Note: I wrote this in one sitting and haven’t edited. If you see anything awkward feel free to offer your suggestions.
It began with one book. But it didn't end with one. And when there were two, they multiplied to four, then eight, until his home was filled with them. David saw himself as a bibliophile...his family saw it differently; and the psychologist they hired at $150.00 an hour agreed with them---David was a sick man.
They encouraged him to get rid of his books..."nothing that keeps you isolated for hours can be good for you!" Shouted his mother, over a stack of paperbacks, as David sat slouched behind them in his reading chair.
His ex-girlfriend Janice, who'd left the unambitious file clerk for a successful man half his age and 20 times his wealth, even agreed to help. "After-all," she said to his father,
"David is a good man, he just lacks appeal and initiative."
When Janice first met David, she'd fallen for his effervescent smile and bookish knowledge. But soon, she'd found that behind the smile was just a quiet unimpressive man whose literary interjections into ordinary conversation soon became tedious.
David's Dad always expected more from his son. A top High School athlete, David, Sr. looked upon his son's literary endeavors as a poor substitute for his hopes and dreams. Their battles were always one sided, and ended with the son promising to be more like his father, but when the bedroom door closed behind the elder, the younger always returned to the book he was currently reading.
Back then, David was an "A" student. But his teachers worried. David's social skills lagged miserably behind, and "success depended more on socialization than on learning" and so David sunk deeper behind his growing stacks.
He graduated High School, but his family saw no reason for him going to college. "Pencil Pushers," were frowned upon in his family, where his dad quit school at 15 and had built a house at 16. His mother, a housewife who kept her home and family spotless just wanted her son to "stop dreaming and become a man."
So he went to work. Nothing fancy, nothing promising, just a job pushing a pencil at minimum wage.
Meanwhile his younger brother graduated High School and joined the Army. Three years later he returned, and with what he'd learned while in the service, got a job as a mechanic...and a few years later, opened his own business.
Danny offered his older brother a place in the business, nothing fancy, but a decent income. When David refused, his brother called him, "crazy" and an "embarrassment to the family."
So the books stacked higher. He ran out of shelf space and began piling them on the furniture. When the books began to spill over, he organized them neatly on the floor.
One day David was called into his Bosses' office. While he admitted that David was a proficient worker, David just didn't have that fire that his company would need in the future if they wanted to compete nationwide. "I like you son, but I need to see the fire, you have to sleep and breath Insurance, and I need to see that from you in 30 days!"
He went home that night, but first stopped at a used bookstore run by two elderly men. One of the men was comical, the other quiet and knowledgeable. Both had loved and failed when younger and had decided that books were more reliable than women. They poured all their energy into creating a perfect cranny for booklovers in need of respite.
David bought several musty books and after a brief conversation with the two owners, went home and placed them together in a neat pile by the trash can near his desk.
The next day was a work day, but not for David. Nor was any day that followed. Instead he sat in his chair and read. Many days went by, and there he sat. He never left, even sleeping in his reading chair.
His father and brother were responsible for the removal of David's belongings. "Throw it all away, it's all trash!" His father said, as they tossed book after book into large bins. David's father wasn't a bad man and he loved his son, who when found, after his dad broke open the door, was little more than skin and bone.
"Lucky you found him Pop, when you did." Danny reminded. "He'd be dead if not for you!"
He then picked up a book and passed it to his dad, "Look at this one Pop."
His father took the book and shook his head in disgust, he then passed the book back to his son.
"Your brother's sick but he's still your brother, remember to visit him when you can. If they just keep him away from them kinds of books at the Asylum, I think he'll be okay someday."
"I hope you're right dad," Danny replied, tossing the tattered copy of Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh." into the bin.
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Comments
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and of course, I remember this one too. This story connects my mind with another one you wrote about the man who worked in a book store and met a woman there.
You and the books, only that it is you who always think of throwing some books away. Don't!
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Yes, I remember this story and our interaction. It was on Sir Ima's page first. It matched a story about books that you wrote.
Ah, that crappy old "love and death" in a bookstore." That just wasn't Yem worthy and had to go.
Thank you Ms. C-Brasileiro.
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I'm looking for Saglia (spelling?) do you still have it? Was a story on Ima's page
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http://allpoetry.com/poem/4855029
I keep stuff I like. The story needs work and expanding but I like the idea, though it needs some work too.
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Parents always have their own hopes and dreams for their children but at some point should just step back. I see so many living vicariously through their kids or pushing them in directions they don't necessarily want to go for their own glory or whatever other reasons.
Parents can be well meaning but sometimes create issues down the road for their kids though unintentional.
This is very good Yem.
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Thanks. You are a wise Pixie. I didn't think Pixies were.
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I will accept that backhanded compliment
and raise you one of these... *pixie poker face*
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You need a new avatar thingies. Go googling, that thing is so Spring 2009.
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I like it.
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Contemporary parallel, Obama's chat with the students today,
focusing on responsibility, doing one's best, being open to possibilities,
finding that special area in whch one excels, working hard to be the best
that one can be, taking advantage of learning opportunities to choose
for oneself what life can be.
Alongside those words, frantic parents crying and screaming, " Oh, my children
have to listen to THAT! No! No!
Parents who want to control every element of their children's life, proclaiming,
"He'll brainwash our children! His charismatic ways will get them to do what
he says to do."
They are right out of Butler's posthumously pulblished volume, making such
a spash at the dawn of the twentieth century, although written several decades earlier.
The theme the same, Butler's drama, David's plight, parental iron hand
direction without consideration of the individual child, without looking
at the child and really seeing him, letting him grow to adulthood, always put down, unless following exactly in the path of the father or his direction.
Twenty first century parents shouting hatred for the message and the person,
many because the person looks different from them, influencing children
to hate as well, to lie and decieve to meet their goal.
Your 2006 tale tragically describes in vibrant exaggeration the results of
such dictatorship, the lack of looking at the child, the person and seeing
him as an individual---an individual radiant with talent, with promise,
but a dark hole to the controller.
A "shocking tale of horror" superbly told, moving swiftly on its way to
destruction of what might have been. The writing in one sitting, the
way to create such an immediacy, a hold on the reader, a desire
to scream out loud!
Compulsion on overdrive, relative, no matter the compulsion of choice.
One man's gold---as in beloved volumes, the wisdom of the past---another's trash,
to be discarded without a glance.
And kudos to you for bringing this out of the dark!
Bows, curtseys and applauds.
M-C
P.S. Per your request, spacing issue to fix, lines 4/5, new para to start with
"After all"...
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Wow, who fed you Wheaties? You must have been all afternoon commenting on your poem. Yes, there are always parallels to be found between the past and the present.
A lovely comment MC and I like your daring the link to the Obama situation. -
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It had to come out somewhere,
as I continue to scream at the TV screen.
And what better place than
Yem's superb connection
to Butler's commentary.
I am rooting for all the David's
to break free to assert their
free will and identity! -
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Stay away from Fox! lol
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I won't let it in the house.
Tea Party guy on MSNBC
huranguing about Obama
daring to talk to students. -
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People are silly. I can't worry about their childishness.
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It's disturbing, go say the least.
I've already said the most!
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