Eastland Read Free Page B

cover vomit left behind by
nauseous passengers. I was leaning against the wooden banister, listening to the squeaky rattle of the mesh screens on the
windows, when the truth of my situation flared like fireworks.
I had disrespected Mama. Outright defied her. I’d never
done that before. Despite her explicit command to stay home
today, I’d left. No two ways about it, I was in deep trouble. But
what could Mama do to me? I already had enough chores to
fill every spare hour of my life. I was too old for the strap. She
couldn’t keep me from my social life because I didn’t have one
to surrender.
I would have to make this up to her. I just prayed that she
would even let me.
At Clark Street, I transferred northbound and exited at
the Chicago River near the Clark Street Bridge. As usual, on a
Saturday morning, the downtown streets were congested with
cars, delivery trucks, and horse-drawn cabs. Add to that a horde
of picnickers plus the thunderous clatter of the green “L” passing
overhead on the elevated tracks, and the noise was deafening.
But what about that awful odor? The air above the wharf reeked
like nothing I’d ever encountered before. I tried not to gag as I
stood with a flock of other pedestrians waiting to cross Clark
Street.
The policeman directing traffic on this end of the bridge blew
his whistle. Vehicles in both lanes slowed to a stop. The crowd
surrounding me sprinted across the street, carrying me in the
flow. Before I could say my name, I was standing at the top of
a rickety, wooden staircase peering down at the markets that
lined the dock. Crates of fruits and vegetables had been stored
alongside cages of live chickens, but the produce and poultry
weren’t the only stinky things around.
The main source of that horrible stench was the Chicago
River.
Horse manure dumped into the water by street sweepers,
rotten vegetables, chicken heads, broken crates, and just about
every other imaginable sort of garbage floated on the greasy,
black surface.
The Eastland, her two outside decks already teeming with
passengers, sat anchored on the west side of the Clark Street
Bridge. The ship was majestic with her red namesake flag,
her towering twin smokestacks, and her sleek, white-steel
hull. She wasn’t as large as the pictures I’d seen of the oceangoing Titanic. But this Great Lakes steamer still looked mighty
impressive with a length that stretched from the Clark Street
Bridge to the LaSalle Street Tunnel a block away. She appeared
to be about as wide as a pair of two-flats set side by side. I
judged from the buildings behind her that she loomed around
four stories high.
The Eastland leaned toward the dock as picnickers boarded
the two gangplanks at the rear of the ship. But now, the boarding had slowed and the ship drifted into an upright position. I
scoured the wharf for signs of Mae or Karel, but it was impossible
to see anything through the black mass of opened umbrellas. My
only chance of finding my friends would be to board that ship. I
checked my watch again. It was six-fifty-three.
I was hurrying down the wharf steps, when the ship tipped
the other way—toward the river.
On board, children raced toward the riverside railings,
screaming in glee with each roll of the ship. And then, as quickly
as she had listed, the Eastland righted herself yet again.
I made my way toward the gangplanks, but it seemed that
everyone around me had that very same idea. The thought made
me laugh out loud. Didn’t all these anxious hopefuls know I had
one huge advantage over them? While they were hindered by
lumbering husbands or slowed by toddlers tugging on skirts, I
was alone. I had no one to worry about but myself. Lucky me.
Yet even without any burdens, it took me more than ten
minutes to reach the two customs agents admitting passengers
on either side of an opened gangway.
“Two thousand, four hundred, ninety-five,” the older agent
announced. He clicked a counter in his