by Alex Caetano
The Peculiar Urges of Mr. L.S. Naubner
Alex Caetano
Copyright 2013 Alex Caetano
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Mr. L.S. Naubner lived in a big house of no particular charm on a street that went nowhere. He considered himself a product of his strict upbringing, something which he couldn't help to be proud of, despite one or two very minor complaints. One of the complaints concerned the inability to fulfill certain urges that beset him from a relatively early age. Nothing of an abhorrent nature, of course, for Mr. Naubner was far from being that particular type of man. They were perfectly acceptable urges but of a sort that, for reasons connected with its intrinsic peculiarity, would discourage public manifestation.
And so it was that, having reached an age at which nature will encourage the undertaking of all significant endeavors to prevent its eternal delay, Mr. L.S. Naubner finally decided that it was time.
Finding an opening in his schedule was no longer an issue. He had retired recently, after long decades of dedicated service working for a prosperous company in a very serious and quite essential area of business. On the rare occasions when he could discuss his meritorious career with a willing listener, he would always point out how he had never been promoted or asked for a promotion, expecting this to be seen as an example of utter dedication and of contentment with the simple joy of performing one's duties without expecting special recognition.
It would merely be a matter of picking a date for the fulfillment of his peculiar urges and of seeing to it without delay. He seldom received visitors and, those that visited him, did so with very particular goals in mind (the selling of certain items, the procurement of monetary support for a certain cause) and would soon be on their way, not having found the patronage they were so eager to find. Mr. L.S. Naubner was not fond of unsolicited house calls, nor was he partial to forceful salesmen or charity seekers.
On a particular day, on the week he had chosen, a delivery man rang his bell, presenting him with a form to sign in duplicate and carrying a large wooden box over the threshold. He left it there, in the vestibule, over the canvas that had been spread to protect the polished wood floor. After that, he left.
The box was square, with the word FRAGILE stenciled in large black capital letters on two sides. Mr. L.S. Naubner had feared that there would be any markings on the box that denounced the nature of its content, but he now saw that he had feared in vain, for the box was as discreet as the catalogue promised. He fetched a crowbar from his garden shed and stuck it under the lid, forcing it to open after a couple of attempts. Inside, surrounded by a protective layer of wood wool, he found all the necessary implements, wrapped in plastic and still in their disassembled state. The assembly instructions were adequately clear and easy to follow and he didn't think the process would take too long.
With a glow in his eyes, he took a section from the box, turned it around in his hands without removing the plastic, feeling its shape and wondering vaguely about the wondrous sensations it would produce. Afterwards, with the excitement of a young boy forcing himself to postpone the moment of opening a present and thus prolonging the feeling of anticipation, he placed it carefully back on the soft bed of wood shavings and lifted the next, repeating the process until they had all gone through his delighted hands.
There was also a bag of screws of different sizes and, upon finding it, he decided to return to the garden shed to bring back his toolbox.
The voice caused a sudden and unpleasant cold feeling starting in his stomach and spreading upwards to his chest and downwards to his thighs. It was an unwelcome voice. An unpleasant voice, because it arrived in the worst possible moment and also because he immediately identified who it belonged to. Suddenly, he felt ashamed. Not that there could be any reasonable motive for it. After all, he was an adult, he wasn't breaking any laws and no one would be harmed in any way by his actions. Other people indulged often in the activity he was set to try for the first time and that was easily acceptable by society. The company he had ordered the apparatus from was thriving, as could be judged by the quantity and ubiquity of its advertisements. Why, then, should he feel embarrassed?
He knew all of that and, still, he couldn't prevent feeling the way he felt. Leaving the toolbox inside the shed, he came out, trying his best not to look as uncomfortable as he felt.
His cousin Kent was several years younger and had always behaved like his superior, even if there wasn't any discernible reason to justify such a conviction. And it had been so since their childhood. Mr. Naubner had been frequently beaten up by the impish smaller infant and the beatings remained frequent until his late teens, when the violence transformed itself into poorly concealed disdain and cruel sarcasm. For years, he felt he should repay the treatment in kind, but he could never manage to do it. He remembered trying once, when he was twelve or thirteen, obtaining a bloody nose as result, which he told his concerned parents had been caused by an innocent fall, thus acquitting the culprit and allowing him to carry on with his bullying for many years to come. Up until the present day, in fact.
The latest bullying happened not too long before, when Kent had visited Mr. Naubner for the first time in long and blissful months of peace with the intention of convincing him to purchase a life-size plaster statue of the goddess Athena (he referred to it merely as "a goddess", but Mr. Naubner identified her easily by the helmet on her head and the owl perched on her shoulder). His cousin had never been able to hold a job for long and his latest venture into respectability involved the sale of garden decorations sufficiently hideous to require the expertise of imposing ruffians.
Alas, it had worked. The statue stood in a corner of the shed, with a couple of spades, a rake and an electric lawn mower doing a poor job of concealing it from view. Only in that moment he remembered Kent's promise that he would come by and install it in a position of honour right in the centre of his immaculate lawn. He hated himself for the flaw in his memory. Even if promises made by his cousin gave no guarantees of realization.
The first thing he did, after greeting Kent with exaggerated and unusual affection, was saying he was busy and asking if he wouldn't mind coming back the following day. He immediately regretted the mistake.
"Busy? You? Doing what?" he asked, looking at him with an expression combining delight and contempt.
The magnitude of the mistake was made even clearer by the awareness that he had no idea of what he could say. He shrugged and forced himself not to look towards the house, failing miserably and doing just that. Kent followed his gaze, seeming suspicious.
Mr. L.S. Naubner had an epiphany and explained he was putting some personal papers in order. That was something he could be doing without arousing suspicion and, in fact, he did it frequently. This capacity for meticulous organization was one of his rare talents and it gave him some pride. Obviously, the appreciation for tidiness wasn't shared by all in the extended Naubner family.
"Nonsense," said Kent. "You can do that later. It will only take an hour, tops."
There was nothing Mr. Naubner could do to prevent it. He yielded to the inevitable and managed to mumble something about a certain celerity being needed. It was as if he hadn't spoken at all because Cousin Kent didn't hear him, going into the shed, admiring the revolting statue of the goddess and coming out with a spade, which he stuck on the grass before taking his jacket off and throwing it over a rosebush in a manner that horrified Mr. Naubner's gardening sensitivity.
"You bring it out of the shed while I dig the hole for the pedestal," he said.
Of course. The hardest task was reserved for the unwilling buyer. Mr. Naubner returned to the shed while Kent started to dig the
shallow hole where the bottom of the plaster pedestal would be placed, grunting from the first spadeful of earth like it was the biggest effort imaginable and saying something about "his poor back". Meanwhile, Mr. Naubner's cold anxiousness had subsided almost entirely. They would install the cursed thing in its place and Kent would be on his way, possibly after taking the opportunity to emotionally blackmail him into giving him money for the help, even if the statue had cost much more than its dubious value. Once it was all over, he would be alone again and he could go back to his box labeled FRAGILE, contemplating once more the wood shavings, the bag of screws and the fulfillment of his peculiar urges with the aid of parts requiring minor to average assembly.
But first, there was the matter of finding a way to move the plaster Athena to