The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (9 page)

Marvelous
Californ’!

*  
*   *

A
magnificent double-deck steamboat, that’s the
Chrysapolis
. All black and
white with a huge smokestack spewing charcoal-colored clouds. The willful bay
would have flung a lesser boat about, but the
Chrysapolis
plows through
wave and tide, speeding her passengers on their way. Some are pilgrims from the
Overland train, some citizens of genteel Oakland or Contra Costa bound for
business in the city on the other shore.

Daniel
waves to Miss Cameron and her dreadful little friend, but the ladies snub him.
Perhaps he does reek too much. They are ladies, after all, not whores. Well, to
hell with them. What does he need with a couple of Holy Rollers? What he needs
are new accommodations from which he can commence his business operations.
Father holds mortgages on several parcels upon which Daniel means to collect
outstanding payments or commence foreclosure, rousting the rascals out and
repossessing the property. Two parcels are empty lots out on the city’s
periphery in a place called the Western Addition. Of the two others, one is a
commercial building on Stockton Street in the heart, Father warned, of
Chinatown. The other is a shack in the red-light district of Sausalito, a
little port north of San Francisco across the bay. Daniel grimaces when he thinks
about this business of collection and foreclosure. By God, is he cut out for
it? Hobnobbing was one thing. Strong-arming recalcitrant debtors quite another.
He would much rather play with his Zoetrope.

As
he ponders these dark controversies, he suddenly realizes someone is standing
behind him. Alarm heats his blood. Damn Jack London with his talk of
revolution. For a moment he fancies the golden-brown women have conspired
against him, their fingers of thorn reaching for him, grasping, seeking revenge
for all the wrongs done them by man.

Daniel
turns around. A lovely little bird stands right beside him in a sky-blue summer
dress set with snippets of lace. She is petite, with an astonishingly tiny
waist. An ivory-colored veil is drawn over her face from a dainty hat perched
upon her fair curls. Her topskirts swirl in the sea breeze, very much like the
wings of some tropical bird. Yes, a little blue canary! She presses her
fingertips in ivory lace mitts to her throat and moans.

“Please,
miss, may I be of assistance?” Daniel says. Of course he is a man of nice
sensibilities, quite sympathetic to the trials and tribulations of the weaker
sex. Miss Cameron was barbaric in her shoddy treatment of him.

“Oh,
thank you, sir,” the veiled bird says in a quavering voice. “The ferry makes me
ill. I’m sorry.”

“No
cause for apology, miss. There, there, now.” Daniel takes her elbow, places his
hand on her tiny waist, and caresses the small of her back. He braces her as
the
Chrysapolis
pulls into the Port of San Francisco.

The
steamboat slams into the dock with a mighty
thump
! The veiled bird
staggers
toward him, wraps her arms around his chest, and clings to him like a child.

“Ooh,”
she moans louder, leaning against him.

He
can feel her corset, the stays, her heaving breast. An image of her satiny skin
beneath the layers of fabric and whalebone rises up in his mind’s eye, making
his breath catch. Come now, sir, this will not do. Still, it’s been hellishly
too long since he’s shared carnal knowledge with a lady. He tightens his grip.
She’s so frail! Perhaps he can persuade her to dine with him?

The
crew of the
Chrysapolis
scampers about, tying up the steamboat fore and
aft. A plank is lowered, and the passengers descend. Miss Cameron and her
dreadful mousy friend trip regally down the plank, lifting their skirts only
just high enough to find their footing, but not high enough to let anyone
glimpse their ankles. Daniel snorts. He’s seen whores pose nude, splayed and
shameless, in the studios of his artist friends in Paris and London. Truly, do
these ladies believe men are not acquainted with every detail of their anatomy
beneath the silks and cashmere? Yet Daniel finds himself peering at the elegant
Miss Cameron, craning his neck for a glimpse of her ankle. What sort of shoes
does she wear? What color are her stockings?

“Ooh,
sir,” moans his veiled bird louder still, clinging to his waist pathetically.
“Will you help me down the plank, and then I’ll trouble you no more?”

“Heaven’s,
miss, it’s no trouble at all,” he says, gesturing at a strapping young porter
to take his bags and trunk. “You must tell me your name. Would you care to dine
with me?”

She
shakes her head in weak assent, clutching her throat wordlessly.

“Do
you live in San Francisco, then?” Daniel persists. “Have you an address where I
may call upon you?”

“May
I take your card?” she whispers in reply.

Well,
of course. Why should she impart personal information to a stranger? He peers
through her veil, getting only a glimpse of the curve of her lip, her wide-set
eyes staring at him more boldly than he would have expected. He gives her the
business card he’s used in Europe. “That’s my name, at least,” he says. “Daniel
J. Watkins of Saint Louis, London, and Paris. I haven’t settled upon a
residence yet, but I shall be here a while to settle my father’s accounts. When
may I see you again?’

“Soon,
I’m sure, sir,” the veiled bird says as they step off the plank onto the dock.

Though
she had clamped quite a grip on him, and he on her, she manages swiftly to
extricate herself and slip away. In less than an instant, his veiled bird
disappears into the crowd milling about the dock. Such a tiny waist!

Never
mind. San Francisco! San Francisco, at last! Daniel breathes the salt air,
relishing the cold clean tang of it.
Bang, bang, bang!
He starts, then
laughs at the smoke and the stink of gunpowder. Small boys leap about on the
dock, lighting some sort of red tassels and flinging them on the planking. A
Chinese man—a coolie, they’re called—clad in denim pajamas, straw sandals, and
wide-brimmed conical straw cap chases after the boys, shouting and
gesticulating. One boy tosses a silver coin onto the dock where the boards are
pocked and uneven. The coolie dives frantically for his coin before it drops
into the water below. Daniel smiles wryly. Cruel kid.

He
strolls through the Ferry Building, a portion of which is under construction,
the wood skeleton laid bare. The strapping porter trots after him, hauling his
bags and his trunk. Horse-drawn wagons and cable cars and gangs of men mingle
chaotically on the cobblestone avenue. A green and red cable car with
“SIGHTSEEING” emblazoned down its sides waits on a track. The cable car is much
like the trams he’s seen in Europe, only bigger and wider and grander. More
American. They say Mr. Hallidie, the brilliant Scotsman who invented and built
the first cable car line on Clay Street with twenty thousand dollars of his own
life savings, is a multimillionaire now. There’s a business for a young
gentleman to consider. Daniel wonders if he should buy a street-railway
franchise, lay in a new cable car line.

Bang,
bang, bang
! A brass band strikes up a rousing tune. A gigantic
parade promenades up the street.

“What’s
that?” He points to the chaotic avenue before him.

“This
here’s Market Street,” shouts the strapping porter, flushed with excitement.
“It’s the Fourth of July parade, mister! Ain’t it grand?”

It
is, indeed. Regiment after regiment of former soldiers in uniform pass by, some
on foot, some on horseback, some in carriages or open wagons. Gold and silver
braid crisscrosses jackets of blue or maroon, deep green or violet. There are
high-peaked caps, caps with brims like wings, and plumed helmets. Feathers
flutter, tasseled ropes swing. The men bear their pistols and rifles proudly.
Banners and flags snap in the brisk sea breeze.

The
United States Army and Navy march past, then the Coast Guard, the California
Club, the Schuetzen Club, the Scottish Clan, the Native Sons and Daughters of
the Golden West. The Camera Club has set up their tripods in surreys and snap
photographs of the cheering crowd. The Cycling Club rolls past, three men in
tight bicycling togs wobbling precariously on old-fashioned high wheelers. The
rest of the club—including ladies in bloomers—clip smartly along on modern
bicycles sporting two low wheels of the same size rimmed in sterling silver,
huge silver bells, and fish horns with which they produce a terrific racket.

Vehicular
traffic congests Market Street, navigating around and through the parade. A
splendid brougham trots by, pulled by matched chestnuts with plumes in their
bridles. A hansom with an elegant blue body, green and carmine striping, and
plenty of scrollwork in gold and silver leaf nearly collides with an ice wagon
bearing on both sides a fine reproduction of Emanuel Leutze’s painting of George
Washington crossing the Delaware. More coolies in wide-brimmed caps and denim pajamas
dash across the avenue, their baskets heaped with vegetables or fish and slung
on yokes that they bear over their shoulders. Daniel spies the Palace Hotel
looming eight stories high and taking up the whole block. Other elegant
commercial buildings boast an intricate style more flamboyant, more exuberant,
more baroque than any architecture he’s ever seen. The street lamps are crafted
of beveled capiz shell and stained glass.

Ladies
in their summer dresses and gentlemen in top hats and checked vests snack from
picnic baskets right on the street corners, uncork wine bottles. A crowd
congregates around a tall fountain made of gray marble cherubs, dipping cups
and glasses into a sparkling fluid spouting from the cherubs’ mouths.

“What
is it?” Daniel exclaims.

“Help
yourself.” A gentleman with a face blooming scarlet dips his hand. “Happy
Fourth of July!”

Daniel
scoops up a palmful of cheap champagne from the fountain, astringent bubbles
tickling his nose as the wine slides down his throat. The strapping porter
grins and plunges his face right into the champagne cascading from a cherub’s
mouth. That’s San Francisco in the Year of Our Lord, 1895, Daniel thinks. Champagne
for all.

A
ferocious clanging cuts through the celebratory din. A spectacular red and
black fire wagon with polished brass fittings, a gigantic brass cask of water,
and intricate pumping equipment thunders by, pulled by wild-eyed blowing steeds
whose prancing hooves show off their skill at negotiating city streets beyond
the capability of the ordinary nag. Boys cheer and whoop and chase after the frantic
fire wagon.

“Happens
every Fourth, mister,” says the porter with a malicious grin. “Some blighter
lands a rocket on somebody’s roof, and the whole joint burns down. Ha, ha.”

“Burns
down!” What about Father’s commercial building on Stockton Street? Daniel
suddenly wonders if Father’s tenants have any inkling he’s here. But how could
they? Father felt that taking them by surprise was the best strategy and, after
his last pleas for payment, he had wired no one. Still, Daniel feels uneasy.
It’s the noise and confusion, he tells himself, the smell of gunpowder, the
lingering aftertaste of puma piss. He takes out a handkerchief, wipes sticky
champagne off his palm. “Let’s get going.”

“Sure,
mister.” The porter stops in his tracks, holds out his hand. “But first,
that’ll be two bits for unloadin’ you from the ferry.”

“Oh,
very well.” Daniel searches his jacket pocket. He blew too much cash at the First
and Last Chance Saloon, that’s a fact. But he’s got more. He reaches into his
vest, his fingers searching for the smooth Moroccan leather of his boodle book.
He’s got a few treasury notes, but Father warned him no one honors paper currency
in the West. A gentleman needs coins, gold preferably, and he’s got several
dozen in the coin pocket of the boodle book. Now where is the blasted thing? It
seems to have migrated someplace.

Daniel
searches, puzzled, and pats his pockets, reaching here and there. Nothing?
Nothing! “Damn,” he mutters.

“Something
the matter, mister?” That malicious grin again.

With
an awful sinking feeling, Daniel knows the boodle book and its contents are
long gone. “Seems I’ve lost my dough.”

“Cashed
in your chips on the trip out, did ye?”

“No,
I haven’t gambled since. . . . No. That bird. The little bird I left the ferry
with.”

“Oh,
her? Good ol’ Fanny, she’s a hummer, ain’t she?”

“By
God, are you telling me she’s a dip?”

“Fanny
Spiggot? Ha, ha. Faintin’ Fanny, that’s what we call her. A’ course, a smart
young gentleman like yourself wouldn’t fall for her racket, now would ye?”

Daniel
fights the anger and disgust welling in his chest while the porter sticks his
mug into the stream of champagne for another guzzle. Naturally, he didn’t carry
his whole kit and caboodle in the boodle book. He’s not some bumpkin. He’s
stashed a few gold coins in his ditty bag. Then there’s the trunk with the deeds
and papers, a bit of the art he acquired in Paris. He’s not wiped out.

Still!
Still! The lousy little bitch, he could take her slender neck in his hands and
twist it. Women! They’ll steal your soul if you give them half a chance.