CHAPTER TEN- BANAGHT LATH GU VEKE, MEH, HU' (a blessing on you till I see you again)

    The house still wrapped in shroud of night, that old infernal cock. The rusting feathered ancient bird, shook his drooping comb. Jumping from the roof above, to waiting hemlock tree, wresting from my peaceful sleep, Awake! kir-kir-ee-kee

   On September 10, 2001 I got in my car and headed into the city to meet up with a married woman I had been seeing, broken up with, and was now considering restarting the whole mess all over again. I’ve resisted exploring in print my twisted, dysfunctional relationships with women for good reason. All the drama has thankfully subsided and been left behind; replaced by a long, loving and mutually supportive run with Mrs. Osterhout. Ancient history. But as I approached that notch in the Shawangunk ridge where Washington Irving and Martin Van Buren once stood, my love life was a disaster.

    Cresting the ridge, a piece of paper hit my windshield…..then another…..and another. I looked to the left to see where the trash was coming from. In the westbound lane I saw the source of the blizzard of monthly reports and flying spreadsheets. An overturned car, its wheels still spinning, was blocking both lanes of traffic. The driver laid face down, sprawled out alongside the median. No traffic was coming in either direction. It was on me. Fuck. I pulled over and ran to the injured man. Because I had recently gotten my hunting guide’s license I’d just taken a CPR course. I thought I knew way more than I actually did. I felt the artery on his neck with my finger and was encouraged. My heart was pumping so hard I thought I felt a pulse. He was alive! When I turned him over his blank eyes told another story. He was dead.

     A massive line of thunderstorms blew through Manhattan that night; as we rekindled something that should’ve been left long extinguished. I didn’t get home to Glen Wild until 5:00 am the next morning. I had been working on the upper east side of Manhattan and would have had to turn around and drive right back into the city to make it to the job site by 8:00 am. I chose to blow off work and crash. The phone woke me out of a deep slumber a little before 9:00. It was my father. He’d been watching the morning TV shows and was concerned that I was in town, “in that mess.” I had no idea what he was talking about. As I was explaining to him why I was home on a workday, and that I was seeing “that woman” again, the second plane hit the South Tower.         

  

   By September of 1839 Austin Reed had been incarcerated for seven of his seventeen years. He’d learned the ticks, nods and finger pops of those who were forced to remain silent at the Refuge or face the omnipresent cat-o-nine-tails. On his previous “vacations” to the outside he’d indulged in every form of vice that had been availed to a young man in the city. Schooled by his beloved “fellow Irishman” in crime, he was more than ready to hold his own in his bohunk hometown of Rochester. 

        At this point in his narrative, Austin Reed began to fuse with his literary alter ego “Rob Reed.” As the editors point out, inmate #1221 (Reed) is described by House of Refuge officials as “a most notorious liar.” So, as with William Henry Seward, we have to tread lightly. Much is true. More is fiction. Finally free of the constraints and perverse abuses of Rev. Terry and the harried pursuits of Constable Hays, Rob (Austin) could breath a sigh of relief, cock his hat, feet on the table, lean back in his chair, light a cigar and smile. Austin Reed’s trip back to his hometown of Rochester was a welcome relief. The scars left from the bloody floggings were healed over, the clasp knife and pistol, sat snuggly in his coat pocket, as the pretty girls flocked around him from all sides. Go ahead talk. Nobody cared. SILENCE was no longer enforced. Words burst forth. The world was his oyster and he would enjoy it for a change. But only for a moment….. 

     Between card games and helping prostitutes roll johns, Reed declares a well-earned break from the institution. But as could be predicted, it wouldn’t last long. The beautiful French whore, the “swell” out of his depth, the sultry afternoon with drinks and a bed in the back, would have to be accounted for. And once again, if the punishment really fit the crime the accounting would not have been so cruelly severe. Had Reed been free, and white he probably would’ve found his way back into society, joined a community unmolested, and resumed a low-key productive life. But young “mulatto” Austin Reed was still running past his father’s grave (death bed admonishing ringing in his ears) the law nipping at his heels. He would never remain free for long.

      The den of infidels and sabbath-breakers, boys like Reed, had to be incised from the community. Along with mass incarceration, a civil police force was emerging in America and Austin Reed was just the kind of prisoner they were looking for— young, black and for the moment—free.  

    The letter to Rev. Terry from Governor Seward was ignored. The children in question remained “missing.” As Reed noted later from the inside of Auburn Prison, even the great Seward had no power to change some things. As his brothers enjoyed the services of indentured children, the progressive Governor of the State of New York couldn’t seem to get a child released from The House of Refuge, or pencils and paper allowed in prison. 

    Escape was the only option for those suffering under the cat or falsely accused. Small town gaols orThe House of Refuge weren’t that difficult to bust out of, but staying out of the system was another matter entirely. And that system was designed by the rich and powerful Livingstons, Van Rensselaers, Clintons, and Sewards. When Seward took office the anti-rent wars in the Catskills were just starting to percolate; the education system was a draconian mix of religion, segregation and the police forces and prison systems were  growing cottage industries, echoing chattel slavery. 

    None of the these tenant wars, decisions on slavery or education legislated by Seward had any impact on Hodges, Freeman, or Reed. These were white farmers’ and elite politicians’ problems, not those of two young men of color who had been incarcerated since they were children, or an old black convict with his faculties possibly slipping away. These inmates had no concept of private property, other than what was smuggled into their cells or denied them as a matter of policy.