The Gentleman & The Rake

Day One: Mr. B vs. Committee for Literary Fairness

"Where's Pamela?" 

Mr. B scanned the oak-paneled courtroom. Mellow spring sunlight streamed through the high windows, brightening the varnished oak walls, floor, and tables. Despite the informal arrangement--two curved tables facing a slightly raised desk--Mr. B didn't feel out of place, even though he was standing in a non-fictional courtroom three hundred years later than his own fictional time. 

Except that he was here without his wife. 

"Are they seizing Pamela from the novel as well?" he asked Mr. Shorter. 

Mr. Shorter, his attorney, sat at the left-hand table. Mr. B had asked for Mr. Shorter, even though he was an attorney, not a barrister, and unaccustomed to arguing before judges. Mr. Shorter was the right choice, however, being absolutely loyal to Mr. B's interests. 

Mr. Shorter shrugged. 

Mr. B also shrugged and slumped into the chair beside Mr. Shorter, shifting his lanky body into a comfortable position. He'd heard--all fictional characters had heard--about these hearings. Characters were yanked from their novels into real-world courthouses, where they were questioned regarding various literary crimes. Upon judgment, they were returned to their novels or banished to new ones: Mr. B wondered if Malory's whiny Launcelot was shivering on Crusoe's island; if Bunyan's bad giants were being needled by the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels. 

"I hope they've left Odysseus alone," he muttered. 

"What?" Mr. Shorter said. 

Mr. B shook his head. He'd never imagined he would be snatched from his novel. He was a loving husband, reasonable father, responsible landowner, plausible diplomat, and a damned good money manager. He'd committed no crimes. Perhaps he was here as a witness for Tom Jones. 

 *  *  *

Seated at the right-hand table, members from the Committee for Literary Fairness glowered at Mr. B and Mr. Shorter. 

The Committee for Literary Fairness boasted of its worthy goals to cleanse literature of bad role models, social apathy, defective marriages, and wrongful deaths--all social injustice, in fact. Mr. Rochester, the bigamist, would be transported to Nero Wolfe's world and jailed; Fanny from Mansfield Park would get a much-needed infusion of self-esteem in a Richard Paul Evans novel; Scrooge would give up his money-grubbing ways and take a trip in a Jack Kerouac travelogue. 

Today, the CLF planned to save the heroine of Pamela from her chauvinistic and overbearing husband. The CLF legal team included a psychologist, a CLF director, and a college professor. 

The psychologist, Jerome Hatch, said, "He looks like a banker!" 

Mr. B, despite his unruly dark hair, could pass for an atypically mellow trader from the New York Stock Exchange. 

"When did they extract him from the novel?" Mr. Hatch said. 

The CLF director, Dr. Naomi Matchel, said, "The fourth year of the marriage. Pamela recently gave birth to their third child; the family was planning a trip abroad." 

"Three children in four years!" exclaimed the college professor, Gary Trame. "Couldn't they have got to her sooner?" 

"I'm afraid literature judges frown on that, Professor Trame." 

"Call me Gary. All my students do." 

"Gary. Even though we know what's going to happen, they say we have to let the characters commit the wrongful acts before being judged." 

Dr. Matchel and Gary shook their heads at the absurdity of applying due process and the rule of law to situations best decided by professionally-trained literary analysts. Dr. Matchel said sententiously, "Oh, well, it's the only system we have."