This Side of Water by Maureen Pilkington

Author:Maureen Pilkington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: 2019-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

DREAMING OVER THE MONONGAHELA RIVER

August 1911

Lawrence Zanerdelli walked toward the Coal Queen Harbor at the far end of McKeesport, the same route he walked every morning on his way to the mines. Tonight, however, was a sticky Friday in August, eight months before he would become known as Ty. He was dressed like a gentleman enjoying a smoke on his way to make a delivery.

When Lawrence reached the receiving dock, he pulled a piece of hardened brown paper from his back pocket. It was the kind used for beef patties at the butcher—a dealer in high grade, fresh, and salt meats. (The butcher ran a clean place, thoroughly sanitary in a first-class manner). The paper had been confiscated and then decoupaged by his wife, Edda. She pasted photographs, mostly of the actress, Mary Pickford, on the meat wrappers. After painting layers of shellac over them, she hung them to dry from the crystal droplets on their chandelier, fastening them with Christmas ornament hooks.

It was startling to see the miniature, stiff bodies hanging by their heads in the quaint dining room. Lawrence never really studied Edda’s craft, because his first concern had always been the wasted meat. Dr. Ramsay said to let her have her way.

Lawrence held the glistening Mary Pickford doll (Edda had a thing for the actress and tried to fix her own dry hair into the golden ringlets that Pickford was known for) and tossed it into the Monongahela River. It floated in the direction of a young couple bobbing in a rowboat with the oars tucked in, their feet in each other’s laps. They were an odd addition to the scenery, which consisted of small freight boats carrying mounds of coal. He took a last drag off his cigarette and stamped it out with the ball of his foot. Lawrence wore the same elegant brown shoes, similar to the wingtips that his father wore for special occasions. He wore them today to honor the brightest idea of his life, the one sitting in his pocket.

Even though smoke from the ovens blackened everything in town, the heavy air was an escape from the sour smell in his home due to Edda’s specialty—horseradish and pork knuckle. Lawrence was making his way out of the mines by working, after-hours, in his own five-and-dime store wedged in between a tavern and a miniature Russian church, which Lawrence referred to as “Onion Top Oska.” To make extra money, he sold tickets in the back of the store for transportation (he catered to a certain coal baron in Smithton). His secret stash was piling up.

Lawrence sat on the bench on the dock and couldn’t help looking at the woman in the boat, tossing her head back, giddy now, and wondered what it would be like to plant one on painted red lips. Instead, he pulled the envelope out of his pocket and kissed it. Holding it up to the sunlight, he traced the outline of a ship, a White Star Liner and introduced her to the sulphur polluted Monongahela.

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