It went no better for Kenneth the second time, or the third. There didn't seem much point to a fourth engagement. John Valentine walked in slow circles for a while, massaging his temples.
"You expect problems," he said, at last. "You expect obstacles and setbacks. You are ready to deal with incompetence—it's always around somewhere. You expect these things, and you think you are prepared for anything. So when the disaster strikes, you think you are prepared for it." He looked up at last. "But from my own son? This... this I wasn't prepared for."
Kenneth could think of nothing to say. He knew where this cold, quiet calm could lead.
"My Romeo can't handle a saber." He looked into the wings, then back to his son. "Tell me it's because you're used to the foil."
Kenneth shrugged, and reluctantly shook his head.
"Then tell me how it was done. No, wait, let me guess. Your fencing instructor... needed a little extra cash."
"A lot of extra cash," Kenneth admitted.
"Well, thank god he didn't come cheaply. He was highly recommended, and his reports to me couldn't have been more glowing. I should have suspected; the man didn't have the imagination to write that well. You write well."
"My staff writes even better."
"Of course." Valentine laughed. "Honing their skills on Sparky. I should have detected the flavor of fantasy." He sighed. "I blame myself, son. I never should have absented myself so long." Then he pointed to Kenneth and raised his voice only slightly, but it made the accusing finger more deadly than his blade. "But I must blame you, too, Kenneth. Oh, yes, I think that you must share the blame for neglecting one of the basic skills of the thespian art. Did you think you would continue in your childhood forever? Did you think someone could 'morph' swordsmanship, as though this holy stage were no more than your television fantasy world? Did you think you would never grow up and shoulder a man's work?"
It seemed best not to answer. But as the silence stretched, Kenneth knew he would have to.
"I... I just didn't enjoy it, I guess," he said.
"Speak up, son!" Valentine thundered. He stamped his foot on the stage. "On top of everything else, I will not have you whimpering while you tread these honored boards. Take your puling and squeaking elsewhere, back into your boardroom, perhaps, as it seems that is where you have spent the period of my absence. Surely, your skills there have purchased this theater, I'll not take that away from you... but do you think I care about that? Do you not realize I'd sooner present Shakespeare on a barren patch of sand than to cast as Romeo a boy who cannot fight? A boy who, in the crucial scene—you might recall it; Act Three, scene one?—must slay the valiant Tybalt? The scene that is the very center of the play? The scene that seals Romeo's fate, that sets the lovers finally on the road to ruin?
"Have you seen Tybalt's swordplay? Have you watched the man rehearse? The man is better than me, my poor, poor son. So what shall I do? Have Tybalt fight left-handed? He would destroy you. Break his arms? He would kick you to death. Blind him? Hamstring him? Hire a new Tybalt, a straw man for my son to knock down?"
Valentine threw his weapon clattering into the wings.
"No. No, I must instead create my Romeo from these pitiful makings. I must wrench this wretch—clawing and screaming, if necessary—from his pathetic cocoon, from this Sparky buffoon, and into a man's estate. Assistant stage manager!"
The timid but bright drama student with the misfortune to hold that job peeked from the wings where she had been hiding. Valentine had never learned her name (it was Rose), but had impressed on her from the first day that she was never, never to be beyond the reach of his voice. So when he had cleared the theater, she had found a hole to hide in, but not one so remote as to spare her Kenneth's humiliation. Mister Valentine—always to be called mister, as though he needed distinguishing from Kenneth—usually called her ASM. When he used the full tide, nothing good could come of it.
"Yes, Mr. Valentine?"
"Bring me my sword. Contact everyone. Rehearsals are suspended for a period of... make it two weeks. My son needs to attend drama school."
"Yes, sir."
"This is not to be taken as license to loaf. Upon their return to the stage, all cast members will be expected to know their lines. Cold."
"Yes, sir." Rose handed him his sword.
"Come, Kenneth. We have much work to do."
"Yes, Father."
"En garde!" Valentine shouted, and slashed at his son's face.
Henry Wauk was not precisely asleep when the knock came at his door.
In West Texas, everybody had a siesta during the hottest hours of the day. At three in the afternoon you could fire a cannon down the middle of Congress Street and not worry about hitting anyone. Of course, you could do that at just about any hour; New Austin was not a bustling place.
"Doctor" Wauk took his daily siesta in the office that connected with his, at the top of the stairs over the Long Branch Saloon. Theoretically, this office belonged to Dr. Heinrich Wohl, D.D.S., but just then there was no Dr. Wohl, and there hadn't been for almost fifteen years now. There had been once, and perhaps there would be again, but these days the big dental chair in Wohl's office was never used except when Wauk stretched out in it, shoved his black hat down over his eyes, and sacked out.
Henry never sweated during these naps, though the temperature in his office often reached well over one hundred degrees in the Fahrenheit scale used in Texas. He loosened his string tie and he took off his boots, but made no other concession to the heat. He often bragged to his friends that he was half gila monster and half prairie dog, and that's why he stayed dry. They responded that it was because there was very little water in his system, and he said yeah, that, too. Henry Wauk was an alcoholic.
He counted himself lucky to live in a society that didn't give a damn what he put into his body or what he did with his life. No busybodies had ever tried to reform him. He was a happy drunk. He was also happy to have found, many years ago, the perfect job, which was to be "Dr. Wauk." That was not his real name, but merely the one some wag had written on the shingle outside the doctors' offices in West Texas when the disneyland was built. Wauk and Wohl, get it? He hadn't, actually, but it had been explained to him, and he was content to be Henry Wauk now. Actually, if you had asked him what his name had been, originally, he would have been unable to tell you. "I'm sure it's written down here somewhere. Library card, or something."
For well over forty years he had been refining what he thought of as the Perfect Day. Thirty years ago he got it right, and he'd pretty much stuck to it since then.
Up at the crack of ten, dress and down to the saloon for breakfast, a double prairie oyster: two raw eggs in a double shot of bourbon. Thus fortified, he strolled three blocks to the barbershop for a hot towel and a shave. (Saturdays, a bath in the back room. Once a fortnight, a haircut.)
Noon would find him standing at the bar, drinking slowly, getting the right edge for siesta. When he woke up at five, lunch of pig's knuckles and pickled eggs. At around six it was poker lessons for the tourists. There was no fee for these and all guests of the disney could play, but tuition was steep. At nine or ten dinner would seldom be whatever the cook at the Long Branch said was good that day, because it was usually a damn lie, but the thick steaks were tasty enough. What could you do to ruin a steak? Doc liked them crunchy on the outside and barely dead in the middle. After dinner began the important work of the day: serious poker with the other regulars. Stakes could be high, depending on how much had been taken from the tourists that day. At three or four (or sometimes, seven) he would stagger upstairs to his rooms. It was a good life. It suited him. The Perfect Day.