Steve McAllister's Blog

My writing group . . . actually, the writing group I belong to . . . has begun meeting again.  To get the juices flowing again we’ve decided to tackle some writing exercises.  So, the first exercise was the following: 

Write in first person. Make your character sympathetic, rounded and complex even though you don’t particularly like them or what they believe in.  Consider picking a subject that they (the character) feels strong about but that you may feel opposite about.  (I believe these are from a book someone in the writing group has, but I don’t know with certainty.) 

I found this really difficult, actually.  It’s not easy to make someone you dislike sympathetic.  It’s even tougher to know who to write about.  Nevertheless, here’s my submission (it’s untitled and really more of a portrait than a story):

They took the Bentley earlier this week.  It was dreadfully distressing.  They photographed the interior, the exterior, put a bar code on the windshield and scanned it.  Finally, an appalling excuse for a man put it on a truck and drove it away.  Even though it was William’s car, I was the one who wept.  I loved that car.  It was truly the carriage from which to see the world.

They left us one vehicle . . . the Audi.  If they had to take any, that would have been the one they should have taken.  Mind you, it took two of those flat-bed vehicle trailers for all the cars.  And it infuriates me so to think of how little each will bring at auction. 

That was merely the beginning of the nightmare, though.  They then entered the house and commenced tagging and inventorying the entirety of its contents.  From the formal sitting room to the lavatory attached to the mud room.  When I attempted to ascertain what they were doing, I was rather tersely told that they were making a record of the household assets for appraisal and possible sale.

I do not understand how people, an agency, can have the right to come into a person’s private home, their private property, and take their possessions away.  It’s a sanctioned form of private property theft.  Sanctioned by our own legal system . . . by our own government.  It cannot be ethical.  It cannot be moral.  In the eyes of God, the Almighty, it must be a sin.

I am uncertain whether I had ever confessed that I came of age on a relatively poor homestead.  My parents were farmers.  And not particularly successful farmers at that.  They had inherited the farm from my grandfather.  He was the second generation from England.  He was a particularly noteworthy solicitor in Chicago, but before I had been born, he left the practice, bought a farm in central Illinois and attempted to live off the land.  To this day, I do not know why he sacrificed a lucrative occupation for a life of common labor.  My parents often said he had gotten tired of the banality and dishonesty of the profession.  I believe there must have been more to his decision. 

My father, the only child, had just married mother after both received their degrees from University when Grandfather died.  Father and mother moved to the farm to stay with Grandmother and father attempted to farm as his father had done.  When Grandmother passed away, my parents we so deeply in debt to the failing farm that they could not leave. 

They did not have a happy life.  Neither had planned on being mere farmers.  Father had studied to be a chemist.  Mother had studied biology to be a physician.  The life of toil and no reward was not in their plans.  I believe Mother came to blame Father for their condition, but never expressed it in my presence.  I surmised it was so, though.

It was from Mother I learned that value was based on quality.  The good things in life are particularly well made with high quality materials and meticulous craftsmanship.  My antique English furniture was made with that attention to detail.  The good people in life have noteworthy educations and always attempt to a better status for themselves and their families.  These were the values my Mother instilled in me as a young girl.  They are the values I hold today and the values that I believe all should hold and aspire to. 

My parents inherited the quality furniture and jewelry, china and silver, accessories and artwork from my grandparents.  Unfortunately, they were forced to liquidate much of it to assist in settling the debts from the farm.  I recall my mother crying for days during and after the day of the auction.  Little remained after the buzzards had picked at the carrion of my parent’s earlier life except the fine English bone china, a matching pair of original Tiffany lamps, and an unblemished Limoges porcelain vase from the 1850s.   Once a week my mother and I would meticulously clean and polish each of these, even if they had not been used. 

Then my father left.  I did not know until after William and I had been married for some time that Father had committed suicide.  When I recollect, there was no change in my Mother’s demeanor after Father departed. 

Of my own volition and as a result of all I had learned to that point, I determined that quality in human relationships was deceptive and fleeting.  That the true value in life was to be found in those things that could not change their value of their own free will.

So, when they opened the china cabinet, I felt that I must intervene. 

“No!  The china belongs to my mother.  You cannot take that.”

“Ma’am?”

“It has been in my family for more than 150 years.  You must not take that.”

“Ma’am, are you keeping it for your mother?”

“My mother departed this world over 15 years ago.”

“Then I can only assume it’s yours.  And if it’s yours, I’m sorry, but I must inventory it.”

“The china is sacred.  You cannot . . .”

“Ma’am, let me explain it to you as simply as I can.  Your husband committed a crime.  Because you and your husband are married, in the eyes of the court all property is joint custody and can be used for restitution of a crime.  The court has decreed that all joint property be inventoried and considered eligible for restitution of the crime that your husband committed.  Is that clear?  I have no choice in the matter.  I’m following the direction of the court.”

I saw William’s face in the china cabinet glass, but I did not turn to confront him.  I could only begin to weep.

You see, I did not weep for my husband.  I did not weep at the trial when the verdict was announced.  I was certainly heart-broken, but I did not weep.  What I had lost was a means to an end, not the end itself.  When the Bentley was taken away and the china, Tiffany lamps and Limoges was inventoried, I was losing an end.  And for that I wept.

They left me my clothes.  And suitcases.  Apparently, they did not feel that the clothes could bring in enough revenue to make it worthy of their effort.  Little did they know.  So, I took my clothes, went to the Hilton and checked in.  I checked in without William.  I trust you are not surprised. 

And now I beg to ask a favor.  I have an Oscar de la Renta dress that still fits and is quite stunning.  And there’s a charity ball in the near future that is certain to attract the elite in the city.  I believe you know the one.  It is held on the top floor of the Adam’s Mark hotel.  If I recall, you and Mark are attending.  Could I impose on you to secure an invitation for me?  You know I will be trustworthy in repaying. 

It is time to search for a new means to an end.