"Bob's Book": The Beginning of Chapter Two

 

Chapter Two: The Department of Extranatural Affairs (This Draft: 8/4/2021)

 

     We all stayed together at Aunt Hannah’s for a couple of weeks, then Pa and I headed for Washington on the Black Cricket Coach. The last thing Daisy told me before we left was, “Don’t do anythin’ foolish, Bob.”

I had everything I owned in the world packed up in a dark green carpet bag. It wasn’t much, as I had had very little chance of accumulating things as we moved from place to place. Pa had even less, as he basically travelled in the clothes he stood up in, the long shirt under his waistcoat doubling as a night gown and the few tools of his trade packed away neatly in every pocket from coat to britches.

As we rolled along Pa took the opportunity to tell me a few details about the people he worked with in the Department, and some of the tales about them. Pa had often regaled us with stories about the cases and the creatures he had encountered or heard about, but the narratives he told now were about his fellow agents, and, in his accounts, they seemed as fabulous as any of the oddities that they investigated. I listened intently, as closely as I ever had to any of his words about monsters or ghosts, because I knew that soon my life would be entangled with these people. I felt comforted that I would have Pa to guide me.

The most important, of course, was Mr. Samuel Frobisher, the Head of the Department. I had met him, of course, years ago, and through the eyes of youth had not been very impressed. In fact, I had thought him to be a cold-hearted, brass-fronted rascal. Pa opened several new sides to him that I had never heard before.

It was Mr. Samuel Frobisher who had established the Department of Extranatural Affairs in the first place. Mr. Samuel Frobisher had known all the great men of the Revolution personally, from Benjamin Franklin to John Adams to Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, who had endorsed the founding of the Department. It was Mr. Samuel Frobisher who had to constantly fight for the continued existence of the Bureau of Shadows, as it was known. And it was Mr. Samuel Frobisher who had in an odd way presided over the meeting of Ma and Pa. Without him, according to Pa, I might not have existed at all.

The thought certainly made me uncomfortable. The more Pa talked about this canny man, the more I wondered how much he might have divined about my attitude at the time of our meeting. Mr. Samuel Frobisher, in fact, began to loom like an almighty bogeyman in my mind. If he was responsible for my beginning, what kind of power might he not have over my continuing survival? And what did he think of me? I hesitantly brought up the matter during the lull after one of Pa’s anecdotes.

“Now, Bob, you shouldn’t go worrying about that any,” he smiled. “It was Mr. Frobisher approved of you joining the Bureau two years before the official age limit. I did have to have quite a jaw with him, but I think it was because he wanted to be sure I wasn’t offering you up on the altar of parental ambition. And we do need more agents. The country’s growing all the time.”

He settled back in his seat and stuck his thumbs in his vest pockets.

“You probably won’t see a lot of him anyway. Too busy with the business side of the Bureau to bother with the level you’ll be on. You’ll have a little more to do with Mr. Williams, the Department Secretary, but as you’ll be an apprentice, even more to do with the agents, and they are a motley crew. Every one a character.

“There’s some that take a scientific approach, and more high-and-dry investigators you won’t find anywhere else. Some are just lion-tamers by nature, and they draw cases like lightning. There are plodders as methodical as you please, and dramatists who feel their way to the solution by sheer empathy. Probably the strangest kind you’ll meet is the one who is deadly afraid of the unknown but can’t resist prodding it like a tiger in a cage. One poor fellow I know simply dotes on the idea of the weird but hasn’t found a real case just yet. Luck of the draw, says I.”

“How would you describe the kind of agent you are?” I asked curiously.

“Oh, well I … ” he began, but he didn’t finish, for suddenly the coach jangled to a halt, and with a breathless lurch we had arrived at the looming offices of the Department of Extranatural Affairs.

It stood there, a three-story red brick building with white trim, with a right and left wing attached to a central smaller section topped with a triangular pediment. There were about six chimneys to each wing, smoking in the autumn air, and an enormous semicircular window in the top floor of the main building. Some bare skinny trees planted in the yard told me it had not been around long.

We got down from our coach. I carried my little grip, and it seemed small enough equipment in the face of the adventure I was starting. Pa strode right up towards the front door, but I lagged a bit behind him. I guess I was in awe at finally seeing the fabled place he’d spoken so much about. I goggled at the building as I approached, one hand holding my hat on as I craned my neck up to take it all in, then I stopped in my tracks. In the top crescent window, there was a shadowy figure. Even as I looked it moved out of sight.

Pa noticed I had stopped. He turned and beckoned.

“Come on, Bob.”

I shrugged and caught up with him. We went clomping up the steps together.

[And here I found out a fact that I had forgotten. Although the rest of the chapter was "finished" in a certain sense, it was finished in a "script" form, as if written for film. It had actions and dialogue and descriptions, but needed putting into a more literary format. That is my goal for the foreseeable future: to translate the script into paragraphs, and to do so a page a day. This will keep me from being overwhelmed with the task and nudge me back into that "Bob" frame of mind. Again, any feedback would be appreciated  - but especially positive or creative!]