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CommWealth
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2006 Revision | Synopsis | Background | MS. Info | Sample Chapters | Contents | 2-12-86
Writing InventoryThe novel, CommWealth, and all writing on this page copyright 2007 by Michael D. Smith
1/1/07: In August 2006 I finally changed the title of Property to CommWealth. I’d considered this for three years, since seeing a novel called Property in a bookstore and realizing how common the title is (also after library work showed me how often titles are appropriated, for instance Flashpoint with at least 9 novels by that name.) "CommWealth" implies “property” as it heightens the totalitarian nature of the bureaucracy the characters must cope with.
For now, I'm concentrating on Sortmind and Nonprofit Ladies revisions, both of which are far more extensive than I'd originally thought when I began them over the past year. But the former Property also needs a lot of cleanup, a lot of "less is more." The plot by itself is good, but there is no need for me or the reader to get tangled up in Allan's over-the-top, distracting vulgarity. I think a solid revision will enhance the comic aspect of this novel as well as get across the point of Allan's hysterical unreality.
Others things to take care of are the ludicrously outdated gadgets and the pre-Internet world of the early 90's ms.
I'm hoping a revision won’t take too long, but you never know. Once I finish revising Sortmind, Nonprofit Ladies, and CommWealth, I am done with revisiting old stuff. I'm way overdue for something new.
Allan Larson has adjusted well to the demands of a propertyless society until the CommWealth Inspector shows up to inventory Allan's mansion full of race cars, electronic gadgets and creature comforts. Allan breaks off writing his mediocre play Cabaret to write vulgar poems to his former girlfriend Lisa, then buries the poems in coffee cans in his back yard.
Actress Lisa Arlington returns to the Cup of Fog coffee shop, headquarters of the theatrical troupe Forensic Squad, after a long absence. She reflects on Allan's childishness as Allan, Cup of Fog owners Steve and Jill Commer, and bicycle mechanic Richard Stapke furtively discuss the difficulties of living under CommWealth. Richard and Jill, supposedly in secure relationships, reveal that they've wanted each other since they met five months ago. Allan invokes the laws of CommWealth to demand ownership of Lisa Arlington. Blackmailed by Allan and hating him, Lisa allows him to enslave her.
Allan arrives at Richard's house to explain himself, and though Richard is at first wary, they loosen up and discuss Allan's need to own Lisa. Richard discloses that he's been writing novels, plays and diaries for years. Allan sees Richard as a genius after reading his play Hiding the Hitler. Both say they're full of terrible secrets. Allan drives home to see Requestors at his mansion door waiting to legally ransack his house. Allan is already sick of Lisa, seeing her as seriously mentally ill.
Allan confesses that he foolishly told Xander, an unscrupulous ex-member of Forensic Squad, about Richard's secret cache of writing. Now Xander has made a CommWealth claim of it, and Jill, Richard, and Allan begin sharing the secrets of Jill and Richard's growing affair and Richard's decision to illegally hide his writing from the claim. CommWealth Inspector Hardy questions Richard about his writings and the tax thereon.
After midnight, as Richard prepares to drive his boxes of writing to a safe hideaway, three masked thieves arrive, equipped with electronic spy gear and automatic pistols, to rob him of his writing.
A month later, publication of the five-volume The Stapke Intimacies is imminent, and Richard, already acclaimed as a literary genius, knows his diaries will reveal the secret of his affair with Jill. But news comes that the three thieves were found murdered in a city hundreds of miles away, and suspicion devolves upon Richard.
At a rehearsal for Cabaret that night, Allan assumes command of the troupe, browbeating the cast until Steve reads aloud Richard's last incriminating diary entry from The Stapke Intimacies. Steve and Jill argue bitterly and end their marriage. Jill reveals her own role in the murders of the three thieves, then threatens to kill Allan.
Terrified of Jill's powers, Allan seeks sanctuary at his mansion, but, thirty days after he demanded possession of her, Lisa apparently has become unhinged. She demands all Allan's possessions, including his coffee can poems, the contents of which she intends to burn. Allan threatens to murder her, but Lisa has tape-recorded their conversation and now shocks him with her knowledge of firearms.
Steve drags Allan to his grandfather's farm in Ramsey County to establish a revolution against CommWealth. Spooked by the piles of weapons Steve has gathered for battle, Allan tries to talk sense into him. Richard's ex-girlfriend Erica arrives with a plan to escape from the police closing in on the farmhouse, but Steve refuses and prepares for his suicidal stand. Erica wrests command of the revolution from Steve and demands, according to the laws of CommWealth, the weapons and loyalty of all the police to the revolution.
Six months later Jill writes a letter to Lisa, describing her pregnancy by Richard, her self-imposed exile at her parents' homestead in Kansas, and her reactions to the collapse of CommWealth as a result of the Steve/Erica revolution.
CommWealth describes a society in which there is no legal claim to any kind of property; anything from one's house to the clothes one is wearing can be demanded by anyone, to be enjoyed for thirty days before anyone else can demand it. In order to make this society even marginally workable, CommWealth authorities have made four simple rules governing the transfer of property. Each of the first four chapters is subheaded by one of the Four Rules.
The novel focuses on the ways members of the Forensic Squad theatrical troupe adapt to this giddy, chaotic society. CommWealth is the background for the ways in which the main characters--ostensibly artists, actors and other talented people--are forming friendships, alliances, and love affairs on the basis of their ugly illusions. CommWealth begins to probe the breaking of the Four Rules by Forensic Squad, and several members find themselves leading a suicidal revolution against CommWealth.
CommWealth came about in 1991 from an idea I had written on 2/12/86. For a long time I referred to this novel as "2/12/86," then later titled it "Property." When I began writing in 1991, the plot unfolded quickly, and the first draft was done in three months. The finished novel is surprisingly close to the first part of these notes; usually my initial notes bear little resemblance to the finished product.
There is a l990 painting called Property (the original title) showing a scene from The Cup of Fog (Chapter 2).
Written 1990-1992, revision 2006- Chapters 12 MS. 321 pages (Times New Roman 12, double-spaced) Words 82,500 Currently input in: Word 2000 Previously published No parts yet published
1. I Can Only Ask You Once
The first four chapters introduce all the characters and define each of the Four Rules of CommWealth. 2. You Can Never Get It Back 3. You May Not Ask Me for Anything for Thirty Days 4. I Have Thirty Days Enjoyment of This Object
1. I Can Only Ask You Once
2. You Can Never Get It Back
3. You May Not Ask Me for Anything for Thirty Days
4. I Have Thirty Days Enjoyment of This Object
5. Richard Stapke's Entire Literary Output
6. The Raid
7. The Stapke Intimacies
8. First Reviews
9. Wavelengths
10. The Coffee Cans
11. The Losers
12. From Kansas
The finished novel was built from the first part of these 2/12/86 notes ("Their Satanic Majesties Computer Software Guide"). The second part, "The Tremendous Romance," was not used at all. The third part, "The Library Fantasy," does have a similar tone to that of the novel's ending.
2/12/86
Design Considerations for New Writing. A Sort of Plot.
- "Economics As if People Mattered"
- 1. Their Satanic Majesties Computer Software Guide
- 2. The Tremendous Romance
- 3. The Library Fantasy
Part 1. T.S.M.C.S.G.
Character: Allan. An actor. Also supercilious asshole. Masks true identity. But he is aware of this problem--also doesn't know how to get to the truth. His compulsive sexual fantasies destroy his sex life with his girlfriend, Ann. His whole life revolves around his fantasies. But he is such a good actor that he manages to pull off an acceptable front to the world. His penalty: that he doesn't even know himself. His fantasies and sexual acts grow more and more absurd.
As story opens, Allan is walking, sees a Porsche or whatever, and asks the owner for the car. Owner must relinquish it. In the next pages we see, casually treated, as astonishing variety of "free transactions" like this. Everything is free in this society. You just ask for it. There is a 30-day waiting period before one "possessor" can ask for that same item back from the new possessor of it. There is subtle retaliation--for instance, the Porsche owner, while not allowed to act angry about giving up the car, does go ahead and ask for Allan's coat and tie. Allan recognizes the maneuver--he always manages to make his askers "pay" somehow himself. The other technique is to hide as much of what you've got as possible. But these people are constantly castigated as "hoarders" and surprise inspections of homes, and publications of people's inventories, are common. Often you are called up at night and asked for several of your items over the phone, with instructions on where to leave them for pickup.
Allan has adapted to this society well.
At home (he got a new suit and tie, but only for reasons of personal vanity), Allan stays up to 2:00 AM writing. He knows it is poor. Mostly he is writing out sexual fantasies involving Lisa, a woman he once had an affair with. Meanwhile Ann sleeps in the next room, vaguely aware of Allan's distance.
Allan writes various poems and "confessions," in an attempt to express all his pain, or get one line of real truth out. But he always misses. He's never correct. He buries the poems in coffee cans out in the back yard. There are fifty or sixty cans buried out there. One reason is his paranoia--no one, least of Ann, must ever know. Secondly, even writing is not considered personal property. Folders of poetry, or novels, are registered on one's "inventory" and can be requested by others. Allan has never yet lost any of his poetry. (He just started writing last year, "under the pressure of it all," and plans to write a play "someday," that "will finally express everything.")
He buries the can in the morning, after Ann has gone to work as an insurance accountant. He then moodily walks to The Cup of Fog.
The Cup of Fog is a coffee and tea house run by a married couple, Jill and Steve. Another character there is a friend of Allan's, a former doper, now a soccer player and bicycle racer, named Richard. Richard is totally into being fit and healthy now. Yet there is a subtle need for friendship going on between him and Allan. Allan thinks of Jill and Steve as "mystically stable," and longs for that sort of relationship--even though he recognizes that he probably wouldn't want to remain in a monogamous relationship. He changes too much. Allan is vaguely aware that both Jill and Steve "tolerate him" only, that they consider too neurotic (although he is a great actor, they know). Yet Richard, considered everyone's friend, links them all.
Allan spends all morning drinking coffee and engaging in various discussions with Richard, Jill and Steve. Allan doesn't work, not needing to because of the "free" law. (Most people do choose to work, however--a brief age of total freeloading was followed by almost zero production, and gradually people realized they needed to work, both for their own sanity and to keep some semblance of a society going). Richard doesn't work, either, but spends the entire day training. His "work" is with the city's professional soccer team, anyway. Allan tries to argue that his "work" is the theater, but he knows himself he doesn't spend enough time really developing himself. Again, he feels he is cheating.
Around eleven AM Lisa cones in to buy a cup of tea and leave. She is pleasant to Allan, but the old strain is there. She leaves. Allan suddenly has a plan. If everything is free, then why not Lisa? He spends the rest of the afternoon nervously plotting his plan. He knows she always shows up as a certain bar on Friday evenings after work, sees a bunch of her friends there, etc. In fact, it was even mentioned during the Cup of Fog conversation, and Allan took it as some significant hint.
At five, he goes to the bar and finds her. She is nervous. He then blurts out that he wants her, and then states that she must comply, for everything is free. She refuses. He asks for all her clothes, right then and there. She still refuses. "Shall I call a cop?" Allan says. Conversation gets quite absurd. "The law hasn't ruled on whether people own their own bodies," Lisa maintains. Allan says that the law states that everything is free, everything must be forked over. Lisa pulls the "price" maneuver and asks Allan for his house. "Fine, but you must give yourself to me."
They go to the house and resume their old affair. But Lisa is angry anyway. She reveals that she's been trying to start a new relationship--with Richard. Allan is shocked, and terribly hurt and jealous. And then he realizes that Lisa owns his house, that he and Ann must move out and ask for a new one. Yet the coffee cans are buried on the property. Lisa says (not knowing this) that she'll dig up the entire back yard for a garden and also a swimming pool next week--long before the 30-day limit expires and Allan could reclaim his house.
Allan realizes that he doesn't even want Lisa to know of his fantasies. In desperation he tries to ask for rights to material buried in the back yard. Sensing victory, Lisa denies this. Allan throws himself on her mercy and reveals the contents of the cans. Lisa says she will dig them up this very night and publish all of them.
Part 2. The Tremendous Romance
Allan finds himself "asked" to work in Australia and reluctantly, after consulting an attorney, leaves for Australia. Evidently more than property is indeed involved in "everything being free." Evidently an old résumé was found kicking around inside a computer, and whatever company wanted him can have him.
Journey to "island" at south of Australia. Of course, Allan had visited Australia once as an exchange student and knew the place--perhaps that was one reason he was chosen. When he gets to the quaint seaport town, he is totally surprised--it has twenty or thirty students, or faculty, from that Sydney University here, all working out their interesting careers. He only knew them tangently but is overjoyed to see them. These people all decided to work in this same "dying" town and revitalize it as an experiment--but found themselves changed by it, and decided to live and work here for real. A whole string of interesting, colorful characters. Allan finds he had been chosen to work in the town's detective agency, working with two aboriginals and one white man. One aboriginal is Holly, the brains of the outfit, although the black man is supposed to be in charge. The white guy is fairly crazy, but a good detective. Allan gets to know everyone in the town, including the doctor (formerly university professor) and all his patients.
Allan narrowly avoids being knifed by a street punk and then watches this punk kill someone (or something). His inaction contributed. The detective team sets out to find this guy. Allan begins to see that he is much like the man they are seeking--he feels he doesn't belong in the team anymore. A lot of remorse. After a long chase, all three others are killed by this man. Allan must pursue.
Part 3. The Library Fantasy
Richard receives the numb Allan back and tries to soothe him. An all-night exercise session, "better than those all night drug sessions we used to do." Lisa told him what happened and Richard, after much reflection, decided to forgive and forget. But Allan is numb and feels destroyed, feeling that he has steadily ruined himself since he was 20. All this through Richard. Yet Allan's inner state brought out through much conversation. Wandering through the old University grounds--a vast, somewhat scary park. Dawn, and buried dream of Brown-Jones conclusion of mythic day at Rice--Brown-Jones like a spaceship on the pad at dawn. Something intelligent is happening here. Allan feels spaced out, totally confused. Richard guides him inside to the gray "church." The "easy mix" of religions and sexuality in "this society." The woman who dances in her leotard in the aisle. Astonished, Allan notices that it is Jill--expressing herself. His whole picture of her, of her and Steve, of the Cup of Fog, and lastly, of his own potential, abruptly shifts.
"My God, I could never come right out and do that," Allan says in awe. "I just couldn't afford to."
"Sure, you can afford to," Richard says. "We all have that within us."
"But--it's so difficult--"
"Yes, it is difficult. But once you make up your mind to pay the price, it becomes easier and easier. See how easily Jill pays the price of her freedom."
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