Timebound(94)
He nodded again and grabbed my elbow, pulling me to the left, toward a cluster of large white fountains. “This way, Miss—”
“It’s Kate,” I repeated.
“This way, Miss Kate. I know the very bes’ route.”
As we walked along, Mick flipped into tour-guide mode and it was soon obvious that he hadn’t been padding his credentials. He really did know a lot about the Exposition and had memorized details about the various buildings and displays.
“This,” he said, as we approached a waterway, one end of which was lined with enormous white fountains, “is what they call the Gran’ Basin.” Mick pointed toward the centerpiece of the fountains as we passed, a large classical sculpture of a ship. “Tha’ one there is the Columbian Fountain—MacMonnies, the guy who designed it, tol’ me it’s s’posed to be a symbol for the country and how much progress we made since Columbus came. Those people rowin’ are s’posed to represent the arts—y’know, like music an’ paintin’ an’ stuff? The big guy there is s’posed t’be Father Time, steerin’ the boat to the future with his big…” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Me mom always called it a speal—what d’you call it in English, the thing they cut hay with?”
“A scythe?” I asked.
“Yeah, tha’s it,” he said, pulling me slightly to the side to dodge a small pack of middle-aged women who, like me, were looking up at the statue and not paying much attention to where they were walking. “A scythe. I don’ remember what the woman at the front is s’posed to be. Or those cupids. Maybe just decorations.”
“Now that buildin’ over there,” he said, “is the bigges’ buildin’ in the world—the Manufactures Building. And that one we passed on the way over here? The ’Lectricity Buildin’? There’s stuff in there you wouldn’ believe even if you saw it. Got a frien’ who works over there sweepin’ an’ he says there is this machine called a telautograph where someone can sen’ a picture say from back East and that machine’ll draw it for you here, just like you was gettin’ a telegraph. He also says they have this new thing by Mr. Edison that makes pictures move so it looks like you’re watchin’ this guy sneeze, ’cept you’re just lookin’ into this tiny little box. An’ just wait ’til you see it at night, that place is all lit up—you never seen anythin’ so pretty. Like a million lanterns, but I looked at ’em in the daytime an’ turns out they ain’ nothin’ but these little glass balls with a tiny wire inside.”
It was odd to think that almost all of the magnificent structures Mick was pointing to were temporary buildings, made of a material slightly sturdier than papier-mâché. The exhibits would be removed and the buildings would be torn down or burned in a matter of months. Only a few buildings would remain, along with the gardens—which were amazing in their own right, since the area had been a swamp less than a year ago.
We walked around the edge of the lagoon, where several colorful gondolas were docked, boarding their first passengers of the day. Looking across the water, I could see the Japanese Tea House through the trees of the Wooded Island.
Most of the way, we kept to the sidewalks, passing the U.S. Government Building and the Fisheries Building, where Mick was delighted to give me a full and imaginative description of the huge shark that was on display. He then cut through the grassy area in front of the national exhibits for Guatemala and Ecuador, and I had to walk on my tiptoes a bit to keep the edges of the boots from sinking into the damp sod.
My right shoe was already beginning to rub a blister on my heel and I was increasingly suspicious that Mick’s “bes’ route” was not the most direct path to the Midway. I could see the Ferris wheel in the distance, and we seemed to be walking past where we should have turned.
“Yes’m,” he said, when I pointed to the big wheel on the horizon. “But you don’ wanna be usin’ the necessaries over there. They ain’ fit for a lady. The ladies from London were very impressed with the necessaries in the Fine Arts Palace. It’s right up here, the very nex’ buildin’. Said they were the nices’ they ever seen.”
“But the… ‘necessary’… was intended for you to clean up. I really don’t need to go right now.” I was dreading the thought of trying to negotiate a toilet in my current dress, and had decided that it might be a good idea to just limit my intake of fluids for the rest of the day.