A Place so Foreign

by Cory Doctorow

are you liking your first day, James?" he asked, in his raspy voice.

  "It's fine, sir."

  "And the work? You're able to keep up with the class?"

  "It's not a problem for me. We studied this when I was away."

  "Are you bored? Do you need more of a challenge?"

  "It's fine, sir." _Unless you want to assign me some large-prime factoringproblems_.

  "Right, then. Don't hesitate to call on me if things are moving too slowly ortoo quickly. I mean that."

  I snuck another look at him. He seemed sincere.

  "Why aren't you playing with your chums?"

  "I don't feel like it."

  "You just wanted to think?"

  "I guess so." Why wouldn't he just leave me alone?

  "It's hard to come home, isn't it?"

  I stared at my shoes. What did he know about it?

  "I've been around the world, you know that? I sailed with a tramp steamer, the_Slippery Trick_. I saw the naked savages of Polynesia, and the voodoo witchesthat the freed slaves of the Caribbean worship, and the coolies pullingrickshaws in Peking. It was so _hard_ to come home to Frisco, after five yearsat sea."

  To my surprise, he sat down next to me, in the dirt and roots at the base of thetree. "You know, aboard the _Trick_, they called me Runnyguts -- I threw upevery hour for my first month. I was more reliable than the Watch! But theydidn't mean anything by it. When you live with a crew for years, you become adifferent person. We'd be out at sea, nothing but water as far as the eye couldsee, and we'd be playing cards on-deck. We'd told each other every joke we knewalready, and every story about home, and we knew that deck of cards so well,which one had salt-water stains on the back and which one turned up at cornerand which one had been torn, and we'd just scream at the sun, so bored! But thenwe'd put in to port at some foreign city, and we'd come down the plank in ourbest clothes, twenty men who knew each other better than brothers, hard andbrown from months at sea, and it felt like whatever happened in that strangeport-of-call, we'd come out on top."

  "And then I came back to the Frisco, and the Captain shook my hand and gave me asack of gold and saw me off, and I'd never felt so alone, and I'd never seen aplace so foreign.

  "I went back to my old haunts, the saloons where I'd gone for a beer after aday's work at the docks, and the dance-halls, and the theatres, and I saw my oldchums. That was hard, James."

  He stopped then. I found myself saying, "How was it hard, Mr Adelson?"

  He looked surprised, like he'd forgotten that he was talking to me. "Well,James, it's like this: when you're away that long, you get to invent yourselfall over again. Of course, everyone invents themselves as they grow up. Yourchums there --" he gestured at the boys, who were now trying, with varyingsuccess, to turn somersaults, dirtying their school clothes "-- they'reinventing themselves right now, whether they know it or not. The smart one, thestrong one, the brave one, the sad one. It's going on while we watch!

  "But when you go away, nobody knows you, and you can be whoever you want. Youcan shed your old skin and grow a new one. When we put out to sea, I was just ayoungster, eighteen years old and fresh from my Pa's house. He was a cablecarengineer, and wanted me to follow in his shoes, get an apprenticeship and joinhim there under the hills, oiling the giant pulleys. But no, not me! I wanted toput out to sea and see the world. I'd never been out of the city, can youbelieve that? The first port where I took shore leave was in Haiti, and when Istepped onto the dock, it was like my life was starting all over again. I got atattoo, and I drank hard liquor, and gambled in the saloons, and did all thethings that a man did, as far as I was concerned." He had a faraway look now,staring at the boys' game without seeing it. "And when I got back on-board, sickand tired and broke, there was a new kid there, a negro from Port-Au-Princewho'd signed on to be a cabin boy. His name was Jean-Paul, and he didn't speak aword of English and I didn't speak a word of French. But I took him under mywing, James, and acted like I'd been at sea all my life, and showed him theropes, and taught him to play cards, and bossed him around, and taught himEnglish, one word at a time.

  "And that became the new me. Every time a new hand signed on, I would be histeacher, his mentor, his guide.

  "And then I came home.

  "As far as the folks back home were concerned, I was the kid they'd saidgood-bye to five years before. My father thought I was still a kid, even thoughI'd fought pirates and weathered storms. My chums wanted me to be the kid I'dbeen, and do all the boring, kid things we'd done before I left -- riding thetrolleys, watching the vaudeville shows, fishing off the docks.

  "Even though that stuff was still fun, it wasn't _me_, not anymore. I missed theold me, and felt him slipping away. So, you know what I did?"

  "You moved to New Jerusalem?"

  "I moved to New Jerusalem. Well, to Salt Lake City, first. I studied with theJesuits, to be a teacher, then I saw an ad for a teacher in the paper, and Ipacked my bag and caught the next train. And here I am, not the me that camehome from sea, and not the me who I was before I went to sea, but someone inbetween, a new me -- teaching, but on dry land, and not chasing dangerousadventures, but still reading my old log-book and smiling."

  We sat for a moment, in companionable silence. Then, abruptly, he checked hispocket watch and yelped. "Damn! Lunch was over twenty minutes ago!" He leapt tohis feet, as smoothly as a boy, and ran into the schoolhouse to ring the bell.

  I folded up the waxed-paper, and thought about this adult who talked to me likean adult, who didn't worry about swearing, or telling me about his adventures,and I made my way back to class.

  It went better, the rest of that day.

  #

  In 75, Pa had almost never been home, but his presence was always around us.

  I'd call the robutler out of its closet and have it affix its electrodefingertips to my temples and juice my endorphins after a hard day at school, andwhen I was done, the faint smell of Pa's hair-oil, picked up from the 'trodesand impossible to be rid of, would cling to me. Or I'd sit down on the oublietteand find one of Pa's journals from back home, well-thumbed and open to anarticle on mental telepathy. We did ESP in school, and it was all about a raceof alien traders who communicated in geometric thought pictures that tookforever to translate. We'd never learned about Magnetism and Astral Projectionand all the other things Pa's journals were full of.

  And while I never doubted the things in Pa's journals, I never brought them upin class, neither. There were lots of different kinds of truth.

  "James?"

  "Yes, Mama?" I said, on my way out to chop kindling.

  "Did you finish your homework?"

  "Yes, Mama."

  "Good boy."

  Homework had been some math, and some biology, and some geology. I'd done itbefore I left school.

  #

  The report cards came out in the middle of December. Mr Adelson sealed them withwax in thick brown envelopes and handed them out at the end of the day. Sealingthem was a dirty trick -- it mean a boy would have to go home not knowingwhether to expect a whipping or an extra slice of pie, and the fellows were asnervous as long-tailed cats in a rocking-chair factory when class let out. Foronce, there was no horseplay afterwards.

  I came home and tossed the envelope on the kitchen table without a moment'sworry. I'd aced every test, I'd done every take-home assignment, I'd led theclass, in a bored, sleepy way, regurgitating the things they'd stuck in my brainin 1975.

  I went up to the attic and started reading one of Pa's adventure stories,_Tarzan of the Apes_, by the Frenchman, Jules Verne. Pa had all of Verne'sbooks, each of them crisply autographed on the inside cover. He'd met Verne onone of his diplomatic missions, and the two had been like two peas in a pod, tohear him tell of it -- they both subscribed to all the same crazy journals.

  I was reading my favorite part, where Tarzan meets the man in the balloon, whenMama's voice called from downstairs. "James Arthur Nicholson! Get your behinddown here _now_!"

  I jumped like I was stung and r
attled down the attic stairs so fast I nearlybroke my neck and then down into the parlour, where Mama was holding my reportcard and looking fit to bust.

  "Yes, Mama?" I said. "What is it?"

  She handed me the report card and folded her arms over her chest. "Explain that,mister. Make it good."

  I read the card and my eyes nearly jumped out of my head. The rotten so-and-sohad given me F's all the way down, in every subject. Below, in his seaman'shand, he'd written, "James' performance this semester has disappointed megravely. I would like it very much if I could meet with you