King’s Corner

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

That was the latest reaction that I got to what I did last Sunday.  I spent the afternoon in the garage with a can of furniture stripper and removed three layers of paint and the original stain finish from the bathroom window woodwork.  My goal is to still have the walls and woodwork refinished in that room before the cold sets in.  And, yes, it is a lot of work.

The bathroom in our house, for those who have yet to hear the tale, was given a similar treatment as much of our house was.  The previous owners went through with their big bucket of white paint and covered every last inch of plaster and woodwork.  Although, for no apparent reason they did attempt to spruce up the bathroom with brushed-on swishes.  Odd and unfortunate, as the non-functioning fan in the bathroom didn’t pull the moisture out, leaving the steam to peel the cheap paint off the underlying wallpaper that is also peeling away.  And let’s not forget the mold that only grew on said cheap, white paint.

It was unfortunate.

But now the fan has been replaced, and we’re working at resolving the mold issue before we scrape the walls down to the plaster and paint the room a nice, light blue.  Jen chose the color, but she does choose the bathroom as her comfortable sanctuary in the house, so I’m pretty much willing to give her free reign over what she wants in there.  I have exercised the power of the veto once, though, so I am not completely without a say.  And it has been up to her to get the walls cleaned up and ready for that fresh, new look.

That leaves me with the woodwork,  It’s something of a pet project of mine, and the bathroom is just the start for me.  Every window in the house has its original trim work, and the interior doors are still original even if they’re missing some of the original trim.  At some point, presumably in the 1960’s when the unfortunate “updating” of our kitchen occurred, the owners of our house “modernized” some of the woodwork as well.  The end result is that we have these skinny baseboards that are mismatched with the original trim that remains, and every last bit of it in the house has a few layers of paint on it.

My goal is to clean up and restain ever bit of original woodwork in the house over the next few years.  Eventually I’ll get around to replacing the baseboards with something that matches the window trim better.  I’ll scrape off the popcorn ceiling and pull down the skimpy crown that was put up with the baseboard, and the stark, white ceilings will have a cream color that’s brought down to a picture rail.

Of course, that’s not all that our house needs.  The floors need resanding, as they’ve been horribly mistreated over the decades.  The front door is as soulless as the baseboards and drafty besides, but that’s being replaced this fall.  The vinyl windows are warped and leaking, along with the fact that the old frames they’re in are rotting.  While I could go on about the atrocity that is my kitchen, let’s just leave it at someday I’m going to strip the room to its studs and start fresh.

There’s more, too.  Our baseboard heaters will eventually go, replaced by in-floor heat.  Our attic will be expanded to accommodate two bedrooms and possibly a bathroom.  The basement will be completed to have a guest room, refinished bathroom, library, and bar.  Our yard will be fenced in, a retaining wall across the back to keep the alley from falling into it.  The front stoop will become a front porch.  A brick knee-wall will go along the front sidewalk, and two stately looking lights on pedestals will flank the front walk up to our house.  The massive amounts of driveway taking up half our backyard will be partially removed to make way for more grass and a patio.  We may even strip the stucco off the exterior and reside the house.

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

Yes, yes it is.  But that was the plan all along.  We bought a house we could afford in the location we wanted.  It is old, it has character, it has charm.  It also has issues, but those are issues that can be fixed over time.  We bought a house where we wanted to be while sacrificing what kind of house we wanted.  But that’s all right.  The abuse that the house has taken makes it sort of feel like we’ve been given more of a blank slate than some other, more polished house that we would have been more afraid to disturb.  Or maybe it’s a Florence Nightengale sort of thing where we fell in love with something that was poor and abused and needs to be nursed back to health.  Either way, we’ll spend our time and our money and our efforts working toward making this house into our dream home.  And while that is a lot of work, well, when our friends are moving around and trying to get accustomed to new neighborhoods and going through the hassle of moving and moving and moving on up in their search for that bigger, better, more perfect dream home, you’ll find us still rooted right here.  Where we like our neighbors and our neighborhood, and we’re familiar with them.

The best equity to put into your house is sweat equity.  Much like farmers talking about being closer to their land every day they work the field, I feel closer to my home with every brush stroke, every tap of the hammer, and every finishing touch on every little project.  And the house will still slowly progress, and as it inches closer and closer to perfect it will still always feel just right.

Ah, yes, my first NaNoWriMo win.  I was a substitute teacher in 2003, affording me plenty of time to seriously participate in the “contest”.  This was shortly after the unexpected death of Douglas Adams, hands down one of my favorite authors, so I had endeavored to write a science fiction comedy of sorts.

What follows is a revision of the original introduction and most of the first chapter where a pair of aliens, under the misguided assumption that television dramas are actually documentaries and “Must See TV” means it’s a requirement, mistakes the main character for a “doctor-god” with the plans to demand a ransom.  The original book had a sort of gimmick to it in that the main character had some wild idea that he was going to try and write a children’s book and make a huge profit on it.  In the unfinished revision, I changed the children’s book from one that he was trying to write to one that he had remembered from childhood that sort of goes along with what’s going on in his own adventure, but the whole idea seems a bit lame and it holds me to an unnecessary structure for the book.  In any case, putting the text of the book in the intro of the chapters was a great way to up the word count, and success in NaNoWriMo is often attributed to such gimmicks.

Introduction

It wasn’t raining the day he was born, but it could just as well have been.  The weather would have matched the pallor cast upon the delivery room as his mother pushed her seventh and final child from her womb.  She was clouded in a haze of painkillers and anticipating the coming days where she wouldn’t have to hide her drinking from the reproachful eyes of the world.  Her husband was not in the room, as he hadn’t witnessed a single birth of his children.  The ones he knew of or assumed were his he did not care to see screaming into the world, and the ones he did not know of he wasn’t invited to see.

The husband, who was without a doubt the father of his wife’s seventh child even if he wasn’t the father of all seven, was at least in the waiting room.  It was there that he sucked through half a pack of cigarettes and paged through magazines.  He was impatient, but not because he wanted the birth to go smoothly and swiftly.  He had a mission that his wife had charged him with.  It was one which he was half-finished with.

Part of a magazine page was already crumpled in his breast pocket.  It had the name “Elizabeth Brady” on it.  She was the author of an editorial on the state of the nation or some such political nonsense that was of no interest to the boy’s father.  All that he cared about was that none of the other six children that lived under his roof were named “Elizabeth Brady Parker”, and so if the child being born not a hundred feet away turned out to be female then the name was as good as any.  All he needed now was a boy’s name.  He turned the page nonchalantly, but did not get a chance to look at it.

“Mr. Parker?” a nurse had poked her head into the waiting room.

The father grunted in response.  He was a man who tried to use other methods of communication than words, and he figured that his left fist connecting with the nurse’s face would not be an appropriate response in this situation.

“Congratulations,” she said.  “It’s a boy.  Would you like to come in and see him?”

The father nodded and waved off the nurse, grinding his cigarette in the nearby ashtray and glancing down at the pages open to him.  On one side was an advertisement for a popular new electronic game; on the facing page a young smiling boy was holding up a hot dog.  The man closed the magazine and pulled himself up to face the latest mouth he had to feed.

Chapter One: “It was very rude of them.”

As Rocketman Jim looked to the stars, he became sad.  He liked his adventures saving planets and people, but he missed his home.  He decided to go.

To be perfectly honest, Simon Oscar Parker was never really destined to make a huge difference in the world, much less the universe.  He knew this, despite what his teachers had told him as he was growing up.  They had told him multiple times that he, like the rest of his classmates, had the potential for greatness.  Every boy and girl can grow up to be anything they want, whether it be a fire fighter, a super hero, or even President of the United States of America.  All begin on equal footing, and it is only determination and elbow grease that separated the curd from the whey.

Simon Parker had learned very quickly that his life was quite contrary to the illusions of grandeur that his teachers had for him.  It wasn’t that he wasn’t excited about becoming a fire fighter or a super hero or the President of the United States of America, it’s just that beyond elementary school his chips never fell into place for any such future.  He was nobody, no amount of elbow grease would separate him from the whey, and he would be the first to admit it.

It was his parents that first tried to teach him this lesson, whether it was an intentional attempt or not.  One tends to get such lessons as the last of a long line of unplanned children.  He really didn’t learn it until he left elementary school, though.  All the hype and hopes and dreams that he’d subscribed to were quickly washed away by the harsh cruelty of higher math, Shakespeare, critical thinking, and summer jobs.  Simon Parker was not cut out for greatness.  He was not destined to fight fires, leap tall buildings in a single bound, or lead the free world.

Simon Parker’s greatest achievement in life was obtaining a high school diploma.  It could have been finding steady employment or moving out of his parents’ home before hitting the age of thirty or finding the matching sock to the one with the green stripes he wanted to wear that particular Thursday evening.  But all of those things could have been done by anyone.  The third of his graduating class that didn’t have their diplomas signed were at least capable of doing those things.

But, as Simon also learned, a high school diploma doesn’t buy one much these days.  Sure, being a high school graduate will certainly up your chances of getting that spot as a night manager at the local grocery store.  Or it will be your ticket into the armed forces.  For Simon Parker, it got him a career cleaning up after surgeons.  It was not a glorious position, but Simon was not a glorious man.  And besides, having a claim that he worked in the medical industry was at least enough for a first date sometimes.

His life still lacked mobility and excitement, though.  That was for certain, as he lamented while dumping used mop heads into a laundry bin.  This was typically his only foray outside of the surgical department each shift.  The only true variety he got in this trip to the lower basement was the few people he would encounter while shuffling along.  Most often he could count on a hello from the late-night trash collector, but this evening it appeared that Simon Parker would pass through the halls alone.

“How can we be sure he’s one of them?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?  He has the correct uniform.”

“But shouldn’t he have the white robe?  And what about the cart?  I don’t recall them pushing carts.”

“He does have one of those caps on, and they didn’t seem to wear their robes with their caps.”

“Good point.  Let’s follow him.  He’s at least the best lead we’ve had all night.”

As he immersed himself in the plush leather recliner, Simon Parker once again reiterated to himself the one thing he needed to pull his life from the stagnation he was perpetually in.  That one thing was money, pure and simple.  He needed a boost in his cash flow.  That would most definitely give his life the upgrade he wanted.

All the reasoning he needed was the chair he had just planted himself in.  It was the difference between the haves and have-nots in his department.  The chair he was illicitly sitting in was in the surgeons’ lounge, whereas the regular staff lounge had nothing more than ratty lobby furniture left over from the last time the hospital was remodeled.  The surgeons, while the minority, had the money.

It was, of course, the fact that it was after what most would consider “normal” business hours that allowed Simon to make use of the surgeons’ lounge.  It was evenings like this that he relished.  All of the day’s scheduled cases were finished by the time he had punched in at six, and emergency operations had been buttoned up long before the other cleaning staff had left, and the overnight surgical staff had all taken to the call rooms for some sleep.  This left Simon undisturbed as he restocked supplies in the operating rooms and freshened up the rest of the department, finishing with two hours to spare before his shift was up.

Simon looked down at the notebook in his lap.  He had purchased it for fifteen cents at a local drug store, and it held a record of his schemes to make money.  He flipped through it and sighed at the multiple attempts he had made since he first saw the chairs in the surgeons’ lounge six years ago.  The lottery was the first one he tried, and the only one he’s stuck with on a regular basis, using his astrologically-calculated lucky numbers in the multi-state bi-weekly drawing.  One page was devoted to his foray into the stock market, which he had failed miserably with the few paltry investments he had made due to his lack of business savvy and sound advice.  Another reminded him of the envelope-folding job in which he was promised large sums of money if he could just mail off ludicrous numbers of envelopes advertising for some company, but the resulting paper cuts and the fact that he had to pay for the postage led him to quit that venture as well.  He glanced at attempts to make and sell goods at craft sales, running an online store, investing in various businesses, and other endeavors that never made good on their promise to pay off.  When his parents ever cared to take notice of him, they typically observed the miracle that he hadn’t gone broke.

Basking in the failure of the latest attempt, a complex deal involving giving out products for a “free trial” and then returning later to collect either money or the product, Simon flipped through the notebook to the last page with writing and placed a large “X” across it.  He looked warily at the remote control resting on the table next to him, but did not have the effort to pick it up.  Both he and his ravaged pocketbook needed a rest before he surfed the late-night television for the newest infomercials selling a life of riches.  Instead, he turned to the other book in his lap.

“What does that say, anyway?  I don’t quite have a handle on their form of writing yet.”

“Isn’t that an ‘R’?  It must be their base of operations.”

“Yes, that sounds about right.  He went into that room.”

“Well, then.  That settles it.  Let’s move out, time is running short.”

Simon had been at a nearby large chain bookstore when he found it.  He had shopped there as immediately as it and the strip mall around it had opened.  And, although he only really found interest in the self-help section and the top row of the magazine rack, that being those magazines whose content and covers were so explicit that they were sold in wrappers that kept them concealed, he felt awfully smart walking in there.  It was the smell of expensive coffee and paper while standing elbow-to-elbow with college students and middle-class housewives that made him actually feel intelligent while he spent more than he usually would on magazines at the convenience store he had used to buy them at.

He had been on his way to the magazine rack when something else caught his attention.  He knew it was there, since he passed it every time he came in to see the magazine rack.  But this time it beckoned him with a promise of nostalgia wrapped in a red foil cover.  It was the children’s section, and on display was the latest reprinting of a friend from a time when Simon wasn’t a nobody.  With a giddiness that he had not felt since elementary school, Simon had purchased the book.  While he was bored to death with any reading he had done in high school, which carried on with the fact that he had yet to pick up a novel since then, he was an avid reader in his elementary days.

The book was Rocketman Jim Comes Home, An Alphabet Tale Told in Space, and it had been the one that Simon had been most enamored with when he was younger.  It was also the reason why “astronaut” had for so long been a point on his “what I want to be when I grow up” list.  Then again, that was long before he had taken the part-time job in high school that later expanded into his current position he held over a decade later.

“As Rocketman Jim looked to the stars…” started the first page.  Simon had opened the book and smiled at the familiar introductory lines.  The illustrator had painted a sweeping starscape over a strange and rocky horizon and placed Rocketman Jim, a strong man in a bold red space suit and square chin staring sternly upward, next to his sterling silver rocket pointing to the stars.  Simon closed his eyes and leaned back, imagining as he used to himself as a child waving at the hero from the spacecraft.  Lost in the old daydream and far too relaxed in the plush leather chair, Simon didn’t feel inclined to open his eyes for the rest of the book.

He did, however, feel inclined to recline.  But the annoyed sound of a man clearing his throat told Simon that he should be inclined to not be in the surgeons’ lounge.  When Simon opened his eyes, there was a menacing red light hovering five inches in front of his face.

“Don’t make a move, doctor,” came a voice as menacing as the red light.  “I wouldn’t want to have to liquefy your head.”

Simon closed his eyes and opened them again, thinking that it was his mind playing tricks on him; as if it could have been taking his science-fiction daydream a little too far.  But the light stayed there, bobbing ever so slightly and threatening to liquefy his head.  A million things ran through his head, the first being curious about what sort of red light could liquefy his head.  The second was how he could avoid the liquefaction of his head.  The third was if he could live with a liquid head.  The fourth through the millionth was what sort of sick and depraved person goes around calling people “doctor” and threatens to liquefy their heads.

The million and first thing was how much money he could get from “Unsolved Mysteries” if he came out of this alive and sold the story to them.

“Okay, doctor,” the voice continued.  “I’m going to give you some simple instructions, and you’re going to follow them.”  It appeared to Simon that the red light was being held by a rather beefy and steady hand, which was in turn attached to a rather beefy and steady arm, which was in turn attached to a rather beefy and stern man.  His chin was strong, his hair was buzzed, and his outfit was dark and sheen.  It was almost as if Rocketman Jim had popped out of the pages of Simon’s book, turned to evil, and pointed a dangerous futuristic laser at the Earthling’s face.

All Simon could muster was a few stammerings.  His own skinny physique would be no match for the man even if he wasn’t at the disadvantage of being at the wrong end of something that has the capability of liquefying people’s heads.

”Bront, don’t be so rough with the man.  Perhaps we should find out if he’s one that we would want, first.”  The new voice was female, and behind Simon.  He dared not turn to see who owned the nasally voice with the slight twinkle, but he appreciated the fact that there was someone to counter-balance the more harsh approach of the man.

“We don’t have the time to argue an obvious point.  Just look at him.  Look at where we are.  This is how they dress, and this is where they obviously congregate in seclusion.  This man is obviously one of their revered doctors.”  Bront was correct in that Simon was wearing surgical scrubs like those of the doctors, but that was the standard uniform for the department.  They were provided by the hospital as part of the Surgical Department’s strict standards.  Never mind that Simon’s nametag clearly stated that he was a “Surgical Unit Housekeeper”, something that Bront did not notice or could not read.

Bront punctuated his statement with, “Don’t forget our tight time frame on this mission.”  This elicited a muttering of various arguments and rude comments on procedure that Simon did not get the complete gist of.  Bront said nothing in response and returned his focus to the captive.

“Now, as I said before that brief and untactful,” Bront glanced up at the woman, and Simon heard her move to gesture in reply, “interruption, just follow my instructions and your head stays solid.  In a few moments we will be transported back to our ship and you will be coming with us.  I need you to leave a message for your superiors for your own safety and the safety of this planet.  Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Simon nodded, trembling slightly.

“Can we be sure about him?  This one doesn’t seem to be able to speak.  The ones we observed talked a lot,” said the female.

Again, Bront shot a look of protest to the woman, but soon turned back to Simon.  “Well, speak then, and tell me you understand me.”  Bront thrust his red light closer to Simon’s nose.

“I, er, um, understand,” Simon squeaked.  He had meant to sound as if the situation wasn’t bringing him near wetting himself, but there was no way for him not to be shaking with fear.

“So, the doctor can join the conversation.  Good.  Now, tell me how I can leave a message for your superiors.”

Blinking in disbelief, Simon turned the page of his notebook and offered it.  “You could write them a note.”

Bront raised his eyebrow.  “Write a note?  Isn’t there a more direct way of contact?”

The woman sighed.  “Ask him if he could get on the viewscreen communicators that they have to transmit information and have him plead for his life there.”

“Well, doctor?  You heard her question.”  Simon did little more than squeak and shrug.  ”Very well.  That must only be available to doctors on the day they call ‘Thursday’.  Then I’ll have to tell you the message, and you dictate, doctor.”  Simon nodded and looked down at the notebook, pen ready.  He wouldn’t have thought that he could function this close to properly with the red light staring back at him.

“Masters of Earth,” began Bront, “We are fugitives from another solar system and we have taken one of your doctors hostage.  We know that they are revered and worshipped on your planet, and we expect a ransom for his return.  We demand that you provide us with an army of no less than ten thousand of your finest soldiers.  You have two of your Earth days to comply.  We will be monitoring your broadcast communication devices for your answer.”

Simon finished the dictated missive and held it up for Bront to see.

“I can’t decipher your Earth alphabet,” he said.  “Tell me what it says so that I know you’ve written exactly what I said.”  Simon nervously complied, tore the page from his notebook, and turned to set it on the cherry end table next to the recliner.  Bront grunted and shook the red light, bringing Simon back to a nervous state of attentiveness.

“Just what do you think you’re trying to pull, doctor?” he demanded.

Simon jumped slightly at the shouting and squeaked a reply.  “I’m setting the note here so somebody sees it.”

“Well, don’t move so suddenly.  And how can we trust that your superiors will be notified?  Will this piece of furniture transmit the message to them?”  Bront’s voice boomed through the lounge, rattling the windows.  Simon worried, and then hoped, that the noise would attract attention.

“Settle down, Bront.  It’s obvious that when the other doctors find the note, they’ll immediately go to their superiors with it.  It may be slow, but it’s perfectly effective.”  Bront seemed unsatisfied with the woman’s response, but grunted for Simon to leave the note on the table anyway.

“Now we wait,” said Bront, as if he were narrating.  “Nesbit will be here for us soon.”