Chapter 2

Frank woke to the cool touch of a damp cloth at his forehead.

The gentleman was looking down at him with a worried look on his face while a woman, swaddled with uncomfortable looking, hot clothes, wiped his brow. "Is he alright, Mary?" he kept asking.

Mary didn't say anything but shook her head and stalked away to a nearby house. Edison offered a hand to Frank and said, "You have had quite a shock, I expect."

Frank got up, still shaky and admitted it wasn't his best day.

Edison invited Frank into the house for tea and immediately started asking questions, barely waiting for answers. Frank finally held up his hand and said, "Look, I don't know any more about what happened than you do, maybe less! I was minding my own business doing my route and WHAM I'm here." He lapsed into silence and sat, shaking his head.

"I must know what you know of the future, my good fellow," Edison entreated. "I can help you, employ you."

"I have a job, big guy, I'm a Sanitation Worker." Frank slumped and said, "Well, I have a job about 130 years from now, anyway.

"Look, I need to get my head together. Does this place have bars, yet?"

After some dialog to establish just what Frank meant by bars, Edison offered to take him to the nearby Lighthouse Tavern. The tavern was a short walk, although the street had a fair amount of litter in it. There was a large pile of rubbish outside the door to the tavern, with flies buzzing about. They quaffed an ale while Frank contemplated the difference between quaffing an ale and hoisting a brew.

"The way I see it, I'm maybe stuck here forever." Frank saw Edison bristling and added, "Not that it isn't nice and all, but the Yankees were having a good season! I'll miss everything!"

Edison started turning purple and said stiffly, "We prefer to call them New Englanders, if you please."

Frank laughed and said, "No, you dope, I mean the baseball team. You know, the Yankees. I guess you wouldn't know, would you.

The pair talked late into the night, Edison pressuring Frank to join with him in any of a dozen ventures. Long after Frank's bedtime, the two staggered drunkenly up Thornall Ave. They reached Edison's home and he appeared to be about to invite Frank to stay the night, when the door flew open and the woman from this afternoon came out shrieking, "Thomas Alva Edison! Do you know what time it is? I have been waiting up all night while you carouse with this, this drunken hooligan!"

Edison turned to Frank and pointed up Christie St. "Sarah Jordan runs a nice boarding house about a block up the street. Let her know that I sent you and she will put you up properly." Edison's shoulders slumped and an he turned to the house. "Mary, I'm s..."

"You get your tail in this house right this instant!"

Frank snickered to himself as he turned away. "The more things change the more they stay the same..."

His accommodations were cozy, once Mrs. Jordan got past her ire at being woken past 11pm. He lay staring at the candle flame until it burned down, wondering what in the world he would do.