3

One can tell a lot about a man by the manner in which he organizes his desk.

Some have papers disheveled over the entire surface like a sort of circus come to town parading over its surface. They let pencils fall wherever they may in a haphazard game of pick-up sticks and paperclips sit here and there like World War Two blockades, stopping the progress of any would be organizer. That man could search for hours for some important document that lay hidden among the wreckage that is his business while he would argue that he knows exactly where every single item is. He could care less about the order of not only his desk, but how events in his day play out. Flying by the edge of his seat, he welcomes each new event and a refreshing challenge to satisfy his desires. He can go through life without a care in the world because he pays no care and worries not, expecting nothing, devoting his life to nothing, and receiving as much of a payoff as he can from the moment because to him that’s as much as we are ever guaranteed.

Others have everything lined up neat and ordered as if he were Mussolini rallying his troops into a fascist organized form. Papers are piled into straight and neat in and out stacks that are at separate sides of the desk so as not to become mixed. The pencils and pins are in one spot and one spot only while the paper clips are either not seen or kept in a box in a drawer. Most likely there is one of those expensive corporate day by day calendar planners sitting in the middle with a plastic sheet over it to protect it against any unlikely spill, unlikely because this man would never allow any sort of liquid to be placed in an area where it may prove dangerous. Every event in the day must be planned and allotted for so as to prevent any conflict. Should anything prove to not match up with the itinerary, this person is likely to become flustered, or even break down. His particular attention to detail makes this person not only infatuated with what they are giving attention to, sometimes they are downright obsessive.

Henry Karlsen sat at his desk, poring furiously over the paper in front of him. His office was the same small cramped room in which every professor at Gloucester University resided. A bookshelf sat host to a number of things on the wall to the left upon entering; numerous books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Dante Alighieri, and many others on one row, dozens of movies ranging from A Fistful of Dollars to Wayne’s World on another and a large collection of composition notebooks next to several volumes bearing his own name on the spine on a third shelf on topics including the American Western, modern comedy, and Greek legends. The wall across from the door bore several picture frames, displaying Dr. Karlsen with a stunning brunette with piercing green eyes and a small dark haired boy with the same eyes placed into a tightened form of Karlsen’s face. All of the pictures held this trio in different environments, one at the park, one at the beach, one at a football game. And on the final wall sat the desk where Karlsen presently sat, looking over his notes feverishly, making marks here and there in small neatly organized print.

On one corner of his desk sat a mesh pencil holder that held two dozen or more pencils and pens, all the same length and sharpness. Next to it was a square magnet to which clung more than a hundred paper clips. Other than these items and the space he was currently working in, the surface was completely clear. If one were to open the drawer, he would find everything in their in its own proper place, scissors where they should be with a ruler at the edge, a stapler sitting by one side and a three hole punch on the other.

Dr. Henry Karlsen was looking over a lesson plan for his “Genre’s of Storytelling” class, a plan that was dated for October 20th, two days from the present. At the top of the page in pen was written “The Nature of Fear” followed by a series of notes outlined in handwriting so small and neat that it could only be read by someone with near perfect penmanship. The paper looked 

to be in near perfect condition, not revealing its true age, having been in the possession of Dr. Karlsen for many years, looking as if it had just been pressed. His hands barely graced the surface of the page as he moved adeptly over it, looking at every last detail, tapping the pen on the side of his desk as he thought meticulously about what to include and what he was possibly missing. His brownish green eyes, peering from behind a stylish thin pair of glasses resting on the slightly upturned tip of his nose, raced from word to word as he sought to make the plan absolutely perfect. Tongue sticking out from the left corner of his mouth, the doctor made a face of utter concentration that would have fit a medieval monk during a Gregorian chant. His hair, still intact and with its full and natural color, sat perfectly parted at the left side. Finally glancing at his watch, he noticed it was a full five minutes past when he was supposed to be teaching the very same class for which he was reading a future lesson. He quickly and carefully placed the papers on his desk in a labeled manila folder and then into a pocket of his briefcase labeled Friday. Snapping the clasps shut on his attaché, he stood up, consciously pushing in his chair afterwards and walked out the door which he made sure to close and lock before his departure.

The sun was shining and the air was warm despite the fact that it was late October as Dr. Henry stepped out of Gloucester Hall where his office was sat on the first floor down the left hall at the very end. The leaves had been changing from their usual green to much lighter shades, some past a yellow and already darkening as the sun dried them. On the grassy hill across from Gloucester Hall, squirrels were carrying nuts from across the street near the fraternity row and burying them next to their chosen trees for easy access in the coming winter. Henry watched with respectful admiration as they organized and planned for the ebbing cold, preparing for the worst possible scenario, hoping for the best. Students sat in the warm sun, taking advantage of every last ounce of relaxing they could enjoy before they would shut themselves inside, 

adventuring out only for the occasional cigarette and then taking deep drags so that they could spend as little time in the harsh Mid-Missouri winter as possible. They sat around the statue of Earl Gloucester, the founder of the university, an icon built just a year after his death and a monument that all students walk by upon the first week of their freshman year. The stroll over to Burnside Hall from Gloucester was less than two hundred feet, but Henry always liked to take his time, no matter what hurry he may be in at the time. To see the nature between the two buildings and experience firsthand not only the student life, but the feel of the space between there was truly magnificence.

A small group of students recently out of class were lounging on the steps entering Burnside, enjoying an after class smoke and chat. They must have just had a test because all six of them seemed very stressed out, one of which was actually twitching. Must have been ole doctor J, Henry thought to himself trying to hide a smile while thinking of his colleague who had once been his own professor and advisor. Thinking back to those tests made him feel like he was giving them a light load, remembering the two hours he would take to hand in twelve hand written pages, hand cramping and brain drained, only to receive a seventy with more comments from the professor about how his essay should have explained sociology than words he had actually written. He had always ended up like the shaking kid, so focused on what he was doing that he couldn’t process anything around him, still focused on the test he had just taken and unable to shift his perspective to a new topic. He brushed these thoughts from his head as he glided between them up the steps, and brought his mind back to the topic which he was about to receive at best thirty papers about, the western as shown in Sergio Leone’s Man With no Name trilogy. Scenes from the films raced through his head as he walked across the lobby to the stairs 

he would take to the second floor where his class would be sitting waiting in the first room on the left.

As he entered and the conversation died down, he could already tell what the topic had been. Would he show up? Did we have an extra two days to try and make our papers better? And on the lips of those that hadn’t written them at all, ten more minutes and we can leave with an extra day to do this shit. Disappointed looks on the faces of most, he grinned and greeted them. He loved teaching, explaining, and learning. It had been one of only two things he could see himself doing when he himself was going through school, along with being a lawyer. It was only his second year of teaching but he took to it like he had been going for at least a decade.

“Alright everyone, you should all have eight pages explaining the influence of the man with no name on American culture and the symbolism within the three films. Pass them forward and I’ll walk by and pick them up.” He said as he walked to the far side of the room and waited for the papers to make their way to the front desk of each row. When they finally did after some students had to be reminded by their peers to send their work forward, he paid careful attention to counting how many papers came from each row. Thirty students in all with two absent and twenty-six papers in all, he thought and scribbled neatly on the outside of a manila folder he placed the papers in before putting it in a pocket of his briefcase labeled “to grade.” It was a better turnout than he expected, knowing that students often were too preoccupied with other classes or their own lives and that they sometimes forgot to do their work. He hoped they had just forgot rather than chosen not to do a project that consisted of a third of their grade, but it was their money and he was being paid whether they passed the class or not.

“Now who can tell me what is different about Clint Eastwood’s character in the movies we’ve been watching than say, a John Wayne or a Yul Brynner or Peter Fonda?” he asked

The class sat silent for a minute as if they were unsuspecting of actual questions to be asked, possibly expecting a free day after turning in their papers. The silence was just long enough to border on being awkward, making Henry consider asking them to take out a sheet of paper to take a quiz before a small half-Japanese girl in the front row named Alicia spoke up.

“The man with no name is a much grittier character than the cowboys portrayed before him. He is very terse in his speech and at times seems almost an anti-hero, performing his deeds for the money gained rather than the people helped as Wayne or Brynner would have.”

“Good, at least one person paid attention,” he said jokingly, “now who can tell me what parts of American culture the last scene in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly represents?” he asked, continuing the discussion. A boy sitting in the back row with a red hoodie on with the sleeves pushed up past his elbows spoke this time.

“Eastwood’s character shows a desire for wealth that is very common among the American people; to him everything is about money.”

“Also, justice is carried out on the guy who killed the one family who had tried to hire him to kill someone else, the guy he was supposed to kill had paid him to turn around and kill the original dude, he ended up taking all their money and killing everyone involved. I think it was Lee Van Cleef’s character,” a boy next to the one in the hoodie said.

“That’s right, now what about Tuco?”

“He died the way he had faked to get money earlier in the movie” a girl in a low cut top in the front seat at the far right of the room said.

“And he had tried to double cross Clint earlier too making him walk seventy miles without water in the desert, I’d have left him to hang too,” a guy in the very middle of the room said.

“True, he’s really not a guy we feel bad for. You’re all right, the Leone movies capture a different side of the western tale. The films also came out at a time when the American people wanted an anti-hero. Right in the middle of the sixties when everyone was protesting Vietnam and counter-culture was at and all time high, pun intended, nobody wanted to see Johnny B. Goode John Wayne anymore, they needed a symbol. They needed something that stood out against the norm and didn’t take a side, but that stood back, on its own. That symbol came wearing a green serape with a six shooter on his hip and a hand rolled cigar sticking out of his mouth. When he doesn’t pick a gang to choose, but rather pits both gangs against each other, the gangs represent America and Vietnam to the viewer, with their hero withdrawing from both, living his life for him, not some plastic finger pointing at him and telling him what to do.” Henry said as he sat on a table in front of the class, drumming his fingers against the edge between his knees. “When he joins up with Colonel Mortimer to take down Indio and his fourteen gang members, it’s the counter-culture uniting to take down their oppressive government through the necessary means. And when he walks right through the Civil War, ignoring the battle and destroying a bridge that was needed by both sides, they are defying their government and its war, working against both sides as they want to bring an end to the battle and bring their friends and brothers and fathers and sons home. Make sure you’re getting this in your notes, it’s going to be on the final,” he said as he saw several with jaws agape, just taking in the information but not entirely processing it. It was a minority in this category, but two of which he was certain had been the ones that had not turned in their papers, and thus needed the lecture the most. “Now who can tell me who wrote the score for all three films, the name of the most popular song from the third film, and the band that remade that song in 1998, for three bonus points?”

“Ennio Morricone, the Ecstasy of Gold, and Metallica” Alicia answered once again.

“Good, now that’s all the time we have today, next time we’re starting a new genre, so be ready, I think you’ll really enjoy this one, I personally find it fascinating. I’ll try to have your papers graded as soon as I can. Later guys” he said grabbing his briefcase and walking out the door before any of the students. He had just ten minutes to get to the Young Republicans meeting, for which he was the faculty advisor. It was in the same building, but he always liked to try to arrive early to all his appointments, and after the five minutes he had taken from his last class he felt like it was his duty to make up that time with his next scheduled stop. The room was on the first floor down a hallway similar to the one his office was in, but with blue paint on the walls instead of the off white that covered all the walls in Gloucester Hall.

The room was empty when he arrived, but he took no notice, setting his gunna on the table at front and picking up a piece of chalk and writing “The Lighthouse publication date 10/30” on the board. They would have to have some good articles this month to make up for the lost ground to “The Watchdog” their Democratic counterpart on campus. This last month it had printed a three page piece about the ineffable nature of the Republican party and how that was demonstrated in the current war efforts, as well as responses to Katrina and a number of domestic issues. They used a number of fallacies and inaccurate numbers in their article, but the damage was done as the common reader doesn’t take time to look beyond the information given. It was hard enough to present a conservative view when so many in charge in your party were pushing policies like the Patriot Act that actually enlarged the scope of the government. After he had finished writing and sat down behind the table his crew started to shuffle in looking as if they too had just finished a test with doctor J.

“Guys I don’t think I have to tell you how hard we have to work this month,” he said after all were settled. “I’m probably the only conservative teacher on this campus, and I know 

with the article they published last month you guys are probably in a minority now too. It doesn’t help that Turkey is taking action in Iraq and making a mess out of what we’re trying to accomplish over there, all the while the left keeps saying to split it into three nations between the tribes, throwing away everything we’ve done to date in the region. Do you guys have anything good for me today?”

“Yeah, I just wrote about the five thousand dollar fund Hillary wants to create and somehow pull us out of a deficit and without the tax burden being on the middle class” A boy with a full beard and a shirt that boasted Delta Chi stood up said with a snort and brought him a typed article.

“Good, anyone else got anything?” Karlsen said to a room filled with blank faces. “Well in that case go home, come back next week with an article, we still have a week until we need to go to publish.” He tossed the paper in his briefcase, his first sign of disorder in the entire day, and got up quickly, frustrated with the apathy his organization presented him.

Walking out to his gold Chevy Malibu, his mind drifted back to the notes he had been making before class. The page had been weighing on his mind heavily for the last week. He had started it when he himself was a student in undergrad school, toying with the idea of teaching a course on the subject, and now here he was, two days away from teaching his passion. Two days away from giving the students the details he had researched and learned over years of surrounding himself with the subject. He could explain every detail, every nuance of the subject, and in turn could learn more, could receive how others felt and get new ideas. The idea of fresh thoughts, not the old hashed out ones he continually ran over like in his office, excited him immensely. He didn’t even remember the drive from thinking about the subject, suddenly realizing he was sitting in his driveway without a single memory of having driven home. Was 

this what it felt like to drive drunk? His fraternity brothers had talked about driving blacked out but he had never wanted to risk not only getting caught but putting others and most importantly himself at risk. He dismissed the feeling and opened the door, ready to be home from a long day and wanting to spend some time with his family

The house was a three bedroom suburbian dreamhouse. Pastel yellow paint on the outside, chosen by Sarah, his wife, and several lawn decorations, it looked like the typical home of a happy family that tried to be active in their community. Inside were many Halloween decorations Sarah had put up to get everyone in the mood for the upcoming holiday. She had come from a large family in which all holidays were celebrated and everyone got together practicing each one in its kind; dressing up for Halloween, playing Dirty Santa, hunting for Easter eggs as a family. Henry had to dodge one of her hanging smiling ghosts that guarded the red front door as he walked up the path leading to it, picking up a red plastic ball left outside that belonged to the family dog, a miniature schnauzer named Spike. His mind back on the notes he had been making, he walked right in and joined his family at the dinner table where they sat waiting with heaping mounds of mashed potatoes and roast beef sitting on three plates.

Isaac looked up at his father adoringly from over his plate, his green eyes searching his father’s countenance for a sign of approval, grinning gleefully when had caught Henry’s eye giving him a wink. Isaac admired his father above all others, seeing no fault in the man. To a boy, a father is a model of God, perfect in every way. God made man in his own image, but children make God in their father’s image. In church, they will hold visions of their father sitting on high with a host of angels at his command, looking out for his sons and protecting him from all problems. Isaac, still being six, an age when it is perfectly acceptable to make an idol out of a parent, was no exception. Looking at his dad, he saw days like the one he anticipated for 

tomorrow, where they would go to the park, or play video games together, or watching silly movies. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the best days of the week to Isaac because those were the days that Henry had off and would pick him up from school to pursue one of these ventures. Henry ruffled Isaac’s hair before sitting down at the end of the table.

“How was the meeting with Johnson today?” he asked his wife, who had been trying to make a gigantic deal between her client insulation company and another that it was trying to buy. She had been one of the most successful corporate analysts and negotiators in the area, helping most of her clientele to expand their empires. Even as a child her skills of negotiation and for lack of a better term manipulation, could get her out of trouble and acquire anything that she desired. It was only natural that she should pursue a law degree, tacking on business so that she could specialize in this specific filed, writing contracts and convincing people it’s in the company’s best interest to accept deals.

“I think we’re getting close to a breakthrough,” she replied. “He knows that he can’t hang onto that business forever, especially when he doesn’t really have any employees and has to subcontract everything to his competition.” All of this meant nothing to Isaac, who just sat there during most of his parents’ discussions about work, waiting until they addressed him to talk. A few months ago they had become worried that he didn’t talk as much as other children, in fact he didn’t really talk much unless he was directly addressed. A child psychologist had told them it was attributable to nothing more than an introverted personality and that it was perfectly normal, that he was simply shy.

“And how’d school go, bud? What did you guys do today?”

“We played dodgeball in P.E. and Ross threw up at lunch and got to go home,” he replied enthusiastically, unintentionally talking about things his mother would consider disgusting at the dinner table.

“That’s not good,” Henry replied, looking over the environment they were at when Isaac mentioned the sickening image. Henry had always been hard to gross out as his fraternity brothers had learned in college, mostly stemming from the fact that he didn’t much care about the content of what was going on around, just how others felt, especially the ones to whom he was close. “So if you could go to one place for lunch tomorrow, where would it be?”

“KFC, let’s go there dad.”

“Sure thing bud… Woah, look at the time, you need to get to bed if you’re going to be up in time for school tomorrow. Make sure you brush your teeth and lay your clothes out, I’ll be in to tuck you in in a bit.” And with that Isaac was putting his plate in the sink and off to the bathroom to follow his father’s orders without question.

He and Sarah followed suit, washing their dishes off and picking up the table, a nightly ritual at the Karlsen home. Henry would stand at the sink rinsing off each dish before loading it into its respected place in the dishwasher as Sarah brought it from the table. Their wedding rings sat next to each other on the counter as they carefully cleaned each dish so that the dishwasher could sanitize them as it hadn’t been cleaning well lately. One ring a thin golden band with an inscription on the inside, “My life for you” and the other with a large marquis shaped diamond with a smaller one on each side with the inscription “My one and only” on the inner portion.

Once done with the task at hand, they walked into their living room and sat on the love seat which was directly in front of their television. Curled tightly in each other’s arms while watching the news, they both thought back to a time when they had been dating, the first time 

they had ever sat like this. It had been in a movie theater, the film they were watching long forgotten, but the memory of the feeling of rightness and peace remained and came back to them. Just the two of them, sitting wrapped in each other in the dark without a care in the world. Neither paid any attention to what the news was tonight, both focused more on the other than anything else going on. Henry pulled away first, going to check on Isaac.

As he walked down the hall to Isaac’s room, his mind once again returned to the notes on his Friday lecture. To say his thoughts were returning would be an understatement; he realized that in the back of his mind they had always been there, even when he had been asking about his loved one’s days. It was his consciousness that kept drifting back to it. The light was still on in Isaac’s room he saw, a sign that he wanted to be tucked in, possibly read a bedtime story.

“How come the light’s still on?” He asked as he rounded through the door frame.

“It was dark and it was scary,” Isaac replied from where he was curled up underneath the covers.

“What’s so scary about the dark?” he asked, noticeably dropping the tone in his voice to be more compassionate.

“I’m afraid something’s going to try to get me.”

“Nothing’s going to try to get you. There’s nothing that’s there in the dark that’s not there in the light. Your mom and I would never let anything in this house that would try to get you, we’re always here to protect you too,” he said leaning over and giving his son a kiss on the forehead.

“Will you sit in here with me until I fall asleep daddy?”

“Sure thing bud,” he said as he pulled a chair over by the bed. Giving his son a big firm hug before sitting down, Henry once again began pondering how exactly he was going to do his 

lesson on the nature of fear. He always had several ideas, but now that the unit was only days away he was anticipating how it would turn out. Ironic that he should be worried about teaching about fear he thought as a smile crossed his face. What was it that Isaac was afraid would get him? I had never let him read or see any of my horror entertainment. These thoughts raced through his head as he waited for his son to drift off into sleep. This hadn’t happened often before, but it wasn’t unheard of. Isaac probably got scared by some kid at school. It had been horrible when some older kid had told him that if he said “Bloody Mary” three times she would come haunt him. That had been a solid week of this. Thankfully thirty minutes later Henry heard the soft gentle snores that announced that Isaac was indeed gone. As quietly as possible, he got up, turned out the lights, and left the room.

The tv in the living room was off as were all the lights in the house, a sure sign that Sarah had grown tired of waiting up for him and went ahead to bed. He crept carefully down the hall toward his bedroom, careful not to stub his toes on anything Isaac may have left out. He reached the threshold and toed his way over to the bed. In the dim light he could make out the form of his wife, lying on her side, breathing gently and at peace. Walking by it toward the bathroom, the words of his son rang back on his ears. “Something is going to try to get me” they echoed. He kept thinking about what sort of thing it was that his son was afraid of as he brushed his teeth. Why isn’t he older, Henry thought, I could teach him about fear the way I’m going to teach my students, the different sides of it, its manifestations, its beauty. He could see the truth about fear. Maybe FDR was wrong about fear, but at least my son could gain some comfort. Henry battled his mind back and forth as he got himself ready to go to bed, mentally exhausted by the time he finally stripped to his boxers and laid down pulling the blanket over himself.

He was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling when he felt the hand caress his chest, startling him at first until he understood from where it was coming. Placing his on top of it, he gave it a gentle squeeze and graced the palm with his thumb.

“You know, there is nothing hotter than a good father that would do anything for his son,” Sarah’s voice said in the dark next to him.

“Really,” he replied.

“Yeah, and I think I know the perfect way to reward such a loving father and husband,” she said, kissing his cheek. He turned into her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to give a kiss of his own.

“I love you dear,” he said.

“And I love you,” she replied.

He then rubbed his hands up and down her back as she ran hers through his hair. Rolling over with her on top of him they commenced relieving the stresses of the day. When they were finished, he held her close, letting his mind wander in the dark. She had fallen asleep as he was still thinking about all the details in their lives, how they had nearly been separated for good at one point when they were dating, about the time he had to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night because she couldn’t breathe from a bad case of pneumonia, when Isaac was born.

Isaac, he thought, and the words drifted back again. He thought of how he might include them into his lecture for Friday. Certainly there he could include the fears of his own child in his lecture on the nature of the subject. And what was the nature of fear anyways? He’d spent so much time thinking about the subject that it had lost all meaning to him, but the meaning was being reminded in that simple phrase, “Something is trying to get me.”