TITLE: Glossing
AUTHOR: Angel Hungerford
EMAIL: anna@zhadum.com
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Zathras can never have anything nice.
FEEDBACK: Drives me to write until 2:20 AM when I should really have gone to bed hours ago.
DISTRIBUTION: List archives and FF.net. Otherwise, please ask.
RATING: PG for implied adult themes
SUMMARY: Flint's writing his memoirs.
NOTE: This is in response to the excerpt from Flint's memoirs published in "Lens Magazine" ( http://www.gijoecomic.com/lens/FlintMemoirs.htm); this will make much more sense after you've read it. The way the piece was written led me to believe that there was a lot going on that he wasn't talking about. Comicverse Flint's got a lot of suppressed (and not so suppressed) rage - take a look at his behavior just before the Marvel series ended, for example, and that dark glare he shot Duke in issue #4 after the man saved his life... Flint's a complicated fellow.
NOTE THE SECOND: "Hey, Jude," of course, belongs to the Beatles.
The clicking of the keyboard had stopped again and Alison held still, waiting. Silence. She crept up to the study door and eased it open. He was slumped, hands buried in his hair, facedown on the desk. The Beatles played in the background in cheery counterpoint.
"Dash?" she asked, concerned.
"I can't do this," he mumbled.
"Of course you can" she replied, coming up and putting her hands on his shoulders. "You're the only one of us who can do it justice, Dash. You're a great writer, you know that."
He shook his head. "It's not that. Not so much."
"Then what? The book is virtually done. You just have to write this prologue." She failed to understand why this part of the project was proving so difficult for him. The bulk of the book had been a struggle at times - he'd gone through two keyboards, pounding on them, and he'd come out of the study more than once shaking from head to foot, drenched in sweat, from the stress of reliving some of it The book was fantastic. "Why does he want the prologue, anyway?"
He shrugged. "Bernie says I wasn't born in a vacuum, and I can't write the book like I was - like I burst full-grown from the skull of General Hawk, Athena of the Joes." She smiled a little at the image, but he continued, "My childhood - my formative experiences - shaped me. Who I was, the boy who would be Flint, and all that. But - Allie, I can't tell this. I can't..." he trailed off, drumming his fingers on the ancient composition notebook - his first journal. "DASH FAIRBORNE, JUNIOR ENGLISH, 5TH PERIOD" was scrawled on it in impatient black ink; the handwriting of a boy who had too many things going on to worry about something as trivial as penmanship. A scrawl suitable for a boy called "Dash," she supposed. "Can't talk about my father like this." The drumming became stroking, rasping across the cardboard cover.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to air my dirty laundry before a grateful nation?" He raised an eyebrow. "It would kill my mother, Allie."
"And we don't want to offend the sainted Rose Faireborn, certainly." The acerbic reply popped out before she could stop it. Not that she had anything against her mother-in-law, she was a lovely person in her own right. It would've taken a stronger woman than the quiet, bookish Rose to protect her genius child from his bearish, boorish father. {And if she had, he never would've developed the tough-guy façade, never would've joined the military - and I never would've met him. He'd be producing brilliant monographs about writers nobody cared about at Oxford or something. So don't bite the hand that feeds you, girl.}
"Hey!" His fingers curled around the edge of the notebook. "My mother is a good woman. The best woman."
"I know, I'm sorry." She rubbed his shoulders until he sighed and leaned back into her touch.
"Sorry for being so snappish," and he let go the journal to stroke her fingers. "It's so frustrating. The book is *done*, for all intents and purposes. I thought I wouldn't have to go through any more. And now - what do I tell, and how do I tell it? It's not as simple a matter as 'classified' and 'unclassified' here. What I say here could hurt my family. My mother, my brothers.... Besides, it's over. What's bringing it up going to accomplish but to cause more pain?"
"But it *happened*, Dash. You wouldn't be you if..."
"If what?" he snapped, gripping the book again. "If my father hadn't bullied me into becoming an acceptable specimen of manhood? If I hadn't had stories about my uncle the *hero* shoved down my throat at every opportunity? If I hadn't had to hide my books, burn my poetry? Trust me, Allie, it was better off burned."
"I don't know that. And I can't know that, because it doesn't exist any more, Dash. Because he...."
"Doesn't matter."
"It *does* matter. It matters to me, and even if you don't want to admit it, it matters to you."
"Fine. It matters. But I'm not going to punish my family because my father made mistakes raising me."
"Mistakes!" She bristled at the understatement.
Flashback, him standing in the empty guest room, staring out at the back yard. "Maybe it's for the best we can't have kids, Allie. I don't know how to be a father, and I won't be the kind of father mine was.... I won't; I can't." He wouldn't look at her, bearing the bad news like it was a tangible thing, holding it in both hands.
"Mistakes," he said now. "I won't betray him like that."
She spent a few absurd minutes trying to remember what her psychology teacher had called it. {The pact of silence, I think. Or was it the legacy of silence? No, I think it was the pact. And the kids themselves - Children of the Secret, that was it. He's one of the Children of the Secret, and I'm not, so I can never, never understand what he's been through. And he'll never, never tell me. Or anyone else. The pact is kept by the whole family.}
"Then what are you going to do?" she asked, finally. "Lie?"
"No. I can't start the book by lying, if I want anyone to believe me later. I'll just... leave stuff out. Keep it short. Gloss."
"Gloss," she echoed, shaking her head. "It's not like you."
"Sure it is." He smiled faintly. "I've been doing it all my life." He turned back to the keyboard.
She spent a few minutes staring with frank longing at the composition notebook. Some of those secrets were locked in the pages, she felt sure, especially if... "Did your teacher read the journal?"
"Hm?" He was half-lost in the words already.
"Your junior English teacher. Did she read your journals?"
"No, she just wanted us to keep them. To get into the habit." He glanced over at the shelf containing 25 years of journals ranging from battered composition notebooks to the steno pads he'd kept in the field to the beautiful leatherbound book she'd given him for Christmas. "Guess it worked, hey?"
"Guess so." She was fairly sure he didn't hear her response, though. He was off and writing.
The CD player whispered to itself. {He's got it on random again,} she realized. {Bored with the regular order.}
"Hey Jude, don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better..." He was singing under his breath, probably completely unaware that he was doing it.
Unable to handle the bitter irony, Alison backed out of the room and left her husband to his writing - glossing.
AUTHOR: Angel Hungerford
EMAIL: anna@zhadum.com
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Zathras can never have anything nice.
FEEDBACK: Drives me to write until 2:20 AM when I should really have gone to bed hours ago.
DISTRIBUTION: List archives and FF.net. Otherwise, please ask.
RATING: PG for implied adult themes
SUMMARY: Flint's writing his memoirs.
NOTE: This is in response to the excerpt from Flint's memoirs published in "Lens Magazine" ( http://www.gijoecomic.com/lens/FlintMemoirs.htm); this will make much more sense after you've read it. The way the piece was written led me to believe that there was a lot going on that he wasn't talking about. Comicverse Flint's got a lot of suppressed (and not so suppressed) rage - take a look at his behavior just before the Marvel series ended, for example, and that dark glare he shot Duke in issue #4 after the man saved his life... Flint's a complicated fellow.
NOTE THE SECOND: "Hey, Jude," of course, belongs to the Beatles.
The clicking of the keyboard had stopped again and Alison held still, waiting. Silence. She crept up to the study door and eased it open. He was slumped, hands buried in his hair, facedown on the desk. The Beatles played in the background in cheery counterpoint.
"Dash?" she asked, concerned.
"I can't do this," he mumbled.
"Of course you can" she replied, coming up and putting her hands on his shoulders. "You're the only one of us who can do it justice, Dash. You're a great writer, you know that."
He shook his head. "It's not that. Not so much."
"Then what? The book is virtually done. You just have to write this prologue." She failed to understand why this part of the project was proving so difficult for him. The bulk of the book had been a struggle at times - he'd gone through two keyboards, pounding on them, and he'd come out of the study more than once shaking from head to foot, drenched in sweat, from the stress of reliving some of it The book was fantastic. "Why does he want the prologue, anyway?"
He shrugged. "Bernie says I wasn't born in a vacuum, and I can't write the book like I was - like I burst full-grown from the skull of General Hawk, Athena of the Joes." She smiled a little at the image, but he continued, "My childhood - my formative experiences - shaped me. Who I was, the boy who would be Flint, and all that. But - Allie, I can't tell this. I can't..." he trailed off, drumming his fingers on the ancient composition notebook - his first journal. "DASH FAIRBORNE, JUNIOR ENGLISH, 5TH PERIOD" was scrawled on it in impatient black ink; the handwriting of a boy who had too many things going on to worry about something as trivial as penmanship. A scrawl suitable for a boy called "Dash," she supposed. "Can't talk about my father like this." The drumming became stroking, rasping across the cardboard cover.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to air my dirty laundry before a grateful nation?" He raised an eyebrow. "It would kill my mother, Allie."
"And we don't want to offend the sainted Rose Faireborn, certainly." The acerbic reply popped out before she could stop it. Not that she had anything against her mother-in-law, she was a lovely person in her own right. It would've taken a stronger woman than the quiet, bookish Rose to protect her genius child from his bearish, boorish father. {And if she had, he never would've developed the tough-guy façade, never would've joined the military - and I never would've met him. He'd be producing brilliant monographs about writers nobody cared about at Oxford or something. So don't bite the hand that feeds you, girl.}
"Hey!" His fingers curled around the edge of the notebook. "My mother is a good woman. The best woman."
"I know, I'm sorry." She rubbed his shoulders until he sighed and leaned back into her touch.
"Sorry for being so snappish," and he let go the journal to stroke her fingers. "It's so frustrating. The book is *done*, for all intents and purposes. I thought I wouldn't have to go through any more. And now - what do I tell, and how do I tell it? It's not as simple a matter as 'classified' and 'unclassified' here. What I say here could hurt my family. My mother, my brothers.... Besides, it's over. What's bringing it up going to accomplish but to cause more pain?"
"But it *happened*, Dash. You wouldn't be you if..."
"If what?" he snapped, gripping the book again. "If my father hadn't bullied me into becoming an acceptable specimen of manhood? If I hadn't had stories about my uncle the *hero* shoved down my throat at every opportunity? If I hadn't had to hide my books, burn my poetry? Trust me, Allie, it was better off burned."
"I don't know that. And I can't know that, because it doesn't exist any more, Dash. Because he...."
"Doesn't matter."
"It *does* matter. It matters to me, and even if you don't want to admit it, it matters to you."
"Fine. It matters. But I'm not going to punish my family because my father made mistakes raising me."
"Mistakes!" She bristled at the understatement.
Flashback, him standing in the empty guest room, staring out at the back yard. "Maybe it's for the best we can't have kids, Allie. I don't know how to be a father, and I won't be the kind of father mine was.... I won't; I can't." He wouldn't look at her, bearing the bad news like it was a tangible thing, holding it in both hands.
"Mistakes," he said now. "I won't betray him like that."
She spent a few absurd minutes trying to remember what her psychology teacher had called it. {The pact of silence, I think. Or was it the legacy of silence? No, I think it was the pact. And the kids themselves - Children of the Secret, that was it. He's one of the Children of the Secret, and I'm not, so I can never, never understand what he's been through. And he'll never, never tell me. Or anyone else. The pact is kept by the whole family.}
"Then what are you going to do?" she asked, finally. "Lie?"
"No. I can't start the book by lying, if I want anyone to believe me later. I'll just... leave stuff out. Keep it short. Gloss."
"Gloss," she echoed, shaking her head. "It's not like you."
"Sure it is." He smiled faintly. "I've been doing it all my life." He turned back to the keyboard.
She spent a few minutes staring with frank longing at the composition notebook. Some of those secrets were locked in the pages, she felt sure, especially if... "Did your teacher read the journal?"
"Hm?" He was half-lost in the words already.
"Your junior English teacher. Did she read your journals?"
"No, she just wanted us to keep them. To get into the habit." He glanced over at the shelf containing 25 years of journals ranging from battered composition notebooks to the steno pads he'd kept in the field to the beautiful leatherbound book she'd given him for Christmas. "Guess it worked, hey?"
"Guess so." She was fairly sure he didn't hear her response, though. He was off and writing.
The CD player whispered to itself. {He's got it on random again,} she realized. {Bored with the regular order.}
"Hey Jude, don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better..." He was singing under his breath, probably completely unaware that he was doing it.
Unable to handle the bitter irony, Alison backed out of the room and left her husband to his writing - glossing.