In the Matter of Nikola Tesla

by Anthony Flacco

  He felt as if he had spent the entire night walking at top speed by the time sunrise rolled around. Still dressed for his Rahway demonstration, he found himself in the middle of Central Park. For no reason at all, he was hiking ankle deep in the autumn leaves between thick stands of American Elm and Spanish Oak.

  Once inside the urban grove, he could barely tell that he was in a city at all; everything around him looked like a piece of land in the middle of the country. A few early morning equestrians were out for dawn rides, posting at the trot and clipping along in steady rhythms. His light-headed condition combined with the surroundings to make it seem as if he had left the city altogether. Before the sun got any higher he found himself walking into a secluded, grassy clearing within the grove.

  It was there that he stopped cold in his tracks, and amazement filled his face. Because in the shimmering morning air not twenty meters ahead of him, Karina stood waiting. Her face lit up when their eyes met. She lifted her arms to him.

  He cried out and rushed across the clearing to sweep her into his arms. He pulled her close to him and watched the background whirl while he spun her around in glee. Karina’s expression was ecstatic as she placed her hands on both sides of his face and seemed to drink him in with her eyes. Then she leaned back to ride his twirling bear-hug while he held her as close as he could and brushed his lips across the smooth skin of her neck.

  In the space between one moment and the next, Karina turned into Nikola’s dead father. Nikola gasped and recoiled just as Reverend Tesla’s face transformed into a horror of putrid flesh. His rotting hands pulled Nikola’s face toward his. Nikola screamed in shock and horror, bellowing his outrage and rejection of everything that was happening to him.

  In the next instant he bolted upright in bed, gasping, and found himself in a large dormitory flophouse.

  “Shaddup!” an annoyed voice called out in the darkness. Still gasping, Nikola gazed all around his cot, plastered in a cold sweat. Windows allowed in enough faint moonlight to reveal a long, bare room filled with rows of cots. Each cot held a slumbering load, with boots and bags stashed underneath. When he finally realized where he was, the dismay that overwhelmed him was heavy enough to anchor a body to the ocean floor.

  Chapter Twenty

  Days Later

  ​New York

  Nikola emerged from the flophouse carrying nothing and still wearing his ruined suit. His legs felt heavy, and his steps were daunted by the shock of rising to yet another day filled with the one kind of difficulty he never prepared himself to face. He had been conserving his small wad of pocket cash as tightly as possible over the past three days, but even the cheapest food and lodging took their toll on his dwindling funds. In another day or two he would run out of money altogether. He was already out of time.

  The first twenty-four hours after his eviction were wasted in the struggle to find his investors. His efforts got him no further explanation for why a year’s worth of his work was taken from him as easily as a breeze changes direction.

  The day after that was filled by his search for decent employment before abject poverty confronted him. He started with places that should logically be able to utilize his extensive education, then broadened the search to any place that might only need some small part of his abilities. By the end of the second day he was knocking on the doors of any place that was somehow related to his wide range of skills. Still there suddenly seemed to be a thousand applicants for every available position.

  This third day was his deadline day. The night before, he promised himself when he lay down to sleep that he would begin the day by seeking any kind of work at all, no matter what the job might be. He fingered a few coins in his pocket, wondering if he could allow himself fifty cents for a sturdy breakfast. That would leave him with three paper dollars.

  When he passed a large newsstand, the day’s headlines caught his eye, warning of the “Depression of 1886.” He smiled at that notion; until three days earlier, Nikola had no idea that an economic “depression” was going on in America, or that such a thing was even possible in a land where opportunity oozed from the ground.

  Cool air blew in from the Atlantic ocean with the unfortunate effect of bringing him fully alert; he would have been more comfortable in a daze. For the past two days, the urgency of his situation had helped him avoid the issue of Karina’s continued absence, but now the question nagged at him. He hated to ponder whether his father was right or even partially right about Karina, but the old fears that she might be a symptom of his madness tormented him again. They mixed with his guilt over doubting her.

  His day had barely begun when he passed an alley where a tattered mother hovered over her three small children. The mother’s eyes met his and she extended her palm to him. The ache behind her expression resonated so powerfully with his own that without giving it any thought, he handed her all three of his paper dollars and kept only the coins for himself. The faces of the three children flashed with excitement when they realized they would all eat that morning.

  The mother’s eyes radiated such gratitude that Nikola spun from her and hastened away. He heard words of thanks but made no reply. If he tried to speak, he could feel that his words would only snag in his throat.

  By the late afternoon Nikola had lost count of his job inquiries. He had not come close to securing a job and a deep sense of panic was setting. Late in the afternoon he approached a construction company office with a line of job applicants trailing out the door, mostly strong-looking men. The sign over the door read, “Men Needed. Heavy Back Work. $2.00 per day.”

  Nikola glanced down at his slim frame—the luxury of preference was long gone. He straightened his shoulders and stepped into line. It made no difference what the work was. It paid two dollars a day.

  Since an applicant for “strong back work” had no need of powerful intellect, he wisely decided to withdraw himself up into the little rocking chair behind his eyes and give the automaton just enough consciousness to go through the application process. Meanwhile he avoided the terrible temptations to drown in self-recriminations. Present circumstances were his own doing, no doubt, but in ways that he could not fathom.

  There was no real interview. His height at over six feet, two-inches was enough to earn him a chance at his two dollars per day in spite of his slim frame. He emerged from the office just as darkness was falling, with instructions to return at five o’clock the next morning to pick up his company-issue tools and the day’s work order.

  A job that paid for each day’s work at the end of the day was perfect for a man starting over with nothing. It was safe to spend his last coins on a flophouse bed, even though there would be nothing left for food. After that all he had to do was work tomorrow’s twelve-hour shift without eating, then collect his two dollars. That would be just enough to cover the expenses of returning the next day and doing it again. Still, he was surprised at how reassuring that little sliver of security felt.

  On his way back to the Bowery flophouse region on the Lower East Side, he came across a long line of men streaming all the way down the block. The line ended at the steps of a large Catholic church. When he asked one of the waiting men about it, he learned that the church hosted a soup and bread service especially for unemployed workers.

  He could see the line was a study in desperation, mostly males but a few women as well. Many appeared to have taken such a beating already that they could do little more at this point than wait for the final blow.

  These are my colleagues. And after so many years of education. He felt his own dry laugh followed by a shiver of fear. Then he walked to the back of the line and took a place. For the first time, he was grateful to have no family at all in this country. It would have been unbearable for any of them to see him in this condition.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Winter – Summer, 1886

  New York

  The dead of winter hit New York City a few weeks later. The temperatures
only added misery to the lives of outdoor laborers.

  Icy blasts swirled powdered snow over a crew of rough-looking ditch diggers forcing a trench into the frozen earth. It measured six feet deep and three feet wide, running along the side of the street. Nikola worked with the men, dressed in thick work clothes and swinging a pick. He had to struggle to keep up with the burly laborers, but he was able to hold his own. The crowds of unemployed workers grew in the streets with every passing day, constant reminders to hang onto any paying job by all possible means. After weeks of steady work and those daily payments of two dollars per shift, nobody needed to persuade Nikola that even the meanest labor was better than the shame of being useless. On that pittance of a salary, he was slowly improving his circumstances. The crowded streets reminded him every day: the torture of contradictions that he felt eating away at him was hardly unique. It was known throughout society during those hard times, leaving him with a curious mix of shame over his daily labor and gratitude for the opportunity to earn a survivable wage.

  Icy weeks dragged by. His muscles screamed and his spirits flagged, but the trench grew longer in the hardened ground. When that job eventually petered out, there was another. There was another after that one, as well—all positions he was able to secure only because they involved labor so heavy most men simply could not sustain the effort.

  By the time that the spring thaw began to soften the earth, Nikola spent most of each day up in his tiny rocking chair looking out the picture window eyes. Even with his concentration pleasantly occupied, he was unable to forget his most pressing problem. It outweighed passing issues of labor and money, because no matter how badly he wanted to deny his father’s interpretation of Karina’s presence in his life, he had to admit that disaster had been a frequent occurrence since he first encountered her.

  The memory of his father’s voice rang through him. It implored him to reject any further presence of the demon in his life. Nikola had no desire to listen to the warnings, but neither was Karina there to convince him otherwise.

  Where was she? Would she ever offer any sort of assurance that he was not consorting with some dark force? He was afraid to actively reach out to her, to attempt calling out with his mind and begging her to come to him. When he thought about daring to do such a thing, he could not avoid also being a preacher’s son and wondering what sort of dreadful consequences might result.

  * * *

  Summer rolled around. Nikola still worked as a day-job laborer in the deep seasonal heat. Now his crew was breaking up the inside of a condemned post office building. The day was so hot that he and all the other men reacted automatically when they heard the lunch whistle blow; they dropped their tools and reached for their lunch boxes. On his way outside to sit in the open air, he stopped at the large drinking bucket and dipped a ladle of water for himself just as foreman Fritz Lowenstein pulled up a wooden crate and sat near him.

  Lowenstein was a few years older and sounded as if he grew up in that city or somewhere nearby. He tone of voice was generally one of pleasant irony.

  “Mr. Tesla, I notice you spend a good deal of time lost in thought. A real thinking man. A smarter man than me would fire you for the crime of thinking on the job. Dangerous practice. But maybe you can get away with just telling me what’s so good about whatever you are thinking, that you have to do it while I’m paying you to work. Ha? Make it good, though.

  “…What I’m thinking?”

  “You find the question odd?”

  “No, Mr. Lowenstein, that is, I’m not accustomed to—”

  “Call me Fritz. Still, make the story good!”

  “Yes… I was, well, thinking of the magnetic field. About its physical effect upon the element of iron. You see, there are endless implications to a non-physical force which produces controlled movement of physical matter.”

  Lowenstein regarded him for a moment, then turned and shouted to everyone in general, “Hey you guys, one of my laborers right here likes to consider the ‘implications’ of magnetism moving solid iron! Anybody wanna top that?”

  “—because the specific point of interaction between those two realms is a mirror image of the connection between our invisible life force and our physical bodies.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A magnet moves iron but is invisible. Is this not the same way the energy of life animates a physical body?”

  “Ahh! Also you’re a philosopher?”

  Nikola smiled and shook his head. “As you see, I am a laborer.”

  “No shame in that; times are hard.” Lowenstein grinned. “All right, now tell me: what are you really?”

  “I was, rather I still am, but I’m not employed at it now, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that I am not being paid to do it at this time… What was I saying?

  “What.

  “What?”

  “What. You are what.”

  “Oh yes. An inventor.”

  “Inventor… Hey! That Tesla? Those new street lamps! No! Nikola, right? Nikola Tesla!”

  “Why, yes… You know my work?”

  “Know? Yes! I know!

  “But how?”

  “How do I know? I read, perhaps?” Lowenstein yelled to the world in general, “Mr. Nikola Tesla is in here today helping my crew pull down an old post office!”

  He turned back to Nikola with a wide grin and addressed him in confidential tones. “So Mr. Genius, what other sorts of things do you like to think about while you’re busy failing to help me meet my quotas?”

  “Well, sir, with a few—”

  “Fritz.”

  “Mr. Fritz, with a few months of research time, I could produce far more than bright street lights.”

  “Such as?”

  “For one example, it is possible to create the wireless transmission of electrical power to any point on the planet. Not information, but electrical power itself, and enough to drive any kind of system, large or small.”

  “What, rays of electricity shooting through the air?”

  “No, no, no!” Nikola paused, stared into space, laughed out loud, then sobered himself and turned back to Lowenstein, “Not like that at all.”

  Everything paused for a long moment while Lowenstein regarded Nikola with freshened interest and a level gaze. This time he spoke in a whisper. “And how much money would such a clever boy-chick need? To start up, I don’t know, perhaps a small laboratory. Hm?”

  “With tools and equip… Why do you ask?”

  “Mr. Tesla, a man spends his life in this city, he learns the way things work. I mean that this depression has got plenty of people—investors, I’m talking about—believe me, plenty of people very anxious to grow money. I happen to know of just such a group who is seeking someone who has something to offer that is valuable and unique. Something nobody else can offer. And what you just said, Mr. Tesla, what you described just now, if you convince them you can really do it, that they will pay for!”

  “There is much more that can be done, Mr. Lowen— Mr. Fritz. Without any further research, I already know how to generate electrical power for the entire state of New York—” He dropped his voice to an whisper that matched Lowenstein’s, “—for less than it presently costs the Edison Company to light all of the homes in a single town!”

  Lowenstein studied him with a poker face. Empty seconds passed. Then his eyes took a definite sparkle. He broke into a wide smile and called out to one of the nearby workers. “Hey Jacob, take over for me today and keep these guys hopping!” He threw one arm over Nikola’s shoulder. “Right now there are some people who want to meet Mr. Nikola Tesla, here, whether they know it yet or not!”

  He grabbed Nikola’s coat sleeve and pulled him out to the street. There he obligingly hailed a taxi for them while Nikola bent slightly and clenched his muscles in an effort to prevent himself from being overwhelmed by the way opportunity danced in and out of his life.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, a
fter a long round of meetings with an increasingly large group of well-suited cigar smokers, he could only stand and stare in amazement at his new laboratory. Small and bare, but clean, the lab’s walls were lined with empty shelves and glass-topped cabinets waiting for tools and equipment. It was a place of science delivered to him by what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, sheer magic.

  Lowenstein and several of the backers proudly flanked Nikola while Lowenstein explained, “It’s small. It’s small. But we can get you supplies and all the tools you need, and—”

  “No matter! Gentlemen, no matter. I can work here! This will be acceptable. I can, I can work here.” Nikola looked around, eyes glowing. Under his breath he added, “Ohhh, yes.”

  He dared to consider that this might not be magic at all. It might instead be an example of how his way of thinking and of describing his thoughts created this opportunity by causing complete strangers to place confidence in him. The thought reverberated through him: This is the way it’s supposed to happen.

  Lowenstein grinned. “Hope you don’t mind working down here on South Fifth Street, ‘cause in the morning you’ll see that we are actually within sight of Edison’s lab. I swear it was an accident.” He gave a dry smile and added, “But I don’t know, it’s fitting, somehow, eh?”

  Nikola walked over to the window and looked out. His eyes strained to penetrate the darkness until they focused on the main building of the Edison Company Headquarters. He could just make out the lettering on their large sign.

  “I wonder how fitting he will think it is.”