Enter the Bookworm
by "The Enduring Man-Child"
All standard disclaimers apply.
The young boy entered his father's study with the greatest trepidation. The wealthy recluse was as intimidating and distant with regard to his family as he was to the outside world, and that was saying something.
The imposing figure sat in his favorite overstuffed Morocco leather chair, his face completely obscured by an enormous tome. Truth to tell, the boy was in no hurry for this confrontation and had just soon that it stay that way, though his anxiety only rose as the silence wore on. Finally he thought it best to get it over with and coughed discretely.
There was no reaction.
"Father?" the boy asked at last in a voice he hoped would be audible to the distracted man. Unfortunately, it came out more as a squeak.
Suddenly the sound of leather could be heard as the imposing figure shifted in his seat. The book was lowered and two intense eyes focused the trembling child.
"What is it, Bartleby?" he asked in his sonorous yet threatening voice.
"Father...I'm sorry. I was in a fight."
The book was now completely lowered and the eyes looked him up and down.
"Well, so you were. And just what was the reason for these fisticuffs?"
"Father, the other boys at the Academy all tease me. They don't care that I'm your son. They call me a weakling and make fun of my size and my clothes and my glasses. They call me a sissy."
"And so you struck the rascal who said this about you...isn't that correct, Bartleby?"
"N—No, Father," the boy said shamefacedly. "They say those things all the time."
"And you tolerate such ill treatment?" the father asked, his voice rising.
"I do not like to fight," the boy admitted.
"And yet today something impelled you to stand up for your honor. What was it?"
The boy turned his face down and mumbled something.
"What was that? I did not hear you," the father insisted.
"I said—they made fun of my name. Well, they often do that as well, but this time they called me 'Wigglesworth the wiggling worm.'"
"And you defended your family's honor at once, correct?" the Father demanded.
"No, Father. I do not like to fight. I tried to ignore them but they kept teasing me and finally they grew impatient and pounded me."
The heavy book hit the desk at the side of the chair with a loud sound, causing Bartleby to wince. His father's face grew red and his breathing seemed to speed up. He was afraid of what would happen next. But after a while the man seemed to calm down and he said, "Come here, my son."
Bartleby hesitated.
"I said come here, my son!" he repeated louder and in a tone that indicated no disobedience would be tolerated.
Slowly the young boy made his way to the front of the enormous reading chair, acting for all the world as if he were walking to his doom. The older man looked severely upon him for a moment and then his countenance softened.
"Bartleby," he said, "you should be proud of your name and allow no one to insult it. My own namesake, our ancestor Michael Wigglesworth, was a renowned poet in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. We are one of the oldest families in New England. If there were any way possible you should have treated those ruffians in such a fashion that they would never make sport of the Wigglesworth name again."
"But I do not like to—"
"To fight, yes, we have established that," the patriarch observed unhappily. "Oh well, while I would prefer that you were strong and healthy and able to force others to treat you with respect, I realize that it is not all your own fault. You are small, weak, and sickly. No, much as it pains me to say it, you will never triumph in physical combat with most other boys your age. However," and here his face showed an unfamiliar glint of sympathy, "there are other ways of besting others. True, you were not gifted with a strong body, but the fates have given you a most powerful mind. Are you aware that most people do not possess your gift of a photographic memory?"
"Yes," Bartleby answered, "to be honest, I believe that one reason they pick on me is that they resent my superior intelligence. And I find lessons so easy to learn that there is no challenge in it for me."
The father placed his chin upon his fists and looked beyond his son for a while, seeming to bore a hole in the book covered wall of the study.
"My son, how would you feel if I were to remove you from that wretched Academy?"
"Could you?" Bartleby asked, with more joy in his voice than he would have cared to manifest.
"Of course," his father said. "Look about you, my son. What do you see?"
"I see books, Father," he answered.
"Precisely. That is the answer to the mediocrity of modern life as well as of modern education. Books! The accumulated art and wisdom of all cultures and civilizations and of all ages. Literature, drama, poetry, philosophy, history, and science. I have devoted my life," he continued, gazing about upon his collection, "to amassing the largest library in the world. With your special mental gifts you have no need of teachers and of academies filled with the decadent spawn of the nouveau riche. You will read every book in my collection, my son—every one of them! You will commit every page to memory, and when I add a new volume to my collection you will do the same with it. And one day," he said, looking at his son with the unfamiliar hint of tenderness again showing, "when I am gone from this earth you will carry on the Wigglesworth name by continuing to accumulate the rarest and most valuable books in existence—and you will continue to read and memorize their contents. Is this understood?" he asked, his characteristic severity returning.
"Y—Yes, Father! It is!"
"And when you have done that—when the greatest books in the world are imprinted perfectly on that wonderful mind of yours—" and here, warming to his subject, his voice rose and he seemed to look into the future, "you will use your knowledge to write your own books. You will create your own masterpieces which shall surpass all the works you have read. You will follow in the footsteps of your great ancestor. That, my son, is the true reason you were given your gift—not to memorize, but to create! Do you understand?"
"I do, Father!" the boy answered, with more emotion he had ever experienced before, "I shall create masterpieces! My own books will be in the collections of all future lovers of literature! The name of Wigglesworth will be seen alongside those of Shakespeare, Milton, and Cervantes!"
"There, in that shelf," the older man indicated at last, "you will find Dante's Divine Comedy. The translation is not the best but it is unabridged, and it will do until you can read the original text—and you will learn to read the original, do you hear me, boy?"
"Yes, Father. I do."
"Very well. Now begin your reading and let me return to my own. At supper tonight I shall inform Persons of my decision and he shall make all the necessary arrangements to have you honorably removed from the rolls of the Academy. No son of mine will appear to have quit with his tail between his legs!"
"Yes, Father," the boy responded. But his mind was already far away, walking with Dante and Virgil in the Inferno.
- - - - -
Gotham City—the present day.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight's charity auction," the smartly dressed master of ceremonies said at the podium. "We want to thank our own Mr. Bruce Wayne for putting up these priceless collectibles for sale, and for turning over all the proceeds to the Wayne Foundation's program for the education of needy children. Mr. Wayne, a few words please?"
Bruce Wayne hadn't planned on making any speeches and in fact hoped to be as inconspicuous as possible, but having been called out like this, and with the assembled guests applauding his name, he saw no way out of it.
"Thank you, my friends," he said. "I have not prepared any remarks for tonight. Let me just say that the world is full of gifted children whose talents are utterly wasted and undiscovered because their families are poor and cannot afford education for them. The Wayne Foundation aims to provide educational opportunities for deserving gifted young people who through no fault of their own would otherwise be unable to pursue an education. Please bid generously. Um...thank you." He departed the podium to a polite smattering of applause.
Among the clients at this auction a very small figure in large glasses muttered "Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air."
"Eh? What was that?" the large man sitting next to him asked.
"Oh, nothing. Merely recalling the words of the poet," the bespectacled one replied.
"Say...do I know you?" asked the larger man.
The discomfort of the smaller man was obvious. "I don't see how you could, sir. Please forgive my disturbing you."
"Wait a minute...yes, that's it...I know you! Bartleby Wiggleworm, isn't it?"
"It's Wigglesworth, not 'Wiggleworm,' my good man. Excuse me please." But as the now adult Bartleby attempted to leave his seat his unwanted companion's massive hand reached out and held him down.
"Bartleby old man! Don't you recognize me? It's your old friend Chad Milsap!"
Oh yes Bartleby thought to himself I recognize you as the 'friend' who pounded me because I wouldn't willingly fight you after all your razzing. 'Chad' indeed! Classless oil trash with money and pretensions of quality come up from Texas to try to fit in with their betters!
"I'm sorry, but I don't recall seeing you before," he said aloud. "Now if you will kindly excuse me..."
"Oh come on, Wiggleworm old boy!" Chad cried exuberantly, making matters worse by grabbing Bartleby around the neck with one arm and rubbing his head with his other fist—quite hard, at that.
"Mr. Milsap, much as I have enjoyed our reunion, I really must be going..."
"Say, wait a minute...seems I've seen your name on a few paperbacks in the supermarket. You a writer now? How's that working out?"
"If you don't mind, I'd really rather not discuss it."
"I bet you're on all the best seller lists!" his conversational partner's unwanted advances continued. "So, you won that Pulitzer yet?"
Bartleby faced his childhood (and current) tormentor with a look of suppressed anger shining in his eyes. The big boob actually seemed to get the message and looked uncomfortable.
"No, as a matter of fact I have not won a Pulitzer, nor have I been on any best seller lists!"
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry, then. Didn't mean to—"
"And shall I tell you why this is so? The reason for my lack of success with the pen?"
"Um...well, it's been nice seeing you, but I really have to go now—"
"The reason, my friend, is that despite my vast storehouse of knowledge of the literature of the world, I do not seem able to come up with an original plot of my own! Everything I have written, despite my best efforts, has been influenced in some manner by the works of others which I have read! That is the reason you find my books in the paperback sections of supermarkets and not in bookstores! There! Now are you satisfied??"
"Gee. I mean...wow. That's too bad," Chad said at last, "a smart guy like you not being able to think of his own stories."
Bartleby Wigglesworth, frustrated genius, was actually about to shout at this uncouth pretender to class. Moreover a lifetime of allowing himself to be bullied and ordered about by everyone, from his childhood classmates to his aloof father to the editors who worked for his publisher, was pushing at him from the inside. Enough was enough!
"Ladies and gentlemen, our first item is a rare first edition of Robinson Crusoe. Let the bidding begin!"
All at once everything seemed to be forgotten by Bartleby's antagonist, who turned his entire attention to the bidding. Bartleby himself merely remarked to himself I should have known better than to expect to finally stand up to someone. The bidding would have to begin at precisely that moment. Oh well...it was a nice dream, anyway.
Bartleby sat through the sale of rare books, paintings, statuary, and gemstones with no emotion. He was here for one and only one reason:
"Ladies and gentlemen, our final item of the night is a rare 1877 first edition of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. As you all know, this was the first appearance of the conclusion of the book, which was not published in the magazine that had been serializing it. It has been called the greatest novel in the world, and this is one of the very volumes that came off the presses of that first printing! Let the bidding begin!"
This time Bartleby did participate, and did so fanatically. His own writing career provided very little money but there was something to be said about old families with old money. And he had been saving his all through the night for just his moment.
Unfortunately, his old school chum seemed to have the same idea. Unlike Bartleby, he had bought a few items earlier in the evening, but if there is one thing that beats old families with old money (there being no justice in the world), it's "Texas trash" with oil money.
Soon it was just the two of them. Bartleby tried to keep up; he even bid far more than he his original limit. But this book was why he had come to this affair. He had his heart set on it. He couldn't be denied his dream of owning this volume coming so close! But his wealth had limits; apparently that of his childhood bet noire did not. Ultimately Bartleby Wigglesworth had to concede defeat.
"Sold!"
- - - - -
"Oh well Worm old boy," Chad said as the crowd slowly dispersed afterwards, "too bad about that. No hard feelings, eh?"
"Sure. No hard feelings." Bartleby's look was grim, but his not-too-bright colleague seemed not to notice.
"Well, it was great seeing you again. Brings back fond memories of old times, doesn't it?" he asked. There didn't seem to be a glimmer of sarcasm in his tone.
"Of course. 'Great' memories," the hapless Bartleby repeated, his mind still on how his coveted treasure had slipped from his hands at the last minute, all thanks to a person who seemed to have been put on the planet merely to torture him.
"Well, I'm going to get my purchases and then it's off to my hotel. Would you like to come? You can send your driver home."
"Actually, I don't have a driver," Bartleby admitted. "I find I prefer walking. As a matter of fact, if you'd care to accompany me to my hotel you would be most welcome." A few minutes before, the defeated would-be author would have never expected those words to come out of his mouth. But now an idea had begun to form in his mind and his face took on an almost sinister look. Unfortunately, like all his ideas it wasn't original...but sometimes the classics are best.
"Sure, old man! Just let me see that my stuff is carried to my limo. I want them in my hotel room, at least! Then we'll have a jolly time of it—talk about old times, have a few drinks—it'll be like a school reunion!"
"Precisely my thoughts!" Bartleby told him.
The losing bidder watched his triumphant opponent as he made his way to the front of the building to speak with Bruce Wayne and the others and get his treasures safely conveyed to his limousine. That's right, you brainless dolt! You, who know nothing of books, have stolen what was rightfully mine, but I know of a plot that will suit you perfectly!
And for the first time in a long time, he smiled.
To be continued...