Through the Doors of Oblivion by Michael G Williams

Author:Michael G Williams [Williams, Michael G]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Published: 2019-10-05T22:00:00+00:00

One half dozen blocks away, a man in a long, bright yellow coat stood at the back of a wagon by the docks. Boats all around them offered paid passage to the other side of the Bay for those fleeing to Oakland and its shores. Tent cities already sprang up there to house the refugees from San Francisco. Passage across on the boat was expensive. Ferry captains gouged passengers for inflated fares and dangerously overloaded their craft on every voyage. Even the largest steamboat, one end open like a mouth, the lurid tongue of its permanent gangplank extended, overflowed with people of every age and station. The crowd of passengers literally bulged over the railing on each trip across the Bay. No ship could hold everyone lined up to board it, and every captain charged outrageous prices.

Mammon wore his bright yellow coat over a richly embroidered vest of hunter green. His thick black hair, meticulously oiled and coiffed, was slicked back from his brow to show a widow’s peak as sharp as an eagle’s talon. Mammon gestured with his cane at a pile of canvas bundles in the back of his wagon. “Tents! Tents for those who need a dry place to rest their heads!” He sounded like a carnival barker, and the sign he’d made of a sheet of scrap canvas and a bit of paint earned him nothing but dirty looks.

“That price is robbery!” An old woman hobbling past stopped to take in his wares. She spat at Mammon’s feet, squinted at him, and spat again. “People like you, you’re what’s wrong with the world. Takin’ ‘vantage of folks who just lost everything? The army ought to come arrest you as sure as they’re arrestin’ looters in the city.” She gestured behind her, at the rest of San Francisco, with one thumb. “S’what they oughta do.” The old woman had a deep Southern drawl, her words tumbling together.

Mammon doffed his hat at her with a very sweet smile. “My dear woman,” he said, his tone as smooth as silk and thick as good custard, “the army is shooting looters in the city.”

“Even better!” She clapped her hands together and spat at Mammon’s feet again.

“If it brings you comfort, madam, absolutely no one has bought a tent at this price.” Mammon continued to address her as though she’d never spat at all.

“Best news I’ve heard all mornin’.” Her voice was a growl as she hobbled away.

Mammon smiled as she departed. He had told her the truth: no one bought his tents that morning. No one would buy them for the entire day. The outrageous price he posted made the other slightly lower prices around him seem just a little less outrageous. Money changed hands more and faster than ever before. When gold flooded into the city decades earlier, Mammon came with it. Now, the span of a man’s life later, more money circulated than ever did in those heady times and it caused zero mirth. The earthquake, in Mammon’s opinion, was the best thing that could have happened.

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