Lakewood

Chapter 7

I wrote the first page of my novel this morning. I woke up at three-thirty in the morning when Harry started howling at a tree branch scraping the side of the house. After that, I couldn’t fall back to sleep.

I sleep downstairs on the sofa, mainly because my old room is where Emily has all her arts and crafts—no bed) and I don’t want to sleep in her and Dr. Laighles’s bedroom. There are five bedrooms, but I haven’t yet felt comfortable claiming one. Kimberly’s old bedroom is locked. I’m comfortable sleeping downstairs on the sofa in the TV room with a few blankets. This room has an octagon poker table and a 1962 World Series pinball machine. It’s not like most pinball machines with bumpers and lights. This pinball machine is a baseball game with a bat instead of flippers. When you get a hit, the men run the bases. I played yesterday for a few hours.

At this moment, I’m sitting in the front of the house, in the glassed-in Florida room, which overlooks Chautauqua Lake. It’s dark outside. Across the lake, toward Greenhurst, there are a few lights emanating off the lake, like stars that have fallen from the sky and landed softly.

§

I’ve decided that my original idea of writing a novel about the French Foreign Legion during World War I is not going to work. I don’t know enough to fake it and I don’t feel like spending my summer in the library doing research. I want to get laid since that didn’t happen this year, although there was a close call at a frat party this past fall when I made out with a girl. Both of us had too much to drink, but then she told me that she wasn’t even in college.

“I go to Lakeside Christian Academy. I’m a freshman.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

What the hell! I thought. I had already felt her boobs by this time but when she told me her age, I got scared and told her I’d be right back. I bolted out the back door and ran across campus back to my room. That was Saturday night. I didn’t leave my room until Monday morning.

What the hell! I have another idea—a World War II story about a young couple in Italy, Isabella and Vincenzo, who are both artists. They pretend they are married so he won’t be drafted and sent immediately to the front lines to fight. At the outset of the war and before Vincenzo becomes a POW guard, Isabella asks Vincenzo to mail several letters on his way to the University of Milan to see his old professor about funding his graduate degree. He becomes curious and looks to see who she’s mailing letters to. He discovers the letters are for friends in Europe. Except for one letter which is addressed to Cynthia Birdwhistle in New York City. When Vincenzo holds that letter up to the sun, he notices another envelope inside.

He opens the letter addressed to Cynthia and finds a note urging Cynthia to forward the smaller letter to her brother, Haywood. Vincenzo does not say anything to Isabella but knows that she’s in love with Haywood Birdwhistle. He also knows that after the impending war, she plans to travel to New York City to be with him. The letter explains her intentions to leave Vincenzo. However, a year later, as Vincenzo works as a guard in the POW camp, he hears the name Haywood Birdwhistle called out during the roll call of new prisoners. It takes a few seconds, but the name registers with Vincenzo. Like most prisoners of war, Birdwhistle’s fate is set. That is, unless Vincenzo intervenes to save him. If Birdwhistle lives, he and Isabella will be together after the war in New York City. There, she will be happy for the rest of her life. If Birdwhistle dies, she’ll be stuck with Vincenzo.

I like the idea of writing that story much better. It’s not about the war. It’s about love during war and what one person must give up for another. I haven’t decided what Vincenzo will do. Carson McCullers was twenty-three when she published The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I understand her title, especially while living in this big house. I also feel like Nick Carraway. All alone. An observer of life.

§

I threw away the page I wrote this morning about the French Foreign Legion. It wasn’t that good anyway. The story was supposed to focus on a band of soldiers who steal gold from various abandoned European banks and bury it in Africa with the intent of returning after the war to smuggle it out. There are no opposing forces to stop them from looting the banks. Initially, I liked the idea, but then I found out that Clint Eastwood starred in Kelly’s Heroes, which has a similar plot. I haven’t seen the movie, yet. I don’t really care about that idea anymore.

Kelly’s Heroes