Of 'Elf & Bear' (and Quite a Bit of Autobiography)

Of ‘Elf & Bear’

Elf & Bear began as a drawing that I did in Mrs. Hardcastle’s English III class in high school, which would put it in the 1979 -1980 school season. Something about the pair as drawn, the bear obviously hungry and mischievous, and the elf dignified and fussy, appealed to me as a pair of characters. You must understand I had not set out to depict them with such characteristics; those were revealed in the drawing and when it was done appeared almost inevitable, their persons solidly (to me) There.

So it appeared to the few people that I showed the picture to, especially my brother John. We both agreed that here were some characters I could hang a story around if I could just come up with a suitable tale. The proper narrative never presented itself at the time, however, though I did produce several more pictures of the pair that were of varying quality. I also made a small clay figure of the bear, wearing his muffler; that fell apart over the years. The bear was always just called Bear, but the elf for a time was named Hopgood (of Hopgood Hill), until I finally settled on Thornbriar (of the Field Folk).

And there the matter stood for almost twenty years, simmering away on the back burner while I struggled through life, until the last year of the twentieth century. By then I was in a pretty good place. I was living at home, taking care of Mom as always, but finally getting recompensed by the government for doing so. I was 36 years old and I felt that if I was ever to be a writer it was time I buckled down to it. I had two likely matrixes for a book, the story I called “The American Fantasy,” which would later become A Grave on Deacon’s Peak, and 'Elf & Bear’, for which I never did find a satisfactory title. Though “AF” had a definite storyline (delivered in an actual dream), I settled down to work on Elf & Bear, not knowing where it would go.

I started on the old principle that if you write one page a day, by the end of the year you’ll have a 365-page book to work on, to revise, rewrite, or finish. I began writing (longhand) in a Staples Wireless 1-Subject red notebook, college ruled, with perforated edges for easy removal of pages, and when I filled one up (not always using every one of the 80 pages for the book), I would begin another one. By the end of the project, I had about 10 notebooks in a stack. But much would happen before then.

Because as I neared the end of the book and was happily contemplating finally finishing a creative project, Mom’s health took a turn for the worst and she died after a few weeks, suffering from undiagnosed liver problems. She was only 56. The shock and the grief of her death overshadowed any creative efforts for quite a while. Being able to present her with the complete book had been one of the impulses that had driven me forward, to show her that I had some little talent, that I wasn’t just marking time until I died. After what seemed like forever, I pulled myself up and completed the book, partly as a tribute to her love and faith in me.

What also helped enormously was that I was able to buy a computer when Uncle Bernie at last concluded the sale of Nanny’s house, and what was to have been Mom’s share of the money was divided up between Pop and us kids. In a burst of hopefulness, I finished Elf & Bear, and then began transcribing it into computer files, rewriting as I went along. But I also should have been making a paper copy as I went, however, as the day came (before I could even complete that part of the project) my computer fatally crashed and once more stalled my progress in despair and gloom.

That is, until Mike moved back into the house with me and Pop. By that time, I had a new computer and, in an effort to perhaps at last sell my book, Mike helped me to transcribe and polish the chapters, he being an editor of no mean talent and skill. We spent many hours with me reading the manuscript out loud to him and he tapping it out, making suggestions as we went along, until at last Elf & Bear stood whole and done. I made a paper copy and a thumb drive, and there it was at last, safe and sound. While we were trying to figure how and where to shop it around, I actually began the first chapter of “American Fantasy”, with Mike providing several ideas and notes on how it might proceed. It looked like I was on my way. Then Pop died.

Though Pop left me the house, I did not have the resources to keep it up, especially in the wake of the flood that had destroyed our well. I partially moved into Susan’s guest house to help watch the kids and to cook for them, while Mike stayed at Loop Drive to care for things and struggle along with his job until something could be done about the water. Then Mike suddenly died, just short of two years after Pop, and without his impetus to help me publish, Elf & Bear as a project went into eclipse, and there it remains.

I have, of course, written and published A Grave on Deacon’s Peak (AKA “American Fantasy”) since, and every now and then I think about Elf & Bear as a possibility for publication, but I tend to come to the conclusion that it’s probably not worth it.  It is rather uneven. Every chapter is its own short story (except the three chapters about Bear’s brother), making it episodic in nature, and if there is a through line or a theme it is difficult to discern. Here is how I would rate the chapter episodes:

Chapter One Goblins: B

Chapter Two Apples: B+

Chapter Three Witches: C-

Chapter Four Inspector Elmtree: C-

Chapter Five The Doll: A

Chapter Six Midsummer Fair: B-

Chapter Seven The Flood: A+

Chapter Eight Athenor: A

Chapter Nine Bear’s Brother: B+

Chapter Ten The Mission: B

Chapter Eleven The Rescue: A

Chapter Twelve Home Again: B

Of all the chapters, I believe I would be most inclined to post The Doll and The Flood as standalones here on the Niche. Athenor, though I think it is rather good, I consider best to be read in context.

And there, as I say, it stands. I shall always think fondly of it despite the trials it has cost me and be grateful for what skills I developed while working on it. Whether I shall ever think it worth the effort to get it up to where I think it ready for publication I cannot say. It has already undergone so many changes and twists on the path I dare not prophesy what the future holds. Perhaps, after I am gone, some niece or nephew will pat it into shape and publish it in memory of me.  

 

A Position Paper on Ghosts: Not Friday Fiction

 

GHOSTS I'VE NEVER KNOWN

 

"WE have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability."

~G.K. Chesterton: Tremendous Trifles.

 

It is a peculiar fact that just about every member of my family has had a ghostly experience or a tale of weird encounters, while I have never experienced anything that I haven't found totally explicable. The peculiar thing is that there's nothing in my beliefs or philosophy that denies the possibility of ghosts; I've just never seen one.

And really, I live in one of the most reputedly haunted areas in our little town. Just across the street is a haunted hotel that's been featured on TV, news articles, and websites around the world. The house I live in (through no virtue of my own) is over one hundred and thirty years old. My nieces and nephews think there are ghosts here.

Lord knows, I've got plenty of dead relatives who could come visiting. It didn't use to be that way. For a long time, nobody I was close to ever passed away.  But, of course, that couldn't last forever. I even knew lots of evil assholes, now passed, who could come a-haunting.

I have plenty of hypotheses about my situation. One is that everyone is bullshitting me about their paranormal experiences. The "professional" hauntings at the hotel seem like pretty obvious money-making endeavors. My favorite theory is that God knows I'll drop down dead with fright if I see a spook, so protects me from that.

Orthodox Christianity seems divided on the existence of ghosts. One school of thought says when you're dead, you're either in Heaven or Hell, no vacations. Another tradition says the dead pop in and out for special reasons. A lot of opinion hinges on how they interpret the whole Samuel and the Witch of Endor episode.

Of course, the materialist philosophy says we're all just meat-machines. We see a ghost, that's just something interfering with the machine, a glitch in the brain or a hoax or a misinterpretation of the facts.

What do I think? I think all my ghost-seeing relatives seem sincere. They're not fools, though I'm sure they could be fooled. I'm not even sure when they describe their "ghosts" if it's dead people, and not, say, demons up to some kind of mischief. That's certainly been one popular interpretation of hauntings. In which case thinking it was really ghosts would be almost comforting.

And, if they are dead people, why hang around? I remember reading a ghost story by Charles Dickens (or was it Mark Twain?) where the narrator, after getting on comfy terms with an apparition, asks the ghost why spirits, no longer hindered by fleshly concerns, and having the entire planet, if not the universe, to roam, limit themselves to dreary places like cemeteries and abandoned houses that can only be unwholesome reminders of their death? The ghost realizes the justice of this argument and leaves for greener pastures.

So, ghosts: real or nay? I can only say, with Samuel Johnson, "[F]ive thousand years have now elapsed ... and still  it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it."

One of My Old Rants

 

May 7, 2017: The other day, when Susan and I were discussing threatened suicide, and I said it's just something we all did to a greater or lesser degree, Susan said "He's a Babel, and we Babels just hate ourselves." It suddenly struck me, not as a surprising truth of course, but because it must be more than 20 years since I've heard her refer to herself as a Babel. It got me thinking about us and our perception of ourselves as People with a Special Destiny.

It reminded me, or made clear to me, that we always have considered ourselves as not like other people. Even our ambitions were unusual: if Mike was to be a writer, he had to be a writer unlike all others; Kenny an actor not on the beaten path; even Susan wants the bourgeois lifestyle with a depth and a difference.

It is our Outsider status. We simply cannot pledge wholeheartedly to some stereotype, and when we have followed that stereotypical way it leads us into difficulties. It has something to do with our quixotic Honor, and our Honesty. It is our inability to agree with that awful author of quotes, Unknown (and rightfully unknown, for no great person would say it), who seems content with their bastard or bitch persona, and if you can't take it, well, that's your problem. We always stand in judgement of ourselves, and we always consider accusations no matter where they come from.

Much of this is inherited through judgmental forms of religion with no real acts of absolution, only acknowledgement of failure and (hoped for, but never confirmed) forgiveness. This always assumed a here-and-now resolution: if you were right, you were rewarded, but if bad things happen, you must be wrong and thus undeserving. It's that awful prosperity gospel and its assumptions. Paradoxically it quashed the impulse to rise, with its disdain for worldly achievement, for mere economical rewards.

We are unsatisfied with our status, and ludicrously measure ourselves after the most statistically unlikely heroes, people whose triumphs are unique and unprecedented and unparalleled. Our image of perfection casts dust on what we do achieve, and can sabotage us as we try to soar, or even as we try to merely flap from tree to tree.

And we caught the Cyrano outlook. The white plume. Standing not high, but alone. We might be deplorables, but we had qualities others do not. We were not bums or trash, but dreamers with standards, though in exile and wanderers. We hope for the best but expect the worst, and always look for the pill wrapped in the lunchmeat of any good experience. Call no man happy, lest the Gods be jealous.

It gives us a kind of stubborn pride that may well sabotage our chances of success in life. We refuse to bend when we think we are in the right, refuse to eat shit now to continue to have pie later, we stand on our dignity when a little compromise might smooth the way, and we will not toe that party line. It makes people who are more supple with their principles uncomfortable and our bosses uneasy about our presence.

Of course, our humility reminds us that that we're probably not unique, that everyone considers themselves special, that everyone is the hero of their own story. When we do fail (and we do fail big), we condemn ourselves but also excuse ourselves that we at least shot for the stars. The sneaking feeling prevails and whispers that, Somehow, we do have a special destiny and are held to a higher standard, perhaps only as a step to something amazing, but even then we consider we will be a vital link whose necessity will one day be recognized and maybe even celebrated.

[I might add, at this late date, that we'd almost prefer physical suicide to existential suicide, that is, actions that would kill what we perceive ourselves to be, if we are convinced we are in the right.]

What I Did Today (In 2019)

 

2/25/2019: Got up 5 AM, got dressed, read Bible, [prayed the]Rosary, and before I knew it, ‘twas 6:45 AM. Caught up Diary. Much of a Monday muchness. Did laundry (including my Copperfit and Ace bandage). Watched some Practice (have gotten to the place I started watching). Wrote several pages on ED [Eye of Darkness] then sent the new batch to John with a begging note (now he’s scheduled to come by tomorrow at 2:30 PM to give me a trim). Much YouTube, FaceBook, and WWF[Words With Friends]. Reading BH [Bleak House](amusing to see Dickens writing as he imagines a girl would). On a whim for the first time in a while looked on E-Bay, Amazon, and Etsy, particularly on a quest for Dwarf action figures. A little after 8 PM heard a very fast and piercing electronic rendition of Jingle Bells, seeming to come from the Neighbors-over-the-Creek. An odd season for it. Which reminds me: a fairly nice day with clouds coming and going, with one burst of hard rain just at 3 PM or so, lasting about 10 minutes. Enough to muddy the ground again.

Had the strange observation that it must be some months since I disturbed my shelves to read anything. Or gone into the toy bins. Or watched a DVD, except at Kam’s request when the cable was out. Don’t know if that “juice” is taken up by writing, or the Kindle, or even by RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or Catholic training]. I wonder what life will be like after the book comes out. Will it be much different? Will any GOOD come out of it, or just added bother? I can’t imagine it really, though unlikely dreams and fantasies pass through my mind. I’m having a lot of fun with the Morg stories, but they seem right now only fit for private entertainment.  I’m not only writing them for John, maybe, but for the boys we used to be; playings, like he said.

John e-mail: I love Thron's jest about his future, and his old Morg wisdom! The Morgish- ness of both he and Belmok is really fun. A nice installment, indeed! Talk more tomorrow.

Notes

I was into watching The Practice at the time, which I was interested in as a sort of prequel to Boston Legal, which I was enormously amused by and which played on several channels and times (or so I remember it; it was at least regularly available). It was a strange time of suspension: waiting for A Grave on Deacon's Peak to come out and heading for my baptism and reception into the Church. I was not on Medicare yet and relied heavily on John's paying me $20 a month for every thirty pages written. 

Action Figures to Be Noted

 

Gotta love an action figure with a jack-o-lantern and a bottle of beer.

Storm in the Valley

 

STORM IN THE VALLEY

 

A thunderstorm blunders blindly into the valley,

Feeling out the floor with his forked white stick;

Stumbles, grumbling, over the hills and ricks,

Belaboring his path to either side.

 

Trees bow and blaze before his fumbling stride

And grazing cows amble off in dumb amaze.

The creatures of the field press down and gaze.

Birds flounder, thunder-startled, in the air.

 

The old mummer wanders on, unaware,

Humming a tune in his cracked old tone.

He walks along his windy path alone,

Murmuring of far lands yet to be.

Notes:

I wrote the first version of this poem in my creative writing class in college, so that puts it in the early eighties. I've tinkered with it, on and off through the years, as I think it's one of my better poems. In fact, I've changed one word for this publication of it.

Enter RUMOR, Clothed in Many Tongues

After (thankfully) not hearing from Amazon's The Rings of Power for over a year, a list of potential spoilers has emerged on 4chan. People who claim to have some idea of the show's progress say that at least 40% of it is accurate. Even 40% of this drek would be appalling, but not surprising. I have a theory that Amazon has released these rumors itself, including the most horrendous farrago of nonsense, so that when (and if; there seems to be some hope that it will be cancelled entirely) the 2nd season is released folks will say "Well, at least they didn't do this other stuff," and then what they have done will seem less terrible in comparison.

Even the phrase 'long held fan theory' is a lie.