"Night of Assumption" (1-17-06)
Wonka and Grandpa Joe
PG
Characters in reference of the 2005 CatCF film.
Warnings for angst and character "death"…but not death – just disappearance.
He ventured out of the main gate dressed all in black to match the night.
He hadn't known it was nighttime when he'd decided to go out, but immediately relaxed at the thought that it was better this way. If the muted stillness was any indication, it might even be the darkest hours before dawn--the loneliest hours, but the best for sharpening acuity when out on an unknown errand.
His soft-soled steps hardly disturbed the chaos of footprints in the two-day-old snowfall. At this hour, the prints were the only evidence of the existence of other people--people who remained as much a mystery to him as he to them. He preferred people this way, and didn't mind their absence. Eyes fixed as if on a destination, he walked a straight path, for once not seeing the past or the future--only the now. At last spontaneous, at last free.
The stabbing winter air had numbed his ears and nose by the time he reached the end of the long road. He paused for a moment, unsure why he was here again, plumes of hot breath rising around him. A worrying sense of forboding twisted in his stomach. There were no coincidences in his life; he was here for a reason. Soon it would make itself known.
Cautiously picking his way, he approached the tipsy house for fear it might be set to topple. Through the frost and grime of the window he peered. A faint flickering flame waved on a bedside table. In the bed, the four crowded old people lay very still, likely unable to shift about very much. The candle illuminated the face of the old man who had accompanied the boy yesterday. He nodded, seemingly asleep, though propped upright against his pillows. The visitor imagined that was typical of the elderly--dozing as needed, not as dictated by time. He silently approved.
Beside the bed stood a swept-together pile of dust and rubble--left-over detritus from the crash-landing incident. At the moment, it seemed to be the only evidence of his impression on the household...and it only awaited disposal.
In the opposite corner of the dismal little room the sofa cushions lay sloppily on the floor, the boy's mother a rumpled pile on top of them. Beside her, the boy's father slept on the bare skeleton of the sofa. All this squalor--what did they see in it? Willy Wonka pressed so close to the glass that his hat brim touched the pane, but he still couldn't locate the boy. He wouldn't have been surprised to see him curled in a ball on the frigid floor, and there was nowhere to hide in this house. If all the adults were accounted for, he concluded that the garret above was not in fact set aside for the parents' privacy. The little boy was the only one afforded the luxury of his own room.
Wonka turned his attention back to the deeply-lined face of the old man--his loyal ex-employee. He didn't remember the man from before, and would have rather gone on in ignorance. To see it firsthand was sobering indeed: the history of his own ruination etched into this man's face. Weariness and hardship were apparent, not only in his face, but in all that surrounded him: the decrepit house, the faded family, the deprivation, the hunger--and Willy Wonka saw his indirect hand in all of it. This was the fate to which he'd doomed his workers, even the ones who didn't deserve it. But in the end, who could he trust? He'd had to take away their jobs...otherwise there would be no factory at all.
As if in response to Wonka's thought, the grandfather lifted his head and looked directly into Wonka's eyes. The chocolatier froze, spellbound. There was no point in ducking out of view; he'd been caught--but not at peering though windows. Grandpa Joe seized and held him with that look--the look that fifteen years of avoidance had not been long enough to kill. This all-too-familiar expression radiated disappointment, accusation, hunger, pity, and despair. It came at him from friends, from enemies, from his workers, from his supporters. They didn't know they'd looked at him like that, or they might have tried to hide it. He would have appreciated that. But he could see their thoughts: "What are we to do now?" they said. "You should have done right by us." "We expected more." "How could you?" The wan faces haunted him again in the form of Joe Bucket, and Wonka couldn't look away...
...yet he bristled. In all of that staring at him, did none of them think to realize that he was a victim too? His own feelings echoed theirs; he too had expected more and he hadn't known what any of them were to do. Still they cast their blame. It was thrust upon him and it attacked him and beat him. He fought to refuse the blame because it hadn't been his fault! The spies had chosen his path by proscription.
He breathed harder, paralyzed under the flashback intensity of Joe's eye lock. What had happened to the smiles of awe and worship? Those same disheartened people used to beam happily at him. Wide-eyed stares of wondrous disbelief used to be the daily norm. He'd done nothing more to encourage adoration than he had to cause their dismay. What had happened was that he'd grown to believe in his benevolence and infallibility, and that was fatal. To put too much stock in other people's faith was to expose himself to victimhood.
The spies had seen to it that the gazes of admiration were erased along with his freedom.
But yesterday--only yesterday--he'd seen an echo of them in the gleaming gaze of that meek little boy. Ignorant of the cruel ways of the world--and too young to have lived through the factory closing--the boy carried an innocence Wonka might harness and reclaim for himself. The boy viewed Wonka as everyone had in the before time. The boy was blind, his affection unfounded--but it was pure and true. If he could remove the child from the rest of the world he could make him his world--or, at least make his admiration his whole world.
He was so wrong to have hoped. What had happened yesterday was his final attempt at self-preservation. Although his uglier reputation hadn't preceded him to the boy, it caught up with him there. Judging by the disheartened disbelief thrown at him by the family, he knew he'd blown his chance with the last untainted soul simply by trying to make things right.
It would be right if he had an heir, but it would only work if he could have the boy alone. His methods were always objectionable. It would be inappropriate to accept personal guilt--he'd been made to be like that. Twisted, corrupted, and let down by life, he could no longer be what everyone else wanted. It proved he was ruined. Martyred, yet still alive, there was no more he could do for himself.
The clarity of the evening and the mesmerizing pull of the old man's stare drew Wonka to a new conclusion: he was the tainted element. After all, he was the only factor in common with all that had gone wrong. He didn't please his father, so Dad left him. He was selfless with his creations, so he got taken advantage of. He didn't know how to be close to anyone, so when he reached out, he was rejected. Properly considered, if he removed himself from the equation, things might be closer to all right.
He'd extracted himself from everyone's lives but his own. If he were gone, perhaps his factory--his only child! his other half!--would have a chance. His empire was still strong; it could exist without him...but not without someone. Wonka--the man himself--was probably the only hindrance to the boy accepting the factory, so this time he'd offer it unconditionally.
He reached his epiphany with lucid relief. It wasn't the rest of the world that was malfunctioning--he was the part that didn't fit.
It was settled then. The rest would be easy.
Joe Bucket watched as the hovering pale face of Wonka retreated from the window, fading back into the black as if submerging underwater. Simultaneously, Joe felt himself surfacing. The bleariness lifted; the curious visions cleared, and he pulled himself together with a deep breath of great satisfaction. He glanced up through the rafters toward his sleeping grandson, thinking at him: Good boy, Charlie. Everything will be all right now. As Joe tucked away the images of Charlie the chocolatier, he knew that Willy Wonka was gone. Not just gone from the window, but gone. In confirmation, a bright silver streak passed over the house, visible through the hole in the unrepaired roof. It shot upwards, then was lost among the stars. A brilliant flash of light was extinguished.