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Chronicles of the Shade – Episode 6 – “Melancholy Thoughts”

by Editors

Chronicles of the Shade©*

Episode 6 –

Melancholy Thoughts

Mid June 2007

Lance Carter awoke with a slight headache. He hadn’t meant to open the bottle of Rothschild Lafitte ’94, only the sixth out of the two cases he had bought at auction in 1998. At $100 it had been a fair price, but he had originally hoped to save it for a more auspicious occasion. The thought of Lara, however, and his memory of how she had shared his love for fine wine, prompted him to open the bottle. Now he was chagrined to recall that he had drunk it all. This wasn’t like him. After he had opened his detective agency, he had drunk only moderately—an occasional vodka and gin martini (2 parts Absolut vodka, 1 part Bombay Blue Sapphire gin, and 1 part Stock dry vermouth—with a twist of lemon). Yet he had felt that he needed a fine wine to complement the prime Porterhouse that he had decided to select from his stainless steel food locker.

Now he was annoyed with himself. He was revolted by the thought of returning to the former dissolute life he had led upon returning from Katmandu. He had a sworn purpose to fulfill—to fight the evils he saw in people’s minds, even though he seemed powerless to take punitive action himself. As a detective, he would have made Sam Spade and Mike Hammer laugh. He didn’t even own a gun. Although he had excelled in marksmanship at the Academy pistol and rifle club, he knew that he would draw the line at killing another human being. His two-year stint at Langley had convinced him that he was not cut out for operations that involved the assassination of foreign rivals. The eighteen months he had spent in his father’s seat on the Stock Exchange were disappointing, as were the three years he had spent running a cattle ranch in Wyoming. That was when he had decided, as a mature student, to pursue the M.Phil. at Oxford.

His annoyance was now tinged with sadness. He knew that during the previous evening he had begun to feel sorry for himself. His witnessing the brief romantic interlude between the President and Condominium Lice—well, as romantic as you could expect from those two—had brought home to him in a rush what he had been missing in his life. The words of Lord Byron echoed in his mind: “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed!” This melancholy had really begun when his father died and Lance was only ten. Lance was being boarded at the Farragut Academy in Florida when Stanley Noland Carter suffered a massive heart attack on the floor of the Securities and Exchange Commission, his last words being the strident shout, “Up another eighth!” Thus ended the career of the most remarkable hedge fund trader in history, surpassing even George Soros in the accumulation of wealth.

Lance’s mother had been devastated. Stella L’Amour Carter had never been a strong woman, and she had leaned on her husband in all things. Lance was summoned home for the funeral, but immediately afterward he was sent back to the Academy. Though never in want for anything, Lance had always felt strangely empty. Although he was a quick study, his grades had suffered after his father’s death, and he became introverted. His friends were few, and he began reading Greek mythology and delving into tales of the Norse gods and goddesses.

When he was ready for high school, his mother—still in mourning—had returned him to Farragut Academy and its strict military discipline. Lance learned to develop a tough exterior to mask the inward pain he was feeling. His grades improved, but he was not committed to his studies. He excelled at only those subjects that interested him. He began to read Dosoyevski, and then the works of Camus and Sartre. He tried out for varsity football and made the first team in his junior year as a cornerback. Fearless, and always a swift runner, he led the team in tackles until his knee exploded from the impact of an illegal block. He had been unable to play his senior year. Instead, he embarked on a brief yet torrid love affair—his first—with a vivacious and experienced young lady who attended a nearby Catholic girls’ school. When the affair ended—she having run off with a local businessman—Lance suffered the misery that comes only to those who have loved passionately, yet all too soon.

Now Lance began preparations for brewing some coffee in his sun-filled kitchen. He ground the coffee beans as the morning light streamed in through the windows and onto the polished antique furniture that he collected as a hobby. He popped a couple of aspirin in his mouth and washed them down with orange juice. Then he poured two ounces of MonaVie into a shot glass and drank the nectar distilled mainly from the potent açai berry. Funny, he thought to himself, he hadn’t thought about the auburn-haired Theresa in years. Yet it was her leaving him that had set him on the track of pursuing his studies with a vengeance. Upon graduation, and with some help from his father’s friends, he was admitted to Princeton. Four years later he graduated cum laude with a dual major in history and English. Before entering university, he had taken time off to spend a glorious year with his Aunt Viva in Nancy, France. She had shown him Paris, took him up in her hot-air balloon, and supervised his flying lessons. It was Aunt Viva who had nurtured his French, told him stories of the wonderful Josephine Baker, and taught him to appreciate blank-verse poetry and American jazz. It was she who told him to read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Richard Wright’s Black Boy. It was shortly after he had earned his pilot’s license that he received word of his mother’s untimely death and was forced to return to America. He never saw his Aunt Viva alive again, but he would remember her always. He saw her frequently in his dreams.

But it wasn’t thoughts of Theresa or Viva that had brought on Lance’s latest bout of melancholy. It was thoughts of Lara. Lara’s mother had named her for the heroine of Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago—the book, not the film; for the slim, athletic, dark-haired Lara looked nothing like Julie Christie. Even now, as he savored the rich black coffee, he felt the pain of her absence. He wanted to find her—that would be easy enough—and he wanted to telephone her, wherever she was; but he knew that it would be too difficult. How could he describe to her the ennui he experienced? Worse yet, how could he overcome his embarrassment at remembering how she had found him six years ago, drunk as a lord, on the pavement in front of her Society Hill home? She had dragged him inside, sobered him up, but told him in no uncertain terms how things stood. She could no longer be a witness to the destruction of his life. She had no intention of preserving a relationship that he no longer seemed to care about. Then she had told him to leave—yes, with tears in her eyes, but with a firmness in her voice that would brook no excuses and no pitiful entreaties. He couldn’t tell her about his experience in the icy crevasse. It was too awful. He dared not tell her about his strange powers—especially the power to see into people’s minds. That would drive her away forever. Yet he held the hope that someday he would find the courage to tell her what he had become. Perhaps they would be able to overcome it. Perhaps they could work together to try to make the world better. “Too dangerous,” Lance said in a whisper. “It would be too dangerous to tell Lara what I am doing now.” Yet buried beneath his consciousness was the thought that what he was doing now was the result of Lara’s influence. In some secret place in his heart he knew that he was doing it for her.
What Lance Carter was doing at the moment was preparing to become his alter ego, The Shade. He had telephoned his office to tell Lucienne that he was not feeling well and was not coming in today. There were no messages. He was presently reconnoitering the premises of The Grey House. He was intent on making progress in disabling the tape erasers that “Quicky Slick” Piston had installed in the Elliptical Office. Like the shade that he was, he glided past the security guard and entered the Grey House.

TO BE CONTINUED….

Next Week: Episode 7: