The Invention of Everything Else (8 page)

I took stock of my meager belongings:

• one sheet of paper where I'd been working a particularly long integer

• one aforementioned sheet of paper with detailed notes for the construction of a flying machine

• four centimes

• a number of articles I had written

• one letter of introduction from Charles Batchelor to Thomas A. Edison, inventor

Not altogether too much. I had just returned my four coins to my inside breast pocket when two members of the
Saturnia
's crew came around the corner. They leaned over the railing, staring down at the
sea. One sailor even went so far as to step both feet up onto the first rung of the railing so that his hips were above the guard, teetering out over the rail's edge, farther than most would care to go. I couldn't hear everything, but a few words were undeniable. "Doddering fat—" and then a word I wasn't yet familiar with in English. "Captain Cowbrains," was the expression that followed from the mouth of one of the sailors. I moved in closer to listen.

"I am certain we could take him. We've got a majority."

The sailors, as luck would have it, were planning a mutiny onboard my very ship. The mechanics of such an uprising fascinated me. These sailors were gruff sorts. One short, the other tremendous and no doubt good for taking out at least six men. His arms were as thick as my thigh. The scruff of his beard seemed as though it alone could wreak plenty of damage. The men compiled evidence, a list of their crew's grievances. I listened.

"The rats! Even if we were to get four hours off, most of us can't sleep for the rats occupying our berths."

"Inhumane hours."

"Like dogs."

"Filthy berths."

"And not enough clean water."

"The rats."

"That coal shoveler whose hand got pinched off between the teeth of an engine's gears, picked like a crab."

"John Templar," the other man said. "Awful!"

"Nathaniel Greevey!"

"Lost overboard, and the captain refused to turn back."

"Moldy food."

"And nearly never enough."

"Not by half."

"And the worst part: our pay dips to new lows, far below the set rate, and all the while the captain chuckles. 'That's how the system works, boys!' Which system is that, I asked him. 'Capitalism! Capitalism!' he told me, laughing. 'Ever heard of it?'"

I hadn't even reached America yet, and already I was learning much.

The uprising was quelled by the officers onboard and the instigators were jailed until we reached New York, where, I heard, they were headed for a terrifying prison called the Tombs. The name made me fear that they'd be buried alive, interred by capitalism. It was a lesson I wouldn't forget.

As we approached our port I was surprised to learn that Manhattan is an island. The entire contents of the ship emptied out onto the decks as we entered the harbor. Among my fellow passengers, hundreds of them, a hush descended. We held the silence while our ship approached the tip of the island. A man standing beside me began to say, "
Où est le ...
" but that was all of the question he was allowed to get out before his wife and a number of nearby passengers hissed a quick "
Silence!
" They wanted nothing to distract from the wonder of this new land.

New York was a volcano erupting before us. With every gush of hot lava a new pier or courthouse or bridge took shape. The city cleared its lungs and a furnace let loose a great belch of black industrial smoke. The city began to scream as the rope pulley carrying a square cord of lumber to be used in dock construction gave way and fell to the cobbled street with a terrific crash. Everywhere things were changing, working, scheming, oiling, negotiating, screaming, and I felt like yelling, "All right, New York. I am here. Let us begin!" but I feared the displeasure of my fellow travelers. I disembarked at Castle Garden, sprinting down the gangway ahead of the others, and begin we did.

Certainly there must have been at some time a young woman or man in a more dire situation than the one I then found myself in, though at that moment I could not imagine who he or she may have been.

I had the four centimes. I had taken an orange from the ship's breakfast table and kept it tucked in my pocket, its roundness creating an awkward bulge. And though my hunger grew, I put myself on strict rations, thinking to save two-thirds of the orange for the day after and the day after that. But as I walked through the city I did pull the fruit from my coat any number of times and, raising it to my nose, I inhaled deeply as if perhaps I could derive some nutritional value from its fragrance.

Still within view of the
Saturnia
I encountered a police officer and thought to ask him for directions to Edison's laboratory. "Pardon me, sir"—my English was, I thought, superb—"could you direct me to 65 Fifth Avenue?"

"To 65 Fifth?" he spat back as though the words were an insult hurled between us. "To 65 Fifth?" he roared again, tipping his head high, trying to lift it above mine.

"Yes." I stood my ground. "That's the street I am looking for."

And with that he pointed quite generally in a northerly direction, which was absurd. The only thing not in a northerly direction from where we stood was water. I walked north.

The volcanic sense I had had on board remained. The streets, though rudimentarily cobbled, were packed with people and carts, animals and grime. All the scents of the city—roasting corn, the stinging odors of horse urine, grilled meats, candied nuts, and the starchy scent outside each public house I passed—were terrifically intensified by my empty stomach.

At 65 Fifth Avenue a number of pigeons swooped in and out of view overhead. There was no sign, just a tiny card tucked into the jamb of the doorway. I was scared to look at it. I worried what might happen to someone whose dream has come true.

THOS. ED.

was all the card said. The print had blued in the weather. My heart thrumped. It was pounding. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, and soon my palms were damp with nerves. I raised my hand up to the doorknob. It was not locked, and after a deep breath I pushed my way inside, sick and expecting, in my nervous state, to find the laboratory vacated outside of a spool of thin wire rolling across the bare floor.

But this was not the case.

Entering Edison's laboratory was like entering the circus halfway through the grand finale. Everything was in motion. Men dressed in dark suits ran this way and that, tinkering with alkaline storage batteries, casting forms in the metallurgy room, machining tiny screws to be fitted into an advanced phonograph's stylus, typing upon a row of Royal typewriters, engaging in heated arguments with one another. One such fellow passed right by the tip of my nose yelling, "All right. Who's the rotten dog who finished wiring the fan oscillator and then forgot to turn it on?" A circus indeed. Elephants could have barred and lions roared and invention would still have soared above it all, the star of the show.

In the chaos my presence was noted, a few foreheads ruffled, but
my intrusion caused little stir. The men in dark suits looked right through me, their heads filled with circuits, cylinders, cymbals. Which was how I managed to walk directly up to a desk piled landslide-high with papers, right up to a man who was simultaneously conducting multiple conversations, at least two per ear.

Clients and assistants surrounded him. I recognized the man immediately. It was Thos. Ed., a handsome man, if a bit dogged. His mouth seemed to be turned down in a permanent scowl. He had graying hair and a very broad forehead that he rubbed again and again. I approached and he pulled away from one conversation, tilting his head so as to give a bit of distance between his eardrum and the river of berating insults that flowed from one very angry man standing to his left. As the recipient of this abuse, Edison seemed immune. He raised his eyebrows to me as if to ask, "What could you possibly want?" I did not answer but chose to wait until I had his undivided attention. And wait I would: five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. I shifted my footing and after standing before him for over twenty minutes, witnessing a number of assistants interrupt the stream of several conversations, I realized that undivided attention was not ever going to happen. I stepped up. I began to speak.

"I am Nikola Tesla. I have a letter from Charles Batchelor," and with that I presented the letter to him, unfolding it and placing it in his free hand. He read or at least he pretended to.

I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.

Mr. Edison chuckled when he was through, adding its paper to one of the mounds threatening to topple down to the floor.

I continued. "Sir, I have created an invention that I imagine you will have tremendous use for. You see," I said, "it is an engine for the generation of alternating-current power that—"

"Ha!" was the first thing Edison said, though I was not sure if he was talking to me. "Hold one moment," he said to an assistant before turning his attention my way. "Alternating current, I'm afraid, young man, is of no use to anyone. It doesn't work. It is extremely dangerous, expensive, and impossible."

"But sir," I began, reaching for the letter from Batchelor so as to sketch my ideas on the back of it. Again he interrupted.

"Now I need an engineer who can repair the dynamos of a ship that was supposed to set sail last week. Can you do that?"

I stood up straight and nodded my head. "Yes. Of course."

"Excellent. Get up to Pier 57. Ship's known as the
Oregon
and I hope I don't see you again until it's crossing the Azores." He turned to the one screaming man, presumably the captain of the
Oregon.
"I've got my best man on it," he said, and taking a bite from an overwrought, exploding sandwich, dismissed me and the others with a flick of his corpulent hand.

The music began. I took my leave, and a song, large and oompahish, a marching band, a musical revue, followed me up to the'S.S.
Oregon
so that my step was light. I arrived in no time at all, accompanied by the sounds of the street, vendors, politicians, upset mothers snapping at their charges—their voices were singing to my ears. Once I had repaired these dynamos the great Edison would have to listen to me. I imagined our exchange still with joyful music, this time an opera. I'd sing, "Dear Mr. Edison, you must consider I have built a device that will change the world. You see, whereas the DC technology you have been backing cannot transport energy farther than two miles, the AC engine I have built could send power out to California and back again with no energy loss. It works!"

"You don't say!" he'd sing in a deep baritone.

"Let me show you!" We would step over to a worktable on the opera stage, where I would withdraw my notes and sketches and spread them before him.

He'd study my plans for a moment. "Geeeeeeen-iiii-us!" he'd sing with his arms open wide.

"Perhaps I might be," I'd admit in harmony, and Act I would come to a close. Edison would take my hand and together we'd bend in deep bows as the audience would jump to their feet screaming with praise and applause. The curtain would fall, and instead of roses the audience would shower us with dollar bills, money I would wisely reinvest in building my own laboratory, one as productive as Edison's.

The
Oregon
's two dynamos were a disaster. The coils were burned out and there were short circuits throughout the system. The entire ship had been plunged into darkness while the dynamos sparked and sputtered, a dangerous condition given the condensation leaking from above. I worked by the dim light of the sun that was sneaking
in through a high portal, and when the sun finally set I called for the crew members assisting me to light the gas lamps. The original job had been thrown together in a slapdash style; in fact, I was sorely unimpressed with the original handiwork of the Edison Electrical Company. I worked with a team of sailors until the sun began to rise the following day. I'd labored over fifteen hours, having to rewire the coils entirely, but my exhaustion was replaced with joy when I heard the ship hum, her electricity restored.

Walking away from the S.S.
Oregon
in the first hours of morning, I felt nimble and alert. I was pleased with the work I had done. I removed my jacket and walked through the empty streets in my shirt sleeves, returning to Edison's lab with the news that the job was finished. It was five o'clock; the sun was just touching New York City. I watched as a familiarly shaped man approached. I was no longer astonished at the coincidences that racked this city. I caught Edison and Charles Batchelor, who was just back from Europe, arriving for work.

"Why, Charles, here is our young man running around all night," I heard Mr. Edison say.

I defended myself against his chiding. "I am just leaving the
Oregon,
where both dynamos are operating brilliantly."

Edison said not another word to me but inhaled sharply. My ears still functioning with phenomenal sensitivity, I heard, as he walked away, Edison whispering to Batchelor. The music began again. "Batchelor," he said, "this is a damn good man."

Mr. Edison was well impressed with the work. The following day I caught up with him inside the chemistry room. Table after long table, each one covered with narrow beakers, pipettes, glass tubing, and fat brown glass jugs filled with intriguing concoctions, and though it seemed a small dream, I thought that if I could remain in Mr. Edison's employ my inventions would have a home. I made him an offer. "There is much I could do around here. Your workshop is nearly in shambles. There are horrible leaks in efficiency. I am certain I could, with some tuning up, save you a fortune in operating costs," I said, appealing to his love of money.

He scratched the bulb of his chin and glanced skyward. "You don't say."

"I guarantee it, sir."

"Well, if you could there'd be fifty thousand dollars in it for you."

"Fifty thousand dollars?" I asked. I had to be certain I'd heard correctly. I already had fifty thousand dollars' worth of ideas in desperate need of funding.