Fallow Park Today

by Joseph Glenn

  “Yes,” Meredith said, “I’ve become acquainted with your Dr. Makepeace.”

  “My Dr. Makepeace?” Dr. Waldren asked in mock shock. This he unabashedly played to the cameras. “I hope no human being is ever attributed to me or be considered my personal property, but with Charles Makepeace I must take particular issue.” He composed himself with a quick wink in her direction, using the eye obscured to the camera, and assumed a more tranquil style of relating to his guest. “Please let me be clear on this point; he and I operate independently of each other, as though we coexist on opposites planes of reality. When I got here—and it’s important to me that you understand this, I, like many of my clients, came here by choice—the park director back then was a former city planner. She had political aspirations—and skills. She was the right person for the job. Running each of these parks is not unlike being a city mayor.”

  He paused again. Meredith now noticed that he was the jittery type, at odds with himself when he is unable to keep his hands busy. He picked up his cup, but refrained from drinking from it. She knew he was running out of coffee too quickly, and that if he took a sip with every pause it would be depleted before the interview was concluded. And it would be pointless to continue picking it up once it was empty. How the man needed more props! He had just denounced tobacco, so clamping the pipe back in his teeth, or busying himself refilling it seemed out of the question. “Yes, there’s no question about it,” he finally continued, ultimately opting to sit on his hands. “The parks have changed. But I’m talking about more than just hobbies or entertainment options. Although, to be sure, those programs were the first to be cut. We’ve lost our options. Even if you want to trivialize the point with recreation activities, there was a time when you could maintain a level of activity. A purpose, a function to fill, is vital to human contentment. We weren’t meant to live idle lives. The parks we knew fifteen years ago, as flawed as they were, had a degree of diversion. There was always something going on. If you were a bowler, you could bowl every night of the week. Now that’s available on a very limited basis; they’ve shut down so many of the alleys; they’re too expensive to operate, they’ve told us. The leagues went away. What was the point of trying to maintain them when the venues became so difficult to schedule? There were other entertainment options: first-run movies, almost every touring artist and play. Now just memories of a bygone day. The lawn? The grounds? The acres and acres of space? There were basketball courts, tennis courts, a walking trail, two bike trails. But the bicycles broke and all the other outdoor activities fell into neglectful ruin soon after. They were too expensive to maintain, and it cost too much to pay attendants to monitor their use. We couldn’t be trusted to make use of the park’s natural attributes, of course. The people of Fallow Park can pursue such activities only under the constant, watchful eye of the parks administration.”

  Dr. Waldren paused to catch his breath, but was far from finished with his rant: “You could dine at one of eleven different dining halls,” he continued after his short rest. “Many were more like restaurants than cafeterias. There was Italian, Thai, pretty decent French cuisine. If we weren’t overjoyed back then, at least the options, the distractions, kept us preoccupied.” Once again he paused, this time allowing himself to consume a small portion of his coffee. He seemed to weigh the weight of his last words and, in his restrained, academic manner, appeared pleased with himself. Meredith was delighted.

  “And don’t get me started on the whole issue of health care,” he said, giving Meredith a jolt by this sudden jump to another topic. “You ought to talk to some of the doctors in the infirmary.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she assured him. “That’s on the agenda.”

  The ensuing discussion of health care segued into a discussion of education and the park’s position against earning any form of advanced degrees. This would be prohibitively expensive, Dr. Waldren quoted, but it seemed one more effort to prevent residents from gaining access to outside information, and was one more example of how, and one more justification for why, the men and women of the park were denied use of the internet.

  Meredith made no effort to prevent him from unloading his pent-up frustrations. He was not telling her anything she did not know, and the film capturing the tirade would certainly be destroyed, but she saw no reason to save Makepeace and the other representatives of the park from hearing him. At least that much would be accomplished. Some people, middle management though they might be in the grand structure of the internment camps, would get it with both barrels from someone whose opinion stings. For the kind psychologist’s sake, she hoped the retaliation of Makepeace and the like would be minimal. But this was wishful thinking. Bullies, she noted, tend to be so thin skinned.

  Only when the allotted time had passed and Austin called a halt to the interview did Meredith get up from her chair and put some thought into her departure. She held Dr. Waldren’s hand longer than a customary handshake. Doing so expressed more than she could with words. When he finally pulled his hand away, he did it with a smile.

  “A man juggling several balls,” Meredith remarked to Bill after they heard the click of Dr. Waldren’s closing door and they had stepped several yards down the hallway. The crew was still inside dismantling equipment and restoring the room to a usable state.

  “I liked him,” Bill said.

  “I did, too.”

  “As you said, he seems to have a lot on his plate.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she agreed. “Yet, he’s able to balance the needs of his clients with his own issues. He sees a bigger picture.” She looked up at Bill, into his blue-green eyes, tinted that shade by contact lenses. She resisted an impulse to run her hand through his jet-black hair. He would certainly recoil from such familiarity.

  “It’s time to talk to Tyler—alone. What are we supposed to do next?” she asked the assistant, the person in charge of her schedule and her social calendar it seemed.

  “I think you’re supposed to interview a group that plays in a poker league,” Bill ventured. He was vague about this. He did not convey a great interest in the film’s next segment, nor any sense of urgency. “Then, I think, there’s a collection of men and women at one of the unisex hair salons.”

  “But you’re not one hundred percent sure of any of this, are you?” she asked with a laugh. “You’re definitely not cut out for this profession. It just isn’t in your nature to be responsive to other people’s agendas. Still, as I’ve said before, you’re doing a decent job, all things considered. Good enough, anyway. You’ll forgive me if I continue to harp on the subject. I’d be lost without you. Any other assistant would never be as skilled a confidant—and you’re fun, too.”

  He shrugged and ducked his head in the boyish way she knew he would. Before he had the chance to say, “Aw shucks,” she continued with: “It’s a perfect symbiotic relationship. If they bitch at you when I’m uncooperative or ‘difficult,’ you can shrug and say you’re doing the best you can with this has-been who still has a diva nature or an artistic temperament. I like that last one better; try and work that one in as much as you can. If they bitch at me for being late—or absent—I can blame it on your inexperience. I’m sure they think we’re sleeping together—which is good; they’ll be less likely to try to can you if they think you have that kind of a hold on me.”

  He smiled and again ducked his head.

  She turned his attention to another point: “I think their lack of confidence in me has already been addressed. I’m sure that’s why we’re having such a hard time shaking this intern.”

  “To be sure.”

  They turned to look back down the hallway they had traveled during their talk. “At least we’re free from him for the time being.

  “Then this is the best time to deviate from the schedule,” she said. “I’ll make the salon, but you go on to the card players and say I’ve taken ill, and that I’m resting in my apartment.”

  “Austin will hit the—”

  “Does
n’t matter,” she answered him. “He’ll send someone to the apartment to fetch me, but I won’t be there.”

  Bill nodded. She knew he was running the scenario through his head. “Yes,” he agreed, “That should work. You will in fact high-tail it to Tyler’s apartment and talk to him, tell both of them what’s what. Think you’re up to navigating your way to the building and back?”

  “But of course,” she said. “The wind’s let up, the sun’s come out, and it’s a straight shot. Didn’t you tell me it’s supposed to get into the high teens? Positively balmy. I’ll make out.”

  She consulted her wrist watch. “We’ll meet back in my room in roughly two hours. I’ll be prepared if you show up with company; Austin himself will likely want to read me the riot act in person. That’s fine. I’ll say I’ve been walking, lost track of the time, etcetera. Tell them when you meet them I skipped the poker game because I decided it would be best to just do a voice-over narration for that scene after we get back to L.A.”

  “Mr. Green will hit the roof,” Bill said again.

  “I expect so,” she said with a deliberate lack of concern. “But that will then become his focus. ‘How dare you take it upon yourself to decide how we’ll film a scene, blah, blah, blah.’ And suddenly we’re no longer talking about where I’ve been or what I’ve done.” In a more serious-minded tone she asked: “When do I meet Makepeace again?”

  “They’ve planned a two-hour segment tomorrow morning—eleven thirty, I think, I’ll have to check, in one of the entertainment centers.”

  “I think you become tenser each night,” Ansel told Meredith shortly before midnight.

  She turned over and studied him. The light from the bathroom, pale though it was, provided just enough illumination to highlight the biggest features on his face, his wide nose and proud brow. Distorted, but still handsome, he looked much older. It had been something of a compromise negotiating this amount of light; Meredith would have been perfectly content in a pitch black room. Youth, she remembered, likes everything bathed in a spotlight. Ansel was too young to realize that she preferred to avoid such an unforgiving glare when she was completely disrobed, as he was insistent that she be.

  “Tense?” she asked. “I suppose so. I’m not surprised if I am. One of the scenes we filmed today was with a bisexual group. It dragged on and on.”

  Ansel was unfamiliar with Dr. Waldren and the bisexuals of Fallow Park. Meredith quickly filled him in about the details of the organization and relayed the highlights of the meeting. He listened intently. Though she could see little of his eyes but the whites when he opened them wide, he did this frequently enough that she could tell he was fascinated.

  “Do you think most people are bisexual?” she asked him.

  “Not now. Now that they’ve pulled all the gays out of the country—you know what I mean, out of the population.”

  “You never thought about sex with a man?”

  “No, not once. Why would I? Why would any straight guy?”

  “But circle jerks when you were a teenager? Boys still do that, don’t they?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. But that’s not bisexual, that’s just[JK3] behavior. Any straight man—adolescent—can do that. I mean, any guy can physically complete the act. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “No, but it never did. It’s almost like a rite of passage thing.”

  “I don’t think many same-sex encounters happen anymore in the U.S.—outside of the parks. They’re so clearly verboten. Any activity like that would have to be pretty hush, hush.”

  “I’m surprised though,” Meredith said. “The stigma’s gone. No one today would be accused of being gay—everyone on the outside has basically been certified as straight.”

  “All the more reason why no one would be caught doing anything like that. I mean, yes, sex is sex, and lots of people can do it with just about anyone. But if a man, or a woman, were to express interest in that kind of coupling, someone, maybe the person they’re propositioning, would wonder why they haven’t been sent to one of the parks. We assume all gay people have been taken out of our society, but as a consequence, gays are even more reviled than ever. The stigma if someone thinks you’re gay is greater than ever. No,” he concluded, “I don’t think people are naturally bisexual. Our understanding of the genetic testing is that if you test negative, it is established that you are not gay, that you are therefore the default: straight.” He pulled the sheet down below their waists in one forceful gesture. “I’m feeling straight right now, as a matter of fact.”

  This was the reward for which she had been waiting. And, she noted, the day had been as productive as necessary. She finally had her private audience with Tyler. He and Carl were onboard. At least she had her moment. “Alright,” she told her companion, but let’s be quick about it. I’ve got to be fresh and alert tomorrow. I’ve got to deal with Chuck Makepeace for much of the day.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “This is the smallest of the entertainment centers,” Chuck Makepeace said while making a sweeping, stagy gesture with his arm. “We have a total of four of them, as well as the activity rooms in every residence hall.”

  “The smallest?” Meredith asked as she followed him into the non-descript, single-story building. Like most of the structures at the park, it appeared to have been built efficiently, cheaply, but with the expectation that it would last. No thought, and certainly no money, was expended on aesthetics. As they approached the main room, she added for the benefit of the sound technicians and the camera: “My goodness!”

  Beyond them was an expansive room. A majority of the floor space was claimed by forty-eight (Makepeace boasted) card tables. Most of the tables were employed by groups of two, three, and four. Along the far wall video games blinked and buzzed. The wall to the left had fourteen (by Meredith’s count) dart boards. All of them, she noted, were in use. To the right, closed doors blocked the noise of this, the main room, from the television rooms.

  Makepeace turned, as though to walk back outside the building. He buttoned up his overcoat and retrieved his gloves from his pocket.

  “Do it again?” he shouted with enthusiasm over Meredith’s shoulder.

  “No,” Austin replied, the frustration measurable in his word. “I really think the ninth time was the charm.”

  “Oh? Okay then!” Makepeace said heartily. And then, as though he had the personality to pull off such an old-fashioned Dale Carnegie ploy, he added: “I trust you. I am but clay in your capable hands. You’ve convinced me you know what you’re doing.” If he was hoping this artlessly played ego massage would elicit a favorable response from the director, he must surely have been disappointed. Austin turned to instruct the camera crew without acknowledging Makepeace’s flattery. To Meredith Makepeace quietly asked, “Does this guy know what he’s doing?”

  Meredith smiled at his naiveté and took a brief glimpse at the sound man. He nodded back, ever so slightly, assuring her that even in a whisper, Makepeace’s body microphone was catching every word. “I think it’s fine,” she reassured him in the most patronizing tone she could muster. “Anyway, at the rate we’re going, all the equipment will be obsolete before we get the perfect take. Besides, we can’t tie up this entrance much longer.” She pointed to the fifteen or so residents waiting to leave the entertainment center. Outside, arrivals to the building were being re-directed to side entrances.

  “Them?” Makepeace asked after a too-long perusal of the setting, as though he was trying to see through the crowd at first, looking beyond it to some situation worthy of Meredith’s concern. “They can wait. It is, after all, for the greater cause. Whether they know it or not, it’s in their best interests to be slightly inconvenienced if that’s what it takes to tell our story.”

  “That’s so paternalistic,” Meredith said, as if it were praise. “You must be a great father. I assume you have children?”

  “Oh, no,” the park director said with audible dismay. Meredith assumed he was wounded by
the fact that she had not made it her business to learn his life story by this time. “No,” he said, “I’ve found all the parental outlet I need right here. These,” he said with another sweeping gesture, “these are my children.”

  “These adults,” Meredith said as a combination question and accusation as she mimicked his grandiose gesture.

  Makepeace offered no explanation. He had turned his attention to Austin, now approaching them with a purpose-driven stride.

  The documentarian had finished giving instructions to the crew and stepped up to the two. “They’re going to mingle about the room, getting shots of the card players and the people in the TV rooms. Merry, why don’t you work the room? We can cut in some shots of you chatting up the residents.”

  “Super idea,” Makepeace said. “I’ll introduce you to some of the ones I know. Let’s see; I don’t seem to recognize anyone today.”