Additional ... (One Extraordinary Time, Chapter 11, Part 2) · 1:27am Jun 23rd, 2019
Hey, so you remember what I said in the preamble to the last chapter about it maybe being safe to come back?
Yeah, forget that. If you dropped off at chapter 7, you made the right decision.
Alright. Back. Watched some ponies. Killed some dreams. Opened a new bottle of whiskey on a Saturday afternoon. Let's do this.
So after... that... we cut back to Monica. Her mother is making a miraculous recovery thanks to Freddy's money. Monica, as it turns out, reads the Gazette. She decides she's going to go meet him. She goes to China wok and has to wait an hour to get in.
“Good evening. I’m Mr. Wong. Welcome to China Wok. I see this is the first time you have come here.”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I never forget a face, especially one that radiates much beauty,” he replied.
“Oh thank you. I see you have a very popular restaurant. What are those tickets for? Do I need one to get in?” Monica said.
Mr. Wong started to laugh.” This number is for people who want to have Freddy as their waiter. About one out of four will win this lottery. Do you want a ticket?” Mr. Wong asked.
Oh, so that's what he meant.
...why did he have a roll of tickets just lying around in the first place?
“My dad was killed on September 11. About a week later we received a magic envelope. The money has pretty much saved my mom’s life. She has been able to get an expensive treatment for her cancer that we otherwise couldn’t afford. It looks like the cancer is now in remission. Please let me thank Freddy and tell him how much he has helped,” Monica said.
Mr. Wong figured Freddy wouldn’t mind meeting a person he helped, especially someone as beautiful as this woman.
...It's totally going to go there, isn't it.
He instructs her to go around the back of the building in five minutes, where Johnny will let her in through the kitchen. I don't know why you couldn't have just let her inside, but whatever. Do your weird Man from U.N.C.L.E. shtick. See if I care.
Johnny was waiting by the back door to let Monica in. When he saw her walk in, he looked at this black-haired beauty with a great pair of legs and thought, Wow; Freddy is going to love having her in his section. He happily escorted her to a table.
Uuuugh.
When Freddy noticed her, he was carrying a stack of trays in one hand and a jug of water in the other. He said, “Sorry, I will be back in a second to take your order. Before you decide, I will tell you about a couple of great specials we have tonight.” Monica nodded. When she looked at Freddy she had butterflies in her stomach. She never had that feeling before and began to daydream about him.
Uuuuuuuugh.
“Okay I’m back. It has been a crazy night. I don’t remember seeing you before.” Freddy thought to himself, This is a woman I wouldn’t forget. “Is this your first time eating here?”
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
This is gross. I shouldn't have to explain why this is gross. If you can't keep yourself from shmoozing up your female characters in your own prose, then you shouldn't be writing them in the first place.
This doesn't stop, either. Freddy, the narrator, or one of the other characters making references to how hot Monica apparently is makes up approximately 80% of the rest of the scene.
Monica couldn’t explain it. She went up against tough lawyers and judges every day, without fear. Yet when she saw Freddy, she became unstrung and turned into Jell-O.
I, on the other hand, can explain it. It's called alien brain worms.
Terrible condition. Almost never fatal, though.
Sadly.
“Thank you for helping my family so much,” Monica said, her voice cracking. Freddy stopped in his tracks and looked at her American Express card. When he saw her last name, he knew immediately who she was. This is the first time he had met one of the victims’ family face-to-face.
I find this hard to believe. Your identity has been known for several days now, and not one of the families you helped has sought you out yet? Bull.
Freddy was moved by her story. “Monica, I’m sure your papa is looking down from heaven right now and smiling at you and your mom’s recovery. Your story makes me happy that some good has come out this tragedy.” He looked at her credit card and gave it back to her. “You came all the way from Brooklyn to thank me. The least I can do is make this bill disappear.” Monica was about to say something and Freddy winked and said, “Don’t worry. It’s on the house.”
If only some good would come out[sic] Mr. Kaplan's tragedy. "Yes, Monica, sure your father and thousands of other people died, but at least your mother's cancer is getting better!"
"You mean the cancer that was in remission until the event that caused my father and thousands of other people to die?"
"Exactly!"
Monica sat frozen in her seat, not wanting to leave without knowing she would see Freddy again. She had had hundreds of guys ask her out for a date, but this would be her first time asking someone out. She nursed her desert, waiting for him to come back to her table. When he ran by, he gave her a smile. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
She saw how incredibly busy he was, and he didn’t return.
Fucking, called it, goddammit why do I always have to be right.
She leaves the restaurant, but manages to get Freddy's number off of Mr. Wong, who says he normally wouldn't because he's a good boss but he'll make an exception on account of just how fucking hot she is.
Also, apparently people are selling winning tickets to sit in Freddy's section of the restaurant online now. That's a thing that's happening. No idea how that works, but who really cares anyway.
Next day. Monica is at work, but she just can't focus. She's too busy letting the alien parasite that's infected her burrow deeper into her grey matter thinking about Freddy.
She finally put her papers down and pulled out Freddy’s phone number, trying to muster up the nerve to call him. She would start to dial his number, then stop. Finally, after about twenty minutes, she let it ring and got his voice mail. She hung up without leaving a message. A half hour later, she tried again and this time he picked up.
Monica was nervous trying to think of something to say to Freddy.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from anything?”
“Oh no it’s perfect timing. I just got off the train. It’s my day off and I’m going to spend it with my folks. Normally my dad would pick me up, but I told him I felt like walking. So I got about three quarters of a mile to go,” Freddy said.
Monica thought to herself, Thank G-d he didn’t say he was going to see his girlfriend. “I could see how hard you were working last night. Say, maybe on your next day off maybe ... possibly ... we could get together and do something.”
And it's official.
We are now in a romance plot.
A terrible, terrible romance plot.
Everything in the fic before this. The Yankees. The jogging. The money. The barbecue. 9-goddamn-11.
All of it was leading up to this.
Monica cringed at how she bumbled the sentence. She worried when she heard silence. Then Freddy said, “Monica, sorry I dropped my ear piece. Boy, it’s not every day that a smart, beautiful woman asks me out. I would be excited to spend some time with you, and, like you said, do something.”
You know, when I started writing these, I decided I was going to keep the swearing to a minimum. Because I swear like a sailor in real life, but I wanted these to be classy.
Fuck that. Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. And especially fuck you, Mr. Kaplan. Fuck you most of all.
God, fuck—I need another drink.
OKAY. WE'RE DOING ROMANCE NOW.
So, to preface this—I know nothing about romance.
I'm not being metaphorical, here. I'm doubly ace. I don't get romance. It is a concept which I lack the proper equipment to fully understand. The last time I tried to write a romance, it turned into a gritty neo-noir story about a psychopathic Lemon Hearts with ASP trying to kindle a relationship with a very, very innocent Minuette. I have since dubbed this 'Bad Idea Fic', and one day I'm going to finish it, and we are all going to regret it.
Point is, I don't know the first goddamn thing about romance.
This is terrible romance.
This is not how humans act. This is not how people work. The way the romance is portrayed here is, I would estimate, roughly equivalent to that of a sixteen-year-old boy's understanding of love. This is the sort of romance you find in the New column on a daily basis.
I don't know anything about romance. But I know more than enough to understand that this isn't it.
Also it's really, really gross that Freddy would go along with this at all. She's indebted herself to him; he's in a position of unfair power over her, and she's had a very rough month. He is actively taking advantage of her. That is not okay.
Anyway...
“Where do you want to meet?” Monica asked.
“I’ll meet you at your office,” Freddy replied.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind meeting you in Midtown,” Monica said.
“Don’t be silly. Let me get your address,” Freddy asked.
“It’s 44 Wall Street. We occupy three floors. I am on the thirtieth but you have to come in on the twenty-ninth,” Monica told him.
“Okay, cool. See you Wednesday at 11:00,” Freddy said.
Freddy, meanwhile, goes to his parents' house. Norm is there, along with his wife...
Harriet.
Fucking christ.
Henry Harris Harry Harriet picks up on the fact that Freddy has been talking to a girl, somehow.
“As a matter of fact, I was,” Freddy, said.
“I hope she’s intelligent,” Harriet said.
“I’m sure Freddy, as a young man, is more interested in, shall I say, her physical characteristics,” Norm said.
You can't see it, but I just vomited a little.
For once, the topic shifts towards the Patriot Act and I'm glad for it.
And then—and only then—does someone finally ask Freddy how the fuck he got all this money.
Julia asked her son a question that had been on her mind since the news hit about Freddy’s generosity. “Freddy, just how in the world did you make so much money?”
Before Freddy could say anything, Norm answered. He felt like the kid in a classroom who knew the answer, and even though the teacher asked another student, he wanted to let everyone know he knew it first. He blurted out, “I’m sure, Julia, his Wall Street buddy got him into a few of the hot Internet stocks during the late nineties. I knew a bartender who spun two grand into three million back then. You probably rode AOL from twenty-five cents to over one hundred and got out while the going was good, isn’t that right, Freddy?”
Freddy hated to lie to his parents, but Norm just made it easy for him. He said,”It happened pretty much just like Norm said.”
And they believe him, because of course they'd believe that their son was quietly hoarding hundreds of millions of dollars without ever telling a single soul. Wouldn't you?
Julia displayed her normal liberal chants.
I should hope so, they're they only character trait she has!
Apparently the papers have been spreading the rumor that Freddy owns China Wok, now, too.
Freddy had no specific plans with his folks except watching game five of the Yankee playoff game against Oakland. The grim new post 9/11 realities were swirling around the game. As the Yankees game neared, massive security was set up around the stadium.
I feel like this single paragraph perfectly encapsulates 90% of this book.
The night was filled with laughter as they rooted on their beloved Yankees. There was much for them to cheer as the Yankees took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth. The Yankees great closer, Mariano Rivera, put down the A’s one, two, three as they advanced to the American League Championships.
AND THUS CLOSES THE CHAPTER.
I think this is the worst chapter of the book so far, bar none. Chapter four was agonizing. Chapter 7 was insensitive. Chapters eight and nine were painful.
Chapter 11 is vile. Even ignoring the thing that made me split this into two parts, this chapter takes everything bad that happened in the last ten chapters and makes it worse by recontextualizing it into setup for a goddamn romance plot.
I am angry. And I am upset. And I am going to lie here with my glass of whiskey and pretend this story doesn't exist for the rest of the night.
Until tomorrow, everyone.
Is it really a case of ASS if there aren’t really any personality traits to destroy?
I mean, Freddy is the author's self-insert, and the 'romance' is part of the—if not the entire—point of the
ficbook, so I feel like 'go along with this' isn't even the right phrase. This is Freddy's destiny.Actually, 'fic' is the right word—this is a self-insert wish-fulfillment NYC-fanfic, with a dash of 9/11 fixfic. If the author was more creative Freddy would be spending his millions to invent a time machine and go back in time with Monica and they'd prevent 9/11 entirely, and then they'd have a threesome with past-Monica.
Sadly ABW isn't fatal to the characters, but it is lethal to the story as a whole most times.
For what it's worth I'd read you "Bad Idea Fic". May or may not regret doing so but we won't know until it happens.
I really hope you do write this. If nothing else, you know it'll be better than One Extraordinary Time and have I yet mentioned how fucking terrible that title is because it's really fucking terrible