A Place so Foreign Part 11

"Graduated?" I said, shocked. I had another year to go at the Academy.

"Don't look so surprised! There was no earthly reason for you to stay at the Academy. I'd say you were ready for college, myself. Maybe Harvard!" He tousled my hair.

I allowed myself a smile -- I didn't think I was any smarter than the other kids, but I sure knew a whole lot more about the world -- the worlds! And maybe, in my heart of hearts, I knew that I was a _little_ smarter. "I'll miss you, sir," I said.

"Call me Robert. School's out. Where are you off to, James?"

I gestured with my copy of the _Chronicle_.

"My home town! Whatever for?"

I looked at my shoes.

"Oh, a secret. I see. Well, I won't pry. Does your mother know about this?"

I felt like kicking myself. If I said no, he'd have to tell her. If I said yes, I'd only have myself to blame if he spilled the news to her. I looked at him, and he blew a streamer of smoke into the sky. "No, sir," I said. "No, Robert."

He looked at me. He winked. "Better keep it to ourselves, then," he said.

The ticket-girl at the Castro Theatre wasn't any older than I was, but she wore her hair shorter than some of the boys I'd known back home, and more makeup than even the painted ladies at the saloon. She looked at me like I was some kind of small-town fool. It was a look I was getting used to seeing.

"Reddekop only plays for the _evening_ shows, kid. No organ for the _matinee_."

"Who you calling a kid?" I said. I'd kept a civil tongue ever since debarking the train, treating adult and kid with equal respect, but I was getting sick of being treated like a yokel. I'd been farther than any of these dusty slickers would ever go, and I was grown enough that I'd told my Mama and Mr Johnstone that I was going off on my own, instead of just leaving a note like I'd originally planned.

"You. Kid. You want to talk to Reddekop, you come back after six. In the meantime, you can either buy a ticket to the matinee or get lost."

On reflection, telling my Mama was probably a mistake. It meant that I was locked in my room for two consecutive Wednesdays so that I couldn't catch the train. On the third Wednesday, I climbed out onto the roof and then went down the rope-ladder I'd hidden behind a chimney. The Wells Fargo notes I'd started with were almost gone, mostly spent on the expensive food on the train -- I hadn't dared try to sneak any food away from home, my Mama was no fool.

I thought about buying a ticket to the matinee. I still had almost five dollars, but a quick look at the menus in the restaurants had taught me that if I thought the food on the train was expensive, I had another think coming. I shouldered my rucksack and wandered away, taking care to avoid the filth from dogs and people that littered the sidewalks. I told myself that I wasn't homesick -- just tired.

"October 29, 1929, huh?" Reddekop was a small German with a greying spade beard and a heavily oiled part in his long hair. His fingers were long and nimble, but nearly everything else about him was short and crude. He made me nervous.

"Yes, sir. Mr Nussbaum thought you'd know what it meant."

Reddekop struck a match off the side of the organist's pit, lighted a pipe, then tossed the match carelessly into the theatre seats. I winced and he chuckled.

"Not to worry, kid. The place won't burn down for a few years yet. I have it on the very best authority.

"Now, Nussbaum says October 29, 1929. What else does he say?"

"He said that you'd take care of me."

He gripped the pipe in his yellow teeth and hissed a laugh around the stem. "He did, did he? Well, I suppose I should. Of course, I won't know for sure for more than 25 years -- I don't suppose you want to wait that long?"

"No, sir!" I said. I didn't like this little man -- he reminded me of some kind of musical rat.

"I thought not. Do you know what a trust is, James?"

We'd covered that in common law -- I could rattle off about thirty different kinds without blinking. "I have a general idea," I said.

"Good, good. What I'm thinking is, the best thing is for me to set up a trust through a lawyer I know on Market Street. He'll make sure that you're always flush, but never so filthy that someone will take a notice in you. How does that strike you?"

I thought it over. "How do I know that the trust fund won't disappear in a few years?"

"You're n.o.body's fool, huh? Well, how about this -- you find your own advocate: a lawyer, a bondsman, someone you trust, and he can look over all the books and papers, make sure it's all square-john. How does that strike you?"

Reddekop knew I was a stranger in town, and maybe he was counting on my not being able to find anyone qualified to audit the trust, but I had an ace up my sleeve. I wasn't anybody's fool.

"That sounds fair," I said.

Back at my Mama's I'd had long hard days, doing ch.o.r.es: chopping wood, stacking hay, weeding the garden, carrying water. I'd go to bed bone-tired, limp as a rag and as exhausted as I thought I could be.

Boy, was I wrong! By the time I found Mr Adelson's rooming house, I could barely stand, my mouth was dry as a salt-flat, and it was hard to keep my eyes open.

They've got hills in San Francisco that must've been some kind of joke G.o.d played. His landlady, a worn-out grey woman whose sour expression seemed directed at everything and anything, let me in and pointed me up three rickety flights of stairs to Mr Adelson's room.

I dragged my luggage up with me, b.u.mping it on the stairs, and rapped on the door. Mr Adelson answered in the same shirtsleeves and suspenders I'd seen him in that Christmas, an age ago, when my Mama dragged me to his cottage. "James!"

he said.

"Mr Adelson," I said. "Sorry to drop in like this."

He took my bag from me and ushered me into his room, pulling up a chair. "What on earth are you doing here?" he said. "Do your parents know where you are? Are you all right? Have you eaten? Are you hungry?"

"I'm pretty hungry -- I haven't eaten since supper last night on the train," I tried to make it sound jaunty, but I'm afraid it came out pretty tired-sounding."

"I'll fix us sandwiches," he said, and started fishing around his sea-chest. I watched his shoulders move for a moment, and then my eyes closed.

"Well, good morning," Mr Adelson said, as I sat bolt upright, disoriented in a strange bed with a strange blanket. "Coffee?"

He was leaning over a little Sterno stove, heating up a small tin pot. Morning sun streamed in through the grimy window.

"I wrapped your sandwich up from last night. It's there, on the dresser."

I stood up and saw that except for my shoes, I was still dressed. The sandwich was salt beef and cheese, and the sourdough was stale, and it was the best thing I'd ever eaten. Mr Adelson handed me a tin cup full of strong coffee, and though I don't much like coffee, I found myself drinking it as fast as I could.

"Thank you, Mr Adelson," I said.

"Robert," he said, and sat down on the room's only chair. I perched on the bed's end. "Well, you seem to have had quite a day! Let's hear about it."

I told him as much as I could, fudging around some of the details -- my Mama surely did know where I was, even if she wasn't very happy about it; and of course, I couldn't tell him that I'd met Nussbaum in 1975, so I just moved the locale to France, and caged around what message he'd asked me to deliver to Reddekop. It still made for a pretty exciting telling.