The Universe versus Alex Woods

by Extence, Gavin

  I’m very sorry that I didn’t tell you all this sooner, but I was very traumatized by what had happened, and also I didn’t want you to think I was making excuses or shirking my responsibility. I do feel responsible for what happened because it happened on my watch and in hindsight I think my actions were very reckless. I’ve decided to become a pacifist again, not only because I’m very poor at fighting and don’t care for it one little bit, but also because I now realize that even as a last resort fighting gets pretty lousy results.

  Anyway, despite the fact that my actions may have made a bad situation worse, I hope you can see that I am not entirely to blame. I may have acted stupidly, but I acted with good intentions, and I think you’ll agree that this counts for something.

  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to come over and tell you what I think about Breakfast of Champions in the immediate future because I am currently under house arrest - for the fighting incident described above, and also for a later incident where I used the worst word in the English language in front of the deputy headmaster. (You probably know which word I mean, so I won’t spell it out.) However, I shall certainly stop by when (or if) my mother decides that I’ve learned my lesson and my liberty is restored to me.

  Thank you again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Alex Woods

  I should probably tell you that having written this letter, I was baffled that I’d not thought to write sooner. Explaining things in writing, when I had time and space to think, and to say what I really meant, was so much better than trying to communicate in real time.

  I wished I could always communicate in writing. That, I thought, would make my life a whole lot easier.

  Eventually, of course, my house arrest did end, and I went unannounced to Mr Peterson’s the following Saturday and met him in the driveway. He was just on his way out, taking Kurt for a ‘short’ walk – which, I should clarify, meant short in terms of distance, not time. What with Kurt’s age and Mr Peterson’s leg, all their walks were ‘short’, but none was brief. Still, it was now high summer, and the day was dry and bright, and as you know, I was now accustomed to at least an hour’s walk each day, five days a week. I was happy to tag along, no matter how long the short walk ended up taking.

  Since my letter, I’d had several more weeks to work on the full, proper apology that I still felt was owed, but having written, rewritten, memorized and rehearsed this speech, I found that Mr Peterson wouldn’t let me get past the first (elaborate) sentence. For some reason I couldn’t yet grasp, he seemed to think that he was more at fault in the matter than I was, and to be honest, this was kind of awkward. I felt compelled to point out, for at least the third time, that the rare first-edition copy of Breakfast of Champions inscribed by Mrs Peterson had been destroyed in my care – and as a result of my actions.

  ‘Do you know what Mrs Peterson would’ve said about that?’ Mr Peterson asked me.

  I thought about this for a while. ‘I suppose she might have said that you should never have lent me the book in the first place – you know, that it was asking for trouble.’ In actual fact, I thought this was more like something my mother would have said, but, really, I had no other point of comparison.

  Mr Peterson screwed his face up slightly, in what I’d come to interpret as his version of a smile. ‘No, she wouldn’t have said that. That’s the last thing she would’ve said. She would’ve said that a book’s a great way of sharin’ ideas, but beyond that, it’s just pulped trees. She would’ve told me that I’ve been actin’ like a goddamn moron. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  I thought about this for a long time too. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said eventually. ‘I think you’re saying that the book’s not important, because it’s the ideas inside that are important. Except I know the book was important, because it was a present, and it can’t be rep—’

  ‘I’m not sayin’ that the book wasn’t important. I’m sayin’ there are things that are more important. I’m sayin’ that all the things that were important about the book . . . well, they weren’t really anything to do with the book itself. They’re more up here –’ at this point, Mr Peterson tapped his head, close to the temple – ‘and they haven’t gone anywhere. Now do you understand?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  ‘Okay. So please – no more apologies.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, it’s not so much your fault anyway. Some of those guys at your school sound like prize assholes.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I can imagine quite a few of them winning prizes in that department.’

  I then spent some time trying to explain to Mr Peterson about all the complicated rules and laws that govern appropriate behaviour in the playground – about how everyone was expected to think and act the same way and if you didn’t, you were generally treated as some kind of leper. My mother always told me that things would get easier with time, that people would get more tolerant and all these ‘problems’ would suddenly seem quite trivial, but Mr Peterson said that this was only half true.

  ‘Your mom’s not exactly normal,’ he told me.

  ‘No,’ I agreed.

  ‘And she might find it very easy to be that way, but for most people it isn’t. It’s always easier to go along with what everyone else thinks. But having principles means doing what’s right, not what’s easy. It means having some integrity – and that’s something that you control. No one else can touch it.’

  Integrity. I tried the word out in my head and made a special note of it for future reference. Because as soon as Mr Peterson said it, I thought that that really was the apposite word. It occurred to me that this was an idea I’d been thinking about, or trying to think about, for the past several weeks.

  ‘Mr Peterson,’ I said, ‘I think in a way, I was trying to say something with integrity when I used that word I used. You know which word I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, I know which word you mean,’ Mr Peterson confirmed.

  ‘Well, I’ve not really been able to explain this to anyone, because everyone agrees that that word’s forbidden, and can’t be used in any circumstances – but really, I think that it needed saying. And when I said it, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong. I felt like I was doing something, you know, principled. That’s when I felt like I had the most integrity. Does that sound stupid to you?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. I think that integrity can show itself in all sorts of ways, and sometimes you can break the rules and still act with integrity. Sometimes you have to. Just don’t expect too many people to accept that.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘Although, under normal circumstances, I’m not really one for breaking the rules – or for discourtesy. I’ve always been very good at school. Actually, that’s one of the reasons my peers don’t like me much. You’re not supposed to be enthusiastic about learning. It’s the wrong thing to be interested in. People get very suspicious if you’re too into things like reading and maths and so on. But I expect that seems a little strange to you. I’m sure it was very different when you were at school.’

  Mr Peterson snorted. ‘Kid, I’m American. We’ve been suspicious of intellectuals for hundreds of years. When I was your age, it was the early 1950s – thinking too much was seen as unpatriotic, and things haven’t changed a whole lot since. Just look at some of the morons we’ve made president. Bush! Fuckin’ Ray Gun!’

  I knew who Bush was, of course. He was on television a lot because of Iraq and so forth. He was having a special relationship with Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and looked a bit like a monkey. From what I’d gathered, most people didn’t much care for him; Mr Peterson said he was barely bipedal. But as for ‘Ray Gun’, I had no idea what that meant. I suspected it was probably some kind of nickname, but I thought I’d better check.

  ‘Rea-gan!’ Mr Peterson enunciated. ‘He was the fortieth American president. Before that he was Governor of California, and before that he was a B-movie actor – a pretty lousy B-mov
ie actor. Honestly, if you’d seen him in those godawful movies in the fifties, you’d have sworn there wasn’t a job on the planet he’d be worse at. Not until he became president. He was president for most of the eighties.’

  ‘I wasn’t alive in the eighties,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Count yourself lucky. It was pretty much Satan’s decade whichever side of the Pond you found yourself on.’

  ‘Oh.’ I made a mental note to verify these facts on Wikipedia later, and also to Google ‘B-movie’ and ‘the Pond’.

  Sometimes our conversations demanded a lot of further research, but I was very glad that Mr Peterson and I were friends again.

  DEATH

  A year passed. It was a time of strengthening and consolidation. At school, I had no further trouble – or little worth speaking of. There was still the odd insult thrown my way by Declan Mackenzie and his brotherhood of baboons, but on the whole, their powers were much depleted, and no match for my newfound integrity, which swaddled me like a protective cloak. In lessons, I reverted to my natural behaviour. I worked unashamedly hard. I raised my hand and answered questions. I spent a lot of time researching and polishing my homework – more time, I imagine, than any other fourteen-year-old on the planet. I got into the habit of spending two hours every weekday evening in Glastonbury Library, and often several more at the weekend, and I got to know all of the librarians very well. I liked the librarians because they were extremely calm and orderly and quiet – and helpful too. I soon discovered that if you wanted a book they didn’t have, they’d gladly order in a copy – free of charge. The council paid because the council thought that reading was good for the soul, and wanted to encourage it in any way they could. I thought it must be very satisfying to work for an institution with such lofty ideals, and decided that after being a neurologist or an astronomer, being a librarian would probably be my third choice of job.

  While I buried myself in quiet study, Ellie, in contrast, continued to get into trouble at least three or four times every single week. First, of course, there was her ill-fated eyebrow scheme. As I’d foreseen, no amount of hairspray could conceal the truth indefinitely. In actual fact, I think it was within a few days of our first speaking that Ellie’s eyebrow bar was found, seized and consigned to landfill. Ellie’s mother then visited every jeweller and tattooist in a ten-mile radius, handing out A4-sized photographs of her daughter. Above the photo was Ellie’s date of birth and home phone number, and below – in case anyone missed the point – there was the following caption: Do NOT pierce this child!! In addition to the capitals and double exclamation mark, Mrs Fitzmaurice also used red ink. Mrs Fitzmaurice didn’t trust the jewellers and tattooists of Glastonbury one little bit.

  Then there was a second (equally humiliating) cataclysm a few months later, when Ellie’s parents finally discovered that their daughter was not working at Topshop as they’d been led to believe. I had the misfortune to witness the altercation that followed. Mr Fitzmaurice came round to our house to make it quite clear that he did not approve of my mother’s shop and would not allow his daughter to work in such an environment. This led to my mother delivering a rather long and extremely tedious doorstep lecture on the fundamentals of witchcraft: spiritual growth, communing with nature, the harmony of the inner and outer elements, astral projection, the seven realms of knowing and being . . . ‘Black magic’, she pointed out, was just a small piece of the overall picture, and much misunderstood by the layman. For the most part, it was no scarier than the miracles attributed to Jesus: walking on water and coming back from the dead and so on. At this point, Mr Fitzmaurice threatened to call his lawyer, and eventually, my mother conceded that she couldn’t continue to employ Ellie in the face of such obstinate opposition.

  Sadly, this was only a temporary setback. Ellie returned to my mother’s employment as soon as she turned sixteen, shortly after her GCSE results (which were never to be spoken of in polite conversation); and soon after that (having decided that life with her parents was unbearable), she moved into the flat above the shop. By that time, of course, Sam had moved out and Justine had gone to India to ‘find herself’.

  As I’d predicted, being around Ellie – in those early days – was rarely stress-free. Not only did you have to contend with the thick cloud of world-weariness that characteristically enveloped her, but beyond this there was also the gentle or not-so-gentle teasing, the perpetual eye-rolling, the overbearing sarcasm and mascara. And then, every so often, and completely out of the blue, she’d get all sweet and sisterly – with soft little smiles and playful pokes and punches. That was even worse. At least with the sarcastic, scowling Ellie I had a clear picture of where I stood. Smiley Ellie confused me. Several times it was only patient meditation in the stockroom that saved me from a seizure.

  It was around this time that I started to get a much better handle on my condition. I was still having biannual appointments with Dr Enderby, and after I turned fourteen, my mother reluctantly agreed that I should be allowed to attend these appointments alone. It was, after all, somewhat awkward having to take time off work on a Saturday to drive me to Bristol, and Dr Enderby had said that there was no reason I shouldn’t be allowed to come to the hospital on my own. He thought it was a very positive decision because it meant that I was ‘taking charge’ of the situation. I caught the 376 bus, which ran hourly from Glastonbury High Street and took me all the way to Bristol Central, which was only five minutes’ walk from the hospital.

  When I first started attending my appointments alone, I was averaging one or two generalized seizures a month, and Dr Enderby doubted that increasing my medication would lower this base rate to any significant degree. Since we’d already established that my seizures tended to have clear and predictable triggers – stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation – we agreed that it would make more sense if I continued to work on my strategies for ‘coping with adversity’, cognitive behavioural therapy and so forth. In particular, Dr Enderby was concerned that I was applying my meditation exercises too irregularly and too late – that I was relying on these techniques as ‘crisis control’ when ideally they should be seen as long-term preventative exercises. He gave me an analogy to explain what was going wrong.

  ‘It’s like you’re trying to bail water out of a leaky boat in the middle of a storm,’ Dr Enderby informed me. ‘There’s water coming in from every direction – from the leaks and the waves and the rain – and at the same time, you’re having to contend with half a dozen other distractions: the thunder, the wind, the floor rocking beneath you. In these circumstances, staying afloat is almost impossible. What you need to do is ensure that your boat’s always in a good state of repair: then when the storm hits, you’ll be ready for it. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I told him. ‘My brain’s the unseaworthy boat, and the storm’s stress or adversity. And I guess my meditation exercises are the hammer and nails and planks and tar, et cetera, that I’m going to use to fix all the leaks before I go sailing.’

  Dr Enderby smiled. ‘Yes, that’s right – although I wouldn’t describe your brain as unseaworthy. Not exactly. But you get the general idea: you need to practise your exercises regularly – every day if you can – to give yourself the best possible chance of staying afloat.’

  So that’s when my meditation regime really began in earnest – and it’s a regime that’s continued ever since; in the past four years, there have only been one or two occasions when I haven’t started the day with a half-hour meditation. It was apparent from the outset that early mornings worked best, as this was the time when my head was clear and free from distractions. Generally, I’d rise between half six and seven and begin my practice as soon as I was fully awake. On Dr Enderby’s advice, I built a small ‘shrine’ in the corner of my room. This contained a soft mat and cushions, a table lamp with three brightness settings, and a small space reserved for books and CDs. I never listened to music during my meditation as this was much too distracting, but afterw
ards, I often liked to spend fifteen minutes listening to one of the classical albums that I’d borrowed from the library or Mr Peterson. In terms of relaxation, I found that Chopin’s nocturnes took some beating.

  In the privacy of my own head, for reasons that will now be obvious, I labelled my new regime ‘working on my boat’, and this metaphor proved so compelling that I’d soon found a way to incorporate it into my meditations in the form of a visualization exercise. I’d start by picturing my boat in its idealized form – a small but sturdy vessel with a shallow draught and its name (Serenity) painted on the side in turquoise lettering – and I’d imagine it floating high on a flat sea under an overcast sky. Slowly, I’d introduce some small waves into the scene, then wind and rain and lightning, increasing the power of each until a full, howling thunderstorm was in progress. My boat would rise and fall amidst this tempest, being rocked and whipped and battered by the waves, but nevertheless enduring – its integrity unbreachable. Then, eventually, the sea would become silent. The wind would drop, the waves would settle, the clouds would disperse, and at last everything would be blue and tranquil. I’d see my boat at the centre of a sparkling, sunlit ocean, a perfectly flat horizon stretching out in every direction.

  This was the image I’d return to whenever my serenity was threatened (by my mother, by Ellie), and soon I found that I was coping much better with day-to-day stresses. I was sleeping better. I was having fewer seizures. My mind felt generally clearer. But I had yet to face any serious test.

  Until the day I’m now going to describe to you, I had no way of knowing how much stronger my boat had become.

  It happened not far from the post office. I forget the precise date, but it must have been early summer 2008. It was a Saturday, shortly after lunch – maybe two or three o’clock.

  We’d just rejoined the main road from a bridle path, which was why Kurt wasn’t on his lead. Another minute, another thirty seconds, and I’m sure he would have been safely restrained once more. As with all accidents, it was the chance confluence of any number of circumstances, and if any of these had been just a little bit different, it would never have happened.