by Jim Nelson
In the entryway, we passed around the stretched penny we'd discovered at Fisherman's Wharf. The ridges of the embossment scraped against the meat of our thumbs. That sliver of copper was almost negligible in our hands. But it magnetized the museum, making it a lodestone attracting us like iron filings.
Hyde, California, Mason, Powell. Looking down from the observation deck, we admired the two mighty engines pulling the cable with the kind of shouldering patience that is the hallmark of the Steam Age. The engines forced us to shout to hear one another. Their horsepower echoed the horsepower of 140 years prior lying broken on the street, their fractured legs jerking in the cold air. The long slide down the cobblestone hill left their sides torn open into leathery flaps. Eyes bulging, nostrils dilated and foaming pink, they each took a bullet made of Sacramento gold and expired.
We Ring the Bell
We struck the bell once—the sound of the city, just as Arbeit had said. San Francisco is constructed from the brittle bricks of optimism and the thin mortar of renewal. That is why every hundred years it all comes quaking down. Then the city is rebuilt from those bricks and mortar all over again.
We stood at the display of the cable car grip and admired its elegance. A steel rod, a lever, and ratchets and gears in the base. The grip is the keystone of the cable car. Its genius is in its measured approach. The grip takes hold of the cable in gradual constrictions. Its mechanical hand allows the cable to slide through while still generating enough friction to pull a car of sixty passengers up an incline. The grip converts the massive force of the engines into a delicate ascent punctuated by the chime of a bell tuned to a note that can only be heard when one believes in its promises.
We See the Invisible
We descended the stairs to the underground observation alcove. Beyond the wall of windows were great wooden wheels receiving and sending the cables to points far off. Cable cars start and stop, riders board and hop off, the cable is unrelenting. It speeds underground without thought or purpose. No car may be attached to it or all may be attached, the cable runs with patience and determination. It's never seen by the thousands of people who step aboard the cars it pulls. They know it's there, they hear it beneath the street, but it's invisible.
Hunched over at the windows with his back to us was the Everywhere Man. He stared into the amber-lit cavern of spinning activity. His palm was pressed to the window, fingers spread.
We went for our cameras and called out to him. He swiveled around and our flashbulbs fired. The room filled with lightning that blinded us. When the white in our eyes settled and the dim room returned, he was gone. We hurried to where he had stood. On the glass was faint condensation making an outline of where his hand had been pressed. The condensation evaporated, and then it disappeared.
We checked the pictures on our cameras. The flashbulbs had made mirrors of the windows. He wasn't in the photos. We were photographing ourselves, our cameras to our heads and our faces hidden. We barely recognized the people in the pictures. Their backs were curved and their guts distended. Their hair was wild and ragged. They had come to California to live and wound up staying to die. In the process they had discovered something truly invisible in this city, this man, the Everywhere Man.
About the author
Jim Nelson's work has appeared in North American Review, The Erotic Review, Watchword, Instant City, Switchback, Smokelong Quarterly, and other venues. His books include the short story collection A Concordance of One's Life and Everywhere Man. A native of California, he lives in San Francisco.
