by Alex Myers
“Emerson is pretty sick, in order to treat him I’m going to need a piece of equipment that only Thomas Edison has.” Jack thought for a moment, “Can you arrange a meeting with him?”
“Edison?” Robbie asked, chuckling under his breath. “Thomas Edison—the only person he hates more than my dad and me, is you.”
“Edison,” Sam said. “There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades and the ability to conceal them, and at that Edison is of no skill at all. I can get you a meeting with him. For whatever reason the man has taken a shine to me. We spent many a time talking about you. He thinks you stole his legacy. He was especially interested in where you culled your ideas,” Sam said.
“What did you tell him?” Jack asked.
“I told him you were a time traveler.” Robbie and Jack laughed, Sam stayed serious.
“That is exactly what I told him. What could I have told him to satisfy his curiosity better?”
Jack still couldn’t help smiling. “How did he respond?”
“Not surprisingly, he laughed too,” Sam said.
CHAPTER 18
Sitting in the front seat of the open car, Jack realized how good the weather had been. It was early December in New England and there very well could’ve been a foot of snow on the ground. Instead, they wore warm jackets and fur blankets and Sam had the roof down. They were flying down the back roads of Connecticut with a warming sun and temperatures in the fifties.
Sam Clemens was a great driver. He had a great love of anything mechanical. Sam drove with red cheeks and a determination and concentration that made it easy to understand why he was such a good pilot.
They were riding in an 1880 Saxby Quad. The Saxby, or Quad as Jack learned they were called, looked remarkably like a 1913 Ford Model T with a few exceptions. There were no pedals; breaking, accelerating, and shifting were all done by hand. And unlike the Model T’s, the Clemens’ Quad was a royal blue with bronze trim. Jack sat in the front seat next to Sam, and Livy was sitting in the back covered up to her chin in beaver.
Jack had no idea what the roads would’ve been like in the original timeline, or even in 2014, but now they were remarkably smooth and well maintained. They were made from a cement-asphalt hybrid. Seemingly endless stands of oak hardwood and beech-birch maples stood naked against the coniferous forests of pitch, hemlock, and eastern pines. Lakes, swamps, rivers, mountains, and valleys smelled amazingly clean and crisp despite twenty years of internal combustion engines. Unusually, the trees grew right to the edge of the very narrow road shoulder and the roadway seemed to intimately follow the contour of the land.
The car was considerably louder than even the big panel truck that Robbie and Jack had driven from the coast. The noise made talking in the car with anything short of yelling impossible. So they rode in silence, Sam always with both hands on the wheel, never once taking his eyes off the road. His face was a perfect rigor of concentration.
They ran into road construction in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and were stopped dead in traffic. With the exception of the warning-orange vests, a construction zone was timeless.
“This is not my first time meeting Emerson,” Sam said, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants. “It was December 17, 1877, and I remember the exactness of it because it was the most dramatic episode of my career on the dais. It was to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the birth of John Greenleaf Whittier. I remember dimly seeing one hundred shadowy figures sitting at tables feeding, ghosts to me now, the nameless forever more. Seated at the grand table and facing the rest of us was Ralph Waldo Emerson, supernaturally grave and unsmiling; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with his silken white hair and benignant face; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a charming and fascinating man.”
“Wow,” Jack said, “I never heard about this, it sounds pretty dramatic already.”
“Leaving it as that, dramatic as it was, it could almost be remembered as a pleasurable event. I was second to speak that night but I was sure my gym of a speech would be the most quoted in the Boston paper the next day and would win the adoration of the three literary giants in front of me. The same ones I decided would be the buffoons of my story.”
“You might be making more of it than warrants,” Jack said.
From the corner of his eye, Jack saw Livy shaking her head in disagreement in the backseat.
“The papers ripped me to tatters. I have been thoroughly miserable about it since. I was too new to public speaking to know enough to sit down, even once a black frost settled over the room and people’s faces turned to stone with horror.”
A road worker in a brightly colored red shirt and carrying a matching red flag stood carelessly beside the road, smoking from a pipe and watching the accumulating crowd of cars. If the man were given a goatee and a hard hat, he could have been from 2014 easily. Sam was looking away. Livy was looking away, but Jack wanted to hear more. “What did you say that was so bad?”
Sam turned one hundred eighty degrees, looked Jack in the eye and said, “I was having a miner describe a visit from the three as such: Mr. Emerson was a tiny, redheaded little bit of a chap. Mr. Holmes was fat as a balloon; he weighed as much is 300 pounds and had a double chin all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prizefighter with his nose straight down his face like a finger with the joint sticking up. They’d been drinking and what queer talk they used.”
Jack didn’t immediately speak. He took a second to inspect the traffic jam before he spoke, “Is this all you said?”
“No, that was probably the best of it though.”
Jack took another second to gather his thoughts. “Sam, I can tell you that one hundred years from now, no one gives the speech a second thought. I thought I knew a lot about you and I’ve never heard about it. So, in historical context it’s insignificant. From a personal level, I can’t speak for Longfellow or Holmes, but I do know Emerson a little bit. He’s not one to hold a grudge.”
“Tell that to his long dead best friend, Henry David Thoreau. I wrote Emerson a letter of apology two days after the event.”
“And?”
“And he told me no apology was necessary. That he rather enjoyed the speech.”
“I believe you have to believe,” Jack said.
Just then, the blockage opened and the traffic began to flow.
CHAPTER 19
They pulled Sam’s bright blue car into the driveway of Twenty-Eight Cambridge Turnpike in Concorde, Massachusetts. The house, although stately and dignified, was a third the size of Sam’s. While Sam’s was brightly colored and ornately decorated, this was square, plain, and white. They sat in the car and stared at the house with reverence. This was place of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Holmes and Alcott. Walt Whitman had dined here as did Herman Melville, Henry James and Friedrich Nietzsche. This was the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“We can wait in the car for you,” Sam said shutting off the engine.
“Samuel, I have not bounced three hours in the backwoods of Massachusetts in order to sit and wait in the car,” Livy said.
“Louisa May Alcott said Mr. Emerson has not entertained company in more than a year and a half,” Sam said.
“Let’s go in, Sam. I would at least like to see their house.” Livy was an expert in dealing with her husband’s stubbornness.
“Confound it woman, alright, let’s go.” He got up and exited the car with a flourish. “Well, come on you two. Are you just going to sit in the car all day?” Sam asked Livy and Jack.
A pale pretty woman with red curly hair floated like a ghost out of the front door of the house. “Are you here to see my father?” She spoke in tones like crystal bells and looked directly at Jack.
“Yes, I’m—”
“Jack Riggs, I remember you. I remember when you used to visit. I’m Ellen Tucker Emerson.” She stood with one hand on the column supporting the small porch. She stared at Jack with searing blue eyes. “Do you not remember me at all?”
Jack had been to Emerson’s house
before, coming in by wagon from Boston. It had been about eight months ago in his timeline and at the time, he and Emerson worked day and night. The house had always been full of people including Henry David Thoreau who lived at the top of the stairs and Nathaniel Hawthorne who previously lived there and at that time was just a neighbor. Since then, both Thoreau and Hawthorn had died and the once bustling house had fallen silent.
“Yes, I do remember you, Ellen. You were young back then, thirteen or fourteen? You turned into a fine woman.”
“I was eighteen then, but looked young for my age. And you, Mr. Riggs have stayed your same roguish self.”
“And these are—” Jack began before being cut off again.
“Olivia and Samuel Clemens, I recognize them. Miss Alcott mentioned you might bring along a companion.” Turning to Sam, Ellen Emerson’s demeaner dimmed. “Mr. Clemens, I last saw you at the seventieth birthday of Mr. Whittier at the Hotel Brunswick.”
Sam’s face redden and for a second it looked like he might get into the car and leave. Sam stiffened, but stood tall, brushed the front of his white suit and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Emerson, we are here to see your father.”
“And your mother too if that’s possible,” Livy quickly added.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not possible. My father has not had a guest in over a year.”
Jack took a step forward. “I talked to Miss Alcott, and she said she talked to your mother.”
“My mother and I share the responsibility of looking after my father and he has been on a steady decline. He no longer speaks, writes, or even reads. He sits in his bedroom in his blue rocking chair and stares out the bay window. His memory has been failing him for nearly the last ten years. Sometimes these days, he doesn’t recognize his own name.”
“I have something that can help him, a kind of medicine,” Jack said.
“I recall that you were an inventor and scientist. I suppose, but I don’t recall you were a doctor—and didn’t you supposedly die?”
“I’m standing here in front of you, please believe me. What I have will give your father his life back. It will give him many more years with you and your mother.”
“Ellen, let them enter, please.” It was Lidian Emerson. Her black dress with white trim was pressed and fit perfectly. She spoke with the same melodic crispness as her daughter, but with more practice and less forced effort. “I’ve spoken with your father. It is his wish to see Mr. Riggs.”
“But mother,” Ellen turned and faced around the porch, then spoke in a softer voice, “He doesn’t talk anymore, how could he tell you that?”
And in a voice softer than before but even more firm, “After forty-six years of marriage, a wife knows the unspoken language of her husband.”
“This might be too much excitement for him,” Ellen said.
“Nonsense, Ellen, this family needs a little excitement—excitement and hope.” Lidian looked at Jack. “Mr. Riggs, if there is a chance of making even one day better, one day where it’s not a further decline into the pit of frailty and darkness, I say excelsior.”
“Excelsior, mother? Really? And what would father say?”
“He has said, and on the subject we both agree. Would you please show our guests into the drawing room?”
They walked up the white cut-stone walk to the house. “Mrs. Emerson, Miss Emerson, I would like to introduce you to Samuel and Olivia Clemens.”
“Mr. Clemens, we met a few years back at a gathering for Mr. Whittier. You gave an enjoyable talk that evening.”
“Enjoyable?” Sam perked up.
“Oh very much so. It was the highlight of our evening. I know Mr. Emerson talked about it for days. Months later I would catch him with a little smile on his face about it.”
Sam’s jaw dropped as he closely examined her face to see if she might be toying with him. Once he realized her sincerity, his face lifted, easing the three years of wasted worry.
“I have tea and sandwiches for us. Jack, we will wait for you, Mr. Emerson’s constitution cannot handle more than one visitor at a time.” She looked like she thought about what she said and then added, “You know he gets worked up when Ellen and I go in together and we’ve been his only visitors in the last nine months. President Garfield even stopped by last year and he refused to see him.”
Sam and Olivia followed Ellen past the stairs down the entry hallway to the right, and Lidian and Jack walked down and went to the left into the bedroom, where in sixteen days hence, Emerson would die. The room was dark except for the bay window that framed the small chair that held the broken little man. The great and powerful Emerson was gone and what was left was a tiny empty shell. The sheer force the man used to radiate was gone. The transformation broke Jack’s heart and at the same time made him uncomfortable. He stayed in this room when he worked with Emerson. It was less than six months ago for Jack that he remembered Emerson as a vital, vibrant man in his early fifties.
The chair faced the window and Emerson sat motionless, and while the room appeared spotless, motes of dust swirled in the shafts of sunshine that peeked around the half-closed curtains.
“On second thought, I’m going to stay here if it’s alright with you, Mr. Riggs? These days, Mr. Emerson doesn’t really speak and I could help you interpret.” Lidian said.
Every time Lidian, Emerson’s wife of forty plus years, called him “Mr. Emerson”, Jack nearly physically winced at the awkwardness. He knew that the marriage was not the strongest. Early on, Lidian had her name changed by her husband without her consent and moved from Plymouth to Concord, a town which she thought was nothing more than mud and dust and uncouth manners, all sharp edges and unhemmed and fringe.
Lidian sat on the edge of the bed. Jack walked in front of Emerson who sat slack faced and unfocused.
“Mr. Emerson, it’s Jack Riggs.” There was no response and Jack waited, and then tried again. This time after a full thirty seconds, Emerson twitched as if shocked. His facial expression didn’t change, but his eyes darted back and forth, otherwise he hadn’t moved.
The darting eyes lit up on Jack, stopped, and then focused.
“Mr. Emerson, it’s Jack Riggs, I came back.”
Emerson tried to stand and failed. He fell back several times into his chair. Jack held up his hand. “Please, Mr. Emerson, just listen. You are suffering from aphasia, probably brought on by one or several strokes. As it is, you will die in sixteen days, on December 23. I have a way to save you.” Jack spoke slowly and deliberately; there was no reaction from Emerson other than his eyes blazing into Jack.
Jack glanced over at Lidian to gauge her reaction. She watched her husband intensely and her eyes were bright and glassy. “Mr. Emerson, not only can I save your life, but you will be able to read, write, even speak again.”
Jack looked back over at Lidian who asked, “This cure, is it something you brought back from the future?”
“Yes, it is,” Jack said. “I didn’t know you knew I was from the future, but of course you would know about it.”
“I suspected it even back then. Years later, I asked Mr. Emerson about it and it was like a floodgate opening. He said it was a secret he had to keep all those years.”
Jack looked back to Emerson who had one feeble hand raised and shaking, signaling Jack to stop. He struggled to speak and two words rang out clear, “Do it.”
“Let me explain,” Jack said. “I’m carrying the medicine in my bloodstream, and we would give it to you via a transfusion—”
Again, the diminutive hand signal for him to stop and he said weakly but perfectly clear, “Do it.”
CHAPTER 20
“Robbie? Robbie Sevenski?”
“Miss Frances?” Robbie spun around and faced her. They were at the front desk of the St. Nicholas Hotel on Broadway. Robbie, after having failed to see Thomas Edison, was getting rooms for himself, Sam, and Jack.
“Robbie, what are you doing here?”
“Just getting checked into the hotel.”
“Robbie, why are you acting so skittish? I wasn’t talking about this hotel. I was asking what are you doing in New York?”
“I’m trying to set up a meeting with Thomas Edison.”
The St. Nicholas desk clerk was working to try to get three rooms close to each other.
Frances smiled and asked, “Thomas Edison? Thinking about joining up with the competition?”
“No, a friend needs to meet with him, not a big deal.”
“Maybe I can help. I know Edison’s wife, not that she has a lot of influence over him. I guess he’s pretty bad about ignoring her and the family.”
Robbie didn’t want to be the one who told Frances that Jack was back and that he didn’t want to see her. “What are you doing in New York?” He asked, trying to change the subject.
“I sold my parents’ house on Long Island, and while I was here I was thinking about putting their house on Fifth Avenue up for sale too. Both my parents have been gone a while.” She paused, looking at Robbie without speaking, then finally she said, “Oh my.”
“What’s wrong?” Robbie asked.
“I’ve never noticed how much you look like my ex-husband, Abner Adkins. There is no doubt that he was your father.”
From anyone else, Robbie would’ve taken this as a possible insult, but Frances had always had the habit of speaking her mind without sugarcoating it. He knew there was no malice in what she said.
“I don’t remember him or my real dad, Walt Turner, or I guess I should say the man who was married to my mother. In my mind, Kazmer is my father and will always be. I like that just fine. You and Emily have been family to me too. Hercules and his family, Mrs. Goodyear and the kids, I don’t waste my time regretting or worrying about the past.”
The clerk stepped back to the desk holding an index card. “Mr. Sevenski, I do not have three rooms near each other, but the Presidential Suite is available and there are three bedrooms. Is that acceptable to you, Mr. Clemens and Mr. Riggs?”