The Genius Read online

  The point is that in creating his objects, the Philadelphia Wireman did only some of the work, and I would argue not the majority of it. He made things. It took dealers to make those things into art. Once anointed as such, there’s no going back. You can destroy, but you can’t uncreate. If the Wireman showed up tomorrow and began shrieking about his rights, I doubt anyone would listen to him.

  And so I regarded as more than fair my vow that were Victor ever to turn up at my door, I would pay him according to the traditional artist-dealer split: fifty-fifty. In fact, I congratulated myself on my generosity, knowing that few of my colleagues would have made such an outlandish and indulgent promise.

  I’LL SPARE YOU THE GORY DETAILS of prepping the show. You don’t need to hear about rail mounts and track lighting and the procurement of mediocre pinot. But there is something I don’t want to leave out, and that’s the strange discovery Ruby and I made late one night at the storage locker.

  We had been working for four months. The space heaters were gone, replaced by a series of fans strategically placed so as not to send piles of paper flying. For weeks we had been searching of panel number one, the point of origin. The boxes had gotten mixed up in transit, and we’d start on one that seemed promising—whose top sheet numbered, say, in the low hundreds—only to find that the page numbers went up, not down.

  We did eventually find it—more on that later—but on that night it was a different page, from the 1,100s, that caught Ruby’s eye.

  “Hey,” she said, “you’re in here.”

  I stopped working and came over to have a look.

  Near the top of the page, in slashing letters three inches high:

  MULLER

  All the warmth went out of the room. I can’t say why the sight of my own name terrified me the way it did. For a moment I heard Victor’s voice shouting at me over the whirr of the fans, shouting at me through his art, clapping his hands in my face. He did not sound pleased.

  Somewhere, a door slammed. We both jumped, I against the desk and Ruby in her chair. Then silence, both of us embarrassed by our own skittishness.

  “Odd,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And creepy.”

  “Very.”

  We looked at my name. It seemed vaguely obscene.

  “I guess it’s reasonable,” she said.

  I looked at her.

  “He did live in Muller Courts.”

  I nodded.

  She said, “Actually, I’m surprised you’re not in there more often.”

  I tried to resume work, but I couldn’t concentrate, not with Ruby clicking her stud against her teeth and that drawing radiating ill feelings. I announced that I was heading out. I must have sounded paranoid—I certainly felt paranoid—because she snickered and told me to watch my back.

  Normally, I take a cab straight home, but that night I ducked into a bar and ordered a soda water. As I sat there watching people trickle in, gasping and cursing the sultry night, my uneasiness began to change shape, to soften and turn to encouragement.

  Ruby was right. Victor Cracke had been drawing the universe as he knew it. Naturally, the Muller name would loom large.

  The bar had a jukebox. Somebody put on Bon Jovi, and the place filled with off-key singing. I got up to leave.

  I gave the cabbie directions and sank back into the sticky vinyl. If anything, I reflected, my name in Victor’s art could be interpreted generously. I was no intruder. Quite the contrary. I had every right to be there. I was there all along.

  Interlude: 1847.

  Solomon’s cart has many miles on it, and holds the entire world. Cloth, buttons, tinware. Tonics and patent medicines. Nails and glue, writing paper and appleseeds. So many different kinds of items, unclassifiable except perhaps as What People Need. He works a kind of magic, showing up unexpected in some dreary Pennsylvania town, drawing a crowd with shouts and theatrics, laying out his wares, defying the townsfolk’s attempts to stump him. I need a hammer. Yes, sir. Glass bottles, about so big? Yes, ma’am. People joke that the cart is bottomless.

  He understands much more English than he speaks, and when forced into a particularly heated negotiation he will resort to the use of his fingers. Seven cents? No, ten. I’ll give you nine. Okay? Okay.

  Everybody speaks bargain.

  The same rigamarole applies when he needs to pay for a room, although he avoids that if he can, preferring to sleep outside, in a field or an open barn. Every penny he saves will bring his brothers over that much sooner. When Adolph comes they will be able to earn twice as much money, and when Simon comes, three times. He plans to bring them over in that order: first Adolph, then Simon, and last, Bernard. Bernard is the second oldest; but he is also the laziest, and Solomon knows that they will achieve much more, much more quickly, if they leave him behind for now.

  But sometimes… when it is so cold outside… when he craves the dignity of a roof… when he cannot face another night on the dirt, in a pile of hay, bugs crawling all over him like an animal… Too much! He caves in, wasting an entire day’s earnings on a featherbed—only to spend the rest of the week chastising himself. He is not Bernard! He is the eldest; he should know better. Their father sent him first for a reason.

  The crossing nearly killed him. Never had he been so sick, nor had he ever seen so much sickness around him. The fever that took his mother could not be compared to the horrors he witnessed on that boat, people dissolving in piles of their own waste, wracked and groaning bodies, the wet stench of physical and moral failure. Solomon took care to eat alone; against his nature, he did not socialize with his fellow passengers. His father had commanded him to keep to himself, and he obeyed.

  Once he saw a woman go mad. Solomon, alone on deck, up from the hold for fresh air, joyous to feel the light rain, saw her come up the stairs, shaky, green, bloodball eyes. He recognized her. The day before she had lost her son. When they pried the body from her arms she had let out a noise that stood Solomon’s hair on end. Now he watched her stumble to the bow where she did not hesitate but leaned over the railing and dropped into the churning sea. Solomon ran to where she had existed a moment ago. He looked down and saw nothing but whitewater.

  The shiphands came running. She fell! Solomon said, or tried to say. What he said was Sie fiel! But the crew came from England. They did not understand him, and with his babbling he was getting in the way. They ordered him belowdecks, and when he protested, four of them picked him up and carried him away.

  By the time the Shining Harry dumped its human cargo at Boston Harbor, Solomon had been at sea for forty-four days. He had lost twenty percent of his body weight and had developed a painful rash on his back that would persist for months, making his nights spent on the ground all the more miserable.

  At first he lived with a cousin, a cobbler, their relation so distant that neither of them could quite pinpoint where their blood mingled. Right away Solomon could tell that the arrangement would not last. The cousin’s wife hated him and wanted him out of the house. While he tossed and turned on the workbench that served as his bed, she would tramp around upstairs in wooden shoes. She fed him rotten fruit and made his tea with muddy water and let bread stale before cutting him a slice. He planned to leave as soon as he had enough money and English, but before he managed to get there she came downstairs one night and bared her breasts to him. Early the next morning he loaded what little he had in a burlap pack and set out walking.

  He walked to Buffalo, arriving in time for an awful winter. Nobody bought his odds and ends. Chastened, he hurried south, first to New Jersey, then into the heart of Pennsylvania, where he met others who spoke his language. They became his first regular customers: farmers who came to depend on him for specialty items that did not justify a long trip into town, indulgences such as a new razor strop or a box of pencils. He filled his burlap sack to bursting, but soon it could not hold enough to meet his clients’ demands, and he got another, one as tall as he was. As his inventory grew, so did his
route and his clientele; and despite his limited vocabulary, he revealed himself as an able salesman: quick to laugh, firm but fair, and always aware of the latest trends. The second sack did not last long. He bought himself a cart.

  On its side he painted

  SOLOMON MUELLER DRY GOODS

  “Dry goods” has always sounded wrong, as some of the items he sells are not, in fact, dry. He merely copied what he saw on the sides of other carts, belonging to other men—the competition. He is not the only Jew walking these back roads.

  He knows that he has plenty to be thankful for, having exceeded his own expectations. When he dons his tefillin, he praises God for sustaining him through these dark days and begs for yet more assistance. So much remains to be done. In April he turns eighteen.

  WITH ADOLPH’S BIRTHDAY COMING UP, as well, Solomon has decided that the time has come to send for him. In Punxsutawney he starts a letter, in Altoona he mails it. The thought of having his brother with him brings a lightness to his step that carries him humming over the Appalachians, though his cart and back creak with fatigue.

  York, Pennsylvania, sounds like the place to treat himself to a night indoors. Though he knows that he really should wait until he needs a bed, wait for a night of blistering cold or pounding rain, rather a balmy evening that predicts spring. But what good is life if you cannot enjoy it? He has been prudent, perhaps too much so. Luxury reminds us of the purpose of toil. With his remaining money he will allow himself a taste.

  Taverns glow along the main thoroughfare, which is rutted and damp with urine. He pushes his cart and thinks about beer. His mouth waters with the remembered taste of yeast. He misses his home. He misses his sister, who makes the most delicious cakes, tender and light, recipes their mother passed along before she died. The coarse bread and beans on which he currently subsists make him want to weep. He has not eaten meat in four months. The most available—not to say affordable—is pork. That he refuses to touch. He has his limits.

  Some of the taverns offer rooms, and when he steps inside one to inquire about vacancies, a wave of hot air and body odor breaks over him. In one corner a piano roars. Every table is full. He shouts his request at the bartender, who misunderstands and brings him a glass of beer. Solomon considers giving it back, but his thirst gets the better of him. The bartender comes back to collect the glass and offer another, but Solomon shakes his head and points to the ceiling. Upstairs?

  The man shakes his head. “Silver Spoon,” he shouts.

  Solomon waves his hands around, indicating I’m lost. The bartender walks him to the door and points down an alleyway. Solomon thanks him, unties his cart, and heads for the Silver Spoon.

  The alley is dark, spilling onto another wide road. Cicadas fiddle. His limbs feel half connected to his trunk. Perhaps he should stop right here, go to sleep… It is tempting. How bad could it be? Then he steps in a pile of dung and, having regained his purpose, goes up the street one way, back down it along the other side. The wheels on his cart have begun to squeak; he should oil them. He finds nothing. Sighing, he heads back toward the alley. Three men approach, singing, their arms linked.

  Solomon raises a hand. “Hello, friends.”

  Like one body they veer toward him. They smell like a belch.

  “Hello, friends,” says one of the men, and the other two begin to laugh.

  Solomon doesn’t get the joke, but it would be impolite not to participate. He laughs. Then he asks about the Silver Spoon. The men start laughing again. One asks where Solomon is from.

  “Here.”

  “Heeeee-ah, huh?” says the same man. His imitation of Solomon’s accent is absurd but it strikes everyone as extremely funny. More laughter ensues.

  Once they’ve finished, Solomon tries to repeat his question. But the man—the talking man, the man with the felt hat and the cheeks stubbled black, the one a great deal larger than the other two—interrupts again, asking more questions. While Solomon does his best to answer, he gets tangled up in the net of words, tripping and stuttering, eliciting hoots and howls and backslapping and bringing a purposeful smirk to the man’s face.

  What happens next is unclear. It begins with a shove; it then becomes a wrestling match, no blows falling but a grunting stalemate, Solomon pinned against the cart, which rocks as the man holds his arms and presses against him, his embrace warm and boozy and almost intimate as he fills Solomon’s ears with incomprehensible threats.

  Then Solomon dares to resist, and all three of them—like ten men, so many fists and feet they have—converge, stomping. They are too drunk to be methodical, and that is why he lives.

  WHEN HE CAN WALK AGAIN, it is with a limp. He considers abandoning the cart and starting over, with a shop, one he doesn’t have to carry on his back. He could go back to Boston, back to Buffalo. Nobody bought, but at least they didn’t try to kill him.

  But no. To begin with, they robbed him blind; how could he open a shop? If he’s very lucky, his suppliers will extend him credit; only a fool would loan money to a crippled immigrant with no tangible assets.

  There is another reason not to quit: in less than a year, Adolph arrives. The physical damage—the limp, the divots on his face—that cannot be hidden. Spiritually, though, Solomon cannot show himself a broken man. Adolph will drop dead of fright, or else he will flee back to Germany on the first boat. That mustn’t happen. For his family’s sake, Solomon must show that America still has much to offer—a belief that he himself wants so badly to retain, one he longs for even as it oozes out of him.

  He looks on the bright side. Three men beat him; but one man has taken him in, fed him, and healed him. That man reads to him from a Bible and, upon discovering that his patient is not a Christian, has spent hours sharing the wisdom of the Lord Savior. Solomon, understanding that this is the price of his recovery, listens politely, noting with interest that the Lord Savior indeed went through a fair amount of hardship. That doesn’t make him God, but it does make him a sympathetic character.

  One idea that comes to Solomon while he lies in the bed—a real bed! Strange, how agony begets pleasure—listening to tales of the Lord Savior is that he needs to improve his English. Silver Spoon he had asked for, except that his Silver came out as silber and the Spoon as shpoon, clanging shibboleths. If he had been able to speak he could have talked his way to safety. And how much more business would he bring in if he sounded like an American?

  As the healer speaks of the salt of the earth, Solomon devises a plan for self-improvement.

  Four and a half weeks later he rises up from his bed and limps to the most American place he knows: smoky, impatient Pittsburgh, a town for the up-and-coming, the meshed cogs of industry. Smiling through pain, he peddles his wares to women doing the washing in their front yards. He peddles outside factories and saloons. He forces himself to talk, counting every complete conversation a victory, even if he sells nothing. He asks for help with his pronunciation; sometimes, he gets it. At the end of the day he walks along the riverbanks, reciting whatever new words he has learned that day, going until he feels too tired to continue, at which point he sits down and makes camp. Twice he flees to avoid arrest for trespassing. Though he has stopped putting on his tefillin, he takes a moment to thank God when he reaches safety.

  As summer comes to a boil, he improves. With enough effort he will soon sound no different from the men who attacked him. By the time Adolph arrives, they will be unable to communicate! The idea makes Solomon laugh.

  One morning he spots a poster announcing the arrival of a new theatrical enterprise specializing in the most dramatic and comedic and thrilling, etc., etc. Normally, he would never waste money on such stuff, but then he considers the educational benefit: in the theater, people do nothing but talk. He can sit and take in the words. He copies down the information on the poster. The Merritt Players open that evening, at seven o’clock, at the Water Street Theater.

  THE MERRITT PLAYERS turn out to consist of a single massive fellow draped in a velvetee
n cape. His beard looks like a horde of skunks has burrowed halfway into his chin, tails wagging as he bellows his lines and wiggles his sausage fingers, sweeping and stabbing for emphasis. His trousers could hold two Solomons, one in each leg.

  He performs selections from Shakespeare at a rapid clip, pausing now and then to savor a particular phrase. Try as he might, Solomon cannot keep up. Moreover, he senses that this fellow’s diction does not match what one hears on the street. In other words, the show completely fails as a learning tool.

  Nevertheless Solomon remains in his seat. He’s paid for his ticket, and he intends to get his money’s worth.

  Over the next hour, against his will, an unexpected thing happens: he falls under the actor’s spell. The man has a voice that could stop a train, yes, but he can also sound beguiling and innocent. Though Solomon cannot understand all the words, he hears perfectly the emotions behind them. The man’s pain evokes Solomon’s own pain; their longings and joys and fears merge, making him feel, momentarily, that he has a friend.

  The show finishes and the scant audience gets up to leave, but Solomon remains, unwilling to move for fear of shattering the magical sense of peace and belonging and companionship that he has been so long without—the humanity missing in his lonely, lonely life—remains sunk down in his chair so that the top of his head is invisible to the manager, who closes up without further ado, locking him inside.