The Problem with Dreams

Chapter 30 - Discovering Max

            Greg awoke early the next morning and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, realizing as he did that the day was Sunday, September 1st. Although their Labor Day barbeque was the day before, for this particular year, the first Monday in September ... which was the actual holiday ... was September 2nd, making Saturday the last day of August and today the first of September. Somehow the summer hadn't felt so close to being over as long as it was August, as irrational as that might be, and Greg lay contemplating that fact. Although according to the calendar, autumn wouldn't officially start until September 21st, as every kid whose ever gone to school knows, as of Labor Day ... and therefore the first of September ... the summer is more or less gone. He'd been so busy he'd hardly noticed it passing ... and yet he did. So much had changed since the summer began.

The entire family had been busy with any number of things; not only himself, but Susan too. And as he thought of that, Greg stretched his arm out upon the bed, realizing as he did that his wife was also gone.

Greg pulled on a bathrobe and went padding down the short hall just outside their bedroom headed towards the stairs, looking for her, when he spotted a light coming from their attic office shining down the long upstairs tunnel to the left of the main hall. Following it, he found her in their office, sitting at her computer much earlier than she should have been on a Sunday.

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"Good morning," Susan said when Greg slid open the window and climbed through it to join her.

"Good morning. What are you doing up?"

"I'm sorry, did I wake you? I couldn't sleep. I decided to get up so I wouldn't wake you up, so if I did, I'm sorry," Susan explained.

"You didn't ... I was just wondering what you were doing," Greg asked as he looked over her shoulder at her computer screen.

Instead of her usual programming, the screen held scanned images of old, handwritten documents. Some of it was difficult to read and Susan had enlarged the images in an attempt to make them out and was looking at them intently when Greg came in.

Susan glanced at her husband with a slightly guilty expression which surprised him.

"Sorry ... I know I promised I'd leave this to you, but I couldn't help it. I kept wondering if we could actually find him, given we knew the name, the place, and the date. After everything we've read about him, I got curious ... so I thought I'd try it."

"Try what? Susan, who did you find?"

"Max," Susan answered simply.

"Did you?" Greg wondered when he saw her vaguely triumphant expression.

"I think so. Look at this."

She turned her computer screen towards her husband as he pulled up a chair and leaned close enough to be able to read the names.

"I don't see ... this looks like a list of tenants from a boarding house," Greg commented as he tried to make it out.

"That's exactly what it is. This is a page from the 1880 United States Census for Massachusetts, specifically for particular neighborhood in Boston," Susan explained. "It looks like most of the men staying here were students."

"How can you tell that?" Greg asked in surprise.

"There's an occupation column here," Susan said pointing it out.

Greg nodded. "And you found him ... me ... I mean Max?"

"I did ... at least I think it's you. Look here. Name, Maxwell Tabor; relationship to head of household, boarder; age, 22; sex, male; color, white; birthplace, New York; marital status, single; not married within the previous year; not deaf, dumb, blind or insane; occupation, student; not sick, disabled, etc.; place of birth parents, New York; Education, attended school in previous year, yes; can read and write English; Value of real estate, none; and his address," Susan finished reading the information included in the census aloud.