The closing episode of Notes On the Spec: The Sound and the Fury
The worm oroboros is complete. I have come full circle to eat the original title of the first book for the last chapter of the last book. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner is not just a classic book of literature, it was a breaking point for me. It’s not just an unreliable narrator, it’s a mentally damaged narrator. I remember starting the book when I was in my reading phase, say, senior year in high school. I did most of Hemingway and Steinbeck. I was fishing for a new muse.
I can admit easily that I’ve never read a Faulkner novel cover to cover. I started with As I Lay Dying, with all the dust, and lasy dull quiet afternoons in the deep South. I bounced on that one, effected nonetheless. The Sound and the Fury, however, has been the inspiration for this entire series of books. I too am a damaged narrator. I can’t pull up from the careening descent into darkness and death. I am infected with the blackness. I have touched the other side, insanity, and I have come back to talk around it. You can’t address something like madness head-on. You have to show it. Shit, I’ve let my mask down again. Narrator, author, life, present struggles, past implosions. This entire opus, then, has been an attempt to stream the daily struggle of a father rushing to rescue or reclaim his son from the abyss.
This morning I texted my daughter at 8:15. “I’m at The Magnolia if you’re up.” About ten minutes later I sent the same message to my son. I had no idea where he was. He left my house this morning around 4 am.
I invited him. It took another 15 minutes to get him to respond. I finally called him on the phone. Almost an hour later, a repeat of father’s day two years ago, he arrived. Was sorry about being late, about having to figure out what to ware, about the protest march that impeded his journey of less than a mile. An hour.
I took a deep breath. “No problem. I’m glad you’re here.”
We talked of music. The trouble with his journey over. Where he’s staying. At his sisters. She’s in Florida. She’s not telling me anything. Hmm. As the breakfast wore on, I was able to tell him I wasn’t mad at him. “I just can’t take the late night ramblings and rustlings, and the guns.”
“Yeah, the guns. I get it. Totally fine.”
“I’m around. I can give you a hand. And, as I said in the note, you’re welcome to store stuff in the shed.”
“Just not the guns.”
“Correct.”
“I understand. It was a bit overwhelming, with all that’s going on, and I shouldn’t have told Emily. [The woman who’s depending on him to deliver the social media platform for her business.] It got her a bit riled up.”
We talked about all the things he could do. Places he could live. Jobs he could land.
“You don’t have to stick to Austin anymore, now that Sarah is gone.”
“Yeah, but in Texas.”
“Why not New York City? LA? Seattle?”
“The guns.”
“Put the damn guns in a storage locker, let your gunsmith friend hold them for you. You can come back to them. Make some money. Stop being a slave to the guns.”
“You’re right. I mean, Emily just paid me, so this was good timing. Maybe a bit sharp of a kick, but I needed the motivation to get off my ass.”
We hugged. I wondered about his sister. “Does she know your staying in her place?”
“Of course.”
“And Lenny?” [the golden doodle]
“He’s at mom’s. More enrichment.”
“When is she coming back from Florida?”
“I don’t know. Tomorrow. Later. She was very vague.”
I hugged him a couple of times. “I love you, brother.”
“Not brother,” he chuckled. “I’m not your brother.”
“Oh, right. Okay, I love you, man.”
“Better. I love you too, Dad. Thanks for everything.”
on the spec: > the end | index
note: image is of my first post-divorce house, the gnome house, October 2014
For readers new to hyperfiction: see this explainer video: Blueprint Of Icarus Ascending
