Now you are going to see. What the Americans don’t want the whole world to see.
Going to See the Elephant, Chapter 5
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Rodes Fishburne's first novel, "Going to See the Elephant" tells the story of Slater Brown, a young man who believes himself to be the greatest writer in the history of the world. Only he hasn't published anything yet. Twenty-five year old Slater lays siege to San Francisco--until he crashes headlong into reality. Out of money and prospects, he applies for a job at a moribund weekly newspaper called "The Morning Trumpet"--and unwittingly begins the adventure of his life.
Transcript of Going to See the Elephant, Chapter 5
5
An excerpt from
Going to See the Elephant
By Rodes Fishburne
Excerpted from Going to See the Elephant by Rodes Fishburne Copyright © 2008 by Rodes Fishburne. Excerpted
by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may
be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.
A free excerpt courtesy of Bantam Dell
www.bantamdel l .com
The first thing Slater Brown did upon exiting the Trumpetbuilding was to throw his hat high in the air. Next he stompedout what passed for an Irish jig as the stream of pedestriansadjusted their flow around him.
A story! They want me to go find a story! How hard could it beto find a story? Stories are everywhere in a place like this. All youhave to do is walk down the street and look and LISTEN.
The greatest unknown writer in the history of the worldtilted his head. Hemingway had started out as a newspaper-man. So had Orwell. And Dickens. And Balzac. The list wenton and on. Newspapers were where writers of promise foundtheir footing.
As long as you shine, what does it matter which lantern youuse? he wrote in his yellow notebook.
Even if the lantern is a Trumpet!Looking around the main thoroughfare, he caught sight of
the afternoon light. It stopped him cold. In a trance hestepped into Market Street to get a better look.
Chapter Five
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54 | rodes f is hburne
It was four o’clock in the afternoon and Market Street wasbathed in a peculiar end- of- the- world light known only toSan Francisco. All up and down the boulevard the afternoonsun fell in heavy angled columns that cast the buildings in abronze glow and caused the trolley rails to shine like silvertears.
Anyone who has been in San Francisco for longer than aday recognizes the light is different. Some think it’s becauseshe is a north- facing city, and some think it’s because of thesalt mist in the air, which clings to everything, even the light,and gives it a texture, and some more mystical minds thinkthe light is different because the city itself is straddling twoworlds: the visible world of stars and sun, water and edges,and the invisible world, which can only be felt. The lightfrom these two spheres mixes in San Francisco, they say, theway an eddy in a great river mixes not only water, but alsofish.
Sunbeams with a curious texture, wrote Slater in his yellownotebook, just as the first car swerved to miss him, the words“muuther foooker” hurled out the window as it sped past.
The next car slammed on its brakes, resulting in a slow- motion domino effect down Market Street, past the CivicCenter, the Hibernia Bank, the San Francisco Sun, the curb-side chess games, the Sun of San Francisco, a conclave of pogo- stickers, the Farmers’ Market, until it had caused a traf-fic backup all the way to the intersection of Van Ness Avenue.
Slater Brown was unconscious of his impact on the traffic.For a moment the city had become timeless, like a photo-graph that moved, even as he slipped into it, walking aroundher streets, dancing down her marble stairs, across her glassysurface. He stared at the movement around him, thinking
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“That, I want to capture that.” It didn’t really matter if he didit in a book, or story, or newspaper. It wasn’t so much whatwas happening—although goodness knows the what was interesting—but it was the movement that enchanted him.Without movement a city would be nothing but a yellowingphotograph. It was the living, breathing city he loved. Like awoman he loved her. Like a sister and a mother and a beauti-ful girl all wrapped into one. And she had her eyes on him, ofthat much he was certain. Her voice called out to him, vibrat-ing up from beneath the pavement.
At the very moment he was about to be run over by a beerdelivery truck, a human sacrifice in the name of commerce, aheaving monolith whooshed to a stop across the street. Afleshy black face appeared, framed in the driver’s window.
“Child, you best be removing yourself from this thor-oughfare.” He looked up at her. In his glassy eyes was the re-flection of the invisible world.
“C’mon now, don’t be a heartache tonight.”The honking cars heckled him all the way across the street,
until he ’d stepped onto the sidewalk, and the bus, loweringitself to the curb with a pneumatic wheeze, folded its doorsopen, like a beckoning hand.
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