THREE
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THE DREAMER FROM THE DREAM
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FROM THE TIME I began my career at the museum, my father told me I was a wonder of the world. Yet when I held up my hand mirror to study my face, it did not seem wondrous to me. My features—gray eyes, black eyebrows, high cheekbones, pale complexion—added up to a plain person, a simple individual no one would look at twice. I considered myself to be nothing special, a dull creature who could not compare to those God had made to be unique in all the world, for the living wonders my father employed were as marvelous as they were strange. There were those who could eat fire, making sure to coat their throats before each performance with a thick syrup made in the Indies, and those with limbs so flexible they could flip upside down, standing on their hands for hours at a time. There was a girl not much older than I named Malia, whose arms resembled a butterfly’s wings. Her mother accompanied her to the museum every morning and made up her extraordinarily beautiful face with rouge and black kohl, so that her daughter resembled a monarch butterfly. I tried to befriend Malia, but she spoke only Portuguese, and my father did not wish for me to interact with those he employed. He handed me a book from his library and told me I would be better off befriending the works of Shakespeare.
Of all the living wonders, I was most curious about the Wolfman. He was so thoroughly covered with hair that when he crouched down he appeared to be an animal, albeit one who dressed in pleated trousers, a woolen overcoat, and handcrafted boots. He combed his hair neatly parted down his face so that his eyes might be seen. They were deep set and luminous, a rich brown color, so human it was impossible to judge him as anything other than a man once he gazed at you. The Wolfman’s name was Raymond Morris, and he came from a good family in Richmond, Virginia, who had kept him in the attic to protect him, and also to ensure there’d be no damage to the family’s reputation. He’d been hidden away from the time he was born.
Mr. Morris once confided in me that for most of his life he’d truly believed he had all he would ever need, despite being raised behind locked doors. There was a nursemaid to care for him, and later a manservant brought whatever he wished. He had fine clothes, and any food he desired, for a cook had been hired from Atlanta to see to his whims. As he grew older his greatest joy was reading. Because of this passion, his library surpassed those of many colleges. The life he led was enriched immeasurably by the many novels in his collection, all of which he had read more than once. Although he’d never felt the rain, he knew what it was like from his readings, just as he knew about the limitless sea, and the golden prairie, and the pleasures of love. He was convinced that his world was enough, he told me, until he read Jane Eyre. Then his opinion changed. He could feel the world shifting as he devoured the story. He suddenly understood how a person could go mad if locked away from all others, and he found himself half in love with the first Mrs. Rochester, the character other readers might consider the villainess of the book. He climbed out his window the same night he finished the novel. For the very first time he felt the rain splash against his skin.
He came to New York because during his self-education he had studied Walt Whitman and had idolized him, as I did. Due to his reading, Mr. Morris was certain that it was only in the city of New York, so abundant with energy and life, that he would be accepted, able to exist as any other man, despite his differences. He would make his way along the great avenues and the rivers pulsing with commerce; he would walk among the shipbuilders and the workers. Instead, he was locked up on his second day in the city, arrested for creating a nuisance. It was there in jail that my father found him, huddled in a cell, blood streaking his hair. Mr. Morris had been beaten nearly senseless on Broadway in front of a massive crowd, his abusers cheered on by those who were convinced he was a monster. The constables had been of the same opinion, and had kept him cuffed and chained.
I was in the back of the carriage on the day my father went to the holding cell known as the cage in the Tenth Precinct on Twentieth Street in Manhattan. I was nearly twelve by then and nearly a woman, and I already had begun to accompany my father on business forays. Maureen said my presence gave my father credibility, a word I’m sure he never imagined she knew. I think Maureen hid how bright she was because of her position in life; a housemaid had no right to address a learned man. She had no rights
at all.
My father had informants in police stations and hospitals who, for a small fee, would contact him when a particularly interesting specimen was found. Raymond Morris was brought out to our carriage, confused and covered with welts. I lowered my eyes, so as not to gawk, which would have been unseemly, especially when I considered my own abnormalities. Mr. Morris was unique, however, and I couldn’t help but peek at him. I suppose he got into our carriage because it was the only option. The Professor rolled a cigarette, which he offered to his new companion as he discussed terms of employment. Oddities profited here in our city, my father said. Raymond Morris laughed, just like any man. I was sitting behind them, even more silent than usual. I admit my first reaction upon seeing this wonder was sheer terror. To my surprise Morris had a deep, resonant voice as he answered my father’s statement with a recitation.
“Now I see it is true, what I guess’d at,
What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,
What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.”
In response, my father snapped, “Don’t speak in riddles, speak plainly.”
But I knew those words to be Whitman’s and I could only imagine what Raymond Morris had guessed at before he’d come to our city and seen firsthand what cruelty could be. Perhaps I took a step away from my father on that day, and began to side with the wonders he employed.
“Do you want the work or not?” my father said coldly. “I don’t wish to waste my time.”
“Frankly, sir,” Morris said of the employment he’d been offered, “I have no other choice.”
We traveled back to Brooklyn without any further conversation, though there were dozens of questions I might have asked. Raymond Morris was left at a boardinghouse where many of the living wonders resided, along Sheridan’s Walk, a stretch that ran from Surf Avenue to the ocean, and would in a few years be totally in the shadow of the Giant Racer Roller Coaster. The Professor paid a full month’s rent. “I’m trusting you,” he told Morris, making it clear that as an employee Morris was expected to report to the museum the following day and each day after that. “I don’t expect you to let me down,” my father advised. Indeed, he seemed quite convinced the new man would not run away. Morris knew what awaited him on the beach and on the avenues, a crowd of abusers, nothing more. As we drove off my father was whistling. “That’s money in the bank,” he said. “A true one of a kind.”
I looked behind us and watched the figure of Raymond Morris on the steps of the boardinghouse, a stranger to Brooklyn and to our world. I prayed that he might indeed run away, and that he might find some empty stretch of marsh or woods where he would be allowed to be
a man.