Page 11 of If Looks Could Kill

My father often says, “Things will look different in the morning.”

This, I find, is especially true of good intentions.

With a night’s sleep and a clamorous city between us and the girl in the window, the idea of mounting some daring rescue now felt na?ve and silly.

To me, at least. Why just that one girl, and not the whole wicked industry?

Why us, and not police or social reformers?

What could we even do? What if we were wrong about her situation? What if I was wrong about who she was?

Yesterday, I felt sure I was right. Yesterday, it felt bold and heroic to assure Pearl that we would right this wrong. We would correct my oversight.

Today, I wanted to hide from all of it. I was no activist. No vigilante.

Today, selling The War Cry (instead of raiding bordellos) sounded like marvelous fun.

As we rose and dressed for the day, Pearl said nothing about it.

I wondered if her fervor was cooling off too.

Part of me wished we could just move on with our lives, and it would all go away.

But she’d been the girl asking us for directions.

It was Sunday. We’d held our morning knee drill (that’s a prayer meeting), and now, in the afternoon, it was time to throw open the doors for a Sunday rally.

About twenty of us soldiers, plus a handful of officers, had swept off the platform stage and straightened the chairs, and now we were in various stages of tuning guitars, warming up on a pianoforte, and humming our salvation songs, set to the tunes of rowdy barroom ballads.

Bring Christ to the people where they are, was Maud Booth’s constant plea.

And fire up your preaching red-hot. You’ve got to grab souls by the collar and give them a good shake.

As for me, all I could find to do was to fuss over the great urn of coffee we’d brewed and fiddle with the cups. The hot, damp scent of coffee overcame the odor of blue serge Salvation Army uniforms, many of which were overdue for a good washing.

More notes (if you could call them that) began emerging from the various musical instruments (if you could call them that).

Sister Jerusha Bean staggered around under the weight of a tuba and gave it an enthusiastic oompah.

Pearl, behind me somewhere, warmed up her voice with running little trills up and down the scale. The show-off.

“Come on, soldier.” Captain Jessop tugged me on the sleeve. “It’s time.”

We flung the doors open.

If she’d expected to find a crowd queueing up, she was disappointed. A pair of pigeons were waited on the landing, and they flapped off at first sight of us. But a true Salvation Army sister-soldier doesn’t stay disappointed for long.

“Sing them in, then, Sister Tabitha,” she ordered, and began singing in her booming voice.

I joined in, but I did not boom. I do not boom.

Behind us came the whole throng of our comrades, instruments in hand, triangles and tambourines for many, and stentorian voices for the men.

Officer Purse’s tenor soared over the rest, Pearl’s soprano wove around his, and Sister Bean oompahed, and people did drift closer, stop, and listen. Gawk, to be precise.

“Come hear a story that will change your life,” cried Captain Jessop. “A Sunday sermon livelier than a Saturday-night show.”

“You a boxer, fella?” a man asked Captain Paddy Campbell.

“Ready to box a round with the devil, and no cover charge to watch!”

Officer Purse lured females with his golden voice and wavy hair.

He sang them in off the streets and down to our basement corps and our rickety folding chairs.

The band stayed outside to attract more flies to honey while Officer Rugger, once an organist, got to work on the tinkly piano, even though its terrible tuning pained his soul.

I hid behind the coffee urn. Purse Laurier took the stand, and Sunday afternoon’s salvation work began.

“Before God woke me from my spiritual stupor,” he cried, “I was a vile sinner, steeped in the world’s wicked ways.

My parents had raised me honorably, but my mother’s wish to see me at a university was my undoing.

I partook there, not of the fruits of the tree of knowledge, but of the fruits of sin, and there I would be still, had not Jesus in his mercy come to save me… .”

It was a stirring story, in its way, though possibly not the best fit for our impoverished and working-class audiences.

Purse Laurier had packed a whole baccalaureate’s worth of debauchery into his freshman year.

His eventual conversion to the Salvation Army led his father and mother to cut him off from their financial support.

If our preaching is supposed to be red-hot, I’d say Officer Purse’s is more of a violet-mauve.

The charm rubs off a bit after the fifth telling.

More audience members trickled in. One form looked younger, more upright than some. I took a second look and felt my face grow hot.

Twice in two days: Mike, the barkeep from O’Flynn’s. What was he doing here?

His gaze swept back and forth around the room until he caught me peeping out from behind the coffee. He winked and tipped his hat. I gave him a weak, tiny wave back before rigor mortification set in and I hid from sight.

Why was he here? For salvation?

For Pearl.

It had to be for Pearl. Nothing about him fit the type of our usual recruits.

There wasn’t really a type. But if there were one, he would not be it.

I cursed myself for that silly, silly little wave. What was I, eight years old?

“Pardon me,” said an Irish voice. “Might I have a coffee?”

I couldn’t look at him. “You’re supposed to wait till after the sermon for the coffee.”

“Ah,” said he. “I wanted to beat the rush.”

Finally, I dared look up. “Oh,” I said. “It’s you.”

“Thought you knew me,” he said, “when you saw me a moment ago.” He seemed mighty pleased with his own cleverness.

“I was just being polite.”

“I thank you, then.”

“There’s coffee here for a hundred people,” I told him. “You won’t lose out to any rush.”

“Mebbe there’ll be a rush,” he said, “for the friendly company.”

All right. I had his measure. He was just one of those flirtatious types.

Always bantering, nothing real behind it.

For some young males, I’ve observed, this is just their way of interacting with the world.

I could read the story. The hair, the blue eyes.

He’d been a pretty child, spoiled by his mother and getting his way his whole life, and then he immigrated here, cutting a wide swath with his accent, and now he believed all American females were putty in his Gaelic hands.

He’d lost the infernal toothpick. Without it, I found myself noticing his mouth. Expressive. Interesting teeth. The kind of mouth you just want to watch as it talks with and reacts to the world. It was easy to forget to pay attention to what it was saying. Or what you were doing.

“How about that coffee, then?” Mike said.

Right. A coffee. I busied myself with the spigot on the urn while he rocked back on his heels and regarded me with the expression of someone holding back a joke, with difficulty.

I poured the coffee. “Don’t you want to hear the preaching?”

He took the cup from my hands. “Hearing it just fine.” ( Foine , may God help me.)

What did he want? Why didn’t he go sit?

A new thought occurred to me. “Did you know this was a Salvation Army meeting?” I asked. “Or did you just happen to hear the music?”

“I appreciate your faith in my intelligence,” he said. “The brass band dressed in blue was a clue. Specially the women, dressed like you and your friend—Pearl, wasn’t she?”

There it was. The way his Irish “r” curled around “Pearl” almost made me wish he’d keep talking about her.

“Well, welcome, then,” I said, “whether you meant to come or not.”

“Miss Tabitha,” he said, with mock severity ( Tabither ), “I only go where I mean to.”

He remembered my name, along with hers. A future politician, no doubt. Would probably end up running Tammany Hall someday.

“I saw you last night,” he said after a sip of coffee. “P’rhaps you didn’t recognize me.”

No point denying it. “I did.”

“I see,” he said. “Then there must’ve been some other reason why you didn’t say hello.” His eyes twinkled. “You and Miss Pearl were having quite the donnybrook, weren’t you?”

“Quite the what?”

“Going at it hammer and tongs.”

He would have to mention that, wouldn’t he? “She’s seated in the front row,” I told him, “hanging on Officer Laurier’s every word.”

He turned and looked. “So she is.” He turned back. “You’re not, though.”

I shrugged. “I’ve heard his story before.”

He grinned. “Front row’s full anyway,” he said. “But not the back. You could come and sit with me.”

Now he was the one being polite. But why not sit with him? I was only doing the work of salvation. Even a bartender who came to see Pearl’s curls might find his soul saved by accident.

I sat next to Mike for the rest of the sermon.

A visiting husband-and-wife pair of Negro officers, the Sergeants Louis and Mary Woodroe of Philadelphia, told their story of conversion in song to accompaniment from Sergeant Mary on the guitar.

Something about “saved my soul… put Jesus in control.” I can’t do justice to it, but it was catchy.

They were immensely popular in the Army and had a regular touring circuit of chapters throughout the Northeast. I couldn’t help noticing that Mike enjoyed them particularly.

Captain Paddy got up after the Woodroes and talked about forgiveness and brotherly love until I was almost ready to lay down my quarrel with Pearl and try to be nicer.

As he sat down and Captain Jessop rose to take the stand, Mike leaned over and whispered, “How many sermons will there be?”

“Seven or eight,” I estimated, “and then the audience testimonies begin.”

Mike swallowed. “Much as I’d love to stay—” he began.

“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’ll tell Pearl you came by.”

He regarded me curiously. Perhaps he would rather be the one to tell her himself, I thought. But I hadn’t time to wonder, for Mike shrugged, donned his hat, and made his escape.

So much for Mike the barkeep. I doubted we’d see him again.