The Anarchist by John Smolens Read Free Book Online Page A

his older brother Waldeck. Czolgosz could tell by his sister’s long stride that she was angry, and though Waldeck was taller he was having difficulty keeping up with her. She worked as a maid for a wealthy family in Cleveland and she was still wearing her black uniform with the white lace collar. Her face was so pretty, her waist so small, her breasts full and round.
    “Waldeck says you’re going away again,” she said. “Why, Leon?”
    “Maybe I like trains?”
    No one spoke as he peeled the skin down the rabbit’s back. His brother and sister, repulsed by the smell, kept their distance from the workbench.
    Then, wearily, Victoria raised her arms to her head, removed the pins, and let her long hair down.
“Leon, gdzie idziesz tym razem?”
    “This time? Where am I going
this
time? Chicago?” he said. “Or maybe Buffalo?”
    “Again?”
Waldeck said. “How many times you been to Buffalo this summer? You spend weeks there. You ignore the company of decent women, but I think you go to whorehouses.”
    He looked up at Waldeck. “Tell me you never have.”
    Embarrassed, his brother lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck.
    “You just ain’t been to one in Chicago or Buffalo.” He laughed, but it made him cough again, and he had to inhale slowly until his breathing calmed.
    “What you
should
do is go to a good doctor,” Victoria said. “That catarrh is getting worse. Your lungs sound like they’re drowning in fluid. All the medicine you take doesn’t do a thing. Except make you sleep a lot. You haven’t really worked for, what, three years? You lay about reading all hours of the day.”
    “Maybe I like to sleep? Maybe I like to read?” he said. “And besides, I shot my dinner. I provide for myself. We should all quit our jobs and hunt for our food.” The first rabbit was done and he held it out to them, soft and pink in his greasy hands. “Smooth as a girl’s thigh.” He put the rabbit aside on the bench and took the second one out of his pouch.
    “Well I just think you’re crazy,” Victoria said.
    “That’s because you work for those rich people. You put on that uniform and tuck your hair up under your little cap, and you wait on them, clean their house, polish their silver.”
    “At least I have a
job.”
    “And the sad thing, Victoria, is you believe in it,” he said. “You believe it’s right, it’s good that there are some people who can live like that. But it demeans you, that uniform.” With one swift motion, he cut open the second rabbit. “At least Waldeck understands what I’m talking about. He knows what’s happening to the working people in this country. We’ve only sought the truth. Remember when we sent away for that Bible in Polish? We read the whole thing. Everything the priests hadtold us as boys was a lie—they said expect nothing but pain and sorrow in this life and you shall be rewarded in the next. Catholicism, like capitalism, is just another means of oppressing working people.”
    “Attending socialist meetings isn’t the answer to anything.” Victoria sat on a barrel as though she no longer had the strength to stand.
    “I agree,” Czolgosz said. “I go to the meetings, but socialism isn’t the solution. It’s another system, a yoke designed to harness working men and women.” He began removing the organs. “Anarchists believe in a beautiful absolute: all political systems, all religions, all leaders, all laws enslave people. We need to live free, without restraint. Anarchists ask the hard question: When will we be capable of lifting ourselves up to the point where laws and rules and leaders are no longer necessary?”
    “Leon, they
kill
people,” Victoria said.
    “The right people,” he said. “Like the president of the United States.”
    “They shoot them, stab them, blow them up,” she said.
    “Not you, not me,” he said. “Only the kind of people you work for.”
    “It’s still murder,” Waldeck said. “They’re criminals,