by John Keene
In the front row next to Dr. Cassin, Dr. Cresson, the speaker, and the other Academy dignitaries sat as always almost completely out of my sight. The most recently hired of the crew, I had started only at the beginning of this year’s spring series, in February, through Jonathan’s intercession on my behalf with Kerney, and so I stood last in the row and farthest from the front of the room, though I could spot the dais and lectern. This month’s crowd was noticeably larger than in April. Thirty-six white gentlemen in the room I calculated, from the furthestmost chair in the front row to the nearest one in the last, whereas at the meeting the month before, which had unfortunately fallen on the same weekend as the attack on the South Carolina fort, starting the war, only twenty members and their guests showed up to hear the speaker, Professor Benjamin Peirce of Harvard. He had delivered a talk on his discovery that the rings of Saturn were not solid and how he had proved the other researchers wrong, and even if I had not learned enough mathematics or natural science at the Institute to follow him, I enjoyed his lecture, despite his talking so fast that he lullabied most of the audience to sleep.
Afterward as I brought my sherry tray around I passed by Professor Peirce talking to City Councilor Mr. Trego and Dr. Leidy, both members of the Academy; a guest I didn’t know; and Mr. Peter Robins, the son, not his father who ran the bank. As soon as he saw me young Mr. Robins started up the same “game” he had initiated every month since I had worked there, saying to his party, “I think Theodore here pays as much attention as we do,” as if he was expecting me to say something in reply, but I smiled and instead lifted the tray of sherry glasses higher. Mr. Councilor Trego looked around the room, Dr. Leidy whispered something to his guest, while the Harvard professor was looking at me all quizzically, then Mr. Peter Robins again said, “Theodore always pays close attention, don’t you, he’s a very sharp boy,” and I responded with another smile since I noted Kerney’s glares. Professor Peirce turned to the three white men and said very rapidly as he combed his fingers through his gray beard, “Certainly my lectures can be a bit dense even for those who have had the benefit of reading them in advance, and my astronomical work and other proofs provoke particular challenges,” to which Mr. Robins said, “Theodore, tell our distinguished guest one of the things you heard him speak about today.” At that moment Kerney I could see was turning red as tenderloin and looking like he was about to come slap me if I opened my mouth.
Before Mr. Robins, also reddening in the cheeks, could repeat his request I said, “Well, Sir, the professor was talking about the universality of physical laws and the uniformity with spiritual law too, and said at one point that every part of the universe have—has—the same laws of mechanical action as you find in the human mind.” Mr. Robins grinned and patted me on the head, and Mr. Councilor Trego and Dr. Leidy nodded approvingly, though Professor Peirce continued to stare at me like I was a puzzle. To break the silence I said, “May I take you gentlemen’s glasses?” After they turned to walk away young Mr. Robins pulled out some coins and placed them in my hand, saying, “A special tip for your far more amusing contribution to our series.” When he caught up to Professor Peirce, who had joined another nearby group, the Professor once again spoke, his words gushing forth, “Isn’t that an articulate and clever little. . . .”
Not that I can truly recall everything unless I am paying attention, and my mother was always warning me about allowing my memory or the past to overmaster me, let things go she would say, just like she would admonish me not to let my mind fly too far, too fast into such things, lest I couldn’t bring it back down to earth, because, as she was fond of saying and my father was too, “Outside the most exalted leaders of our race what sort of life you think there is for us if our heads stay too far up in them clouds?” and if anything has to do with the clouds it’s mathematics and astronomy and so forth, which unlike history or literature I had never disliked, and I wasn’t too bad at figures, plus if you think about it, even I could see from all the preaching I had to sit through that the cloud talk also had to do with religion, which is what I also think Professor Peirce was saying but I couldn’t tell nobody there that, all they all were trying to do at those lectures was figure out how things of this world and the next one worked but also to see if, outside of a church, they could reason Him out, and thinking about that reminded me of how when I was little I used to like to spend my Saturday afternoons reading about science and strange places and looking at the maps at the Free Library, which we too were allowed to visit, and I will never forget seeing a book on display there by Mr. Audubon, about whom Dr. Cassin, who was also a famous ornithologist, gave the lecture the month before Professor Pierce’s.
At this month’s talk Jonathan as usual was standing three places closer to the dais, and I spied him once again trying not to fall asleep, since every one of the lectures, no matter how interesting, he found boring. He clearly was also tired, because he also worked most Saturday mornings, like this one, as he did all week as a stockboy at Kahnweiler’s dry goods store. Since our father had been taken out by that gang on the West Side, all of us had shouldered extra jobs to add to what my mother brought in from her sewing. Zenobia, who had just married, like Zephira, worked in the houses, while Lucius, the oldest, was a janitor at the Customs House, and he and Zephira already had their own households to support. Before he died my father on his deathbed said to me, “Theodore, promise me that you will have Christ in your heart, and take up a trade, and not turn idle or fall into the arms of iniquity, and not truckle or bow down to no white man, and whatever you do, do not be a burden to your mother, your brothers or your sisters, and always help out another colored person if you can do so, and keep your head, like your feet, on the ground.” Of course I assured him I would do all that, and had already taken up a trade, and wouldn’t bow down to white people, though his failure to step to the side and not argue back with that pack of Irish ruffians had consigned him to that very bed, and I especially stressed I would not be a burden to nobody, though my mother, when she grew upset at one thing or another, like my lateness or impetuousness or daydreaming or failure to join her for church, predicted I was sinking into downfall’s deep waters.
As I observed my brother I thought about how like our father, Jonathan and Lucius were, tall, slender, almost military in bearing, charming but with God’s fury if you crossed them, and how while we three had gotten our mother’s open face and light brown eyes, I was the one, along with my sisters, who ended up with her slight, diminutive stature, cloud of auburn hair, and freckles that turned the shade of pumpkins soon as the summer sun rolled in. From the time I was ten or so I had hoped and even beseeched Jesus I would gain a few more inches, because at 16 1/2, despite my mustache and chin and chest hairs coming in, I always had to stand on my tiptoes at public events, or people were mistaking me for a child. Worse, after my best friend and former classmate Horatio, tall as Jonathan and twice as muscular, now standing beside me and also almost slumbering, had left the Institute for Colored Children six months before the end of the previous school year to start working, I had had to fight my way past taunts and punches nearly every morning and afternoon for weeks.
In the midst of my musings I heard Dr. Cassin clattering up to the lectern, but I knew not to look at him because Kerney was on the other side of the room watching me closely, and after the last lecture, by Professor Peirce, he had warned me about acting like I was one of the guests. Instead I stared at a random spot on the high red wall, well above the heads of Academy members and their guests, moving my eye between it and the gentlemen I could identify, including Mr. Robins and his friend, Mr. Linde, a scienti
st who also always attended the talks. When I tired of that I mulled over my evening obligations. I had already washed and hung-dry the white shirt and hose Dameron lent me, and scrubbed away the dirt and stains from the black swallow coat and trousers—
Dr. Cassin’s voice rung out: “Gentlemen, scholars and fellow members of the Academy, and to our distinguished guests and visitors to our beloved city and lecture series, I say good afternoon and welcome. Although I am a man of science, I am also, as they say, un amateur du monde natural et scientifique, and in that capacity I beg your indulgence. I should begin by invoking the esteemed philosopher Aristotle, as this Academy and the aims to which it and we are honorably dedicated, are to that greatest of the effects of the mind at work dedicated, that is to say, to the pursuit of the betterment of mankind through those means we yet have and are still developing, by which I mean: science, in her many faces, including the fields to which our most esteemed speaker today is devoted. . . .” In this same way Dr. Cassin opened each introduction, his voice a rake dragging across winter earth, which made me think about how my sometime, Rosaline, little sister of Angelica, the girl who had candied Jonathan, had sent back my most recent note unopened. Far as I knew nothing bad had transpired between us, but something had caused her to cool.
A round of polite applause, and then another white gentleman, this one much younger, the one I recognized earlier talking with Dr. Cassin and Dr. Cresson, was standing on the dais. From his grey longcoat he extracted a thick square, his talk it turned out, folded several times over. He fumbled with it, smoothing it down, and though most of the gentlemen seated stayed silent, amongst some of them ran a current of whispers provoking frowns from Mr. Robins and Mr. Linde. Yet the gentleman at the lectern, who would certainly have heard the murmured censure, didn’t appear in the least perturbed. Instead, he continue to assemble his papers, smoothing and arranging, not looking up, until he finally did and said, “My distinguished guests, I appreciate your indulgence and your presence this May afternoon. As the Academy’s eminent leader Dr. Cassin noted, I am Thaddeus Lowe, and I appear before you to speak about the advances, with which many of you are already quite familiar, in the science of flight, human flight.”
Horatio’s weight was pressing in on me, and I saw he was about to topple over, so I hooked my foot around the back of his and kicked till I stirred him to attention. The very idea of human flight fascinated me so that I concentrated on everything Professor Lowe had to say. “For the entire history of mankind, he has carried not just in heart but in mind the dream of riding the air. Perhaps this is a vestigial phantasy born of our lifelong witness of the clouds, our long familiarity with birds and God’s other flying creatures, with our thirst for knowledge of the heavens and of the angelic orders. . . .” I was training my gaze on that single spot across the room, while Professor Lowe spoke about the myths and history of human flight. He touched upon the Greek myths, Icarus and Dedalus, some Frenchman, a range of other pioneers including Americans like John Wise, and John Steiner, who was, he noted, a resident of this city just as he was. The professor recounted his own experiments and demonstrations, with ample details about different types of gases used and the materials the balloons required, his calculations and conversations with other members of the Academy, such as Dr. Henry, at the College of New Jersey, and the beneficence of Dr. Cresson and the city’s Gas Works.
I found myself even more involved when he reached the technical elements of the flights. Professor Lowe launched into a story about how just weeks before today he had attempted to demonstrate to the people of Cincinnati something about the practicality of balloon flight by traveling in an aerostat to the federal capital, but ended up off course and drifted all the way south to South Carolina, after Fort Sumter! When he said this most of the audience sat up, and someone on the far side of the room emitted a noise somewhere between a cough and a harrumph. The simple country people who took him prisoner, Professor Lowe said, thought he might be an evil spirit, or at least a spy, so to prove he was who he said he was he announced that he had brought Cincinnati newspapers, which sat in the basket and which he handed out, but as he was a Northerner they were still quite suspicious, so he still had to wait until several brethren men of science, all Southerners, could fully vouch for him and guarantee his safe passage home.
Course I wasn’t allowed to say anything, not even “Good afternoon, Sir,” unless he spoke to me first, and even then not a thing more than “Yes, Sir” or “No, Sir,” but when he finished and the question portion commenced, if I could have I would have asked him specifically about what it felt like when he was high up enough to see past the tops of the mountains, whether he could touch the clouds, was the sun brighter than on the ground. How, I wondered, did it look with all of Ohio behind him and Kentucky out front below? How was he sure he would be able to land and not just keep soaring higher and higher until he headed toward the moon? Then I estimated these would have been the most foolish questions ever asked at any Academy lecture I had ever heard, and was glad I had to stay silent and listen, though a number of the questions that started coming were not that much better than mine. One gentleman asked him if he wore special clothes to prevent from freezing when so high in the air, another asked him how did he keep the gas from blowing up, yet another pressed to know if he had ever crashed and broken any limbs. The scientists, all of them, asked better questions, it seemed to me, about flight patterns, machinery, and aeronautical science, though Professor Lowe responded politely to everyone.
Soon as he ended and before the audience applauded Kerney gestured that it was sherry serving time, unless we were on the coat detail which I wasn’t. I fetched my tray, arranged the glasses on it soon as they were filled, and slipped into the smaller reception hall where the guests were milling about. I stayed in my assigned post till my tray emptied then went and loaded up again while Jonathan and one of the other stewards collected the empties, our routine until Kerney’s signal to clean up. As I stood there, my mind alternating between the account of the balloon flight and thoughts about souping turtles, which I hated to do, all that shell and tendon and soft flesh, up came young Mr. Robins, with Mr. Linde. I extended them the tray of sherry and Mr. Robins acknowledged it with a half smile, as he said to his friend, “But they have always been unreasonable. It does not take the most careful student in the history of this country, Neddy, to grasp that every foot we have given them has been turned not just into an ell but a tyrant’s mile, especially under Buchanan, and it was on the pretext of last fall’s campaign, let alone victory, that they began the process for cleaving us in two. I view this mess as the opportunity to discipline them once and for all.”
Mr. Linde did not say anything at first, but sipped his sherry and stroked his chestnut mustache, nearly as sparse as mine though he was, I knew, in his early twenties like Mr. Robins. Another man round the same age approached them, Rev. Hodge, whom I overheard tell someone’s guest at my first shift back in February that he had only a few years ago graduated from the theological seminary in New Jersey. He said, “Peter, don’t you think that if we pursue things as Lincoln appears likely to do this will all turn out very badly? Speaking not as a clergyman but as an American. There’ll certainly be consequences.”
Mr. Robins finished off his sherry in a gulp. I accepted his empty glass and passed him another. I glanced to my right and Horatio, perched like me with his tray almost empty, was watching me closely, as if he was trying to tell me something I should be able to figure out, while to my left I saw Jonathan collecting more empty glasses. I looked back at my tray and tried to imagine how many people would be manning
and attending the party I was working tonight, if there’d be a band or not or two, like the event I had jobbed two weeks ago out at the estate in Merion. They had carried on so well past dawn that we all had to sleep on the cellar or attic floors till morning, then we helped the man’s staff clean up and each of us got a little $2 more, because those people, Dameron said, had so much money it was flowing like the Bushkill Falls, and that man even provided us with special coaches to get back to the city so we didn’t have to walk or hop the railway—
—“Neddy,” Mr. Robins was saying, “is playing the taciturn but he has stronger convictions on the matter than me, Hodge, I assure you. He’s still taken with Lowe’s lecture, clearer to his mind than mine, but then he is the one who studied such things at the old college.” At this Mr. Linde nodded. “Remember he’s the one who made a pilgrimage up to Cambridge to spend a year studying at Lawrence. The whole time Lowe was lecturing he was probably transforming the words into equations.”
Mr. Linde continued sipping for a bit before pulling a small bound notebook and pencil from his inner coat pocket. He said, tapping his temple with the book, “This is just between us,” and, leaning in, Mr. Robins and Rev. Hodge bowing in close too, continued, “but if Lowe does get an aeronautic corps going, I’ll be first on his list. I was planning to sign up in any case, but I especially fancy flying in one of those contraptions, even if we end up sailing off to Florida or some other preposterous place.” He and Mr. Robins started laughing but Rev. Hodge shook his head. None saw the older Mr. Robins, Dr. Cresson, and Professor Lowe approach until they stood right behind the younger trio.