Until at Last I Had a Land of My Own

By Chandler Kinzie

Three menSeward Caprice, Joel Marlin, and Paul Drakelive their lives like so many others. There is nothing particularly spectacular about any of them. Each man loves, fears, and hates. Each man is haunted by the challenges that linger in his own mind, and each must find a way to maintain control. The difference lies only in how they choose to deal with this assigned task, this task of life.

Often, Seward, Joel, and Paul dabble in self-destruction. They use self-abuse to keep their wild minds in check, and in this abuse, they find controlor do they? Soon appears a mysterious figure known only as Salem. Salem is an aristocratic madman who seems to have no background, no history. He just suddenly appears, and his dark mission for each man becomes clear.

The three must now walk separate paths, all at the bidding of Salem. He exists as a stalking shadow that pushes each man toward an uncertain, and possibly disastrous, future. The dull lives of Seward, Joel, and Paul are now laced with uncertainty and deceit. Will these men find the way back to themselves or will the challenge of life be too much to bear?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491757093

Chandler Kinzie

Chandler Kinzie, currently working abroad throughout Canada, enjoys a nomadic lifestyle. He is now in the process of writing two follow-up novels to Until At Last I Had a Land of My Own. He hails from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.

Book preview

Until At

Last I Had

a Land of My Own

38867.png

CHANDLER KINZIE

38833.png

UNTIL AT LAST I HAD A LAND OF MY OWN

Copyright © 2015 Chandler Kinzie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5710-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5709-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902173

iUniverse rev. date: 02/20/2015

Contents

Prelude

The Epiphanies and Steady Blight Of Paul Drake

Seward—An Introduction

Paul—Pleasant Confrontation

Joel—Obscene Rumblings of a Banal Mind

Veranda—The Precocious Youth

A Faustian Interlude: Part One

Joel—The Gathering

Seward—Snake Skin: A Memoir

Paul—

Seward—Surreal Surmises

A Faustian Interlude: Part Two—Fog and Terror

Paul—Love is the Sleep of Reason

Joel—Not Quiet ‘Beat’

Seward—Our Timely Departure

A Faustian Interlude: Part Three—In Guise of Man the Wicked Succour

Joel—One Short Day and One Long Night

Paul—The Conclusion

Seward—The Poet of Prose

Jim—A Brief Engagement

Epilogue: A Few Words for a Lonely Moore

About the Author

Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straight forward pathway had been lost.

—Dante

Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the particular is contained the universal.

—James Joyce

Prelude

I F TRUTH IS SOMETHING TANGIBLE, something capable of being coherently felt and discovered , it follows as a necessary consequence that man, collectively, would search for it. Such is the first laid tenet of any significant treatise or body of literature which, known to the author or not—they have been forced, nay—haunted into trying to discern. Adamant in their search, derelict in their care for the humdrum, plebeian and absurd goings-on of everyday life, they remain vigilant, and in their vigilance inherit a responsibility to forgo all headed caution in this search. ‘What need of caution have I?’ they might say. ‘The only opine I must refute is my own, if it befits bad taste and worse judgment: For yes—I am a moral man!’ Some men scourge this judgment, this moral law: they lose sight of what they had first endeavoured to discover, while others still, in their stead, raise the sword upon high and charge valiantly aside the cavalry of good virtue.

And so, if it be true that every major treatise or work of fiction is in fact a memoir or confession of its author, this novel is no exception; but authors, there are three.

Perhaps too, if we are lucky, we will hear from the sonorous voices of a chosen few, who shall for now remain to us mere shadows in the back of a long hall. We being unable to judge or discern character just yet as they remain draped in darkness, with maybe a finger poking out from beneath their robes: a cuticle offering a curtailed clue, dawning masks of darkness, as is our wont to do.

Using strictly empirical evidence taken from recent and long-past epochs of history, it is damnable to refute that man, given the continued acquisition of knowledge, has become increasingly arrogant of his all too obvious condition. He sees the (if we may go so far as to call him—for he does create intelligibly) demi-god in himself. Not the all-powerful God around and in him. Ironic isn’t it, that we wish, we search and discover, for knowledge of things around us ceaselessly; juxtaposing them in order to draw conclusions—truths, if you will allow—and even then our ‘evidence’ for which we have sifted so long for in the abyss of knowledge may still lead us astray? It is this refute or acceptance of the ‘Good and Bad’ with which men wrack their brains tediously, constantly, and to some, let alone to become malleable, so that truth can no longer be known. This choice dictates moral law. It has almost always been a fulcrum of great debate as to whether moral law exists; whether man or God dictates moral law and whether we need to even distinguish or wear a mask of disparagement towards certain perspectives of morality. Let us say with some great certainty that man is mediator of moral law! He lets it rule him, he does not begrudge, he allows for a power higher than himself!

We propose, heretofore, an age of New Renaissance…

… A bitter-sweet revival of old beliefs and art that, in our opinion have always continued existence in a kind of Hellenistic way in the first place. True, this may seem a moot proposal in due acknowledgement to the already existent esoteric study of ancient and even more recent expressions of belief and art, but it remains a proposal we stand to defend.

Our current story stands to defend these assumptions: these je-ne-sais-que truths for which men search, the validity and collateral nature of a truth, as well as their effect upon the human psyche. Our story is told through the eyes of three, three similar yet different men, who, with the help of one estranged individual, sought existence in some medium other than the imagination… Whether our story is one of baseness, or a call to something more is entirely up to the reader. Yet a man will do most anything to escape the idea of his baseness. A heart will shutter to recollect its falling feet—how they would stumble and finally collapse—under the weight of bliss. Then to think: ‘Do I still dream on?’ Even knowing I am caught up in myself and may ever grapple with unsteady feet?

The Epiphanies and Steady Blight Of Paul Drake

B EING THE INTERLOCUTOR, AND IN so being, one of the story tellers, I deem it necessary to first point out that this account of my experiences is by no means an introspection of what I have done wrong in an attempt to bring about some efficacy that will prove enlightening to the reader, or, in any way bring about salvation or repentance for myself. I have done my veritable best to ensure it carries with it all the wanton madness, obscurities (meaningful or otherwise), misanthropy, and helplessness I have endured; and let it be noted I do not beg pity or disgust. In fact, contrarily, I beg truth. Modesty or humbleness does not become the author and if it does, he or she would be wise to choose another vocation, I think. The truth—if I may be so bold—is that people read to experience the grit and sadness, joy and adventure, crimes and passions, as a means to an end, in the savage journey to discover some semblance or uncover some trace of their own lives; thus leading one to the conclusion we have an insatiate taste for things to do with ourselves and like ourselves. And so, following this cogent thought, we deem it necessary to do so in one’s own personal attempt to come to some grand epiphany about the nature of things and that most evading concept of the human condition. But that is neither here, nor there…

… And then, upon the fraction of a surging moment, I found the symmetry of thought contained within a glimpse of her. And she spoke. And she said: I do. To have been so prosperously bestowed! And I could have wept. There was no knowing a mind so pure, so far removed from the pains and pleasures of this world. Only to bask—but it was to bleed! Oh God in high heaven—it was to bleed! Each second past was a past life, yet each faint tick held a reminder of immortality… You must forgive my rambling, but sometimes a mind can wander… We will get to all that later…

… My father said it before he passed: Men who make war with other men, make war with themselves and, ultimately damn us all. He had said it with such conviction that for a moment I held myself convinced his words held more wisdom than cliché. It’s been a long time since then. I’m not sure I am quite as convinced as I once was. Of course, his being on the death bed, with dried tears stuck to the corners of his eyes like so much excessive urethane; bloodshot eyes scanning me, begging me, to listen to his dying words… could have perhaps been the culprit. By such a time I had elevated myself to heights of reclusive behaviour the likes of which would have made Salinger proud. My father sensed this. I suppose increasingly more as he began to realize his death wasn’t far along, and began to cultivate ways he could best bring me out of what he referred to as my ‘social stupor and perturbed loathing of my fellow man.’ I, being his only child, suppose one might say he felt obligated. Though from guilt or no, I cannot rightfully proclaim. My childhood with him could be described as distant, at best.

But, it is all for naught now…

… They’ll fry me soon. Not literally of course, but figuratively (the death sentence was stripped from the penal code long ago) and still, the trial hearing would have been soon enough. I’ll be damned if I know how or why I did it without even knowing myself. But I have a lot of ideas as to how these types of things can happen. I’ve read a spectacular array of material on mental illness. I read quite a lot, actually. Experimentation on the deepest and darkest parts of men’s minds are not what one would necessarily call mainstream endeavours, after all. I’m sure Freud and Jung discovered parts of themselves they wish they had not when conducting psychological experiments such as they had—the Oedipus complex for example. Which, if you really want to know, is none but downright tripe. No more enlightening than a bowl of cereal, really.

I guess it all started when I was in the bank this one time (a Friday, as I recall, the day I usually chose to do my banking for the week, right after I got off work) as I stood in line watching the people come in with their weekly checks and leaving with small envelopes of money and what not in order to pay whatever bills they had procured over the month as it drew to a close. Like the end of an act in a play. A play, with no end and no beginning. Just the same act. Regurgitated again and again, making life seem so vicarious in its cyclic repetition. It all seemed so mundane—so pointless. Day in, day out, the same old gig. If you really want to know, I hated it. Up at the counter the tellers smiled warmly, acting like they were positively your greatest friend they hadn’t seen in such a long time. A perfunctory: ‘Hello! How are you? What can I help you with today? My, oh my, that’s just the brightest and most pleasant shirt I have ever seen! Fine weather today isn’t it?’ All the while nodding stupidly under that cheap and masquerading ardour. It’s like they came here to chew bubblegum and kiss-ass… and they were all out of bubblegum… Sometimes I wish just once they would be snobby. Give you a taste of what they were really like when they weren’t on the clock and you became nothing more than a Joe Nobody on the street, as indispensable as a can of tomato soup given to a homeless shelter. It was the same deal at work, too. That’s why I mostly just kept my mouth shut and my mind trained on work and then got the hell out of there, read a nice book and hit the hay and all that.

Outside, it began to rain. Blue streaks of lightning raced down to meet the earth, their accompanying thunder, like hammer strikes, echoing in the distance. I counted the seconds, one, two, three, four—boom! About four miles away, I guessed. The clerk would have to change their greeting from: ‘Fine weather we’re having isn’t it?’ to, ‘my, oh my, this is some strange weather we’re having today isn’t it? God knows where it came from, it was sunny only a moment ago.’ My heart sank and my mood became saddened—perhaps even to the point of dismal, at the prospect of such a dour exchange. Looking ahead at the swelling crowd that now filled the bank I decided I would change things up a touch—if only a touch—and do my banking for the week tomorrow. Perhaps Sunday. Perhaps never.

Turning around, I informed the lady behind me (a rather ugly woman, I am ashamed to say, with a crooked nose and scarred face, smelling heavily of cigarette smoke and something else—possibly alcohol, though I cannot be certain. It was, after all, fairly early in the day. All though I don’t necessarily think that mattered in this case) that she could take my place in line, and that I would not be back. She gave a curt nod of her ugly head and stepped forward greedily. Apparently eager to cash her check and be out of this place so she could return to her life of bibulousness. Not that I particularly find fault in people who drink excessively. In fact, some of my favourite authors were said to have been alcoholics, or for that matter, even admitted it themselves… It’s just that I’ve always thought if you loved to drink, you ought to use it as a kind of inspiration or something. I don’t know… like the pits is the pits, you know? But at the same time why not use all that squalor and angst to create something authentic and spectacular—even beautiful? Perhaps that’s just my Ego out of whack, or maybe my Superego? Id? It’s all the same now. My Shadow has consumed them all.

As I made my way through the hordes of people filtering into the bank, and finally out the doors, my mood changed once more. Lightening somewhat at the prospects of soon sitting in my quiet apartment and enjoying my rather prestigious collection of books lining two of the four walls of my living room whilst the radio sang solemnly in the background. Home sweet home, as the saying goes.

Anyways, as I got into my car I lit a cigarette and felt even a little better than I had in the bank. Sometimes when I’m around big groups of people I feel kind of strange and get these awful anxiety attacks out of absolutely nowhere. My heart starts beating right out of my chest until I’m sure it’s either going to explode or just conk out. Then I collect my nerves a little and bring myself back to reality, where I feel suddenly naked