The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1 Read Free

some randy stories in the back of the saloon. As it was, though, I’d have rather liked to strangle the fellow, for it was his absence that locked Abigail and me into fateful impasse.
    Paintings suspended about our home depicted Abigail Finch as a toothsome bride possessed of a blushing demeanor, but these still lifes lied. It is my belief that Abigail felt wasted by her absentee husband; a lady of her standing could not gallivant about town unescorted. From these holes poked into her pride sprung bitter founts. Some mothers, or so I assumed, might enjoy observing their child at play. Abigail preferred to stare out windows. Some mothers might dress their child in silly costumes to motivate mirthmaking. Abigail took distorted pleasure in ordering the finest of gowns for herself, only to wrap them in bags and stow them inside a closet.
    From time to time, she shuddered as if feeling one of Bartholomew’s distant detonations. To her, the Chicago beyond our property lines was in perennial post-explosion, the streets filled with debilitatingdebris and the air unbreathable from nitroglycerin smog. Having lost a husband to these dangerous elements, she was determined to raise her son as a man of walls, chairs, desks, inkwells, and pens.
    Each day I was laced into Little Lord Fauntleroy ensembles as restrictive as iron maidens: tight velvet jackets, hard ruffled collars, snug cuffed knee-pants, and buckled shoes. Though I looked as if attired for an afternoon outing, these were but dress rehearsals for an opening night that never came.
    â€œYou shall not drift about the country like your father,” Abigail would declare while knotting some infernal bow about my neck. “You shall stay at hand and be a good boy. The best boy.”
    â€œBut Mama,” I’d plead. “I just want to go out and play.”
    My, the brutishness with which she raked a comb through my hair! Never would my sheer locks hold the girlish ringlets into which she ironed them. It was a source of perpetual guilt.
    â€œThe proper term is Mother ,” said she. “Not Mama .”
    â€œBut can’t you hear the other boys? It’s so nice and sunny out.”
    â€œAnd dirty. The city is filthy. Do you want to soil your clothing?”
    Debate never moved me an inch.
    â€œNo, Mama,” said I.
    â€œ Mother , Zebulon. We are a proper family.”
    We were anything but! Our Sunday walks to and from church offered my best gulps of fresh air, and when possible I wiggled from my leash and rushed up to other boys with far dirtier knees than I, only to be too shy to ask to be taught their games of cards or jacks. The Chicago streets might as well have been the Galápagos Islands; I was a stranger there, but smuggled home rare specimens, from rust-burred bottle caps and teeth-scored horse bits to sticks.
    Yes, sticks! How I adored a good, sturdy stick! So gnarled, evenvulgar they looked inside our scrubbed and laundered confines, so black were the shavings of bark they left upon white lace doilies. My favorite stick of all time boasted a ninety-degree bend and, having spied lads on Sundays doing their best cowboy or Indian impersonations, I recognized it as a prize. During bathroom breaks from my tutors, I rollicked about the house with the stick in hand, dueling famous outlaws and taking down creeping henchmen with impossible hip shots.
    Confiscation was inevitable; I was a careless child. Abigail made me set the stick upon the floor before she pinched it through a handkerchief and flung it out back as you might a dead mouse. She then led me to the bathroom, filled the sink with scalding water, and waited for me to to lower my hands. Tears welled from dual pains—the burn of the water and the loss of my stick—but I did not let myself cry. I swore to my bright pink hands that one day I would find myself a better gun, even a real one, and oh! How I would use it.
    Lend me your fingers, Reader, and your toes as well, so