SoMa Literary Review - A Short Leap

A Short Leap

By Tom J. Mariani

One night I overheard several journeymen talking, "If we can get the bets up high enough, buy him a couple of drinks over at Hanno's, do you think we can get him to actually attempt his little stunt?"

I knew what they were talking about. He'd bragged to us young apprentices about what he could do with static electricity. We thought he was just trying to intimidate us. His size, his loud voice and wild stories sure did. Up until this night, his bragging had just been a theoretical rumor.

The proper amount of cash was quickly raised. When they brought him back from the bar, the audience was already in place in the basement reel room of the Chronicle. When he was ready, the lights were momentarily turned off so we could see.

The large crowd included some newsroom employees from upstairs who had heard about this event. They stood there wearing ties and their white shirts with sleeves rolled up next to stereotypers with green visors and permanently ink-stained hands. They had all put up their share of money and wanted to witness his attempt at the feat.

This journeyman's claim to fame was that he said he could build up static electricity by putting one of his hands on a spinning one-ton roll of blank newsprint, as it continuously fed the printing press on the floor above. Enough, so that at the proper moment, he could reach into his pants with this other hand and shoot an arc of electricity from the tip of his dick to the frame of the metal press.

I was too far back in the crowd to be an actual eyewitness. It still cost me two bucks. Some said it was just a trick and he must have had a screwdriver or piece of metal in his pocket. Some swore it was the real thing. "We saw the flash of electricity. That's all that counts." They sorted out all the bets and paid the winners.

He couldn't be talked into attempting it again for double or nothing. Once was enough for me too. I still get a twinge just thinking about it.

Tom J. Mariani was born in San Francisco and has lived in Northern California all his life. His first full-time job, while working his way through college, was an apprentice pressman for the San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner. He is working on a historical fiction based on his family and events from 1865 to the present.