I have, sitting on my hard drive, several drafts of a novel called North Star. It’s a story about the same character we see in the published novel Open Stage–Gilbert Ragwater. In North Star, a young fella shows up at Ragwater’s door in the middle of the night and asks Ragwater to teach him the meaning of life. I wrote the first draft before any of the novels you see promoted on this website, and I’ve returned to it periodically. But for some reason I can’t get it to work right. Nor can I let go of the idea. So it sits in an ever-changing sort of limbo.
Here’s an except from North Star. It’s a portion of a scene in which Ragwater tells the young man a story, a sort of parable if you want to call it that. It’s not a verbatim copy-and-paste, though. In the novel, the story is told in dialog, with a lot of give-and-take between Ragwater and Calvin (the young fella). I’ve reworked it here as a “standard” third-person narrative so it’ll stand on its own better:
Once upon a time there was a boy named Bob. Bob was a very bright kid, an overachiever, you might say. Straight-A student. Star athlete. Talented artist. Popular at school. The whole package. He was the kind of kid you want to hate because he has it all and knows exactly what to do with it, but when you get to know him, you can’t hate him.
Needless to say, Bob’s parents were very proud of him. They were proud of him every time he made the honor role. They were proud of him when he landed the starring role in the school play. They were proud of him when he threw four touchdown passes in one game. They were immensely proud of him that time he rescued a baby from a burning building. Who wouldn’t be?
Now, when Bob was a senior in high school, his parents had another baby. By this time Bob had already racked up a long string of impressive accomplishments, and he had done it with a combination of brains, hard work, charm . . . all those good attributes everyone hopes their kids will have.
So this new baby was a boy, and Bob’s parents named him Bob’s Brother. They felt—horribly misguided but sincere nonetheless—that the new kid couldn’t possibly live up to Bob’s unbelievably high standards. They thought they were helping the kid, that giving him a name like Bob’s Brother would reflect some of Bob’s glory onto the younger one.
But of course it didn’t work they way they expected. Bob’s Brother grew up feeling unimportant. He felt that his only reason for being was to be a brother for Bob. As far as he could tell, he was just one more thing that Bob had: Bob had Bob’s room, Bob’s car, Bob’s clothes, Bob’s CD collection, and so on. Bob had all of Bob’s wonderful accomplishments and the expectation of many more in the future. And he had Bob’s Brother.
His parents didn’t realize the effect his name was having on poor little Bob’s Brother. All through his childhood, they kept encouraging him. ‘You can do this, you can do that,’ they told him, trying to get him to audition for plays or try out for sports teams, or trying to help with difficult homework, or whatever. They wanted him to do well. They wanted him to be his own person and make his own mark in the world, but with a name like Bob’s Brother, how could he? As far as he was concerned, the only identity he had was in reference to his brother.
He wasn’t a whole person.
He grew up sullen and withdrawn. He was resentful. His parents thought it was just a typical case of teenage angst. But eventually, they found out different. One year, Bob came home for Christmas. He was a highly successful entrepreneur in a half-dozen different industries, and he flew one of his four private jets in from Paris, where he had one of his seven houses—no, mansions—scattered about the globe, in Paris, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Auckland and Honolulu. Yes, life was sweet for him, and his parents welcomed him gushing with love and adoration. And Bob’s Brother faked his best artificial smile and pretended he was happy as the family went out to dinner and listened to the stories of Bob’s many, many exploits and adventures.
And that night, Bob’s Brother stayed up until everyone else was asleep. He found an old butter knife in the kitchen and killed his parents in their bed. Then he went down the hall and killed Bob. He finished off by carving the words “Bob’s Brother’s Brother” in Bob’s chest.