Betsey Culp

Long before a bright orange bridge spanned the Golden Gate, long before tourists lined up to take the ferry to Alcatraz, long before Angela Alioto imagined the construction of a national shrine of St. Francis in North Beach, men and women came to San Francisco in search of old promises and new beginnings. This is the story of one of them.

In those days, guns ringed Alcatraz Island, facing outward. Three soldiers sat at the base of the largest, their dark blue coats unbuttoned in the afternoon heat. The soldier in the middle stretched out his legs and leaned back.

“D’ye know, Simon, I don’t think I’d mind if the war went on forever.”

As he spoke, the sun washed over his face. It carved shadows into his cheeks and made his dark mustache glisten.

Simon Kennedy, the soldier to his left, angled up his long legs so that his feet rested on the step just below where he was sitting. He turned to look at his friend and settled his right arm comfortably on the top of the brick embankment.

“That’s just grand, Jamie. I’m sure Mister Lincoln will be glad to know how you feel. He’s likely to be so pleased, he’ll send you one of those bright, shiny medals with the pretty ribbons hanging down.”

The third soldier was much younger than the other two. He sat to the right, a little apart, with his hands folded stiffly in his lap.

“I don’t care what you fellows say, I wish the war’d end tomorrow. I’ve spent long enough sitting around waiting for a battle that’s never going to happen. If I don’t get out of here pretty soon, I’ll be too old to lay my hands on some of the money that’s floating around California. Anyway, the two of you better be careful how you talk, or they’ll run you in as Secesh sympathizers and you’ll find yourselves stuck in the guardhouse until the war’s over.”

The guardhouse stood on the opposite side of the island. There criminal and political prisoners crowded into the basement, a dark, narrow room reached only by a trapdoor from the floor above. At this time of year someone peering out of its musket-slit windows could see the dried, yellow grass on the Contra Costa hills.

Simon leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“No, thank you. Rob, I’ve spent too many nights cooped up below deck in the doghole. I’d rather go down fighting than go back to quarters like that.”

He breathed deeply, as though driving foul air from his lungs. It was one of those days when the sky seemed to sparkle, and the air about him smelled clean and faintly moist. He looked at the big gun overhead, letting his eyes travel along its entire length. It pointed directly west. In its line of fire, twin cliffs stood tall on either side of the Golden Gate, completely dwarfing the three-story, brick casemates of Fort Point to the left. He looked out through the open water of the gate. Beyond was nothing, nothing but the blue Pacific Ocean stretching on forever.

Simon remembered the day he first came into San Francisco Bay. Although the fog had begun to lift, it still hung cold and gray about the lighthouses. Through it, he could see rolling sand dunes, broken here and there by the dark green of scrubby plants. A fierce wind spattered spray across the deck, soaking through his sweater and chilling his hands.

His ship entered the bay and anchored just off Alcatraz. As Simon tried to peer through the riggings that stood like a burned-out forest between him and the city, a small boat pulled alongside. Several foul-smelling men climbed aboard. Their pockets bulged with bottles of whiskey and pictures of plump young women, which they passed among the crew. Simon drank eagerly and examined the pictures with solemn curiosity. Suddenly he felt his head grow befuddled, and his knees refused to hold his legs properly. Even before the ship was made fast, he followed one of the men over the side into a waiting skiff. There he sat stupidly as he was rowed to the entrance of a waterfront boarding house. For the next several days, he was aware of little except the taste of cheap whiskey, accompanied by a bitter aftertaste he could not identify.

Simon turned back and followed the line of the gun in the opposite direction. New white buildings dotted the island. There had been nights when the fog completely engulfed them, hiding even the lighthouse on the southern tip, but on this afternoon even the wispiest clouds had vanished. A gentle breeze stirred the bean hills in the vegetable garden. Butterflies visited the snapdragons and marigolds, and a bird sang overhead.

As he listened to the waves whispering below, Simon agreed with Jamie. In all his life, he had never been so happy. He blessed the day that, head pounding and mouth tasting of mold, he stumbled into the army recruiting station on Davis Street. He had known then that this was his one chance to break out of the cycle that had held him for the past eight years. With shaking hands, he signed the enlistment papers and accepted the bounty. With that money, he could pay off the crimps and sailing masters. He could free himself forever from attacks by bucko mates, from meals of rancid bacon and weevil-ridden biscuits, from typhoons and windless days when the water tanks had gone dry.

The army had saved him. For the first time since he had become a man, he could look forward to three meals a day and a dry mattress at night. True, he had to stand guard for hours at a time, but against what? An occasional British cruiser that forgot to identify itself? His rifle was well oiled and his bayonet was polished, but he felt certain that he would never have to use them.

Simon knew that the other soldiers considered him withdrawn and unfriendly, but he did not care. Years of avoiding the blows of holystones and belaying pins had created an attitude of constant suspicion. The sight of beatings and even murders for a few pieces of beef jerky hade mad him wary of the people around him. He did not need to make friends. Yet, almost in spite of himself, he had grown close to Jamie Fitzgerald.

Continued…

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