...so he sat sadly still in the darkness of the night, wishing he could fix what was spoken
"Fredrick, quit fidgetting," his mother said coaxingly, "and stand up straight."
Fredrick was a small boy, age 9, and his willing approach to life could win over anyone in the room. His smile was like sun rays pouring into anothers soul, and his kindness was worldly and humble. His one fatal flaw was is lack of self control over his own emotions. He was a willing participant in life, but not a willing person to open up how he felt to others. Most days he would resolve to love something, something profound, even if he had no idea how it worked. His curiosity got the better of him though, for on this very day his curiosity had landed him in the office of the headmaster of his school. He had no idea how and why this had happened. He was a model student, most other students should strive to be him.
"Yes Ma'am," he whispered, "can i have a piece of candy mommy."
"Afterwards," she abrupted.
His mother was pretty. Not in the beauty queen pretty, but in the natural beauty that comes to so few people. She was never quite the pretty that would make herself known in a room, but more so a pretty that had the sun on her path so that others could marvel in it. She was a humble 30ish, had seen the world, and dared to dream, and had learned to love and settled for Fredricks father an appropriate age. She had a constant drive to want to see her son succeed, but she also had a darker side that few saw, other than her husband and Fredrick. She was always apologetic for outbursts, and some say this is where Fredrick inherited his incapability to control his emotions. But she was loving when she needed to be, and stern most other times.
"Your son, is quite incapable of interacting with the other students, frankly we see this as a problem," said the headmaster.
He was quite tall for being a young man, mid to late 20's. He had taken over the school this year after having successfully turning around a charter school in the Midwest. The academics of this school were appauling to him, and he set himself to work on criteria outlines, and creating a regiment for the children to follow in the classrooms. He liked order, he knew order would make these kids who they needed to be.
"What does that mean, he's just got an over active imagination, shouldn't that be looked upon as unique. So what if he can't get along with other kids, maybe the other kids just can't get along with him, don't you think that might be possible." His mother was always quite capable of making the situation less about Fredrick and more about society. She questioned alot seeing years of the ridiculousness in other people in her travels. She knew there was art, and it usually lay in the more dormant souls of the world.
"I just think he needs to be coaxed out of this bubble he's placed himself in. I will however admit, his teachers have come to me and told me of his amazing ability to express himself on paper. I've read a few of his essays in his creative writing classes, and i might say he has much potential at such a young age. However if he doesn't get any social outlet, he'll be doomed like so many other writers of this time." As the headmaster says this, Fredericks mother looked at him, stared in a gaze he had so rarely seen from her. She was quite capable of making up faces that he had never experienced, this seemed to be one of them.
"Well, i don't know if he's quite capable of being fixed. He's always been this way, and sometimes its scared me, but i've always loved him just the same. And if you say he'll turn out terrible in the path he's walking, then all i can say is he'll make it through. I know my son, his willingness to survive is an instinct his father instilled in him at the very beginning. Now Fredrick, I want you to try to make friends, if anything i want you to try to speak in class other than the answers the teachers want to hear. I want you to imagine noone else is there and to speak, mind you speak when you are spoken too, but i want you to speak from your heart and mind equally."
"Yes Ma'am, may i be excused sir, class is about to begin and Mrs. Dupree doesn't like it when we are late, even when we have a note she still gives us cold stares," said politely.
"Go Fredrick, and hurry, we wouldn't want you to recieve the cold end of a heartless glare." The headmaster pointed to the door and waved his long skeleton fingers in a motion even the deaf could understand.
As Fredrick left, he could still hear his mother talking to the headmaster about future plans. He had no clue what was going to be ahead in life. But he knew that if he didn't accept it, there would be far more trouble than he could imagine. He briskly walked towards Mrs. Dupree's door right as the bell landed. He gave a sigh of relief and sat down. It was only 8am, what else did this day have in store for him.
he awoke with tears
It was the beginning of the year in nineteen hundred & eighty two. The facts were simple and plain. One woman, and one man came together the previous year to make a child. And this child was going to be the bundle of their lives. The father wanted a girl, a beautiful girl, that he could love and protect from the moment she was born to the moment he walked her down the aisle to man of her dreams. And this father could then say to his son-in-law he approves, he wanted that, to approve. The mother of this child cared neither specific gender, she would love whatever they had. They decided early on they would be surprised, so they never had any ultrasounds pointed in their direction. They loved the spontaneity of this gift, their love for each other was in fact the same.
They met in a bar. The father was quite the shy man, tall, scrawny, and warisome of his own chances. He saw her across the room, and it was almost like she lit up the place. It took him nearly an hour, several whiskey sours, and a couple glances from her to finally get up the nerve to stand up, let alone walk over to her. Finally she walked towards him and he towards her. They talked for hours, exchanged numbers, and left going in seperate directions.
The next day, the father had the worst hangover possible, but had the girl of his dreams phone number attached to his mirror in his mothers home. At that moment she was waking, staring at the ceiling, staring at the phone, and waiting. She always waited, she thought the best things in life always came at the moments when you least expected them, but she knew that you had to sometimes wait for these, even if just to remind yourself for a second.
The father had no idea how to approach the girl in the bar, and had an even tougher time calling her on the phone. But little did he know she was willing to talk for as long as he could, as long as he was a gentleman she knew that he would be capable of many things for her.
Soon, if you caught one, you caught both of them. Life had become blissful and spontaneous for the reasons that all young couples have. After only a few months of courtship, the father got on one knee and asked her to marry. She stared at him in dismay, stroked her fingers through his hair, and softly, quietly, as if time stood still, said i do.
After marriage, troubles from pasts haunted them. They felt that if the marriage was devestated by any more deliberate sabatoges it would falter. The love they felt so pure would die away. They decided to have a child. Not as a fix, but as more a reason. The knew they loved each other, and if they loved a child at the same instance, they could stay through it all with fervor and grace, like all happy marriages needed.
It was Spring. He was born into a very cold emergency room, and like a typical child, he cried at the first slap. But, and many nurses who worked that day can explain, the one cry was all he mustered.
memory lane
"I have many qualms about life, more so than possibly anyone i know. Yet i'll still hope for every instance there is a possiblity that things will always turn for the better, and at the same time know they might turn for the worst. I'm known not for the my willingness to forget, but for my ability to forgive and seek forgiveness. As all humans should, this in truth is the essential to life. We will all mess up, we will always say something we shouldn't, at the worst times, and then we all wish we couldn't speak. I know love, i've seen the shallow ends, and i've seen its deep pools, but the more i convince myself otherwise, the less i'm likely to ever see it in a level most mortals do. Not to say that i'm immortal, but my love sure as the sun rises and sets, is there, i know simply from the guilt i have when i want to express it or when i have expressed it. Sometimes things are better left unsaid, and sometimes the unsaid is the worst part."
- Excerpt from "Only You & I Know" by Fredrick Fontenot 1998.
I met Fredrick in the summer of '97 he was already fully into his book that all the critics ended up praising and all the audiences hated. He could not decipher why the normal society could not muster the same ideals he embodied about loves and relationships.
"I think its merely because you always word it too long. The verbage you use it sometimes over the head of the normal reader." I was trying to come up with a decent excuse, but was falling rather short.
"I don't think its that, I just don't think anyone loves from the heart anymore. I think everyone is so wrapped up in their lives, that they forget the truth of life is ultimately out there waiting for you, waiting to tell you exactly. But we don't want exact, we want probably, maybe, and sort of, rather, nothing." Fredrick went on talking.
I never really understood where the boys mind was at, I suppose his heart was always in the right place. But what he never realized was you need both to survive. Especially in a world built for business. Art died a long time ago, its now all just business. The world is owned by Dean Koontz and John Grisham, not by William Shakespeare and John Keats. He never got that, i sometimes don't think he ever will.
sidenote: when do narrators ever have confidence in the peoples lives they are entrusted in telling. Its utterly ridiculous.
the story
My narrator is possibly the worst narrator possible. He never knows how to tell the truth, in its entirely. He merely points out the worst case scenerios, and then cuts them down to possibly the miniscule facts. So I, Fredrick I. Fontenot will tell this part of my story.
Everyone in life has past dealings, we all resolve at the beginnings of our lives to do some ultimate change, and most times we all falter and ultimately succeed. This is a story of one such success, or possibly a glorious failure.
We left my story at age 9, I left, went to class, and decided i would devote myself to study. By age 15, I had already graduated and moved on from my parents home into the city. I went to a luxurious college in middle of one of the more prominent states. I had a full scholarship and was capable of persuing my career in creative writing. by age 19 i had graduated with top honors and was herald as an esteemed writer. I had already published my first novel, and several thesis papers are now apart of the criteria courses at said college that other students should model themselves after.
And here i am now 23. I live in a city with a good friend, who poorly narrates, and while i do publish now and again, i've had a major case of writers block for nearly two years.
Ultimately it came down to the point in my career where i needed to get out what i thought was at the utmost importance. So from this point on in the story I'll be writing, editing, penning, scribbling, and personifying what I think is ultimately my 'cout de tet'. I've probably mispelled that. First law, I am a poor speller, get over it. All great thinkers were poor at basic subjects.
Alas, if at this point in the novella you are bored, I would suggest you not read on. Otherwise, stick around, I'll even let the poor narrator in at some points.
This is for all the marbles.
"Given that we drive more than we dream, I usually suggest one daydreams while driving, as to give possiblity to what lacking instances we have staring at the seventeen Lexus & Honda vehicles in front of us."
- Chapter 7 The Idealistic Youth & The Joyride "Only You Know & I Know" by Fredrick I. Fontenot 1998
the heart is a lonely hunter
Dear Mom,
How are you? Did everything go good with trip to San Franscisco?
I've been meaning to ask you, if i died tomorrow, would you cry at my funeral? I mean, not to sound morbid, but you hardly know me, and we've grown apart in the last few years. I don't even think you are quite capable of making my funeral mixtape. You'd probably put something that you'd like that I hated.
I love you mom. I wish we were closer.
Truely, Fredrick
"I should have had you commited a long time ago," standing over me Fredrick was holding a pillow over my head, hovering it as if he was about to suffocate me.
I felt jostled earlier in the night, but i hadn't realized that my hands were bound in a straight jacket until i moved my arm and realized it was secured to my bedpost.
"How ridiculous of you to tie me to my bed, you really should get ahold of these fits you keep having." i said laughing.
"Fits?! What fits?! I'm merely entertaining myself by watching you squirm in your sheets. You really should wear more clothing at night, I almost caught glimses of things I shouldn't see," he returned the laugh, almost sadistically.
"Ok, the jokes over, let me out of this."
"Why, so you can put more letters I write to my mother in this silly book your obsessed with," Fredrick stared at me in a gaze of indecency, like he was undressing me with his eyes.
"How in the world would you know that unless you broke into my office again and read the draft. What did I tell you about going through my stuff."
Really it didn't matter if he read it or not, I wasn't going to change anything. The truth of Fredrick is he actually gets off on the fact that I'm prying more into his life now than I ever did. He likes the idea that I ask him questions and he gets to use his favorite phrase "no comment" as much as possible.
I went and talked to his mother, and she gave me copies of his letters. I must say he wasn't quite pleased at finding out I visited her, much less now finding out I'm using some of the letters. In fact I can tell by the fact i'm tied to a f*****g bed that I'm not really his best friend at this very moment.
I think I'll let him alone for the day and not bother him. Maybe he'll calm down and realize how childish he's being.
Meanwhile, we can go over what it is that makes Fredrick tick. Love, simply put, l-o-v-e, love. I had met Fredrick after he was coming off a 6 month long relationship with a girl younger than he, who had the body of a duckling (who actually because a swan ironically enough later in life). He was infatuated with her simply because she questioned his beliefs at all times, that and possibly all those mornings before class where they would sneak off to the boiler room to feel sexual parts.
He was heartbroken when I met him, in fact, the longer I've known him, he's always been a bit heartbroken. You can say he's not much of a ladies man. While some have told me in secret that they find him attractive, the mere mention of it to him will cause him to be besides himself with uncomfortability. Oddly enough he's go the ego of a leo and a heart of a pisces. Trouble is he doesn't know which one to be. I'd feel sorry for him if only I wasn't the same way.
It took him nearly two years of coaxing to get him back out of this habit of deliberately destroying any chances with girls. He would find ways to make them leave him simply so he could blame himself, and be content in the fact he was flawed. Of all human beings I've ever met, there is no more a man who feels himself flawed than Fred.
I find it comforting.
Anyways. Around the spring of '00 he found himself completely stupid for a girl, that would ultimately be the biggest let down of his career. She was the reason he started writing again, he philophized that life was essentially begun at this very moment, and it ended the moment he could not afford the emotional discontent she caused him. I think of all the moments in his life, this was his first love. One who to this very day still haunts him.
But his love life doesn't end there. Months later he would start love with a person who'd ultimately lead to the demise of his ideals. Ones he in fact to this very day will talk about but hardly believe in. I find him secretly looking at her picture from time to time, and he at one point tried to apologize and get back in her good graces. She was egotistical and would not have that. I suppose that is the way it goes.
I suppose if we're to talk about just the big moments, we would end there. In fact we could basically talk all day about the way she and he fit together. But happy memories are best that, memories. Aside, from those we have gaps, people who just never realized who he was, and people he never realized. I suppose in the long run, his love life has probably been as exciting as a Stephen King novel. Certainly nothing on the level of Socrates, W. Somerset Maugham, Jane Austen, or Elizabeth Barret Browning. No I can say for the sake of argument. we could end this novella here, and it would be done.
"Can we figure out the points in our lives where everything drastically changes for the worse, or are they yet to come?"
"Fear of a Broken Hearted Disease" Fredrick I. Fontenot unpublished
smile, please smile, i just want you happy
Nothing is ever over,
not until you let it be.
I wrote that once. I thought it was possibly the best thing, more so than the quotes my friend seems to be choosing for this story.
I grew up reading alot of writers that always found themselves looking for the ultimate, the pinnacle of success. Always trying to outdue themselves/each other, rather than just sitting down with a pen and paper, and typewriter, and candle, and just writing for the sake of writing. Like the glory days of poems, prose, and allegories.
No these days its all about the cover price. Its all about how fast someone can read through a book before they realize they don't want to keep it so they'll sell it on Ebay or to their local Half-price books.
Alas, I am merely the type of person who'll latch onto what you don't love. And frankly I find you stupid, but i'm fascinated by what you throw away.
So in essense I know I need you. I need you not to like what you have. You don't need me to like you, you just need me to write more horrible novels for you to sell back. Don't worry, I don't mind, because I know there are many others like me, that wait until you do so. I may not make enough, but its the message, not the pricetag I'm worried about.
Soon, Love will prosper again, and your Denial will be a distant memory.
a man like me
Fredrick lost his mother last night to a heart attack. He told me her last words to him we a quote he treasured so.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence.
It may be that you will not meet again in life. - Jean Paul Richter
I find it meaningful. He cried. In the 8 years I've known him, he's never cried. He used to say, "A man like me doesn't cry, we simply soak in the moment, and hold it for the day when we can let it all out at once."
Always a philosopher.
It was a lovely funeral. Instead of black, Fredrick asked his family to wear something of a pasley, the flowers were babys breath, ironically enough, and lillies. His mother loved lillies.
I never saw so many people show up for a funeral. I think Fredrick invited nearly the entire literary community that was deserving of such an honor. They and there families lined for nearly three miles for the drive to the cemetary.
He really loved that woman. His father stood sadly by his side, stared blankly at his son on occasion, and for once in his life, took his son close to him and hugged him with all his might.
I stood off in the corner, far from the sight of the family. I barely knew his mother, only brief instances when we were younger, and for research recently.
She kept to herself. She and Fredricks father had seperated two years ago due to a long fit of depression in both parties. She lived alone in the house, and he lived in the guest quarters he built when Fredrick was younger.
They still loved each other, but could not depend on each other for comfort. Most times would lead to troubled fights and months of silence.
Fredrick never got over this. I think it showed through.
It rained. He chose 'Lucy in the sky w/ diamonds' as her farewell theme. Mind you the Beatles version not the Elton John version.
She will be dearly missed.
my side of the city
Its been weeks since he's come out of his room.
In all testimonials, the son always takes the death of the mother harder than that of the fathers. Fathers teach sons to be strong, and teach daughters to go on, but mothers. Mothers keep us warm, mothers keep us alive, and mothers are the ones who listen.
I never met my mother, but this is not my book, this isn't about me. Fredrick knew his mother, was close to his mother, and he's taking it like any man would.
Sometimes I envy his ability to express himself, but at the same time, his ability to be reserved are just as grand.
"Fredrick, will you come out of your room. You haven't ate in days. Are you even using the bathroom. You should come out for awhile. Being held up in your room is not healthy."
"Shut up! Go! Just f*****g go, I don't need your simplistic outlook. If I wanted it, I would ask, or I would watch infomercials at 3 in the morning. So just F*****G GO!." I could hear the pain in his voice. His willingness to survive has dwindled.
Alas, I have no idea where to go with this. Anything I write will possibly disconcern Fredrick more. I think he should tell the next instance. But given his current state, thats all up to him.
I'll return sentiments as soon as I get them.
the past presents the future
misery loves company
I haven't left the bed. My feet are numb. My mother is gone. I swore I'd never lose her. I've lost so many, why her.
Fredrick looked up in his cold dark room, and saw what he felt was a demon staring him down. Cold eyes, a sycthe tongue, with dragons scales.
"I'm seeing things, this isn't happening"
"Or is it" the demon disappeared into the dark.
"D****t Fredrick, get out of that f*****g room before I kick the door down. I'm tired of you doing absolutely nothing with your life. You are better than this."
"Am I." Fredrick looked as if he had lost all color in his skin. His eyes were bloodshot, not from lack of sleep, but from too much sleep. His hands were cramped, and holding the pen almost ached to his toes.
His pen began again.
I remember once mother, when i was a child, and you held me against your warm stomach, and i let out a sigh of relief. You asked me what was wrong, and i told you that i loved you, and you said it back, not like you had to, but because you wanted to. why mother. why can't i find a love like you.
Fredrick closed his book. Laid still for a span of what felt like decades, and then slowly crept to the side of the bed.
"Will you stop with all of that annoying pounding at my door. I'm far capable of getting up on my own"
But he wasn't, the moment he tried to stand, his legs shot out from under him and he landed on his right arm, which was already severely sored.
He crawled to the door, unlatched it.
"Call a doctor a*****e."
there is no if
We spent the week in an out of doctors offices. Dentists, orthopedists, podiatrists, you name it we ventured.
Fredrick was damn near death before his will power took one last leap towards recovery. He mumbled incoherantly fo nearly four days after he unlocked the door. Many times about apologizing to his mother for his unwarrented breakdown.
We wandered around town in my days off from my main job, and most times we tried to find things of entertainment.
"Did I ever tell you my theory of half-price books?" said Fredrick."About how there are two types of people, the consumer and the scavenger. The consumer is the one that will go out to the franchise chained bookstores and buy their lattes and their hardbound cover copies of "the catcher in the rye", go home, realize they dislike it and then try to return it to be ulimately denied. And so they reduce themselves to getting half of what it cost them in the first place, almost like a risk investment. Meanwhile the scavenger is always on the prowl, looking for the most unique things, cheaply and efficiently. Most times it doesn't matter if they had ever heard of the media device in their hands. For $3.98 you can get a used copy of a record your mother said you owned as a small child. Meanwhile people pillage Ebay and gain little because that is all risk. No, I prefer being capable of seeing what i'm buying."
He seemed to have this theory down pat, and while I have many times this theory, I figured for at least a little while I would encourage him to try to get back into the swing of things.
"I don't think I'm the same anymore. I think I've resolved alot of what went wrong before, and now I'm starting over. Its a shame that it took my mothers death to realize I've been an a*****e for the last 20 years to most people in my lifespan. In fact, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've ever doubted your capabilities as a writer/narrator/friend. Please accept my dearest apologies." He seemed near crying.
"I accept Fred, don't worry, its always been ok. And it will always be ok."
We all come to an end, & we all end together
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