seymoure

Morning Has Broken….

And We Can’t Fix It.

“We fatuously hoped that we might pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract from life's very misfortunes a power of cooperation which should be effective against them.” _ Jane Addams

The Radio alarm went off (less as a way to wake me and more as something to say, “Okay, it’s time to give up pretending to be asleep and get out of bed) at the usual time.

I might not have gotten up so quickly, but it was playing that annoying jingle for “Perfect Spring” bottled water. I truly hate it. It has lyrics like an ad from the early days of radio, but with heavy metal music. Here are the words:

“Perfect Spring, It’ll make you sing,

It tastes better than anything,

Sparkling flavors, that’s for sure,

Always clean, always pure,

Good for Paw and Good for Ma!

From the Ozark Mountains

Of Arkansas!

Yee-haw!”

That will get you to turn off your set. But it did little good. The damn thing was on every time I turned on the TV or the radio. What I hated was that the product wasn’t even on the shelves yet. They were going to do a big roll out in another month or so.

Maybe then they’d ease up on the commercials.

The advertising didn’t make me as angry as it does when I encounter it later in the day.

I had awakened with the same feeling of foreboding that had greeted me every morning since the passing of my only love and, I feared, my ability to love. Maybe today would rekindle something within me, but doubt is the providence of age.

The morning was indeterminate. It didn’t know if it wanted to be summer or fall, and it was near the last of April. So much for those who deny the science behind Climate Change, I say.

It was 68 degrees with a storm brewing all around. Yesterday it had been 83 and clear.

I had been up since 3 in the morning, I’d take a nap somewhere around noon if I could. You know the common wisdom is wrong. They say that as you get older you don’t need as much sleep. What I know, from experience, is that while your body doesn’t allow you to sleep, you want and need it all the more. I would kill for 6 hours without waking up stiff and sore.

I think that if I make it to 70, I will have given up sleeping completely.

There were a dozen messages on my cell asking for donations. I wondered what the problem was, since I normally get three times that number. Being a millionaire several dozen times over makes you the target of every scam artist in the country along with every noble charity that exists.

Most of my time these days was working to sort out the wheat from the chaff and giving to the ones who deserved it.

The paper was there waiting for me. It always looked so lonely. Being one of the few dailies still existent, it must feel all alone in the world. Yet I still wanted to feel the paper in my hand and sit back to read. This doesn’t say that I am a Luddite. I thank the Universe daily for my internet. I can check my information as soon as I gather it, and find out if my source was cheating and just getting it off a post. It is amazing how many people want to get paid for Google-ing something for you. As the pickpocket in “Casablanca” warns, “Vultures! Vultures everywhere!”

The next big thing in my day was the mail, but since it was 7am and the postman didn’t come by till at least 11, I had some time to fill. So, to the internet!

I was going to check and see if I had any email at my public address or my private, secret one. That’s the one that I keep only to those I trust completely. This is the fifth one I have had to set up. Somehow they always leak out.

But what hit me was the news on Yahoo. The lead story was one that had taken place only half an hour ago, and that was why it wasn’t in my newspaper.

Eddie Jarvis was dead.

He died in an accident on the set of the Biblical spoof “The Golden Calf.” The story was about an alternate story wherein Moses never came back down from the mountain and a new religion was born.

It was just the kind of irreverent comedy Eddie was great at, and I had been waiting for an invitation to the Premiere. It helps to be a friend of the star and an incredibly wealthy one at that.

Eddie was a dear friend who was on his way to becoming a star in the movies. I had helped him out when he was starting here in K.C.. He had been waiting tables and singing at a local dinner theater when he became a source for me on the art community. Since he was gay, he was a valuable ally in another segment of the community.

Note to Junior Private Eyes: It is always better to have someone inside any group rather than try to assimilate yourself into it. I’ve always refused to be anybody but who I am, and I have never been “cool” or “hip” and there are places where you have to know someone who fits that bill to get them to talk. I guess I would have made a lousy spy.

Eddie was absolutely “cool,” and everyone liked to talk to him. He also had the trust of everyone because they knew he wouldn’t sell them out. And they were right.

He was also one of the funniest people I ever knew. And not funny in that campy, “Oh, Mary!” way straight society likes to laugh at, but he could hold a take with the skill that Jack Benny would have been proud to see. He also knew how to craft language into something a step above the clap trap most comics think is a stitch.

He was also a brother in the rare club that loves a good pun. There are only a few of us in that club, and we have secret meetings where the groans are rampant.

He had moved from Kansas City to do the filmed version of a play I had financed as a vehicle for him. It was an update of “The Beaux Stratagem,” and worked for all ages and classes of the day. The film became “Beaux?’ and did mildly at the box office. Luckily the DVD sale made it a good enough package that it launched Eddie’s film career. I think the fact that I gave them as Christmas presents to 20,000 people may have helped.

The real screw-up was that my secretary sent Eddie one of them, like he wouldn’t have one. Luckily he didn’t think anything negative about it, and he wrote me a long, very funny review about this “Awful piece of crepe somebody gave me instead of sending the dump truck full of cash I had asked Santa for.”

The kid never forgot where he came from. He came back every year to do any benefit show that they thought he would be a helpful draw. They got to calling him “The King of ‘Toys for Tots.’”

That was all they had about his death, but it would surely be covered in more depth by the noon news.

I was drawn to know more, and yet I knew it would break my heart.

I have lived most of my life finding whatever positive could be mined from the heart of disaster. It had served me well for so many years. I had had a hard time to keep digging as the tragedies continued to pile up.

I could deal with the world being screwed up: it always had been; it always would be. I knew that no philosopher or prophet became a legend by telling us this would be alright sooner or later. That was the province of politicians and used car salesmen.

But a man can help. A single person can make things better for somebody else. That’s all we can do. As my financial ability grew, I helped as many more as I could.

But my resolve was being eroded by personal losses. I had spent millions backing research to help medical science fight death, but I knew there would always be new things to snatch us off this tenuous mortal coil.

Since Rachel died, I had been akin to an automaton. Going through the motions. The slats had been knocked out from under me.

I could never be a Bruce Wayne. I hated parties and I could never look at another woman. And my Batman persona was retired, too.

Luckily, I was beyond self-pity.

But I needed some kind of shot in the arm to make myself come back to life.

In the old days I would be revived by an exciting new case, some mystery to bring the blood back into circulation.

This hope was dissolving as I re-read the report.

My heart sank as yet another light dimmed in my universe.

But that was soon to change.

Back to the Beginning

Continue on to Chapter 3