Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

“Nothing will happen to Flaxie,” I promised her.

“Thank you,” she said, sighing.

She did sleep then. I couldn’t; for the same conversation that settled her fears had aggravated mine. After an hour of restlessness I put on a robe and went to sit on the porch of the guest-house. The broad swathes of lawn and forest that comprised the Palace grounds lay dark under a clear and moonless sky. The appointed hours of the Illumination of Manhattan had passed, and the city cast no special glow. Summer constellations performed their calendrical marches overhead, and I reminded myself that the same stars had shone indifferently over this island back when it was inhabited by Secular Businessmen, or Unchurched Aborigines before that, or even Mammoths and Giant Sloths (if Julian’s evolutionary narratives were to be believed). Because my wife and child were sleeping in the house behind me, away from immediate danger, I prayed that this particular moment of time would linger indefinitely, and that nothing would happen to change it.

But the world would change, one way or another—it couldn’t be stopped from changing. Julian had preached that homily to me in Williams Ford, long ago; and events since then had only driven home the truth of it.

The stars set, the stars rose. I went back to my summer bed.

Mr. Hungerford had wanted A Western Boy at Sea published by the Fourth of July, in the belief that the patriotic emotions of that Universal Holiday might boost its sales. His printers achieved the goal he set for them: the book was impressed and available for purchase by the first of that month. I attended a small event at the offices of the Spark to celebrate the release.

Apart from Mr. Hungerford, I hardly knew any of the persons present in the room. Some were authors of other books in Hungerford’s line—generally a seedy bunch (the authors, I mean, not necessarily their novels), many displaying the visible effects of dissipative living. Present as well were certain Manhattan businessmen who distributed books, or shopkeepers who sold them—also a roguish crew, but less hopelessly inebriated than the writers, and more genuinely enthusiastic about my work. I said polite things to all these people, and reminded myself to smile whenever I detected a witticism.

Copies of A Western Boy had been stacked on a table. They were the first I had seen in finished form. I remember to this day the nervous pleasure of holding one of these specimens in my hand and inspecting the two-color blind-stamped illustration on the front of it. The illustration showed my protagonist, the Western boy Isaiah Compass, with a sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, battling a Pirate beneath a sketchy Palm Tree, while an Octopus—inexplicably out of his native element—looked on menacingly. I had not included an Octopus in my story, and I hoped the general reader, his interest aroused by this illustration, would not be disappointed by its absence from the text. I mentioned my concern to Mr. Hungerford, who said it didn’t matter; there were better things than Octopuses in the novel, he said; the Octopus was only there to snag the attention of potential customers, in which role it admittedly performed a useful service. Still, I wondered if I ought to put an Octopus, or some other exciting and deadly form of oceanic life, into my next book, in order to compensate readers who might feel cheated by this one.

One New York City writer who was not present at the event (nor expected to be, since Hungerford wasn’t his publisher) was Mr. Charles Curtis Easton. I asked Mr. Hungerford whether he had ever met that famous author.

“Charles Easton? Met him in passing once or twice. He’s a decent enough old man, not at all haughty about his success. He lives in a house off 82nd Street.”

“I have always admired his work.”

“Why don’t you go see him, if you’re curious? I hear he’s willing to entertain fellow writers if they don’t take up too much of his time.”

I was intrigued and dismayed by the suggestion. “I’m a complete stranger to him…”

Hungerford dismissed this objection as trivial. He took out one of his personal cards, and wrote on the back of it an introduction to me and my work. “Take this with you when you visit—it’ll get you in the door.”

“I wouldn’t like to disturb him.”

“Do or don’t—suit yourself,” John Hungerford said.

Of course I wanted to meet Charles Curtis Easton. But I was also afraid that I might embarrass myself by fawning, or exhibit my greenness in some other way. I could not visit him, I decided, without some better pretext than a first novel and a scribbled introduction on a calling card.

As it happened, it was Julian who provided that pretext.

Julian was visiting Calyxa when I arrived back at the guest-house. Flaxie sat in his lap, flailing at his beard with her tiny fist. Flaxie was tremendously interested in Julian’s beard, which depended from his chin like a hank of yellow twine. On the occasions when she managed to get hold of it she yanked it as enthusiastically as a boat-captain sounding a steam whistle, and laughed at the screeches Julian inevitably gave out. It was a game they both seemed to enjoy, though it left Julian’s eyes watering.

I showed off my new book, and gave copies to Julian and Calyxa. They admired it and praised it, though uncomfortable questions arose about the illustration on the cover. Eventually Flaxie grew restive, and Calyxa carried her off for a feeding.

Julian took advantage of her absence to confide in me that his work on The Life and Adventures of the Great Naturalist Charles Darwin remained stalled and incomplete. “I always meant to make this movie,” he said. “Now I have the means within my grasp—who knows for how much longer?—and it still won’t settle on the page. I’m serious about this, Adam. I need help—I admit it. And since you’re the author of a novel, and have some understanding of these things, I want to beg your assistance.”

He had brought the manuscript with him. It was a thin stack of pages, battered and dog-eared from his constant handling of it. He seemed abashed when he handed it to me.

“Will you look at it?” he asked with genuine humility. “And give me any advice that occurs to you?”

“I’m only a novice,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to help.”

But I could think of someone who might.

I waited until Monday, the third day of July, to ride out to 82nd Street to find the residence of Mr. Charles Curtis Easton. The house where he lived was clearly numbered, and easy enough to identify in the summer sunlight; but I passed it once, and passed it twice, and passed it yet again, working up the courage to knock at the door.

When I finally knocked, however tentatively, the door was opened by a woman with a young child tugging at her skirt. I showed her Hungerford’s card with its referral. She looked at it and smiled. “My father generally naps between three and five. But I’ll see if he’s available. Step in, please, Mr. Hazzard.”

Thus I entered the Easton house, that Temple of Story, which enclosed a cheerful din, and where the air was rich with the odors created by good food and perhaps less good children. After a brief interval, during which three of those same children stared at me with relentless interest, Mr. Easton’s daughter returned down a flight of stairs, dodging wheeled toys and other impediments, and invited me up to her father’s study. “He would be happy to meet you. Go on in, Mr. Hazzard,” she said, indicating the open door. “Don’t be shy!”

Charles Curtis Easton was inside. I recognized him instantly from the portrait which was embossed on the backs of all his books. He sat at a crowded desk, under a bright window dappled with ailanthus shade, the very picture of a working writer. He wasn’t a young man. His hair was snowy white, and it had retreated from his forehead and taken up a defensive position at the back of his skull. He wore a full beard, also white; and his eyes, which were embedded in networks of amiable wrinkles, gazed out from under ivory brows. He wasn’t fat, exactly, but he had the physique of a man who works sitting down and dines to his own satisfaction.