Prometheus Fit to Be Tied!
Paul Hawkins
"Water quenches a flaming fire, and alms atone for sins." Sirach 3:29
Dedication: To Hillary, Scott, Allison, and Susan
Disclaimer:
All events and characters in this book are fictional. I blame all narrative inconsistencies on the faulty memories of the fictional characters. I am tired of trying to wrangle the truth out of them.
–Paul Hawkins, November 29, 2010
Chapter 1
1903
Ernest White was an odd duck from the day he was born. He was always indifferent to his parents' acts of kindness. He never played with the toys they bought him, and he told stories to himself – about himself – instead. He was nice enough to his mother, but when his father talked he acted like he didn't hear him, and even when his father punished him for his dreaminess or his laziness Ernest never cried and even laughed. He fulfilled none of his father's hopes for a productive and respectable son, and Ernest wasn't even three before his father had given up on him, handing the disappointment over to his mother and turning his attention to farming again.
From Otto's Journal, 1970
I used to work as his factotum years ago.
He called himself Mr. Perfect. He was semi-well-known to the famous and semi-famous in the whirlwind pre-war world. His money had opened many doors and he had rubbed shoulders with the best and brightest of his day, and if you look at group photos of the cultural elite on the Left Bank or the salons of New York or the French Riviera you can often see his tanned bright visage in the background smiling much more genuinely than the rest, because unlike them he was free from the guilt of sponging off the honest man to pay the tab, and he was the only one in the photos who didn't think he was smarter than everyone else. He wore white suits and tried to affect a degree of European culture, and was just successful enough to fool the small-town people he'd grown up with, but probably not anybody else.
August 1939
New York Times, August 13, 1939, page 48 B (beneath a lingerie ad):
"World Traveler Returns Stateside"
World traveler, theosophist, amateur archaeologist and art patron known in the expatriate community as "Mr. Perfect" stopped in New York City yesterday on his way home to rural Oklahoma after 15 years as a citizen of the world. Perfect, whose given name is Ernest White, is perhaps best remembered for the off-Broadway run of his scathing verse-drama "Prometheus Fit To Be Tied!"
During his stay in the city Perfect made sizable donations to several local cultural institutions, donated a self portrait to the Museum of Non-Objective painting, then stopped by the World's Fair and put his foot through a television being displayed in the RCA building. His valet stayed behind to pay for the damages.
Perfect would not disclose his reasons for returning to the small town of his childhood. His valet said he needed some rest.
*
It was a hot August day and rumor had it that White was on the next train coming into town. A rusted red sign creaking beside the tracks read "Welcome to Blaze" though the town had recently changed its name to ‘Progress’ in anticipation of damn great things. It sat at the end of a spur of the AT&SF line, nestled against the first small foothills of the Ozarks. It had sleepily passed several decades farming and milling ore but recently had begun to house hundreds of WPA laborers drawn from all over the USA to help build the world's largest multi-arch dam, a milestone effort of flood control, rural electrification, and feverish government spending to try to end the Depression.
It was late afternoon and the sky was brown and hinting of a storm. The air was heavy with a sweet smell underneath the stale summer heat, and the distant sky showed rags of rain dragging beneath the clouds but not reaching the ground.
A small crowd of people was gathered at the depot to await the arrival of their town's most famous personage. A rumble from the approaching locomotive started then swelled and soon its weathered cars were pulling into the station. The engine sighed and the passengers slowly began to depart, dragged their disjointed baggage and bodies down the steps. Off came a handful of farm workers, some oily salesman, a mother pinching two children by their ears, a fat lady carrying a garish parrot in a cage. But then all was quiet.
"Where is he?" one voice said.
"Why's he coming back anyway?" another inquired.
A dark young man lidded his eyes and hissed: "I heared he killed a guy."
"Lord, you and your bottomless thirst for the scandalous and seamy!" a large and florid woman chided.
They all hung fire and finally there was more motion in the car, and soon a stocky young man with a brown beard and a brown suit appeared in the doorway. This was not their famous prodigal, but maybe it was his lackey. He stood loaded down with suitcases of various sizes adorned with stickers from famous places all over the world. This overladen man picked his way carefully down the steps and dumped the bags on the platform. He then called back into the car: "Come on, Mr. White. Let's get moving."
"We're there already? All right, Otto, just a minute."
While Otto waited for his employer, a young man sidled up and handed him some telegrams. "For Mr. White," he said.
Otto handed the messenger some money and began leafing through the sheets. Squints and frowns crossed his face as he moved from note to note, then he folded them up and shoved them in his pocket.
He called back toward the train again. "Come on Mr. White! We've got to get the furniture moved to the house before it rains."
Shadows finally began to stir in the passenger car window, and then the town's famous personage appeared in the doorway. Those who remembered him compared him to their memories, and those that had never seen him looked closely to see if he lived up to the stories.
He was a tall man with gold hair and a deeply tanned face and blue eyes. His limbs were long and asserted their angles in the rumpled creases of his white linen suit. To the observers matching him up against the memories, his face showed the signs of youth finally on the decline. There were creases around his eyes and mouth, his eyelids were heavy, his chin had lost its angularity and his cheeks sagged. But the whole thing rearranged itself when his bright blue eyes fell right on you. Then the angles marshaled to attention, all the drooping and stress disappeared to pretend a chiseled alacrity with only you and he at the center. It was a face that had gotten him ensnared in a mix of European condescension and Eastern mysticism and led to him being convinced he was a golden child. This, in turn, had led to his being bilked out of a large part of his fortune, and he retained the moniker "Mr. Perfect" as a reminder of the experience.
Ernest White, or "Ernest" or even "E. L." to the folks who knew him growing up, paused unsteadily at the top of the stairs. He looked a little drunk. He tapped a cigarette against a silver case and then floated out a foot to conquer the steps. The people watching him braced for a tumble, but he did fine and the next thing they knew he was standing in their midst as if he had been poured there, all handshakes and smiles.
"Mr. Stevens, right? Is that your girl?"
The man smiled proudly. "Yes, Mr. White."
"She's certainly grown. I hear she's earned herself a scholarship in music for the Fall."
"Yes," the man replied, his face beaming with pride and surprise.
White walked further in. "John Harken – did you rebuild from that fire?"
"Yes, Mr. White – no more hired hands smoking in the hayloft for me!" the man answered.
"I knew you'd recover," Ernest White replied, and moved on, already welcoming another face and hand.
A tiny o
ld woman with pale gray eyes and a blue shawl pressed herself forward to Mr. White's side. "I want you to know we are all so sorry about your mother's passing away," she said.
He looked down at her, and his eyes softened just a bit. "Thank you – you ladies were all such good friends to her."
"She was such a fine Christian woman."
"I appreciate your saying that."
The old woman felt bold enough to add. "And about those stories – we don't believe a word of them. We know you are a good man at heart."
Mr. White paused and looked at her. "Thank you. Only the bad news has the staying power to make it back here across the ocean, and only by being exaggerated out of proportion."
"Well, we're sure you'll make a good neighbor."
He laughed. "I'll try."
A dark-haired burly man in overalls and t-shirt came forward. "Mr. White?" he said. "My truck's ready to move your stuff. I wouldn't rush you, but it looks like rain."
"I understand." White said. He turned to the crowd. "It's time for me to get my things moved up to the house. I appreciate your coming out. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other soon."
He turned back toward his assistant. He dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with one toe of his stylish brogans.
"We're so glad you're home!" someone shouted.
He looked up. "Thanks so much. Thanks for coming out to greet me." He made a wave and then gave Otto a jerk of his head. Otto moved forward and Mr. White walked back up the steps into the train car.
The crowd began to break up, moving off across the platform and back toward town. Their footsteps and chattered faded and then drifted away. Otto closed quarters with the man they'd hired to move the furniture.
After the crowd had vanished Mr. White came back down the train steps and seated himself on a bench along the depot. His face was its tired, sagging self again. He took off his hat, pushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead, and lit a cigarette. A few puffs later he stretched out his legs, sighed, and took a drink from a flask. He watched the movers haul off the train all priceless furnishings he’d dragged here from every corner of the globe.
A little tow-headed girl in overalls came up and stared at him. She was blue-eyed but had dirty cheeks and feet. She was the mover's daughter and she, like he, was expected to stay out of the way while the work was done. She didn't say a word but stared intently.
He blew out some smoke. "Didn't your poppa tell you never to hang around strangers?"
"No," she answered.
He paused and ignored her for as long as he could, but she kept staring. Finally he said, "Good. I'd have never left this town if I hadn't met a stranger or two. A person's got to learn about the world from somewhere."
She ran off. Mr. White watched as her dust-red feet carry her away.
The movers finally finished their work. "Everything's loaded, Mr. White. We're ready to head out."
"Good," White said, "I'll drink to it."
Otto dragged a handkerchief across the back of his neck.
"Hop aboard," the mover called from the truck, "Let's go."
Ernest and Otto climbed onto the tailgate of the truck and held on tight. The furniture strained against ropes behind them. Mr. White sat oblivious, confident in the strength of the ropes to hold the load back, but Otto plucked them suspiciously like over-taut guitar strings. The truck rumbled and they held on tight as they rolled away from the train station and down the road, leaving the town behind and plunging into the countryside.
White waved some dust away from his face and Otto pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket.
"Here are the telegrams that were waiting for you," Otto said. "Want to hear them?"
"Not particularly."
"The Duke of Hapsburg sends his regards."
"That's kind of him, considering what I did to his house."
"The Mesopotamian Society asks if you'll be joining them on their expedition."
"They mean will I be funding the expedition."
"Lady Anne asks if she'll meet you this next equestrian season."
He just coughed and took a drink from the flask.
"Look, why don't you give me that and take your medicine instead?"
"Because European psychiatrists are quacks."
"Sometimes they know more than you do. You turn into him when you drink."
"Him? Him who?"
"You know perfectly well. You lose your judgment."
Otto reached for the flask but Mr. White held it away. Otto sighed and stuffed the papers back into his pocket.
A mile or two down the road they took a right turn, and White craned around to see the beginnings of low rolling hills. The truck plunged down a gully, ducked beneath the shade of trees and crossed a creek on an improbably old bridge, then rose steadily. Ahead of them atop a knoll was an old gray house. It was boxy and three stories tall and had a large iron fence around it. There were about ten people waiting outside the gate.
"Pagan! Theosophist!" an old woman shouted.
"Aw, don't listen to her, Mr. White," a man's voice said. "Now, if I could have just a second to interest you in an investment opportunity..."
But Mr. White ignored them and the truck lumbered through gate. Otto hopped off of the truck and closed the gate behind them.
"Nothing to see here," he said to the people that were gathered. "Mr. White's going to be here for a long time. You'll have plenty of time to visit with him later on."
"We don't need his kind of demon orientalism in this town," the quavery old woman continued.
"Don't confuse Mr. White with the folks who swindled him," Otto replied.
"Old habits," the woman retorted. "And," she said significantly, "He keeps the name."
She reached into her purse and pulled out a tattered small book. On the cover it read "The Eight Mysteries of Peace and the Ascent of Man in the Coming Hygienic Age," and on the back was a picture of a very young ‘Mr. Perfect’ sitting in the grass under some foreign-looking tree with his hands folded in his lap in an unnatural contortion.
"All that proves is that he was young and stupid once," another man in the crowd said. "And besides, give the guy a break – his mother just died, for Pete's sake."
With that, and with the persistence of the closed gate, the assembled crowd slowly and quietly departed.
A few moments later, Mr. White climbed down from the tailgate and looked up at the windows of the old gray house.
Otto walked up beside him. "Why don't you just sit here on the porch in this rocker while we get the things moved in?"
White agreed. He tested the old cane chair and it seemed sturdy enough, so he lowered himself into it. "I guess the most useful thing I can do is keep out of your way," he said. "Get me some water so I can take my pills."
Otto nodded and went off, and White sat in the chair looking at the familiar view from the porch of the house he’d grown up in.
Otto came back with a glass of water, but White already held two yellow pills in his hand and washed these down with a swig from his flask. Otto growled but set the water on a table beside him.
After a few moments White began to feel his stomach warm comfortably and his body relax. He gradually sank into the chair. He watched the men moving furniture until he dozed off.
At some point the little girl he’d seen at the depot came up to him, holding something.
Mr. White hoisted his eyelids a fraction to see her holding an old crystal radio set.
His eyes traced the cat's whisker and the copper coil. "Tune in the world," he mumbled. "Try to get the signals. Every day a parade."
The next thing he knew she was not there, and he had been asleep for some time. Night had fallen and he was chilly. Someone had placed a blanket over his shoulders. The unloading had ceased and twenty feet away he saw Otto standing in the truck's headlights, counting out some bills to the man who had helped them move.
"Thank you for your help," Otto said.
The man
counted the bills twice. "It's nothing," he said. "We country people like to help each other."
Mr. Perfect looked past them at the stars in the wide sky. He drew himself up from the chair, clutched the blanket to his shoulders and thrust out his free hand. "Thank you for your assistance and for welcoming me back to this wonderful community! I look forward to many years of happy, quiet solitude as a productive citizen!"
The movers just looked at him. "You take care of yourself, Mr. White," one said. Then they climbed into the truck and the engine roared to life. The headlights slashed briefly across White and Otto and then slid past. The truck’s growl diminished out the gate and down the road.
"What was that all about?" Otto said.
"Hell, they were expecting a show," White replied. "Give the folks in town a little something to talk about." He tossed the blanket into the rocker and walked inside the house.
*
White's mother had died three weeks ago and it had taken him this long to get here from the south of France. He had crossed the ocean on a liner, stopped in New York to pick up some stored furniture, then made the rest of the long journey by train. It had been ten years since he'd been in the house, but he had never been here when it was this quiet and empty.
Once inside the doorway he looked at the familiar old dark moldings, the high ceilings, the narrow stairs and doors. He had grown up here. He kept expecting to turn around and see his mother waiting for him, but all he noticed was an old ticking clock on the wall. He then saw that someone had placed a picture of his mother smack in the center of the mantel, with flowers around it. As a shrine it did not impress him much.
"We put your things in the large bedroom upstairs," Otto said.
"Thanks - did they get you set up?" Mr. White asked.
Otto nodded. "Down here by the kitchen."
"Good, good."
Mr. White paused and rested his hand on a dark curio cabinet. He picked up a sculpture of a fawn and looked at it blandly. "Thanks for making this trip with me," he said. "I know you'd have rather stayed in Europe."
Otto shrugged and walked into the kitchen. He began inventorying the pots and dishes. "The more I started getting ready for this trip, the more I began to think maybe it was the right time for me to come back to America and make a career for myself. I can’t be a factotum forever."
Mr. White nodded. He had walked into the kitchen and was looking at a too-cute statuette of a cherub. He'd be damned if he knew why his mother had collected such things.