed it.  They could smell the spicy aromas.  Chef Girard would personally bring Belize her dinner.  He would watch her as she took her first bite, almost moving his mouth together with hers.  He was not satisfied by a polite thank you.  He needed to see the delight in her eyes, the discovery on her lips.  And when he succeeded it was as if nothing else mattered. She had that effect on people.  His most magnificent creations seemed invariably to be born when he cooked for her. 

And then there was Belize’s garden, down a pathway behind the hotel.   She loved all flowers.  She had a passion for roses.  There was the variety, yellows and whites, pinks, crimson, orange-red, wine-red, red-red, tight petals, fluffy, frilly, loose edges, syrupy fragrances at one end of the spectrum, at  the other, light and sharply defined whiffs of a smell, like fresh powder.   Far and wide Belize traveled in New England searching for a rose bush still more beautiful than the last one that she had planted.   In June she couldn’t wait for the first flower to arrive.  In September she tore out one bush after another that didn’t perform.  Some of the discarded were quite nice, but not extraordinary.  

She nurtured the specimens like they were her children.  Her youngest  daughter Ariana, loved roses as much as her mother and, beginning as a little girl, often worked with her in the garden. Some of these very bushes are now a hundred and fifty years old.  Belize would go wild if she could see them today, especially  Glorious Belize, a dark pinkish climber, that grew on an archway above a stone bench.  It was named in honor of her glorious beauty by a Sudbury, Massachusetts grower, Julius Casanavius, as a 65^th birthday present for her.  He was one of many merchants half in love with her.  Julius told her that the color of this rose matched her flushed cheeks as she warmed by the fire.    This was after Ernst had passed away.

Belize’s flower arrangements were breathtaking not only because of a gift she possessed.  Her passion was  completely out of her control .  She was  enthralled by certain flowers.  They demanded worship.   When she came upon one of these special ones, she recognized divinity.   She  literally glowed, the flower’s radiance entering her bloodstream, saturating  every pore.  Her lips would form a certain smile, mouth half open,  already with  a hint of sadness, which intensified  the poignancy of the rose’s beauty. Perfection depends on transience. Romeo and Juliet  would have seen their love grow ordinary if they shared it 40 or 50 years. A flower’s perfection is measured in hours. Sometimes when she finished an arrangement her eyes would water, overcome.  Sometimes it would happen in the middle of her work and she could not continue.  The extraordinary thing was that this happened several times each season. 

They all shared it.  When her gardener Julien came upon a  rose that he thought might arouse  her, it would stir him.   It wasn’t necessarily out of kindness for her.  He got something out of it.  For when she was transported by a flower, she took along anyone who was near her.  Some say that her daughter’s Ariana’s beatific smile was the result of  being around her mother celestial’s moments so often as a young girl.  The Vanderbilt Hotel,  as shaped  by Belize, would have made perfect sense in Paris.  Or heaven.  It was the last thing you might expect from a hotel in downtown Boston.

Commodore Vanderbilt visited the hotel repeatedly, presumably as its overseer, but it was obvious to any one who knew Vanderbilt, that his behavior had nothing to do with supervision.  He, like everyone else, was completely won over by the place.  He had never been associated with the smart crowd, never went to their hotspots and certainly never owned a place where they liked to congregate.  He was not a parlor gentleman.  In his hometown, New York society found him vulgar.  He sometimes wore a blue naval uniform and demanded the title  “Commodore.”.  His origins were accentuated the harder he tried to impress them.   His background would have certainly disqualified him from serious respect in Boston also, but with the exception of a few of Belize’s enemies, the hotel was seen as charming, the  place to be.  Cornelius Vanderbilt was incidental. 

Chapter 4

The Commodore was most at home on the high seas.  Even late in life,  he sometimes captained one of his ships whenever he crossed the Atlantic. His attraction to the sea began when he was a child.  He was born to a poor farming family in 1794. The Vanderbilts were like everyone else.  They shared the same heritage.   Generation after generation barely got by.  His great grandfather, like half of all immigrants at the time, came as an indentured servant, literally a  slave for a specified period of time.  Sometimes peasants in the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe, became so desperate that they sold their children into servitude or they sold themselves for more than the usual number of years.  It was to pay for passage across the sea.  

For his book, Michael found a  description of a trip in 1754 from Rotterdam to the New World by an indentured servant Gottlieb Mitterlberger .

 “Both in Rotterdam and in Amsterdam the people are packed densely, like herrings … in the large sea-vessels. One person receives a place of scarcely 2 feet width and 6 feet length in the bedstead, while many a ship carries four to six hundred souls; not to mention the innumerable implements, tools, provisions, water-barrels and other things which likewise occupy much space. … on board these ships is terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably…”

 

 The usual deal was four to seven years of servitude.  But if a spouse died on the voyage, the husband or wife who survived could be liable for eight to fourteen years.  When a woman became pregnant her owner could whip her.  He usually demanded an extra year.  Any indentured servant could be whipped as their owner saw fit.  Or, if their owner felt they hadn’t worked hard enough, they could be credited with only a half -day’s work in fulfillment of their debt. They were invariably caught if they escaped.  It was the law of the land.  Rewards were posted, escapees were hunted down by sheriffs and brought before a judge.  The verdict often was not only lashings but punitive extensions of their contracts and permanently being chained at night using an iron collar. 

So compared to his forefathers, and people still coming from the Netherlands, at the time he was born, Cornelius Vanderbilt’s family had already moved above the most important rung on the ladder.  They were free.  On the other hand,  despite generations of effort they had hardly gotten anywhere.  They didn’t  own the land they worked.   They were like the majority of Americans at the time.  They had not gained much distance from desperation.  If their crops failed starvation remained a distinct possibility.  One year their only cow died so there was no milk.  They had never seen their way clear to afford very many pigs and chickens.  One winter Cornelius and his siblings ate nothing but potatoes, and not enough of them to completely quiet their hunger. Life could be short in 1794.  In most families children died from disease, often strep infections which raged out of control. 

But providence smiled at young Vanderbilt.  He grew up on Staten Island not far from Port Richmond.  The island was mostly farms but within striking distance of Manhattan.  He was the fourth of originally nine children.  During the earliest years he was not close to  his mother, the real power in his family.  His father was a bit of hustler and a dreamer.  He too had been raised on a farm and continued to farm but often he went out on his boat, doing some lightering around the New York harbor. The fact that Cornelius had been given his father’s name, Cornelius, probably accounts for their early bond.  This was to change but for many years it was as if his mother had said to his father “Here, this one is yours.” 

By four or five years old, whenever his father needed to get out of the house, he took Cornelius along.  Often they’d take a short walk to the edge of the New York Bay and stare out over the water, gently lured into silence by the sound of the small waves greeting the shore.  They’d wait and wait hoping they might spot a schooner slowly making its way up the New York Bay to a docking in Manhattan. When they sighted a boat, Cornelius Sr. became expansive.  For two years he had been a crewman on an ocean going schooner.  He’d point out the names of each part of the boat to his son and explain its function. Then he’d quiz Cornelius to make sure he’d gotten it.   Lastly, he identified the flag of each ship.  They came from far away lands, Spain, France, Portugal, England, Holland.  His father would tell him about each of the countries, what they ate, what they wore.  He reminded him repeatedly that they were Dutch, and that the English had stolen New York from the Dutch.

Eventually Cornelius started going down to the water without his father.  After a long day working in the fields he would stare out looking for the ships.   In the summer, he was up at 5 AM doing his morning chores, milking the cow, every third day, feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs.  During the afternoon he battled the earth with a hoe, a rake, and a shovel, tearing at it, trying to overcome its resistance and squeeze from it lettuce, wheat, corn, carrots and potatoes.

 His tiredness left him as soon as he got to the water. His imagination lived on the big ships, floating free, cajoled by the gods of the sea, leaving behind the farm’s mud.  It wasn’t just flags and glory, or where the ships had been, or where they were headed.  It was also the water itself. On stormy nights the waves grew and beat powerfully against the shore.  One night he saw lightening zap across the sky, hitting the water.  He made it a point to return on stormy nights to see it happen again and again.  

Every third day his father guided his little sailboat, a periauger,  five miles north to Manhattan in order to bring his produce to the market. Cornelius was unusually big and strong and by the time he was nine his father brought him along to help out.  It was here that his true education began.  First there was his father’s mood when he was out in the world.  It was distinctly better then when he was sweating and cursing the never ending weeds that flourished in their farm’s soil.  Especially when he was trading with customers. He preferred brain to brawn, wheeling and dealing rather than swinging a pick at a large embedded rock in the ground.     He had a certain wink that he gave to his son whenever he negotiated a good deal.  That was frequent.  However, his father explained, the trick was for the customer to also leave feeling he had done well.  And the best way to do that is to actually give him a good deal. 

“Don’t sneak in a rotten tomato along with the others.  He won’t be back.  If you can, establish a reputation that you are likely to undersell your competitors.  They will come looking for you.”

But in his young years their best time together was out on the water.  The moment they stepped on the boat they both felt it, the gentle rocking motion,  floating free.  The sea.  The sea.   His father’s kingdom was the sea.  His father taught him how to sail.

“Ready about” came the order from Cornelius .. Then “hard alee.”   The rhythm between them improved week after week, month after month. 

“Corneel, push the tiller leeward (away from the wind.) This will cause the bow to go in the opposite direction-into the wind. Keep your boat turning until the wind is on the other side. The sail will then swing across the boat, and the wind will fill the sail again. When the wind is blowing over your starboard (right) side you are on the starboard tack. When the breeze is blowing over your port (left) side, you are on the port tack.”

Having Corneel along for the ride turned Cornelius Sr. into a commentator, a guide, but most importantly a partner in adventure.  Even at nine years old,  Corneel was well aware that his father was not a hero.  He took his lumps as much as any other person.  Still, at least during the early years, something happened to both of them when they got out on the bay.  There, anything seemed possible.

Mid- October one afternoon they had kept trading long after most of the other farmers had called it a day.  His father was determined to sell everything.  Accepting less was better than throwing his lettuce and cucumbers away. As always he needed money for supplies.  As usual they were short.  It might be a long winter.  If their food supply ran out, money he earned now could make the difference between starving and being able to buy supplies. 

He told Cornelius they would sail back in the evening.  They would have a full moon, enough light to get them home.  But, after darkness, all didn’t go according to plan.  It got cloudier and cloudier.  The air was heavy with a mist.  It was pitch black.   Halfway between Staten Island and Manhattan a squall snuck up behind them.  The wind whipped up something fierce.  The rain was cold and chilling.  Wave after wave came crashing over the top of the boat.  His father was holding on to the rudder with all his strength but it would not take much for him to lose his grip.

Above the wind and the crashing waves Cornelius Sr. screamed orders.   Very soon the icy water was above their ankles.  If they took on much more water, they would most certainly sink.

“Come on Corneel,  faster,  bail it out faster.  Come on.  You can do it.  That’s it.”

His arms and back were already sore but somehow he did bail faster.

“That’s it.  Keep going.  Faster…Faster”

“I can’t,” he screamed

“You can.” His father raged at him.

And he could, until he couldn’t.

“Okay.” His father shouted nastily.  “You take the rudder. Give me the pail.”

But, as he watched his father bailing, he saw that he could do better than his father.  Old Cornelius was doing more cursing and screaming than actual bailing.

Corneel screamed at his father angrily “You take the rudder.”

And so he bailed again. Until he couldn’t. But he kept going.

They continued that way for twenty minutes until  the storm ended as quickly as it began.  The water remained choppy but a nice steady southeast  wind brought them back to the island, shook up but grateful to be alive. As they walked home from the dock, once, just once, for a moment, their eyes caught each other.  That was the closest they came to celebrating their survival.  It was the closest they had ever felt to each other.  But it also planted a seed.  He was stronger than his father.  He had saved him, not the other way around.

Chapter 5

Vanderbilt’s decision to quit school at eleven was not due to a lack of ambition.  Leaving school at a young age was common in 1806.  Cultures of necessity view schooling as a frill.  It takes away valuable time from the central reality, putting bread on the family table.  Many felt as young Cornelius did, that after reading, writing, and arithmetic, further education was mainly to show off, or else to become a clergyman.  While being better educated gave clergymen the right to preach to others, it could get in the way of normal people, fill their heads with fancy ideas, especially those attached to moralizing.  You could become one of those people with ideas about how to save the world, which then, as now, derived from years and years of education.  He recognized that in the end, big ideas could cripple his wits and thus his ability to make his way.

   That particular year, there was no economic need for Cornelius to end his formal education.  Both of his parents expected him to continue for a few more years.  But neither was surprised by his decision.  His older brother had died the previous year, making him his parents’ lieutenant. He would soon have to help out.  The decision was also helped along by an incident after he  had borrowed (without asking) his father’s boat and took a passenger to Manhattan from Staten Island. He was given a dollar, far more than he should have been paid, but his passenger, a gentleman, got a kick out of this young boy with such high spirits.

 By 13 or 14 years old, he was hustling here and there, wherever, and however, a dollar could be made.  As often happens with boys when they reach that age, his relationship with his father deteriorated badly. Judged by the realities facing him, he saw his father as a failure.   His  father gave up far too easily, which made him drift from project to project  whenever he met up with frustration.  He never put his heart and soul and particularly his body into any of his jobs.  Corneel  knew he could do better. He made sure he could do better. Not just better.  Best.

He always had to be the strongest, the cleverest, the fastest, the opposite of his father who regularly looked for the easy way.    He worked harder than any competitor.  Once when his sailboat was becalmed in Buttermilk channel, between Governor’s Island and Brooklyn, a rival boatman started to pull ahead.  He was sailing across 12 passengers.  Cornelius thrust his pole, helping to get his clumsy craft going in shallow water.  He put every ounce of strength he possessed into it.  Jake Van Duesen, the other boatman, was older and heavier, but Vanderbilt reached the shore first.  The passengers, who laughed and applauded him as they scrambled onto the wharf, never knew that he accepted their congratulations so grimly because the butt of the pole had pierced his chest to the bone.  The scar was on him when he died.

His mother scolded Cornelius, but both of them knew how proud she was of him.  It was a measure of how far things had deteriorated with his father, however, that his father’s reaction was the opposite.  Instead of pride, he felt upended by Cornelius’ victory, as if it were a rebuke to him.  It was, in fact, just that. Corneel’s competitiveness was as much to prove to himself how different he was from his father, as to prove it to anyone else. It was also to show his father how short he fell of his son’s standards.

At this point, their opposition to each other manifested itself whenever they were in the same room.  There was constant sarcasm between them.  Day after day, one insult at a time, their contempt  damaged  their relationship until apologies afterwards no longer fully undid the damage.  Their difficulties multiplied until there came a point where there was no turning back.

When Corneel was thirteen, his father lucked upon a far bigger lightering job than he had ever had. A vessel was stranded near Sandy Hook. He was given a contract to empty the boat and get the cargo to New York.  This would require a small fleet of men, three wagons with teams and drivers. While he had often spoken about being given a chance, supervising a number of teams of men was not something that Cornelius Sr. felt comfortable doing. 

“Unfortunately” Cornelius Sr. explained to his wife Phebe,  “I am busy with another job.” 

“Corneel will do it.” she piped in.

“That is a joke is it not? He’s 13!”

“He’s 13 going on 25.  Besides if you don’t use Corneel you will have to split the profits with an outsider.”

So the decision was made.  If his father had misgivings, Corneel had none.  He craved responsibility, and difficulties did not become obstacles when he challenged them.  Corneel swaggered about his task with a brawny efficiency that produced admiration from the workmen his father had hired.  “The little devil,” they exclaimed to each other.  “Listen to him curse, and the milk ain’t dry on his lips!”  But they could also see how hard he worked.  The men were so delighted by him that they put their backs into the work as they never would have done for his father.

He was tired, but very happy when he started for home, appreciative too, of the help the men had given him, and at the first wayside tavern in Jersey, he stopped to buy the best dinner the house afforded for his men and grain for the horses.  He used all the money his father had given him for that purpose.  Not until he reached Perth Amboy, did he realize that he had insufficient money to pay the ferry tolls over the Kill.  He wasn’t at a loss.  Striding confidently up to the ferrymen he began to negotiate.

“I want to get to Staten Island with my teams.  How much is it”

He looked over Corneel’s group. “Be, six dollars, Bub”

“I’ll tell you what, if you’ll get us across I’ll leave one of my horses with you, And if I don’t send you the money in 2 days you can sell him.”

The ferryman was more than happy with the terms and Corneel returned home even more self satisfied. Part of this was overhearing his workers talking to each other.

“Never seen such a lad!  He could lift the hide off a bull without it knowing it.  He could talk money out of the ground.”

But his father sang a different tune.

“You fool.  Suppose something happens to that horse?  What if I can’t find the money.  Suppose…You are such a fool, pawning a horse for grub.  Get six dollars from your mom and fetch home that horse before it’s stolen.”

“The men had to eat” growled Corneel.  “We was tuckered out and the horses were dead beat too.”

 “That was ferry money not eating money.”

“I’m going to get you the damn horse.” snarled Corneel.  Besides it wasn’t my damn fault.  You should have given me enough money for eating and ferrying.  I  can’t think of everything.”

At that point his mother intervened.

“Both of you hush up. Corneel you are not too old for a bar of soap.  And Pa there’s no blame for the boy. Those men would never work for us again if we didn’t take care of them.  And you Corneel, show a little respect for your Pa.  It would make any man crazy thinking of losing a horse in the circumstances we are in.  Not a word out of each of you.  And morning is soon enough to traipse back to Amboy.  There’s no sense going tonight. Corneel’s worn to the bone.”

On this and a number of other occasions Phebe’s peacemaking quieted their mouths but not their hearts. By the time Corneel was 15 he was planning to run away.  It was the only answer.  But for over a year he said nothing.  He felt loyal to his mother.  Truth is, the family  had grown dependent on his extra income to help feed and clothe his younger siblings.  Finally, he bared his soul to her.

“I’m going to sea Ma.”

“Corneel, you ain’t nothing but a child.”

“I’ll be 16 in two months.”

“What will your father say?”

“I don’t give a damn.”

She weighed the bitterness in his glance and sighed.  It was not easy to breed an eagle in a bovine family.

“But it’s a terrible life at sea.  I know you are not having an easy time, but at sea you will get knocked around.  They do whatever they feel like doing on a boat.”

“ I like that.  I can handle myself.”

“You don’t get proper food, and it’s cold and wet.”

 “I don’t care.  I’m tired of working for Pa.  He’s holding me back. I don’t know if he knows he’s alive.  He’s that slow.”

“We need your help right now.”

“What’s the use of my staying here.  Pa won’t give me a free hand.  And he never knows from one month to the next what he wants to do.”

Over in the corner the youngest baby started whimpering hungrily.  Phebe picked it up gently and offered her breast.

“Corneel,  I just can’t have you go, not with my blessing.  Right now that’s all I am asking son.”

“I’ll never get anywhere with Pa.  He never gets anywhere and he”ll fix me the same way.”

“What would you like to do if you don’t go to sea?”

He was taken back for a moment but his answer was prompt.

“If I had a boat of my own I could make more than Pa right now.  There is good money in the harbor and I can find it.”

“Honest money?”

“Yes.  Honest money.  I just know I could make me a heap of money as soon as folks know I am dependable.  That’s what counts.  You got to make folks believe they can depend on you.  Then they’ll deal with you”

“But you ain’t got money for a boat.”

“No, but if someone lent it to me I’d pay it back.  And I could help out here even more with what I earned.”

“How much would it cost?”

“I know about a terrific periauger for sale for a hundred dollars.  It would hold twenty passengers”

“A hundred dollars is a lot of money for a 16 year old.”

The eagerness was all over his face.

“I’ve got to speak to your Pa first.”

“If you loan me the money I’ll make you a thousand dollars a year”

“I’ll speak to your dad.”

But that was a formality.  Her opinion was what counted and her thought was that you cannot clip an eaglet’s wings.  If he would fly, fly he must-or perish, broken hearted by constraint.

So his mother made him an offer. When Cornelius turned 16 she would loan him one hundred dollars to buy his  boat in exchange for clearing 8 acres.  Her sister had promised her the money for the job. Her sister’s husband owned the adjacent farm.

 It took a summer of chopping down trees and digging and plowing, but then he was on his way.   The boat was his and there was no looking back.  He became known as “Corneel the Boatman.”  He undertook any job – even in stormy weather, especially in stormy weather.  He was consistently busy.  He knew the secret to accomplish that. He charged 18 cents for a trip across the bay, far lower than his competitors.  Within a year he returned the one hundred dollars plus the  thousand dollars he predicted.  Within a lifetime he turned his parents’ one hundred dollars into one hundred million.  He died the richest man in the world, practically all of his money made on the sea. How he accomplished that makes an interesting story.

Or so Michael wrote. Only not enough was known about Vanderbilt to capture the issues that preoccupied him.  He had already decided on a novel rather than a biography to combine what he knew about Vanderbilt with where his imagination led him, to Ariana.

Chapter 6

Blood sprays all over the video screen.  The alien dies.   Ritchie Russell is still playing his favorite video game Alien Returns, five years later, the souped up version they have in Pizza Palace.  He likes to go there for the game, but also, Marlene Schneider comes in every day after school, and orders a slice.  Marlene Schneider is unbelievable.

He decimates another mutant on the screen. Ritchie moves to the next screen.  Alien Return’s  screeching is very loud at Pizza Palace.  He likes that.  That’s the other thing that brings him there every afternoon.   Ritchie has developed into a big, strong, sixteen year-old.  He is on fire. He bangs at the controls.

“Hey Ritchie!”

Dora and Elisa are after Ritchie. It’s predatory instinct. 

In unison they cackle. “Ritchie!”.  They both laugh, surprised by their perfect synchronization.

He shoots wildly, accurately, knocking out the aliens, one by one.  A new alien always replaces the one he just killed.  He can count on it. That’s what he likes about the game.  Normally,  once he beats a game he is bored by it. Not Alien’s Return.  Five years and the aliens have never stopped coming.  He plays and plays.  The aliens keep coming and  Ritchie keeps killing them.  He likes that.  Kill or be killed.  Stay alive by killing.  He would never say that in words, even to himself.  But he needs to do that.

“Hey Dickhead.  Don’t you like girls?”

The two are now three.  Betty has joined them.

It distracts Ritchie long enough so that an alien mutant gets him.   YOU’RE DEAD flashes on the screen.

 Dan, his buddy since the third grade,  moves alongside him.

“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Ritchie and Dan leave the shop without looking back.  As Ritchie leaves the girls stick out their chests triumphantly. He looks away.

Outside  Dan and Ritchie walk the sidewalks.  Dan struts as he passes Marlene Schneider. Ritchie’s eyes are locked on the ground

 “You’re bringing that shit on yourself.  Ritchie. They’re giving it back to you.”

“I’m just playing my game and suddenly they’re all over me…”

“But you look angry. People think you hate them. When was the last time you actually smiled at someone?”

“I don’t want to hear this bullshit.”

“Well maybe you have to hear it.”

“What, that I hate everyone?

“You don’t hate everyone.  You hate a lot of people, but not everyone.”

“Thanks.”

“Well it’s true.”

 “You are a pain in the ass.  Look most people don’t like me.”

“They would if you smiled more.”

“I don’t want to fucking walk around with a smile.” 

“Try it.”

“Fuck you.  I am not going to smile.”

“You’re an ass hole.”

“All I want is to be left alone.”

“Everyone already leaves you alone.  I don’t see you exactly having a great time.”

“Fuck you man.” 

Dan grabs Ritchie’s arm and turns him towards him. 

“After your sister died we all wanted to help you.  Lisa was rough.  But it’s five years man. Five years” His voice goes up a notch.  “Get over it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Poor Ritchie. Poor Ritchie.”    His voice raises, “Keep your misery to yourself.”   

“That’s bullshit.”

“I’m just telling you.  That’s what everyone says about you.  Like move on.  Get on with it.”

Ritchie pulls his arm free.

“You can all fuck yourselves”

“Me too?”

“Especially you.”

Ritchie puts his hands in his pocket and walks away. Without  turning around he calls back:

“Just stay out of my business.”

Chapter 7

1813,   Lower Bay of New York.

Boooom….Boooom… Booom …Booom.  The air is sucked away, swallowed up by the force of each cannon fired at Vanderbilt’s newly built schooner, the Dread.  Following each explosion  an eerie sizzling sound,  32 pound iron cannon balls cutting through the sky at 50 yards a second.  Booom, Booom, Booom, Booom, Booom twenty one fired in rapid succession- a machine gun of cannon fire from the HMS Bristol, forty two long cannons in all, twenty one on each side of the ship.  Vanderbilt’s crew  fear  the second round of cannon fire.  After adjustments are made to the original trajectories, the second round will be far more dangerous.  Designed by the Royal Institute of Naval Architects, the world’s finest war architects, the HMS Bristol is a monstrous killing machine, especially when sailed  by the supremely well trained officers of the British Royal Navy.

The ramrod straight  posture, the  self satisfaction of English naval officers, their carriage, their beautifully tailored uniforms,  the royal manners of the British admiralty at high tea,  do not coincide with contemporary images of relentless killers.  The smug manner of English gentlemen became a rallying point for American patriotism.  After the Boston Tea Party, Americans gave up tea and replaced it with coffee. They would like to have served the officers with spit.

Pirates are more frightening as individuals.  But as a fighting force English naval efficiency gives their officers a right to their hated smugness.  They always prevail.  Napoleon might have the lands to the East.  Americans might have taken control of  the lands to the west, but the English navy is supreme on the seas. Wherever they go they do as they please. 

It is tempting to imagine the history of the still young 19^th century as the culmination of the Age of Reason.  Words and debate had begun to gain a foothold in legislatures and men’s thoughts about governance.  They made many references to a moral order that would later appeal to teachers and historians.  Lovers of language and rationality think of these times as a golden age.  Men like Thomas Jefferson were poets, melancholics of fine sensibility, political theoreticians, architects- as individuals, they could aspire to lay claim to all of the knowledge then known to man. But during this very same time, the 19^th century went forward in identical fashion to all the centuries  preceding it.  Whoever was judged weak was attacked by the strong. The British Navy implemented dominance with absolute seriousness.  Every necessary detail for success was carried through carefully. Consider their recruitment policies:

“Founded long before the Napoleonic wars, the Royal Navy’s Impress service came into high profile during the wars with Revolutionary France.  The word impress was derived from the old French word ‘prest’, modern ‘prêt’ or loan/advance, in other words, each man ‘impressed’ received the loan of a ’shilling’ (that is he paid the ‘King’s shilling’ to enlist) and became a ‘(im)prest man’. The service was present in every major port in the kingdom.  The service’s offices were called ‘Rendezvous’ with a Regulating Officer in charge.  He hired local thugs as ‘gangers’. The thugs would roam the countryside attempting to ‘encourage’ men aged between 18 and 55 to join the navy.  No person  was safe from the gang, and often the only escape route when captured was to bribe the gang or to join it. Merchant ships were a preferred target for the pressgang, so not infrequently special hiding places were built into  merchant vessels, so they could hide men who were vulnerable to being taken by them.

The return of English prisoners of war from France was seen as the perfect moment to impress crewmen.  Very often returning English POWs were turned round and pressganged even before they set foot once more on their home soil.  The captains of merchant vessels frequently took pity on those they were repatriating and tried to let them land in places far from the ports and the pressgangs…

 

In 1795, Prime Minister William Pitt passed two bills through parliament, called the Quota acts. In conformity with these acts, every county in Great Britain was required to supply to the navy a quota of men, in proportion to the county population and the number of ports .  For example, London was asked to provide 5,700 men, whilst Yorkshire, the largest county, was obliged to offer 1,081.  Despite promises of rewards, very few county men came forward.  As a result, small time criminals were given the choice of a prison sentence or service in the Navy. Given the exceedingly rough justice prevalent in 18th-century prisons, many preferred the call of the sea.  One unfortunate result, however, of this policy was that the criminals brought with them typhus, also known as Gaol fever, onto previously healthy ships.”

 

 

 Acts of war didn’t stop after  the war with England.  America had  won independence, but the ability to defend itself was still unproven. Not just the English;   the United States took on the French in a predominantly naval war, the Quasi War from 1798-1800.  This was followed by the first Barbary War against the pirates.  Fortunately, the United States sank enough ships for the pirates to no longer view American ships as easy pickings.  But Great Britain?  Neither American shippers nor its small navy were itching to have it out with them. 

More specifically Vanderbilt wasn’t happy that he was within  500 yards  of the HMS Bristol.  The Bristol, had lined up sideways  and was providing its crew with target practice on the Dread.    Twenty one cannons could usually get the job done and doing Vanderbilt’s boat was what the HMS Bristol had in mind.  They were intent on providing Vanderbilt and his crew with the final taste of their life, choking on salt water instead of air as they drowned.   One cannonball had left a hole clear through the Dread’s forecastle.  A crewman had been killed, and two others were seriously wounded.   There wasn’t time to stop and think. 

“Everyone to their station”. 

“Mr. Layman, come up on the wind.” 

Through the bedlam,  whistles could be heard sending out coded orders- two short,  one long, then one short  two long.  Officers were screaming their orders.   The cannon balls kept coming.  Every once in a while, there was the sound of cheers.  There were also  screams of individuals being  torn asunder, backs broken, limbs ripped apart.  One of the cannons had successfully delivered a grape shot, twelve small cannon balls specifically designed to kill men on the deck .  Captain Vanderbilt had to get them the hell out of there.

Vanderbilt  had one thing going for him.  He had sailed  these waters since he was a child.   He could sail the New York Bays blindfolded.   It was  animal  instinct. He knew where and when he could grab hold of the wind he needed, when he could, or could not, operate at full sail.  Vanderbilt, like other sailors on the bay had names for them, Mercury Sam for the 4PM puff that got him home in the summer, Charley Express for the 6 AM breeze  that they counted on to get the morning going good. That was one of the reasons the crew remained calm, rather than frantic, when the cannon fire began.  Vanderbilt knew what he was doing. 

Sure enough, within minutes, the crew collectively let out a sigh of relief.  Vanderbilt had caught  Mercury Sam at full sail.  Cheers went up.  They would very soon be out of danger. The Bristol could deliver a shot from over a mile, but with the ship moving swiftly the odds were small of hitting the Dread   And there was no way a frigate like the Bristol, weighed down with guns could chase them.  The Bristol was usually brought into position for the kill with the help of another ship or two whose job was to trap the American boats they wanted to destroy.  This was the very reason that, as they pulled out of range of the Bristol’s cannons, unlike his crew, Vanderbilt was not confident that they were out of danger.  The frigate wouldn’t be traveling alone if it was out on an assignment.  Of course it might have come upon Vanderbilt’s ship by sheer coincidence and thought why not?  All they had to lose was a few cannon balls.  The likelihood, however, was that Vanderbilt had become enough of a nuisance to the English that he had become a designated target, not an honor anyone welcomed.

Sure enough, “Two points on the starboard bough. There the Guardian,”   shouted the coxswain.

Boom… Boom… Boom. Boom Four shots..  Not as bad.  The Guardian only had four cannons. The HMS Guardian was, specifically built for speed and maneuverability.  Vanderbilt decided to backtrack and make a run home, Port Richmond on Staten Island.  If they made it there, they’d be safe.  There were huge American cannons that would keep the British far from shore. The only problem was that  to do so he would have to pass within range of the first frigate.

The Guardian  trailed him at a respectful distance.  Then after 20 minutes,  given the fact that it was getting increasingly dark and foggy,  and they had the Dread where they wanted it, the Guardian lowered its sails and dropped anchor.  The reason was soon clear.  The English had a third ship blocking his way to Port Richmond.  The three ships  had been part of a coordinated attack.  They had the Dread surrounded.  The third ship  was preparing to anchor as well.  Poor visibility  demanded caution, especially at low tide.  A ship could run a ground, tear a gash in its hull.  Indeed,  as Vanderbilt’s schooner moved out of range, the Bristol also had put down anchor.  The fog was getting worse and worse.  The good news was poor visibility meant the Dread did not have to keep in motion to reduce the chance of being hit.  The fog made the ship practically invisible, especially after Vanderbilt ordered all lanterns put out.

 “A problem for tomorrow.” Vanderbilt told his mate as he also put down anchor.

Vanderbilt’s situation was far more serious than last year, in 1812 at the beginning of the war with England, when a man of war targeted 18 year old Vanderbilt, alone in his small sail boat, and had every intention of riding right over him.  Cornelius easily maneuvered to safety, but it was a warning, a warning that Vanderbilt happily ignored.

  Taking on dangerous work paid extremely well. The English admiralty were determined to stop supplies from being brought to the American forts on the bay. They would happily kill anyone who dared to defy them.  So not a lot of shippers signed up for the job.  Vanderbilt was neither a greater nor lesser patriot then his fellow countryman.  Nor was he stupidly brave, but he didn’t hesitate for a moment.  “I have been insane on the subject of moneymaking all my life.” – Vanderbilt was later quoted in the New York Daily Tribune, March 23, 1878.   For him, the risks were trivial compared to the gain.  By his calculations, he had a chance to be a wealthy man if the war lasted long enough.  Already, with the money he made with his sail boat, he had been able to build The Dread. He could have stopped there. The English had seized over 170 ships and once they had them they would never be seen again.  But, on the other hand, operating a schooner brought far greater reward.  He was damned if he was going to allow himself to be trapped.  The bastards were not going to get this ship away from him.  He almost preferred that it be sunk.

The fact, however, was that their trap had been well planned. If he had taken a vote, his crew would probably abandon his ship during the night and row to shore.  It is what the English would expect. But Vanderbilt lived during a time when there were no polls.  Second guessing the captain was not an option unless mutiny was under consideration.   He paid his crew good money, 18 dollars a month, which was more than the usual 12 to 15.  And truth was, most of his crew were loyal.  Despite his age, nineteen, they had  faith that any of his decisions would get the ship where it needed to go.

 Even considering the risks, most of them felt lucky to be employed by Vanderbilt. And Vanderbilt  knew it.  He would  not hesitate to punish an ornery crewman with keel hauling, an extreme Dutch punishment but he had never had to use it and didn’t expect he would.  So abandon ship was not in the crew’s vocabulary unless ordered by Captain Vanderbilt and he was not about to do that.  He had borrowed beyond his means to build the Dread. Vanderbilt would be back to square one, a place he did not want to revisit.

Still he didn’t silence his mate, Mr. Riggens who was twice his age and like a father to him.

 “Sir Give up the fuckin’ ship.  You’ll get another one.”

“Yes, but the damn’ question is when.  Could take me another year or two and by then the war could be over.  We are doing fantastic.  We just have to figure out a way to get out of here.”

“You got  95 men on board.  I don’t know if it is worth getting us all killed.”

“They’ll be big bonuses at the end of the year.  When they signed up with me, the men knew what was in store.  I told them we would take chances”

  Perhaps a little  background about the War of 1812 is in order.  The English and French were incessantly at war.  France ruled the continent. England the oceans, meaning wherever English ships went they did as they pleased.  For instance, the British claimed the right to reclaim any British sailors who were serving on American merchant ships.  They did so at will.   If necessary they fired a warning shot. But it was rarely necessary.  They simply pulled along side, and entered any ship they chose.

The sea had its own rules.  For example, ships often carried flags from many nations on board in order to elude or deceive the enemy.   The rules of civilized warfare called for all ships to hoist their true national ensigns before firing a shot.  Someone who finally “shows his true colors” (the origin of the term)  is acting like a man-of-war which might have hailed another ship while flying one flag, but then hoisted their own when they got within firing range. England played as dirty as any one else but they did not think of this as dishonorable, simply the rules of the ocean.

  For several years before the war, when English ships boarded  American ships they not only took all British sailors (who they considered deserters) back to sail on English ships. They also took American crewman if they needed them.  And they often needed them.  During the 10 years before the war there were hundreds, perhaps thousand of Americans kidnapped in this way.

Americans, who wanted a war with England, argued it had become a question of national honor.  You can’t do nothing when you are being mistreated.  Additionally, as always, military strategists, long before had worked out detailed plans to invade Canada.  Adding lower Canada was not a radical idea.   The boundaries of the United States were not fixed by God, but were the result of a deal worked out ending the Revolutionary War, when Americans were relieved to stop fighting.  Many felt the colonies had been shortchanged.  But they had been  too weak to do anything about it.  Arguments  such as these are not an issue for strategists in the military.  Right or wrong it is their job to create feasible plans if and when they will be needed,  the assumption being that peace resulting from a truce, is merely time between wars.  The question wasn’t should we (fight England to secure our neighbor’s freedom) but could we and when?  With the British still tied up fighting the French, and patriotic passions being stirred up by impressment  “could we?” eventually became “we can.”

 We couldn’t.  For one thing, no one bothered to inform President Madison that our army was in a sorry state. Or else his people had stopped listening to voices of caution.  Those demanding war also ignored those being directly effected by the kidnappings.   New England shippers had a stable partnership with the British.  They could not be shippers and have an unstable partnership with the British.  England was their best customer.  They were not thrilled  that American crew members were being taken from their ships but impressment had a long tradition.  It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.  The sea is the sea with its own laws.   They were realists, businessmen.   Their success depended on their ability to assess reality accurately and use that as a starting point.  At no time soon would England stop being the dominant naval power.  They had lived with it all along and could continue to do so

But they couldn’t ignore that a war would be disastrous for business.  Even though it was their own crewmen who were being kidnapped, New England politicians were not among those who talked about honor and war.  New Englanders thought about how to get around it, how to get done what needed to get done.  It was precisely the states that were not dependent on shipping that complained the most that American honor was being compromised.  The difference in perspective came to head in 1814 when representatives from most of the New England states met in Hartford, Connecticut to seriously consider seceding from the United States if we continued with the war.  They didn’t want to be part of a nation that was bad for business. 

  Our land invasion of Canada failed miserably.  And soon, after they took control of Chesapeeke Bay,  the British Navy sailed up the Potomac and provided cover for their soldiers to march straight into Washington DC.  They burned every public building to the ground.  President  Madison fled to the countryside.  It demonstrated what  New Englanders said all along.  Don’t mess with the British.  Not on the sea.  The British  admiralty was only too happy having an excuse to stretch their muscles.  They had been itching to subdue the rascals, put things back in order.  This war was a perfect time to restore proper respect for the crown.

Every escape strategy Vanderbilt and his officers considered had major flaws.  Following dinner they grew tired and irritable from the ale, and the difficulty of their situation.  Several publicly questioned whether Vanderbilt would risk their lives for the almighty dollar.    Vanderbilt said he would let them know what his plan was in the morning.  After they departed Vanderbilt slept fitfully in his cabin.

When Cornelius was seven,  his much larger nine year-old cousin, Luke, picked a fight with him over a toy horse that Luke’s mother had given to him. Luke hadn’t played with it for years.  But as soon as he saw his cousin playing happily with his horse he wanted it back. Cornelius refused to hand it over. After very brief negotiations Luke slammed his fist into Cornelius’ nose.  The blood began to gush. For most seven year-olds that might have been the end of it, but Vanderbilt ignored his nose and charged at his cousin. Luke grabbed Cornelius and twisted his arm behind his back.  Even with his arm twisted Cornelius did not loosen his grip on the horse.

“Drop it.”

 He screamed in pain but he held it tighter, the higher up his cousin moved his arm.

Luke screamed even louder than him. “Give me the horse.  It’s mine.”  Luke tried to rip it away.  He might as well have tried to pull a mature pricker bush out of the soil.  With his other hand Cornelius scratched at his cousin’s face again and again whenever he could position his hand to take a swipe.

Luke’s forehead was bleeding.   “I’m going to break your arm.” He meant it.

“It’s mine,” Cornelius answered with the high-pitched voice of a seven-year-old. The thought of crying didn’t occur to him. His main focus was trying to shout louder than Luke.

“I’ll kill you,” Luke shouted as he pulled Cornelius’ arm still further up his back.

Luke was exactly right.  The pain was killing him and tears began to flow but it didn’t matter to Cornelius. He still had the toy.  His uncle, Luke’s father, eventually broke up the fight, but had he not, there was nothing his cousin could have done to get the horse.  Cornelius would have never let go. That was the opinion of Luke’s seven-year-old sister Sophia who was watching. She was excited by the battle.  It aroused something in her that she never forgot. This was the same Sophia who was to be Cornelius’s bride 12 years later.

He woke from his sleep with a start.  The violence of his dream had totally taken over his mind, as it does with everyone.  Nowhere to hide, no excuses, no weapons, no cleverness or plan.  His dream owned him.  It went where it wanted, with him living inside it.

 Then all traces of the dream were erased two moments after he woke.  He was left with the adrenaline.  He looked at the clock.  11:30.  One minute helpless in another world, the next moment eager to go into action in a world he could control.

 Or die trying    The darkness and fog offered an opportunity.  While moving blindly in the water is dangerous, the English would be even more blind.  Hundreds of times he had maneuvered his sailboat in complete darkness.  He thought he could do the same thing with the Dread.  He knew of one spot where the water might be too shallow for his schooner.  There might be others, but it was worth risking.  He had 2 cannons if they were discovered.

He didn’t consider whether he might be deceiving himself.  He simply knew they were not going to be discovered.  He called for Riggens and told him his plan.  Riggens said nothing.  It wasn’t open for discussion.  The men on board were to be completely silent.  The young boys would have to run back and forth between crewman to whisper Vanderbilt’s orders.

They  sounded the foghorn repeatedly to camouflage the sound of the anchor slowly being raised.  Miraculously the huge sails did not flap as they were pulled into position.  They simply caught the wind and silently, they moved through the fog.  Two hundred yards, then one hundred and fifty yard to the anchored British frigate on the starboard side, then one hundred.  Given the danger and their own quiet in the darkness, the sounds were eerie.  They could hear the Englishmen, off from their hard day’s labor, celebrating their nightly freedom, not a sober voice among them.  The cursing and laughter of the drunks on board, the waves slapping between the ships, it was other worldly.

 Closer and closer they came, so close that at one point they could have easily joined in the revelry without raising their voices.  Finally, they were sighted by the English mid watch when they were 25 yards from the frigate, but he remained silent.  Superstition has it that any mariner who sees the ghost ship called the Flying Dutchman will die within the day.  Perhaps this is what went through his mind upon seeing the Dread emerge from the fog.  Was this to be his final day?   For a minute or so, as they sailed alongside,  Vanderbilt could actually make out the face of  the English mid watch.  Then the amazing. He smiled with relief  that he was not seeing the Flying Dutchman.  He waved to Vanderbilt as the ship  sailed by.  Vanderbilt knew him.  Six months earlier he offered this very person  a job on the Dread, but he didn’t show up the next morning.  He heard he was hired by another American shipper  and apparently now belonged to the British.

 Then they were free.  They made it into Port Richmond at 2 AM.  The town was asleep but the inn was still open.  They celebrated with stout that night, compliments of their young skipper. 

“Three cheers for Captain Vanderbilt!”

“Hip-hip hooray”

“Hip-hip hooray”

“Hip-hip-hooray”

“Drink up men”  Vanderbilt shouted.  “I have a mighty thirst.  Here’s to the Dread.”

“To the Dread” they shouted in unison.

“Here’s to piss in the mugs of the English,” shouted an old timer.

“To piss”

“Here’s to blood in that piss. The clap to every Englishman.”

“To the clap.” They shouted to uproarious laughter.

 They drank their second and  third and fourth and fifth mug.  Some of the men didn’t make it back to the ship until they were ready to sail

three days later.