Fallow Park Today

by Joseph Glenn

  FALLOW PARK TODAY

  by

  Joseph Glenn

  Fallow Park Today

  Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Glenn

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For my brother Tom—

  the planner, the dreamer, the liver

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  But he who strays too far from a community’s norms can often be too deviant for society to tolerate. And for those who will not—or cannot—conform, isolation is the only recourse.

  Cyril Lindsey, M.D.

  Chief of Staff on Pots of Luck

  Prologue

  The blonde—beautiful by anyone’s standards, even if she did look every minute of her fifty-eight years—blinked impatiently while between-take touch-ups were applied to her face. She tolerated this with considerable grace for exactly nine seconds, then snapped, pushing aside the make-up artist. Chilled to the point of shivering, the woman turned to the heat lamp strategically placed several feet away. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down from her elbows and pulled her hands inside.

  The make-up artist, a younger woman dressed in jeans and appropriate winter coat, and who wore no make-up herself, did not seem to take offense at the star’s rough manner. She just stepped back and waited for her next opportunity to ply her trade on the woman’s face.

  A hair stylist approached the blonde woman but halted as soon as she made eye contact with her. The actress smiled thinly at her and waved her away. The hair stylist stepped back, but looked to the director for guidance.

  It was a nearly windless north Minnesota morning, and the director concurred with the star that her hair remained perfect.

  “That’s alright then,” he said. He cupped his coffee with both hands and spoke through its steam. To the star he instructed, “Merry, honey, it’s a long speech; just read it off the prompter.”

  Meredith, who detested being addressed as Merry, shook her head. “I know these lines. When I step towards the gates I want to look where I’m going, but I want to continue talking. It looks more natural that way. I’m playing the hostess,” she reasoned. “I’m drawing my guests into my lair, all the while maintaining a running narrative as I lead them in. Do you know what I’m talking about? It will look clunky if I have to keep consulting the prompter. This is the first scene, the audience’s introduction to the show and to me. They’re seeing me for the first time in this particular role, their guide. It should be as polished as possible. It sets the tone for the whole program.”

  The director grudgingly, and subtly, nodded his head. He gave her the impression he was conceding her point, but at the same time gave her the impression he was reluctant to come right out and say so. Once he yelled action, Meredith looked directly into the camera and said: “It’s been fifteen years since Fallow Park closed its gates to the public and the press, to all of us deemed to be ‘outsiders.’ Since that time, only guests of the residents—and, of course, the staff—have passed through these gates. This lack of contact with the outside world has given the park a sense of mystery. We might think of it more as a concept, as an idea, and lose sight of it as a place. For us it is a big question mark; it is the unknown. What is Fallow Park really like? What is it like to live at Fallow Park—or any of the parks for that matter? Maybe some of us don’t have a fear of the unknown; but most of us have a need to explain the unknown, to resolve in our own minds what the world—the whole world—is really like. Without information, we fill in the blanks with conjecture and wild assumption. Hence we may be inclined to assume that the wild stories we hear about Fallow Park are true. As we enter these gates, we may at last put to rest any negative perceptions that have persisted. In the illumination of the spotlight, we will see the park as it is.

  “This week, as Fallow Park celebrates its first fifteen years, the men and women who live here have graciously invited us to take a glimpse into their amazing community, to become reacquainted with the unique personalities who have come to know it as home. It’s going to be an exciting week with friends, new and old, encapsulated into our one-hour special. Remember, this is Fallow Park: Some of the greatest talents of the entertainment industry, the literary world, even the arena of professional sports, live here. I wonder if you’re as excited as I am. But most importantly, we will join the residents and staff in celebrating the amazing achievement that is Fallow Park. We will dispel the rumors and shine a spotlight on the comfortable living conditions, the state of the art facilities, and we will spend some time with the genuinely content residents. We’ll see firsthand how unique and remarkable the community is. For an evening we will all have the experience of living here. So tonight I ask you to relax, sit back, and prepare yourselves for an hour of music, conversation, and joy.” She looked over her left shoulder as mechanical sounds drowned out her words. “Oh! The gates are opening.” She looked directly into the camera: “Follow me!”

  Meredith took four carefully measured steps towards the gate, turning back to the camera after the second step to crook a finger at the future audience and gesture it to come along.

  The director yelled cut and was obviously pleased. A general sense of relief could be felt as the crew relaxed. The collection of twenty-two had been at attention since the set-up for the scene began several hours earlier. At last the group of filmmakers could move indoors, out of the brisk January air.

  Meredith turned immediately to her assistant, standing just out of the camera’s range. “Give me a cigarette, fast!”

  A trembling hand with a fresh cigarette appeared in her view. She took it and turned to the man. Although well into his thirties, the man was a novice as an assistant. He was watching the director talk to the crew, as he confirmed with them that the take had gone well.

  Meredith held the cigarette between first and second fingers and waited for her assistant to complete the act. She contemplated the cigarette, held it under her nose as one might with a Cuban cigar, even mouthed the brand name printed above the filter. Then she let the assistant have it: “What am I going to do, eat it?”

  The man’s quivering hand, now holding a lit lighter, reappeared before her face. His hand was shaking so badly she had to grab hold of it to keep the flame steady. She held her first drag for several moments before releasing it. Noticeably more at ease, she once again addressed him: “I’m not a bitch,” she told him in a low, private voice. “You know that.”

  “I know, Meredith,” he said and hugged her.

  She hugged back and said, “Now I suppose I’m fucking up my hair and make-up.” He leaned back to appraise the damage. He shook his head and she understood this to mean he saw no fault.

  The director approached and interrupted the two as Meredith’s new assistant continued to assess her appearance. “We got a shot of the gates opening earlier this morning,” he said. “I’ve got t
he cameras positioned for a great entrance shot if you want that. I don’t know that we need it. We already have plenty of aerial shots to establish the drive, the grounds, and the main building. We could film you walking through the gates and beginning to walk up the drive. It’s up to you. If you don’t want it, I think we’re done here.”

  “I don’t want it,” she said. “Let’s press on.”

  Chapter One

  Meredith noted that the icy drive was heavily salted, but no one was working to physically clear the thoroughfare of the ice or snow. The snow was packed down from what appeared to be days of vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

  “Didn’t they know we were coming?” she asked Bill, her assistant, who walked dutifully beside her in the event she needed an arm for support. The question she posed was sufficiently rhetorical that she was not surprised when he continued to trudge along without a word. She studied the assistant. He was a tall man, clad now in a parka-style coat, gloves, and sensible snow-treading boots. He wore no hat and his ears were red from the cold. His face had a full, healthy look, but was not fleshy. He had an eight-by-ten glossy look that made her wonder if he did not look more like a television star than she. His visitor’s badge, strung around his neck like hers, bounced in front of him with every step. His closely cropped, brown-bordering-on-black hair, was a dramatic contrast to the whiteness of the snow-blanketed park and to his pale, but otherwise flawless, blemish-free complexion. She thought the color and short style suited him and was glad she had convinced him to change it. Maybe the dark hair was no improvement over his natural color, but at least it looked real. Bill had been insistent about that. “I don’t want it to look fake,” he had complained a few days earlier. “I know what I’m doing,” she had replied, her fingers massaging the dye into his close-cropped hair. “I used to color my own hair before I had a personal hairdresser. ‘Tis pity you can’t wait until we get to Fallow Park to color it; Tyler could do it better; the man is a genius with hair.”

  Bill remained silent now, obediently so, as he kept in step along with her; in this respect Meredith had trained him well. After the producers informed her agent that they would supply an assistant of their own, it had taken a series of negotiations, protracted and emotional with Meredith resorting to the diva-issuing-demands routine, before they agreed that she could use her long-standing personal assistant. Following these negotiations, Meredith had spent considerable energy and some time teaching Bill how to actually fulfill the duties of a long-standing personal assistant. This was an important victory for her—it pleased her more than a little to know she would be spared the incompetence of the fledgling producer-wannabes—or worse, one of the dreaded interns—the company would have otherwise imposed upon her. But she was aware that her success came at a price; she was now viewed as ‘difficult,’ and all future demands—should there be any—would be received with hostility. Moreover, they would undoubtedly feel that she owed them increased loyalty out of gratitude for this concession they had made to her.

  The troop, numbering twenty-four with the inclusion of Meredith and her assistant, reached the Administration Building presently. It was the closest building to the front gate, a distance of only several hundred yards, and Meredith had shaken off the suggestion of riding the short distance in the single chauffer-driven town car. Four of the production company’s white vans had claimed the spots closest to the Administration Building, the group’s destination. Two of the white vans were stocked with the necessary television equipment. Behind these were four sedans rented by the company for transporting most of the team.

  “This is only Monday,” she balked. “If we’re not up to a short walk, what business have we got spending a whole week shooting this mother?” She deliberately failed to disclose the fact that she wanted to step into the park by herself, free of the distractions of the other’s impressions or reactions. This short walk gave her her first opportunity in almost fifteen years to see Fallow Park up close. As she took it in, the oppressive Administration Building, the rolling lawn, the ugly brick, squatty buildings further into the park, she rebuked herself for her naïve reliance on her decade-and-a-half old memory. She had forgotten to account for the weather and its effect on the landscape. Her only prior visit had been in the summertime and, consequently, whenever she thought of the community she always pictured it as it had been that day. Why, she asked herself, had she expected it to be similar to her previous visit? Certainly she knew it was now winter—she had, of course, packed accordingly. There had been numerous conversations with her agent and some of the producers and the weather was always referenced in them. Yet seeing the park under a four-inch cover of snow was jarring, like finding she had walked into a wrong room or had taken someone else’s seat in a theater. Perhaps, she surmised, the surprise was attributable to the indelible impression her first visit had made upon her. Whenever she thought of the place, and never did a day go by when she failed to, she returned to her snapshot images of that afternoon she spent here fifteen years before. It had been in late July. Hundreds of people were out on the grass. The carnival was open then, and the park looked as though it might fulfill its promise. She chided herself for never accounting for the change of seasons in her thoughts and speculations about the park.

  But there were other changes, discrepancies from her memory that could not be attributed to the weather. There was a sense of decay about the place, a feeling almost of neglect, even abandonment. This was early January. Where were the holiday-season lights and decorations? Surely there was no need to pull those out so soon into the New Year. Possibly they were removed in preparation for this documentary, but more likely, she surmised, they had never been placed. As she approached the administration building, she could see that the windows of the first floor offices were clean, but the higher floors were dingy and streaked. They looked as opaque as smoky glass, bathroom glass, she called it, the type designed to provide privacy. But these windows were not smoky by design. They were just filthy.

  She held tight to Bill’s arm as they climbed the three steps up to the front doors. Here some effort had been made to prepare for their arrival. There was no visible ice, but patches of not yet melted salt that provided an equal navigation challenge. It crunched under Meredith’s and Bill’s feet. As soon as they reached the stoop, her assistant patted her on the shoulder and the television director, Austin Green, took his place. This was a show-bizzy moment and the director expected to escort the “name” in the group, if only to set himself apart from the others. By assuming the role of her escort, he made the statement that no one was going to mistake him as merely a member of Meredith St. Claire’s entourage.

  The front door opened and a man in a business suit, flanked by his own entourage, two equally well-dressed women, stepped out.

  “Ms. St. Clair,” the man said with an extended hand and a comically deep timbre, “it’s truly a great honor to welcome you to Fallow Park.” The camera people in Meredith’s camp caught both his exaggerated greeting and Meredith’s and Austin’s responses. Some feet behind the television crew, a photographer took pictures, presumably to be used for publicity purposes. If successfully placed in the media, the caption would read: “TV’s Lucy the Leprechaun Meets the Director of Fallow Park.”

  Before taking his hand, Meredith surmised this man was the sort who shook hands aggressively. The satisfaction that she was correct in her assessment was small compensation for the sore hand and general sense of disorientation that followed his overly enthusiastic greeting. The man had a stern and authoritarian aggressiveness about him, a style that would be described in the world Meredith knew as an over-studied masculinity. In these modern times, Meredith was accustomed to straight men who were less self-conscious in their presentation. The world had changed to such an extent that it was the norm for men to be more relaxed and natural. This was the generation of men who wept with the least provocation, hugged other men—even those they had only just met, and seemed to embrace their feminine side. So stran
ge, she thought, to run into this man with his outdated and forced machismo in, of all places, Fallow Park.

  The man and his assistants ushered the party into the lobby of the building. Once the two camera people had stationed themselves in positions where they could capture dialogue and reaction shots from the assembled party, the man introduced himself. “Chuck Makepeace,” he said as he continued his vigorous handshaking with the others in the group. He continued to direct his comments to Meredith although she had stepped further into the foyer to meet others on the staff. “We’ve been looking forward to this special for some time—special or documentary—which is it by the way? How would you categorize it? It isn’t scripted like a special, but it isn’t journalism like a news feature either. It’s more like an industrial movie, I would say. Would you call it a corporate film when the corporation is the Federal Government?”

  “No,” Meredith answered over her shoulder, as she was now several steps ahead of him. “When a government finances a movie, it’s usually called propaganda.”

  “Uh,” he stammered as though he were trying to regain his train of thought, “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the preparations we’ve made. Of course, you know the itinerary already, but perhaps not so much the details.”

  One of the director’s assistants, not to be confused with an assistant director, took her turn to meet Mr. Makepeace, his title now established to all the members of the group as that of the park director, and asked: “Do you prefer Chuck or Mr. Makepeace?”

  Chuck Makepeace took his eyes off Meredith long enough to assess the young woman asking the question, appeared to take a few seconds to appraise the woman, as though he were assessing her significance to the crew, and replied, “Doctor Makepeace.”