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| Dew, Leaf, Ballast - Point of Rocks, MD 1997 JMS |
They didn't choose to be bonded, but bonds can have a way of imposing themselves on the unsuspecting. Sometimes the bond chooses you. Fifteen-year old Stephanie Steinquist was about a year from becoming Stymie Stonewrist when she began her seven-hour shift at the the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in Greenwich Village on Saturday, March 25th, 1911. A few blocks away, Albert Huffheinz, who would later be called Ol' Stiffpants, was struggling to obtain his father's death certificate from the coroner's office. His mother was working a sewing machine on the 8th floor at Triangle Shirtwaist, one row behind Stephanie.
There was a fire. The stairwell doors were locked. The lone fire escape was not up to the task of stewarding all of the factory workers - mostly women and girls - to safety. 146 of them died, including the recently-widowed Mrs. Huffheinz. Young Stephanie survived - rather miraculously - with a broken and subsequently improperly-set wrist, several lacerations, and an undiagnosed concussion. She also suffered profound survivor's remorse, and although she had barely known Mrs. Huffheinz, she went to sit Shiva with the woman's family for several days following her discharge from the hospital. That was where she met Albert.
There wasn't much said, sitting Shiva with the grieving family and friends, but after a couple of days, when the older Huffheinz women began to quietly converse, Albert sat next to Stephanie and gestured at her plaster-wrapped wrist. "You were there? You worked with Ma?"
She nodded sadly. "I didn't know her very well, but she seemed swell," she whispered. "She always had the older ladies in stitches."
"Ha!" Albert's laugh surprised him as much as it did his fellow mourners, some of whom regarded him with a mild, give-the-kid-a-break-he's-an-orphan-now disapproval. "'In stitches!' She was a seamstress! That's funny. You're funny."
She stared at the floor for a moment. "I'm... I didn't mean to be funny..."
"It's okay," he assured her. "Ma was a hoot, and I promise you, she woulda laughed and laughed at the stitches bit. "I'm Albert." He took her hand and shook it gently.
"Stephanie," she said softly. "I'm awful sorry about your mother - well, and your father, too. I'm just dreadfully sorry."
"My uncle says I'm getting all of my sad things out of the way early, so that the rest of my life can be peaceful and happy."
"That would be nice. I'd say you've earned it," she offered tentatively.
"I don't know. My uncle drinks a lot. Say, how'd you get out of there - if you don't mind my asking? I know those bastards kept the doors locked - they all do."
She looked at the floor again, then looked up at him, then quickly looked away. "I don't think I'm ready to talk about it," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize. I'm sorry to pry."
"When I'm ready to talk about it, you'll be the first to know."
Over the next six months, they became best friends. She found another job at a similar garment factory, doing her best to supplement the meager incomes her parents earned as line cook and bookkeeper at a Greene Street steak house. Albert, too old for the orphanage, went from one menial job to the next. When not working, they spent countless hours visiting and gossiping and commiserating and walking and people-watching. Their friendship even survived a brief ill-advised foray into romance, which they quickly and decisively declared was not to be.
She was a sturdy girl, and had learned to fight in the sweatshops. He was short and slight, and not at all a fighter, and on more than one occasion she had helped him fend off bullies and would-be muggers. "Why'd you do that," he'd protest, "I coulda handled 'em." She always said, "I know, but it's the least I can do," which puzzled him.
Then, Albert read a book about hoboes. He quickly became obsessed with their lifestyle, their culture, their oddly humanitarian code of conduct, and their freedom. With a promise to return and tell her all about it on the first anniversary of the Shirtwaist fire, he left New York City in a boxcar bound for Buffalo. "If you don't show up at that memorial, mister, I'm coming looking for you - and if anything happens to me, won't you be just the saddest!"
He did not show up at the ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fire. She scoured all of Washington Square Park. He was not there. She even saw his uncle, who could offer little more than to shrug a helpless "We haven't heard from him." Inside her, panic and resolve engaged in a rousing bout of fisticuffs, with resolve emerging victorious. "Swell. I suppose I'm a hobo now," she growled, stomping away.
"He goes by 'Ol' Stiffpants' now," the uncle shouted helpfully after her. "Something like that, anyway."
"Thanks. If you see him, tell him I'm heading to Buffalo, and I'm gonna call myself, um... Stymie. Yeah - Stymie Stonewrist."
She followed the New York Central back and forth across the state, and struggled terribly for the first few months. She was assaulted - mostly by non-hoboes like cops and railroad workers. She was bitten by police and other dogs, harassed in towns, robbed, and worse. She learned as she went. She developed calluses. A lot of calluses. And she asked every hobo she met if they knew Ol' Stiffpants. For months, the answer was no. Then, at a junction outside of Albany, the answer was yes.
"I heard of that fella," an extra-dirty and profoundly stinky hobo named Jack Skunk told her. "New kid. Little guy. Jewish, from the city.
"That's him! Do you know where he might be - or where he might be headed?" she asked, with hope in her heart for the first time in ages.
Jack Skunk laughed hard. "He rides the Pennsy, not the New York Central. Sorry miss - you're on the wrong railroad."
"Well, shit."
It took several more months, but on November 1st, 1912, she found him. That is, he found her. She was sharing a camp just south of Buffalo with a few other hoboes, and had inadvertently looked at Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick in just the wrong way, and was a half-second from getting good and stabbed - quick. A little blur of a man leapt from the darkness and kicked Ol' Barb's knife from her hand and sent it spinning off into the woods.
"Come with me," he ordered, as Stymie's assailant raced after her wayward blade.
"Albert??" she shrieked as he nearly dragged her away from the camp.
"It's Ol' Stiffpants, ma'am," he started. "Wait. Stephanie? Is it you??"
"I go by Stymie Stonewrist now," she said breathlessly as they ran. "I can't believe I found you - sort of - I've been looking for you since March!"
"I know. I'm sorry. If it helps, I've been looking for you since March, too. I got to the anniversary ceremony a couple hours too late."
"I wish you hadn't saved me from that crazy stabby lady, though. Now I owe you TWO life debts."
"What?"
They ran a mile or so, then found a suitable bridge, under which they lit a small fire and huddled together and cried and hugged and tried kissing again and this time it kind of worked. And they shared their respective stories of rookie hobo trial and error and more trial, and eventually slept.
In the cold light of morning, with Lake Erie lapping at the nearby shore, a southbound train of empty coal hoppers thundered through the woods and over the trestle that sheltered them. Albert Ol' Stiffpants Huffheinz snapped awake and reached for his soul mate. She wasn't there, but she hadn't gone far. She sat on a fallen tree near the lake's edge, watching the little waves. He approached her cautiously, making sure to snap a couple of twigs as he walked. He stopped. He reached for her shoulder.
"Morning," she said. "Mind if I walk with you a while, Ol' Stiffpants?"
"I'd like that," he said without hesitation. "Stymie... Stonewrist, is it?"
"Yeah - on account of my wonky wrist. I kind of made it up on the spot." she turned to face him and smiled. "I'm ready to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"How I survived the fire."
"Oh. You don't have to," he said softly, taking her hands.
She inhaled deeply. "No, I think I should. It's okay. So, I was on the fire escape with the others when it collapsed. Your mother was there. She had pulled me and another girl out with her - practically dragging us by our hair - and almost as soon as we got on the fire escape, it broke free and we were falling, falling. Everyone screamed and fell. I held onto a piece of metal that swung down a few floors against the building, then hit a window ledge, and then, well..." She took another deep breath as Albert squeezed her hands. "I landed on your mother. She saved my life, and I think I killed her. I'm so sorry."
Albert stifled an odd sort of laugh, and wrapped his arms around her. "I have no doubt that she saved you, my dear, but you must believe me when I tell you that it was the pavement that killed her, not you."
She looked up at him. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely certain, and I will thank her every day for that, as long as I live."
"So will I," she whispered. They held each other for hours - or seconds, who could tell? Finally she said, "I assume the 'Ol'' is on account of your prematurely-greying temples, but what's the 'Stiffpants' part about?"
Ol' Stiffpants sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in her embrace. "I'm not ready to talk about that. But when I am, you'll be the first to know."
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