Rented Space, Chapters 1-7
2.
�He�s upstairs right now,� Carolyn said to Thomas, when he arrived home. He had not even had time to set his satchel on its usual chair by the kitchen door.
�What? Right now?� He said, astonished.
�Yes, the new Poet Laureate of the United States is renting a room from us, and he�s upstairs in our spare room right now.�
�Geez, that seems so sudden,� Thomas said, rather wide-eyed.
�He�s waiting for you to help him carry his things in.�
�What car is his?� Thomas asked, turning to look behind him, out the door. �I didn�t notice any unusual cars in front of the house.�
�I don�t know,� Carolyn said. �Why don�t you introduce yourself to him and offer to help him unload while I finish dinner.�
�O.K.,� Thomas said. �First, where are the kids?�
�Timmy and Sarah are keeping Liza occupied in the living room.�
Thomas put his satchel down and went into the living room. After kissing his children, he skipped upstairs and knocked on Mr. Crabbe�s door. When Mr. Crabbe answered, Thomas was rather surprised to have to look up to him slightly. He almost said, �Gee, you�re tall for a poet,� but instead said, �Oh, hello there. I�m Thomas Poole.�
�Not John Thomas, I suppose?� Mr. Crabbe asked.
Thomas�s smile faltered a little. �No, John Thomas was my father; I was given his middle name.�
Crabbe burst out with an unpleasant laugh unaccompanied by a smile.
�I promise I�ll use that in a poem one day!� Crabbe said.
Thomas�s smile returned to its full brightness, though he had no clue what he was smiling for.
�Some people call me Tom. Carolyn always calls me Thomas. You�re free to choose whichever feels right to you.�
�I�ll call you Thomas, I think.�
�Carolyn said you wanted some help unloading your car.�
�Yes, please. Let�s go down now.�
The two men descended the stairs and as they passed through the kitchen, Thomas said, �We�re going to unload his car now.�
�Fine. Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes.�
Thomas was rather anxious to see Crabbe�s car. Though he was not all that knowledgeable about vehicles, like most men he did believe you could tell a lot about the man by the kind of car he drives. For example, he already had Crabbe sized up as a compact kind of guy. He could just imagine this tall, meaty man crammed into a little Honda Civic. Maybe he even drove a hybrid of some kind. Crabbe was a poet, after all, and Thomas assumed he was a liberal. It was hardly likely Crabbe drove an SUV.
In fact, Crabbe drove an enormous, gray Chrysler 300 that looked so new Thomas thought Crabbe must have bought it right on the heals of being appointed Poet Laureate. The vehicle took up nearly two car spaces along the curb, mostly due to Crabbe�s dreadful parking. He had parked at the end of the street because it was the only place where he had found enough space for him to maneuver his vehicle close enough and horizontal enough to the curb.
�Couple things you should know,� Thomas said. �You need to go down to the DMV immediately tomorrow and get your car registered in the District and buy a Residential Parking Permit, and make sure you specify the ward number. You�re in Ward 5. I have a guest parking pass I�ll give you, but it�s good for only a week, and when it expires you�ll start getting tickets. You can pay to extend it, but that�s your business if you want to do that.�
�Why would the police ticket me?�
�Because the city needs the money. And because the law is such that vehicles not registered in the District are only allowed to park in the District for two hours a day.�
�That�s robbery!� Crabbe said, �What did we elect Republicans for in 2004, if not to keep us from getting our pockets picked?�
Thomas was surprised, �Well, the District did not elect Republicans.�
He added quickly, as if this were his main concern, �You voted Republican in the last national election?�
�Oh yes,� Crabbe said. �I�ve been a Conservative all my life.�
�I wouldn�t have thought that,� Thomas said. �We�re Republicans, too.�
�I thought as much,� Crabbe said. “I noticed a letter from the RNC on your dining room table.�
�We don�t donate,� Thomas said rather apologetically. �We figure they don�t need our money, and living here in Washington takes every penny we can save. Now, what do you need carried inside?�
Using his clicker, Crabbe popped open the trunk and unlocked the rear doors.
�In the trunk are boxes of books. My clothes and other personal possessions are in the rear seats.�
Crabbe ducked into the rear passenger side of the car and came out with three suits on hangers and a small, blue Apple laptop computer, which he carried lightly by its handle.
Thomas was behind the car wrestling a box of books from the trunk.
�Heavy…,� he breathed, staggering out from behind the car and up onto the curb. �Better…close your trunk and…lock the car between trips…�
�Right,� Crabbe said, slamming the trunk and locking the car, which whirped cheerfully at him in response.
Thomas trudged slowly up the sidewalk and Crabbe followed along slowly behind him.
�Maybe…just until we get the car unloaded…you can double park nearer the house,� Thomas said.
�I don�t know,� Crabbe said, looking about. �I fear someone would take my parking place.�
�You can…have mine,� Thomas said.
“But I don’t think I could maneuver it into another parking space.”
“I’ll…park it for you.”
�Oh no. I don’t have insurance on my car to cover another driver. Here, let me get the door for you,� Crabbe said. �Just sit the boxes of books inside on the floor. You can take them up to my room a little later.�
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Wow. I really liked this.
The internal dialogue of the bitter poet. The vague taunting. Fabulous. And the woman as she goes to sleep.
Comment by Mel B. — Thursday, 28 April 2005 @ 1:45 am
I’m glad you liked it. I’m really enjoying it quite a bit myself. I feel guilty that I have abandoned the World War II story, even if temporarily. I don’t know if that is frustrating to people, or if no one is reading and so no one really cares. Or maybe trying to read fiction on-line and in blog format, no less, is just such a bad experience, people give up after a brief bit of trying to read.
Comment by Matthew — Saturday, 30 April 2005 @ 3:31 pm
This is very good. The crabby old sob is well-drawn. I don’t think I could read a novel full of him and no positive characters. But he is a wonderful character sketch. The woman and the Joycean monologue at the end is nice, too. I bet you have been wanting to do such a monologue for a very long time now, too….She might be your positive character. Or maybe the sob changes? Something interesting could happen between them that’s for sure. Poetry, yes. Maybe its good, too. Or, maybe, they end up in bed. I can see that happening as well. Or maybe I just want to be titillated (rather than tot-illated, of you follow me)
Again, I think you set the stage for something that I do want to continue reading. But will you add onto this? How far will you go….?
Comment by Todd — Monday, 2 May 2005 @ 6:17 pm
What, you don’t think Crabbe’s a positive character? I think he has a lot of redeeming characteristics.
You’ve hit on the direction I’m heading, I think, in at least one of your predictions. As far as I can tell at this point, they don’t end up in bed, however. Sorry to disappoint. You want titillation, go read Nin’s “Delta of Venus.”
Comment by Matthew — Tuesday, 3 May 2005 @ 6:57 am
FINALLY I sit still long enough to read your fiction (E’s sleeping on my left arm) and I’m not disappointed.
Crabbe makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable in the same way he does Mrs. Poole. He’s a cramped character, trapped within himself. That you don’t mention he’s Poet Laureate until later on is great, setting me up to see him as this nobody there’s no reason for me to like and then letting me have this sudden sense of him as an exalted individual allows for quite a laugh. Lots of subtle humor in this piece with opportunities for more.
What I most want to see? Interactions with the children. Maybe he could be asked to read them a bedtime story, given his literary status and all.
Comment by Dawn — Tuesday, 3 May 2005 @ 7:50 am
Oh, and who Edwards is. I’m curious about that too.
Comment by Dawn — Tuesday, 3 May 2005 @ 7:51 am
He reads them a bedtime story in chapter four/page four. That’s a particularly favorite scene of mine. I think there will be more interaction with the children, but especially with Mrs. Poole. She has become the “positive character,” as Todd says. I am introducing another character in the chapters I’m working on now who I think people will find likable as well. Crabbe is going to have lunch with the Librarian of Congress.
Edwards is my Macintosh, viz. the “Hades” chapter of Ulysses. Just a hint
Comment by Matthew — Tuesday, 3 May 2005 @ 8:03 am
Well, at last I recognized (with Todd’s prompting) the subsequent chapters. Sorry about that.
The book reading scene is probably my favorite. And I must say that, while Blueberries for Sal has always been a personal favorite, your poking fun at it through Crabbe’s perspective is quite nice. Crabbe’s pinching the little girl is also a nice touch.
I have a couple thoughts about areas that struck me as a bit inconsistent, but think I should hold off until I read more. Seems too soon to suggest revisions when you’re probably still feeling your way through your approach to this piece.
I will say that Crabbe is unremittingly awful, especially when you present his internal thoughts (reminds me in some ways of my Uncle Norman who has a penchant for writing mean verse about people he doesn’t like). Just a flat-out nasty human being.
Comment by Dawn — Tuesday, 3 May 2005 @ 10:04 pm
Good chapter 6….I’m waiting for more, MORE PLEASE
Comment by Todd — Wednesday, 4 May 2005 @ 9:04 pm
Not only am I behind in reading your blog, but you snuck a chapter of your fiction in there without warning.
Gotta say I never made it all the way through Ulysses and have no interest in trying again. So I won’t get all the Ulysses hints.
Anyway, Crabbe is such an unpleasant character, and despite that, I keep reading and want more. I like his nasty, internal dialogue. I almost hope that something unpleasant happens to him to make him deserve his misery. My favorite Doctor Who character, Tom Baker, wrote a book called The Boy Who Kicked Pigs. It starts off by saying something about it being a lovely day, about Robert Cagliari being a horrid child, and this is the day that he would die.
And you learn that he would deserve it.
I like his email, with a wink to the reader, that says that if he were in a terrible sitcom, he’d be the old curmudgeon who has been softened by a love interest.
Comment by Mel B. — Thursday, 12 May 2005 @ 1:00 am
The bad guys are always easier to write. And I wonder, too, is he really so terrible? He lies, he would steal a croissant from a Starbucks, he thinks bad thoughts of small children…I don’t know that he is really so different from the rest of humanity. Maybe it’s that he is consistently bad that separates him from most of us. I really, really enjoy writing about him, though.
That Tom Baker book sounds interesting, but a little odd for a children’s book. Is a child ever so “horrid” that he deserves death?
There aren’t a lot of Ulysses references in this story, at least I don’t think so. Maybe I’ve unconsciously inserted a few, however. Ulysses has been the most influential book I’ve ever read.
Comment by Matthew — Thursday, 12 May 2005 @ 7:11 am
The children’s book is a bit odd, and it is uncomfortable to read at first. You don’t think a child would deserve to die… But then, you never thought little Anakin Skywalker of Episode I would ever turn into Darth Vader, either.
I haven’t read the Lemony Snickett (sp?) A Series of Unfortunate Events series, but those sound to be downers too.
Maybe it’s important to have a few downers. And I think Tom Baker intended his book to be a play on an old morality tale, much the same way the Lemony Snickett series is intended, or so I understand.
Anyway, your guy is pretty darned unpleasant. I don’t wish for humanity at this point for him. That would be giving in, too out of character, anyway.
Yes, we all do think bad thoughts. I have a few of them myself, but I’d like to think that I’m not consistently the most miserable person on the planet like Crabbe. (Though I suppose to be a poet laureate, and of the sort that got him chosen by the librarian, you have to have lots of pain. Unlike Mrs. Bush’s suggestion.)
But I’m interested to see where your imagination takes him.
Comment by Mel B. — Saturday, 14 May 2005 @ 1:56 pm