Anyway, the fourth and fifth stories need more reviews, so please look at them before looking at this one.
*ducks and hides*
Vicissitudes
6. Ludwig
I know I am my father’s son in the fullest. Mom used to say to me, her tone scathing and bitter, whenever I took Dad’s side in one of their myriad arguments, “You’re his boy completely, aren’t you? Isn’t there any of me in you?”
I don’t believe there is.
From the beginning I was more Dad’s child than Mom’s. Just as my sister Rhodora is the physical copy of our mother, I’m our father’s spitting image—tall, black-haired, skin darkened by days spent in the sun, eyes midnight blue behind glasses. But our similarities go beyond just the physical. Some of my earliest memories are of crouching by my father’s side, watching him dig into the rich dark soil of our front garden, watching him tend the brilliant spray of flowers he coaxed from the earth. He was a quiet man, a man of simple tastes. Though he was an insurance salesman by profession, he had a gardener’s heart. To him, true beauty existed in the natural world, in violets, in camellias, in orchids and rhododendrons and roses and lilies. I suppose I inherited that attitude in those early days, when I knelt by my father’s side and shared his garden. Our garden.
Mom could never understand that. To her, flowers were pretty to look at but that was that. Her idea of beauty lay in the sleek and glamorous word of magazine ads, in the dazzling mansions and lights of Hollywood, in the glitzy lives of celebrities. When I was young and she was still at home, I often caught glimpses of her in the kitchen, sighing wistfully as she turned the pages of fashion magazines and drank in the sight of flawless models, fashionable clothes, and fancy parties.
I didn’t understand nor did I sympathize with Mom’s preoccupation with glitz and glamour. To me, that world seemed fake, almost threatening, a highly-polished construct of an advertising agency. It didn’t hold the same kind of beauty that the garden did.
Dad and I were also not fond of talking, though I was always more gregarious than he was. We spent hours outside in our garden, not saying anything, understanding each other in our mutual silence. Sometimes I brought my problems to him, particularly as I grew older and life became more difficult. What I liked about Dad was that he didn’t judge me, like most adults did, nor did he emit pointless fake coos of sympathy—he just listened. Even as he continued to dig in the soil or prune the rosebushes, seemingly absorbed in his task, I could tell he was taking in every word I said.
From Dad I learned perhaps my most valued skill—how to listen. I learned to do like Dad did, to sit and silently absorb the words of those who came to me, not judging or speaking but just listening. I have a feeling that this has helped make me popular. But I don’t listen to be popular; I do it to help people.
I first helped my little sister, Rhodora, and still do. Though she was named by Dad and proclaimed his “most precious” at birth, she always tended to take after Mom. Like Mom, Dora was blonde, brown-eyed, pale; like Mom she idolized celebrities and didn’t care one way or the other about gardening. Strange, then, that I came to care for her so genuinely when I felt little more than impatience towards Mom. But they say this is the way all big brothers are to their little sisters.
Dora was always getting into trouble; she still is. From the beginning she was weeping and wailing to me and Dad about her friends and school and nasty clique battles. Later, as she grew older, she started weeping about boys—one boy in particular. Dora was convinced that Laurence Flannery, son of the Flannerys across the street, was in love with her and it made her angry that he never bothered to show it. I saw the truth, though, but never told her. I simply did what I’d always done and listened, and sympathized.
It continued this way even after I’d started my own business, a small flower shop on the campus of the nearby state university. I was greatly helped in this endeavor by a family friend, Dr. Regina Dwyer, who helped provide the capital to start up the business. She saw, I believe, how much I loved gardening and also how much I—a college dropout—needed money. I owe everything I have to her, and in recognition of this I send her a bouquet every Christmas, even though she’s moved all the way to Chicago by now.
So now I have my flower shop, and I do a surprising amount of business for such a small enterprise. But I feel that my flowers—beautiful as they might be, if I do say so myself—aren’t the only reason people flock to my shop. Many people come not to buy flowers, but to sit in one of the shop’s back rooms with me, sip home-brewed chamomile tea, and vent their problems. I pour them more tea when they need it and occasionally offer a few helpful comments. But mostly I listen.
I’ve even begun to pick up a few regular customers. My most faithful cashier, Ellie, often sighs to me about her boyfriend who she feels is “hot” but isn’t quite living up to her expectations. There’s Julianne, a sweet and self-conscious lesbian struggling to figure out how to come out to her parents. There’s Joseph (or rather, “Cosmos”…), who comes in on a near-daily basis to discuss the “mystical forces” that supposedly permeate our universe, homeopathy, and the color of his aura. I nod and smile and listen to him, and he therefore thinks he’s got a “convert” in me. He’s wrong, but it makes him happy to think at least one person believes him.
Dora, too, also comes in regularly. Well—she is my sister. She always made sure to visit even when she was in high school, and now that she is a freshman at our university she comes in every day. Sometimes, in a fit of graciousness, she manages my register for me, but mostly she lolls around drinking tea and whining about—what else?—Laurence. Just yesterday she brought to my attention Laurence’s new girlfriend, apparently Tyler Daniels’s younger sister Pearl.
“What do you think I should do, Ludwig?” she whined to me in anguish. “Should I tell Tyler?”
“Do whatever you think feels right,” I said with a shrug.
I believe Dora has taken this as an invitation to go right ahead and do just that. Though not yet, since I haven’t gotten any flack from Tyler yet. I expect to be out of town, hiding in the nearest bomb shelter, when he finally does find out. Even then I wonder if I’ll be able to escape the fallout.
Tyler, too, is one of my “regulars”. I already knew him as my neighbor back when we were children, but not until he entered college did I start associating with him regularly. He comes in, often after he’s finished rehearsing with his band and I’ve cleared shop, to discuss his band, his fortunes, Vance and Laurence.
“I’m trying my hardest, Ludwig,” he told me once. “I really am—but I don’t know if that’s enough. I know deep in his head he’s still comparing me to Laurence…”
“No,” I told him. “It’s different because you’re trying to be better than Laurence was. Vance is intelligent. I know he can see that.”
“Maybe…” said Tyler, his tone skeptical. “But I dunno. It’s just—every time I think I take a step forward, turns out I also took three steps backwards. Just yesterday, I tried to be romantic and everything but he got pissed at me and told me to cut the crap, that I was just as bad as Laurence and…”
I reassured Tyler he most definitely was not, but when he left I could see him chewing his lip, looking perturbed. He wasn’t convinced.
Laurence…well. Much to my surprise, the boy Dora is now convinced she hates has begun to come to my store. At first, I didn’t like him—mostly because the first thing he did when he entered my shop was to pluck a fresh rose from a bouquet, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it! I consider myself a calm person, but even I flew into a majestic rage at Laurence and ordered him to pay for the flower or I’d banish him from the shop forever.
After that initial bump in the road, though… well, I can’t say Laurence and I have become friends. I doubt he’s friends with anyone, though, even though he is popular and has gathered a large band of—I hesitate to say friends. “Minions”, more accurately, and he is aware of this himself. He told me as much during his last visit, after he’d finished ranting about what a—oh, I can’t say it—Dora was. He leaned back in his chair and unleashed a heavy sigh.
“Damn it, Ludwig. I don’t think I have a single friend.”
I was startled by this plaintive admission, and Laurence must have been too. The instant he said it, he bolted straight upright, his hazel eyes wild and cat-like, and quickly returned to spewing expletives at my sister. A pity, as I’d wanted to pursue that tangent further, but I could see how Laurence didn’t want to talk about it and I respected that, and let him rant and rave for the rest of the night.
And there’s Vance himself. He is my most surprising customer—for one thing, I always felt that his first impressions of me were awful. Certainly the way he stared at me with a disbelieving expression on his face while I explained the beauty of gardening seemed to suggest that. To him, it must have seemed like I was speaking ancient Urdu. Still, he visits often—not regularly, but enough.
I consider Vance’s visits a sure sign that I must be giving valuable advice. Being an asthmatic, he’s averse to setting foot in a flower shop; in fact, I can usually tell when he comes just by the sound of him coughing and wheezing as he enters. For the sake of having coherent discussions with him, I’ve set aside a small room in the back of my store, without a single flower in it. I can never get used to the blank whiteness in the room, nor the lack of any smell in the air save the carbon hum of the air conditioner. But I understand that Vance must feel like he is choking on pollen and drowning in scents when he’s in the store proper. So I do not protest; I simply sit in a chair across from him, sipping my tea, listening to him speak.
Vance doesn’t speak much, and when he does, what he says is guarded, carefully hidden under a clipped and precise veneer. Still, enough of the truth escapes that I can understand him. I understand his torn feelings towards Tyler, his cold hatred of Laurence, his anguish at constantly hurting Alice. They’re very real emotions, and while I’ve never felt them with such intensity before, I understand.
“If only there was an easy way to be happy,” he said softly one day, staring at his cooling cup of chamomile tea.
For a moment I had nothing to say in response to this. Then, unbidden, Dad’s words, tired but loving, drifted into my mind. “Happiness never comes easily. You have to fight for it.”
He looked up at me, blinking in surprise, but then smiled—a slight, sad, sardonic smile. “Yes. That sounds about right. Too bad I’m not much of a fighter, though.”
I just laughed in sad sympathy and filled his teacup again.
Sometimes, I watch the bizarre circus of love, the maddening tangle of alliances and betrayals amongst my customers, and wonder if I’m not missing something. You see, while I can understand this world, I know I’m not a part of it. I am no ignorant virgin, due to having done a few regrettable things in high school, but at the same time I’ve never felt love before. Dora, Tyler, Laurence, Vance—they’re all chasing love. Some think they’ve found it, some are frustrated they haven’t found it, and still others declare they don’t believe in it, but seek it with a desperate passion all the same. One way or the other, romantic love is deeply tangled in their lives.
It isn’t in mine. I’ve never felt that kind of love before, and I don’t wish to.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” said Alice Berlin quietly, leaning back in her chair and smiling contently. “Love. It’s the—it’s the most beautiful. The sublime… the best thing in the universe. You wouldn’t know…”
Alice’s visit had come as a surprise, to say the least. She had occasionally come in to buy flowers and had chatted with me sometimes, but had never yet sat down and let me listen to her woes. Now here she was in the back room, the one I use to talk to Vance, nursing a cup of tea and gazing at the opposite wall.
“I suppose so,” I said, returning her smile. “I can’t see how anything could be better than gardening, though.”
Alice laughed. Her laughter rang harsh through the blank air, echoing off the walls in resounding, bell-like peals. “But at the same time that might be a good thing.”
“Oh? And how’s that?” I said, cocking an eyebrow, genuinely curious.
“It means you’re impartial,” she explained, drumming her fingers on the table. “You’re not a part of all this, so… so you can see it for what it really is. Because you don’t have any biases, it makes you a good listener.”
Hmm. I’ve never thought about it that way before—yet it seemed to make perfect sense. But as Vance has told me multiple times, Alice has an odd penchant for being right.
So maybe it is a good thing that I haven’t joined my friends’ maddening world of love and hate, commitment and betrayal, searching and losing. Because my mind isn’t clouded by judgment, I can better see the big picture—the truth. I can see how Dora’s so desperately in love with Laurence that she’s convinced herself she hates him, and I can see how Laurence, despite his outward bluster, aches for genuine relationships in his meaningless life. I see how Tyler is committed to loving Vance, and how Vance wants nothing more than to return that love but doesn’t know how to start, so he settles for struggling against Tyler as he always has. And I see how Alice loathes Tyler and Laurence with the same intensity that she loves Vance.
I can see this all, because I love and hate no one; I judge none. And in that respect—
I remember Dad. I remember him always standing so serenely whenever Mom railed against him, heedless of her blind hatred. I remember Dad, silent, listening to my teenage woes as we bent and tended the flowers in the garden. I remember his wise, sun-browned face, his calmness, his tranquility and his sense of everything being right with the world.
From Aureliano Florence I learned many things. I learned how to work the earth, how to nourish a tender rosebud, a magnificent magnolia tree, just the right way for it to grow to its full splendor. I learned how to appreciate the simplest things in life—the life-giving warmth of the sun of the back of my neck, the satisfying sweat of fulfilling ardor. I learned to breathe deeply in order to take in the richness of the earth, to fully drink in the sweet perfume and sharp spice of a colorful clamor of flowers.
And above all, I learned how to listen. To the earth, to the sun, to the men and women who flock to my shop every day, some seeking gardening advice, others hoping I might guide them through the vicissitudes of life. As long as I have my father in me, I will continue to listen to their woes, and I will continue to help them as best I can. It’s the least I can do. It’s the least that he taught me.
-----
....
Yes, I'm aware of how much it sucks. Because of that--
I'm looking not for suggestions to improve THIS not-story, but for suggestions on (now that you have a grasp of Luddy's character) how to write an actual story with a plot, surrounding him.
The next one is Pearl's story and I like that one quite a bit.
Until then...