Heavily Medicated For Your Safety
Charlie wandered through the well-lit hallways of the factory, contemplating nothing more serious than dinner. Well— alright, all things considered, when you were thirteen, dinner was a fairly serious issue. There was the problem of whether or not he would be required to eat anything green, and if there was dessert afterwards, and if he could convince his parents to get a dog so he would have something to feed the vegetables to underneath the table. It was unlikely that he would be able to persuade them to a pet within the next half hour, which was when dinnertime was. Too little time... Charlie thought regretfully. Far too much time and too little to do... strike that... reverse it...
He wasn't even thinking that, really; it was all on purpose. In his early teens, Charlie wasn't what you might call sure of himself. He was, in fact, nearly as unsure of himself as he possibly could be. It was only natural, of course, that he turned his eyes to his mentor for a pattern to set himself after, an example to look up to— which explained the top hat set crooked on his head, and the hair growing out to cover his ears, and the striped pants with the chains dangling from the pocket— it even explained the difficult communicating with people, and the tendency to get flustered and simply stand and grin hugely, whacking his cane against his palm and looking like he was waiting for people's behinds to come within reach. It wasn't that his mentor had taught him to be violently physical, exactly— it was that his mentor hadn't taught him not to be, and Charlie, like most little boys, liked to hit things.
He shuffled along the corridor, pondering now a variety of things, although the all-important issue of dinner was never very far from his mind. He nearly stumbled over the doorjamb as he turned aside into Mr. Wonka's office, gradually tearing his thoughts away from various subjects to lift his eyes and behold what was going on.
He jumped.
Mr. Wonka sat slouched in his chair, top buttons undone, elbow on the desk, eyes fixed dreamily on the desktop in front of him. He didn't even acknowledge his pupil's entrance with anything more than a flick of his unoccupied hand. Charlie's eyes trained gradually on what his other hand was doing.
He was caressing— there was no other word for it— a piece of paper.
Charlie was slightly disturbed. He'd never seen Mr. Wonka like this, in this sort of disarray, and he certainly wasn't used to being ignored like this. What was going on, and how did he stop it? Surely something was wrong— Mr. Wonka looked— Mr. Wonka looked—
Well, it was a strange thing to say about a man who perpetually wore eccentric evening dress and had teeth the size of Texas, but Mr. Wonka looked weird. Charlie moved towards him, frowning in worry, chewing his tongue as he did when he was nervous— it was one of those personality traits that he'd adopted to make himself seem more real when people wrote fanfiction about him. He rested his hands on the desk and leaned over towards his distracted mentor.
"Mr. Wonka—?"
Wonka looked up at him, a dreamy smile still on his face. "Hi, Charlie—" he said (dreamily) and then suddenly his face cleared and hardened. "My gosh! Sorry, Charlie! I didn't hear you come in, sit down, dear boy, sit down!" The chocolatier erupted in a flurry of activity that effectively obscured the piece of paper— whatever it was— from Charlie's vision until Wonka managed to get it secured in a safe place— his desk drawer. He then turned to his pupil, a slight blush darkening his pale cheeks, and folded his hands in front of him, trying his best to look brisk and businesslike.
Charlie stared at him for a moment. He'd managed to adopt a remarkably Wonka-like stare which involved having his mouth partially open, a slight, unnatural smile, and wide eyes. It was sure to unnerve the pants off anyone who wasn't ready for it, but Wonka merely returned it. They had a very-odd-stare-down for a few moments until Charlie cleared his throat, acknowledging Wonka the master. Wonka nodded his head, taking it as only his due.
"You can't distract me," said Charlie, who was apparently in denial about Wonka's ability to do this to practically anyone. "I want to know what that picture was."
"It was... a... picture," said Wonka, drawing the sentence piece-meal as though he were imparting a state secret. Charlie made an "Oooh!" face and nodded seriously before he realized that, in fact, he hadn't been told anything he didn't already know.
"Now, seriously," he said, seriously, and Wonka sighed testily.
"I am always serious."
"Seriously serious."
"How serious do you require me to be, Charlie? I've never been more serious than this moment. Seriously."
"I mean, really."
"Really serious?"
"Yes."
"How serious is that?"
Charlie tipped his top hat backwards and tried the stare again, but Wonka just ignored him, rubbing his latex-gloved fingertips along the edge of the desk absently.
"Alright," he said finally. "I'll tell you. But you— Charlie, you can't tell anyone, 'kay? No tell. None."
"'kay," said Charlie brightly, as he had also picked up Wonka's much-written-about speech patterns.
"Its— a-a— a— secret," Wonka finally managed, and drew the drawer open with something approaching reverential awe. "Charlie," he said, slowly lifting the picture out, "I have to tell you something."
"What is it, Mr. Wonka?" asked Charlie, his eyes growing wide at the apparent seriousness— which is exactly what he had asked for— of the situation. For a brief moment he wondered if his mentor was going to die. Or leave, was he going to leave? Did he have six months to live? Was he being adopted? Was he joining a convent?
No. It was something much, much worse.
Mr. Wonka laid the picture down in front of Charlie, worshipfully.
It was a photograph, in black and white, of a very familiar face.
"Charlie," said Mr. Wonka hesitantly, "I believe I have—"
One that Charlie saw in the factory every day.
"Fallen—"
One that Charlie saw in the factory every day, on several different people.
"In love," finished Mr. Wonka, shook his head a little, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and chuckled softly to himself. "Heh!"
"Doris!" said Charlie.
"Yes," said Mr. Wonka, "Doris."
"She's a girl!"
"I know— it was a hard thing for me to realize too, Charlie," Mr. Wonka assured him. "But I thought it over and it occurred to me that, even though girls are weird, they're really much more compatible physically." Charlie eyed him in horror and Mr. Wonka added hastily, "Shorter, I mean. So you can push them around if they disagree with you."
"But—"
"Now, Charlie, settle down! Its not going to affect you at all. Doris lives in the factory already, so we'll just— we'll just—" Wonka found himself utterly unable to finish that sentence in the face of Charlie's unrelenting stare of revulsion. "Don't look at me like that!"
"But its Doris!" wailed Charlie, and was cut off as Wonka placed a rubberized hand on his shoulder firmly.
"Charlie," he said, "there comes a time in every man's life when things must be faced up to. I know its awkward. I know its difficult. I know its disgusting. But it happens. Doris is a fine— well, one wouldn't exactly want to say 'woman' but she's a fine whatever-she-is, anyway. I am proud to employ her in more ways than one. Please don't tell your mother I said that."
Charlie blinked at him in total incomprehension, and Wonka sighed in relief.
"Just trust me, Charlie— someday, it'll be your turn. Someday soon. Not everyone was as emotionally backwards as I was in my youth— apparently for the majority of humans, this thing called 'love' comes decades earlier than it did in my life. So you'll just have to hold out and be strong and, and—" He ran out of cliches and had to settle for squeezing Charlie's shoulder. "Be a man."
Charlie emerged from his mentor's office looking rather shaken and bemused. He leaned against the wall to think for a moment. Even dinner could not draw him from his thoughts, for he remained withdrawn and pensive even whilst chewing and swallowing, and choking on a bite which was too large. He then slept on his considerations, and they were a might more comfortable than his ragged little bed.
He arose in the morning with a new sense of purpose and interest.
Some time later there were shouts of horror from the Bucket house, and Mrs. Bucket stormed up to Mr. Wonka's office to have it out with him.
"He said you spoke to him about physical love!"
"I did mention it in passing, dear lady, and I apologize, but it wasn't explicit."
"Wasn't explicit! He said you used the word 'horniness'!"
"I was speaking," said Mr. Wonka mildly, "of rhinos."
"Rhinos!"
"Yes! Large animals, they live in Africa and possess horns."
"I know what rhinos are," shouted Mrs. Bucket irately.
"Please, dear lady, you are foaming at the mouth and the froth is getting all over my papers." Wonka adjusted his desk slightly, trying to protect his notebook with his arms. "May I ask what got you so worked up?"
"My son," said Mrs. Bucket, "just brought home," said Mrs. Bucket, "one of your," said Mrs. Bucket, "workers," said Mrs. Bucket, "who calls herself Gladys," "said Mrs. Bucket, "and he says she is his girlfriend!"
Wonka smiled slightly.
"Well," he said, to Mrs. Bucket's total confusion, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose—" And, rising, he bussed Mrs. Bucket towards the door, the dreamy look back in his eyes. Shutting it securely behind her, he ventured back to the desk and pressed the intercom.
"Cynthia? Yes, will you tell Doris she can come down now? Yes, and tell her to bring the handcuffs. Thank you."
Releasing the button, he sank back in his chair and gave a contented sigh.
Well, perhaps love wasn't quite so difficult after all.