by Chip Jacobs
Of course, Nick didn’t need to triangulate to get where he was headed. His ears were his compass, the distant banging and sawing his magnetic north. Knowing he was close, he pushed Mrs. Cleveland to a light trot through the thinning canopy of oaks and sycamores.
And there it lay, barely a quarter done, already resplendent. Nick’s brain went woozy, basking in the scale of Pasadena’s astounding creation.
To him, the three finished arches protruding over the gorge could’ve been the chassis of a luxury ocean liner under construction in dry dock; the open spandrel columns bracing them suggested cathedral windows only missing stained-glass; the scaffolding crisscrossing the next span was the lattice of an Atlantic City roller coaster, albeit between the Arroyo’s granite walls. This must’ve been how Parisians felt watching the Eiffel Tower monopolize the French skyline. The bridge was a New World declaration: reinforced concrete could conquer anything.
As Mrs. Cleveland stood there dumbly, Nick sat listening, enraptured by the cold-slurry colossus. It was a dreamer’s percussion: carpenters pounding nails into wooden frames, wire cutters snipping rebar in snappy clicks. Around them, horses whinnied as they levered into the air telephone-pole-size timber required for framing. The diesel-powered mixer churning gravel, sand, and cement into soupy concrete was sweet music of its own: chunka chunka chunka.
Nick yearned to get closer. Needed to get closer. Intended to get closer. But a boy on the hill couldn’t contain himself.
The kid, pallid and shaggy under his tweed cap, stood next to his mother, disinterested in Pasadena’s ambitious roadway. He yawned watching its robotically operated dumpcart ferry concrete to men perched on planks a hundred feet up.
His mother, who wore a black, Victorian dress and stacked her ash-brown hair in a bun, tried engaging her ten-year-old, anyway. She asked him if Jules Verne, whose stories of stealthy submarines and whirlybird airships the child read by oil lamp, would approve of such derring-do? Stiffly, he answered, “I guess,” and took an indifferent lick of his chocolate ice-cream cone.
After an absent-minded glimpse into the ravine, he was a different boy. He started pointing at the valley floor, feet dancing in place. It was an ostrich that turned his ennui to giddiness—an ostrich ridden by a smiling man. Had that dumpcart sprouted wings and flown toward the sun, Icarus-like, he wouldn’t have cared.
“Mother, over there! Look. That’s, that’s uh, uh, an ostrich, a real-life ostrich. They say they can outrun horses. You showed me one in a picture book.”
“I suppose it is, love,” his mother said.
“Is it from the farm you promised to take me to once I got better? Pretty please: may I ride it? Who knows if the creature will ever return?”
“Reginald, you’ll do no such thing,” she said sternly. “You’ll finish your treat and we’ll catch the trolley home and wait to tell your father the happy news.”
Terming Reginald’s news “happy” did no justice to its enormity, though that’s the way parents spoke to cocoon terror. What they learned that day was a monumental relief, ten thousand prayers answered. Reginald did not have tuberculosis, which his mother trembled he did when he coughed up yellow loogies for the last few months. It was only mild bronchitis.
“Be grateful,” said the jug-eared pediatrician, after he listened to Reginald’s chest through his stethoscope and barraged his mother with questions about whether he suffered nocturnal sweats or weight loss. “The Sword of Damocles spared your son.” His examining room was inside a medical boardinghouse operated by the altruistic Emma Bang. The humble, two-story building was perched off Orange Grove on an embankment diagonal to the bridge.
But Reginald wouldn’t be consigned to it, separated from his family to recover, if possible, in the antiseptic, “busted lung ward” Mrs. Bang ran on the upper floor. He needed only fresh air, ginger, and parental decompression. Buy him a cone to toast what should be a normal life span, the doctor said. After nearly hugging him to death, his mother did.
Her hot tears of bliss were dry memory after Reginald caught wind of Nick’s ostrich. Without asking permission a second time, he tore away from her, careening down the trail toward the clearing where Nick was watching men swinging from ropes. In his zeal for a ride, Reginald was barely conscious of dropping his ice cream, or his mother’s panicky screams.
“Hey, hey, hey, mister,” Reginald shouted, arms flapping, getting close. “Can I have a turn? How hard can it be? I’ll be careful.”
Mrs. Cleveland, afforded a human voice, would’ve said, “Stay the hell away.” Not only was she drained from the day’s exertions but those incessant hammers and rumbling machines made her jumpier than the trains unloading tourists at Cawston. Her love of Nick notwithstanding, a construction zone wasn’t her idea of pasture. It was her idea of a madhouse.
Reginald’s approach, hence, was her excuse to dash off, and she bolted west toward a clump of overgrown oaks with a first step that Olympian Jim Thorpe would’ve admired. Nick could only swoop his arms around her neck to keep from being thrown backward. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whooooa, girl!” he pleaded to negligible effect.
By the eighth “whoa,” she was rocketing toward a shady picnic area west of the bridgework, where she had pecked before for seeds, leaves, and other morsels for her gizzard. She’d sedate herself there by eating her feelings; though, it should be noted, that ostriches, the planet’s largest bird, are as perpetually hungry as they are dimwitted and incapable of flying.
Problem was, Mrs. C was coming in too hot, despite Nick jerking on her neck to reduce her speed. Whack. The pinewood picnic table she collided with only vibrated. The large, wire cage resting on top of it—the one imprisoning thirty-seven South American jungle parrots—was lighter. The impact bumped the cage off the table, pitching it into the dirt. The latch door immediately busted open, and the phosphorescent-green, strident-throated parrots capitalized. They flew the coop in a jailbreak, soon forming into an arrowhead-shaped formation circling the bridge.
A hunched-over coot in a ratty jacket jogged over, zipping up his pants after taking a leak. Realizing his black-market profits were gone, he shook with anger. “You just cost me fifty dollars, you simp,” he yelled. Those parrots didn’t wander in.” He threw his arms around his head, then stomped a muddy boot. “I’m expecting remuneration. Unless you want to be coughing blood.”
Nick, unsure of what he interrupted, sat dumbfounded on Mrs. C’s back. The animal trafficker was less passive. He reached down and extracted from his sock a ten-inch Bowie knife.
“There’s no need for that,” Nick said, goading Mrs. C to retreat ten yards. “It was an accident. And you don’t want to rile her. She’s got a mean kick.”
“Don’t think of scampering off,” he said, spittle on his lips. “The transaction you ruined was months in the making.”
“Apologies, sir. We didn’t mean any harm. A boy spooked her.”
“Your varmint, your trouble,” he said. “I ain’t an aristocrat. I gotta eat.” To underscore his wrath, he reared back and flicked his wrist, chucking his glinting hunting knife at Nick.
By the time Nick ducked behind Mrs. C’s reedy neck for protection, the blade hooked to the left, landing in an azalea bush. Either the coot misaimed it on purpose or something else, a sudden gust, perhaps, saved Nick from being impaled. This wasn’t his time of dying. “Thank you, God,” he mumbled.
Another man now appeared from the grove. The coot’s partner in crime was considerably younger, with a weaselly nose and a cooler demeanor. “That should teach you to respect others’ property,” he said, trying to justify his associate’s knife-throw as a warning shot. He picked up the empty parrots’ container, in which a tuft of dislodged feathers remained, and then dropped it. His clientele, quirky rich people who paid good coin for non-indigenous species, would be disappointed.
“Bunky,” he said to the coot, “I’d like to get my mitts on him, too, but we mustn
’t draw undue attention to ourselves.”
“So we’re gonna let him off, him and that pug-ugly—what is that, a giant chicken—without getting square? And the name’s not Bunky, it’s—”
“For hell’s sake, man, I know your name,” the younger animal-trafficker said, cutting him off. “I don’t want him to know it in case the police nose around. Those parrots will make a nuisance of themselves if they loiter. Let’s cut our losses. You, mister, can buzz off.”
Nick pondered offering them free passes for a Cawston tour to make amends. Still, why play nice with crooks when one might’ve just tried slicing his jugular? He directed Mrs. C in the opposite direction and they trotted off. Nick sensed icy stares boring into him from behind.
Reginald’s mother, clutching the hem of her now-silty dress, was at the dusty patch where the incident began when Nick returned. She already chastised her son for both leaving her side without permission and scaring a volatile animal. Yet Reginald was as giddy as before. “You must let me ask him, Mother,” he said, with smears of that nickel cone crusted around his chin. “I just know he’ll say yes.”
The scarlet pique in her cheekbones was draining to pink as she recalled the day’s bigger revelation. Eventually she acquiesced. Reginald, she said, could ride him, for five minutes only, provided Nick agreed and her son apologized.
Under Nick’s control, the 289-pound bird trudged figure eights as if she were a mare consigned to pony rides ahead of the glue factory. At least she was calm.
“Blooming, eck, Reg, you had me scared stiff you were going to break your neck. You’re never to duplicate that!”
“Yes, Mother. You already told me,” Reginald said, engrossed by Mrs. C’s two-toed hooves. “Do you think my friends will believe what I’m doing, Johnny especially? He’s such a braggart.”
“He better, love.” She turned to Nick. “Pray tell, he hasn’t caused you much grief. He’s an excitable lad. I suppose they all are at that age.”
“Not a bit,” Nick white-lied. He also feigned ignorance when Reginald asked him whether he observed those “quirky, green birds” flying overhead. “I notice your son doesn’t share your brogue. Are you English?”
“Through and through. From a proud, musical family in Staffordshire, West Midlands, north of Birmingham.”
“And guess where the ostriches are from, Mother?” Reginald said. “Guess!”
“Hmm. I’ll have to revert to my schoolgirl days for that one. Somewhere in Africa, I’d say.”
“Actually,” Nick said, his fingers twisting the straw back in his teeth, “South Pasadena.”
A Certain Heaviness of Feathers
Nick had a good rationale for lunchtime trots atop Mrs. C. They called it morning.
At Cawston Ostrich Farm, managing three-hundred-plus birds of varying temperament and appearance was a manpower-munching, six-day-a-week grind. “One of the strangest sights in America,” the New York press corps described the area’s top employer. Sensationalism like that sold newspapers but that’s about it. The banking collective that acquired the enterprise from its burned-out namesake had a profitable venture to maintain in an ever-changing world. Need a cushier job? Apply to Pasadena’s watchmaker—or its coffin factory.
Junior executives like Nick accepted the long hours and other unsavory elements for the paycheck and the challenge. Light as silk, adaptable as glass, the farm’s prize-winning feathers ensconced Cawston as a household name in its niche, on par with Dove soap and Ford cars. Around town, it was an economic powerhouse, and a tourist destination to boot.
It took dedication and camaraderie to mesh all the parts. Nick reminded everyone of this, including himself, as he wiped at dye stains on his trousers and battled pressure headaches before deadlines. Slavish hours and sleep deficits were routine. Despite the sacrifice, he thrived here, a feather man with a sunny future, even if he never pictured this as his life’s vocation. At what some dubbed the most “glamorous” ostrich-couture production house around, you didn’t punch the clock. It punched you. That’s why he needed those midday outings through Busch Gardens or around the Raymond Hotel: his accumulated stress had to be jettisoned someplace.
A Martian visiting this era might’ve wondered where feathers didn’t show up. After all, they ornamented ladies hats, boas, muffs, plumes—both French and Duchesse—and stoles. They were peddled at big-city boutiques and in mail-order catalogs. Durable and chic, they made dressing stylishly easy. The upper crust considered them musts. The wives of kings and concubines of kingpins wrapped their powdered necks and fancy hairdos in the satiny material. High-paid Broadway actresses and burlesque dancers alike performed in the ticklish fluff. Ditto for women posing for racy, soft-light portraits.
The feather industrial complex was savvy, ensuring its bird-wear wasn’t confined to the privileged. Housewives on gas-lamp blocks from Boston to San Diego owned feathers. Ponytailed girls implored Santa for smaller versions. Souvenir collectors were never forgotten, either, what with ostrich tchotchke replicated on silver, wood, and paper.
Cawston itself inscribed its name and its notable ostriches everywhere thinkable: on pocketknives and letter openers, watch fobs and lockboxes, even calendars and measuring tapes. Barren mantelpiece? Try a painted hollow Cawston egg the dimension of a coconut.
Mass production by shearing Struthio camelus was genius. The inventory always grew back.
Nick was fresh out of the University of Southern California when the company hired him, and it didn’t take management long to appreciate his intuitive smarts and natural charisma; that he was a keeper worthy of being groomed. Asked how he was faring getting into work, he often replied, “On the upside, you?” More than his contemporaries, the farm’s marketing motto, which preached to “always advertise your distinctions,” resonated with him. As Nick emphasized to tourists and reminded distributors, only select-male feathers made the cut, not the inferior stock “other manufacturers” hawked. Every sale also carried a money-back guarantee. Moreover, customers could buy with clean consciences, for Cawston policy forbade child labor, animal cruelty, or other shortcuts around its golden geese.
Recently promoted to co-assistant manager, Nick had a load on his shoulders, and could perspire a quart on hectic days. Rotating from station to station, troubleshooting mishaps, or attending to special orders, he sometimes hoofed miles before the sun peaked. Glossy brochures did little justice to how expansive the enterprise was.
Cawston was a minib city unto itself, a humming assembly line inside a warren of buildings. Specialization ruled. There was an egg-incubator house and fireproofed storehouse, dye room, and catalog-fulfillment department. On the periphery were a gift shop, rare bird aviary, and Japanese teahouse. Off-site were retail stores in downtown Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, as well as a four-hundred-acre breeding farm in the eastern prairies of Riverside County. Visitors here to snap photos, watch a shearing session, pet tamer birds, or stroll were always impressed. The grounds were kept so tidy that you’d more likely see a dead ostrich’s apparition than mounds of un-shoveled guano.
Nick, who rotated to every post, excelled most at the mechanical- and sales-brainstorming side of the job. Having the ostriches trust him as much as the wranglers only improved his cachet. Conversely, time in the dye house, where monochromatic colors came to rainbow life in a miasma of nauseous stink, was torture.
When the sixty-hours-a-week sacrifice turned his bones heavy, when he couldn’t handle another production crisis or malcontent employee, he reminded himself his work was preparing him for his real future: popularizing solar energy.
It was the industrious Aubrey Eneas, an English-born inventor/gadget-noodler, who tapped Cawston, of all places, to demonstrate the planet’s first commercial solar-powered motor. The engine he installed debuted to fanfare in 1901. From then on, it was running, generating energy that helped feed, water, and house Cawston’s assets with near-magic
al dependability.
Nick, a history buff, was hooked once he learned that the ancient Chinese and Romans inspired Eneas’s creation. Its predominant feature was an immense, ribbed dish that resembled a metal umbrella turned inside out. Lining it were eighteen hundred small, beveled mirrors that collected the sun’s invisible heat with visible precision. Nick, in a letter to his mother in Indiana, described the red-hot beam condensed by the mirrors as “liquid fire being trapped.”
It was the mirrors that were the linchpins, for they channeled heat from the sunrays into a large boiler containing a thousand gallons of water in a deep-water well. After the subterranean fluid reached a boil, the steam it generated powered an engine capable of pumping fourteen hundred gallons of water—per minute.
Still, Eneas’s revolutionary technology didn’t run on gee-whizzes. It required a decent understanding of astronomy as the Earth’s star arced through the sky ninety-three million miles away. To adjust the dish to capture optimal sunbeams, the Englishman borrowed a solution from astronomers. Some of them yoked their space telescopes on “equatorial mountings,” which swiveled on greased, ball-bearing tracks producing relatively easy movement. If it was good enough for scientists exploring the Milky Way, including some on Pasadena’s mountaintop, it was good enough for a quill factory.
Nick, awestruck whenever Eneas dropped by, oversaw his solar machine on a daily basis. Unlike Eneas, he was a non-technical type who marshaled his deductive skills whenever there were cables to untangle or boiler valves to replace.
One midmorning, he squatted on his haunches, sprinkling dirt from his hand after he angled the dish. The same daydream was hijacking him again: gleaming solar mirrors on roofs electrifying all of Pasadena. Unbeknownst to him, Waldo was sneaking up from behind with a message he planned to deliver with comical fright. He got the sun behind him, and then flapped his arms so the outline resembled a hawk swooping down. Noticing it, Nick jolted out of his trance, covering his head from any looming talons.