The first time I saw you through a slit in the royal blue curtains of my family's home in Los Angeles, I was frightened. The year was 1882, and I was eleven. I did not leave the house much. When I did, I was quickly ushered into a coach that would take me immediately to my destination. Los Angeles could be a dangerous place for children, my father said. And no matter how often I assured him that I was no child, he would not hear it. The end result was a very sheltered boy with nerves like a soap bubble and a lust for life that would surely pop it.
The day I dared to look out the study window, I knew that my perception of the world was very wrong. Just how wrong, I did not realize until I saw you. You were a tan, lanky boy with a short nest of dirty brown hair. The setting sun cast an orange glow on the cobblestone street beneath your bare feet. At first glance, I took you for an orphaned beggar and almost stopped watching, convinced that the world of poverty was little more than an opportunity for people like my mother to stand out in society by holding benefits for the poor. But when you moved your hand to your face, touched your chin in a thoughtful manner, your yellowed sleeve fell back to reveal a spidery hand adorned with jewelry too splendid for a dirty Indian boy. The soft glare given off by your silver rings seemed to distract you from your trance, and you quickly pulled your sleeve back down with a pout. You were no beggar. And I found myself unable to look away from you. Such a combination of filth and riches absolutely should not have existed in my world. I'm sure I looked in that moment very much like an atheist who has just experienced a miracle; disappointed to be proven wrong but fascinated beyond belief. I wasn't sure what you were, exactly. You looked very suspicious, glancing this way and that as if afraid someone would see you. But no one did. You were as invisible to the residents of Los Angeles as I was at one of my mother's grand balls. And then, casual as can be, you strode into the bakery across the street and came back out not a minute later with a loaf of bread under each arm. It seemed to me a bit anticlimactic. Here was this fascinating creature who wanted nothing more than to buy bread. I started to draw back from the window, disappointed in you. Then came a deep, guttural cry from inside the bakery and you started running. You hadn't bought the bread after all. Your quick russet feet were a blur on the street, and you were gone before the fat little baker had even made it out the door.
I was astonished. I'd just witnessed a boy no more than 2 years my senior rob a bakery. What else had been happening in the world just outside this small room where I was silently fed arithmetic? That very moment I made a vow to look through the window every day. You taught me the world before I even met you.
During the week that ensued, I experienced more than in my previous eleven years combined just by taking five minutes every day to sneak a gander out the window. I saw mothers and their children begging for food, and people like me striding past and ignoring them completely. I saw poets pouring their hearts out on the cobblestone streets. These were also ignored by my people. No matter what seemed to happen down there, if it was not pleasing to the senses the upper classes would ignore it. I imagined being one of them, flowing down the filthy street in an impressive stream of colorful French fashion. I had pictured myself as an adult before and the visual had always been the same; elegant and blissfully pleased with life. Now, the fantasy me was breaking all the rules. He gave money to beggars, listened to the poets. And in my head at eleven years old, the future me was friends with you. I didn't think it would actually happen. Not in a million years. You were a criminal I had glimpsed once from a window. If you were smart, I thought, you would probably never walk down this street again. But for better or worse, you were not, and my life was forever changed for it.
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"But why were they all named Jacques?"
"Master Charles, only two of the famous French explorers were named Jacques. I would hardly consider that to be all of them." My tutor, Mr. Gray, seemed a bit annoyed. I had been arguing with him like this quite frequently, trying to delay as much of his boring history lessons as possible. I was starting to think he knew just what I was doing.
