Electric City: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

when you know better, know what it’s been like for your ancestors and even now, for all the so-called nonwhite people, which really means the ones with no money and no power.
    “I don’t pledge my allegiance,” you say. “I won’t put my hand over my heart, not for this flag. You can’t make me.” You sit up straighter in the hard wooden chair. You don’t want to get into any argument or negotiation.
    Amazingly, the principal listens. Mr. Borden leans forward and keeps his palms flat on his oak desk. You are shocked to realize that this middle-aged freckle-faced man really does seem to want to understand,and his milky blue eyes are fixed with great seriousness on you. He wears a tightly buttoned collar and a green tie with some kind of white bird printed on it, and you wonder if Borden genuinely cares about birds or nature in general, if he spends time with his children (there are family photos on the desk, turned so that both you and the principal can see them: the smiling blond wife and two girls, carbon copies of their mother but one shorter than the other and one missing a tooth). Does he take his daughters on camping trips, or maybe swimming? Does he teach them the names of birds and trees?
    The principal says, “I want to suggest a compromise.”
    You remember a spelling lesson: “The principal is your pal.” You hold your tongue, wondering if this is how it used to happen every time, the promise made and the promise broken.
    But here is how it lands: you agree to stand wordlessly during the recitation of the pledge, hands by your side and staying loyal to yourself while acknowledging the rights of the others to speak their own truth. The flag will keep hanging in the corner of the room, where you do not have to look at it.
    On the way home from school, you find out that on the very same day of your own small resistance, a young man planted himself in front of the United Nations building in New York City and set his own body on fire. He is burned beyond saving. The blackout that follows doesn’t seem anywhere near as shocking as this piece of news, carried on radio waves into the very hollow of your chest. Exploding.

K ARL A UGUST R UDOLF Steinmetz waited in an interminable line with close to a thousand other steerage passengers on the deck of La Champagne . It was July 1, 1889, and the temperature so blistering that most of the passengers, wearing multiple layers of clothing, stood nearly paralyzed with heat exhaustion. One might have expected pandemonium, or at least a kind of restless excitement, but this was the last in a lengthy series of degradations to be endured, and there was nothing to do but bear it.
    Steinmetz was still trying to stifle the cough that had wracked him for much of the two-weeks-long crossing from Le Havre to New York. He knew that the first order of business upon arrival at Castle Garden meant passing the medical inspection, and he had more than the average challenges to worry about. Standing slightly over four feet tall and with the same hunched back that disfigured both his father and his grandfather, he was all too aware of the innumerable physical ailments guaranteed for a twisted body like his. He had even temporarily forgone his greatest pleasure, cigars, in order to give his cough an opportunity to subside. Today, mentholated throat lozenges filled his pockets, and he slipped yet another one into his mouth as he watched for the line to inch forward.
    Just ahead of him in the queue, a young yet gaunt-faced woman was surreptitiously breastfeeding, shrouding herself as well as the infantin a webbing of brown wool shawls. In the name of modesty, Steinmetz thought, she is nearly suffocating the child . He tried not to stare, resisted every impulse to suggest that she give the poor creature a chance to breathe some fresh air. But of course he had no idea what words she would understand. During the voyage he had counted at least thirteen different tongues, muttered and shouted