Fitter Happier More Productive: Now with commentary! :: by zara hemla ::
Welcome to your commentary! I wrote this story ... the date
on the site says May 13, 2003: it was right after Connor got his
memory wiped. I think I knew it was going to happen, and the "five
things" challenge was just past its peak, so here we are.
Of course as you know, all the chapter headers and the title are
from the Radiohead song, "Fitter Happier." I actually picked
that particular song after the whole story was written -- I
didn't write the story around the song. But I was listening
to Radiohead after I wrote it, and Fitter Happier is just full
of weird things to use as chapter headers. Heh.
I: nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
This is my second favorite section. It evokes for me the
awkwardness of my early college years, when all my friends
were being super-social and I hated it.
Edward Martin puts down the copy of "The Dream
Hunters" that his sister gave him for Christmas and
smiles to himself. He's read the graphic novel about
a hundred times, and it never stops surprising him.
A girl who's a fox, and a monk that dies for her ...
Eddie doesn't like to admit it, but he's a romantic.
He wishes, in a roundabout way, that he could have a
girl who would give up her life for him. Well, maybe
Allyson would, but a sister isn't the same thing.
"Oy, Eddie! We're goin' down to Atchafalaya! It's
80s night!" His roommate's light tenor floats in
through the window, and Eddie jumps off his bed to
peer out. The evening illuminates Chad, standing at
the dorm's entrance with a few pretty girls at his
side. Chad always has pretty girls floating around
him. Eddie doesn't understand how he does it.
Let's see. "Dream Hunters" is one of my own favorite
books. I think I'd just finished it (again) at the time.
Atchafalaya is a club we have down in Provo. It's a stupid club.
I wanted something that to me identified as stupid, even though
no one else would get it.
"Dude, I'll meet you there. I got this calculus
homework."
"Okay! Text me!"
Does anyone really say "text me"? I don't know.
Chad and the girls go off and Eddie pulls his head
back in the window. The calculus is a pretext.
Eddie doesn't dance well, never has, and doesn't like
going to 80s night. He doesn't really like 80s music
– anything with a synthesizer makes him shudder. He
has never admitted it to his friends, but he likes
old stuff – really old. Swing bands, blues, early
jazz. The ska movement briefly interested him, but
had petered out too soon.
Eddie is much like myself in this respect. In fact,
out of all of these Connors, he's the one most like me.
Eddie sighs. If he doesn't go out with Chad, though,
he'll never meet any girls, and maybe he'll never
find a girl for him. He desperately wants to know
what sex is like – hello, he's a college boy – but
not enough to just go out and do it. He wants
romance. It's sick, but there it is. He wants a
girl that would die for him.
He rifles through his CDs until he comes up with a
jazz compilation and sticks it in the player. At the
first sound of Bix Biederbecke's "Davenport Blues,"
his mind is away. Eddie's mind takes him places that
no one can ever follow him to. Weird, fantastic
places, often populated by demons or vampires or
beautiful, willowy women, or all three.
Mmmm...Bix.
"There's a magic sword," he murmurs to himself. "And
if he wields it with skill and strength, then he can
slay the mighty demon that's blocking out the sun."
He remembers vaguely that the sun went out over LA
one time when he was a kid, but no one knows why.
And then Jasmine came, and it seemed unimportant.
But something had happened to Jasmine ... something
that had torn everyone out of her love, kicking and
screaming. Eddie remembers the loss that he felt,
but he had mom and dad and Allyson and Mark to cry
with. Luckily.
I wanted an "alt-Connor" that would still remember Jasmine,
but only as a news item.
No, Eddie has no idea what blocked out the sun for
real. But his mind insists that it could have been a
demon. And if there was a demon, then there had to
be a hero, right? Sure, it's all a story – but a
good story. Like "The Dream Hunters."
Eddie rolls over and fumbles underneath his bed.
Chad will be gone for awhile, and he won't be around
to make fun of Eddie's writing habit. Chad's a good
guy, but kind of dumb. He thinks writing is for
morons, and maybe it is, but Eddie sometimes feels
like he *has* to do it, like his fingers are
magnetized to a ballpoint pen.
The notebook is plain, black, ordinary. Inside, in
Eddie's gangly freshman print, is a laboriously
printed title: "The Adventures of Angel. Private
Eye by Day – Super Hero By Night!!!!!! He Fights
Evil To Reclaim Justice In the City Of Angels!!!!!!!"
This is meant to be a parody of Angel, like he was writing
it as a coincidence, but not really. I think it's kind of funny.
Eddie flips to a blank page. Bix slides into
"Dardanella." Eddie, buoyed up by the transcendent
trumpet, begins to write.
"'Oh Angel,' said Lelia, 'there's so many things you
don't know. Just remember this – the Mob was so
pleased at your cleanup of the Vampire Boys gang that
they've given you this entire building for your very
own.'
'And where do you figure into this?' asked Angel. He
was very suspicious of Lelia's motives. After all,
she'd been the moll of Stiletto Vezzini, the Mob's
most dangerous hit man. 'Wouldn't Stiletto be pretty
angry if he saw us together?'
I also think "Stiletto Vezzini" and "moll" are damn funny.
'No, Angel, you don't understand. Stiletto sent me
here to be your secretary. To do whatever you want.
I'm your go-to girl.' She walked up to him until she
was only an inch away. Angel could have taken her in
his arms, if he'd wanted. But he'd seen how she
looked at his second-in-command, Westley Edgington
III. The two of them had been exchanging smoldering
glances since the day they first met.
'Oh yeah? Well, go-to girl, go get me some coffee.'
Angel sat down at his comfy desk and smiled. It was
quiet and upscale in this part of Los Angeles. Angel
thought he could probably get used to the quiet for
awhile.
But as if to belie all his happy ideals, the door
flew open. And there stood five foot ten of tall,
dark-haired beauty. It was a woman in a long,
flowing red dress, who looked mad enough to spit
nails.
'Are you Angel?' she demanded. When he nodded, she
launched into a tale of suffering and woe, her dark
eyes flashing and her bosom heaving.
'Angel, you have to help me! My name is Cordana and
my ex-fiance is trying to kill me! You see, it
happened this way'" . . . .
II: now self-employed / concerned (but powerless)
It's hard to say how this one came out. Basically I just
write stuff and it works. I don't consciously think about it,
but it just comes together later. That's how this story was --
it just came out in a flood. I had very little to do afterwards.
Jake Peary is thirty-seven years old. It seems
important to say that first. He has been married two
times. Both marriages are over. He was supposed to
go to university but dropped out. He served a year
in jail for assault. He knows how to start a fire
with barely any tinder and not a match in sight.
Jake is alone most of the time. He has taken a job
mowing lawns for public parks, civic buildings, and
churches. It pays all right. It pays for his small
apartment and his collection of dreamcatchers. It
means that it's mostly him and his lawnmower, every
day. Good.
Readers might notice that Jake says, "Good," a lot --
that is a conscious thing. I put it in as sort of an affectation
for him.
Jake's mother and father are both dead. His sister
lives in Ottawa and has not spoken to him in sixteen
years. Good. He doesn't want to talk to her, he
hasn't wanted to ever since the day in July of his
twenty-first year that he'd stolen a car and headed
out of Los Angeles for ever.
He lives in Kamas now. It is a small town in the
mideastern part of Utah. No one knows where he came
from or who he really is, which suits him fine. Jake
doesn't like to talk to anyone. It doesn't suit him
anymore.
I've been to Kamas. It's very small, very out of the way.
A guy like Jake would probably fit in, no questions asked
(except, "Would you like to have the missionaries over? :))
In his twenty-fourth year, Jake discovered that he
liked it when he choked women. Oh, not enough to
kill them – he can stop himself there – but enough
that they gagged and clawed at him. It made him so
hot that he wanted to do it every time. And that's
what ended his first marriage.
His second marriage had lasted about three hours.
She hadn't cared about the choking, but she had cared
about his penchant for loud, panic-filled dreams.
She'd said, "I can't sleep with you, I'm not gonna
stay with you." And she hadn't. They'd both been
drunk when they got married anyway. It was no big
loss.
I don't know where the choking thing came from. When
I think about it now, it might have something to do with
how Connor lost his memories, but not that essential anger
and hatred. So that it would come out in another way if
it wasn't directed at Angel.
The Mormons are good to Jake and let him keep his
job, even if he shows up late or mows slowly. He has
a feeling that they think he's retarded. Good. Let
them think it. There are so many churches in this
damn town that he could mow all day and all night and
still have church lawns left to mow. And no one else
wants to do it.
LDS people (Mormons) are very nice and I can see some
nice bishop somewhere giving Jake a job because he's down
on his luck.
Jake rides his mower from eight in the morning until
five at night, with a break for lunch, if he arrives
on time. If not, he often skips his lunch break,
steering the mower one-handed while eating a cheese
sandwich. It's not like it's rocket science.
There are two constants in Jake's life. One is the
almost-nightly presence of tearing, clawing dreams.
Jake collects dreamcatchers because he hopes that if
he gets enough, one day, the dreams will stop. He
does not even know what the dreams are about, only
that they wake him up nightly, screaming. His first
wife had stood it well enough until the choking had
forced her to leave. The second – well. Good
riddance.
Jake currently has five hundred and seventeen
dreamcatchers. He has a book on how to make them and
occasionally, when he feels that he can't stand it
one more minute, he sits up at night and weaves yard
or thread or shoelaces around and around and around.
It's useless, he knows it. But it keeps him from
shoving a newly-bought gun into his mouth. And
that's a temptation sometimes.
Mosca wants to know about the dreamcatchers -- I made
a couple of them when I was a kid, and they're not really
hard but they take up your concentration. I could see Jake
making them in the middle of the night, working hard
at them because he can't go back to sleep, and it keeps him
from feeling really desperate. He's not a serial killer --
he's just disturbed, and he knows it, and he wants to solve
the problem without suicide or something. The fact that he
has so many was just to indicate that he's had these dreams
for a long time.
The second constant in Jake's life is the man in the
black coat. Since Jake was eighteen, he has been
seeing the man in the black coat every once in awhile
– sometimes once a year, sometimes once a week, on
and off. Ever in the shadows, ever half-lit, the man
is pale and dark-haired. And thought it has been
almost twenty years since Jake first saw him, the man
has not aged by a year.
Jake has not seen the man in black for five months,
but has no doubt that he will see him again. The man
usually just watches him or follows him from a
distance. He and Jake have never spoken.
Jake motors around the corner of Kamas hospital's
enormous lawn, leaving a perfect trail of cut grass
behind him. He has decided that the next time he
sees the man in the black coat, he will go right up
to him. And he'll say, "How do I get rid of these
dreams?" It seems the best thing to do.
Jake doesn't know how much longer he will be able to
hold on to his sanity. He hopes the man in the black
coat will show up soon. His hands itch: to choke,
to buy a gun, to keep the lawn mowed. Perfectly.
Ah, the poetic ending. I have an authorly obsession
with endings, I like to make them very poetic / metaphorical.
Many people who sent feedback on this liked that particular
ending.
III: favours for favours
My first foray into the world of slash. Of course I had
a short moral crisis on this, go ahead and laugh, but I just
knew when I got to this section that the character was gay
(or at least bi). So I wrote it anyway. They do say the
first step is the hardest.
It's life as usual for Darien MacEnroe. He comes
home from his office, toting his big drawing pad,
thinking about the new office building that's next to
the park. Should they go for something contemporary
or try to revive the a style that Los Angeles used to
be famous for? And should there be a statue in the
courtyard?
It is nine o'clock in the evening. Darien has been
working all evening, feverishly trying to get his new
ideas on paper. Architectural Digest has just hailed
him as an "up and coming" guy, "someone "to watch out
for." It's a heady thought, and also a cautionary
tale. Many an architect has been hailed just so, and
many an architect has burnt out before they could
fulfill their potential. Darien would do anything to
avoid that. So he cultivates his ideas quietly and
slowly, working a spot in his brain that's peaceful
and full of buildings.
Darien nods to the doorkeeper and heads up the stairs
of his modest, but not too modest, condo. As he
turns the key in the lock, he hears something odd but
not unexpected – somewhere in his house, someone is
breaking glass.
He pokes his head into the door first and doesn't see
anything, so he lets himself in and places his
drawing pad into the front closet.
"Rich? Rich, I'm home," he calls. He's met with
silence. He sighs and calls again into the
oppressive stillness. "Rich? Rich, I'm sorry I'm
late, but I got the Martineau account and I've been
working on the office building all day. ..."
"You bastard." The voice comes from the kitchen, and
it is flat and matter-of-fact. The speaker does not
appear, however.
"Come on, Rich, I'm sorry." Darien takes off his tie
and puts it over the back of the chair, reconsiders,
balls it up, and puts it in his pocket. "I swear, I
have done nothing but sit at my desk all day."
I put the tie in to kind of foreshadow the fact that
Rich is neat and clean and has a tendency toward physicality
(i.e., Darien's impulse is to throw the tie on the chair, but
he reconsiders because he's afraid of what Rich might
say/do about it), but that whole aspect never panned out.
I still liked the sentence so I kept it in.
"The fuck you have. I called Lisa and she said you
were out. Where were you?" Rich's voice is rising,
and Darien hears, with a wince, another piece of
glass crash to the floor.
"I must've been in the bathroom or something. Geez!
I even ate lunch at my desk. I don't know why she
said that." He hears the rising panic in his own
voice, tries to stamp it down. The last thing he
wants is to have Rich mad at him. Rich isn't pretty
when he's angry, and Darien hates conflict.
"You know what? You're a liar. A really bad liar."
Rich finally stomps out of the kitchen, leveling an
accusing finger at Darien. His dark hair is standing
on end instead of in its usual gelled coif, and a
bright flush burns on his cheeks. Darien realises
with a sinking feeling that he is drunk. Well,
there's no getting out of this now.
I meant to describe Rich more but never got around to it.
"Rich, I *swear* -- " He never finishes the
sentence, for Rich hits him as hard as he can in the
solar plexus. Darien goes down, gasping for air and
clutching his middle. Faintly, he hears Rich letting
out a stream of invective.
"Liar. Cheat. Who is he? Who is he?!" He hauls
Darien to his feet and slaps him, hard, in the face.
The sting rocks Darien's head back, smacking him
against the plaster kitchen doorway.
"I don't – I don't –"
Rich punches him twice in the stomach, drops him, and
kicks him in the side. Darien feels a dull stab in
his chest, and curls up as best he can, protecting
his head. The kicks continue for a couple minutes,
then Darien hears Rich run into the bedroom and slam
the door. A minute later, he hears Rich's wild
sobbing.
I have little experience with gay relationships, so
I don't know if this comes off as "gay men must necessarily
be cheats and bullies." I really don't think that -- but
just as I knew Darien had to be gay, I also knew he was
essentially unstable and would never have a relationship
that wasn't in some way a lie.
Darien lies on the floor and tries to think of what
to do. The stab in his chest, thankfully, dies down,
and when he finally gathers the energy to prod his
ribs, they don't pain him at all. Nothing broken.
He drags himself off of his living room floor and
staggers into the bathroom.
In the mirror, he is pale and hectic. He has a goose
egg on the back of his head and a sluggishly bleeding
cut on his cheek. He is breathing in hitches and his
shirt is torn. He looks nothing like an "up and
coming" anyone.
He closes the bathroom door quietly and locks it.
Then he digs in the bathroom cupboard for the
Neosporin. It's way in the back under a package of
soap and an old hair gel bottle. Disconnectedly,
Darien thinks that he really ought to clean out the
cupboard.
Just like my bathroom closet, only without the tampons.
Sitting on the toilet, he dabs at the cut on his face
and wonders whether he ought to fire Lisa or not. He
decides not, since he hadn't given her any
instructions. Who would have thought that Rich would
call? He was in one of his manic stages, organizing
a shoot for his documentary, and Darien had thought
he'd be safe enough.
It was true what Rich said – he was a liar and a
cheat. But Wesley is like kismet. He seems to know
Darien in ways that no one could, not even Rich. He
sees Darien as someone with potential. He even says
that he'll give him a commission to build something
for his firm, Wolfram and Hart.
Darien knows he isn't the only one that Wesley sleeps
with. At least twice he's seen other people leaving
Wesley's apartment late at night – a curvy woman who
always wore scarves, and a pasty white fella in a
black duster coat. But at twenty-four, he's arrogant
enough to think of them as "older" and stop there.
Maybe they can't keep up.
This was an addition -- I couldn't decide who in W&H
to have Darien be sleeping with. I was going to have it
be Lilah at first, I think, but having it be Wesley
got a few comments from people of, "Yes!".
It doesn't matter. Darien's content enough to have a
few minutes of Wesley's time. He knows Wesley
doesn't want a relationship with him. Sometimes he
looks at him with a funny smile, or whispers half-
joking British endearments, but he never explains
himself. And it doesn't matter that much. Darien
isn't really into commitment.
It's something he ought to tell Rich, who expects a
return of feeling that isn't there, but Darien hates
conflict. In awhile he'll say something. If he ever
gets up the courage to fight back.
From the other side of the door he hears a tap, and
Rich's voice follows, rough from crying.
"Dare? Dare? I'm so fucking sorry, honey. I don't
know what – I don't know why – I'm so sorry."
Smearing the Neosporin on the cut, Darien rises from
the toilet and opens the door. He smiles tremulously
at Rich, the picture of the wounded lover, and keeps
his mouth shut. Rich does the babbling apology
thing, and Darien just smiles and lets him. Their
makeup sex is very very nice, and Rich mumbles
something about love afterwards. Darien just
pretends to be asleep. It's easier that way.
He's a bastard. Yep. But I think this is my favorite section.
IV: slower and more calculated / no chance of escape
This one was weird. I think it had to do with a discussion
Barb and I were having about basketball (and the Pistons in
particular) and I thought to myself, "I bet Connor would make
a great basketball player, he can jump so high."
It's partial. Some days he's Hal Weathers, one-time
basketball player for the Detroit Pistons, and some
days he's Connor the Champion, some kind of fucking
superhero saving the damned or whatever.
This one is way more colloquial than any of the other
ones -- about as "street" as I ever get.
Started slowly enough, with pieces of his day he
didn't remember, things people said he did that he
never did. Then there was the picture in the paper,
and that cracked him up good. Now he's in the
Eleazer B. Wirthlin wing of the Detroit hospital, in
a white room with black curtains, like the song says.
In college he found out that he could run faster than
other players. Jump higher. Shit like that. He
joined the UNLV basketball team, scouts saw him, he
went to the NBA. It might have been more complex
than that, but it just wasn't. It was fucking easy.
Too easy. 'Cause two years later, here he is in the
funny farm. Hal. Or Connor. Or both.
The photo in the Detroit Free Press had shown him in
the act of jumping from the top of a five-story
building. It had been captioned, "Leaps Tall
Buildings. ..." The second photo, captioned "In A
Single Bound," had shown him upright, apparently
unharmed, walking away from the scene. It had
generated a huge uproar of publicity for the Pistons.
It had also generated many, many questions.
Hee hee! I like the captions to the photos.
Hal could not answer those questions. In fact, Hal
had no idea what the fuck the interviewers were
talking about. He had deflected questions with a
joke about manipulated photographs. Just been
completely puzzled. Until someone got themselves a
bona fide interview with Connor the Champion. Great.
It had run nationally, that interview, in such
prestigious papers as the Los Angeles Times and the
Washington Post. Hal can remember parts of it quite
lucidly.
Connor: So we had sex, right? Really great sex.
Once. And then she turned up pregnant, only it was
this demon baby, right? That's what we thought.
Reporter: Only it turned out to be –
Connor: Jasmine, yeah.
Reporter: So you're claiming to be responsible for
the Jasmine phenomenon that swept the Western US
three years ago?
Connor: I was her father.
I'm not sure I like how this section came out, with
the interviewer and everything. I knew Connor was
going to come out, but I'm not sure he'd give an interview
about it. Oh well.
Hal cannot remember giving this interview. As far as
he knows, he was in bed with two blondes from the
opposing team's cheerleading squad on the night in
question. But the reporter claims that Connor was,
on that smoggy summer night, out keeping the streets
clean from the criminal element.
Reporter: So then your, quote unquote, "father," ...
Connor: Tried to wipe my memory clean and put me
with a foster family.
Reporter: Why would he do that?
Connor: (shrugs) He's an idiot.
The reporter, one Mike Whitney, has photos to prove
that Hal – Connor – was the one talking with him.
Hal has no explanation for this. When Joe Dumars
himself had called Hal into his office, Hal had ended
up almost in tears. The frustration was even more
palpable because on one hand, he was sure it was a
lie – he'd never heard of this Connor person – but a
small, definite part of him knew that something was
very wrong with him. Very wrong.
Reporter: What do you plan to do, now that you're
back?
Connor: I'll cleanse the world of hatred and
injustice. Of course.
Reporter: That's a big job.
Connor: (looks down at himself and grimaces) At
least that moronic other personality kept me in
shape.
I really don't like this section, now that I look at it.
I think I would go back and change it.
Dumars had looked at him very, very patiently, and
had said, "Hal, man, I think you need to see
someone." Someone had turned into someones – Connor
had reared his ugly head – and here Hal is, staring
through a window that has bars on it.
Doctor Wexel comes in, consulting a chart, and Hal
turns around to watch him. Wexel is a short man with
a tic in his nose that makes him look like a rabbit.
He takes a chair and looks hard at Hal.
"Who are we today, Mr. Weathers?"
Hal snarls at him. "Who the fuck do you think,
rabbit-face?"
"Ah. So nice to see you, Hal. And how are we
feeling?"
"'We' are feeling fine. 'We' would like some lunch.
'We' would like our fucking lawyer."
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
Hal sighs. "Look. Can't we just get this over with?
I had my blood test today, but I need my mindfuck."
"Hmmph. Right."
Reporter: So "Hal" is just a figment of your
imagination?
Connor: That's right. He's nothing. Just a made-up
person.
Reporter: What'll happen to him if you rise up
permanently?
Connor: (shrugs) I don't care.
This I do like, though -- one of the reasons I didn't
like Connor (or Angel, for that matter) -- is because of
his blind, stone-stupid stubbornness. They were both so
very selfish. I think this comes out clearly in the subtext
-- I never had to say it right out.
Wexel has left and time has passed, but Hal doesn't
know how much time. Outside the window, the sun
seems to be going down.
Suddenly he hears the lock click open and Wexel comes
in again, leading another man in a lab coat. This
man is bald and looks completely out of place,
completely un-doctor-like. But Wexel doesn't seem to
notice.
"Dr. Gunn," he says. "As you see, the patient is
exhibiting signs of breakdown and multiple
personalities. You have surely read the literature
on the subject and reached the same conclu – " He
breaks off as Dr. Gunn thumps him over the head with
a closed fist.
"Never got into that sciencey shit anyways," says the
man that Hal has simultaneously never seen before and
recognizes perfectly. "That's Fred's gig. How you
doin', Connor?"
Hal opens his mouth to say, who the hell are you, and
how did you get into my room, but what comes out is,
"Never better, Gunn. You took your sweet time."
Gunn looks abashed. "Well, once we saw the papers,
we knew someone had to come."
The voice that is not Hal's says, "Why didn't Angel
come?"
"Lots of daylight travel. Plus, I think he's afraid
of airplanes. Those old guys fear the new
inventions, all that."
"Some brave vampire."
"Yeah. But time's a-wasting. I guess you want to
come home?"
Hal feels himself slipping under, claws to the
surface, screams silently, is gone.
"Home," muses Connor. "Sure. I guess."
Poor Hal. There he goes.
V: less chance of illness
I got a lot of comment on this one, saying how it
made everyone sniffle. This is my own least favorite
section, for that very reason. I wrote it because it
came out this way, but I didn't want to manipulate
everyone into bawling. Sorry, everyone. Go rent
"Steel Magnolias" or something.
What I really wanted was for something NOT to be happening
to Connor personally, but to someone he loves very much, and
for him to be unable to stop it.
The hospital room is a white and cool window into
hell. Will Crandall sits on a bed and watches his
second-born lose her fight with leukemia, and wonders
if life can get any worse.
She has not been conscious enough to speak for five
days. Last Saturday she said goodbye to her two
siblings and her dad and mom, but she hangs on still.
Still, though she is barely breathing, though her
lungs are collapsing, though her brain is probably
mush in her head.
Anneke is twelve years old, and last year she had
been the captain of her soccer team. But Will can't
think of that, because the sobs still threaten to
overcome him, and he's cried enough over the last
week to fill a reservoir. Instead, he watches her
struggle to breathe and he holds her hand.
He and Melanie have taken turns at her bedside for
quite awhile. At first she sat there most of the day
while he worked, and Jenny had picked Aaron up from
school, but eventually he'd just taken time off of
work. It's not like he did anything there anyway
except sit and contemplate whether Anneke had died or
not.
"Anneke" is the name of one of my husband's younger
cousins.
The nurse pokes her head in and enquires whether she
can get him anything. He shakes his head and she
leaves quietly. The hospital staff here are very
kind, but they feel that there is nothing more they
can do. She has been moved back from the children's
hospital in Austin to this little one outside of
Killeen, about five miles from their house, to die.
Of course I took liberties with this -- I've never
been to Texas. But hospitals are very much the same,
wherever you go.
Will checks his watch – eight fifteen – and his
daughter's heart monitor – the same. The steady
beeps of it are not reassuring, but they are there.
The door opens and Melanie slips into the room. She
has a habit of walking quietly, even though Will
isn't sure why. It's not like Anny can hear them,
after all. He thinks.
"Hey, sweetie," she says, kneeling at his side and
looking up at him with big, dark eyes. "How is she?"
"The same." Will can't look back at her, because
he'll start crying, and he's promised himself he
won't cry anymore tonight. It's already given him a
big sticky headache and he feels sort of sick. Not
sick like leukemia, no, but sick like dread, like
freezing.
::sniffle:: Makes you sick how perfect the
family is, doesn't it? Kidding. I wanted Will
to have had a good life for once, so he could know
what he was missing. Muahahahaha!
"Will-boy, I'm so sorry." She uses the pet name she
made up for him in college, and she leans her head on
his knee. He can feel her defeat reaching out for
him and joining his own. The two of them just sit
there for a few minutes, silent.
"What about the kids?" he rouses himself enough to
say.
"Jenny's doing it again. She's really a saint."
Mel's voice is weary but full of pride. "She said
she'd put Aaron to bed and do her homework. She
might even be doing too much, but I haven't got the
strength to stop her."
"She'll make it. She's a tough kid." Jenny had
Will's determination and Mel's steel backbone. It
had caused them endless frustrations when Jen was a
kid, but now that she was fifteen, she had turned
into a self-sufficient almost-woman. And just in
time to watch her sister lose fifty pounds and die.
Now there was a trial by fire.
"Why don't you go get a sandwich?" asks Mel. "Or a
doughnut or something."
"That cafeteria food is shit."
"Shush. Do you want your daughter to hear you
talking like that?"
Will hears a sound come out of his own chest, a kind
of half-moan. "Mel ..."
"I'm sorry, hon." She touches his arm and then
nudges him a little. "Go get some coffee. A banana.
Something."
"All right." He stands up, feeling his knees crack
and his muscles protest. Mel takes his place at
Anneke's bedside, holding her hand and singing
something softly. He closes the door on the sound of
it.
Where Anneke's room is, the hospital is mostly quiet.
Will had gotten a disjointed impression from "ER"
that hospitals were busy and full of people yelling,
but that never happened in the terminal wing. Here,
people waited quietly to die. There was no need for
hurry.
Will goes down the stairs toward the cafeteria but
runs out of steam. The food there really *is* shit
and he has no desire to smell the mashed potatoes and
badly ground coffee that overpowered the place.
Instead, he heads for the revolving door that leads
out to the air, feeling guilty but determined.
Outside it is clear and hot. The late July sun, even
as it's going down, makes the very air shudder and
bakes everything in its path. But to Will, it feels
less hellish than the cool, white air of the
hospital.
He walks without looking, hands in his pockets, feet
shuffling in their old Adidas. He is almost forty
years old, but he feels like a little boy who wants
his mother very, very badly. Too bad she'd been dead
thirteen years. He'd thought it was torture to sit
by her bedside and watch her take her last breath,
but it was cake compared to doing the same to his
little girl.
Low and slow, he hears the sounds of a jazz band
playing "Everybody Cryin' Mercy." He looks up and
finds himself in a park. Nearby, a fountain splashes
against the heat. Will sits down at its edge and
thinks about how Anneke loves fountains. Any kind of
running water, really. The Crandalls had gone to
Yellowstone two summers ago in a cramped RV, and
Anneke had wanted to dabble her feet in every river
they passed. It became a running joke. Hey Anny,
want to dip your feet in this mudhole? No thanks,
dad, if I wanted that I'd just go to a spa. Say,
want to pay for it?
I've never heard the Bonnie Raitt version of "Everybody
Cryin' Mercy," but it is very bluesy when Mose Allison does it.
I'm leery of songfic in general: but this seemed like an
okay time, and Will isn't actually singing.
"Everybody cryin mercy," he murmurs, "when they don't
know the meaning of the word."
He trails his hand in the water, trying not to cry
and mostly failing. The sun sends its last rays over
the horizon and sets. And he hears, rather than
sees, someone sit down beside him.
"I am so sorry about your daughter," says a voice.
Will looks up and sees a small, dark-haired woman
looking at him with more compassion in her eyes than
a stranger ought to have. She has a hint of a Texas
accent, wears black-rimmed glasses and a white lab
coat.
Will scrubs tears from his cheeks. "Are you a
doctor? Is Anneke all right? How did you find me?"
The woman shakes her head. "I'm ... I'm Winifred
Burkle. From a lab in Los Angeles. I've come to
make you an offer on behalf of my boss." She laughs
a little nervously. "He should be along any minute .
. . he was just waiting for . . . a call . . . in the
car."
I don't think anyone will get this, but Fred is lying
-- Angel can't come out of the car until sunset. That's
why Angel doesn't just meet Will right off.
Truly puzzled now, Will frowns. "Why would you come
all the way out from Los Angeles? What do you care
about us for?"
She sighs. "It sure was a long trip. Ang -- Mr.
Angel . . . he's my boss . . . he insisted on
listening to the Bee Gees most of the drive."
"The dri – you *drove* all the way out here from LA?"
Will stands up. "Listen, lady, I don't know who you
are or what you want, but I'm out of here."
"No, please!" She stands up too and puts her hand on
his arm. "Please, Will. Give him a chance." Then
her expression lightens as she looks over his
shoulder. "And here he is now. Mr. Angel, this is
Will Crandall."
"I know," comes a voice from behind Will. A dark
shape moves past his vision and resolves itself into
a pale man, maybe thirty to Will's forty, in a black
trench coat. He puts his hand out and Will, bemused,
shakes it.
I really like that Angel looks younger than Will now.
"I'm Mr. Angel of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram
and Hart." The name means nothing to Will, so he
just nods politely. The man scrubs a hand through
his short dark hair and continues. "I have a
proposition for you and your family, if you want to
consider it."
"I don't think so." Will turns away and brusquely
begins walking toward the entrance to the park, which
he can see at the end of a path. Tall white lights
are coming on, illuminating the park in an artificial
glow.
"Will Crandall." The pale man's voice stops him,
burns through his forced calm. "Father, Jim
Crandall. Mother, Pat Wilkins Crandall. Deceased.
Sister, Mary Crandall Barlow. Sister, Jill Crandall.
Wife, Melanie Smith Crandall. Daughter, Jennifer
Christina Crandall. Son, Aaron Crandall. Daughter,
Anneke Maria Crandall. Deceased."
Barely aware of himself, Will spins in place and
launches himself at the source of that voice. He is
dimly amazed at how far he can jump, and then he's
knocked Mr. Angel into the dirt and is holding
himself an inch from the man's face.
"Shut UP!" he hears himself scream. "She's not dead
yet! You fucking bastard! Who are you? Who are
you?"
Looking back I really think this is manipulative
(to the reader) but I had to figure out a way to make
Will mad (and I figured it wouldn't be hard, since
Connor is right under the surface). But Will is a
nice guy, and what would make him mad enough? Why,
referring to his daughter as already dead, of course.
"I'm no one," replies Mr. Angel calmly, "but
oblivion." He seems completely unsurprised to have
been attacked. His face barely twitches a muscle as
he speaks. It's eerie.
"What then?" spits Will. "Come to kill her? Got a
brand new drug to put her out of her misery? Well,
fuck you. She already has all the drugs she could
ever want. Want her for a lab experiment? No. A
thousand times no. Want her eyes for donation?
We'll think about it. Get in line. Get in line for
her kidneys and her heart too, okay? Just get in
line." To his everlasting, unsurprised disgust, he
is crying again. And the man in black rolls out from
under him with fluid grace, rolls out and over and
enfolds Will in his arms.
This is only not creepy because you know Angel
and Connor's story already. Otherwise, the fact that
a forty-year old man is hugging a stranger on the ground
for comfort is really creepy.
"Oh, Will," he says. "Not her. There's nothing we
can do for her. We came here to offer oblivion to
you."
"Wh – ?" It is just a soft explosion of sound, but
Ms. Burkle seems to hear it.
"We . . . that is, Mr. Angel feels that we are
qualified to help you forget that your daughter's
illness was so long and painful. Our firm has a
specialty in . . . rewriting history for people who
are interested."
Mr. Angel's arms are very comforting, like the mother
that Will hasn't had in a long time, but he still
twists out and stands up to face Ms. Burkle. "Are
you kidding? You want to make me forget her?" His
voice, incredulous and choked, must be affecting her,
for her eyes become even sadder.
"Not . . . precisely. You would remember her fondly,
but we could take away the pain of her illness and
death. For you and also your family."
That stops him for about a minute. He stands there,
swaying in exhaustion, thinking how it would be to
remember all this fondly, like a dream or something
that happened to someone else.
"Why me?" he finally says, looking at Winifred Burkle
but speaking to the pale man behind him. "I never
asked for any rewriting."
Mr. Angel says, "We – we knew each other once. You
wouldn't remember. I just want to help you. I
promise. Say yes and it will happen."
A longer silence commences. Will begins pacing
toward the entrance to the park, but slowly, and the
other two walk silently a few paces behind him. He
is trying very hard to remember where he met Mr.
Angel, and failing. He hasn't been in Los Angeles
since he was a kid. But he doesn't need to know why
Mr. Angel is offering to turn down the offer. That's
pretty obvious.
At the entrance to the park, Will turns around.
"Look," he says. "It's not like I don't appreciate
it. But forgetting isn't the human condition. I
have to go through this pain and I have to remember
it. How much of Anneke will I have anyway? Only
twelve years. This is part of it. Okay? Sorry you
had to drive so long to get here."
At first I couldn't decide whether Will would accept it.
In fact, I was going to have Angel offer to heal her. But
then I thought it would be really ironic if, now that Connor
has been messed with permanently, that Angel in his egomania
would offer to mess with him AGAIN. And if Will had accepted,
why, maybe it would cancel out. LOL
Mr. Angel looks at him for a minute as if he's
assessing every shadow under Will's eyes and line on
his face. Then he nods curtly, seeming disappointed
but resigned.
"Well, thanks for your time," Will says. Mr. Angel
nods again and walks past him, over to a very classic
black Mustang convertible that's parked at the curb.
Ms. Burkle makes as if to follow him, but she stops
and puts her hand on Will's arm again.
"I told him this wasn't a good idea, to approach you
like this, but he insisted. And it's very difficult
to talk him out of things. He just . . . doesn't
think very human anymore." And with that completely
cryptic statement, she squeezes his arm and hurries
off to the car.
A lot of people told me they liked that statement
about Angel, and I like it too.
Will wonders absently if he's just been dreaming.
The Mustang peels away from the curb, and he hears a
strain of "New York Mining Disaster":
Or have they given up and all gone home to bed,
thinking those that once existed must be dead?Aieee! More songfic! I love the Bee Gees, always
have, but NY Mining Disaster always creeped me out.
So here it is in Creepy Situation #5.
He hasn't wandered too far off course. Off to the
right about half a mile, he can see the familiar
lights of the hospital where his wife is waiting.
Where his daughter lies, taking and taking her last
breaths.
Slowly he begins the walk back to his vigil. He
realises that he is sort of hungry and that he has
been gone for a long time. Mel won't be mad; she'll
just figure that he went out for awhile. But Will
doesn't want to be out anymore. He wants to be back
with his family.
He speeds up a little. He wants to kiss his wife and
remember how she looks; he wants to see the needles
in Anneke's arm and remember them. He wants to
remember everything.
--end--
Notes: Hey, look at me! I'm writing fic about
someone I don't even like! Well, good luck, Connor.
Don't come back. Title and section quotes are from
Radiohead's "Fitter Happier." "Everybody Cryin'
Mercy" is Mose Allison & Bonnie Raitt, 1973. "New
York Mining Disaster (1941)" is the Bee Gees.
Thanks for listening ... with your eyes ... you'll
never get another Connor fic out of me, but it was very
satisfying to write this one. Thanks to Mosca for the request.