Commerce Street

16 January , 1919. Boston, Massachusetts.

The sailors took turns monitoring the pump. They smoked a hundred cigarettes. They threw rocks at seagulls. They fished and caught nothing.

When the cargo ship was empty, they raised anchor and took off for Barbados, leaving behind a million gallons of molasses, eager and waiting and warm. The tank groaned. And the next morning it burst.

A wave of molasses fifteen feet-high flooded Boston’s North End. Two million gallons released on the city. Sugar-laden trash from the city dump slid into basement windows and arrived on doorsteps like holiday gifts.

Sparrows and crows resting on nearby telephone wires were caught before they could take flight, their trees turned to lollipops. A solitary barn owl sat perched on a light post, the sun shining, as it scanned the streets for fleeing prey.

Three buildings were lifted from their foundations and carried out to sea. So were five automobiles, a train engine, and a wagon packed tight with twenty-two pigs on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Big Tom, the first to die, bobbed along through the debris until the playground near the harbor. Having eluded the seesaw and the swings, he got caught underneath the monkey bars, and the steady current folded him around the ladder like a wet rug.

Two boys on the monkey bars when the tank burst and had made a game of hanging upside-down and dipping bits sandwich into the molasses. But when they noticed his Big Tom’s boot, they went silent.

The braver of the two reached down and freed the body, as it drifted away like a paper boat, a clear shot from the park to the harbor. The boys didn’t eat any more molasses.

The Redfurns were a family of firemen. Four of the five brothers had gone to war together and returned home heroes. The youngest, a good-for-nothing was in jail for dog killing.

But these Redfurn men who bested the Kaiser overseas and tamed the city’s worst fires found themselves stumped: the family horse was drowning.

The eldest brother clambered out the second-story window, slid into the molasses, and looped a sling underneath the horse’s belly. However, just then, a garbage can obstructing the sewer drain dislodged. A whirlpool formed and sucked the eldest Redfurn underneath the surface.

Terrified, the second eldest tied a rope around his own waist and dove after him. He fought the whirlpool until it too dragged him to the bottom.

The third brother lowered a fire ladder into the molasses, descended, and both he and the ladder disappeared.

The fourth brother, distraught and alone, jumped out the window without rope, ladder, or plan of retreat.

Ten feet below the surface, the four brothers lay packed together side by side, their combined mass re-clogging the sewer drain. The weight of the molasses pressed the air from their lungs, and their last breathes joined together to form a single bubble that hovered and would not rise. Nothing escaped the molasses in death; nothing fled upward.

It is important to mention that, like all monsters, the molasses was misunderstood. The noises that sounded from the tank had been groans of desire, not anger. Trapped in container after container, restrained for so long, when the tank finally burst, the molasses’s escape down Commerce Street was euphoric, not vengeful, the destruction it caused clumsy, not malicious. Although it contained within it all the lives lost to rum, all the blood of slaves and taxes traded on its back, and all the old pain mingled with those it drowned and crushed, the fact was that this had been a long time coming it had never felt sweeter.

Walter Redfurn, the youngest, illegitimate, only surviving son of Jack Redfurn didn’t know he had become one without brothers.

Having been arrested for dog-killing--even though he hadn’t killed any dogs--he convinced the guard to let him out of jail on account of the chaos, and now smoked a cigarette and watched a stray tabby cat without a speck on its orange fur.

The cat licked an escaped parakeet half-covered in molasses, hesitant to pick it up, but unwilling to leave it for the barn owl stared down at them from above, waiting. Life was shown to Walter then for what it was: edible.

A crazed horse ran by, scaring the barn owl off, and sending the cat into hiding. The horse thrashed and bucked as Walter chased it down.

The horse kept bucking, but he held on to the bridle, and within minutes Walter was covered in molasses and cursed himself for getting involved.

Walter reached out with his coat sleeve and managed to clear the horse's muzzle. It stopped, snorted, snorted, snorted, until a bubble formed at its nostrils, and Walter wiped it away. He felt its heart calm and give in. “Good girl,” he said, and patted her on the side. “Good girl.”

Molasses into Walter’s eyes and mouth and made him long for salted steak with salted potatoes. He decided to lead the horse toward the harbor where they could both wash off and then figure out where to go.

Salt water would have to do.

He removed the bridle and dragged her toward the boat launch. With a piece of driftwood he scraped half an inch of molasses from her back. He splashed her legs and flank, scrubbed at her cheeks and crest.

As he worked, Walter let himself believe that the horse was his. By cleaning it and caring for its wounds, he hoped this would transfer the horse to him spiritually, if not legally, and they could ride away together as new loyal companions.

The horse turned and, without warning or flourish, bit Walter hard on the shoulder, drawing blood.

The bite was vicious for an animal he had shown such kindness. And yet as Walter cussed and let go of the reigns and prepared to kick the horse in the gut, he stopped himself.

He saw the horse’s torn face and glued useless eyes and knew the transfer of pain had been necessary.

Beneath the horse’s old hide was suffering and fear and, unseen, the Redfurn brand, but also life, and she wanted him to know that she did not blame fate or nature or providence for her pain, but man, and though still a boy, Walter Redfurn was one of those.