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His Story

Nora McDonald

    “It sure is big, isn’t it?”
    Laura smiled at the scruffy, small boy in the crumpled suit who had suddenly appeared beside her on the bank of the Chicago River. Barely noticeable among the throngs of people gathered there awaiting the start of the Architectural Boat Tour.
    A small boy in a big city.
    And big it was. She’d been completely overawed from the moment she’d gazed upwards from the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, after emerging from the tunnel of streets and overhead railway lines that had obscured her view of the city. Towering. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. Useless words to describe the soaring, dizzying spectacle that surrounded her. The boy was right.
    Big was better.
    A monument in stone to man’s achievements.
    And yet as she’d snaked her way between the tunnel of tall buildings along “The Magnificent Mile”, her flip-flopped feet tiring with every trudge, she was aware of a terrible smallness, sneaking into her soul. It was nothing new. It had come with getting older. Now and then. When she least expected it.
    Small.
    A small person. Who’d led a small life.
    And walking among those soaring skyscrapers she felt it again.
    Small.
    A bit like the boy beside her.
    She couldn’t resist a smile.
    Kids could always be guaranteed to cheer you up she thought.
    He wasn’t worried about being small.
    “It sure is!” she said, staring at the towering skyscrapers lining the banks that seemed to subdue the river before her.
    “Do you like big things?”
    Laura smiled again.
    It was just the sort of thing a small boy would say. Didn’t all small boys want to be big? Have big ideas? And own big things?
    And small girls.
    Hadn’t she had big ideas? To be someone special. Do something amazing.
    And, for a while, in the generation she’d grown up in, it had all seemed possible.
    What had held her back? Other people? Society?
    No. She was under no illusion. It was what held everyone back. In varying degrees.
    Fear.
    So she’d never done big things. Owned big things. Been big. Felt big.
    And now there was a different generation.
    “I don’t know,” she said.
    “Me neither,” he said. “But I’ve seen them!”
    “You have?”
    Laura noted the excitement in the boy’s voice. She smiled at him again.
    “What big things have you seen?”
    “Titanic!” he said, his eyes widening in ever increasing circles.
    Laura’s smile waned slightly.
    “Yes, it was big, wasn’t it?”
    Laura had a mental vision of the ship in the movie.
    He doesn’t look like he would have the money to see a movie, thought Laura. It shows you never can tell.
    “Yes. But I didn’t like it!”
    “You didn’t?”
    Laura was surprised. She hadn’t met a kid yet who hadn’t liked the movie. Or an adult.
    “No, you see, it was partly to blame.”
    “To blame?”
    Laura wasn’t sure she understood the kid’s thinking.
    “For sinking?”
    “No, for the lifeboats.”
    “Ahh!”
    The kid had really been paying attention to the film, thought Laura.
    She knew there had been a lack of lifeboats and that had contributed to a greater loss of life. And so did he. Smart kid.
    “There were too many!” he said.
    “No, you’ve got it wrong!” she said. “There weren’t enough!”
    Perhaps the kid wasn’t so smart after all.
    An angry look washed over the kid’s face.
    “How do you know? You weren’t there!”
    The boy’s voice was accusing. He went on.
    “It was too big, you see. That’s why I don’t like big things.”
    He sure was an unusual kid thought Laura. Different to most of his generation. Didn’t everyone like big things nowadays? Big toys, big houses, big cars, big cruise ships, big shopping malls. Didn’t everyone worship big? Big money, big movie stars, big celebrities.
    I guess he’s like me, thought Laura. Never had anything big. Poor kid.
    She thought back to her childhood. The fear that had stopped her attending dancing classes. And her teenage years. And the fear that had stopped her becoming a journalist.
    “Don’t you have big ambitions? Everyone has big ambitions when they’re small! Don’t you want to be anything? Do anything?”
    Her voice held a note of anger.
    A sad look crawled across the boy’s face.
    “I did have,” he said, “but they were cut short by fear.”
    Laura looked at the boy sternly.
    “Never let fear stop you from doing anything!” she said severely. “If you do, you won’t make it big in this world!”
    “What’s so good about big?” said the boy. “The builder of the Titanic made it big and there were a lot of big, important people on it. Everyone thought it was the biggest ship ever. And it sank.”
    “Yes,” said Laura, taking in the enormity of what he had said, “but maybe a big lesson was learnt from it all. And we’ve never forgotten it. Or the people who died.”
    She lowered her voice respectfully, mindful of the people on the bank of the river who were already starting to board the Architectural Boat Cruise.
    She swallowed fearfully.
    “I’m afraid,” said the boy.
    Laura was about to ask him what he was afraid of when he went on.
    “Just like you’re afraid to get on that boat.”
    Laura stared at the boy angrily.
    How had he known that?
    “I’m not afraid of anything,” she lied.
    She’d come down to the bank of the Chicago River specifically to take the cruise but as she’d approached the boat something had pulled her back. Stopped her. No one else seemed to have the same feeling. Everyone looked happy to take the cruise.
    Was it fear?
    She’d never learnt to swim. It had stopped her enjoying many holidays. Anywhere near water.
    She felt ashamed lying to the boy.
    “I can’t swim,” she admitted.
    “I can,” he said. “But it didn’t help.”
    “It must do,” said Laura. “It must take away fear.”
    “Maybe fear’s a good thing,” said the boy.
    “Never!” said Laura, adamantly, thinking of all her missed opportunities.
    “It can stop you from doing something perhaps you shouldn’t do for some reason.”
    “You mean like getting on that boat.”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s silly. Everyone else is getting on it. They’re not afraid.”
    The boy looked at all the passengers already on the boat.
    “They’re oblivious,” he said. “So many people are oblivious. Like that day. Music playing. Glasses clinking. Crowds jamming the deck. Women and children—————————.”
    The boy broke off.
    Plainly the film had affected him a lot, thought Laura.
    For some reason a deep feeling of depression settled down on her.
    “Crushed. Suffocated. Drowned. Babies – floating on the water. Forgotten.”
    “They aren’t forgotten,” said Laura, gently, thinking perhaps the boy’s parents shouldn’t have let him watch the film.
    “Yes they are. Because they weren’t big. Or wealthy. Or influential.”
    He has to be talking about the steerage passengers, thought Laura.
    The last of the passengers were on the gangplank. Laura knew she’d better hurry if she was going to make the cruise. But her feet didn’t move.
    “Are you going on board?” said the boy.
    No,” said Laura, annoyed at herself. “I’m afraid.”
    “I told you, sometimes fear is a good thing. I was afraid but they said it was all right. The biggest ship. Bigger still with the extra lifeboats.”
    The boy’s got it wrong again, thought Laura. There weren’t extra lifeboats.
    “And they all died. Buried by hundreds of people, pianos, crates. Women, children, babies. And now I’m more afraid. Afraid they’ve been forgotten. Like the money they forgot to pay to the survivors. Because they were small. Unimportant. The big ship went on. The big company prospered. The big payout to the salvage company went through. And everyone forgot. They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want.”
    The kid’s got his facts wrong, thought Laura, but he was right about one thing. All anyone wanted was to be remembered.
    Not lead a small life.
    “They are. You can be sure of that.”
    “I hope so. That’s why I picked you. I hope you can help us.”
    So that’s what it was all about, thought Laura.
    The kid’s a beggar.
    She opened her bag, took out her purse against her better nature and handed the kid a coin. He looked like he needed it.
    “No thank you, it’s no use.”
    The kid didn’t want money! What did he want?
    The ship was pulling out into the middle of the river. Another missed opportunity, thought Laura, already regretting her irrational fear. She turned to the little boy.
    But there was an empty space by her side.
    Her eyes scanned the steps and the bridge above. Nothing. The kid had gone.
    As she trudged back between the big buildings of the “Magnificent Mile” towards her hotel, she thought of the small boy.
    A small life. Like hers. Probably going back to some small seedy apartment on the South Side.
    What did it all mean?
    She flopped on the bed, weary from her mile long trudge, propped up her pillows and settled down with her guide book to Chicago. Big buildings. Big attractions. Big moments. Big celebrities. Only serving to make her feel smaller.
    Like the small boy.
    Where was the history? She’d always liked history. She didn’t know why. After all, wasn’t history only a record of big events?
    No room for smallness.
    There was none.
    She threw the book wearily on the bed, pulled out her laptop and was about to surf the shopping channels when some quirk made her type in Chicago River.
    She subconsciously scrolled down the list of websites that appeared and was about to leave when one word jumped out at her.
    Lifeboats. Under something called Eastland. She clicked on it and started reading. Another word underlined in bold leapt out from the page.
    Titanic.
    It had to be a coincidence.
    She read on————————
    “———the third worst ship disaster in loss of life apart from the Titanic and Sultana. 844 people, mostly women and children lost their life when the steamship “Eastland”, hired by the Western Electric Company to take employees, families and friends to a picnic in Michigan City, Indiana, rolled over and sank at its moorings in the Chicago River. The cause is still open to debate but the Eastland, already top-heavy and prone to listing, had recently had more lifeboats fitted, after widespread public concern over the sinking of the Titanic—————————”
    Laura’s eyes broke away from the print.
    What was it the boy had said when she asked him about “Titanic”?
    “I didn’t like it. No, you see, it was partly to blame. ———for the lifeboats. There were too many.”
    A cold chill filled Laura as she remembered his words.
    “Crushed, suffocated, drowned. Babies – floating on the water. Forgotten.”
    He hadn’t been talking about Titanic!
    He’d been talking about the Eastland!
    But how could he have known?
    Had he been surfing the internet like her?
    And then she recalled his words——————————
    “I was afraid but they said it was all right. The biggest ship. Bigger still with the extra lifeboats.”
    And when she’d said she couldn’t swim, he’d replied.
    “I can but it didn’t help.”
    She read on.
    “A little mandolin and fiddle orchestra played ragtime on the upper deck ——————.”
    Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the boy’s words.
    Music playing. Glasses clinking. Crowds jamming the deck. ————————women and children.”
    The small boy. Had he been one of them?
    Impossible.
    Then she recalled his crumpled suit. Suit? What little boy these days wore a suit?
    “They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want.”
    The boy’s words haunted her.
    And her own.
    “Don’t you have big ambitions? Everyone has big ambitions when they are small! Don’t you want to be anything? Do anything?”
    And his reply.
    “I did have but they were cut short by fear.”
    Had the boy been a ghost? A ghost?
    Had the boy been on the Eastland – in 1915 – when it sank?”
    A small boy on a big ship.
    Drowned.
    No life in a seedy apartment on the South Side.
    A life cut short.
    No life.
    She closed down the computer. Ghost or no ghost.
    It was all so unfair.
    A small life. Extinguished. Forgotten. Amid a big city.
    Like hers would soon be.
    She sat there gazing at the blank wall, her mind numbed with the pain of life. And death.
    And the smallness of it all.
    But there was something else. Something else he’d said.
    If only she could remember.
    Remember. That was it.
    “They just want to be remembered. That’s all they want. That’s all we want. ——————————That’s why I picked you. I hope you can help us.”
    He’d picked her. Was she the only one who had seen him?
    “I hope you can help us.”
    What could she do?
    What had she ever done?
    Hadn’t she been afraid to do anything?
    His words seemed to re-echo.
    “—————————————cut short by fear.”
    She opened the laptop. She’d always wanted to write. But fear had stopped her. Fear of lack of talent. Fear of lack of ideas. Fear of success. Fear of failure.
    She thought of the small life cut short by fear. The small life that didn’t get a chance to be big.
    No life.
    Then she realised.
    It wasn’t about being big. Or small.
    How many people knew about that small boy and the others that perished? They knew about “Titanic”. They knew about the big ship on the big sea with the big and important people on it that sank. That was history. But so was the small boy, the small children, the common people that perished in the middle of a big city so close to the dock. That was his story.
    The time for fear was past. Maybe she could help after all. She’d never know unless she tried. She began to type.
    For now she knew.
    It wasn’t about a big life or a small life.
    It was about a life.
    A life remembered.

 

    First published in The Storyteller.

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