Orvil: Trial and Error

By Deborah de Camaret

Orvil sits alone in a diner to celebrate his 21st birthday. He feels lonely and abandoned...his new girlfriend just dumped him and his mother recently died. He has no idea who his father is. He hates his first name, lives in a rundown trailer, had sacrificed his studies at City College to care for his ailing parent, and drives trucks just to scrape by. Totally lost since his mother’s death, his free time revolves around eating junk food and chugging beers in front of the tube. As he’s feeling sorry for himself, he perceives a gunman entering the diner and firing his AR-15 at everyone in sight. This experience forever changes Orvil’s life. Powerful and insightful, humourous and tragic, through trial and error, Orvil Smith’s story takes us on a tour of modern America from the rural to the urban, from the poor to the rich, and from the righteous to the corrupt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398447110

Deborah de Camaret

Deborah de Camaret has lived half of her adult life in California, and the other half in France. A lover of travel, she has toured the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and India. Her Master’s degrees in French literature and psychology led to careers in teaching foreign language and psychology and exercising psychotherapy in hospitals, clinics, and in private practice. Since childhood, she has been writing almost daily: diaries, letters, poetry, and short stories, not to mention university thesis, and finally a novel. Orvil: Trial and Error is a culmination in the form of fiction of her rich personal and professional life, her fascination and interaction with people of all walks of life, her political views, her reverence for nature, and most of all, her love of language.

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About the Author

Deborah de Camaret has lived half of her adult life in California, and the other half in France. A lover of travel, she has toured the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and India. Her Master’s degrees in French literature and psychology led to careers in teaching foreign language and psychology and exercising psychotherapy in hospitals, clinics, and in private practice. Orvil: Trial and Error is a culmination in the form of fiction of her rich personal and professional life, her fascination and interaction with people of all walks of life, her political views, her reverence for nature, and most of all, her love of language.

Dedication

Orvil: Trial and Error is dedicated to my mother, Emma Joanne Aldred Zinke, who passed away in 2008. Although unpublished, she was a brilliant and prolific writer of mystery stories, always with an acute sense of humour.

Copyright Information ©

Deborah de Camaret 2022

The right of Deborah de Camaret to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398447103 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398447110 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgements

In writing my first novel, I would first like to thank my family members, my friends, and my colleagues for their ongoing support and feedback which have been most helpful. I would also like to acknowledge in particular my French university professors of French literature in Quimper and Aix-en-Provence whose training in literary analysis and linguistics instilled in me a high standard for my own literary productions. Finally, I owe a lot to my many patients I have treated in the course of my long career in psychology and whose life stories have offered me awareness, insight, and knowledge of the diversity and complexity of human existence with which we all struggle to a greater of lesser degree.

A drama is when you want things to go one way and they go quite another, but in the end, what you get is what you need to become whole.

Part I

Pre Trial

From a bird’s-eye view, far above the ground, Orvil was just a tiny speck. The dot proceeded towards a building, no larger than a die, then opening the door, disappeared. Swooping down and landing on the building’s window sill in order to more closely observe him, Orvil’s tale begins.

Time for a Change

In a roadside diner, Orvil sat at a table alone. He mulled over the rupture with his new girlfriend who had just dumped him. It was his birthday and he was not happy. They were supposed to meet there to celebrate. Without any warning or explanation, she’d electronically put an end to their torrid relationship. In disbelief, he read and reread the one-liner she’d texted him from her cell phone. I never want to see or hear from you again!

When her message finally sunk in, he felt hurt and for no clear reason, a bit guilty, wondering what he’d done wrong to deserve such a heartless rejection. Then his chagrin changed into self-righteous anger.

What a bitch! Why did she cut bait, leaving me high and dry, when we were having such great sex? She really took me for a ride!

He recalled on their first date her black sausage curls seductively displayed over her bulging breasts whose nipples pronounced themselves under her bra-less rayon tank top. But when she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, a tattoo of a Christian cross appeared on the nape of her neck as if to warn him that premarital sex was a sin!

Why didn’t I pay more attention to her mixed signals? Why did I ignore my gut feelings? We’d only been going out for a couple of weeks, so why is this breakup so painful?

The stream of ‘whys’ seemed to lead him nowhere. After considerable soul-searching, he finally figured out the reason why he was so upset. All she had to say one night in the heat of intense copulation was ‘I love you’ for him to fall for her, hook, line, and sinker. What a sucker! he told himself. He was no better than a famished fish, eager to swallow the first fast and shiny object that resembled food! For once, he had to be honest with himself. She was just a quick sexual fix to temporarily relieve him from a nagging sense of emptiness and personal worthlessness.

He stared at his meal he had no appetite to eat: a double cheeseburger with fries and a side of coleslaw. Despite his despondent mood, perhaps out of habit, but more like a chore, he steadily worked at finishing every bite. While draining

his Coca Cola, he realised that his real hunger was for true love he’d confused with passionate sex.

Orvil had just turned twenty-one. For the first time in his life, he felt disillusioned with the world and more than that, deeply disappointed with himself. His present status and lifestyle looked dismal. He was physically out of shape, had flunked out of his second year at City College, and was making long-distance truck deliveries just to scrape by. He lived in a lousy trailer in a lousy section of town. Most of his free time was spent snacking and chugging beers in front of the tube. With so many channels on his cable TV, he could never decide which program to stick with… Another football game taking up an entire afternoon? A mindless talk show? Or a mildly humorous sitcom with its nauseating canned laughter? The newscasts were hardly more entertaining. They would loop the same gruesome murders, political scandals, health alerts, and natural catastrophes on an hourly basis. To aggravate him further, whatever the program, it would be interrupted by idiotic commercials every seven minutes!

Gluttony, meaningless sex, and screen fixation! he concluded. Can’t I do better than that?

Boredom and loneliness drove such newly acquired compulsions. Looming addictions threatened to dissolve all real meaning and purpose in his life. Before his mother’s death, he’d never even questioned his reason for living. But now was different. She was gone, never to return. Without the role of dutiful son to play, he was totally lost. Her absence had created a huge vacuum inside him that would suck up just about anything to fill the gaping hole!

What the hell am I doing wasting my time in this diner?

From a distance, he observed his waitress dressed in a tight, white miniskirt and a low-cut, white blouse with exaggerated puffy sleeves. He mused, She might as well have worn a corset and girdle to work! She wiggled towards him carrying his last order. With a single hand, she deftly balanced a tray laden with a hot fudge sundae topped with whipped cream, nuts, and a single canned cherry. Gracefully, she removed his plate and glass which she replaced with his dessert. Then she vanished, racing back to the kitchen with a full tray of empty glasses, cups, bowls, and plates she’d collected from his and other tables along the way. Orvil looked at his sundae with disgust. Rather than a birthday treat, each spoonful of the rich ice cream he forcefully fed himself poisoned him with yet another question or negative thought.

Is this the kind of social life I’ve been reduced to? Here I am again, sitting alone in the same booth, big enough to seat a family of six, just to order junk food, cram it down my throat, and settle the bill. That in exchange for a few words and a smile from a sweet thing. Her only real interest in me is how big a tip I’ll give her. I’m such a loser!

Still brooding over everything that was going wrong, there wasn’t much Orvil appreciated about himself at this critical moment. More than anything, he detested his first name.

Why did my mother call me Orvil? It reminded him of a computer geek or of Norman Rockwell’s painting of a farmer in dungarees, wielding a pitchfork. At worst, it made him think of an ignoramus from the swamps with a working vocabulary of fifty words who’d never read much more than captions in comic books! Nonetheless, there was Orville Wright to take into consideration. After all, he was one of the first inventors and test pilots of the ‘flying machine’. Better yet, his mother had told him that Orvil in Old English meant ‘spear’, suggesting a warrior. However, such an odd name, fallen into disrepute, had always been for Orvil subject to ridicule on the playground and hardly dating material in high school.

I must be one of those forgotten ‘deplorables’. I can only blame myself for reaching this point of nonentity and nullity.

So lost in his grief of realising that he and his miserable life amounted to nothing, a single tear slowly slid down his face which he shamefully wiped away with the back of his hand.

God, he silently cried out in agony, please help me!

Out of the blue, loud booming sounds shifted his attention from his self-pitying thoughts. His eyes scanned the restaurant to try to make sense of what was causing such thunderous noise. To his horror, he noticed the colour red spreading across the black and white chequered linoleum floor. Screams and sobs filled the air as a mass of limbs scrambled for the door to escape or under tables to hide.

It’s a homicidal maniac! someone yelled. Call 911. We’re being picked off one by one. The gunman is on a rampage. Someone shoot or tackle this son of a bitch or we’ll all die!

Orvil perceived a male silhouette behind the counter. He was wearing a black mask and reloading an AR-15 to continue to randomly aim and fire at anything that budged. The ensuing fusillade was deafening. When the gunman momentarily turned his back, Orvil seized the opportunity to attack him. Aided by an adrenalin rush, he leapt from his seat, ran towards and hurdled the counter, grabbed the firearm, and slugged the killer in the face until he lay flat on the floor, unconscious. Panting, after expending such superhuman energy, he heard the sound of sirens as the gyrating strobe lights of the police cars lighted the scene of the crime. Ambulances soon followed with paramedics jumping to the bloodied bodies, checking pulses, and administering CPR. Then placing victims onto stretchers, they piled them into the rescue vehicles to rush them to the hospital. Still alive but comatose and spread out on the floor, the inert body of the shooter was handcuffed, lifted, and carried out of the diner by two policemen holding his arms and legs.

Another police officer approached Orvil, reeling from the incident.

Sir, are you alright? If it hadn’t been for you risking your life to stop this lunatic, everyone would have been shot and killed! My buddies tell me, so far, there haven’t been any fatalities although a paramedic just informed me that there is one woman in particular he was very worried about. She was so badly wounded, he was afraid she might not make it. Whether she survives or not, I want you to know that you are a true hero and merit a medal of honour. I’m going to make sure the press covers this and you get all the public recognition you deserve!

The waitress leaned towards Orvil and lightly shook his shoulders.

Are you okay, mister?

Orvil rubbed, then opened his eyes only to wake up to the fact that this dramatic and personally heroic event was but a dream! After ingesting such quantities of sugar and saturated fat, while mentally fighting new depths of depression, his mind had briefly shut down, he figured. Could the trauma of last month’s deadly school shooting at Central High, his beloved alma mater, have triggered such a morbid fantasy? Perhaps, yet the murderous scene he’d just experienced was so vivid, so tangible, it seemed all too real.

Sir, cash or card? the sexy waitress asked him as she freed his table of the goblet once containing his calorie-loaded dessert.

Just put it on my bill as usual, miss. Here’s a five-dollar tip.

The more Orvil thought about this strange and sudden state of altered consciousness, the more he panicked. Is this a symptom of incipient diabetes, epilepsy, or far worse, a psychotic break from reality? Whatever the cause, this vision was as disturbing as his recurring nightmare of rescuing some woman about to be raped. At best, it was exactly what he needed to jolt him out of his emotional numbness and lethargy. With that last thought in mind, he grabbed his purple and orange bowling jacket and headed for the door.

Enough is enough, he told himself. I’m going to completely change my life if it takes every cell of my body!

In a huff, Orvil left the diner and walked to his car. It was a beaten-up Chevrolet convertible, his sole legacy from his mother, aside from their trailer home. It had only been two months since she passed away. He often found himself struggling to believe she was really gone. With a full tank of gas and the smell of the engine’s fuel, he sped out of the pot-holed parking lot, bouncing on the driver’s seat, tires screeching, to gun it for the highway. He reached in his knapsack to pull out his sunglasses which always made him feel like a real stud. His right hand placed them on the bridge of his nose while his left hand steadied the steering wheel. Having rolled down the top of his car, he liked the feel of the fresh breeze and how it blew his wavy brown mid-length hair around in all directions.

He couldn’t remember ever having experienced such an intense feeling of freedom before, although he had nowhere to go except not to return to his run-down trailer where his single mother had raised him most of his life in next to poverty conditions. Determined to follow the road wherever it would lead him, he trusted that some mysterious power would guide and protect him. With nothing more to lose and everything to gain, he decided that the adventure of his life was about to begin. His strange dream of being a hero, he reasoned, was merely a premonition of what he was to become. If not a hero to others, he would be a hero to himself! Since he’d taken a week off for summer vacation from his thankless job, with some cash and two credit cards in his wallet, he didn’t have to worry too much about time or money.

It was now dark outside. With a certain fascination, he observed the beauty of headlights forming white auras as vehicles raced past him on the opposite side of the road and of their taillights flaring a red glow in front of him when the drivers pressed on the breaks. Switching on the radio, he turned up a rock n’ roll station full blast. He savoured their rhythms and lyrics he never paid much attention to before. In a semi-trance of heightened sensory perception, a flash of insight suddenly struck like lightening through his brain, revealing what his mission was to be. He was going to track down, whatever it took, his deadbeat dad! The only thing he knew about him was that he had deserted his pregnant mother without a word, leaving her with minimal financial means to survive, let alone bring up a child on her own. Although he didn’t even know his father’s name to go on, it didn’t matter. He was on a roll!

At the Mall

As he barrelled down the freeway some forty miles or so, he noticed in the distance a large mall. He impulsively took the exit. There, he decided, he would treat himself to some new outfits to honour his birthday and, more importantly, his self-proclaimed emancipation. It was 8:00 p.m. and he’d have an hour to shop around before the stores closed.

He drove around and around the mall’s packed parking lot until he finally found a free space at the far end of it to park his car. He left his car, banging the front door behind him, and walked towards the mall’s entrance while thinking, It’s about time I upgrade my wardrobe. I’ve had it with my worn-out, ripped up, sagging pants. I can’t stand anymore my inane collection of T-shirts with their tacky designs. Skulls, Batman, Harvard University… all false advertising of who I really am! Come to think of it, why should I keep this bowling jacket with its weird colours when I don’t even like to bowl? Out it goes, Hoping that a homeless person would seize it as a fortuitous prize.

He tossed the unwanted garment onto some ill-kept bushes, dying of thirst from neglect.

The mall always felt to Orvil like an uncanny wonderland. He passed through a revolving glass door of the two-storied plaza with its up and down escalators at each end, loaded with greedy shoppers and unruly children. Discount signs were plastered on nearly every store front with the excuse that it was a special holiday sale. It seemed to him that these so-called ‘special holidays’ were occurring at a rate of every other week! He weighed his options.

No, I’m not going to waste my time fondling mediocre merchandise in an over lighted and chilly air-conditioned department store to the tune of elevator music. Inevitably, a heavily made-up, middle-aged saleswoman with a practised smile will approach me. She’ll pick out unwanted sale items I don’t really like and insist they suit me perfectly. Then she’ll pressure me into buying them using a guilt trip by telling me that I can’t afford to pass them up because, for a limited time only, if I buy two of them, I’ll get a third one free! As I try to get away from her commercial nagging, she’ll follow me all the way to the exit urging me to sign up for the store’s credit card which would give me an extra 25% off! And, no, I’m not going to fritter away my time in a trendy clothes chain store either. That’s where the buyers end up dressing the same as everyone else for a year until the fashion changes the next. Several years later they try to sell their now obsolete wardrobe for a few dollars at a yard sale. That way they can make room for a new load of trendy clothes, only to repeat the same absurd consumer exercise for years to come! Piercings, tattoos, and steroids to enhance a full-bodied leather look? Get serious! No, no, and no! I’m going to find the best, most expensive men’s store in this frigging commercial trap and walk away with a set of high-end threads which never go out of style. Then I’ll feel like a million dollars. That’s what I call a real deal!

Orvil hurriedly walked along the mall’s long string of stores noting their tantalising or not so tantalising wares. His mind filled up with resolutions to redirect his end-of-the-road lifestyle.

He crossed a sports store displaying overpriced Nikes with a sale on weights.

I’ll firm up muscle to lose unwanted flab by jogging and working out at a gym!

He crossed a health food store stocked with organic produce and vitamin supplements.

I’ll shop in open markets for fresh fruits and vegetables. Instead of radiating frozen dishes with a microwave, I’ll cook my food using a wok or a pressure cooker! And why not get a complete health check-up from my doctor I haven’t consulted since I suffered from a bad flu as a teen?

He crossed a shop exhibiting hundreds of ersatz Rolexes.

I’ll make better use of my time rather than futilely zapping TV programs and surfing the web!

For an instant, he was aware of how his thinking had changed in such a short amount of time and questioned if it was just another illusion.

Discarding that thought, he found himself in front of a deluxe men’s store called ‘Fine Clothes Make the Man’, popularly known as FCMM. In big letters, it announced its liquidation and last chance to take advantage of the discounts before permanently shutting its doors. Like a little kid outside of a candy shop with a couple of nickels in his pocket, he eagerly eyed the pinstriped suits, the grey flannel trousers and khaki safari shorts, the silk striped ties, the perfectly pressed button-down shirts in conservative colours or Scottish plaids, the genuine leather jackets, belts, and shoes. Such elegance belonged to a world he never understood or imagined he could ever be a part of. At any rate, he thought, without lying, cheating, or stealing, he would never be able to possess such coveted articles which the ‘privileged’ seemed to effortlessly procure. Even if he had the money, he felt that he didn’t deserve such luxury with the inferior status of truck driver and college failure. Long ago, he resigned himself to living the simple life he’d always known. He came to believe that to exchange rags for riches would be at the expense of his personal integrity and peace of mind. Nevertheless, he had to admit that wearing rags closed more doors to the world than it opened.

While Orvil was temporarily mesmerised by the store’s elitist vestimentary display, a young saleswoman on the other side of the store’s front window noticed him ogling the merchandise. As if by magic, before his very eyes appeared at his side a stunning young woman: long blond hair with flashing emerald-green eyes. She was dressed in a conservative yet fashionable off-white pants suit and lace top, enhanced by a single strand of pearls strung around her graceful neck and by the white straps of high-heeled sandals binding her delicate feet. Based on her appearance, he judged she was most likely highly educated and belonged to the upper crust of society. Her melodic feminine voice shook him out of his private world of imaginings.

What can I do for you, sir? she asked politely. Why don’t you come in and take a look at what we have? I’m in the middle of taking a final inventory before we pack everything up. We’ll be out of business tomorrow, you know.

Oh, yes, miss, I would gladly follow you in, but since I don’t really know what I want, perhaps you can advise me. To be honest, I’ve never been in a store like this in my entire life and I find it quite intimidating. What I really want is a new look and I haven’t the slightest idea where to begin.

With a broad grin and perfectly aligned pearl-white teeth, the young saleswoman took him by the arm and majestically escorted him into the store. He loved the feeling of her warm arm in his. The scent of her perfume was inebriating.

Sir, I would be delighted to help you look like you’ve never looked before. I’ve been studying fashion design in particular for men for two years now at the Oklahoma School of Fine Arts. In fact, my thesis is about how dressing in good taste can boost a man’s self-esteem and make him feel like a real man, slowly drawing out the diphthongs as she said ‘real’. By the way, my name’s Augusta. What’s yours? she asked giving Orvil the impression she was coming on to him.

Too embarrassed to tell her his hated first name, he replied, Ovid.

Oh, like the ancient Roman poet? That’s very classy! she said flopping her hair behind her shoulders.

Clueless as to whom she was referring but playing along with the game, he simply replied, Yes, of course, the Roman poet, Ovid.

How he came up with such a name was beyond him. Had he read it on a menu at an Italian restaurant? Whatever, he relished her compliment. But now he had an additional challenge on his hands: overcoming his abysmal ignorance of classical literature. Maybe his next step would be to go to a bookstore to find out who the hell this Ovid was. As far as poetry went, the only poems he could recall were a few Mother Goose rhymes he’d memorised in kindergarten. Regardless, granting himself any name besides Orvil felt like getting a new lease on life. Yes, from now on, for better or for worse, he would be Ovid!

Where shall we start, Ovid? as she looked him up and down as if he were a piece of meat. I see you have a broad chest and solid thighs, which Orvil, wincing at the sound of his new pseudonym, took as a euphemism for being overweight. I don’t know how much money you intend to spend, Ovid, but since all these items will be worthless in less than an hour, scrapped and forgotten in some obscure warehouse, let’s have fun! You being our last customer, I’ll give you a discount you’ll never forget: an additional 10% off our already 80%! Let’s go! she laughed, not seeming to care about her company’s profits. Would you mind if I took your measurements?

Beginning to feel overstimulated, Orvil managed nevertheless to mumble a rather weak okay.

All the while he was thinking, Would I mind? Are you kidding? There’s nothing I’d love more than to be felt up by this gorgeous woman, silently admiring her