The Man in the Red Beret

By August Franza

As Harry Wilknott stumbles thru life doubting himself, he encounters a riddle in the form of the man in the red beret. Who is he and why has he latched onto Harry? The answers create more riddles until he discovers an even greater riddle.

Adriano Meis

As a result of two words uttered by a person unknown to him, Harry Wilknott’s sense of himself is severely diminished during one despairing, comic, ironic situation after another. When things seem to improve, only paradox remains.

Moe Juste

‘Red Beret’ is a comic look at the personal disasters of Harry Wilknott’s life. When the personal disasters seem to diminish, only paradoxes* appear.’ *a statement that, despite sound reasoning, leads to a conclusion that seems unacceptable and self-contradictory.

Dick Fancy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669843672

August Franza

August Franza has published 27 novels and is planning to make them an even 30.

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Copyright © 2022 by August Franza.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/18/2022

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

AWRY: off-center, uneven, crooked,

lopsided, askew, asymmetrical…

PART ONE

1

Cloudy gloomy damp hot and muggy: that was the situation for Harry. And it wasn’t just the weather. It was Renee also. When the kissing stopped.

Summer had come and it wasn’t the usual heat. He was stuck in the house, COVID was worsening, it had doubled back. Harry Wilknott couldn’t bear it. And it was driving the country nuts. People were on the edge. Hypertense. Suicidal. Murderous.

He had refused the vaccine shots the first time around and now the push was on more persistently to get people to submit to the unknown. The reports were awful: more deaths from COVID than all the wars since ‘the founding of the republic’. Clichés like that irritated Harry. Institutions which were not doing well were doing worse. Not doing well? Harry liked euphemisms, they had their place, but, oddly, what came out of his own mouth was bluntness. And rage.

He slept better tuning things out, but it took a heap of euphemisms and clichés, a greater and greater number to quell the fear that was loose. For crissakes, let me hold on, he thought, give myself a break, take a walk around the block (there were no blocks anymore, this wasn’t Brooklyn) instead of swinging wildly. But with the all the media going at it 24/7 on critical issues (except for FoxNews which aimed primarily at crime and colored people) it was hard to escape the ominous feeling of going under. And not just Harry Wilknott.

There was Renee.

2

Yes, Harry liked euphemisms, but he wasn’t blind. He read, he watched, and it wasn’t good. COVID trapped him in the house so why not get the shots and go out? Go out? Where? Even if you got the shots you weren’t immortalized, (immortalized? Harry! Quick! Try to sound intelligent)…. you weren’t immune. He hated being pricked, and what about the long-range side effects of the vaccines? (What about them? He wasn’t there yet!)

And the guns. He didn’t own one but because there were so many around, he was forced to try to act like he did.

3

He didn’t have a hell of a lot of time left but his son did, who was much more adept at facing ‘the truth’. He mocked Harry’s chance visits to FoxNews but Mark didn’t care that some of the women there were prettier than Renee? It was good that he didn’t live close to Harry who was relieved that he didn’t have to hear all of Mark’s blowback. Earth—not the fucked-up World but fucked up Earth—was heating up. Except for the hoo-doo gurus on FoxNews, climate change was a fact. Wild fires out west were wilder, heavy smoke was flying east, racing over the formerly breathable three thousand miles to get at him, and not letting up. The veil of lung-clogging shit was ruining Harry’s weather. And the rains and the floods and tornados, too, moving east. Half the country was under water and the other half was in tongue-hanging drought. The cattle were no longer home on the range. Mark, through phone calls and emails, made sure Harry didn’t ignore Louisiana’s (for example) dying, drowning, sweating and suffocating.

A hotter future is now inevitable, Mark told Harry whenever he got the chance. He called a lot to vent since his girlfriend offered a deaf ear.

"Not inevitable, Harry said with relief. That’s good to hear!"

NOW inevitable, Harry! Mark corrected. Not ‘not inevitable!’ A hotter future is NOW inevitable. Put on your hearing aids! You’re not listening or reading or whatever you do that’s off target. Inescapable Global Warming. And get your goddamn shots. You are no longer immortal. Plus the fact that you don’t have a clear-cut idea of what two degrees temperature increase means. I’ll tell you: worse and longer heat waves, rising sea levels, collapsing ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, droughts in the west, flooding in the east. Florida and New York City under water.

Mark! Stop! or don’t call anymore.

I know what you’re doing, was the response, you’re thinking about your problems, aren’t you? Your little problems! Don’t make me laugh. What are your problems compared with… a boiling Earth?"

Are there no personal problems anymore?

Exactly! There are no personal problems anymore. We’re all on fire; we’re going down the tubes, the whole fucking planet.

Mark... Mark, Harry cried, I’m uninformed and I’m morally empty. Leave me alone!

Get your damn shots.

Harry was thinking but didn’t say: Why are you raising the demons on me?

That meant Renee, too, didn’t it? About whom Mark took not a whit of interest in her appearance or disappearance, presence or absence. But Renee wasn’t a demon. Where did he get ‘demon’ from. She was just a pain in the ass.

It was a sunny day.

4

Mark was apocalyptic. He bated Harry, employing all the new technologies to transmit Armageddon. He sent him a lengthy obituary of a scientist in Physics who believed that Earth was a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe.

And the scientist didn’t stop with that blunderbuss. The more the universe seems comprehensible to me, the scientist said, the more it seems pointless.

That’s nice, Harry thought, real nice. A very nice paradox. ‘Comprehensible and pointless’. And hostile, like fighting your way out of a sightless iron mask in a totally deranged, pitch-dark room.

What I meant by that statement, the scientist continued, is that there is no point to be discovered in nature itself; there is no cosmic plan for us. We are not actors in a drama. There are laws, but they are impersonal, they are cold.

Pointless, hostile, cold. But comprehensible.

And there was more. Much more. After all, this was a Famous Scientist in Physics!

Had he gotten his shots?

And then came the main attraction:

Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization.

Kicking the chair out from under Harry and then chopping off the legs-- that was the effect of all those piercing words. And the damnable thing was, the hurtful and harmful thing was that Harry didn’t disagree with any of it when he dared to think about IT.

Harry Wilknott was a modern man, Harry Wilknott read, Harry Wilknott thought, Harry Wilknott taught, Harry Wilknott had occasionally tried to think to the end of things (but with softer language), and he agreed with what he read. But there was a conflict between what he read and thought and what he felt. When he read he put aside his feelings and when he felt he put aside his thinking. That was pretty much Harry’s trick for keeping afloat while floundering.

Not so his son.

5

But in all he had read, he had never encountered the truth in such acute, blunt, and biting words, even blunter than Mark’s. And how few:

Pointless, hostile, cold, impersonal… But comprehensible.

If that’s so, what’s the point of the poetry that Harry loved and taught? What’s the point of all the important novels that tumbled at him which he carefully separated and absorbed down to the last page? (Or was it ‘up’ to the last page? Yes. He fought to keep it ‘up’.)

Philosophers had tried to dissuade him, but one particular German philosopher was just plain angry. Harry thought he could handle him, Harry could put him in his place when he said, Novelists squander ignobly the reader’s precious time. Novelists squander? No. Novelists wonder. The German philosopher’s remark was just plain angry and dismissive. That was one Harry could handle because it was only a dumb remark. It didn’t go to the heart of things as the scientist did in a few stinging words like pointless, hostile. cold, impersonal that drew it all down on top of Harry like an ice sheet a mile thick which was melting right then as Harry was writing in flowing ink.

Ah, the flow of ink. But Harry wouldn’t dare try writing a novel. Too much of an investment to pull himself away from his fears and then have to think of plot, theme, character, rising action, falling action, denouement which were all under attack anyway, by the latest literary theories. Even climate change was too fast for all that.

It was a sunny day.

6

Harry Wilknott was an intellectual, yes. But suddenly, in a throw of the dice, the tiny part of his inner world that made for sunny days went flat-out dark. Unmitigated and unqualified blackness of spirit, assaulted him without warning. He became…what? How to describe such personal devastation? It dismembered him. For Harry Wilknott had always had a good opinion of himself, spawned over decades of teaching poetry and prose of writers who tried to enrich the world. All of that filtered into Harry’s selfhood, his idea of himself. He was an optimist. (Don’t let Mark know.) He believed he had purpose and importance. (Don’t let Mark ever know.)

And then, one day, one sunny day, some colleague (that’s a complete and total euphemism) threw something in his face at a mindless faculty meeting when Harry’s defenses were unguarded, as happens at all faculty meetings. The WHACK! WHAM! BOOM! came from a colleague (euphemism) who bludgeoned Harry with a side, snide, off-hand comment, a tangent, an excursus, a throwaway remark which crashed into Harry Wilknott’s brain and gobsmacked Harry’s heightened sense of himself and cast it down. Down. Down. Far down. Harry felt a sharp pang, Harry felt shaken and he had nowhere to go but to the deep-dark-inner emptiness. He felt he no longer belonged to himself. How could one simple phrase do that?

In despair, he turned and looked. Who was the son of a bitch who exposed him? Who had pulled the plug on him? Surveying the crowd of bored colleagues, he couldn’t tell who had dismantled the golden image of himself with one devastating remark. One remark! How could that be? Can the two words which the assassin uttered do such damage?

6

Harry Wilknott lived with Renee, a sometime lover and companion. He hid behind those roles as he hid behind his job as a teacher of the Humanities, making no ambiguous moves to disturb a delicate disharmony that gave him, paradoxically, a feeling of superiority.

He loved Renee (most of the time) and Renee loved Harry (most of the time). It was a pretty decent relationship by anybody’s standards, especially with the kissing. The kissing made up for an awful lot of their shortcomings. (Did the scientist of ‘pointless, hostile, cold, impersonal’ have a decent relationship with a woman? Or was that affiliation also pointless, hostile, impersonal, and cold? Did he believe in the kissing idea?)

The big question was: what did Mr. X rat-fuck-faculty-member (euphemism) mean by aiming, across a crowded room, a guided missile so indifferently at Harry Wilknott? What was X thinking when he conjured that phrase? Why was X set on injuring Harry’s ancient view of himself which was undone, cut short by two words.

7

Renee, Renee, Harry probed, hardly exhausted by the intense aromatic kissing while being made cosily numb by the endless delight. Her lips were full, and rosy, and in no way in need of a lipstick of many vital, primary colors. She used lipstick any way because Harry loved to lick it off with his ambient tongue by which he encircled her lovely mouth and delved.

Renee, Renee, he cried, help me out here. How does it come across to you?

Renee was cross all right.

First tell me what that word means? I’ve seen it but I could never spell it.

You know very well what it means. They are two words that careen into each other. Come on, now. Let me know what you think….Please? What kind of a guy would say that?

Renee made an attempt:

I’d say he’s the kind of guy who probably doesn’t pay enough attention to his girlfriend.

Oh, Christ, Renee! Not that! Be serious.

Oh, you don’t think I’m serious?

I just mean…. In relation to me.

In relation to you? What isn’t in relation to you? I know what you mean, Renee said. That’s the problem. It’s always been the problem, Harry.

Just tell me, please, Harry said, dreading that ‘always’ and, of course, that ‘probably’.

What do you want to hear? she said. Only something that probably concerns you.

But it does concern me. Very much so. Christ, Renee, don’t start in. Just help me out. This is a big one. This is me.

Renee laughed, a cynical ironic laugh.

It’s always you, Harry, just listen to yourself. I’m Renee, remember?

I’ll make up for everything if you’ll only help me with this one. It’s shattering.

Harry took her hand, bore into her eyes with a fierceness he rarely summoned. He bent into her to start the kissing again.

This is really troubling me, Renee.

"You trouble me."

Come on now, Harry pleaded, be with me.

Renee shook her head, not firmly or portentously, but with a mild hopeless flutter.

All right…so… where did you hear it? she said after a long pause which she hoped would convey her unhappiness. From one of your admiring students?

No. I told you. It was at a faculty meeting. Somebody slipped it in when I wasn’t looking. I was exposed and it crashed right into me.

Who was it?

I don’t know who it was. I wasn’t looking around, I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t prepared. It hit me hard. If I had been on my mark, I would have let it bounce off me, but I was exposed.

I’d say you were probably being mocked.

Worse than that, worse than that, Renee, it scorched me, it really scorched me. I can’t begin to tell you…

Somebody made you feel something new, Renee concluded. That’s an achievement. Somebody rolled you out of your self.

It was a sunny day.

I’d never heard something like that before, Harry said, withdrawing from the attempted kissing. Nobody ever described me like that but what does it mean?

It assaulted your ego, she said, which would have to take a lot of assaulting.

Harry knew he was crashing into bitter, sour territory but he couldn’t help himself.

Why do you say I don’t pay enough attention to you?

Look at the landscape.

The landscape? You? I like the landscape, you know I love the landscape; it’s a sunny day when we’re…

Maybe, but you might turn the earth over once in a while to see what’s under the rock.

Earth, Earth, Harry muttered, getting up and pacing.

And you have to bring that up now? he said.

Renee didn’t know he was making reference to Mark who harbored the same indifference to her as she to him.

When would you like me to bring it up, Harry?

Over drinks, maybe, Harry suggested, With the lights low…. How about in bed when we’re both paying the same attention to the same thing.

I’ll make a note of that, Renee said.

Aw, come on, Renee, we discuss this a lot.

I’m glad you admit it.

Well, am I or am I not?

"The question is what am I?"

Harry knew he shouldn’t be across the room when the conversation got sticky and viscous, so he steered himself back to Renee’s side. When he got there he pulled her in but she was rigid.

Renee was everything to Harry, but not all the time, not every moment. The trouble is he was never quite sure what ‘everything’ was. She was better looking than he was, she was shapely, a better dresser, sweeter (at times) and tolerant of his many ‘obvious’ faults. Why she stayed with him was always on the tip of her tongue but not spoken openly enough. Ah, her tongue. His tongue. Their kissing made up for a lot of wasted words. It wasn’t just the sex; it was, especially, the kissing which lasted a lot longer by far than just the in and the out. It was far more delicious over a longer space of time.

Suppose I told you that I do a Belle du Jour on you three days a week while you’re edifying your favorite female students?

I wouldn’t believe you, Harry said.

That’s why you’re what Mr. X said you were.

7

And then there were dreams. Like the pornographic doozy one particular night in which…but Harry decided to pay no attention to it because he was focused on the Thing. Pornography, after all, could not compete with climate change, flood, drought, wildfires, COVIDS (yes, there were more than one now), the ransacking and death of Earth and the famous scientist who said, With or without religion, good people can behave well, and bad people can do evil. But for good people to do evil—that takes religion. These were heavy burdens for a mind like Harry’s that let in too much dirt and dust. He wanted a mind like Renee’s who handles herself much better in the rope dance.

There was religion cropping up again. The old sinister thing. Renee never let go of it despite Harry’s harsh critiques.

8

It was too much for Harry, it was maiming him. It went to the core and it hurt. It demeaned him. He didn’t know who said it, it just seemed to come out of nowhere, from Nowhere, to become his own personal hell the way a mosquito suddenly shows up and pricks you and pricks you and then you itch and itch and then draw infected blood.

It was a sunny day.

9

For Harry, the lethality, destructiveness and inevitability of the suffocating world of climate change was making things terrifying for him. It was making life especially perplexing because he had thought he had hardened himself and couldn’t be profoundly disturbed. But there was always Mark. His assault was what Renee was picking up on when she said Harry didn’t pay enough attention. But it wasn’t Harry, Harry tried to explain, it was all those particulars; it was the assassin.

10

Nevertheless he kept writing poems. After all, Dennis Fuller wanted them.

Dennis was a smiling Irishman with a thick slice of romanticism lopsiding his poetry. He hated all the modern poets, the post-moderns, all of the ‘posts’, especially post-romanticism. Harry, on the contrary, didn’t like long-winded poetry. He wrote three or four short stingers every day. Dennis’s poems were Poetry with a capital ‘p’ and he recited them at readings as if they were Poetry transmogrified from reality into the numbing ethereal. Harry wrote with a small ‘p’. He was sure Renee wouldn’t like what he wrote but he tested her anyway. She nodded briefly while yawning when he read her his many stingers.

11

Harry never dared to utter an opinion about Dennis’s Poetry because Dennis published a poetry magazine and invited Harry to contribute to LIP. (Harry liked the name LIP. It sounded juicy, but to Dennis all it meant was the obvious: ‘Long Island Poetry’.) It may be they got along because opposites attract since their styles were so different. Harry didn’t ask, Harry didn’t say, Harry didn’t tell. Because his poems