Come and Go: Chapter Two: The Ascension
And now, onto my favorite part! Answering Reviews!
AmZ: Thank you for your great support! I figured Hugo knew France basically up and down, so it would work better if I knew a place up and down, even if places like New York seem more Parisian, so thank you Yes, I can see how the Authors Notes could get very annoying. Sorry.... Please feel free to point out any grammatical errors or spelling goofs! I really appreciate it! Thank you!
Elyse3: Yes, those A.N's are a bit annoying aren't they? Well, rest assured, nothing else takes place in my home town, so no need to add all my Home town spirit in. Heh, heh....Terribly sorry 'bout that. As for astronomer Valjean...Well, actually, I don't know why I did that....erm...
BellaSpirita: Yeah! That reinforces the idea that I had an original thought! I love it when I get those! Thank you very, very much! And thank you for putting Come and Go in your Favorite Stories list.
Nebulia: Thank you! I'm really glad I decided to write this now!
Alanna Rivers: Yes, yes. By this point, I realize that the Authors Notes are annoying.
And Now, onto the Story!
The Willamette (Pronounced Will-am-et) River was one of three tributaries of the larger, more substantial Columbia River. It was not the biggest of the three rivers, but it fed the lush, fertile Willamette Valley and more cities were located along its banks. It had never been a lovely, crystal clear river. It was too deep for that, and so it was green. None of this was helped by the sewage pumped into it, so that one had to be mad, suicidal, or desperate to drink out of it.
Valjean, who was standing on the Jefferson Street Docks, was not any save for possibly mad, and he was not thirsty, so it did not matter. The Jefferson Street Docks, located at the edge of downtown Milwaukie, really did need repairing. Just the other day, a teenage girl had slipped and fallen climbing out of her family's small boat and sliced her elbow pretty badly. The concrete by the water's edge was slick, and the fowls that lived at the waters edge also left their droppings at the waters edge, which only made things smellier and slicker. But the city was broke, and the City Council, inactive, so it was highly unlikely anything would ever be done about the dock.
Valjean was not thinking about the state of the docks, the geese that were starting to hiss at him, or the large moon which was glittering off the water. He was thinking about the chalice that he held in his hands, the starlight reflecting off the silver cup. How much money could he get for it? Would it even really matter?
Oh, he hated himself! He hated himself so thoroughly that he wished someone would just beat the tar out of him to make him feel better. Why, he wasn't sure. I told you, he was slightly mad! What good could he possibly do? Oh, why had the man told him he was now purified! Surely it was impossible!
"If the priest said it wasn't, surely it wasn't!" the sane side, the side that would breed his faith, said. And slowly, Valjean began to agree. He began to stare at the goblet and could see it all unfold. He could be an honest man, and he could make the priest proud! He could give himself to God! There was only one thing hindering him:
His record.
Good men of God, so he gathered, should not have records of two decades in prison. It simply didn't work like that. But how could he simply erase twenty years of his life? Javert would be laughing in his face at the very attempt.
It was now, finally, that Valjean's mind slowly worked its way into noticing the state of the dock, and it was a bad state. A wizened old man – not unlike Valjean, for instance – could easily fall doing something very simple and innocent. Like? Well, like feeding the ducks! Yes, feeding the ducks! If he fell, he could hit his head on the pavement and bash his fragile skull, or break a few bones and roll into the river and drown. There was no telling what might happen should an old man like Valjean fall!
So, Valjean, he decided, had fallen, and had whacked his head against the old pavement, and had died instantaneously. Jean Valjean was, as far as this now nameless man was concerned, dead.
Without another look at the spot where he had died, Valjean turned smartly on his heels, and got ready for the long, long, long walk to his goal: Astoria.
...
Far, far away, five years later, the sun was setting in Tillamook, cheese capital of Oregon. It bore the name with pride, though the people this story concerns were not, themselves, workers with any sort of dairy.
A woman sat on the back porch of Tillamook's The Waterloo Inn, where she lived and worked, and lovingly watched her daughters playing in the grass and by the edge of the pristine Umpqua River. Her eldest, Eponine, was just three, and Azelma was two. Her husband was inside doing book keeping, and it was left to his wife, Mrs. Thenardier to keep track of her beloved angels.
No one who would have looked at the young woman walking down the road could have guessed as to her purpose. She held about her a sweet sense of serenity; from the carpet bag she dragged along with her, to the lovely, sleeping child lying nestled in her arms. Such angelic looks they had on there faces.
The young woman – her name was Fantine – was just twenty one. The child she carried so tenderly was three. Fantine had been a reasonably successful person in High School. Her parents were divorced, her mom did drugs (she lived with her mother), her grades weren't anything to brag about, but certainly not horrid. But of course, the bad home life made her miserable, and she looked forward to the day she would graduate and leave home forever, and maybe, just maybe, be happy.
But God, she thought, had graced her, for the happiness she sought seemed to have arrived early in a young man named Logan Lewis. He had a shock of brown hair and crisp, gray eyes, and he found Fantine sincerely attractive, though if he loved her or not, nobody knew. Fantine was certain that he must, for she adored him, and the two steadily dated for months, and Fantine was happier than she'd ever been before.
Fantine was rich in three ways: gold, pearls, and sapphires. The gold was on her head, the pearls were in her mouth, and the sapphires were in her eyes, and she never considered that beauty alone was what drove Logan to desire her, and maybe like her. He really didn't love her.
When Logan's life began to fall apart, the only answer he could come up with was to drop out and run away. It wasn't the best of plans, but it could work! Fantine became absolutely terrified at the prospect of living practically totally alone again; never wanting to revert to such a dark world as her family was again. The answer for her was simple too: follow him. Logan didn't mind. He was born selfish, and would love the company. It wasn't necessarily a sensible plan. But then, Fantine was only seventeen; she didn't have the sense to be sensible yet. So, off they went!
Fantine kept on asking, so Logan kept on promising; when he had a steady job, and enough money, of course they could get married! Until then, no one said they couldn't have sex! And so, for two years, they lived together, and Fantine was happier than she'd ever been before. She had a job, she helped pay bills, she was young, she was in love....Nothing, it seemed, could go wrong!
That is, until it happened.
Fantine's darling daughter may have been the end result of a broken condom, but Fantine would never treat her that way. She was a symbol of love between she and Logan. Logan, however, didn't see things in quite the same light. One week after finding out she was pregnant, and six days after loosing the long argument about abortion, Logan was gone. Fantine was confused at first. Why should her being pregnant change anything? She and Logan were in love, weren't they? They were getting married, weren't they? When Fantine realized how stupid she'd been, she wept desolately for two days, not knowing what to do.
But the child in her womb needed tending, and so Fantine cared for herself as best she could, working until her pregnancy just became too advanced, and then a few friends at work helped her get by, and drove her to the hospital when the time came.
Fantine would pour love onto her darling little Cosette. She gave her ceaseless kisses, never complained about getting up in the middle of the night to tend to her, and never ever seemed to wish she'd never been pregnant, no matter the disastrous consequences.
And so, after Cosette was born, Fantine continued to work, but the constant strain of having to provide for two mouths and the other things those two mouths needed had begun to wear on Fantine. Despite her friend's suggestions, she refused to put Cosette up for adoption; she loved her too much. Her whole world would come crashing down without her. Indeed, Fantine felt like she might die without her beloved little angel, Cosette.
But hope was on the horizon; Fantine had another plan. Astoria, where she'd been born and raised. She surely would be able to find someone she knew there, and they might give her a job! Custard King, the Dentistry Office, someone would give her a job! And Cosette would stay with someone else, so Fantine needn't worry over her constantly, but would of course send money to have her looked after.
Fantine had been heading north, towards Astoria, when she'd entered Tillamook – walking, always walking – and ran across The Waterloo Inn. The sweet, angelic sound of two little girls laughing and playing had been too much for Fantine to resist, and she entered the large, grassy area with trepidation, but elation when she saw how happy the mother looked, and how wonderfully cared for the girls were. This was it. She knew she would never find a more perfect place than this right here if she looked for a hundred years!
The two little girls saw the young woman, and paused to wave and the elder one shouted "Hi!" Fantine laughed slightly, and waved back. The young girls' mother turned to see who they were waving at, and saw the lovely Fantine with surprise.
"Hello," they're mother said. "Are you here to rent a room for the night?"
"I, well, no...." Fantine began. "You see, I'm heading towardsAstoria, and-"
"My God, but that's far! Too far to travel with such a young girl."
"Yes!" Fantine quickly agreed. This might work out after all. "That's why I'm here. I need a place to keep Cosette-" here she paused to kiss the sleeping child's soft brow "-while I look for work. When I have enough money, I will bring her home to live with me! Of course I will pay by the month to keep her...."
"You mean here?" Mrs. Thenardier asked with surprise.
"Oh, please!" begged Fantine. "Please! I need a friend! I need a place to keep Cosette. I will not be able to take care of her if she stays with me. I'll send you sixty dollars a month!"
"Six months in advance!" a deep, male voice called from the door. Mr. Thenardier loomed there. "Does she have any clothes?" Fantine indicated the carpet bag. "You will have to leave those here."
"Of course!" Fantine agreed. "I would not leave my child naked." She pulled the money out of her wallet and handed it to the man who snatched it up.
"Very well. Sixty dollars a month."
Fantine tightly clutched her little child, planting kisses on her cheeks, and finally, released her into Mrs. Thenardier's waiting arms. Fantine quickly walked away from that place, silently sobbing until she could not cry anymore.
...
Mr. Madeline had come to Astoria five years previous with not much money, but enough to start a factory of making beads and necklaces. The factory thrived. Anyone who sincerely wanted a job and needed a job could get one at Mr. Madeline's factory. He had only one requirement: Be honest.
Astoria had never, ever been a rich town. Even when John Jacob Astor had founded it – though it had only been a meager Fur Trading fort – in 1811. It had been very pristine and pleasant, but was, all in all, not spectacular. But it was a nice enough place, and Mr. Madeline had a keen affection for it and its citizenry. He poured money into charities and attended mass every Sunday. No one, it seemed, could find fault with such a good man as Madeline! That is why they wanted him to run for mayor.
But something – no one ever really knew what – always held Mr. Madeline back, and despite all pleas, he never ran for election. Until, one day, entering his factory, his secretary had become fed up with all the phone calls of local political parties begging him to run. "A good mayor is a good thing!" she cried. "Are you afraid of the good you can do?" And so, Madeline ran, and was elected hands down.
And so it was that when Fantine entered little Astoria, much had changed. The mayor, the money, even the police chief was new!
The year Mr. Madeline was elected, the previous police chief – who had been counting the days – finally retired, which left Madeline chief less, and he hadn't the slightest idea as to who to appoint.
"There's a man in Salem. He served under me once. Not particularly friendly, I'm sorry to say, but an excellent officer. Very fair, very just. He does his duty to his superior officers, and I doubt you'll find a better new chief than him," the former chief of police said. Madeline pounced upon the offer.
...
If Mr. Madeline did recognize Police Chief Javert, he gave no sign of it. If you were to guess who seemed to think they knew who, it was more likely that Javert seemed to know Mr. Madeline from a previous encounter, though the two had never met before. Javert would stare at him long and hard and try to decide if he knew this oddly familiar man or not, but he never could come up with anything.
But Javert is not the focus of the story. For now, Fantine is. She got a job at Madeline's factory, and for a while, everything went smoothly for her. She was being paid well, she was living reasonably comfortably, Cosette was happy, and she was sending the money on time; what could go wrong?
But after a year of working there, jealous co-workers had begun to spread insidious lies about her, and so, with only two weeks notice, Fantine was fired. She begged to see Mr. Madeline, to ask him why he had fired her, but the foreman told her that Mr. Madeline knew that she'd been fired, had approved, and hadn't the time to see a silly girl like her.
But Mr. Madeline never knew of any of this.
Devastated, Fantine got work wherever she could, waiting tables, flipping burgers, but all of these were temporary jobs and weren't paying her bills; she could not last like this. So, she moved to the slightly scummier, cheaper part of town, where a neighbor, the only one who seemed to care for her now, taught her how to live on crumbs, and how to make each dime stretch beyond reason. But Fantine still needed a job.
"Poor dear, you don't have any choice," the kindly old neighbor woman said. "You'll have to sell yourself."
At first, Fantine managed to avoid doing such things by selling any valuable possessions she owned, but hardship struck upon hardship. The Thenardiers wrote to her and told her that Cosette had become sick; they needed more money to help pay for her medicines. Finally, the woman was right, Fantine had no choice.
Oddly enough, she made friends among the prostitutes quite quickly, and they helped her out when Cosette's needs seemed to become dire. And so life continued on in such a way for another year, but Fantine was becoming sick. She hadn't been feeling all to well recently, and began to worry about her ability to perform her job to make money for Cosette.
A friend of hers was the mistress of a handsome young doctor, and so, she was given a free appointment. The doctor's findings were grave; Fantine had AIDs, and it was becoming terribly advanced. She would not live.
For one whole day, Fantine wept desolately in her small, dingy room. Was she to die, who would care for Cosette? Who would send the money? Would she ever see her beloved little angel, the light of her life, her daughter again?
And so, with AIDs, Fantine could no longer get work of the kind she was used to. Slowly, things got worse and worse, until Fantine was reduced to begging on the street. While begging outside of a local tavern in the cold of winter – it was an unusually hard winter, and it was snowy badly – a young teenage boy began to yell at her and call her names. Fantine ignored him as best she could but when he finally threw a snowball down her back, she went wild!
Fantine tackled and grappled with the boy, and men from inside the tavern poured out to jeer at the pair fighting in the snow like dogs. Suddenly, a firm hand came down oh her shoulder, and began to drag her out of the fight. Confused, Fantine looked up and stared straight into the cold face of the Chief of Police: Javert.
...
"Stop that sniveling!" he ordered, and Fantine tried her best to stop crying. "Go sit down somewhere! Over there, in that chair!" She scurried like a frightened rat over to the appointed chair, and sat stark still, barely moving to breath, except when she was racked by fits of coughing. When Javert had finished filling out paper work, he began to address her.
"You are under arrest for disturbing the peace. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one can be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I have just read them to you?" Fantine nodded gravely. "Good," Javert said slickly.
"But sir, what are you going to do to me?"
"Put you through a hearing."
"And when will that be?"
"At the earliest? A month."
Fantine's eyes widened. "And where will I stay till then?"
"The county jail."
Now Fantine fell to the floor in a heap of sobbing, begging, and coughing. The poor wretch began to kiss his boots and the hem of his coat. "No, please, officer, I beg of you! I am sick, I need to work! My daughter, my Cosette! Who will take care of her if I can not pay her keep?" she begged of him, sobbing and sobbing.
"That is not my concern," he growled, prying her off of his boot.
"No, no! God, no! Please sir!"
"God nor anyone else can alter your sentence until you are put before a judge. Be quite, woman!"
"Inspector, I must beg to differ with you."
The two looked up to see Mr. Madeline, his hat in his hands. Javert stared at him, his jaw agape. "I fear you have made a terrible mistake."
Javert said nothing, he just stared. Fantine's face turned red with anger, and she spit at him. Javert glared down at her in turn and kicked her. "You wretch! Do you not know that is the mayor?"
"He is a scoundrel!" she shouted. "He fired me from his factory without just cause! I became a prostitute because of you!" she cried, glaring at who she deemed to be her persecutor, pausing to cough. "I got AIDs because of that! I am dying, and my daughter! Who will care for her when I am gone, Mr. Mayor?"
Madeline blinked in shock at this woman. "You were fired? But why?"
"Because the other factory women hated me, and spread lies about me! And you believed them!"
"I never heard anything of the sort," he assured her, bending low to the ground so they could meet face to face. Fantine's expression softened and she looked at him in amazement.
"What?" she breathed.
"Mr. Madeline, I must object. This woman is a criminal, and must be punished."
The mayor stood up now and looked at Javert. "And what has she done?"
"She has disturbed the peace and assaulted a gentleman."
"No, Chief Javert, I'm sorry, but I saw that fight. He was no gentleman."
Javert quickly switched tactics. "She is a prostitute. She just admitted to it."
"That is not her fault."
"It still requires punishment."
"And I say it doesn't."
Javert sputtered and blinked, utterly confused, and said nothing. "How much is her bail?" Madeline asked.
Javert glanced down at her. "Five hundred dollars."
"And you shall have it," the mayor promised. "Let me return home and I shall get it to you, or will you take me on credit, or a check?"
Javert despised taking checks, but there were no rules against it. "A check will do," he answered sharply.
Mr. Madeline filled out the check and smiled at Fantine, who had scurried back to her chair. "Well, my dear, it looks like you are free to go until the hearing."
Fantine stared from the police officer to the mayor, blinked, breathed in, and then promptly fainted.
...
Being a costal city, bad storms that blew in from the sea were occasionally to be expected. But there hadn't been this much mud in one for a long time. The car of a one Mr. Fauchelevent had spun out in all that mud, and toppled over. He was slowly being crushed by it when paramedics arrived on the scene.
It had been Javert's day off, but had been driving along the same stretch of road when the accident had occurred, so he ordered a jack as quickly as possible, but other cars had spun out, and other accidents were occurring in the storm; most jacks were being used. One could be procured, but it would take at least fifteen minutes.
Providence had Mr. Madeline also driving that cold, wet evening, and he too stopped at the scene. From what he saw, the poor wretched man didn't even have five.
"Look, there's still enough room for someone to crawl under and lift with his back! Fauchelevent can still be saved!"
"He'd have to be big as an ox...." Someone in the crowd murmured.
"Two hundred dollars for whoever does it!"
Not a stir.
"Five hundred!"
Not a sound.
"One thousand!"
"It is not the willingness they lack." Madeline spun around to find Javert's hawk eyes staring down at him. "They simply can't do it."
Madeline took another look at the dying Fauchelevent, and swallowed.
"I knew only one man with enough strength to do that," Javert continued. Madeline stared at him. "He was a convict."
"Ah," responded Madeline, looking back at Fauchelevent. Taking a deep breath, he crawled into the car and began to lift with his back, despite the many citizens crying out "No! Mr. Madeline, come out of there at once! You'll be killed!" Even Fauchelevent was crying it.
It made no difference to Madeline, who continued to lift, and shouted "Someone grab him!" when there was enough room to do so. Others helped heave the car up and Mr. Madeline crawled out, exhausted and covered with mud. He turned, and stared at Javert, who was staring at him.
The Chief of Police then turned and walked back to his car, intent on driving to the county seat.
To Be Continued.....