Unknown - The Genius

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.