As I observed my brother I thought about how like our father, Jonathan and Lucius were, tall, slender, almost military in bearing, charming but with God’s fury if you crossed them, and how while we three had gotten our mother’s open face and light brown eyes, I was the one, along with my sisters, who ended up with her slight, diminutive stature, cloud of auburn hair, and freckles that turned the shade of pumpkins soon as the summer sun rolled in. From the time I was ten or so I had hoped and even beseeched Jesus I would gain a few more inches, because at 16 1/2, despite my mustache and chin and chest hairs coming in, I always had to stand on my tiptoes at public events, or people were mistaking me for a child. Worse, after my best friend and former classmate Horatio, tall as Jonathan and twice as muscular, now standing beside me and also almost slumbering, had left the Institute for Colored Children six months before the end of the previous school year to start working, I had had to fight my way past taunts and punches nearly every morning and afternoon for weeks.
In the midst of my musings I heard Dr. Cassin clattering up to the lectern, but I knew not to look at him because Kerney was on the other side of the room watching me closely, and after the last lecture, by Professor Peirce, he had warned me about acting like I was one of the guests. Instead I stared at a random spot on the high red wall, well above the heads of Academy members and their guests, moving my eye between it and the gentlemen I could identify, including Mr. Robins and his friend, Mr. Linde, a scientist who also always attended the talks. When I tired of that I mulled over my evening obligations. I had already washed and hung-dry the white shirt and hose Dameron lent me, and scrubbed away the dirt and stains from the black swallow coat and trousers—
Dr. Cassin’s voice rung out: “Gentlemen, scholars and fellow members of the Academy, and to our distinguished guests and visitors to our beloved city and lecture series, I say good afternoon and welcome. Although I am a man of science, I am also, as they say, un amateur du monde natural et scientifique, and in that capacity I beg your indulgence. I should begin by invoking the esteemed philosopher Aristotle, as this Academy and the aims to which it and we are honorably dedicated, are to that greatest of the effects of the mind at work dedicated, that is to say, to the pursuit of the betterment of mankind through those means we yet have and are still developing, by which I mean: science, in her many faces, including the fields to which our most esteemed speaker today is devoted….” In this same way Dr. Cassin opened each introduction, his voice a rake dragging across winter earth, which made me think about how my sometime, Rosaline, little sister of Angelica, the girl who had candied Jonathan, had sent back my most recent note unopened. Far as I knew nothing bad had transpired between us, but something had caused her to cool.
A round of polite applause, and then another white gentleman, this one much younger, the one I recognized earlier talking with Dr. Cassin and Dr. Cresson, was standing on the dais. From his grey longcoat he extracted a thick square, his talk it turned out, folded several times over. He fumbled with it, smoothing it down, and though most of the gentlemen seated stayed silent, amongst some of them ran a current of whispers provoking frowns from Mr. Robins and Mr. Linde. Yet the gentleman at the lectern, who would certainly have heard the murmured censure, didn’t appear in the least perturbed. Instead, he continue to assemble his papers, smoothing and arranging, not looking up, until he finally did and said, “My distinguished guests, I appreciate your indulgence and your presence this May afternoon. As the Academy’s eminent leader Dr. Cassin noted, I am Thaddeus Lowe, and I appear before you to speak about the advances, with which many of you are already quite familiar, in the science of flight, human flight.”
Horatio’s weight was pressing in on me, and I saw he was about to topple over, so I hooked my foot around the back of his and kicked till I stirred him to attention. The very idea of human flight fascinated me so that I concentrated on everything Professor Lowe had to say. “For the entire history of mankind, he has carried not just in heart but in mind the dream of riding the air. Perhaps this is a vestigial phantasy born of our lifelong witness of the clouds, our long familiarity with birds and God’s other flying creatures, with our thirst for knowledge of the heavens and of the angelic orders….” I was training my gaze on that single spot across the room, while Professor Lowe spoke about the myths and history of human flight. He touched upon the Greek myths, Icarus and Dedalus, some Frenchman, a range of other pioneers including Americans like John Wise, and John Steiner, who was, he noted, a resident of this city just as he was. The professor recounted his own experiments and demonstrations, with ample details about different types of gases used and the materials the balloons required, his calculations and conversations with other members of the Academy, such as Dr. Henry, at the College of New Jersey, and the beneficence of Dr. Cresson and the city’s Gas Works.
I found myself even more involved when he reached the technical elements of the flights. Professor Lowe launched into a story about how just weeks before today he had attempted to demonstrate to the people of Cincinnati something about the practicality of balloon flight by traveling in an aerostat to the federal capital, but ended up off course and drifted all the way south to South Carolina, after Fort Sumter! When he said this most of the audience sat up, and someone on the far side of the room emitted a noise somewhere between a cough and a harrumph. The simple country people who took him prisoner, Professor Lowe said, thought he might be an evil spirit, or at least a spy, so to prove he was who he said he was he announced that he had brought Cincinnati newspapers, which sat in the basket and which he handed out, but as he was a Northerner they were still quite suspicious, so he still had to wait until several brethren men of science, all Southerners, could fully vouch for him and guarantee his safe passage home.
Course I wasn’t allowed to say anything, not even “Good afternoon, Sir,” unless he spoke to me first, and even then not a thing more than “Yes, Sir” or “No, Sir,” but when he finished and the question portion commenced, if I could have I would have asked him specifically about what it felt like when he was high up enough to see past the tops of the mountains, whether he could touch the clouds, was the sun brighter than on the ground. How, I wondered, did it look with all of Ohio behind him and Kentucky out front below? How was he sure he would be able to land and not just keep soaring higher and higher until he headed toward the moon? Then I estimated these would have been the most foolish questions ever asked at any Academy lecture I had ever heard, and was glad I had to stay silent and listen, though a number of the questions that started coming were not that much better than mine. One gentleman asked him if he wore special clothes to prevent from freezing when so high in the air, another asked him how did he keep the gas from blowing up, yet another pressed to know if he had ever crashed and broken any limbs. The scientists, all of them, asked better questions, it seemed to me, about flight patterns, machinery, and aeronautical science, though Professor Lowe responded politely to everyone.