Sequence of Events (part one)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sequence of Events

Chapter One

A Personal Choice

 

i.

Late winter, 1928

 

 

 

He had taken everything. He had taken other people’s stories, grown ruthless to it; stories confided in what amounted to a covenant, between a child of his parish, himself, and the ever-present Auditor. The ease of his surrender to this expedient, when telling lies had become necessary, proved to Stanley the depths of his degradation.

“Carpenter,” he told the porter, who had collected his trunk, his suitcase, and his handbag. “I am only Mr. Carpenter.”

“Well, you call me Larry if you want me, sir. I understand, people over here get to be too friendly sometimes. No, sir, you let me.”

Larry waved off the preparatory crouch, from which Stanley had meant to assist upending the trolley.

“I see your bags aren’t labeled. Do you need help, Mr. Carpenter, finding a hotel? I got a card here…”

“I am visiting my niece. I have written to my niece. And she expects me.”

Larry smiled. An uncertain smile; but he shrugged his unoccupied shoulder, adding, “Nice when folks visit folks. You come a long way, Mr. Carpenter. Do you need a taxicab?”

“I should consider it helpful, if you would point me to a taxicab. Larry…”

Stanley held Larry in suspense. The smile faded, and Larry shifted on his feet.

It needed methodical proceedings, the unfastening of the topcoat one cautious button at a time, or the buttons might twist askew against gloved fingers, and Stanley would struggle in public over a simple task. He had seen in minor things, as though a guardian angel lifted him out of himself, those evidences of slipping that others saw.

But they could not see, yet, that his interior landscape had done more…

It had dislodged, and slumped, and knocked away the foundation.

He produced his pocketbook. On the grounds of not knowing him, and because Phillip and Freda, side by side, would not fit, Stanley had severed Phillip from Delores’s snap.

Now an ardent girl in a white frock stood clutching a disembodied hand, marking place for three folded bills. Stanley heard a mild cough turn to a casual tune, hummed.

Of course he did not know Freda, to know her. But one could not choose; or rather, one’s American relations were it for choice. He must pretend the doorstep of the daughter of the man his sister had married was one at which he might reasonably appear.

He had withdrawn his savings at the Post Office; he had purchased at the exchange bank one thousand American dollars. He had no sense at all of this alien currency. Touching it brought mild vertigo, visions of sticking paper and dropped notes.

He removed his right glove and tucked this, like a parlormaid with her dusting cloth, into his left pocket. He extracted, rubbing the bill between thumb and forefinger, one dollar.

“Larry,” he completed his remark, “I would like for you to have this.”

 

 

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A Personal Choice

Sequence of Events (part two)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Stephanie Foster, 2017, 2021, 2026)