Sex Wars (35 page)

“Everybody says so. Shall I tell him you sent him greetings?”

“Noah Braithwaite,” Sammy said, a name he had seen in an adventure story he had been reading about bank robbers, a little yellow-backed book. Noah Braithwaite was the owner of the bank in the story. Sammy hoped the dim light concealed the shabbiness of his clothes, a simulation of businessman’s attire fifth-hand from a pushcart.

“Now we’ve found the momser, we can follow him to Shaineh.” Frey-deh wrung Sammy’s hand. “Take more chicken. Please! You are my sweet darling boy. Who else could have found this out? Nobody! Take more chicken. We’ll sell those clothes back and get you a good hat to cover your head. Someday we’ll dress you just as good as that
momser
and not even secondhand. Someday we will all live in a house in Brooklyn and spit on people like Alfred Kumble.”

Sammy cocked an eye at her and shrugged. “Do you believe that?”

“When I took you off the street, did you think we would have our own place? Be able to eat chicken every Shabbos? Wear boots on our feet?”

“And me,” Kezia said. “I go to school. I have clothes. We eat three times every day. I have my own name back.”

He grinned. “Okay. I’ll start packing for Brooklyn.”

A
NTHONY KNELT ON THE FLOOR
of Reverend Budington’s cold bedroom with his minister at his side. They both fervently prayed for Anthony to achieve acceptance of the Lord’s will. “Heavenly Father,” Budington prayed, “as thou art a father whose son died grievously even though he returned to you in his Ascension, bring comfort to our good brother Anthony and lead him to an understanding of thy ways and acceptance of the passing over of his beloved baby daughter…Lillie Comstock.”

“Lord, I want to accept thy will, to bow my too proud neck before thy mighty sword, but I love my little daughter with my whole heart

“Heavenly Father, our brother Anthony’s grief is extreme and profound. Help to ease his mourning. Help him into thy blessed light. Strengthen his faith for he feels sorely tried.”

They prayed together for two hours until Anthony was hoarse. He knew he had to leave, walk home through the dark deserted streets of Brooklyn where snow was lightly falling. There Maggie would be lying awake staring at the ceiling, sometimes with slow tears coursing down her cheeks unheeded, still as a stone and as unresponsive. He used to hurry home every evening impatient to arrive in his sweet family, striding along
and cutting corners so as to be with Maggie and Lillie even five minutes sooner. They’d had one year of joy.

Now he dreaded walking into his house where a mourning wreath marked the door, where his wife all in black would be lying as if in state, where even the Irish maid no longer sang at her work but scuttled about like a wraith. The death of little Lillie had sucked all the joy and energy from his household. The doctor said his wife was neurasthenic and must have a complete rest cure or she might suffer a permanent collapse. They could not seem to comfort each other. There was no one to blame for Lil-lie’s sudden fever no medicines the doctor gave could lower. Her poor tiny body was bled with leeches and she was given emetics to draw the ills from her system until she was so weak she could no longer lift her head off the pillow. She sank into a stupor from which she never revived. Anthony understood that the doctor had tried every heroic remedy available to modern medicine. Maggie and he, sitting by her crib, had held hands, praying together. That was the last time they had been so close. After that, Maggie withdrew. Her mother was the only soul she related to. Her mother still mourned her three lost sons; all they could speak about together was the death of little children. It could not be good for Maggie to dwell upon their loss night and day, to the exclusion of every other interest, including himself.

Yet he grieved too, violently sometimes. He clung to his faith in the maelstrom, feeling himself in imminent danger of being sucked under into despair. Budington held him from drowning. More than ever, the tedious trivial business of selling notions seemed a vapid work to occupy an able man when there was so much evil in the city to fight against. If he could throw himself full-time into the fray, he might recover his sense of purpose. More even than before, the life of precious children needed protection. If he had lost his own Lillie, he could save the lilies of the gardens around him, preserve them clean of mind and body in their respectable houses. Death might enter in a thousand forms, not just as disease that wasted the body and carried off the soul, but in a fever stoked by filthy books—not only pornography but penny dreadfuls, the yellow books that fascinated young men, susceptible to overexcitation of mind and body. Vulnerable young men could gaze at whorish women on French postcards and even view naked women, their breasts and rear ends and sometimes even their nether regions on display, causing moral and ultimately physical and mental enfeeblement. It led to the solitary vice, the mental institution
and the graveyard. He could fight this social evil if only he had backing so that he could leave his petty toils.

He moved against a book dealer, William Simpson. He went to the police and informed them of Simpson’s den, producing two books he had purchased there and the receipt as proof, in his usual manner. The precinct captain said he would take care of the matter, but the next time Anthony checked the store, it was wide open. The captain said the following Friday he would send a man along with Anthony to make an arrest. Anthony stopped by the precinct at five-thirty on Friday and the constable went with him to Simpson’s. When they entered the bookstore to make the arrest, the dirty books had vanished. In their place was a wall of inspiring booklets from the Tract Society. Anthony was furious.

The constable seemed to think it was funny. “You really think these fine Christian tracts are obscene? Mr. Simpson is doing a right brisk business in saving souls, far as I can see.”

They were in cahoots. The police had warned Simpson and might even have helped him move his dirty wares under cover. Someone had also tipped off a reporter, who appeared smirking and tried to interview Anthony. The following Sunday, the
Mercury
ran a sarcastic story about the meddling Mr. Comstock and his effort to arrest a book dealer selling religious material from the Tract Society.

The article, however, was informative in spite of the snide tone. The reporter referred to Ann and Nassau Streets in Manhattan as places where such books were commonly sold. That was a call to action for Anthony and he decided to explore the area. He had noticed ads in men’s sporting papers like the
Police Gazette
and
Day’s Doings
—ads for smut and illicit objects to prevent conception or interrupt it. These murderers openly solicited business. He remembered a series of exposés in the
Tribune
about abortionists by a reporter who seemed to have some notions of morality. He had clipped them at the time. Yes, here they were, signed by Robert Griffith. He set out to find Griffith, taking along his lists of advertisers for smut and obscene rubber goods, and also the
Mercury
article attacking him.

Griffith, who turned out to be a fine Christian gentleman near Anthony’s age and with a family of his own, was sympathetic. Anthony succeeded in getting Griffith fired up about the idea of exposing smut peddlers, so much so that Griffith agreed to go out on an expedition with Anthony. Griffith treated him with respect, and even introduced him to his publisher, Horace Greeley, who was genial. “You’re doing a real public
service, Mr. Comstock. So the police won’t act? I’ll put in a word in the right places. Then I want the two of you to accompany the arresting officers on an expedition to destroy these men. The
Tribunes
behind you one hundred percent, Comstock. We’ll make you famous.” Greeley was a strange lank man with a feeble shake who laid a cold hand on Anthony’s shoulder, where it rested like a fallen leaf on a granite ledge. “I have heard you recently lost a daughter, Mr. Comstock. You have my sympathy and understanding. I have lost six children, Mr. Comstock—six!”

Anthony could not imagine the pain of so much loss—or was it numbing after the third or fourth death? He experienced a great desire to get out of the presence of Horace Greeley, as if so much bad parental luck could rub off. He had read that Greeley was going to run for president, but Anthony could not imagine it. The man had the aspect of a cold-blooded creature, perhaps a salamander. He thanked Greeley profusely for his support, finding himself sweating although the office was quite chilly—no fire in the fireplace and a window partly open in spite of the temperature outside.

“He must believe in saving on coal for heating,” Anthony said to Griffith as they walked down the long corridor from Greeley’s office.

“He’s one of those Sylvester Graham believers—sex twelve times a year, keep the windows open so lots of fresh air chills you to the bone, wear loose clothing and eat no meat or fowl and lots of whole grains. No beer, no wine, no liquor, no fun.”

“I hold with the no booze, but if he’s on such a healthy routine, what happened to kill off his children?”

“There’s war between his wife and himself, that’s all I know.”

“Do you have children?”

“Two and a third on the way. I want a big family. How about you?”

“I’d like a large family.” But he did not think he was going to get one. The doctor kept telling him that Maggie was fragile and he should not impose upon her. Something of the desire to live had gone out of her with Lillie. He could understand that, but he was her husband and she must cleave to him, as the Lord instructed. Surely the Lord would grant them another child to replace the lost soul he had taken to be with him. He decided he was going to move back into Maggie’s bed that night, no matter what the doctor said. A new pregnancy would buck up her spirits. She would have something to live for. “Well,” he said, clapping Griffith on the back, “at least Greeley is against smut.”

“He has political ambitions. He wants to be known as a defender of the family.”

“So much the better.” If Greeley wanted to use him, Anthony wanted to use the
Tribune.

T
HEY GATHERED FIRST
in an oyster bar near Ann Street, Griffith, two policemen, a sketch artist for the
Tribune
and himself. These two policemen behaved entirely differently, serious, respectful. This was Greeley’s doing. Anthony went in each time with the sketch artist and purchased an obscene book or a rubber object. Then he carried it outside, it was recorded in his pocket notebook, and then the police and Griffith returned with him—the artist having remained in place—and the purveyor of obscenity was arrested. The two policemen confiscated the stock, loading it into a wagon waiting outside. They carried through five raids. The dray they had brought along was heaped high with obscene books, postcards and rubber goods—French protectors, womb veils, all the paraphernalia of deceit and interference with the Lord’s will. The cart followed them to the station house.

The following day, the entire adventure was written up at length in the
Tribune,
with drawings of himself brandishing a cane over the head of a cowering bookseller, drawn in caricature as a swarthy small man with a huge potbelly and long nose. Actually none of the booksellers looked anything like that caricature of a Jew—they were all native-born. But it gave an impression Anthony found perfect. The article was extremely favorable, treating him as a hero. He was grateful to Griffith. He would not forget the reporter, but would slip him information when he was planning an action. They made an excellent partnership. Griffith told him that an editorial praising his work to protect the youth of the city was being written even as they spoke. Griffith told the truth, because two days later there it was:
A CRUSADER IN OUR MIDST
.

He was sleeping with Maggie again. She had not been enthusiastic about the idea—he would have been shocked if she had shown undue passion. He loved her with his entire being. She was devout, frugal, conscientious and a soldier at housekeeping. Always when he came home, there was a good hot meal waiting. His clothes were perfectly kept, although she told him he must roll around in them to get them so messy. If he had any criticism, it would be that she did not work the maid hard enough. She
formed too ready an attachment, not always keeping the requisite distance. But even that fault was due to her gentle disposition and kind heart. She was a thoroughly good woman; in his visits to the dark side of the city, he was beginning to understand how rare and wonderful that was. Women were weak and easily corrupted, except for those like his mother and Maggie who were armored by religion. Without that armor, women rotted from within and brought down any man who came near them.

Soon he guessed she might be pregnant again, for she was vomiting her breakfast. She said nothing. Of course, it was too delicate a matter to discuss. He noticed her mother was about more than usual. He never discouraged those visits unless she stayed around when he came home. He did not like sharing his wife with anyone. Her attention was balm to him after the tedium of his job or the darkness of his exertions on behalf of the Lord.

Soon the trial opened of the purveyors of filth he had raided with Griffith. He was a star prosecution witness and once again the papers noted him, this time with almost universal approval. The Lord had called him and he had answered, like Joshua at the battle of Jericho. His next target was Williams Haynes, who had been publishing obscene books since well before the Civil War. His wife worked with him, a coarse foul woman no doubt. Haynes had a henchman who operated a store on Nassau Street in the heart of the filth district, and another who distributed Haynes’s output from his sporting goods store. Anthony was closing in on all of them, having alerted Griffith to his plans, when Haynes up and died of a heart attack. Anthony was grimly satisfied. A dead pornographer was as good as one in jail. He added Haynes to the list in his ledger book: “W. Haynes, ob. book and plate publisher, dead.”

He took the ferry to New Jersey to visit the Widow Haynes. She was a tiny white-haired woman with a sweet tinkling voice, dressed in a black dimity gown. She received him in her parlor, which seemed respectable enough. She did not invite him to sit but stood before him quivering with rage. “You drove my husband to the grave!”

“Perhaps his conscience did him in.”

“His books were fine erotica. There was nothing vulgar or disgusting in them, including the beautiful etchings.”

“They were obscene, madam, and they must be destroyed.” Beautiful! They were foul. He remembered endless naked women lying upon beds in all manner of shameless poses, rumps in the air, breasts hanging down, men with their members rigid and exposed, naked men leaning on pillars as if waiting for an omnibus.

“They are my only income, now that you have hounded my husband to his death. I will fight you to my dying day”

“Suppose I buy out your inventory I don’t imagine you intend to go on publishing by yourself.”

She glared, but they began to haggle price. Finally she invited him to sit down on a horsehair couch. Anthony wrote a check which would wipe out his account at the Brooklyn bank while removing an entire source of filth from the market forever.