Judgement
The First Day
David woke in the early morning, earlier than most days. He sat on the edge of his bed, stung with the melancholy realization that he had would not be sleeping in his bed for what could be a very long time. He looked around the room that would soon cease to be his, fighting down what he considered to be hyperbolic melodrama. He was unaware of the actual definition of the word “hyperbolic”, but he had basically the right idea about the whole thing. He was, after all, only moving up one floor and maybe twenty feet to the south.
He did so now, getting a feel for the additional attic stairs, steep and narrow – too perilous for his uncle, that was undeniably true. The attic room greeted him with darkness, the lone window facing away from the rising sun. A single bare bulb accompanied by pull-chain was positioned near his bed; his bed was simply a mattress surrounded by his wardrobes and drawers; his wardrobes and drawers were old furniture already unwanted enough to face exile here, in the quiet oubliette of the attic. He sighed. Just like him. And the satisfaction he got from being able to think of a good French word he learned in a book on the spot like he did, even if there was no one around to hear it, managed to brighten his spirits and spite of it all.
The bare attic rafters of the old house creaked on every step on the floors below, and David realized that his prospects of sleeping in much past any of his family were severely diminished by this new location. Another problem. He heard his name being mentioned by his father downstairs. Where was he? His sister didn't know. Was he out? A hesitation, a brief “Um”, before Alice answers “yes”; where this answer came from, ignorance or deviousness, puzzles David but her deviation from typical honesty pleases him – both for the alibi it has brought him and the development he felt it represented. He sat on the mattress and listened to their distant conversation depart into irrelevance over the dim tings of spoon on cereal bowl.
Those old attic rafters creaked even harder, a vengeful echo that ensured that David, already startled awake by the slamming door, would not be going back to sleep. Now feeling somewhat hungry, he abandoned the quest for sleep altogether and wandered down to the rest of the house. He passed his parents' room, empty, his sister's room likewise, and smiled at the prospect of an empty house. He ate a piece of toast, showered, and spent an hour or so on the internet. He sang loud songs out of key, attempting an operatic tone he could not quite produce, merely from the freedom he felt – a continuous joy as he realized again and again that no one was about to stop him. He revelled vigorously in praise of the joy of an empty house.
~
Opening scene. I spent awhile thinking about how I wanted to do this, mainly considering three options: starting with David, as I ended up doing here, starting with a more general narrative opening describing the whole family, or starting with David's father. I settled on David as I wanted to imply the relationships he had and his family's position rather than explicitly state them. This also gave me the opportunity to have more dramatic introductions to the rest of the characters.
This section should give the reader some idea of David, the way he thinks of himself and the way he thinks of the family. I wanted to establish quickly that, although the book is written in third person, the prose reflects the character that it centers it on and has a shifting limited knowledge center. David tries to think of things eloquently and poetically. He strives for a level of sophistication that he can't quite match. He's paranoid about people limiting him. These are things that I tried to convey in this paragraph, but I'm really not sure if I succeeded.
~
Almost hundred miles away now and growing fast, his sister and father were on a mission to, at least in David's mind, completely destroy the possibility of what had been a somewhat regular occurrence and all the happiness that came with it. Their objective was to install a permanent human, one too frail to do much besides sit and David's room and listen to what David was doing, or wasn't doing. The strategic deployment of his uncle was, however, just one operation in the terrifying campaign of Force David to Move Out of The House. The agenda also included not buying the premium ice cream he enjoyed during regular shopping trips, uncomfortable conversations about his future and artificial creation and assignment of unpleasant chores and errands. It was sinister, downright diabolical – Alice had agreed on this when David let her in on the secret more or less in this fashion. And although she could not quite bring herself to look on her otherwise loving parents with hate, she often lay in bed at night fearing the eventual day when she would become the target of such a crusade.
She thought of it again now as their electric car sped silently along the old highways. The only noise was the sound of her father's voice, punctuated by bumps in the road, averaging 7.8 seconds apart, average volume a startling 7dB above... wait, her father's voice, how long had he been talking? And to whom?
“Alice?”
“Yes?” she replied, looking up at his eyes in the rear-view.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes?”
“What do you understand.”
“We're going to Uncle Bill's.”
A sigh from the front seat. Dissatisfied with the answer! Would she be told to get out and walk home? Does she even have a home??
“Yes, we're going to Uncle Bill's. And what are we going to do when we get there?”
A chance for redemption! And she knew this one!
“Take him home with us.”
“OK, and what are you going to do specifically when we get there?”
An unpredicted followup! A difficult one at that. Probably sit in the car and think about numbers, honestly. But that's probably not right. It'll probably be something worse that she won't want to do. Something mentally challenging or physically exhausting or generally tedious or a combination of the three or some other combination of adverb describing target of action and adjective describing undesirable trait of action or...
“Alice, I wish you'd listen. You're going to help him with his bags, right? Help us put them in the trunk?”
“Yes.”
“OK. Because we'll be there soon.”
Soon was twenty-seven minutes and forty-nine seconds. This was a distinct outlier in the range of times considered soon by her father, but considering the total duration of the trip – one hour and fifty-two minutes and twelve seconds – it fell into the typical total length of trip length to soon duration ratio. Her father was standing outside the window. What was she supposed to do again?
~
Introduction of David's sister Alice. Their father is also present, but he hasn't been introduced properly yet and, due to Alice's lack of observation, is more enigmatic than ever. Alice's character is established quickly here because it's fairly simple, and that bothers me. She's quite stereotypical. I tried to make it a bit comical but I hope it shows how frustrating the family can find dealing with her. Alice's character sort of deals with the fact that everyone knows she is capable of great things, but the social interaction required to achieve said things place a burden on them.
~
The trip home was largely uneventful. At a truck stop somewhere along the highway, Alice's father left the car and her Uncle Bill took over the driving. She didn't notice, occupied at the time by some purely speculative calculations on the price of gas. An Olympic sized pool – 2.5 megaliters – would cost roughly 2.5 million dollars to fill! Wow! In retrospect, an unsurprising and distressingly un-challenging calculation. How about the volume of the Pacific Ocean?
Who knows! The gas station was in the distance and the price hardly a memory. Her thoughts refocused on the activities of the day ahead. Arrival was less than an hour away, in the ballpark of noon. Lunch might be served. A sandwich would be nice. Quick to eat, quick to prepare. Would give her time to play the piano for awhile. Maybe 40-45 minutes. Miss Small arrives at 1:36PM on average for their 1:30PM session. Can't count on those extra six minutes. A few times she has arrived as early as 1:23PM. “1:30PM” sessions typically ended at 4:15PM, falling short of the intended three hours. This could either be a source of frustration or a quantum of relief, depending on the activities within the session.
Supper would most likely occur at 7:22PM, giving her a free span of over three hours, the largest thus far encountered in the day. A mental checklist flooded her vision with distressing urgency – how could she have lost this much of the day already with so much left to do! More time on the piano was a must, she knew already that an hour was the bare minimum required to achieve any sort of satisfactory progress. An hour on the violin would also be nice, but that would leave her only two hours for the computer and reading. Of course, there would be time after dinner and before bed, around three hours and 14 minutes if she went to bed at an average time, but that time could never be counted on – once the whole family got together, some sort of activity could be suggested that she would have no opportunity to excuse herself from. These were often not unpleasant, but definitely time consuming, and with Uncle Bill's presence and the promise of her father being home for a meal – he had made this commitment over breakfast that morning – one was almost sure to occur.
Calculations. So little time left. 12:14PM. She had over an hour. The car was pulling into the driveway. She burst out of the car as soon as it stopped and marched quickly into the unlocked house. The primary destination was the kitchen. She would ascertain the lunch situation. If necessary, she would assemble a sandwich. Then to the piano room. She was already thinking of what she would play. Liszt. That was a must. The transcription of the Fifth Symphony. First movement only - for sake of time! Afterwards some Transcendental Etudes. Which ones? Maybe the eth or sqrt(2)th. Ha. She was almost at the kitchen when she became dimly aware of a painful sound emanating from what all conventional logic told her was her piano but she believed in her deepest soul could not be.
~
More Alice. I don't like how this scene is broken up. I knew I couldn't actually show the scene that is skipped, but I also didn't want to transition from Alice to Alice. I considered putting the scene with David and the piano which follows first, but I think that would make it a bit too heavy on him at the beginning and I wanted to establish Alice more to the reader. I hope the contrast between the narrative tone dealing with her and David is clear, maybe it's too heavy handed? Name dropped Liszt there because it seems like the sort of thing that would appeal to a player like her. I meant to say "arrangement" instead of "transcription" I think, oh well, worry about that later. I hope Alice is a likable character at this point. I wanted to highlight some childlike qualities of her, but maybe it's a bit forced.
~
The sound was David, who had been sitting at the piano for the better part of an hour, but only began to play it in the last few minutes. The rest of the time he spent studying it, the pristine finish, the calculated yet seemingly natural curves, the smoothness of the ivory – did they use actual ivory? Most of all he studied the strings, opening the lid and staring at them intensely. Tension, that was the key to them. Once he read that a burning piano will explode as each string bursts undone merely through this extreme tension, but he was unsure if that was true. He contemplated the noise it would make, that fiery release, would each chord resonate as they broke free at last? This piano could be anywhere up to fifty years old, by his uneducated estimate. Continuous tension for fifty years. This house was his grandfather's, built late in his life after he came into his fortune and left to David's father. That would put it, again at rough estimation, at around fifty years old. How did the house feel about it?
But – and at this point he indulged himself and hit a key – what beautiful tension! Miraculous tension, that allows the mere striking of the hammer on the wire to produce a pure, ringing tone, and a specific tone at that. And it was so deterministic, assuming a properly tuned piano, each key would correspond to a frequency within a few hertz without fail. 81 keys, 81 frequencies, an incomprehensibly huge number of combinations, and each of these having a near limitless number of subtle variations of pedal support, attack, sustain, and various other terms he could vaguely recall about the mechanics of playing the pianoforte. He estimated that there must be billions of trillions of sounds the piano could produce, and that it was unlikely that all of them had been produced at some point in time, given the short length of time the piano had existed. He had half a mind to talk to Alice about the actual metrics that would be involved here, but he could see no way the ensuing conversation could be pleasant. He knew he did not have long to talk to Alice, all things considered, and he ought to make sure the time they spent together counted. For too long he felt like he had neglected her or taken her for granted, regarding the various things that made her special as annoyances and resenting the additional attention she required from their parents. Lately, though, he felt a growing pride for what progress he saw in her personality, and came to respect her intellectual gifts for what they were.
He struck the piano with two fingers. Discord, even he could recognize it. But he felt like something could be constructed from this, like, if supplemented with another note or two, maybe this strained relationship could develop into something sensible? David did not know much music theory. He knew even less about family dynamics. These two things were obvious. But he felt that what was sitting in front of him was truly a thing of beauty, an amazing thing able to produce something wholly unique and new, enabled by that relentless tension. With that in mind, he began to busy himself trying to produce a new sound from the piano. He could not play piano, despite his best wishes. It was this he was engaged in when Alice walked in.
~
David is always doing weird, somewhat dramatic things like this. He likes expressing his emotions through abstract physical things like pounding on the piano. He also thinks in this weird rambling poetic tone. There's a bit of what I think about pianos and such there, and the metaphor about his family is sort of useful for plot progression, but this section is more just an example of how David thinks. I hope you like it, 'cause he'll be doing it a lot!
~
She stared at him. “What are you doing to my piano?”
An implied victim. For all her supposed communication problems, she definitely made her words count. Not with her piano or at her piano, but to her piano. He felt a little guilty and shrugged at her. Alice knew she had done wrong. It was illogical to think so, she knew, her brother was the one mutilating the idea of music, but nevertheless she had wronged him. His demeanour told her that – shoulders slumped, head down, mouth slack and eyes half closed, black hair hanging down in front of his face. Tired, or upset. Too late in the day for tired to be reasonable, and since he was at the piano, he had no reasons to be unhappy outside of her own interference. Alice did not know her brother, or people in general, very well.
By way of apology, she offered: “I'm making a sandwich, do you want a sandwich?”
“Sure.”
She brought the sandwiches quite quickly. Peanut butter and raspberry jam. David knew he shouldn't have expected more. She handed him his on a plate and sat down on the piano bench next to him, eating vigorously. Her eyes stayed locked on the keys.
“Where's dad?”
Her mouth was full of food, she shrugged.
“Didn't you go with him to pick up Uncle Bill?”
She nodded.
“So...”
She shrugged again.
“Well, did you get Uncle Bill?”
She nodded.
“Where is he?”
Finally a pause in chewing. “Dad left the car somewhere on the ride home. I dunno where. Some meeting thing. Bill drove home. Dunno where he went after I got out of the car. I was focused on making good time. I AM focused on making good time.” No breaths. Back to eating.
David sighed and walked out to hallway. He peeked into the lobby, Uncle Bill was carrying his bags out of his car and up the stairs. Sighed again. Alice had begun to play music, his leaving was apparently a cue for this. Usually at this point he would sulk back to his room and lie quietly, listening to the piano. But there was luggage being moved into his old room, and his new room was too far away and too creaky to really hear it too well. Sighing again, he returned to the piano room. He had one idea, at least.
“Are you going to play the piano all afternoon?”
“No. I am going to play until 1:30, when Miss Small will arrive. For my afternoon lesson.”
David resented these private tutors and behaviour analysts, resented nearly every aspect of them, even how much he resented them. He felt he truly did not know them well enough to hate them – hate required a personal target, an actual human, and he knew that he had only seen one role, one side of them – so he merely resented their presence, what they did, why they were there. There were three Alice currently saw. Miss Small instructed her and evaluated her on social interaction skills. Dr. Davis instructed her and evaluated her on more typical subjects: maths, sciences, languages. Dr. Maris simply observed her and discussed things with her. This sort of education had been occurring for roughly five years, since Alice was seven. David was seventeen at the time, confused and lonely, hating high school and alternating between jealousy and pity for his sister and her unusual arrangement. What remained steady was his conviction that this sort of thing was stunting her, which lead him to occasionally supplement her education with what he felt were important life lessons or childhood experiences. This often lead to mutual frustration and a general lack of understanding, but she was improving.
“Alice, do you sometimes want to stuff that normal kids do?”
“What do normal kids do?” Alice had finished her sandwich and begun to play. She did not look up as she spoke, her fingers slamming into the keys, triad on one tone, sustain on another.
“You know, like have fun and play and such.”
She turned her head to him without slowing down and gestured to the piano with a twitch of her head.
“No, like... games. Have you ever flown a kite? I think I found one in the attic this morning.”
Alice did not budget time for such an event, but it was evident that David wasn't about to leave, and his very presence would limit her playing. It would be unsatisfactory until she could have some time alone with it, and to attempt to continue on with him there, talking, would reduce the satisfactory nature of playing by over two thirds. With him there silent, only a third, but still. She did not know much about flying a kite, but she was open to the remote possibility that she could actually enjoy it as well.
They climbed the stairs to David's new room. “What's the weather like out there?” he asked.
“Windy.” she said. She had noticed earlier that the weather was not notably windy and she didn't know why she lied exactly. All she knew is that it was the answer he was looking for, and the brief happiness it gave him seemed to outweigh the disappointment that might follow. Plus, it was a small slice of control over her older brother, she had implanted a fact into his brain that he was still contemplating. It was like having access to a protected member function, protected bool EvaluateWeather(string weathertype). Namespace DavidWallace. Class ActionPlanningUtilities. Sure, this was some real GIGO business and would not produce meaningful data, but it was worth to test access to the code. She enjoyed it, she also enjoyed the programming lessons Dr. Davis had shown her yesterday.
They managed to get the kite in the air despite the calmness. Once it was up there, the boredom set in quickly.
“You don't look like you're having very much fun.” Alice observed, looking up at David's completely lifeless face.
“How do you figure?” he spat back sarcastically, maybe a little bitterly.
“Well, Miss Small does exercises with me. She'll show a drawing, a little cartoon, of someone in their car, or playing with a ball, or something. And she'll say, is this person driving to a party, or work? And they'll be all red, with smoke coming out the ears and other such ridiculousness, and it's not fair because you can't be sure, but I guess 'going to work', because that seems more likely, right? And I'm right. I'm getting good at them. Sometimes it's more general, you know, is this person having fun, or not? And there's actually one where he's flying a kite and smiling, and the right answer is that he's having fun. But you're not having fun.”
“Well, those cartoons can't always be right.” David steadied the kite. It was traditional, cloth spread over thin dowels. Bygone era sort of thing, bright red against sky blue over white picket fences and green grass. It was sort of clouding up, though. “Alice, you have to cherish the times when simple things can make sense to you. I remember when I was a kid, this was a kite, my kite, but it might as well have been the best and only kite in the world. Now I can see kids playing with those huge dragon kites in China and this kite seems pretty crappy now, you know? And the kite hasn't changed, I've changed, and I wish I hadn't. There's really only so long you can go on enjoying any given thing, because eventually you're going to learn it doesn't matter. None of this kite flying nonsense. Things just get more complicated, and more stressful, and you'll have more responsibilities. But there's no new kite to fly, even if you found one thing you like to do someone somewhere else is going to be able to afford to enjoy it longer and better than you can, so you just fail at that to. So you have to really enjoy these times. People will always respect you for playing the piano or curing cancer or whatever it is you end up doing, but you won't ever be able to fly a kite or play with dolls or get away with whatever you want unless you do it soon.” David finished what he felt was a stirring speech, but much of it had been completely lost on Alice, who was trying to calculate the tension on the taunt string. He looked down at her expectantly.
“What's a dragon kite?”
“It doesn't matter, I'm trying to teach you something about innocence.” David was at the end of his line. Sighing, he reeled in the kite. “Where did mom go last night, anyways.”
“Her sister's.”
David shrugged and began reeling in the kite. Her sister's place, alright. That one's getting a bit worn out now, right? What does she expect us to think she's doing at her sister's night after night? She knows we know and she knows we know she knows we know, and the whole mess has gotten so confusing that no one even puts any effort into lying. That's what this family had become, a general slacking off that only barely retained the shape of the original structure, like letting the air out of one of those inflatable house things...
This bitterness was beneath him. He didn't care; shouldn't care, it was their business. He knew his father was too busy and wary of scandal to breach the subject, and if his father could hold his head above it, David should be able to too. Or was the whole thing just approached so delicately for the sake of Alice, because who knows how she would handle such news?
“David, I think mom's having an affair.”
Her brother turned back in shock. It was unlikely that she would be the absolute last to know, what with Pacific Islanders and all, but there must be at least a few billion out there aware of this now.
“Why do you think that?”
“She's supposed to be at Aunt Sheila's but Aunt Sheila is on a vacation.”
David shook his head. Such laziness! Now the tender heart of her young daughter will be permanently frozen over with scepticism and bitterness if he couldn't deflect these allegations in her stead! That is, if it hadn't already been frozen over by the very process which lead to these accusations. Or if, as was likely, Alice had as much emotional investment in this as she did in the recent passing of the family dog, that is to say, minimal – she watched him and his father bury it without as much as a single tear, only commenting that they shouldn't forget to get rid of the rest of the dog food before it spoils and starts to smell bad, by contrast, David was working as hard as he did in his mind as he did on the shovel to prevent a complete breakdown and their father unashamedly let several tears slowly roll down his cheeks, their mother was not present – if this was the case, Alice might show similar indifference to this whole affair business. And maybe she deserved to, if she leaps to assumptions of affair and can't even cry at the death of the beloved dog! He had lost his train of thought. She was observant, though.
“You're becoming rather observant lately. I think you know more about what's going on than people think you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. Do you know why Uncle Bill is moving in?”
Alice frowned. He had stumped her, and on something he was pretty sure he had seen directly explained to her. Maybe she didn't notice these things after all, but how did she know about the affair?
“Gas station.”
David nodded. The kite was still half unspooled. Why did they give them so much string anyways? Is it more fun the higher up it is? It just takes longer. “What about a gas station?”
Alice frowned harder. “Uncle Bill has a gas station.”
“Well, he doesn't anymore. It's closed and he got a good deal selling the property. And instead of doing something logical like almost anything else, he's being brought here on the pretence of his ageing condition and mental and physical problems and such.”
“Uncle Bill has mental problems?”
“I don't think so, really. I think he's just gone a little strange out alone on that big property. He'd be fine on his own. Mom and dad just want to make me less comfortable so I'll move out.”
“They still want you to move out?”
“Alice, they put me in the attic. We have a guest room, but they put Uncle Bill in my room and they put me in the attic. Because we could have guests, you know? And I guess we do, but that's not the point. They can't drive me out of here by stuffing the place full of relatives.”
“Like that man with the suit and the hat last week.”
“Alice, do you really still not know who that was? I told you like seven times. You really are clueless. I don't know how you figured out... oh, right, by the way, don't mention your theories about what mom's doing to anyone.”
“Who would I tell?”
“Well, you told me.” This was true, and Alice's brain shorted out for an instant as she unsuccessfully tried to piece together an explanation for it. “But that's OK, and I'm glad you did.” Relief! “Just don't mention it to your teachers or whoever else they've got coming to see you these days.” He spat the words out, his distaste was evident.
“What if they ask me what she's doing?”
David was alarmed by this. Her teachers were asking her what her family was doing? What had she been telling them? What had they been asking? Paranoia saturated political families.
“They... they ask you what people are doing?”
“Yeah, Miss Small does. I was telling you about it.”
Cruel! Did she do that on purpose? David gathered up the kite and slapped himself on the forehead. It was a pseudo-ironic gesture, but there was a bit of actual self loathing mixed in there. Shouldn't get so worked up about this stuff.
“So, you're asking what you should say if Miss Small held up a drawing of a lady wearing expensive clothing hopping in a car, late at night, with her family waiting at the door, and there's a speech bubble saying 'I'm going to my, um, sister's!', and maybe even the family looks really worried and there's obviously some Spanish-looking man in the car already and asked you what the woman was doing?” David said, with a hollow chuckle?
“Yes.”
“I don't think she'll show you a cartoon like that.”
“David, why do mom and dad want you to move out?”
“Because I'm 23 years old and I really should.”
“And you don't want to?”
“I do. I just want to do it on my own terms.”
~
Long scene here. I like writing dialogue between David and Alice. Well, I dislike writing dialogue in general, but this is pretty fun to write as far as dialogue goes. I aimed for the sort of scene I might like to see in a Wes Anderson movie. I hope the relationship they have seems interesting. David, again, feels like he needs to do these dramatic things to educate and impress her, but Alice really doesn't seem to appreciate them like he wants her to. He's trying to battle Alice's extreme intellect with experience and culture, but it isn't working too well. The revelation of their mother's affair is also sort of interesting, I hope. I worried a lot about whether readers would start off liking or hating these characters and how I should initially present them, but then I realized that the best thing I could do is just write stories for them and let them make up their own mind. So the first thing you learn about Kate is that she's having an affair, and maybe you start off disliking her and maybe eventually you like her. I don't know, and I no longer care. I just hope you find her an interesting character.
~
Somewhere else in the city, in a moderately expensive hotel, Kate Wallace, nee Melrose, sat in bed lighting a cigarette, waking the Spanish-looking man lying in bed next to her. She studied the room, room 233, with a vague melancholy, focusing specifically on the nice, comfortable bed that she had slept in for so many scandalous nights. It was a stinging melancholy, knowing it would likely be the last time she slept in that bed, possibly forever, so she drew hard on the cigarette.
The Spanish-looking man, who was named Mitchell, but not with the pronunciation you'd think that name would have, slowly sat up and reached for her cigarette.
“Is that an automatic cigarette or one you really, really need?”
“What,” she scowled at him “the hell are you talking about.”
“We agreed, for the campaign, that you wouldn't smoke so much. You'd only smoke when you really, really needed it. Not just automatically smoking, right?”
“Listen, you. I'm in heaven right now. This room is nice. I have no children in this room. There are no reporters in this room. There is a minibar in this room. The TV has a few more channels than basic cable. There's a large tub and a king sized bed with a man in it. And right now, the numbing smoothness of this nicotine is about the only thing keeping me from flinging myself out of that bay window at the realization that I can never come back.”
Mitchell shot up right. “Never come back?”
“I told you last night that this had to be the last time.”
“You were serious? But with the husband out on the trail, he is even less likely to notice, no?”
“It's not my husband I'm worried about. It's those reporters.”
“Surely they wouldn't care about what his wife is doing when there's all the... policies and such to focus on.”
She bent over and kissed him on the forehead. “You clearly have not been in politics.” She got up and prepared to dress.
Mitchell chased her up, stammering, “Does this really have to be so sudden?”
“Sudden? It's one in the afternoon. It's almost two, actually. I need to get home.”
He was getting almost mad now. Keeping it together, but it was showing a bit. “And this is it? The last time I'll see you for years or maybe forever? You just wake up and walk out?”
“I have to do it like this. Otherwise, I'll start getting sentimental.”
“You should get sentimental. You're ending something that's been good for years! This is a big deal, you can't just walk away from this all of a sudden!”
“I am.” And she did. She walked out, down to the elevator, down to the lobby, down to the street, down to the car, turned the key, and broke down in tears.
~
I don't really want to write a romantic subplot so we join this one at the end of it. I tried to establish the way Kate thinks as an attempt to be businesslike and logical but with an emotional side that betrays that attempt. It's sort of similar to David's desire to be intellectual and cultured, which is betrayed by what he feels is childish angst. Kate seems like too simple of a character now. I don't have a lot of things for her to do. This scene was supposed to be longer but I disliked it a lot. Oh well. We'll see what I can do with her later.
~
Miss Small was a woman with an accurate name. Stature: petite, marriage status: single. First name unknown, suspected to be Auburn to conform to this level of accuracy. Or was that even a name? Alice certainly didn't know, and she knew she really ought not to be worrying about it now. This was educational time, apparently important. That's what Dr. Davis, said, at least. He said, “Alice, I know you like to learn about computers and math and books, but it's Miss Small that you really have to listen to. She's the one that's teaching you the really important things.” Alice could understand this. So far, she had applied skills learned from the teachings of Dr. Davis many more times than skills she had learned from the teachings of Miss Small, but the skills she had learned from Miss Small she had applied in situations where they had directly helped her improve a situation that could otherwise end negatively for her. She counted the kite-flying incident with her brother earlier that afternoon among these, where what she considered her deft conversational skills had caused the situation to end earlier than it perhaps would have otherwise, allowing her to play another twelve minutes of piano after the event and before the arrival of Miss Small, who was educating her now, or trying to. Just like David was trying to teach her about kites, just like Alice was trying to apply her conversational skills. Trying, trying.
“...so a person will usually ask about the weather, or talk about it, just to pass the time. This is a type of small talk, that we were talking about before. Do you remember what small talk is?”
Alice nodded, but she didn't really remember, she just wanted to ask Miss Small something and didn't want any follow-up questions to get in the way of that. She was actually somewhat nervous about asking this question, which was unusual, but warranted: the question seemed to breach the implied barrier of discussing family affairs with people outside the family. Actually, this was more than implied: her father's assistant had sat her down on one occasion when he first learned of the tutor situation and explained to her not to talk to them about anything outside of education, and on another instance her father had casually mentioned not talking to reporters or anyone that was suspicious. Alice did not remember these as being direct instructions, and besides, Miss Small seemed quite trustworthy, as well known to her as many more obscure members of her extended family. And this question wasn't even going to necessarily be about anything specifically personal.
“Miss Small, I have a question. When a person says they want to do something on their own terms, what does that mean?”
Miss Small was surprised by this unexpected question out of Alice, a pupil she had always found especially uninterested and distant. Usually whatever questions she did have related to some detail of the subject matter only included for the purpose of exemplifying a concept, not the concept itself. “When was the soccer ball invented”, for example, not “Why do people like sports?”, although the latter question was not beyond her. This, however, was something directly dealing with the purpose of her teachings: understanding social situations. Miss Small was overjoyed, and she knew she had to really excel at answering this one to gain Alice's trust for all future queries.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Why do you need to know?” Alice was defensive, would she be leaking info?
“Well, the context could be important for something like this.” Miss Small was troubled by this sudden defensiveness, what was Alice hiding?
Alice frowned a bit, and Miss Small, sensing that she was missing her chance, decided to take an educated guess.
“What that person probably meant is they want to be the one in control of how the thing they're doing is happening and why it's happening. Like... OK, if I told you when you were going to play piano and what songs you were going to play, would you be happy with that?”
“It depends what the songs are and when I'd be playing.”
“Let's say they're songs you don't like to play and a time when you don't want to play.”
Alice looked at her strangely. “Then... obviously... I wouldn't be happy with that.” she said, slowly and condescendingly.
“But you'd still want to play piano, right?”
“Right.”
“So you'd want to play the piano on your own terms. That's what it sort of means.”
It was a weak example, Miss Small knew it. She didn't like simplifying things for Alice like that, but she felt that the only way to make her remember something was to relate it to her on her own terms. What she failed to realize was that Alice had missed the point of the lesson entirely, having become wholly consumed with the fear of regulated piano playing and unpleasant mandatory songs.
~
Miss Small and Alice's other teachers will eventually be more major characters so I felt I should get them in sooner than later. I'd explain more about what I hope they'll be like, personality wise, but I hope I'll be able to do that within the story later. This scene also shows that Alice cars more about her brother than she lets on, and cares a bit about being able to socially interact with people, but just a bit.
~
Two floors up, David was behaving irrationally and suffering as a result. He listened to his uncle watching TV in his room. The TV was his uncles, but he knew the speakers were his. He knew his laptop was sitting on the dresser where he had left it this morning and his uncle would be too worried about disturbing it to touch it. He knew his uncle would be sitting in his chair. He could picture this whole scene perfectly. He could picture walking down there, greeting his uncle, explaining that he had forgotten his laptop on the dresser, grabbing the laptop, gathering up the cables, etc, etc. But he could not. He hadn't spoken to his uncle since he moved in, and, come to think of it, Alice hadn't either. He had unloaded all of his luggage and made himself at home without any benefit of a proper host. That already was awkward. But what if his uncle thanked him for the use of his room? What would he say in response to that? What if his uncle felt the need to apologize for the inconvenience and try to explain his predicament, justifying his position, as a man who moves in with his younger brother after a business failure might be shamed into doing? Especially when the real reasons for his presence – money did not begin to factor into it, it was all hinging on the displacement of David and the risk of Bill's mental condition deteriorating without supervision – was so clear to everyone? His uncle was not living on his own terms, and when one is in that position, the only way out of the hole of shame is a complete inversion, a whole justification that rewrites the situation as a positive and planned one. David knew this well, and knew the manoeuvre was awkward and did not to wish to witness a 55 year old man attempt it. He could picture his slightly wrinkled hand reach up to him as David left the room, TV buzzing off - “Hold on a second there, I just wanted to apologize for all the...”
TV buzzing off. David heard it, and hopped up off the mattress. His uncle was heading down the hall, destination unknown. This was a golden opportunity: with proper timing, silence and speed, he could sneak back into his room, grab the laptop, and entirely avoid any encounter with his uncle. He felt pathetic, recalled sneaking down from his room at seven when seven to watch cartoons, but that was the price you had to pay to live by your own terms. He made for the stairs, but the rickety house, would it betray him? He tried anyways. There was several hours until dinner, and he needed to kill that time somehow. Even a painful conversation with his uncle beats nothing.
~
More about David. He has some social interaction issues as well. He worries about being put in situations where he might get emotional, which he really is all the time. It all has to do with the idea that he's trying to live on his own terms. He doesn't want to seem like he's struggling with a problem that he didn't choose for himself.
~
By the time Kate made it home, her tears had stopped, but not out of any amount of willpower. It was from giving in, from rationalizing that she was being paranoid, that her affair would never be found out or that nothing bad would come of its discovery. It was from believing that when she got home, she would call Mitchell and apologize, and he would take her back, and she would meet up with him again in room 223, maybe in two weeks. The thought sustained her for the duration of the drive, she planned her apology, imagined how he would laugh as they shared the acknowledgement of her overreaction.
Soon she was almost crying tears of joy – had to balance that out, too. Turned on the news – it was all election stuff, who's going to run, who isn't, who's announced what for when. Fed her dread, her fears while still keeping the faint glimmer of hope alive. Next week she would hear her husband's voice on these radio shows, probably many, many times. They'll replay one quote endlessly. She felt like she could hear it already if she focused hard enough. He'd better not screw it up. Can't pin everything to him, though, she has a lot of responsibilities in this too. She had to appear well, she had to make the whole family appear well. If she could create the illusion of... no, if she could create a functioning, happy family, there would be no need to investigate at all beyond the surface. After all, a happy family is the whole story, an unhappy family is just the headline of the scandal that would cost the election. Tolstoy said something to that effect, she thought, but hadn't read much past the first few pages.
~
Kate driving home. More hinting at what the deal with the family is. She changes her mind about the affair. Again, trying to have a businesslike focus, but falters and tends to get sentimental and rambling when dealing with certain subjects. Her idea that she has to construct an ideal family drives a lot of the plot in the early sections.
~
David's mission to retrieve his laptop went better than all imaginable expectation. He passed his uncle in the hall and winced as he prepared for what had developed hyperbolically in his mind to a full on weeping and sobbing session, but his uncle merely explained he was heading out for a walk around his new neighbourhood. Maybe that single statement actually encapsulated a lot of the shame and grief that David had predicted of him, contained all the acknowledgement and an attempt at goodhearted justification, and had David thought about it long enough, all of these depressing meanings would probably appear. However, at face value, this was a free pass to the laptop and maybe a bit of time in his old room, and David was more than willing to cut meaning at its face for that freedom.
It was in his room that his mother found him, absently reading articles lying in his bed with the laptop on his stomach. She looked around at the suitcases on the floor and the small TV on the desk. How to handle this? Before she had just asked - “Do you mind moving up to the attic while your uncle stays in your room?” and the answer she received was hardly positive - “I guess”, and she suspected she had dodged a major argument by no more than an inch. Would that argument occur now? She had to play this safe, and quickly devised a new gambit to fend it off. Approach this from a friendly side.
David had noticed her in the hallway as she considered this. “Where have you been today?”
“At my sisters.” she replied, a bit suspicious and caught off guard by this accusatory question. Or was it really an accusatory question? Should mothers just be expected to be around on a day like this? She was also caught off guard by her own paranoia. “Alice said you were out this morning, where did you go?”
Why did she keep saying that to people? This morning it had gotten him out of helping move his uncle, but now it was coming back at him. “Just walked down to the store.”
“Well, if you want to use my car, feel free. Your father and I will be at a lot of meetings this week, and it will be free for you to use. Just make sure to put gas in it, OK?”
Good effort. Made sure to use words like free. A strategy that moved him further away from the house while empowering him and making it a positive thing. Brilliant, if she could say so herself. Plus, it would limit her ability to go back to Mitchell. Sure, she had only just now decided that she would go back to her original plan of breaking it off with him after her worry was reconfirmed by David's question, but a benefit now is a benefit that counts.
“And get ready for dinner. Your uncle's back, your sister's lesson has finished, and your father will be home soon. He's brought take-out.”
~
David gets off lucky with his uncle and his mom, implying that maybe they don't really all have it out for him like he's been thinking. He picks up on some issues his uncle has, but tries to forget about it. Miraculously, the whole family is ready for dinner at the same time.
~
The family man politician is an inherently flawed concept. No, no, it hadn't always been that bad, it was just this past year or so, but it would get worse. Edgar Wallace emerged from his assistant's car with a bag of Chinese food and felt the guilt and glory of the absent father well up inside of him. Forget the guilt, though! The clocks are ringing six times in protest of his lateness but ringing for him all the same. Inside the stomachs are growling but their suffering is understood by all to pale in comparison to the sacrifices he has made to sedate it. Relocated his brother, took him into the shelter of his home under most tragic circumstances. Had meetings, met with people wearing suits, wore a suit. Consulted, discussed. Placed an order at a Chinese restaurant and picked it up and paid. With the money he earned doing something something, something with a suit.
Politician. Family man. Suit. Sweatshirt. Congress. Living room. Business lunch. Chinese takeout. Overlap the two images, what emerges are the not the sames but the ability to hold them separately, to be both without ever being both at once but ready to switch at a moment's notice. Never discusses politics at home. Never misses a vote for a trip to Disney Land with the kids. Priorities in order, but still full of love. Proves it in an emergency, either way. Batman and Bruce Wayne, but which is...
Kids these days do not know, they simply do not. The young idealistic thirty somethings throw everything they have into the politics, every facet of them is seen in politics, every part of them is politics, and worse, there's nothing in them that isn't politics. They leave that building and they disappear, their flesh and bone melt away and the suit hangs itself on the wall until the next morning when they summon themselves from the ether to stuff the suits again. Excellent politicians by any metric but votes, ignorant children. He could summon them up from dust if he wanted, there was an endless supply pouring in from every school, a swarm of insects buzzing from desk to desk. He will shoo them away, for Edgar Wallace is an Elder God of politics, a titan from bygone eras where it wasn't what or who you knew, or where you came from, but simply how you said it, how you carried it, how indestructible you looked standing with your family on the national news. He could shatter these kids with one finger, the way they stammered like that in front of the camera!
Edgar Wallace was America to America, he was the dream and the destiny, the apple pie and the bootstrapped mansion. His wife was empowered but loyally supporting. His daughter was a genius. His son had potential. Or something. Now he had a war veteran older brother in the mix. Edgar was a veteran too! He killed men. With his bear hands. People saluted him in the streets, as well they should. He saluted them back, toned arm connected to firm handshake hand connecting with forehead framed with professionally greying hair above steeled blue eyes, centred nose, respectfully serious mouth and squared jaw.
He was put up for bat that year. They approached him one day about it. It's your turn, they said. They explained why. It made sense. They explained what they'd have him do. It sounded pretty good. He knew most of them, but he didn't realize it would be them that would talk to him when it was time for them to talk to him once more. He wondered if it would be better to be one of them to be someone they told him to be, but he knew which one was easier.
But banish all derogatory thoughts of laziness or privilege for their obvious incorrectness ought to shame their thinker! Making some things easier just makes it easier for him to make things better for America, after all. Clean up the streets. Fix the budget. Cut down on emissions. Sign that paper. Shake that hand. Give that speech. Kiss that baby. Do they still kiss babies on the tour? Please quiet that crying baby, it does not look good on television. Yes, it was just kissed by a stranger, it has any right to cry, he's only human and strange and scary to the inexperienced tyke, what did you expect, the messiah?
Because he could be. Please quiet that religious clamour and look to his perfect attendance record at the local church. Please quiet that scientific fervour, he is progressive and believes evolution to be real and divine, your funding will come through – please look at his daughter. Ruckus in the lower class: “Elite, elite! Intellectual, intellectual!” Please, flatter him more! But he understands you. Please refer to previous comment with respect to church, please notice the record of statewide tax cuts. He is you as well, he is all. Women, look to his wife and nod. Young voters of the world, he has a son like you. Know that he would betray you only as soon as he would him, he will pull your generation into the same glory your parents knew. You will not wreak their debt because they have none on his watch.
He was up to bat. He was Babe Ruth on steroids swinging mighty Yggdrasil. He would shatter the baseball. The shock-wave would destroy the stands and they would collapse on his opponent, landslide victory. The baseball would enter orbit. Yes, after being shattered. A parade would immediately be thrown. Ticker tape, the whole nine yards. Wrong sport. Up on the shoulders. Party next. Lampshade on the head. Cliche. Lampshade it. Cliche your way to victory. Create a nice little two dimensional scene. Reliable family man. Progressive wife. Identifiable son. Intellectual daughter. Shame about the dog.
Open the door now, step into the threshold of your kingdom. Got your line ready? Is it cliched? Great. The omnipotent should be predictable, for only repetition proves control.
~
OK so this a bit odd. Awhile back I took a crack at reading "Finnegan's Wake". It did not go well. I'll return to it. I did enjoy bits of it, though, even though I could not begin to understand even a percentage of what it was about. One section I particularly liked is a passage about HCE, some sort of character (?). He is praised by all sorts of things, the book addressing him and speaking with this just amazing epic poetic tone. That's what I went for here, I hope it was somewhat impressive or interesting because if it wasn't there really isn't much going on here. It only described Edgar by the fact that a lot of these things are true but presented with undue majesty. A major part of his character is the seperation from his true personality and the one he must display in his political career.
~
Not long after dinner, which was enjoyed by all, the family separated. Alice was spared any sort of mandatory post-dinner social interaction and played graceful waltz music on the piano. David disappeared to the attic with the laptop and reluctantly suffered the slight differences of his new location. Kate took a call from her sister on vacation in the bedroom. Bill sat in the kitchen and read the paper, which is where Edgar found him, hoping to connect a little more than they did over dinner. He handed him a beer and twisted the top off his own.
“That was quite an announcement you made at dinner.” Bill said, sipping at his beer. “No one seems all too phased.”
“Well, Kate already knew, and I think David suspected it. I'm not sure if Alice really understands it. The full impact will hit them later when the campaign actually starts up.”
“Never a dull moment around here, eh?”
“I guess it'll be a bit more fast paced than life out in the country.”
Bill shook his head and chuckled. “It doesn't seem like anyone around here's actually doing anything, but they are certainly doing it very quickly.”
“You got moved in alright?”
“Yup. You sure the kid doesn't mind?”
“Nah, he doesn't care.”
“I saw him out flying kites with his sister today.”
“You sure? That doesn't seem right.”
“Who was that lady that was in this afternoon.”
“Uh, must have been one of Alice's teachers.”
“Oh, I thought it might have been that sister your wife is always going to see.”
Edgar frowned. “Bill... You met her sister. Several times.”
“Oh, did I? Listen, I'm not trying to say anything by it. I know you have a handle on this and a lot of responsibilities aside. I just want to know you've got everything under control.”
“I do. Of course I do.”
“Because sometimes it's best to have a little on your plate and know what all of it is, you know?”
“I know, I know.”
“And you're going to have a lot more on your plate soon, you know.”
“I know.”
“OK.” Bill finished his beer. “I was just making sure.”
“OK.”
~
Trying to establish their relationship a bit here. Edgar feels like his ability to take care of his older brother is evidence enough that his life is in control, but Bill is trying to imply that it isn't. They have different views about a lot of things and worry about each other. End chapter.
~
Breeze
Life at the Wallace household managed to fall into a routine that bordered on normalcy fairly quickly after the announcement. Yes, there were more reporters about, and no one was quite as happy as they should have been: Edgar was away more frequently, had more meetings and spent more time in a suit; Kate worried herself almost to genuine sickness and fell into the escape of pretend sickness, lying in a bed or tub for most of the day; Alice found her teachers more distant and less helpful and worried that her education was suffering as a result; Bill struggled to stay out of the way of the chaos. The only one more happy was David, who fled to the city almost every morning and wasn't seen until that night. All of their situations could be indirectly attributed to Edgar's presidential bid, but the disconnect between the negative repercussions and the act itself was large enough that when asked if they'd rather him drop out – which he assured was still a possibility – they said no with some honesty. This almost disappointed the exhausted candidate, but he knew he had many obligations, not the least of which was to the family that, for all he knew, was proud of this decision and hoped for great things to result from it.
It was, of course, the fear that was common in all their cases, even David's new generally free lifestyle was clouded by a constant concern over the possibility of scandal. At this stage in the game, one gaffe would be enough for the party to scrap Edgar and grab someone else. Maybe they already had people waiting in the wings, it was impossible to tell. All they could do now is hope they made it long enough without screwing up so they could screw up after it was too late to lose their chance - they would screw up eventually, there was no doubt of that.
David's trips to the city were a slight concern to his parents merely due to their mysterious nature, but this was overpowered by the relief of his being out of the way of the media, which was becoming a more common presence at their house. Of all the members of the family, David presented the largest risk of losing his temper with a reporter or going against some stated policy. Sure, the perception of this risk was largely magnified out of the general film of paranoia that surrounded all of them, they all knew he wasn't malicious and wouldn't intentionally do something to harm the campaign, but they thought, or rather, logically deduced that he might be frustrated with the whole process and therefore liable to snap.
Frustrated wasn't really the right word for what David felt about the campaign process, though. What motivated him was once again an overwhelming desire for indifference. Edgar was right in thinking that his son had suspected the presidential bid, and what's more, he had already predicted what would be expected of him and the situation the family now found itself in. They were surrounded by the circling vultures of the news media, starving to death by virtue of not yet having eaten. The house was in a hectic routine, and everyone was coping in their own way. David had merely chosen the simplest one: stay out of the house for as long as possible as often as possible.
So, he drove into the city almost every morning with his laptop and looked for ways to pass time. He frequented coffee shops, hung around in libraries, visited interesting shops, but mostly just sat in obscure areas of the park and tried to forget about why he was living this way. Acknowledging that it was his father's campaign that scared him away from being at the house would lose him too much of the illusion of control he felt he had of his own life. But failing that, what was he doing? Living, or dying, by his own terms.
David knew he was at a crossroads in life. At this point, he was continuing on as he did out of spite and fear, a terrible combination of motivations that robbed him of all ambition. If there was ever going to be anything better for him, it would have to be so good that it overpowered the shame he would feel for giving up the lifestyle he struggled to prove he preferred, that is, extremely good. It seemed unlikely.
But, he did find it, about fifteen miles north of the city, on the roof of a parking garage beside a fairly renowned college of the arts. He had gone there on a strange and unidentifiable whim, found nothing to interest him and many locked doors, but still returned on a similar whim the next day. He found himself drawn to it, something about the prestige attracted him, perhaps, or maybe the history. Art was something David was constantly at odds with: he felt like he should understand it, should enjoy it, but it always failed to actually capture his interest. He forced himself through some of the classics, reading them before bed and struggling to stay away, and found them largely uninteresting. He listened to his sister on the piano and enjoyed the sound on what he knew to be a very superficial level, any further analysis of the construction of the piece given to him by her he could not manage to understand, which frustrated both. Visual art, film, performance, it was all the same – he knew there was something there, he knew he would like it if he could reach it, but he simply could not understand.
He never intended to take classes at the college or even browse their library – that would be far too presumptuous – but he just felt like being there, seeing the building, was giving him some sense of what art meant to those who cared about it, a sense of an entire other culture that had wholly different priorities than him: what concerned them was irrelevant to his family and what concerned his family was irrelevant to them. David's liberating indifference, the disconnect from everything beyond his control that he longed for, seemed like it was encapsulated entirely by this, a world devoted to pure art. It was as far from the corrupt and demanding world of politics as one could get. He worshipped the building like a cathedral, and his pilgrimages became more frequent. Sure, he still never actually went into the building proper – too presumptuous – but the benches outside were comfortable and interesting people often walked by. He happily spent many afternoons on those benches, dreaming about the life he imagined the students had. It was hopelessly idealized, this dream, but it comforted him to imagine that there were people out there that had a lifestyle he might actually want to have and did things that he could see himself enjoying. The accuracy of his perceptions was irrelevant – he saw he aspects he wanted to see and ignored the rest. The people, the building, it wasn't real to him, it was just a wonderful movie in which he longed to live.
So, this was all very nice for him, these trips to hang around on the art school campus. Sure, the whole thing felt sort of off the way it was now, but each day brought more confidence to his resolution that, as soon as possible, he would apply, become a student, and one day actually live the life he spent most of his day contemplating. The life not contemplated is not worth living, right? So best to get a head start on that, right? Not only that, but in the back of his mind, he felt like he would soon be outclassing many of those who had the gall to consider themselves his peers. The students he saw, although happy and studious, lacked the intensity that he felt an artist should have. Look at a painting of Beethoven – the man was intense! Well, at least he was for a painting. Or look at Alice, when she played piano – totally into it! Granted, she was a savant with several psychosocial disorders, but... his point remained that the kids these days were too soft, and he would be the first proper artist among them, talent be damned.
OK so now a few weeks have past and we're going to start into the major plotlines for the characters. We start with David, who is really just looking for something to do. He gets all hyped up about being an artist but he has sort of a strange idea about what that would mean and why he wants to do it. WE'LL FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT SOON, AREN'T YOU EXCITED?
man this blog is like a big text monolith now.
anyways uhhh what else... not much i guess. well a few things. actually a lot of blog posts i want to make but i feel like i should be writing the novel or coding instead.
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