Oliver O’Toole (Woodside Dickens)

Among other public buildings in Long Island City, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, the 108th Police Precinct.

In this jail was born, on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble by an emergency medical technician, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the literature of any age or country.

Although I am not saying being born in a jail is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver O’Toole that could by possibility have occurred.

The fact is, there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favor of the latter.

Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time.

There being nobody by, however, but a jailhouse matron, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer; and an ambulance driver who did such matters by contract; Oliver and Nature fought it out between them.

The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to all in the?jailhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the neighborhood, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter.

As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his lungs, the patchwork of covers which were carelessly flung over the iron bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words, “Let me see the child, and die.”

The ambulance driver went to the sink: giving the palms of his hands warm water and a rub of disinfectant alternately.

As the young woman spoke, he approached, and advancing to the bed’s head, said, with more kindness than might have been expected of him:

“Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.”

“Lor bless her dear heart, no!” interposed the jailhouse matron, hastily stuffing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction.

“Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have and had thirteen children of her own, and all on ’em dead except two, and them in jail with me, she’ll know better than to take on in that way, bless her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother, there’s a dear young lamb do.”

Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother’s prospects failed in producing its due effect.

The patient shook her head, and stretched out her hand towards the child.

The ambulance driver deposited it in her arms.

She imprinted her cold white lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face; gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back—and died.

They chafed her breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever.

They talked of hope and comfort.

They had been strangers too long.

“It’s all over, Mrs. Flanagan!” said the ambulance driver at last.

“Ah, poor dear, so it is!” said the jailhouse matron, picking up the cork of the green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to take up the child.

“Poor dear!”

“You needn’t mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,” said the ambulance driver, putting on his gloves with great deliberation.

“My responsibility ends here. Give it liquids if you can.”

He put on his jacket, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door, added, “She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?”

“She was brought here last night,” replied the old woman, “by a judge’s order. She was found lying in the street. She had walked some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.”

The ambulance driver leaned over the body, and raised the left hand.

“An old story,” he said, shaking his head: “no wedding-ring. Sad. Good-night!”

The ambulance driver left; and the jailhouse matron, having once more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair, and proceeded to dress the infant.

For the moment anyway, Oliver was most appropriately dressed!

Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar.

In that outfit it would have been difficult to guess Oliver’s proper station in society.

But after being enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and put into his place at once: a jailhouse orphan.

His half starved little body was immediately institutionalized — to be forever despised by all, and pitied by none.

Oliver cried lustily.

If he knew he was an orphan, now left to the tender mercies of wardens and overseers at Saint Vincent's Boys Home in Brooklyn, perhaps he would have cried the louder.

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