The George Stories

By Christopher Gould

George Martian is a child prodigy on the cusp of greatness.  Despite his immense promise, he is deeply conflicted as he weighs the burden of being a child-star with that of having a normal childhood.   At an existential crossroad, his life-altering decision to sabotage his chance at greatness has dire consequences not only for him, but

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645166665

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THE GEORGE STORIES

by CHRISTOPHER GOULD

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Gould

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Nick Courtright

nickcourtright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,

characters, places, and incidents are products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. 

Any resemblance to actual events or locales

or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

The chapter Fall Mixer

originally appeared in The Binnacle.

The George Stories

2019, Christopher Gould

atmospherepress.com

I would like, with all due affection,

to dedicate this book to my family

Prologue

The Martians.

They were very East coast: L.L. Bean, Wegmans, apple picking, cross-country skiing and that sort of thing. Though not quite New Englanders, they were domiciled to that heart-grey, snowmelt portion of upstate New York that if judged by pictures alone might well have been mistaken for a landlocked version of Cheever’s fair St. Botolph’s or some other Northeasterly, jerkwater place.

Martin Martian, head of household, was a native of Saratoga, and spent the bulk of his youth in Spier Falls swimming holes and betting on ponies. His mother died during childbirth and his father during the Great War. He was thus, virtually from the outset, an orphan. Lineage-wise, Martin was predominantly of English-Scottish descent. As a boy, there’d been dinner-table claims that a distant relative had sailed over on the Mayflower. Another relative had gone so far as to claim that the man’s spectacles were behind glass in a Philadelphia museum. Martin’s most salient quality, besides his love for his family, was his all-around, plain-as-day niceness. He was impossibly tall; both long-legged and long-torsoed; his wiry frame a perfect complement to his wire-framed glasses. He’d begun his career as a P.E. teacher at Prosper High, before moving up the public school food chain to athletic director. It was here, at this post, that Martin fell victim to some ‘bad math,’ and because of the subsequent budgetary fallout, was forced to leave the field altogether. No less than a week later, Martin opened an insurance business in town, a field where his stalwart affability and charm could pay dividends.

Joyce Ann Dobbs was a breathtakingly unsentimental girl who had been in the employment of the aforementioned school district as head nurse. It had been on February 6th, 1964, at the romantic hour of 6:24 a.m. that confirmed bachelor Martin, 36, had proposed to said chain-smoking nurse, all of 22, after no more than a third date. Joyce, being so swept off her high-arched feet, responded, I guess so. That summer, they ‘mooned in Quebec, and there on the fourth floor of the Chateau Frontenac, marriage was in due course consummated (though not without some coaxing on part of the dear groom, for the young bride, shall we say, was wholly unprepared for a certain uncircumcised male body part).

Joyce was the ideal sort of 1960’s wife—the kind that could cook, clean, and give one a semi-passable time in the sack. Her only true vice was the occasional Pal-Mal—well that, and a rather harmless twice-a-week thrift-store addiction. While she was prone to histrionics (she, by her own admission, came from a long line of worriers), she was generally regarded as pioneer-era-tough, a byproduct perhaps of depression-era parents. Joyce was exactly 25% Italian on her mother’s side and rest of her, well, was largely unaccounted for. She was Roman-nosed and dark-complexioned, lending her a fine pulchritude regardless of daylight hour or angle. Religiously speaking, she was raised Catholic, attended parochial school, not to mention the obligatory Sunday mass with her family. But the collective experience had, as a whole, done little for her spiritually and thus since the age of 18, she’d been essentially nonpracticing. Her only sibling was a brother, two years her senior—a self-described ‘career homosexual’ who constantly took hegiras between Albany and the Berkshires in a late-model Volvo.

The Martians inherited the house on 424 Weaver Street from Martin’s side of the family—a grandmotherly old Tudor with a backyard that bordered a long-since-defunct apple orchard. The house itself was a five-bedroom job with a screened-in back porch. Due to proximity to the orchard, a series of non-sanctioned apple trees were scattershotted throughout the Martian’s rear-most portion of the backyard (mostly Red Delicious and few Cortlands). As for Weaver Street itself, it was an old street with retired people—not a single young couple with exception to the Martians could have been identified on the census bureau register within a three-street radius. But as Martin Martian liked to say, A mortgage-free house is, hell, a mortgage-free house.

In the couple’s earliest, pre-kid years they could be seen driving ‘round town in a 4WD green-tinged Grand American, complete with a non-functioning CB radio antenna suctioned to the passenger side of the hood. The Martians, virtually from the outset, were joiners, as in they wished, rather resolutely, to not miss out on anything. In fact, during that first year on Weaver Street alone, they volunteered for the local historical society, the chamber of commerce, Boys and Girls club, and headed up a Fresh-Air kid program. In the next, Joyce signed on to Hospice and Meals on Wheels while Martian became a weekend driver for ambulatory veterans. While there was a certain degree of altruism at the heart of these undertakings, the Martians wanted, first and foremost, to be a part of things, to from a communal perspective, be perceived as respectable—and in that they did. In fact, during those pre-kid years of marriage, the sole organizations they declined to be a part of were the local chapters of the Democratic and Republican parties: the crux of the issue was that the Martians were apolitical, neither having ever registered, let alone voted, in a single presidential or, for the matter, gubernatorial election. Thus, their Laodicean nature, kept them focused strictly with the familial and communal.

The Darby and Joan Weaver Street dynamic was broken up in May of 1968, when Annabelle Christine Martian was born, and with that, all volunteer work on the part of the young couple ceased. Annabelle was all dark hair and eyes; a sort of Italian Shirley Temple. She was undeniably lovely, most especially about the face and eyes. Annabelle was christened at St. John’s, the local Catholic Church, but despite assurances from the Martian’s, their attendance at Mass remained spotty. As a first-born child, she was doted on and read to every night. Her days were occupied by playdates, dance lessons, and swim trips to the local Y. Things came easily for the girl: like her father, she was a first-rate swimmer and like her mother, she was a model student who seemingly, perhaps innately, knew the answers to every test. Along with this was the cardinal fact that Annabelle was a charmer, the sort of child who could uncannily command a room.

Family-tree-wise, we now come to the subject of George. He was born on the hottest of summer days: August 1, 1973, some two weeks overdue. Following a nine-hour, epidural-free labor, George emerged from the furnace between his mother’s legs red and clammy—not unlike a just picked, but somehow overripe, tomato. He was an 11-pounder—a statistic that not only caused his mother immeasurable labor pain but also resulted in her harboring a vague, unspoken resentment toward him from that day the forward. It goes without saying that the Martians loved George upon arrival, but through no fault of their own fell into a spell of second-born child-complacency. He was quiet; an observer; a heavy sleeper whose docile and affable nature made him, at least in comparison to Annabelle, unremarkable. In truth, the only noteworthy things about the boy in those early years were his excessive bedwetting and a penchant for creating mind-bogglingly extravagant Lego and Erector Set showpieces. During daylight hours, he could usually be found on a backyard swing set or the adjacent sandbox, and, when confined to interiors, was prone to staring, open maw, at one of his sister’s innumerable books.

It’s worth noting that George and Annabelle, at least in those early years, got on swimmingly. While there were intermittent squabbles over who got the last cookie or what cartoon to watch, they were, by and large, the best of playmates. In warmer months, they were partial to hide-and-seek, tree climbing, and spirited rounds of Connect Four. In winter, snow forts and sledding occupied the bulk of their time. As a family, the Martians vacationed in Williamsburg, Virginia, Niagara Falls, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and, save for a thousand pettifogging details, the closest thing resembling a crisis was when George left his beloved blanky behind at an I-95 Will Roger’s.

Thus, the long and short of it was that those early years were a triumphant, idyllic time for the Martians—the sort that one might reminisce about while thumbing through an old photo album. But then, one night, in the fall of ‘76’, when Annabelle was quarantined by a siege of chicken pox, George (all of 3) crawled out of his crib and, without warning, completed her fifth-grade mathematics home-work (multiplication and long division). As he’d sat crossed-legged on the new shag carpet, he’d then moved on to diagramming sentences, determining lines of longitude and latitude, and finished off by compiling a five-page test that he ostensibly labeled, Cumulative Final Exam. Upon discovery, the Martians were wide-eyed, and Annabelle, well, worry-logged. For up till that moment, she’d been the family star, a fata morgana of sorts. And so, as she stood bathrobed next to her parents, with her chicken-poxed body itching hellishly, she gave George a wraith-like glare and turned to her parents and smiled, claiming the whole thing had been a ruse, an elaborate pre-planned joke on her part: that in actuality she’d done the assignments. The Martians could only smile, pat Annabelle on the head, and laugh heartily as they returned to an episode of 60 Minutes.

It would be several months later, semi-ironically, at Annabelle’s glowing parent–teacher conference, when George’s ascribed virtue as boy genius would formally come to light. He’d been left unattended on a school library floor while opposite him, over a shoulder-high bookcase, the aforementioned powwow was underway. Initially, the boy had been deposited in the children’s section, but somehow—perhaps through innate magnetism—ended up in reference. Here, staring vacant-eyed in his usual bookish manner, George began mugging up the librarian’s rather codified take on the Dewey decimal system by pulling book after book off the shelves:

Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

Portable Speeches (the Complete Unabridged Edition)

World Anthology of Famous Orators

Great Words from Great Minds (Second Edition)

Wordmasters: A Rhetorical Analysis of Famous Speeches

With the volumes splayed at his feet, George picked one up, opened it, and proceeded to give it what might best be described as an ocular pawing—a surgical eye-scan. With his head bowed, he stared unblinkingly at the pages for no more than a few misbegotten seconds and then dropped the volume before moving on to the next. Ten minutes later, the boy began reciting Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech," verbatim. As his plangent, sing-song voice reverberated through the library, the Martians, Annabelle, and Mr. Pugh (Annabelle’s teacher of record) rose to their feet. Rounding the bookcase, the rather outsized group caught sight of George reciting MLK word for word, without so much as glancing at the pages. After a few gasps and several are-you-seeing-what-I’m-seeing glances, George went on, uninterrupted, till he not only recited Mr. King in his entirety but also the unabridged versions of JFK’s Inaugural Address and MacArthur’s Farewell Address to Congress. When he at last finished, George looked up at the fifty-odd onlookers who had assembled and smiled, but gave no explanation.

At the urging of Mr. Pugh (himself a card-carrying member of Mensa), George was evaluated soon after in accordance with the newest, most scientific of methods: his IQ, a whopping 136. The test administrator, a Dr. Strauss, went on to say that the events in the library were no parlor trick, but rather that George was born with a first-rate eidetic brain; he had a photographic memory.

It should be noted that time-wise, George’s big reveal coincided with his father’s rather abrupt dismissal as Athletic Director (a salary of $97,000). Adding to the ugliness, not to mention the chapfallen nature of the sacking, was the cardinal fact that the family had just the week prior signed off on a rather extravagant in-ground pool installation (the details of which involved a state-of-the-art heat pump and a custom-built pool house, patterned in a funky, Spanish mosaic). Thus, while the Martians were thrilled for George and his long-term promise, their financial health was foremost in their mind. For, in addition to the monthly bills that had to be paid, there were now (courtesy of the pool) several ungodly balloon payments on the horizon.

One evening, as Mr. and Mrs. Martian huddled for a rather emotional bill-slashing session, Mr. Pugh rang the bell. The YMCA membership had been deep-sixed. So, too, had the family’s second car, not to mention cable. And so, as Mrs. Martian opened the door, she was bereft of her usual housewifely glow, and in its place was a waterfall of tears. After relaying the family plight with an air of Iran–Contra-like secrecy, Mr. Pugh could only smile. He then pulled a high-gloss brochure from the inner lining of his jacket and suggested that George try his hand at the gravy train that was the children’s talent show circuit, and soon, plans were set in motion.

Chapter 1: The Contestant

There were twenty-four contestants in the snack line, and the way they were swarming about the cookie tray, Mrs. Martian had been unable to get her un-manicured hands on but a single chocolate chip or even a lousy molasses for her son George. And so, instead of fighting off waves of high-achievers and one particularly gluttonous southpaw, she had, for the last ten minutes, occupied herself by reading over the talent show program, applying fresh coats of Chapstick, and just now, was in the midst of mentally redecorating the Newhouse Theater’s main lobby.

Demographically speaking, the crowd was almost strictly of the upward-mobility type—the sort that chiefly resided in suburban areas; attended quality schools; took vacations; and had good credit ratings, financial advisors, and college savings plans. All good things. Good qualities, American-dream-type stuff. But insofar as one contestant was concerned, the assemblage was an altogether caviling and nasty bunch, categorically defined by parents hell-bent on cattle-prodding their children to that ever-marketable and esteemed realm known as Success.

Presently, Mrs. Martian was running her hand compulsively through her bob of a hairdo as though she were in perpetual fear of being exposed as a victim of early-stage female-patterned hair loss. Every so often she’d break up her routine to bird-dog the marplotters at the cookie tray, but with no break in the line was condemned to the rather onerous task of waiting. One, two, and just now 3.125 seconds later, she raised her left hand to the window behind the bench she was sitting on and pressed her palm to the glass as if by some great miracle the November coldness would, by proxy, elicit a lenitive effect. With no luck, she dropped her hand to her lap and as she smoothed out the hem of her blue tartan dress, the 44-year-old mother of two felt a sudden tap on her shoulder:

How’s George? Randall F. Dobbs asked.

Mrs. Martian stared at her brother for a moment, as though the very question were somehow unanswerable and then rose to her feet. Above her, a large, rather extravagant banner read, Welcome to the National Junior Talent Show Final: $50,000 Grand Prize!

Don’t ask, Randall. Don’t ask, Mrs. Martian said as her voiced cracked an octave or two. "I’ve a terrible feeling he’s headed for a terrific fall."

Randall F. Dobb’s unibrow twitched just perceptibly as he digested this particular piece of information. "Don’t be