Prose: The Baron's Childhood

Introduction by the Author

THIS PIECE IS COMPRISED OF TWO EPISODES FROM THE VERY FIRST THINGS I EVER WROTE ABOUT THIS CHARACTER CALLED 'THE BARON.' I THINK I'VE CORRUPTED HIS CHARM A LOT SINCE THEN, SO WHILE THIS PIECE IN PARTICULAR, BEING ONLY 5 PAGES INTO THE FIRST 100-page BARON DRAFT, MAY SEEM HALF-BAKED, I THINK IT HAS A CHARM ABOUT IT...

The Baron's Childhood

I am a lover of words, yet in the castle where I spent my formative years, it was words I was denied. Father once said:

“The greatest constipation and procrastination in the history of our species has been the fault of words.”

Before I could open my mouth in defence of language, my father would bark for me to eat my caviar and be grateful I hadn’t been sent to a workhouse years before, as all his other children had, and his father’s children, and his father’s father’s children, ad infinitum.

Though my father detested language, he realised it was the bread upon which the outside world was buttered, so, to acknowledge this, he bought me a wall-chart of the different titles one must use to address those at different strata of society, which everyone knows is the most trying social law a boy must learn. Here is a sample for your pleasure of “The Forms of Address” chart by Franz Kafka:

If addressing a lady one does not wish to wed, the title “Dear Lady” is fine.
If addressing a lady one wishes to wed, the title “My Lady” is kosher.
If addressing a woman who is not a lady, the title “woman” is common.
If addressing an old lady who is rich, one says, “old lady.”
But if addressing an old lady who is not rich, one says, “old woman.”

If addressing the son of a rich man, one says, “Good Man.”
If addressing the son of a poor man, one says, “you boy.”

The chart was impressive indeed, I remember, almost covering an entire wall. A number of my peers, on Sundays when Visitors were allowed, remarked upon its forbidding massivity. Father was proud that I put it up and was determined to learn it; and I felt it was a good present indeed. I was well on my way to starting off in society by learning it, my father said.

“Your father did alright for himself without learning it,” mother said. I was puzzled by this.

“Why did you not learn the chart, father?” I asked him.

“I was raised as a stinking rat in a workhouse, like your brothers,” he replied. And I never brought up the subject again. He used to speak at great lengths about his life in the workhouse, relishing in descriptions of grime, languishing in descriptions of pain – but never did he tell it to me, and nor did I ask about it, but I’ll get onto that later.

The driving force of my family has always been lineage. Our great quest has been to march forward, on and on, into history. You might call it a modest cause: some families aspire to greatness in their group profession, some to smuggle their way into the royal family. But the Spanglers were satisfied with merely pushing on, with existing ad infinitum. And with any luck, centuries from now, some noble descendent of mine might remark that in some way every Spangler from back in history has lived forever. And what more could the world ask, but to be enriched with Spanglers to all eternity!

I do over-simplify the cause, however. It is not sufficient merely to blow one’s seed on just any willing participant; one must extend the line within the confines of The Social Code, at all costs. Which generally means obtaining the most socially respectable applicant possible, to give the line the greatest chance of vivre eternal. And “applicant” is not an un-apt term, for auditions were held for the position, in the days of my mother’s reign. You see, my father ruled the castle during the first ten years of my life, after which he got lazy and allowed my mother to usurp his position; so it was that my mother was in charge of finding me a suitor during my adolescence. Woe betide she who presented herself to my mother as my potential mate. My mother took out a lease on a storefront in town, to my great embarrasment, and called it “Auditions for Good-Quality Wife.” I remember on our first day of business we were bombarded by a horde of desparate spinsters, to who, naturally, it was my job to break the bad news that the husband in question was none other than myself. The horde voiced their displeasure at this information by hurling insults and spitting on me, until suddenly a bottomless supply of rotting fruit materialised, which seemed to do the job much better. I took these complaints on board while mother waited patiently inside.

Mother had to amend the sign to read “Auditions for Future Wife of Society Child.”

I’ll never forget the day a girl called Ursula took us by surprise outside the scheduled audition times one day at a pet store, where we were looking at fertiliser.

The girl tugged at my mother’s skirt, then blushed and curtseyed. She seemed totally unaware of the chocolate smudges on her cheek.

I liked the way the girl looked, even her little stomach that poured over the top of her pants. But mother broke out in laughter at the sight of her, much to my distress. “Well, what do you expect to find,” she remarked, “when you go to a pet store, but an animal.”

Ursula looked at us like a little Buddha, as if with some secret knowledge, as my mother led me out the store, cackling as she went. I fell in love with Ursula that day, and began my courtship the next. It did not last, however, as she was not faithful. She was five years older than I, as were all the girls my mother introduced me to, for she was an ambitious woman.

My mother prided herself on being the best at everything. Or, at least, if she were not, we would all have to pretend she was, including my father and homeless uncle Milton, for fear of a smack. To my great misfortune, this pride of my mother’s also applied to finding me a beau. I was to have a beau before any other boy in polite society, for fear of a smack, even if it meant starting at an age where girls are generally believed to possess certain toxins fatal to boys.

I’ll never forget the day my mother showed me the correct way to squat and relieve myself, which owing to the painfulness of the memory, I have never been able to do any other way. It was a Sunday Evening at Lord’s, a gigantic department store which was having a clearance sale of wedding dresses. My mother and all her girlfriends, all seventy-seven of them, made up a large part of what the Ancient Romans might have called an angry mob, who rat-a-tat-tapped on the big imperial doors of the shopping palace at exactly nine o’clock in the morning, like so many screaming banshees. It was a frightful scene, and enough to turn any boy against marriage, let alone courtship. Boy I was, and boy was I expected to start early, which was not helped by the fact that mother insisted on publically shaming me at every possible opportunity. I still hold that she did it accidentally, like at the department store, for instance. We were in the dressing room, and I told her politely, reasonably, that I would really like very much to go to the bathroom. She ignored this request, so I dropped my pants and pissed on the hospital-smelling carpet.

This was, I admit, a gross error in judgment; but I was, after all, only eight years old. Well past the age of pissing in public, I am aware, but it wasn’t something I considered appropriate, more an act of desperation. My mother was, to say the least, not understanding of my plight. She began to scream bloody murder at me, at the top of her voice declaring what an inviolate little brute she had for a relation (she used this term). She began to spank me, and drag me out of the change rooms, before I had time to pull up my drawers. She managed to drag me, against my will, along the floor of the department store (which can’t have been sanitary on my bare rump), still managing to bend down and aim a good spank at my person every now and then. But the worst part, her favourite torture, was when she began to list a catalogue of my previous wrong-doings:

Just like the time you pulled down your pants for the girls at kindy, you pervert;
Just like the time you embarrassed us all by spanking the bottom of the Jenkinson’s daughter,
Or the time you ran away from me at the grocery store,
Or ran onto the road in Lodge City,
Or threw that tantrum at that Jetson’s theme restaurant because George wouldn’t sign your autograph book. I told you, his hands weren’t real, how could he hold a pen! And you cried like a little girl.

After each item, she would shake her head at me, and steam would emanate from the bolts in her neck. As I said, my mother was a determined woman. She was determined, on this particular occasion, to have my offending organ displayed to the entire department store community, and drag me, body and soul, to the front of the store, where I was to apologise to the store managers for so foully defacing their property. This was her plan of action, and by golly she was going to carry it out. By the time we did reach the front of the store, the store manager was not difficult to find, since he was busily trying to find us, and usher us out of the store. It seemed nobody felt I was welcome there. What had previously been the angry mob, now seemed like merely a lot of separate people, quite normal people, staring at us. The shoppers, including mother’s seventy-seven society mothers, watched as my mother shaped my body into a squatting position of the floor in front of the manager and said “that’s how polite girls piss, not standing up like brute – if you cry like a girl, piss like a girl,” she told me.

The onlookers, who included mother’s seventy-seven girlfriends, looked on, with dropped jaws as the manager tried to calm my mother, saying things like “ma’am, he’s just a child,” or “he seems like a fine boy,” or “really ma’am, I’m sure it was just an accident,” but she would not be consoled. At this point she re-directed her fury at the manager (who turned out to be a university-educated public relations man, instead of a manager, someone with real authority, which only seemed to inflate her anger), which seems like an appropriate place to end this episode, since my mother used words that would be considered inappropriate if this writing is to maintain its (g) rating.

"I don't know," Mother told me, on our way out to the carriage, "if your behaviour is acceptable to the outside world, it will do danger to you to be in it. Quickly, to the castle before we're corrupted any further."

Prose: 'The Baron Blows The House Down' (short)

Miraculously, all this demolition had given me an idea. Breaking social rules had not worked. Acting like a crazy homeless person had not worked. I had somehow to convince the town I was now high-ruler or that my past-history had been forged. That my castle was counterfeit, just a movie-set, hollow on the inside.

The simplest way to do this was to plow the thing down.

It was a grand decision to make, and the power that came with making it was exhilarating.

That castle was my family’s past. I was playing with fire; but I had forgotten all my other aspirations for the present. All I wanted was to be able to spit in public. I had forgotten reason, I had forgotten the traditional virtues, I had primarily forgotten my family’s quest to carry on the line. But this was not haunting me yet.

The next day I walked around the castle, choosing ten possessions from everything I owned to save from the “natural disaster” about to befall Spangler Manor. I did not have many left to choose from, since Olivia had expunged most of them. She took apart my Decorative Poisons Rack, tore up my banned literature and dismembered my armament cabinet. All my antique rifles, bayonets, grenades, even my prized canon, one of the first ever constructed, were deposited at the local tip one day when I was away at the university. I did not even get the chance to get marvellously richer out of them – who knows what my cannon might have retrieved at a private auction, or how many potential bidders it might have taken out, cannonball-style. She also had my Ned Kelly helmet removed from the castle – I never found out where it went either. It was an original. It came with a signed picture of its original occupant and a declaration of ownership from said bushranger which ran:

I Ned Kelly do solemnly swear that this is the original helmet I wore during all that bushranging I did including the one I was shot down in and hung in. Signed, Ned Kelly.

Though it was considerably less articulate. I’m sure Ned, wherever he is, will thank me for socio-economically improving upon his articulation. Anyway, of my remaining possessions, I rescued these:

1. My 16mm print of Frankenstein.
2. My projector.
3. My copies of Tristram Shandy, The Great Gatsby, Ragtime, The Bible – all others, to the bulldozer.
4. My mother and father.
5. Of my staff: Gran, Mortimer and Head chef Marion the Faithful. All others, to the bulldozer.
6. My claw-footed sponge bath
7. The wall chart of the forms of address my father had given me.
8. The skeleton key to the whole manor, which I’d taken charge of when I relegated my folks to the dungeon. I fixed it to a necklace and wore it round my neck, with fond remembrance.
9. The urn of my wife, just to be sure she never escaped again.
10. My autographed copy of The Social Code, in case it ever came in handy.

(There is another story, but I shouldn't tell it here, as I'll forget the present one...)

At 10:46 the next day, on the great hill where Spangler Manor had stood in all its glory and acres of surrounding dead land, was nothing but rubble, and dead land.

Maddeningly, high society loved me for it. In the new air of the 70’s, it was as if I was saying “down with the old,” or “down with the establishment” by pulling down my old digs. I was taken up by everyone. The working classes took me for a working-class hero, since they recognized the tractors, bulldozers and workmen and associated me with them; the lower classes thought I was allying myself with them, since now we had a lack of a home in common; and high society found everything amusing, and loved how eventful my action was. I had given them something to talk about, so they heralded me for it. Literally. Instead of actually talking about me, they would say: “yes, but you have to admire the man, look at the excitement he’s given us all. Look at what he’s given us to talk about.” So they would end up not getting around to scorning me, because everyone would take up the call of saying how much they had to talk about. The bourgeoisie, at least, were the only ones not impressed.

Everyone else, though, embarrassed me to tears when they began carrying placards saying what a top bloke I was – I had unified what was usually a properly stratified society. Then, predictably, as soon as the bourgeoisie saw everyone else doing something, they had to get in on the action.

“Down with the castles!” “Down with the old!” “Spangler forever!” “We Love Spangler!”

“Hertfordshire is the new Spangler Manor.” “Spanglerland!” “Spangler for King!”
King, eh?

I wrote a letter to the Queen that requested the recession of Hamphertfordshire from the monarchy, and requested Hamphertforshire to be recognised as its own monarchy and empire, with Baron Spangler as King and Lord High Ruler.

The note was rejected, but I didn’t tell anyone that.

I had Mortimer erect signs outside town saying “You are now entering the monarchy of Spanglerland.” And “You are now leaving Spanglerland.” I also set up toll-booths and passport checks on the border, and had an airport built, not to reinforce the point too much.

I was so occupied with my new duties of being a monarch that I forgot my quest. I kept wanting to be ejected from society, but everything I seemed to do only raised me higher up its ladder. I hoped, deeply, that the old adage was true: the higher they rise, the harder they fall.

When all else had failed me, and my wife and I stood on the wreck-site like Buster Keaton and
his girl next to the railroad tracks where a train had just demolished their portable home, I kissed Marjorine longingly, lovingly. When we broke away, she stared into my eyes, confused but happy.

“You know, my dear,” I said to her, “I think I did care for you after all.”

She grinned, but suddenly felt cold in her chest. She put a hand there. “Suddenly I don’t feel…” she started to say.

“But you know, dear, I simply can’t have anyone thinking they control me. I mean…”

Her face started to go green.

“I’ve let this go on for a while now – through my ruling a university, a fun-park, a town, and now a realm. But now…”

Her face was contorted. “I feel bad,” she said.

“And so you should, my dear,” I told her. “But I forgive you.”

She collapsed on the ground at my feet.

I had had an arsenic capsule on my tongue. A special design, designed for a kiss of death.

Prose: 'The Baron's Bust of JFK's Killer'

But my most-missed artifact, deposed by the reign of evil Olivia, was a bust of John F Kennedy’s Killer (it was a rather unfinished sculpture, not enough to make a positive identification, simply titled ‘anonymous’). It was intimidating when it snuck up on you in the dark hallway, but it made for a good guessing game with new guests.

This reminds me of an amusing story: I once invited the Head of the University Senate, who I thought was very important because of his fancy title (but since have found out that the senate is largely composed of a revolving body of senior (but nevertheless) students, who are a nuisance but a necessary part of the university machine.) The things I said to that stupid kid (who I wasn’t much older than, but I was working on my second run through) when I thought he was a person of significance. I took him under my shoulder (I could afford to do this as I was and remain quite tall) and praised him for,

“I mean, throw caution to the wind, you’re young after all.”

“That’s right,” he smiled politely like the stupid sycophant he was.

“Who cares about the current trends,” I said, looking desparately into his eyes, daring him to disagree. “Shirt out! Who cares about shaving – cause you’re dealing with stupid kids all day. Delinquents with too much money.”

He looked confused – good.

“Smash their faces in – who cares, they’re stupid kids.”

Now he really got awkward – remember, he was still nestled under my arm.

“You agree with that, shorty? You believe all foreigners should be killed?”

“Now hang on a second,” he said, breaking free.

“Ah!” I said, menacingly, raising a finger to him. “Good, you passed the test. I was testing you, Grahame.” That’s a silly name, why did I waste a name on this stupid kid.

“I don’t think you were,” Grahame said.

“No?” I said, pursing my face up sarcastically. “Lucky no-one cares what you think, kid.”

“Don’t call me ‘kid,’ I’m the head of the University Senate!”

“So I keep hearing. Good for you, Grahame. But let me show you something I want you to keep in mind.”

And I again steered him with my giant muscular arm. I led him, as I’ve led many a better man before him, over to the window and nodded out at the moat.

“You see that down there. See those little jumping fish. See them?” I shook him and he answered with a pathetic nod.

“Yeah, well they’re not jumping cause they’re happy friendly little fishes, yeah. This is not a children’s book, Grahame.” Grahame – pah! The number of sods I’ve set fire to without giving a passing thought to what their names might have been, and yet this little twerp’s name somehow escaped the sandpapering of time.

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? I’ll put it another way.” And I led him out into the front hallway, right near the guests. I had to intimidate through coded messages. “I’ll put it this way: do you know who this is?”

“Its not anyone, it just looks like the artist sold their raw materials to you as a finished piece.”

I let go of him so I could cross one arm across my chest and tap a finger on my lip. This was my thoughtful pose.

“Hmm,” I said, further adding to the impression that I was deep in thought. “Are you an art collector?”

He turned and looked me in the eyes. I pretended I didn’t notice, then darted a glance at him while he wasn’t looking.

“No,” he answered.

“Hmm,” I said. “Are you then an appreciator of the fine arts?”

“Well, not really.”

I was satisfied I could get away with pretending any knowledge of art, so I began, “then how dare you abuse my most prized possession. This is a very important artifact dating from the… Jurassic era of conceptual self-sculpture. It expresses the artist’s longing for identity and ultimate rejection of the ideal of communism. Do you deny this?”

At this, he had the nerve to smirk. “I’m loathe to deny anything about art, since I’d never consider myself an expert, but my sister is an art critic and… well, I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I rolled back on my heels and resumed my intrigued posture. I smiled and nodded, then I bowed to him. “You are a worthy opponent, sir. Could you follow me out to the moat? I have something I just need to show you for a second…”

He studied me. “No, actually. I think I might see what’s happening with the appetizers…”

“Quickly, come on.”

“No, I’d rather not…”

“Come on, outside with you.”

“Gee, its getting late,” he said, pantomiming a big yawn. “Maybe I better go home.”

“Alright. I’ll escort you out.” I motioned for Mortimer to make sure no-one followed me out.
It was a frost-bitey night outside. The crickets were roaring in a chorus, seeming to toll the end for glorified extra Grahame.

We stood at the edge of the moat. I smoked my pipe and looked contemplatively at the jumping piranhas.

“You know I could have been an important person in your story – I’ve got a proper name and a title – you like people with titles.”

“I like sirs and dukes and corporals.”

“If you let me live I’ll call you Baron.”

At this moment, miraculously, the sun came up. I looked at my watch. It was ten p.m at night.

“That is strange,” I said, “but I refuse to be impressed.”

This ‘Grahame,’ against my best wishes and machinations had touched on a nerve. I had always wanted someone to call me Baron. I could pretend I was a Baron to my heart’s content, but having someone who was prepared to call me it regularly was quite tempting.

I drummed my lip (this time I was actually thinking). “Okay, boy. I’ll keep you on my staff as a part-time sycophant, but you’ll have to forfeit your position at the university.”

“What a tempting offer," he said. "I'll take it."

"Great," I said, smirking. I was watching his eyes - a long moment passed - I knew what he was going to do. He was going to run off to his university the second my back turned.

I clasped my hands together, held them high, and bumped him with my hip, sending him down into the moat.

Don't get me wrong, I have fond memories of him, but I have fonder memories of taking over his position at the university...