Ok, I need some (perhaps a lot) or help with this (especially the beginning). I wrote this in 2002, at my first institution of higher learning, for a fiction workshop class. However, all of the students were also entry-level (so to speak) and I didn't get much helpful criticism. I really like the idea, but need some help because it doesn't sit quite right with me. Something is off, but I can't tell what it is. So I thought I'd bring it here for some help. I really hope this is the right place. I didn't put it in short stories because it's not done yet.
Okay, nervous rant is over.
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Ashes of an Infomercial King
Dearest Viviane,
You, my sweet daughter are the only for whom I've cared enough to send a letter. By the time you receive this it will be at least two days too late—the postal service is very slow, much to my favor.
Don't worry about the arrangements; I want things very simple. Make sure they cremate me and have no sort of memorial. The thought of you alone in a room with 40 empty chairs and the press banging at the door is too much for me to take.
Viviane, follow this advice: NEVER become or fall in love with someone with aspirations of running a successful company. It consumes your life, sweetie. It's too much for anyone to handle. Avoid business, for the sake of your dear old man.
I've left you everything, as my lawyer will soon inform you. Officially it's really just the house. My bank accounts have been depleted. Please take the house. It's big enough to raise a mob of my grandchildren, if, that is, you ever decide to have children.
But there is some money; enough support you and the house until your career takes off. No one knows about it, especially not my accountant. I’ve placed a strongbox in the basement; it’s in one of the cardboard boxes to the left of the fuse box. I’ve taped down the key in the bottom of this envelope.
Enjoy these gifts I am leaving. Know that I worked hard for them. I love you.
Daddy
I have reread my father's last words so many times in the past two weeks that the page-wide horizontal folds have worn thin. I'm sure the next time I remove his letter from its envelope and unfold it the bottom third will come clean off from the rest of the page. I can see the "Daddy" fluttering to the floor and disintegrating into the bloodstained carpet.
Of course, this will never happen. There's no bloodstain to swallow the paper. Before Daddy shot himself he laid out some money and marked it for a post-suicide cleaning service. That was my father, always thinking ahead.
Today, a few days after I received a shiny urn full of my father's ashes, I summoned the courage to go to his house. I brought the urn with me, but left it in the backseat of my car, which I parked halfway around the semi-circular driveway, right in front of the steps to the front entrance. I held onto the railing for support as I climbed the gray stone stairs because, like my hands, my knees were shaking.
Facing the looming double door entrance, fumbling with the set of spare keys Daddy gave me years ago, I wondered if the house would be in complete disarray. Upon inspection, I was surprised to find that all the rooms were in order. Neat, as though the maid had just left.
The most strikingly organized room was the study, where Daddy stuck the gun in his mouth. On top of the glossy wood desk, which was so large my father often looked like a child behind it, were stacks of folders. In front of each pile was a label detailing its contents. Most of the descriptions were in business-speak which I could not comprehend. I can't even figure out my own taxes, so my father's CEO-related papers were so intimidating that I completely bypassed them. I decided to leave them for his accountant.
I was drawn to a pile on the far right of the desk. The label said "PERSONAL" and I knew it was meant for my eyes only. I opened the folder slowly, afraid to disturb the arrangement inside. All I found inside were pictures. Most of them were at least 20 years old and were of my father and myself. Practically every picture was taken at a playground.
When I was a kid I loved city parks. I convinced my father to take me to nearly every park in the city because I liked to play with other kids. When I was four, I remember being particularly taken with a boy named Kevin. We shared a tire swing as my father and Kevin's grandfather talked politics and pushed the tire around and around.
Most of the good pictures were taken by other parents at the park. Some were by children my age, but those were always the same: my face next to my father's legs. There were quite a few of those.
There was one picture, at least ten years older than the rest, yellowing with age. It was my father and mother at some college party, smiling. From what I understood, through information from my grandparents, my father was never the same after my mother died. I wouldn't know though. I was a baby when she passed away. She had apparently always been on the sickly side and having a baby must have put too strain on too many vital organs because she never left the hospital after I was born. She lingered there for two months.
My father was so lost when my mother died that he left me with his parents. They raised me as my father worked from 8-6 at his company and attended two support groups: one dealing with grief and the other for full-time employed single fathers. Sadly, many of the attendants overlapped between the two groups. For more than half a year, my father attended these meetings until he was comfortable to take me on weekends once a month. Slowly he worked himself up to caring for me every weekend and eventually, just as I started walking, Daddy was only leaving me with his parents during his working hours.
As I got older my father climbed the corporate ladder. He once said that the only thing he loved more than his job was me. As I looked at the yellowing picture, I wondered if he didn't mention my mother because it hurt too much to love a memory. He never remarried.
I closed the folder and took it out of the study.
My father was the perfect example of dedication, both to me and to his career. He often stayed late at the office once I was old enough to fend for my own dinner, but he always returned before I went to sleep, so he could spend time with me. His boss was aware of his circumstances, and appreciated the way Daddy was able to balance his personal and professional lives. His boss frequently came to our home to discuss business.
Daddy's boss, “Martin”, as I knew him, Mr. Hall to my father, took a shine to me because I didn't seem to know how important he was. The first time he came by I treated him like any other guest and asked him if wanted to watch television. As I invited Martin to the den, Daddy stared at me wide-eyed, mortified at my appearance: torn jeans, a faded black t-shirt with the name of some death metal band I don’t remember, blue lipstick, and all. Martin only laughed and said he'd take a rain check.
"Your father and I are about to discuss a promotion, but I'm sure I'll be back. We'll watch some TV another day," he said and smiled.
I was satisfied with that and left the men to discuss their business. My father was ecstatic, displaying a grin that could have been used on an infomercial for a teeth whitening system.
Martin was being honest with me that day. After many visits to our house, he had paved the way for my father to the company's inner circle. Martin, my father, and I watched television together many times. When Martin got sick a few years ago he decided to step down as the head of the company. He nominated my father to take his place and the rest of the board agreed. He died a few months later.
Daddy ran the infomercial production company for a few years. The company's most lucrative clients were pasta makers, rotisseries, and total body workout systems. The productions Daddy oversaw could be found late at night and sprinkled throughout every weekend television schedule. My father's company was the most sought after for every inventor of patent-pending useless merchandise in America. The inventors paid big money to have their revolutionary products exposed to the country by my father.
My father enjoyed his job. He loved having power, he once told me, because it made him feel important. I told him he was important to me, but he said it was a different kind of important.
"You don't understand business. If you were involved, you'd know what I mean. There's a big rush when you know people trust you to make them money," he said.
"You're probably right," I said. "It's just not my thing, Dad."
He said he understood where I came from. I always hated dealing with numbers. Add that to the idea of hawking needless home add-ons through a television forum and it was over for me. But it was Daddy's favorite thing. He loved business as much as he loved to schmooze with other powerful suits.
A few months ago an infomercial backlash swept cable and network television. In the midst of a dry spell for political controversy, cable news commentators turned to the validity of the claims made on infomercials. Many clips from my father's productions were found on CNN and the Fox News Channel; they were bashed by every reputable commentator on the air. My father received countless phone calls with offers to do battle with the heavies of nightly national news, but each time he declined.
"I'm not going to lie through my teeth on national television. That would mean death to the company," Daddy explained to me. "Embellishment is natural. It's advertising, for God's sake."
The commentators interpreted his refusal as they did those of the smaller infomercial production companies: an admission of guilt. As a result of the media's expose on infomercials many of the smaller companies died out quickly. Daddy's company lingered in the black for a little while, but it too succumbed as stations pulled out and inventors stopped trying because their market was now too cynical to believe six inches around the waist could be lost in six weeks.
The doors to Daddy's company closed its doors a few weeks ago, only a week before he shot himself. Just as he was enjoying the benefits of his many years of hard work (taking vacations, buying a new car), it was all swept away in a media storm.
I offered to stay with my father for a while after all this happened, but he said he wanted to be alone. Daddy said he wouldn't be any fun to be around, and that it was best if I stayed away. I told him to call if he needed me. He wrote me a letter instead.
I go back out to my car and grab the urn from the spot on the back seat where I had earlier secured it. I take Daddy to the den and turn on the television. A cable news commentator pops up on the screen, jabbering away that a certain male Senator was found "engaging in inappropriate sexual contact" with a Congressman, and wondering, "what does this say to the nation's children?"
I look down to the urn and cradle it against my chest.
"Oh, Daddy, if you would have hung on for a few more weeks, you would have seen that people forget. They don't care about infomercials anymore, there's sex in Washington again."
I love the letter beginning. I feel for the father, I can see how his substitution of work for his wife building through the whole story.
