After The War (III)

It continues, there are something like 40 pages altogether.

“You’re Julius Stamp, is that right?” and he stuck his arm straight out at me, “Evan’s nephew.”

I stood up and shook his hand. I had my suspicion of his identity and voiced it.

“Yes yes. You’re Albert Prang, correct? My uncle mentioned you many times.” I do not know for sure if the ex-president was offended at this, I hadn’t commented on my uncle’s acknowledgement of him, but he picked up the paper and resumed his crossword.

“Yes, I am Dr. Prang. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And I must say that I am honestly a fan of your work, whether a relative of my good friend or not.”

“Well thank you. The president and I were just discussing something that I am working on right now.”

“Isn’t it too hot a day for conversation? Huh Wes?” And Dr. Prang rubbed one hand on the back of his neck. “I say, it is so hot out there that the birds have ceased chirping, probably from dehydration!”

Dr. Prang was about the same age as the ex-president, or so I approximated, but he had aged far better than the politician. Not surprising given the respective stresses of their profession. Dr. Prang was a zoologist known, if memory serves, for a long list of achievements including the discovery of several new species in his early career and more recently for his incendiary comments and research regarding evolution. He walked all the way around the davenport and myself to sit in my chair’s twin and light his pipe; in his body language I could tell he wanted a rousing conversation and was depending on his new neighbor in light of the alternative.

Several years back he was involved in a trial in Mississippi regarding the teaching of evolution in schools. My Uncle told me that he had cut down the opposition quite convincingly, even openly and harshly criticizing individual activists on the other side of the aisle. He’d brought in diagrams showing the adaptation of dogs and corn or some other obvious example and, purportedly, talked down to the opposition like grammar school students. He has since been seen as something of a villain by the religious right, personifying the deviance they blamed the other side of the schism for rendering on the nation. It was my understanding that in topics of which he is well versed he is an excellent debater. I feared that he might get to the quick of my literary problems embarrassingly easy.

“So first. Welcome to the Altoona son. Old Wes here hasn’t made it hard on you has he?”

The ex-president would not make eye contact with either Prang or myself but he simply looked at his fingernails and stated calmly:

“I merely told the boy that there are expectations in this building. If he is to live here he will feel much more comfortable with his neighbors if he contributes to the world, just as any self-respecting person would want to. Living in the Altoona is a great honor under the weight of history alone.”

Dr. Prang puffed on his pipe and said “Didja get all that” in a whispery tone that was clearly loud enough for the ex-president to hear.

“So tell me, what are you working on? I’ve been looking forward to today since I heard the news.”

“What news is that?”

“That you were moving in.”

“Oh.” And I told him about the premise, including every gimmick I could think of so it didn’t sound like a self-indulgent wad of artistic ambivalence. I had real reasons for making this thing.

“Running into any problems? Seems like a formidable project. Always wanted to do a bit of creative writing myself.” Dr. Prang eased in his seat a bit and took his hand off the back of my chair. He folded his arms and began what seemed like a sincere, nervous habit of contemplation; he put the end of the pipe in his mouth and pulled it out, each time making a little popping noise. I looked over at the ex-president who either stared into a corner or was dozing off.

“Well, the way it’s coming together it doesn’t seem to matter that these characters are in the trade that they are. The focus of the piece is supposed to be on their personal story, but the act of making these swords really fascinated me and something is not yet coming across in the screenplay or the frames.”

“Curious. Well, m’boy, I can tell you that the president and I have full faith in your abilities.” He put one hand on my back in a very paternal way, and glanced at the ex-president. “Did you see Castor Oil , Wes? It was fantastic, simply fantastic.” I can’t say I did not smile.

“Let me tell you Julius, that I’ve seen this craft first hand. The old, incredibly frail looking man bent over a fire and orange-hot steel. The smoke .. . uh .. rising thru the stone chimney.” Dr. Prang squinted and I thought I’d see a hazy recollection of the event in a thought cloud above his head. From my Uncle’s ruminations, Dr. Prang had a million stories to tell. All of them memorable, with the same streak of humanism and application of universal ideas. “He folds over the steel and another man hits it with a hammer, all very dramatic and rhythmic.”

“Yes, I feel that that is part of it really.”

“Like all Japanese customs,” he continued as he felt he was expected to. “the very structured, very meditative quality of it is non pariel in western culture. They have a spirituality in those kinds of acts that we seem to lack in even our church services. If I might add something . . . I’m not running contrary to your themes am I son?”

“Absolutely not sir,” this tie with a genuine inflection that made the ex-president visibly wince. “I agree, though I’ve no plans to contrast their customs with ours per se . .”

“But it provides a unique perspective.”

“I think that the act beautifully reiterates a major tenet of their philosophy as well.”

“Besides that, I mean that perfection can be a goal. And that it is difficult.”

“But none of us are perfect, dear boy.” The ex-president butted in.

“That’s not really the point Wes,” I responded and Dr. Prang nodded wistfully. “What I mean is that things can appear very perfect and ideal, and be the opposite.”

“I see where you are going with this Julius, I think, you must let me read the screenplay upon its completion.”

“Only if you let me read your work.”

The body guards flexed their pectorals and a shadowy figure not quite over the threshold yelled out:

“Yes Albert. Tell him about your fallacies and your devilishment. The young man craves it.” Dr. Prang stood up to greet him; a wry, barely noticeable grin on his face.

“I didn’t realize you had returned Bobby. You should have buzzed me, we’d have had a drink together.”

The two shook hands, out of civic and neighborly duty if nothing else, and Dr. Prang introduced me to him.

“Julius, I would like you to meet Bobby Quinn. Our resident man of the cloth.”

Bobby stepped forward audibly, in expensive shoes, and grabbed my hand firmly. His left hand grasped my arm at about the elbow and as he gave my hand a vigorous shake he looked into my eyes. I didn’t feel any subliminal spark, nothing at all in that gaze compelled me to esteem Bobby Quinn above any I had ever met. His fat ruby pink ring bobbed up and down as he shook my hand. When Brother Quinn began to speak to me, his dialect dropped a few miles south.

“Hello Joolius. Yah Stamp’s nephew, that right?”

“That’s me. Pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Bobby Quinn. If ya need any spi’itual guidance dahin ya stay he-ah at the Altoona. Well, Joolius. Ah’m ya man.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dr. Prang had walked over to a shelf of books and was thumbing thru a leatherbound edition, squinting through his reading glasses. Bobby Quinn looked at me seriously. He summoned all of the powers that had allowed him to buy his fine white suit, his photogenic hair, even his makeup: I could smell face make-up when he leaned in close:

“Now, Julius, ya mus’n baleeve ev’rything that Dr. Prang says. He has learned a great deal, but he has wanduhed from the Lord.”

“In what way exactly?”

“Well. He bahleeves that you and I are duhscended from monkeys.”

“I see.”

The ex-president looked tense and held Duchess close as Dr. Prang returned.

“You know, they have a first edition of… oh, never mind, you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Julius, has Bobby convinced you that I’m crazy yet?”

“He told me you believed in evolution, as though I hadn’t known.”

“See, Albuht,” Quinn interrupted, “it’s people like you who have helped this to spread. Carried out the devil’s work and you’re guidin’ people like young Julius he’ah away from the Lord.”

“I just study facts Bobby, I’m not trying to contradict your version of things at all. I have ideas that I put together from mounds of documented research papers and then I test th. . .”

“But you know,” he said to Dr. Prang “and you too must know, m’boy, that God has created this wuhrld” he punctuated by stabbing his pointed index finger into the top of small table at the end of the davenport. Every other word was likewise expressed. “ . . .And he can make it be enything that he wants it to be. He can even make you come to conclusions that just ahren’t right. It’s called a test of Faith, Albuht!” and a tiny globule of spit escaped his mouth. Dr. Prang, still on his feet, retorted:

“I think you’re testing my faith!”

It seemed that I had to contribute something to the conversation or be virtually invalidated as a fence sitter between two extremes. Bobby Quinn was glaring at me, awaiting some kind of response. To my surprise, I thought about what effect any comment I made would have on my standing in the building. Anxious, I looked to the ex-president, former diplomat and head of my native land; Wes Croughbah had his index finger knuckle-deep in his nostril either scratching an itch or picking for debris. He had completely dropped out of the conversation. If things got too bad, I would simply move out.
“I believe, Mr. Quinn,” I said, “that at some point the universe makes sense. All of this, our lives, the cosmos, gravity, electricity; after some degree of investigation we will be able to understand it. And I believe that refusing to

look at the evidence is a step away from this understanding.”
Bobby Quinn scoffed, brought his heavy, jeweled hand up to his face:
“Ah’m not refusin’ enythinge son, Ah’m accepting the Lord.”

“Who said I was implying you?”

Bobby Quinn sighed, run his fingers through the hair on either side of his head, rebuttoned the button on his suit coat and gracefully walked to the other side of the davenport and sat down.

“So, Joolius. I hear you make movies.”

“Yes.” Dr. Prang and I both looked at him a bit baffled. “Yes I do.”

“Excellent.”

“Bobby . . there was something else I wanted to talk to you. More of a sort of cultural anthropology question I had . .” and I stopped listening. Not for the same reason as the ex-president; unlike the confusion his dopey expression betray, I could actually follow whatever it was that Dr. Prang and Bobby Quinn talked about. Bobby Quinn struck me as an unapologetic charlatan and I had a difficult time imagining anyone devoting time, money or faith to his cause after meeting him in person; I was not as disinterested in his garbage as I was disgusted by it.

Furthermore, I was far more interested in the physical dichotomy present in the way he and Dr. Prang stood together. As I have said Dr. Prang was dressed modestly, presenting an eager interface with the world that spoke of his moderation and understanding. He could be accepted virtually anywhere. Bobby Quinn, on the other hand, had all the trappings of the bourgeois and stood comfortably in a pose that bore well on his expensive tailoring. His image was carefully managed and appealing in the explicit, fishy manner of a good salesman. Moreover, his wealth was the result of sheer swindling.

The two of them moved out of immediate earshot, Dr. Prang had led Bobby Quinn to the bookshelf, and I leaned closer to the ex-president:

“You know, I may be wet behind the ears, sir, but I’m not nearly as full of it as that guy.”

“Who, Bobby? Well…he’s…” the ex-president tried to recall an excuse for the man that someone else had likely defined for him several years prior but was interrupted by the foot shuffling of his body guards. Two more residents entered the room, a man and a woman, and they talked to each other loud enough for both the ex-president and myself to hear.

“You have to love yourself, that is first and foremost Stanley. Otherwise, how can anyone else love you?” I would have characterized her language as sarcastic if anyone else had said it, but she then hugged him and gave him a very practiced nod, squint and tight-lipped grin. She knew well how give a person a positive end to the conversation. She too was overdressed for the weather it seemed, in a woolen shortcoat and matching skirt that revealed her ankles only. She had a fashionable but conservative haircut of apparently natural color managed with three or four tasteful sort of clips that seemed unnecessary.

The woman turned to the ex-president and myself. Her eyes a bit glazed over and, though this observation may be bold, improperly dilated for the lighting; that is she had big puppy dog eyes that immediately called on one’s sentiments.

“Hello Wes. Isn’t it terribly hot today? And I’m guessing by the way your perspiring out here that the air isn’t working either. Who is this handsome young man?”

“You would be correct. This is Julius . . Stamp’s nephew. Julius this is Dr. Olivia Jiles.” The ex-president was officially tired of introducing people; Dr. Jiles’s companion introduced himself excitedly. He had what can loosely be termed ‘people skills’. His face pulled by a small grin he must have affixed upon every immersion in mixed company, tortoise-shell glasses that testified to some magazine’s taste, and a narrowly missed clump of hair in the lower right quadrant of his scalp that dared me to announce it. His suit was a diagram in a textbook; navy blue on lighter blue with a tie that only hinted at money green.

“Hello Julius. I’m Stanley Devonshire.”

“Nice to meet you” and I shook both of their hands, Stanley’s covered in hints of grease, pomade maybe. With each new neighbor I felt less and less intimidated by their respective legacies or their collective importance. Devonshire, a skilled networker, walked closer to the ex-president and began to talk about the weather; in plaintive terms the rest of the group seemed far too well acquainted for. Wes responded well to this approach and added his own sort of folksy comment on the heat and humidity.