“There’s a special.” Every box-office girl he’d seen spoke as if it were a chore; this one, on the other hand, was an excitable cup of coffee. “Look, right there,” she said.

A sandwich board told the story:

TODAY! ONLY!
FEATURE PRESENTATION: A DOG’S LIFE! (CHAPLIN’S FIRST
MILLION DOLLAR PICTURE) NEW NEW NEW
CHAPLIN CHAPLIN CHAPLIN!!!
TRAVELOGUE: IN NEW ZEALAND WITH COLIN MCKENZIE (IN
THREE-DIMENSIONAL STEREOGRAPH)! (CANCELLED)
NEWSREEL: REAL ACTION FROM FRANCE!
THE BEST FOUR MINUTE MEN!
TWO-REELER: THE BARON OF THE PINES!
SING-ALONG!
THE NEW CALIFORNIA 40-PIECE ORCHESTRA!
SURPRISES! SURPRISES! SURPRISES!

“That’s fifty cents?”

“There’s surprises,” she said.

He wanted to ask if he could pay thirty-five cents and skip the surprises, but he didn’t want to seem sarcastic. “Is it the Four Minute Men?”

“That’s not the surprise. And it’s not Chaplin. He’ll be at the parade, but—”

“I’ve got it,” he said.

“But not here,” she finished. “People hear ‘surprise,’ and they get too excited.” She looked around as if the police might hear her. “That travelogue from New Zealand?” She leaned forward, sharing a secret. “The special projector caught fire. Our manager? Wearing these weird goggles? Almost blind.” She nodded, sounding delighted at this misfortune. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And the surprise thing? It’s not that great. It’s sort of a lecture.”

The show started in thirty minutes. He had to get in.

He was facing Market Street, rubbing his chin, and sighing. Women walking in pairs regarded his pensive gaze, and if his eyes fell upon one of them, she straightened.

Lee needed fifteen cents. There was a possibility that frightened him. It seemed to him as impossible and as fraught with danger as a trip to the canals on Mars: the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Lighthouses.

The Department of Commerce, Bureau of Lighthouses, was a tangible place, an office in a building, but for Lee it was like the house of a cast-bronze god. Since he was seven years old, he had bicycled invoices and reports to the Crescent City Post Office, addressed to Bureau of Lighthouses in his mother’s handwriting. Paychecks came from there. In his imagination, the Bureau of Lighthouses looked like the Parthenon.

In reality, it was on the fifth floor of a narrow building on O’Farrell, just off of Market. Among many duties tending to the welfare of lighthouse keepers, in times of emergency they could make loans of up to ten dollars each.

He did not go up right away. Instead, he stood on the street and counted the floors, imagining which windows were theirs. If his mother was searching for him, the Bureau would be the first place to notify.