Hey guys. So after all of the song order/meaning discussion, I was wondering if someone could put the "story of J. Smith" together into a narrative, so that it read like a book. I worked on it Tuesday and yesterday and this is what I came up with. I only got to the radio in the bath part... I really wasn't sure how to write the next part (plus it was getting long). I think it went together pretty well. I do think some bits of the "before J's death "part are missing, but I think you'll be able to figure out the songs that are there. They weave in and out a little, but there's a basic order: Chinese Blues, Broken Mirror, Get Up, Long Way Down, Song To Self, J. Smith. Anyway... enjoy (I hope)! :)
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The man was sitting on a bench beside the road. He had no idea how long he'd been there. It had probably been hours; it certainly seemed that way. He'd needed to get out of the apartment after it had begun to feel like a cell. "A padded cell," he said aloud, remembering how close to the edge of sanity he had felt. It was getting dark. He was cold, although he wasn't sure if the cold came from the snow that had been falling for some time and which he had not bothered to brush from his shoulders or his hat, or if it came from inside him. He supposed he should go back upstairs--he thought he might be able to sleep that night. As he leaned forward to get up, a bus passed by the bench, speeding the strangers who filled it somewhere. "Number 7," he said, the number shining out in the darkness that had fallen on the buildings and left him with the sense he'd felt gathering upon him increasingly over the past few days: the sense that everything would have been bearable if he had had someone old and wise to watch over him and hold his hand, together with the unbearable knowledge that there was no such person, and the only person there had been he'd pushed away so effectively this time that he would probably not be able to make her come back. "Number 7," he repeated, "how fitting. Seven days since I've seen Sarah." And he got up.
The door to his apartment was only a few feet away, and he was soon climbing the dark stairway. Unlocking the door, he saw the remains of one panel of a two paneled mirror. He had smashed it when the walls of the cell had grown unendurably small; it had been this that had finally driven him out of the apartment and onto the bench in the freezing January afternoon. It was now a freezing January evening, and though his mood had not greatly improved, he felt that he could look again into the mirror that had been the final straw a few hours earlier. He saw nothing unusual; J. Smith, staring back at him. But in the shattered panel he saw a distorted reflection. All that seemed to come through was his right eye, repeated over and over. It was distorted, but it was a more accurate portrayal of how he felt. "Inside tolls the bell, outside all is well," he thought. And as he laughed a laugh totally free of mirth, he heard the sound of an actual bell, ringing out the hour. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It was the steeple bell on the church across the street. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for J.," J. laughed again, and turned into his room. Not even bothering to undress, he lay down, and was soon asleep.
In the morning, the alarm clock woke him up. He hit the snooze button. The alarm sounded again, again he hit snooze. This was repeated, until a voice in his head (or was it somewhere in the room? The padded walls of the cell were once again threatening to shrink around him) told him he had to get up and face the situation. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd sent Sarah crying to her mother's house. And she had always come back before. There was the uncomfortable fact that some of the things he had said last week had been particularly horrible, untrue, and calculated to see just how much she would take. But was this time really any different? He thought not. And again, the church bell rang, 11 times. J. got out of bed, went to the window, and looked out. It seemed like a long way down to the street. He stared down at the church, scrutinizing the people going in. Did they know something he didn't? How could they? He knew some of those people, and some of them were just as miserable as he was. Looking up, he saw birds circling above. "Better run, little rabbits," he muttered. The suffocated feeling of the evening before had returned.
He turned away from the window. He thought he'd take a bath; they always seemed to cure Sarah of some of her unhappiness. On the way to the bathroom he picked up a small radio that was laying on a chair. Only then did he remember why it was there. He had been teasing Sarah (although now, recalling what he'd done, it didn't seem quite as hilarious as it had at the time). She had been washing the dishes, with the radio plugged in beside the sink. He had come into the room, and, holding the radio above the sink with one hand, and Sarah with the other, teased her (again, the questionable word) about dropping it. She had cried. "Stupid," he thought; as if he would have actually done it.
J. closed the bathroom door. He ran the bath water, and plugged it the radio beside the tub. Then he got in. A song was playing, one that both Sarah and he loved. As he began to sing along, he thought about how perfectly beautiful the lyrics were. "Love," sang J. And it came over him that he was singing the song to himself. There was nobody to sing along with him; he had seen to that. He did love Sarah, he knew that he did. But, why then, did he treat her so terribly? He thought again about singing to himself. Maybe that was it; maybe he loved Sarah, but he loved J. much more. Maybe he didn't even know what that selfless love, the kind of which the beautiful song spoke, was. When the last line of that beautiful song ended, J. picked up the radio and threw it at the wall next to the tub. He threw it hard--hard enough for it to bounce back off the wall, but not quite hard enough for the plug to become disengaged from the socket. And as it fell, still playing, J. sat helpless in the water.
It was interesting to try to put it all together... I never really envisioned myself writing fanfiction, but it was kind of fun to do! I'm still hoping that Fran will give us his song order, so we can see what the story really is! But it was fun to try to fill in the story.
Maybe it's just me, but I still am curious about how the Tam O'Shanter poem fits in to it.
