Part 81: Xander
“I need to talk through it, though,” Xander protested. “And if I can’t do that with you, then who am I supposed to do it with? Isn’t that your job? Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
“In some sense, I suppose,” Bobby said. “As much as anyone’s anywhere for anything, at least. Alright, let’s get on with it then. You were at the soldier.”
“Right, so. The soldier tells K_______ that all that matters is his own pleasure. But K________ is going to end up rejecting that, that’s where the Christian piece comes in towards the end. Oh, because also, there’s this group of people in his society, wherever he’s based, I haven’t decided that yet either, but they worship this symbol. Something gold I think maybe, because that way you can read it as capitalism, no offense . . .
“Golden calf?” Bobby suggested.
Xander scowled at the interruption. “Too obvious, I thought. Plus I want the non-Christian kids to be able to see them as representing Christians, see? So to them K________ is rejecting Christianity in favor of - you know, whatever they believe in. Love, music, Satanism, etc. And to the Christians he’s rejecting a false idol.”
“That’s good, that’s really good.”
“Okay, and then so you’ve got the Long Lost Love, this girl who used to be his muse. Maybe she died or something. Edgar Allen Poe type of thing. Consumption, flu maybe. Depends when this is set, I guess." Xander realized how much was still missing, how many obvious things. And it had seemed so complete before he started talking. "Well, it’s got to be after World War II, doesn’t it, it’s got to be pretty modern if he’s going to visit this Soviet labor camp. Post Berlin Wall. Hmm. Are we married to Soviet?”
“What about an X?”
“An X what?” Xander peered at Bobby, confused. “No, no, I think it’s more powerful if she’s dead.”
“No, a golden X. They worship a golden X.”
“Oh! A sideways cross!”
“Or X for Xander. Meta-commentary on the Company.”
“You think they’d go for that?”
“Yeah, they’ll love it. It’s Teen Group B, they love being put down and told how terrible they are,” Bobby said, waving his hand dismissively. “A whole childhood of self-esteem, you-have-worth bullshit, they’re desperate for something to counterbalance it.”
“Or X is also math.”
“The eternal variable. Nice.”
“Or multiplication. Logic. Endless growth.” Xander once again felt the thrill of being on a team, part of a partnership. His previous desire was gone: what he wanted now was this constant riffing, this back-and-forth with Bobby. “Do you think we can have X and K, both, though?”
“Yeah, why not. Hey, so listen, what about if it was like . . .” Bobby brought the piece of paper over, laid it down on the desk again, grabbed a pen. So much for definitive; so much for aesthetic. “What if this last one here--” He pointed with the pen at the penultimate song -- “What if this was a two-parter, I’m assuming that’s when he gets back to wherever he’s from, after he’s been to the prison camp--”
“--right, and realizes there’s no story scratched into the walls, so he has to do it himself--”
“--and the people who worship the X don’t like what he wrote---”
“--because it’s an actual legitimate act of creation, which is supposed to--”
“--represent you and the album, yeah, I got that, and so what if this one, the keeper of the true belief, what if that was also Roman-numeraled--”
“--the first one something about the golden X--”
“--fall of the golden X?”
“--destruction?”
“--sure, pencil that in for now, and then the second part . . . are you married to nine?”
“Yeah, it’s got to be nine,” Xander said surely. “Something about the number three, you know. Three ghosts. Holy trinity. Three pencil-strokes to make K.”
“Alright, sure, fine, I was just thinking . . . well, never mind. Part two is him gloating, right?”
“Triumphant, I’d say more like.”
“What about just ‘triumph,’ then?”
“That isn’t too close to ‘in excelsis’?”
“It is close,” Bobby acknowledged, making idle, meaningless marks with the pen as he thought. “Plus Latin’s better, anyway, appeals to the Christian side, at least the Catholics, and the wannabe witches or whatever. Oh, what about a line from The Letter?”
“The letter? We never see the letter, though, that’s the whole point.”
“No, the story, I mean.”
“Do you have the story?”
“I can pull it up.” Bobby dove for his phone and, in a flurry of thumbs, brought up the OBM website. When the page finally loaded, they sat together on the edge of the bed, read through the story they both denied writing, searching for the perfect phrase to borrow, steal, re-appropriate.
The bassist was right about one thing, Xander realized: it was awfully short. That was why he couldn’t write an album on it. It was easier to create a world out of nothing than to make one out of something that just wasn’t enough.
They reached the end in silence.
“Life is love?” Bobby suggested.
“Love is life?” Xander countered.
“Love in life.”
“Perfect. Pencil it in.”
And thus was the rest of The K_______ Chronicles sketched out: in a series of negotiations and compromises, the work of two minds coming together to form something other than the sum of their parts. By the end of the morning, there was still no music, and Xander had still not gotten around to explaining what exactly was going to happen in “Letters and Leylines” - but there was a pleasant, intoxicating buzz in the room, and the sense that it could go on forever, that there would always be more time.