Emperor - IV

Slice from the Novella: Tarot Blanco

Enrobeb mired per each robed or Real.

Nascent over regards tout onyx noun.

January 12, 1880. San Francisco, California, The Kingdom of the United States.

It was January and the warming breeze made it pleasant, as always. This was the capital of the world with, this San Francisco. A Capital in the 19th Century. Or at least that is what Emperor Norton thought in his clingy underwear. And who am I the author to disagree? He looked around the disheveled room with a dilapidated bed with one leg missing and a chair that was of teak over which was slung a Sabre. There were papers on the desk and across the wooden floor. Every wall was plastered and the slats were often showing. Cracks in the paint and plaster were everywhere save where an orange drape covered everything. But that did not matter to Emperor Norton. But very little did.

He then went to the window and saw the brick and wood buildings, that were that way because of the constant threat of fire. And then he turned into equip himself in his uniform and went out to meet his people. He put on the dirty underwear, it was two days before he would have enough change to pay the lady who gave him half off, then his pantaloons, and over these the boots that were beyond worn and tattered, threadbare, and timeworn until the point of despair. But this did not bother Emperor Norton. But then very little did.

This was because he had no debts because no one would collect them, this was because he did not need to wonder about where he was to eat because one or another of the various saloons would take his Imperial bonds, at 7% interest. If a man had a place to sleep, things to do, and a billet of fare, where he could get down to the business of ordering the armies and cliques of America, what else could he want in this world but to dream? This is why nothing bothered Emperor Norton. And very little did.

He thought he would go down to Market Street, never meeting to dodge the carriages because everyone knew the Emperor in his clothing. Even the horses, sheep, and rams would bow before his mighty scepter and golden orb which matched his cold epaulettes and assorted accouterments from various acquaintances. It was just the way for the Emperor and his garb. And not is how they found him when he was collapsed and staring at the sky his headpiece knocked to the gutter with the sand lightly covering it. Mark Twain suspected that there was a streak of the liar, which Mark Twain had himself in that what a man was in the world is what the world sees of him, now more no less.

There was of course one catch and its name was the Workingmen's Party of California, it was anti Chinaman openly and anti-anyone else who was not with them in private, and more or less their party's platform was to get intoxicated at every chance they got. On each of three Septembers the leader held a debate with Emperor Norton, and each side said they won. Who is to say? But the Chinatown built up around that section still remains. A testament to his fortitude and foresight that this would be a new beginning seeking its way out to the blue sky in the West.

My friend, Mark Twain, often commented on things about Emperor Norton that he knew for a fact: one is Norton never went into the penitentiary and the other one is Mark Twain didn’t know why not. But I may have a bit of insight though much less humor and wisdom in telling it. An Emperor is at the mercy of others, he is always in debt for more than he could possibly own, as well he needs others to do his bidding. And that made Norton much the same as other heads of state. He just knew that and conveyed that by sheer force of will and circumstance, even though the circumstance was growing thin around the edges.

Of course, all of the travails of any Emperor attended Emperor Norton: there were rumors that he was the illegitimate son of Emperor Napoleon the Third, which he dismissed with scorn and other more unsavory seditions. But these did not bother Emperor Norton much. Because very little did.

When the finders found out he was dead they picked clean the room that he used. There was very little in it, a golden sovereign, which was about two weeks salary for an unskilled labor. The rest was momento from his life a few written thank you’s for the things he had done. The rest were commands and edicts. Written in tired ink for a tired man.

And it is in these scribblings that one sees the other side. He wanted everyone to be at peace with new parties to dominate the discussion, and no countries to tell other people what to do. And so by giving a king to the United States, he gave it the one thing that it lacked: grandeur in poverty. Because again, the Emperor of the United States is beholden to many and relies on those two to keep him in the style in which he was accustomed to living, which was squalor. But then most men knew the kind of circumstance that they lived in and many were accustomed to it themselves whether the white man, or black man, or someone from the other side of the Pacific.

I know that there are volumes devoted to his travails, each one created out of love for a country without a King and a King without a country. Because there is one thing that I am sure of: one does not know an Emperor until he is finally passed to death, and gains in mortality a grace which he did not have when he was alive. And this I know because originally the box was for a pauper’s pine wood container but the businessmen made a rosewood casket as if befitted the Emperor of onyx nowhere in Camino Real.