Bonnie Rupp had lived hard. So hard that her name became Bonnie. She wasn’t born with that name, but it rapidly took hold on the American tongues that spoke it and that tasted her body to her disgust. Her Irish brogue and other people who had the same accent made you either a Paddy as a man or a Bonnie as a woman, so it was just easier to let it slide. Her anger was toward her plight, it couldn’t be as easily focused as putting it all on the men who bought her.
There’s no easy way to say it, but she was forced into the brothels as a lady of the night. They made it sound fancy by calling her a courtesan, and she refused to call herself a prostitute because in order to be one of those it would imply that you got paid. She hadn’t received a dime since she stepped on these fetid shores of commerce and ill intent. They sold the dream back home, but the dream smelled of lust and greed.
The ‘good’ Protestants and Catholics liked to pretend that women like her didn’t exist because it was their husbands and fathers and even their preachers who kept them in business by selling them the women who had no other way out or forward, and the liquor that ran through the rivers and the valleys of the hills and hollers everywhere around these parts. What choice did she have, really? Strange new country that was supposed to be her salvation ended up being another prison. She should be used to it. The scenery may change but the locks on the doors were the same no matter where she went.
It all started with love and a kiss, that’s the irony. The love was forbidden without the vows, but the vows never mean much to the lovers who are drawn to the bed. Perhaps they should, and that perhaps speaks of her own character, but she loved him and he loved her back. Girls know such things. Their hearts are born innocent, but in want of a true caress, and that caress she had found in William. They were young and careless and…that was when her demise began. As a young girl, she was not wise to how clever a father who has suspicions of his daughter can be. Because of her underestimation, they were caught, tangled in arms and appendages upon the haystack in the sheep barn. It wasn’t long until she was locked away “for her own good”.
Her father was a Catholic. Not unlike every neighbor that she had ever known in Donnybrook. Naturally, after he had whipped her raw for her transgressions, he called Father Lowery to learn what he should do. He insisted that repentance was the only way for her soul to be saved, so he suggested a boarding home for her in the care of the Holy nuns. What this ended up being was her first prison.
They called them “The Magdalene Laundries” and their hair was cut short, their dresses were traded for drab smocks and rags, and they worked from sun up until sun down washing everything from the bedsheets from Parliament, to the uniforms of the police in town. She never earned a dime, but there were days that she was sent to pray, kneeling on her knees for 12 hours or more in repentance. If it was meant to scare her, it worked. For a while. But at night, she saw William’s face, and she decided that no god would grant her such peace and pleasure through companionship with a boy like him that were meant to be feared, so instead of the fear she traded that for anger.
Every day that went by, her anger grew. Festering in her throat, wanting to get out. The locks on the doors, and the bars on the windows prevented her from escaping, so the toils went on and she kept her mouth shut. The less she said to the nuns, the more they ignored her, and she wanted to disappear. A year had gone by, and because of her piety and good behavior she eventually was trusted to become a fetcher. What that meant, is she and several other girls were allowed to take the push trolleys (which were really just 3 wheeled carts that squeaked when you rolled them) around to their assigned districts and deliver the cleaned laundry bags and collect the soiled ones.
It felt good to be out from behind the walls and out from under the eyes of all of the sisters. So good in fact that it was intoxicating. She could smell the ocean air from St George’s Channel, and she decided fairly quickly that she needed a way to sail upon it. Before being caught with her William, they had decided that they would sail away to America once they could save some money, and smelling the salt breeze reminded her that this was what she needed to do. She had know quite a few people who made the voyage, including her sister who married an American, and the letters that she had read describing the food and the lights and the cities had hooked her like a turtle on a drag line behind a fishing trawler. She refused to let it go, and this solidified her decision even further each night, laying on her hay stuffed mattress in a crowded room of shorn headed girls under the shadow of the Donnybrook bell tower.
She got to know a lot of the faces that she saw day in and day out fetching the linen bags. She had gotten a crust of bread from Richie’s bakery more than once, and she had gotten a shilling from more than just a few by exchanging a smile and a curtsy for it politely. She hid the coins in her shoe when they did, blistering her feet against them and her ill fitting shoes. When she got back to the Laundry, she stuck the coins between the bindings of her bible since she barely possessed more than that dusty book anymore. It was the one thing that she decided that the nuns would dare not deprive her of.
She decided that even though she was sternly told not to accept tips for her work, she would because one day when she could finally sail away, they would come in handy. Her favorite person to visit though was McGonnegal. His hair looked like a white horse who had been bathed in sunlight as the red still peeked through the haze of white on top of his head. He never told her his first name, but visiting him for his laundry twice a week took her to the Dublin Docklands where the ships came and went hauling any manner of goods to and fro into the Channel and into the beyond. He was a harbormaster, and kept logs from every hull that graced his docks. Small talk with McGonnegal eventually became big talk as as the weeks went by she gained enough information about how to get onto one of his boats that she felt like it was not only impossible, but necessary to do just that. Not only that but he wouldn’t take a dime from her. He saw the look in her eyes, he told her, when she talked about William, and because he lost the love of his life during childbirth he said it felt less than right to deprive her of that same love. She was convinced that she would fine William somewhere on the western shores, and she intended to do just that.
The weeks passed by, and eventually, when she handed him his bag of laundry he slipped a piece of paper into her hand in exchange for his cleaned linens. He held it there in his hands and stared her directly in the eye when he told her it was passage on a small freighter headed to Cork. From there she would catch a frigate to America. It would be leaving port tomorrow. He patted her hand with a smile and told her good luck. Bonnie’s heart jumped with joy when he told her, and he shushed her when she tried to thank him as to not draw attention. Like clockwork the next time she left the Laundry would be the last time.
She could hardly believe that she was rocking in the hull of the wooden ship, wearing her dirty frock and carrying her tattered bible full of coins, she felt like she was the richest girl in the world. That sentiment only lasted around 3 days.
The conditions inside of the ship were miserably cramped, the odor of humans packed inside became unbearable, until you didn’t notice it anymore. The famine was driving them all westward in hopes for another day to live. Many didn’t. That’s why they had started calling these vessels “coffin ships”. The only places to defecate were in buckets. Only one of them was allowed to take to the buckets to the surface once every day. They often overflowed their putrid contents. Disease was rampant, and so was the ship fever. Those who died on board, and there were many, were tossed over the railing like garbage. It was one of the worst times of her life. It took them nearly two and a half months to reach the shores of America. The only thing that had kept her going was the promise of a new tomorrow. She felt like shedding the chains of her imprisonment of Ireland was behind her, so despite how starving and weak she was, the ship seemed like a worthy obstacle to overcome, so she embraced it. It was that horizon that always kept her head in a positive frame of mind when she dug down deep. And that was daily.
Reaching the shores had been something she couldn’t have expected. So many people from her homeland squatting under bridges and in gutters, hoping for a way out. It wasn’t what she imagined. She envisioned a land of milk and honey, but instead found one of disease and dirt. She felt herself stupid for not realizing that poverty follows you and doesn’t just disappear. She had been sheltered from it to a degree in the confines of the bowels of the Laundry, but she knew that the people from home were starving. She hadn’t imagined how much worse things would get. It wasn’t long until she met Madame Blumont.
At first she was a kind soul to her starving eyes. She offered her food and water and a place to sleep. She came to find her next prison on Garret Street in Charlottesville, she just didn’t know that she was willingly walking into it.
Madame’s payment was her new cell. One that was visited multiple times a night by rancid men with liquor on their breaths and lust in their eyes. She didn’t know what they had payed Madame for their hour with her, but she never saw a dime from it. She was again whipped if she protested, just like in the Magdalene Laundry, but this time, rather than being chastised with religion as the weapon, she was chastised for being worth little more than her ability to warm a bed. So warm it she did. The seasons passing by were her only indication by which she had to determine how long she had been there. When she arrived it had been cold and snowing, so when it began snowing again she reckoned that it must have been a year passed. This angered her.
She didn’t know if her William had made it to America’s shores, but she earnestly hoped that if he had, that he had found a fairer fate than she. She thought about him every night, as she lay with her unwelcome lovers. It was a way for her to escape to a reality that she had wished for rather than the nightmare of one that she found herself within. The men were sometimes courteous, but usually crass and treated her as if she were property. Her escape into William was her solace and her way out of these hellish days and nights.
That is why after last night, she awakened filled with anger and determination. Despite her best efforts, she has been succumbing to the anger in her head. That is why when Madame had walked through the door a few moments ago…she killed her with her bare hands. It was as if she had no other choice because it was her nature.
Last night she cried in her room before the evening’s shifts had started. She was thinking of William. She was thinking of her fate, and her plight. The knock on the door came signaling the evening’s first patron. Madame had screamed at her through the door as she often does. “Mister Ardour is here for ye Bonnie! Give him his money’s worth!”
She patted the tears from her cheeks and slicked back her hair with her hands. If they complained of her morose state of mind to Madame once they were finished with her, she would suffer the anger of her unwelcome landlord and her henchmen. They had done it before, and she can still feel the sting of their open hands on her, but never her face. That would make her less desirable. She got up from her cobbled vanity and walked toward the door. Opening it, she couldn’t see the man’s face in the dim light as it was shadowed by the brim of his hat. He just stood in the hallway, lurking a good foot above her in his tall stature.
She stated meekly “welcome”. There was no reply. He just stood there. Great, another drunken wart from the streets who wasn’t even aware of his own cognition or the mechanics of human conversation anymore. Just what she needed. She grimaced at the thought of the regular type that came to call on her. She was beginning to become frustrated when she said “well are you going to come in? That’s why you came isn’t it?!”
She saw the man shuffle on his feet and tipped his hat at her. “Indeed m’lady, but a gentleman never presses forward until he is invited. It wouldn’t be proper.”
She raised her eyebrows at this, not being used to formalities or etiquette from any of the men who came knocking at the myriad of doors on Garrett Street. It made her nervous. It didn’t seem right. Perhaps she had developed lowered expectations, but letting your guard down can mean death if you aren’t careful. She hadn’t made it this far by being stupid. The man, dressed in all black, from his shoes to his hat, bowed at her as he walked into the room. Rather than heading for the bed like most of the desperate and sex driven men who came to this room, he walked to the chair at her vanity and gestured at the chair with a relaxed hand, his back still turned to her. “May I?”
She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she simply said “you can take to th’ bed sir, I kno’its what yer here fer”. He didn’t say anything but stood, still gesturing at the chair. “But if’n Ye’d like t’ sit, y’er welcome ta’.” He curiously turned the desktop mirror upward so that it was reflecting the ceiling. Then, he nodded, almost somberly, and slid the chair around to face her and took a seat, his face still shaded by his wide brimmed hat in the dim light. She kept a wide berth of him as she walked across the room, his head following her and she sat on the side of the bed, smoothing the front of her ill fitting dress that she barely bothered to keep tied. Why would you when it was just going to end up on the floor? She didn’t know what to make of this man who acted nothing like what she had come to expect. They sat in silence, and she could feel his unseen eyes peering at her. It made her skin crawl.
Many breaths were passed between them, his discerning face of darkness, she felt, sizing her up in those moments. She had decided not to speak, and eventually, he did that for her.
“My good lady, I will make this simple for you. I do not have want of your…services. That is not why I have come. What I came for was to offer you a proposition. I would like to offer you a way out of here. I have been watching you. You are unhappy and wanting for a lost love. This much I can sense.”
Bonnie’s skin crawled underneath her garments, she was suddenly feeling exposed, though she was full clothed. His voice was soothing and lulling, and quite frankly, it disturbed her.
“My ask is a simple one. I merely wish of you one thing: a simple dance. I so have longed to dance, an haven’t a soul to partake in the act with me. If you dance with me, you shall be free from this…”
He rubbed a line of dust from the surface of the vanity with his finger, and then rubbed it with his thumb as if he was testing the cleanliness of it with disappointment.
“…wretched place.”
Bonnie hated to admit that she was curious. There was alway a catch, her entire life had taught her to be conscious of the deception that people held in their hearts to get what they wanted. She had no doubt that this situation was no different, nothing was this simple. She crossed her legs and propped her elbow on her knee, giving her a place to prop her chin in contemplation. The stranger didn’t move. He just sat there shrouded in darkness and mystery as if he were waiting for her move on the proverbial chessboard. Sensing that it was her turn to speak, she finally responded. With a laugh.
“So let me get this straight. Ye’ cam ‘ere t’ th’ brothel on Garrett Street, paying Madame Blumont fer…a service, an’ ye’ only want a dance from me? Color me doubtful mister, but I cannae believe it’d be that simple. Nottin’ e’er is in this life”.
He man shifted in the chair causing it to creak and leaned forward asserting the thing that he was to say next.
“I assure you my lady, it is that simple. I…loathe these places and you do not belong here.”
Bonnie sat back off of her previously propped head and put her hands on the dusty bedclothes on top of the creaking and well used beds. In the silence, she could hear the other rooms moaning with artificial moans and wails of pleasure. She could hear how much of a parlor trick they were after she had made them herself for so long.
That’s when the music began to play.
Bonnie looked around the room, her mouth slightly agape at what she was hearing. It was music. She instinctively looked toward the window, which was still firmly closed tightly. Her first instincts told her that it must have been coming from outside, but no, it was as if it was coming from…inside. Which was impossible. She looked at the man in black, who silently stood from his chair and pushed it back into place underneath the vanity. He reached out a hand to her and nodded his hatted head toward her and said, almost sweetly, “May I have this dance?”
It was as if she were under a spell, but whatever inhibitions she had had about this man were suddenly…gone. She didn’t know why, but she felt as if he meant her no harm. She stood from the bed with some reluctance, but not enough to stop her. She walked toward the mysterious person in her bedchamber and slowly took his hand. He drew her toward him gently, there was no force to be found in his actions, and there was no reservations in her following his lead. He drew her to his chest. He smelled of bergamot and tea with a hint of perfume. She began to think of William.
Just as she did when she was trying to block her mind from the acts that she was forced to perform under the sheets each night, she allowed her mind to wander to William’s face. His smile and his laugh, the gentleness in which he handled her while helping her across a street back in Dublin Town. Or the care in which he addressed her among others when they were together, treating her as if she were worth the sum of a year’s salary to everyone who would listen. Oh her sweet William.
She raised her hands up and placed one around the waist of the man who she now imagined as William, and he held her other into his outstretched hand and they…danced. The music lulled and they glided across the rough pine floors. She imagined that she was full of grace, the hem of a fancy ball gown effortlessly gliding above the polished floors of a fancy ball. She felt herself being held aloft on a figurative pedestal as the strong arms of her partner guided her in their steps as they danced. She relinquished herself to laying a hand upon his chest and he responded by holding her ever more gently, ever more closely. He felt just like William as they danced for the last time she had done so outside of a pub that they couldn’t afford to enter. The street was their dance floor and the stars were their lights that night. Oh William.
When he leaned in to kiss her neck, her heart fluttered and filled with joy and relief. She thought of William, and it was as if he were there with her in this moment. Her mind saw visions of all of her past transgressions as they melted away and became ether. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a realm of peace and contentment within her mind. She felt happier than she had since she had landed on these cursed shores.
When she awakened the next morning, it was to an incessant banging on her door. Looking around there was no sign of her William, She heard the persistent thud of first a fist banging and then a shoulder on the door as someone was trying to force it open. Bonnie as a result became confused as there were no locks on the doors of Madame Blumont’s house as a firm policy, but nevertheless they pounded and pounded until the door finally gave in and allowed the unwelcome occupants to peer into the room. It was the Madame. Her face was flush with effort, and upon seeing Bonnie’s face, the grimace between her eyebrows deepened further and further into anger.
“And just what kind of witchery is going on here?! We’re you holding this door closed from the inside knowing I was trying to come in? I can’t believe the nerve of ya! I give you food and a place to sleep and…a purpose in this world and you repay me by locking me out?!”
She strode across the room, her ample bosom and undeniable plump size shaking the floor in anger as she approached. She was balling her hand into a fist, and Bonnie didn’t have to wonder what her intent was upon reaching her in this room with no other exit. Bonnie didn’t even think. As Madame Blumont got to her side and raised her fist in anger with every intent of striking some discipline into her, Bonnie, as she was sitting on the bedside upon her entry, simply rolled out of the way mid strike causing the Madame to fall face first onto her bed with a harrumph. Bonnie thought of all of the hatred and harm and embarrassment that this woman had caused her since she arrived at her door a year ago Under the guise of taking care of her. She thought about the acts that she was expected to perform every night, the shame that it had brought her and…she had simply had enough. Bonnie wailed a wail that she had been pinning up for ages and she jumped…on top of the Madame in her vulnerable state after having lost her balance and who now wriggled like a fish out of water upon her bed, attempting to get up. Bonnie saw the look of bewilderment in her eyes as she balled a fist, raised it in anger and intention above her gaping and startled mouth suggesting that she was thinking “how dare you!”. Madame Blumont wasn’t used to defiance, she was used to submission. She began to swing her fists, one following the other in a bludgeon, feeling surprisingly no pain as her fists struck the Madame’s face over and over, feeling bone crunch under her strikes. Then she started to hear the gurgling from her throat as she was choking on her own blood. She didn’t stop until the Madame was stilled.
Bonnie looked upon what was left of her face, a mashed jumble of flesh and broken bone, the blood and swelling disguising any semblance of the over-makeupped face that she took great cares to paint on every morning. All that was left was a horror. A bloody horror. And Bonnie felt relief. She even felt a little proud.
The Blood…
To Bonnie’s eyes, she was fixated on the crimson life that was leaking from multiple places on the now bludgeoned stump of the woman’s once manicured face and jowls. Bonnie felt her heart flutter. She felt joy in seeing the blood. She felt joy in making it. She took her pointer finger and wiped a rivulet of blood from an oozing laceration on what was left of the Madame’s forehead. She looked at it on her finger and watched as it slowly ran down the side of her hand.
And she smiled.
It wasn’t her plan, and it wasn’t an intention that she had decided to perform. When a person is hungry, the things that would disgust you became temptation. It felt more like a reflex as she raised the finger to her lips and licked the blood from it. It tasted of honey and rose water. It tasted of life. At that moment she lost control of any inhibitions and will of her own
That was when she sank her teeth into the woman’s substantial neck as she began to drink.
___________________________________________________________________
It didn’t take much for her to leave the brothel after that. She slept a nap of contentment right on the floor of her room, feeling satisfied and vindicated. She wandered around the house and found a black dress that she quite liked, and she put it on, discarding her soiled and bloody garments in the middle of the entry chamber. When the other girls in the other rooms saw her, they cowered and screeched in fear as they ran into their rooms, slamming their doors between them and Bonnie. She found nobody else in the house, and now all doors were barred against her. She had found a note in her room that simply gave an address. It stated that when she reached that address she would find a dirt road. If she followed that dirt road to the end, she would find a dirt trail that headed up the mountain. At the end of the trail she would find a cabin, and that cabin was hers. It was simply signed “W” at the bottom of the letter. It was all written in a fanciful script that looked like a fancy invitation on a piece of card stock that smelled of bergamot, tea, and perfume. She walked out of the front door and into the night. The moon was high so travel was easy. She had reached the trail before nightfall was halfway over judging by the moon’s height in the winter sky. She felt no cold or no pain. She felt nothing in fact as she walked through the snow in her black dress. She had looked for a mirror in the house but the ones that were once there were now missing. If she had been able to see herself, she would see the dried blood on her face and would’ve understood why everyone that she had encountered had scrambled away from her in fear. She didn’t care. Reaching the cabin, she opened the door and saw a place that was not a prison but looked like home. For the first time since she had last seen her William she wasn’t walking into a cell that she couldn’t escape.
If she had found that mirror, it wouldn’t have given a reflection of her at all. The reflection would have been absent. But if it did give her a reflection, she would’ve seen the two precise bite marks on her neck, right where the stranger had kissed her.