Publish and Perish, part 29: Without Further Incident

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

“So what happened next?” asked Paul. He and Gerald were walking through a College-owned forest near campus as Gerald recounted the disastrous spring-break visit to his son.

“Well,” Gerald recalled glumly, “I found a motel a few miles away, and I texted Laura, and we agreed to try again the next day. And we did, and it went OK, I guess. We managed to get through a walk around a lake and a trip to an ice-cream shop without further incident. The day after that we did an art gallery and a burger place. And now and then I was able to get some semi-non-grudging answers to my ‘how are you doing, Son?’ questions.” He sighed.

“You sound as though you played the role of the dutiful dad, but didn’t really enjoy it,” Paul observed. “Hey, did you prep with Morris for this trip?”

“You wouldn’t know it from the results, but yeah,” Gerald said. “Morris led me through several scenarios where he dialed Jimmy’s possible mood from loving to clingy to hostile to distant.” He rubbed his face as he tried to remember the session. “Morris was utterly convincing in the role of a nine-year-old boy with divorced parents. You’d never suspect that he doesn’t have children. I guess he’s just a keen observer of them.” Gerald shook his head, wondering what it would be like to be so observant.

“He was really funny, too,” Gerald continued. “When we were working on the possibility that Jimmy would not want to see me, he did this goofy Oliver Twist thing.” Gerald attempted to replicate Morris’s orphaned-British-kid voice. ‘Please, Sir — I want less! Less interaction with you, that is.’ It was hysterical. Heartbreaking, too, but also hysterical.”

Paul smiled. “Do you think the session helped?” he asked.

Gerald shrugged with frustration.

“It should have. I mean, at this point, I completely buy Morris’s basic shtick that it’s useful to rehearse desired behaviors in realistic settings….” He paused. “But when Jimmy came at me with that hatred — or what felt like hatred, anyway — I couldn’t get into a strategic mindset. I couldn’t think at all. All I could do was try to stay calm and withdraw from the situation.”

“So,” said Paul, “If rehearsing generally seems good, but didn’t actually help in this case, what would you do differently next time? Rehearse more?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Gerald nodded as he spoke. “If something is hard but important, you should keep practicing until you get it right. Right?”

“Right.”

[Update: the story continues with part 30.]