Chapter 9
John left Fiacre standing in the garden and walked back up Church Street, turned left on to Pritchard Street, and went home. He had enjoyed talking with Fiacre and gave him permission to stay in the old storage building at the back of the church lot in exchange for a little work in the garden. Their arrangement was tentative, pending approval by Kari Keever, Manager of the Garden. John felt sure that Ms Keever would grant permission once she learned that Fiacre was the patron saint of gardeners.
Once home, John noticed that Mrs. Heartbreak had not yet returned from Eureka Springs and her visit with Stan and Jeff at Vintage Cargo: there was still no white Chevy van in its parking space.
John hoped that her transaction with the Boys had been successful, and that the rustle of their check in her pocket book would inspire a spirit of generosity, and of non-inquiry into his use of her vehicle. Dr. Sloan had called three more times while he and Fiacre had confabbed as to why and how Fiacre had chosen as unpresupposing a place as Berryville to do his next Great Work; she was growing rather more than less insistent about getting a move on.
If John had been paying attention to what I am writing he would no doubt object to the fact that I used 47 words in the sentence just prior to this one. That’s an awfully big number of words to cram into a single sentence. It means that you’re reading at Grade 11 on the Flesch-Kincaid reading scale; about 5 grades over what Time Magazine requires. Are you doing okay?
John went into his back yard and patted Jane Russell, Mrs. Heartbreak’s Jack Russell Terrier, and then went inside and upstairs to his office. He fired up the Doom Box and checked his e-mail.
Caren J. Nordby, Mrs. Shogren’s Hot Spanish Sister, had written in to complain about the complexity of Chapter 8. “Dear John,” she wrote:
“As you know, I read the first book about you, Coffee with John Heartbreak: A Mostly True Story of Berryville, Arkansas, from cover to cover, and think that this second book is off to a promising start. What I find a little scary through are the high-key philosophical moments. As a woman who was married to a philosopher for 23 years, I hope you don't mind if I just skip over those portions…”
“Oh, geez,” John thought. He checked through the Shared Documents file and found Chapter 8. “I can’t believe he’s written nearly eleven thousand words already,” he said out loud. “Doesn’t he ever sleep?”
[Not much. Sigh]
John read through Chapter 8 quickly. His impression of Fiacre went up several notches—gosh, imagine meeting Zillah!—and he quickly formed a list in his head of questions to ask. Where exactly was the Pishon River, for example, and did fish really jump out of the water and into the fry pot—or was that just literary license?
John did the math and found that Fiacre’s calculations of years into days was pretty accurate. He didn’t have any trouble with Fiacre’s sequencing of events, or the time frames proposed. It jived with basic science, and John liked how Fiacre had timed production agriculture to when most Bible literalists believed Adam and Eve sinned and where thrown out of the garden. It fit together nicely.
Ms. Nordby’s objection was undoubtedly about the doomsday machines and singularity, but John supposed it was also because the writing was so wooden and not because the ideas were so alien or peculiar. The Authorial I tried hard to be Schopenhauer but usually ended up sounding more like Soupy Sales. John usually skipped those parts himself. He would have to write back and tell Caren that skipping was okay by him.
When John reached the conclusion of Chapter 8 he was appalled as much by Fiacre’s describing Sharon Sloan ASFKA as a ‘Warrior Queen’ as he was by the reference to him ‘as the dullard John Heartbreak.’ John, long married to Mrs. Heartbreak and for twelve years now a resident of Berryville, Arkansas and thus and only ‘a know it all Yankee’ and ‘over-educated idiot’ expected no respect. But that Dr. Sloan—not a real doctor but a Social Scientist and a Texan to boot—should be afforded such weighty adverbial plumage was certainly salt to his long festering self-esteem. John closed Chapter 8 with a stab and went back to his e-mails.
“Dear John,” wrote Kathy Gilmore, a retired Oklahoma educator and writer…
“I suppose I’m glad that I made it into the book. It is probably the only way that I’ll get published. I like Fiacre, but I don’t know about the ‘new’ Duggers though…”
New Duggers? The only Duggers John knew about was Jim Bob and Michelle Dugger of Fort Smith, Arkansas, famous primarily for having nineteen natural children…and counting. Jim Bob is, John knew, a big fan of the ‘Jim Sammons Financial Freedom Seminar’ and could hardly wait to tell you (and John) how to make BIG MONEY in real estate, all according to and consistent with Bible Principles.
John scratched his head, connoting for the less savvy reader of literary fiction, befuddlement or confusion. Why would Mrs. Gilmore bring up the Duggers?
As John scratched his head again he opened an e-mail from Brian Fee, who was once Found in Berryville, Arkansas but is now Lost somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Brian wrote:
“Dear John,
Dare I ask....who in the book is symbolic of Brian Fee...hmm...Fi-Acre? Ahh! May I propose that, like the Dugger Family and similar to George Foreman, that all my kids are named Brian and (here is some inferential thinking!) I believe that I will live forever through my off-spring and that I am, therefore 'King of the Mighty Empire of Fee'.....and...”
Finally, John could stop scratching his head; here was a reference to the Dugger Family that had, obviously, appeared on Facebook and resulted in the Brian Fee—Kathy Gilmore shared reference. Amazing, isn’t it? And of course, more evidence for singularity.
John wasn’t so sure about Brian’s plot suggestion. True, Brian seemed predisposed to Libertarian Party politics and thus was no stranger to fantasy, but really, King of the Mighty Empire of Fee? It seemed a stretch, even for this mess.
On the other hand, perhaps Mrs. Gilmore and Brian could team up and write the perfect Fantasy novel. Mrs. Gilmore had shown John a chapter from her novel in progress and it was quite good. She was certainly a better writer than the hack presently complicating John’s life, but then, she probably has perfection issues and is keeping her book to herself.
John was about to write to Mrs. Gilmore to advise her to read Rona Jaffee—simply to prove that anyone can write a book—when his phone rang.
It was Dr. Sloan.
