The Ballad of James McKenna

Day Ten: Free Write

Day Ten
         Free Write
Word Count: 978

Jimmy hadn't expected to see Jacob that evening.

Every July, to mark the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the Union boys in any given town would get together to celebrate the victories that marked the turning point of the war. Usually, there was singing and drinking and storytelling and, if they were lucky, there'd be someone who could play an instrument and hadn't had their hands blown off.

Jimmy could play the fiddle, and he just happened to have two strong hands that hadn't been blown off in war, so he was a right popular person to have at any such shindig. His father had taught him, among other things, all the songs he'd learned as a child in Scotland and Ireland; his mother had taught him a few lullabies, too, the kind of which only a woman would know. The songs they'd all grown up with, on their Father's knee and in their Mother's skirts. They were enough, for the older Irishman and the Scots among them (and, he'd seen over the years, just about everyone, for the emotions were universal even if the words and the language were not) to yearn for home, and the younger men to weep for want of such a home.

Playing wasn't something he did often, but he did it well. It was a lot like his mechanicals, when he really thought about it. Every note had its place, every sound its technique. And to that he added something else: feeling. He was a man of great feeling, was Jimmy, though he tried desperately to keep control over such extravagance. It was only at these events, when he and his brothers came together to celebrate the bond the Great War had forged between them, that he let such emotion roam free.

Nate didn't come to these; even he, who'd defected to the North, was not welcome amongst those who'd shed their blood for the Cause. Jimmy would have stood for him, but the Southerner was far too aware of propriety to intervene.

Hell, Jimmy hadn't been sure he'd be welcome this evening. He'd worn Yankee blue, yes, but he'd been an Ohio man and these were the enlisted of New York. Union or no, state loyalties were fierce, and competition was not an unknown thing between regiments. But the men had taken one look at his battered artillery hat and the fiddle case in his hands and welcomed him with open arms (and a glass of whiskey, quite possibly homemade). They'd kept them coming, requesting song after song, occasionally stopping to make sure that he'd eaten something. He was the only fiddler there, and no one wanted him to pass out from drink, after all.

It was after a few hours of playing, during one of the few breaks he'd garnered for himself, that Jacob Auckland had approached him, hat in hand and drink sparkling in his green eyes. "Jimmy McKenna! What are you doing here?"

"I could say the same for you, Jacob! I thought your family were from the River Valley?"

Jacob nodded. "Yeah. We came to New York for the jobs. A chance to move up from the farm. All of us younger brothers with no where to go but the big city. I heard you got pulled in with the Pinkerton agency after that miracle of yours at Petersburg."

"Hardly a miracle. In most cases, they'd just fused together because no one had taken into consideration that electricity is, um, hot. But, yeah, I'm a Pinkerton man. I'm here on a case." Being a Pinkerton man didn't require secrecy on its own; only in the event that the agent in question were going undercover did an agent had to keep his occupation under wraps. "The Tourist murders."

"You're the one searching for the nigger killer?" Jacob's voice turned hard, a growling disapproval ringing through the words. "Why would you want to help them coons? Hell, that factory worker got himself killed two weeks ago, he worked with me down at the refinement plant. Always makin' the rest of us look bad, he was, workin' long hours for less pay. Made the boss man want us to do the same. Now he's gone and life's good again. My brother got his position. I say fuck them niggers. They're jus' stealin' jobs from us white men. How are we supposed to feed our families?"

Jimmy stared at Jacob, eyes steady despite the drink in his veins. "It's my job to solve crimes against humanity. The Tourist is a monster, destroying innocent lives, and your blatant disregard for the Negro community is sickening. Your worry about feeding your family is admirable, but it's the same feeling they have for themselves."

"You a nigger lover, Jimmy?" Jacob spat the words into Jimmy's face. Around them, men stopped speaking, staring at Jimmy with questions in their eyes. Racial equality was an unpopular sentiment in most of the north, but it wasn't unheard of, and even so it was incredibly stupid to mess with the lone fiddle player at a gathering.

Jimmy picked up the fiddle and started up an old reel that his Father had taught him long ago. It had words to go with, which the men around him dutifully began. "Yes," Jimmy sat to Jacob, their singing and their laughing almost drowning it out. "If respecting our black-skinned brethren and being willing to solve this murder makes me a so-called 'nigger lover', then I suppose I am one. Get lost, Jacob. I have no wish to speak to you anymore."

With that, Jimmy melted into the crowd, bow skating and fingers flying, plying his brethren with memories even as the liquor plied them with with drunk. And he tried to forget that, to most of them, solving this crime--this crime that had completely consumed his life--was something best left undone.