Resonance

Chapter Four

A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

A violent man enticeth his neighbour, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.

He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things: moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass.

– Proverbs 16:28-30 (King James Version)

"Some say idle hands are the devil's workshop," said Colonel Wainwright Montgomery Burns to his adopted grandson and heir. "Flim-flam! Idle hands are the poor man's workshop. Idle lips keep you from incriminating yourself before a court of law. Pitting your underlings against each other spares you their ire. A duly-considered rumor can eviscerate your competitors before they eviscerate you. Wickedness is a solitary yet profitable business, and it behooves you not to lead others into sin – best to keep them good, meek little sheep who won't revolt or stab you in the back."

1902 – Springfield Cemetery

Monty Burns, a child of eight years, stood in the cemetery with only three other mourners – a man in his early forties, his wife, and their ten-year-old son, a boy with chestnut hair and a pince-nez upon the bridge of his nose. Reverend Elijah Lovejoy presided and, seeing no one else was coming, commenced the ceremony. As he began the eulogy, Monty wondered with a hint of sadness why so few people had bothered to show up.

"And so we are gathered here to pay our final respects to Winfield Marshall Smithers, a man who devoted his life to the service of his friend and employer, Colonel Wainwright Montgomery Burns – wait, that can't be right..." He shuffled through the papers. "Dear God, it is!" He saw the irritated faces of the four mourners, then quickly tried to recover his composure and resume reading the prepared eulogy, which he apparently had not bothered to read ahead of time. "A loving father and pillar of the community – I am sorry, I cannot read this prevaricating piffle." He threw the papers to the ground and handed some money to the man. "Take your fee back; my soul is worth more to me."

The priest's dismissal of his family's most loyal servant distressed young Monty. Dear Smithers had always been such a delight, regaling them with stories of bygone days in his lovely Southern accent. Then again, not even the Colonel himself had deigned to show up for the service. The man took the papers from the ground and continued reading, as naturally and unperturbed as though the priest had not fled in disgust at the deceased's association with Wainwright Montgomery Burns. After he had finished, they laid flowers at the grave and bowed their heads in silent prayer. Once they had lifted their heads again, Monty approached the young boy. "Did you know Smithers well?"

"No. He was my grandfather, though." It occurred to Monty then that his Smithers had spent so much time at the Burns estate, he'd spent more time with the Burns family than with his own. "I'm Ellsworth, but friends call me Elzy."

"I'm Montgomery, but friends call me Monty." They shook hands. "I'll miss him. He was a dear friend of our family."

"Why didn't your father come, then?"

"He makes a point not to be seen caring for commoners such as yourselves." Seeing disdain flash in Elzy's eyes, he said, "But my father and I don't always see eye to eye. Actually, he's my grandfather." They both looked to the grave and stood in silence for a minute, when Monty turned to Elzy and said, "He was always kind to me." He looked to his shoes. "He was the only one who truly cared." Even his loving, natural parents hadn't loved him enough to give half a damn that he'd chosen to leave them to live with Wainwright. But Winfield – he had acted as the archetypal kindly grandfather whereas the Colonel had acted as the archetypal evil old man. Where the Colonel would tell him to walk off a broken leg rather than pay a medical fee to have it properly set, Winfield Smithers would discreetly take him to a clinic and have him treated at his own expense from his meager salary. "He always cared."

1922 – Berlin, Germany

Young men drifting through the darkened streets in solitude had many options to alleviate the ache of a heart wounded by woman's spurning. Monty Burns, a young man nearing thirty, stalked the streets among them, seeking not a good time so much as a time less loathsome. He approached one of the many ladies of the evening about on the street corners that night. "Psst. Are you one of the belles-de-nuit?"

"I have what you're looking for, if you have what I'm looking for." Somehow, he sincerely doubted she had what he was looking for.

"Very well. Come with me," he said, motioning to his car. "I have a room at the hotel."

He guided her into his room, and she sat on the bed and took off her shoes, then lifted the hem of her skirt. He drew in a deep breath and sighed. His grandfather had managed a brothel and many times derided him for his shy attitude around girls. Upon confessing his devastation at Lyla's rejection, his grandfather had advised him that if she wouldn't let him take her, he had to go out and find a girl he could take. That would set things right.

"So... I suppose we should get started. I'll begin by undoing the buckle to my shoe."

"Take as long as you need. You're paying by the hour."

Burns shivered. This was the one kind of transaction that made him feel lower, not higher. She truly didn't care for him; he was merely another customer to her. "What's your name?"

"You can call me Elise."

He tugged at one of her stockings from the knee, sliding it down to the ankle. The whole enterprise felt mechanical. He reached his hand up her thigh, then winced and withdrew. "No, I can't do it! What is the fun if I'm not even desirable enough to find a woman who really cares for me?" He turned away from her and threw her stocking back at her. "Leave!"

"Fine. But you took up my time, and you owe me for it."

"Very well, take it! Just get out of my sight," he said, shoving a fistful of Marks at her. Once she'd shut the door behind her, he opened his wallet and stared into Lyla's eyes. Would it have been such a tall order? Could he have done the unthinkable and thought selflessly of others each day? He shook his head. "I've been adrift much too long if I'm entertaining such fanciful notions."

1930 – Springfield Cemetery

"We are gathered here today to remember the life of Wayland Gardner Smithers, a celebrated Civil War veteran and a pillar of the community, who at the age of eighty-six died peacefully in his home in the woods where he had lived alone since his companion Deforest Buck McCoy passed away two years ago, also at the age of eighty-six. He was by all accounts a good man, a kind man..."

Monty Burns approached the Smithers family gathered around the grave and stood behind them until the eulogy had concluded. The Reverend led them in a prayer, and Burns, although not the praying type, joined in. "Amen," they said, ending the prayer. As the Reverend gave condolences to the individual mourners, Burns turned to Waylon and his father and said, "He seemed like a good man." Waylon and Elzy nodded, eyes facing the ground. "He reminded me of his uncle Winfield." That was enough to get the Smithers' eyes off their feet. Wayland's father and his uncle had parted ways a while before the Civil War had begun, and once the war had started, they had declared each other enemies and never spoke or met again. It had been a major point of contention between Ellsworth and his father, who insisted the man's service to the Colonel didn't reflect his true opinions. He was first and foremost a loyal man, and loyalty was the highest virtue.

"We don't speak of that man," said Elzy.

"But why?"

"He was an evil man whose existence besmirched the good name of the Smithers family."

But he sang to me... he thought, but he could not express it, simply averted his eyes and nodded slightly. How could Winfield Smithers have been evil? He had not known evil to be kind, and yet, there was no prescript against it, so he couldn't rule out the possibility. He surveyed the crowd. Almost everyone there was a Smithers, as Wayland had lived a relatively solitary life, with one notable exception. "Stanton," he said, approaching the young lad of twenty-seven years. "What brings you here?" He shook his hand.

"I'm here as Clayton's guest."

"And how is Lloyd? Humors in proper balance, I trust?"

"I suppose you could say that."

"Last I heard, he was working on mounting an expedition with Cliff."

"He reneged on that. He said he didn't trust your brother."

"A smart man, your father. A smart man, indeed." He returned to Waylon, who had just finished talking to the priest, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Should you ever need something... or someone... you can come to me anytime." And with that, he walked away.

At Springfield University that week, they spoke of Farnsworth's work in cathode ray tubes and Fleming's isolation of penicillin, of the dire state of the stock market and the prospects for the future of the coal market, the way they always had discussed current events.

Saturday was different.

Waylon ran up to the gate of Burns Manor, a heavy, weighted down rucksack jostling around his back as the sun hung low in the sky behind him. He ran as a way to quell his anger as opposed to the goal being to quicken his pace. When he reached the gate guard, he said in weary, panting breaths, "I'd like to see... Mr. Burns... please. I'm –"

The guard opened the gate. "Mr. Burns has granted you access to his estate whenever you find yourself here, Waylon."

"Thank you," he said, running up the hill. Once he reached the top, he rang the doorbell and waited for a few minutes until Mr. Burns peered through a window, then swung the doors open.

"Waylon, my boy, so good to see you! How has your day been so far?"

"Um... I have something to discuss with you."

"But of course. Would you care for some tea?"

"Uh – yes, sir, I'd like that, actually."

"Come with me," he said, leading him down a hall into a kitchen, where he filled a whistling kettle with water. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing to a small, round, wooden table with a white lace cloth stretched elegantly over the top. Waylon sat. "So, what is it you came to talk to me about?"

"I'd rather wait until you're done there and our tea is in the pot."

"Oh. Very well, then." He stood impatiently by the stove, then looked again at Waylon, whose eyebrows arched in distress, then back to the kettle. Once the kettle finally whistled, he turned off the stove and poured the water into a teapot on the table, then sat, elbows on tabletop, and said, "The tea is steeping, now tell me what has you on tenterhooks."

"Sir, I – what would you say if someone you knew – if a man you knew – if he had been found..." He glanced anxiously at the teapot, its contents still mostly plain water and still much too hot to drink. "If it turned out he..."

"Out with it, man! If he what?"

"If he were in love with another man." He reached his hand for the teapot handle, then brought it back, reminding himself it wasn't yet ready.

"Why, Waylon, what I would tell him," he said, interlocking his fingers and resting his chin on them as he stared intensely into Waylon's eyes, "is that he should pursue what his heart desires."

Waylon's eyes opened wide in shock, and then his lips stretched into an open-mouthed smile. "You really think so, sir?"

"I wouldn't think anything else."

"I'm glad you think that. My father, on the other hand," he said as his brows creased in a disdainful scowl, "is not so enlightened."

"He doesn't approve of adhesive love?"

"Approve? He can't abide it. Not even in his own uncle Wayland!"

"Wayland?"

"He said he was ashamed to have named me for him."

"He had relations with..."

"Deforest was his lover, yes. Since the war." Burns poured him some tea. "He had letters. Love letters they'd written each other. My father burned them all. Or so he thought. I found one wedged between the pages of a book of poems. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I went looking for his diary to find out more, and I asked where it was and – he burned it, my father actually burned it. And all the tintypes with Deforest in it. I started screaming at him, for desecrating history like that, and he said Wayland was the one who desecrated our good name. A man he spent his whole life worshipping, practically! And now his name is mud." He sipped from his tea that was really too hot to be sipped.

"Elzy always did strike me as a hard man. And you know I'm not a soft-hearted fellow."

"I thought I'd at least have Clayton on my side, but I guess if he wants to be an ignorant hick, then that's what he'll be."

"He despises him, too?"

"I don't think so. Not really. But he just blindly agrees with whatever father says. When I asked him whether he thought he should've burned the letters and the photographs, he just nodded and echoed father's words: 'No degenerate belongs in the Smithers household.' It's like he doesn't have an original thought in his head if it isn't Ellsworth Smithers-approved. He's a far cry from the Clayton I grew up with and admired, that's certain." He took a sip of the tea that was still too hot, yet he took the burning hot water into his mouth anyway. "So now, he thinks I am, too, and he sent me away."

"Are you?"

"No, sir, absolutely not."

"I haven't seen you with a girlfriend in the last two years I've known you."

"I've just been busy with my studies. You know how much I strive for excellence."

"I see." He timidly sipped his own tea. "You could stay here, if you like."

"Oh, thank you, sir, but I've already arranged to stay with my aunt."

"And what is her take on this?"

"I'm convinced she is the same way as he was. She and Maybelle. They've said as much before. Said they have no desire for marriage when they have each other, that sort of thing." The corner of his mouth twisted in a wry smile. "For a family so full of 'degenerates,' I wonder if it isn't people like my father and I who are besmirching the Smithers family name."

"You besmirch nothing." He looked away. "You're much too strong a thinker and a spirit to besmirch any name. No, it's others' names who besmirch you." He looked back up at Waylon. "Now, let me show you to the guest room."

"Sir, I already said I'm staying with my aunts."

"Very well. Let me call a chauffeur. You're ill-suited for manual labor, lifting such an onerous load as this," he said, prying a shoulder strap from his back. "What are you carrying in this, bricks?" he said as he struggled with the bag.

Waylon lifted it easily. "No, sir, just a few of my personal affects. Mostly books. Though you could use them as bricks if you really needed to, I suppose," he said with that slight chuckle that indicated he had hoped to make a joke but was fully aware he had failed in this enterprise.

He was so studious and responsible, on the verge of boringly so, yet he managed to maintain an enlivened spirit that sustained a joie de vivre even through difficult circumstances. "Yes. Remember this, Waylon: if you ever get into trouble, I'll see to it that you are safe from harm."

"Thank you, Mr. Burns. I'll remember that."