Journal Days
Beckett slips into his roast-pumpkin cashmere jacket and adjusts his shoulders and sleeves with a self-conscious glance back toward the full-length mirror. All these years later, he's still the gangly, bespectacled undergraduate completely bewildered about the important things in life: getting her cell-phone number, executing a crisp dive into the pool, negotiating the discount, closing the deal. One backward glance and it all melts away -- the highrise corner office overstuffed with Elizabethan period pieces in a building bearing his own name, the two-story condo in a shiny glass Mies Van De Rohe building downtown; the four-thousand square foot cottage with its ancient imposing chimney reclaimed from a scottish castle -- they all fade away and Beckett is once again a child, left standing alone at the edge of a thick wood. They hadn't meant to frighten him, probably, but those few heartbeats when he'd believed himself lost left a stiff and permanent scar. He has, in a very real sense, been expecting the reprise of that first act. It's not just waiting for a shoe to drop; Beckett anticipates the next crisis with a calm certainty -- indeed he wears it draped over his shoulders like a Don's hood. He likes to think that he bears up well under the circumstances; he'll say it just like that, with a wry chuckle. In his quietest moments, Beckett is prone to consider what he has come to think of as his affliction (cough-shrug). Beckett fears he will descend into an alltogether different realm. Beckett says to himself on occasion, "I seem to have stepped one foot into the quicksand of phobia." In fact, Beckett is on the brink of mental illness. He is perpetually that child, standing cold and alone at the edge of the thick wood. The trees whisper and call to him, reaching out with stinging jabs to draw him closer and steal his breath. The others were there just a moment ago, they've run off laughing and Beckett was too afraid to follow. He ran across the quiet meadow, right up to the place where the black forest floor overpowers the fragile green a few feet in front of the first towering Pine. Beckett's resolve faltered and he turned back toward the meadow, confused and afraid. Evan would come back, Beckett was sure of that, and not at all embarassed that he relied on his younger brother for safety and comfort. The boys both knew that it was but an accident that forced Beckett into roles for which he couldn't possibly be suited and Evan into his place with no expectations upon him at all. It was later that afternoon, when that business at the forest's edge was nearly forgotten, when Beckett and Evan were summoned to their father's office. He made his announcement and was appalled when Beckett balked. "The firstborn Eaton son always attends Camp Wishniwaw's leadership summit!" Mister Eaton boomed, "I did and my father did and my grandfather Westminster Eaton was the God Damned FOUNDER of the young man's leadership summit and you, Beckett Westminster Eaton will most certainly attend and be a credit to the Eaton name!" Beckett and Evan looked down at the tips of their dusty sneakers while their father bellowed instructions they were certain to heed. Mister Eaton turned without waiting for a reply and marched from the room. Beckett watched the perfect one-inch cuff of his father's custom charcoal pants brushing his shoes mid-heel, every crease and fold a testament to his exacting nature. "I don't know how I'm supposed to get through this," Beckett whispered to his younger brother. "Come on," Evan said sadly. "I'll help you make the lists, so you'll always know what to do." With a terrible twelve-year-old sigh, Beckett followed his younger brother.
