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schmericame: tomorrow is the last day before i actually have to, you know, start classes and do WORK. what am i supposed to write next?
anna: You should write more Fraser thinking about Welsh.
me:
Each time Fraser comes down to Chicago, he feels older -- which makes sense, of course, since he is older each time he comes. But there's something about coming back here, seeing all the changes that have stepped slipshod all over the frozen memories in his mind since his last visit, that makes the passage of time that much more dramatic here than it ever seems in the North. If he doesn't visit often, that just makes the differences all the more abrupt each time. The images in his head don't even pretend to be accurate anymore, and when Fraser steps out of his plane into O'Hare, there's the immediate shock once again. Ray, his energetic whirlwind of a partner, waiting, spry as ever and completely gray -- his sister, tiny and blond and unsuspected, now full into middle age -- and most surprising of all, their daughter. Wasn't it just a few months ago Fraser flew down for her christening, when he stood up there in the church to be her godfather? That baby is twelve now, starting junior high; she sits next to Fraser in the back of the Kowalskis' car while Ray drives them to the house, chatting all the while of her friends and her school and her newfound fascination with Ancient Greece, while Fraser, enchanted, barely has the chance to smile at her and make a few suggestions of books for her to read.
Each time he comes to Chicago everything has changed. Death has always been part of Fraser's life, of course, perhaps more so than most people's. The difference now is merely in how quickly they follow each other -- almost like a model of exponential growth, the universe as perfect and heartless and pitiless as mathematics. Diefenbaker is gone; he died saving Fraser's life from a poacher in the Yukon, a debt Fraser can now never repay. Mrs. Vecchio died three years later, heart disease. The house is sold now, turned into a very attractive funeral parlor; Ray's sister Maria and her husband moved elsewhere in the city, and Francesca moved to Florida to live with Ray and Stella Vecchio. It's been many years since Fraser has seen them, now, and though he's received the birth announcement of each of Francesca's children, he has never met them.
Lieutenant Welsh's funeral was only a few months ago. Fraser had been in the field at the time, abducting some particularly vicious fugitives in the Arctic. By the time he received the message, it was already much too late to arrange to be present for his funeral. Fraser pays his respects now, instead, alone at the cemetary.
The last time Fraser had seen the lieutenant had been years ago, and even then he'd been silently shocked: between one visit and another, Harding Welsh had become an old man, something Fraser would have never expected to see. It was cancer, Ray Kowalski had told him. "The bad kind," he said, mouth twisted. "It was slow. Hard. Nobody should have to see that."
Fraser cannot imagine it. When he thinks of Lt. Welsh, he sees him as he saw him years ago, when he first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father. He sees Lt. Welsh behind his desk, blank and skeptical and perhaps the least bit amused; he see him firm and resolute, yelling as he commands his men and women.
Fraser may have never, technically, served under the lieutenant's command, but in truth he might as well have; the gift of Welsh's respect, of being considered as one of his men, was one Fraser honored. In all of his career, there has been no commanding officer Fraser has held in higher esteem.
Fraser tells all this, quietly, to the modest tombstone over Welsh's grave, but there is no answer; there rarely is. He waits a moment more, just in case, and then he lies a small bouquet on the edge of the grave and leaves.
The cemetary is not far from the Kowalski house, but Fraser walks the long way back.
anna: You should write more Fraser thinking about Welsh.
me:
Each time Fraser comes down to Chicago, he feels older -- which makes sense, of course, since he is older each time he comes. But there's something about coming back here, seeing all the changes that have stepped slipshod all over the frozen memories in his mind since his last visit, that makes the passage of time that much more dramatic here than it ever seems in the North. If he doesn't visit often, that just makes the differences all the more abrupt each time. The images in his head don't even pretend to be accurate anymore, and when Fraser steps out of his plane into O'Hare, there's the immediate shock once again. Ray, his energetic whirlwind of a partner, waiting, spry as ever and completely gray -- his sister, tiny and blond and unsuspected, now full into middle age -- and most surprising of all, their daughter. Wasn't it just a few months ago Fraser flew down for her christening, when he stood up there in the church to be her godfather? That baby is twelve now, starting junior high; she sits next to Fraser in the back of the Kowalskis' car while Ray drives them to the house, chatting all the while of her friends and her school and her newfound fascination with Ancient Greece, while Fraser, enchanted, barely has the chance to smile at her and make a few suggestions of books for her to read.
Each time he comes to Chicago everything has changed. Death has always been part of Fraser's life, of course, perhaps more so than most people's. The difference now is merely in how quickly they follow each other -- almost like a model of exponential growth, the universe as perfect and heartless and pitiless as mathematics. Diefenbaker is gone; he died saving Fraser's life from a poacher in the Yukon, a debt Fraser can now never repay. Mrs. Vecchio died three years later, heart disease. The house is sold now, turned into a very attractive funeral parlor; Ray's sister Maria and her husband moved elsewhere in the city, and Francesca moved to Florida to live with Ray and Stella Vecchio. It's been many years since Fraser has seen them, now, and though he's received the birth announcement of each of Francesca's children, he has never met them.
Lieutenant Welsh's funeral was only a few months ago. Fraser had been in the field at the time, abducting some particularly vicious fugitives in the Arctic. By the time he received the message, it was already much too late to arrange to be present for his funeral. Fraser pays his respects now, instead, alone at the cemetary.
The last time Fraser had seen the lieutenant had been years ago, and even then he'd been silently shocked: between one visit and another, Harding Welsh had become an old man, something Fraser would have never expected to see. It was cancer, Ray Kowalski had told him. "The bad kind," he said, mouth twisted. "It was slow. Hard. Nobody should have to see that."
Fraser cannot imagine it. When he thinks of Lt. Welsh, he sees him as he saw him years ago, when he first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of his father. He sees Lt. Welsh behind his desk, blank and skeptical and perhaps the least bit amused; he see him firm and resolute, yelling as he commands his men and women.
Fraser may have never, technically, served under the lieutenant's command, but in truth he might as well have; the gift of Welsh's respect, of being considered as one of his men, was one Fraser honored. In all of his career, there has been no commanding officer Fraser has held in higher esteem.
Fraser tells all this, quietly, to the modest tombstone over Welsh's grave, but there is no answer; there rarely is. He waits a moment more, just in case, and then he lies a small bouquet on the edge of the grave and leaves.
The cemetary is not far from the Kowalski house, but Fraser walks the long way back.
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25/9/05 14:49 (UTC)(no subject)
26/9/05 03:56 (UTC)