collects his
bags and his trunk, and disembarks. At midday, a languor has settled over the
port. Sunlight filters through a high haze, a breeze whips in from the bay.
Clang of ships’ bells, slap of waves, squeak of tightly drawn rope around wood.
Ah, London, how he recalls those sounds, his night walks along the piers.
By
God, his head aches. He lights a ciggie, inhales deeply. His stomach rolls
over. Another shot of puma piss would put him right. But the old cowboy has
vanished as surely as his invisible companion.
“Porter,”
Daniel calls, extracting coins from his coat pocket. “Where’s the ferry bound
for San Francisco?”
“You’ll
be wantin’ the Chrysapolis , sir, and a lovely steamer she is, too,” says
the porter, a stringy old man in a cap and a rumpled uniform. He flashes an
abundance of gold teeth. A failed prospector? If the porter had been a
youngster during the Gold Rush—and many Forty-niners were just kids—he could
very well have scratched around in those golden-brown hills, panned the
streams. Taking only a taste of fortune with him--a mouthful of gold teeth.
“Take
me there.” Daniel scowls, his headache deepening. He can see it--the
stringy porter’s years of searching, the frustration, his ultimate failure.
Perhaps the porter wasn’t so stringy then. Perhaps he’d been a robust young man
like Daniel. That is what failure does--wrings you out, plucks at your bones,
sucks you dry. A failed man is a loathsome thing. And Father? Why, the eminent
Jonathan D. Watkins, he is a failure, too.
“Sir,
she don’t depart till half past three,” the porter says apologetically, unsure
how he may have offended the young gentleman.
“Half
past three! What in heaven’s name am I to do till then?”
“If
you please, sir, the sights along the promenade is quite nice.” The porter
points to where Miss Cameron and Miss Brownstone stroll arm-in-arm beside the
rocks strewn along the steep grade of the beach.
“I
think not.” Holy Rollers, indeed.
“Perhaps
a gentleman like yourself would like to seek some refreshment?” The porter
points in the opposite direction where sailors slouch about the docks and the
murmur of distant merriment can be heard.
Refreshment.
Exactly. Daniel hands more coins to the porter. “You shall watch my bags while
I seek refreshment. And you shall come and fetch me when the Chrysapolis is ready to depart. Understand me?”
“Oh,
yes, sir. Very good, sir. That way, sir.”
Daniel
stalks along the waterfront, loosening his tie and collar. Get a hold of
yourself, sir. Why should he be so disquieted by a porter? There is no such
thing as equality, his friends in London say. You Americans are deluded if you
believe in such nonsense. There are those who are superior, those who are
inferior, and that is that. Yet the porter—if he truly is a failed prospector
in more than Daniel’s imagination—is no different than Father. No different at
all. In the whole scheme of things, they are truly equal.
Father
fancied himself so clever. A friendship with a rich British lady during one of
Mama’s many illnesses had enlightened him. Father realized that America’s
rebellion could be turned to his advantage. This was the New World, replete
with land and resources, cheap labor and huge ambitions. Funds were all the
aspiring grubbers lacked. And funds, capital, gold could be secured from the
old merchant families, royalty, continental capitalists hungry for higher
returns, all eager to exploit the peasants and criminals and reprobates who
were beating out a new life for themselves in this New World.
Consider
the beauty of it. You loan the wretches money against their homes, their land,
their businesses. Let them think they’ve won their freedom, then reinstate
their servitude not by force, king, or country, but by debt.
This
was part and parcel of Father’s insidious propaganda. If the strident
communists and the clamoring workingmen infesting Europe are worrying you,
bags and his trunk, and disembarks. At midday, a languor has settled over the
port. Sunlight filters through a high haze, a breeze whips in from the bay.
Clang of ships’ bells, slap of waves, squeak of tightly drawn rope around wood.
Ah, London, how he recalls those sounds, his night walks along the piers.
By
God, his head aches. He lights a ciggie, inhales deeply. His stomach rolls
over. Another shot of puma piss would put him right. But the old cowboy has
vanished as surely as his invisible companion.
“Porter,”
Daniel calls, extracting coins from his coat pocket. “Where’s the ferry bound
for San Francisco?”
“You’ll
be wantin’ the Chrysapolis , sir, and a lovely steamer she is, too,” says
the porter, a stringy old man in a cap and a rumpled uniform. He flashes an
abundance of gold teeth. A failed prospector? If the porter had been a
youngster during the Gold Rush—and many Forty-niners were just kids—he could
very well have scratched around in those golden-brown hills, panned the
streams. Taking only a taste of fortune with him--a mouthful of gold teeth.
“Take
me there.” Daniel scowls, his headache deepening. He can see it--the
stringy porter’s years of searching, the frustration, his ultimate failure.
Perhaps the porter wasn’t so stringy then. Perhaps he’d been a robust young man
like Daniel. That is what failure does--wrings you out, plucks at your bones,
sucks you dry. A failed man is a loathsome thing. And Father? Why, the eminent
Jonathan D. Watkins, he is a failure, too.
“Sir,
she don’t depart till half past three,” the porter says apologetically, unsure
how he may have offended the young gentleman.
“Half
past three! What in heaven’s name am I to do till then?”
“If
you please, sir, the sights along the promenade is quite nice.” The porter
points to where Miss Cameron and Miss Brownstone stroll arm-in-arm beside the
rocks strewn along the steep grade of the beach.
“I
think not.” Holy Rollers, indeed.
“Perhaps
a gentleman like yourself would like to seek some refreshment?” The porter
points in the opposite direction where sailors slouch about the docks and the
murmur of distant merriment can be heard.
Refreshment.
Exactly. Daniel hands more coins to the porter. “You shall watch my bags while
I seek refreshment. And you shall come and fetch me when the Chrysapolis is ready to depart. Understand me?”
“Oh,
yes, sir. Very good, sir. That way, sir.”
Daniel
stalks along the waterfront, loosening his tie and collar. Get a hold of
yourself, sir. Why should he be so disquieted by a porter? There is no such
thing as equality, his friends in London say. You Americans are deluded if you
believe in such nonsense. There are those who are superior, those who are
inferior, and that is that. Yet the porter—if he truly is a failed prospector
in more than Daniel’s imagination—is no different than Father. No different at
all. In the whole scheme of things, they are truly equal.
Father
fancied himself so clever. A friendship with a rich British lady during one of
Mama’s many illnesses had enlightened him. Father realized that America’s
rebellion could be turned to his advantage. This was the New World, replete
with land and resources, cheap labor and huge ambitions. Funds were all the
aspiring grubbers lacked. And funds, capital, gold could be secured from the
old merchant families, royalty, continental capitalists hungry for higher
returns, all eager to exploit the peasants and criminals and reprobates who
were beating out a new life for themselves in this New World.
Consider
the beauty of it. You loan the wretches money against their homes, their land,
their businesses. Let them think they’ve won their freedom, then reinstate
their servitude not by force, king, or country, but by debt.
This
was part and parcel of Father’s insidious propaganda. If the strident
communists and the clamoring workingmen infesting Europe are worrying you,
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