Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

“Come in, Mr. Hazzard,” he said, glancing at the card his daughter had given him. “I’m always happy to meet a young writer.

The Adventures of Captain Commongold : that was yours, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, pleased that he had heard of it.

“A fine book, although the punctuation was somewhat eccentric. And you have a new one?”

It was in my hand. I had brought an inscribed copy as a gift. Stammering out my purpose, I passed it over.

“ A Western Boy at Sea, ” he read, examining the boards. “And it has an Octopus in it!”

“Well, no… the Octopus was the illustrator’s conceit.”

“Oh? Too bad. But the sword and the pistol?”

“They make several appearances.” My embarrassment was almost painful. Why hadn’t I put an Octopus in the story? It wouldn’t have been hard to do. I ought to have thought of it in advance.

“That’s fine,” said Mr. Charles Curtis Easton, concealing any disappointment he might have felt. He put the book aside. “Sit down. You met my daughter? And my grandchildren?”

I fitted myself into an upholstered chair. “We weren’t fully introduced, but they seem very nice.”

He beamed at this modest compliment. “Tell me about yourself, then, Mr. Hazzard. You don’t appear to be one of the high Eupatridians—no insult intended—and yet you’re associated with the current President, isn’t that right?”

I told him as briefly as possible about my origins in the boreal west and about the unexpected events that had led to my residing on the Palace grounds. I told him how much his work had meant to me when I was a young lease-boy eager for books, and how I remained loyal to his writing and frequently recommended it to others. He accepted the praise gracefully, and asked more questions about the war, and Labrador, and such topics. He seemed genuinely interested in my answers; and by the time half an hour had passed we were “old friends.”

But it was not my intention just to flatter him, much as he may have deserved the flattery. Before long I mentioned Julian Comstock’s interest in the theater, and his intention of developing a movie script on a subject close to his heart.

“That’s an unusual ambition for a President,” Mr. Easton observed.

“It is, sir; but Julian is an unusual President. His love of cinema is genuine and earnest. He’s hit a snag, though, which his storytelling skills can’t surmount.” I went on to describe in general The Life and Adventures of the Great Naturalist Charles Darwin.

“Darwin and biological evolution are difficult topics to dramatize,” Mr. Easton said, “and isn’t he worried that the result won’t receive the Dominion’s approval? Very religious persons aren’t keen on Mr. Charles Darwin, if I remember my lessons.”

“You remember them correctly. Julian is no admirer of the worldly power of the Dominion, however, and he intends to overrule their objections in this case.”

“Can he do such a thing?”

“He says he can. But the problem is with the script. It won’t spring to life the way he wants it to. He asked my advice, but I’m only a beginning writer. I thought—of course I don’t mean to presume on your generosity—”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily look at a novice’s screen-play. A commission from a sitting President of the United States is a different matter, however. I’ve worked on a few cinematic translations of my own stories in the past. I suppose I could examine President Comstock’s material, and offer some advice, if it’s wanted.”

“It’s very much wanted, sir, and I’m sure Julian will be grateful for anything you can tell him, as will I.”

“Have you brought the script?”

“Yes,” I said, drawing the folded pages out of my vest pocket. “Handwritten, I’m afraid,” for I saw that Mr. Easton owned a typewriter even more sleek than the machine I had obtained from Theodore Dornwood, “but Julian’s cursive is legible, mostly.”

“I’d like to read it. Will you wait downstairs while I do so?”

“You mean to read it right now, sir?”

“If you’ll oblige me.”

I assured him I would. Then I went downstairs and spoke for a while with his daughter, who was named Mrs. Robson. She shared the house with her father while her husband was up in Quebec City commanding a regiment. During this conversation Mrs. Robson’s four children (if I counted correctly) bounded through the room at irregular intervals, shouting for attention and wiping their noses on things. Whenever they passed I favored them with a smile, though they mainly grimaced in return, or emitted disrespectful noises.

Then Mr. Easton himself came hobbling down the stairs, a cane in one hand and Charles Darwin in the other. His age had made him slightly infirm, and Mrs. Robson hurried to his side and scolded him for attempting the staircase without help.

“Don’t fuss,” he told his daughter. “I’m on Presidential business. Mr. Hazzard, your evaluation of your friend’s work was exactly correct. It’s obviously sincere and well-researched, but it lacks certain elements indispensable to any truly successful cinematic production.”

“What elements are those?” I asked.

“Songs,” he said decisively. “And a villain. And, ideally, pirates. ”

I was eager to communicate this news to Julian—that the famous writer Mr. Charles Curtis Easton had agreed to help him develop his script—but there was a telegram waiting for me when I came home to Calyxa.

I had not received a telegram before. I was alarmed when I saw it, and guessed in advance that it contained bad news.

That intuition was correct. The telegram was from Williams Ford. It had been sent by my mother.

Dear Adam, it said.

Your father gravely ill. Snakebit. Come if you can .

I made the arrangements at once, and secured a ticket on an express train; but he died before I reached Athabaska.

The train rolled over half of America that Fourth of July, it seemed to me, past small towns thriving and many abandoned, past vast Estates worked by shirtless indentured men, past countless Tips and Tills and ruins, into a sunset that burned like slow coal on the horizon, and on into the prairie night. There were no fireworks that evening, though there was some impromptu merrymaking in the dinner car—I didn’t join in. I was asleep by moonrise. Late the next day the train entered the State of Athabaska, its border marked by a landscape of enormous pits where the Secular Ancients had once strained the tarry earth for oil. I saw the ruins of a Machine the size of a Cathedral, its rusted treadwork embedded in scabs of calcified mud. Wherever there was open water, geese and crows flocked up to salute the passing train.

Julian had wired the Duncan-Crowley Estate to tell them I was coming. That presented a social difficulty to the Aristos there. Seen from one angle, I was a recreant lease-boy of no account come home to visit his illiterate father’s grave; from another, I was the scribe and confidant of the new President, the nearest thing to an emissary from the Executive Power that Williams Ford was ever likely to receive. The Duncans and the Crowleys, whose fortune was all in Ohio farmland and Nevada mines, and whose New York connections were tenuous, had resolved their dilemma by sending Ben Kreel to meet me. He came down to Connaught in the Estate’s best rig, drawn by two high-stepping horses.

The train had arrived with the dawn. I hadn’t slept well; but Ben Kreel was an early riser by habit, and he shook my hand as cheerfully as the occasion permitted. “Adam Hazzard! Or should I call you Colonel Hazzard?”