Thus follows the unfinished narrative of how Glenn Beck... went bad. I doubt anyone cares enough to interrogate me as to which parts of this genius narrative were written by me, and which by her, so I'll just leave the thing in its entirety. Its title is in homage to Glenn's latest offering to the thriller genre, which I'm sure has nearly as much literary merit as what is about to follow.
It'll definitely get finished one day..
THE OPEN WINDOW
Many years ago, Glenn Beck was an ordinary and content man. A sensitive and intellectual fellow living in a suburb of Nowhereville, he loved his wife and adopted son, and spent his spare time reading, gardening and volunteering with disadvantaged children. Fluent in French and German, he loved the plays of Moliere and Corneille, and his favourite book as a teenager had been The Sorrows of Young Werther. Sometimes now he chuckled, thinking of the over-sensitive teenager he had been - so passionate about saving the world! Now he enjoyed his work at the local university, teaching literature to a new generation of American students. He had a reputation for being open-minded about their contributions; after all, the young often know better than their misguided forefathers. At the weekends, he volunteered with underprivileged children from the inner-city, hoping that he could inspire in them a passion for European literature that would be a gateway to a brighter future. Sometimes he stayed after his tuition, and talked to the parents of these children. The stories they told of the inadequacy of America's welfare system really made him think, and he believed passionately that it ought to be reformed to give everyone a fighting chance in life. He thought that empathising with the struggles of those less fortunate was the only way to become a better person. After all, it was Glenn's supportive family and their secure economic position that was mainly to thank for his successes, not just the hard work he put in whilst studying for his two degrees, alongside his job as a vet, which he now sadly had to give up. His love of animals has stayed with him though, and he remained a vegetarian.
Glenn woke up one beautiful Spring morning to the sound of birdsong from his well-tended garden, and decided to make breakfast for his wife. After all, Glenn was a passionate feminist and thought that housework should be equally shared amongst a couple. He had met his Cuban wife on one of his trips to Cuba, a country he dearly loved. Their adopted Vietnamese son, Ling, ran into him in the hallway. Glenn had banned television from their home, considering it a pernicious influence on the young. Instead, Ling read books whilst he was waiting for his parents; some of which had been written and lovingly illustrated by Glenn himself.
Yes, loving husband, caring father, advocate of literature, published poet, well-travelled poly-linguist and fierce advocate of the rights of women; Beck truly was a Renaissance man. As well as this, his sweet temper and easy-going nature had made him lots of friends in his new home. Even when disaster struck, like when strikes from the catering staff at the university meant that no one had anything to eat for a week, he never lost his temper; rather he used the power of reason to persuade his colleagues of the validity of the strikers' demands.
Glenn thought about the long planned-for holiday he was taking the following month. He planned to take his wife to Paris for their tenth wedding anniversary; they would stay in a charming hotel in Montmartre, and spend their time visiting museums and art galleries; really getting under the skin of what Glenn considered to be a fascinating culture, sadly much-maligned in the United States. He often wished that America were more like France, not only in terms of their political system, but also their love of culture, not to mention their delicious food!
Glenn was just musing about which restaurant they should visit for their anniversary dinner when their was a knock at the door. "That's a little early" he thought. But suddenly he remembered...
.. that his best friend Bill Gardner, with whom he volunteered at the local orphanage, had called the night before to say he would be coming round to deliver some Biology books on evolution for the children. Bill was especially early due to the fact he had to dash to the airport to catch a plane to Cambodia that morning. Bill's volunteer project of building nippa huts for disadvantaged farmers of the Prey Thom village in the Kampong Lpov commune had been planned for months and he would be away for quite some time, possibly a year. Glenn sighed when that realisation sunk in: how was he going to cope with the absence of his partner-in-crime in saving the world? After all they had been through together, the prospect of saying goodbye now was really rather intimidating.
Glenn laughed when he thought of their time in Rwanda in 1988 during which they had concocted an elaborate scheme to free a political prisoner from the Butare prison at night. The plan had consisted in throwing fire-crackers at one of the guards' feet, running down a narrow corridor and opening the prisoner's cell with a copy of the key which they had cleverly obtained from a black market expert. The prison-break attempt had gone slightly awry when they realised halfway down the corridor that Bill had food-poisoning, probably from the Isombe dish he had scoffed down for dinner. They had had to pause to let Bill "do his business" in the corridor, which had been one of the most frightening moments in their lives, but the memory of which was made all the more hilarious by the years gone by, now that Glenn thought about it.
Of course, it was Bill. Just like him to arrive at 8.30am! Still, he'd always loved early mornings, and sometimes on their travels together he'd persuaded Glenn to rise early with him. The two of them had once travelled four miles to a beach in Cambodia at 6am just to watch the sunrise. As they sat totally alone, watching the first pink streaks of light that lit up the sky to the East and illuminated the gently lapping waves at their feet, they were both awestruck by the dizzying power of nature. It had led Beck to confess that sometimes he felt the pull of a supernatural power. Bill, a passionate atheist, disagreed with them, and they'd spent the whole day in sophisticated philosophical argument; citing the unproveability of divine existence versus the sometimes intoxicating power of the sublime that they both felt when confronted with the sight of, for example, an orphan's face when it learn to write its own name, or the beauty of a sea-shore before it was sullied at the hands of an evil conglomerate desperate to continue with its offshore drilling. Anyway, despite their personal disagreements on the existence of God, they were always respectful of each other's views, and never resorted to cheap tactics in an attempt to prove their point.
Glenn opened the door and gave his buddy a big hug. "I'm going to miss you, man!" he said heartily, with a small tear in his eye, belying his occasionally lachrymose temperament. He continued to chat eagerly as Bill followed him into the kitchen.
"So how about we spend one last day together, eh?" said Bill. "Go for a nice bike ride in the forest, light a campfire and crack open some a few organic beers? Me and Juanita are going to miss you so much! I'm not ashamed to admit it, friend. Last night I was in tears just thinking about how much I'll miss you!"
"Oh really" said Bill, indifferently.
"Oh of course!" said Glenn, handing him a plate of freshly-cooked pancakes. "Still, at least we can spend some time together before you leave. We can even have a few cheeky spliffs this evening; the weed I grew in the attic is definitely ready to smoke!" He chuckled, thinking of the times they'd had whilst exploring the limits of psychotropic experience. It was so small-minded to ban all hallucinatory substances in a authoritarian attempt at control - he'd had some of his best nights whilst on drugs, although, of course, he always knew when to stop. One night he had eaten 3 tabs of LSD whilst Bill gently played the sitar in the background and Glenn experienced the most amazing hallucinations.
"I can't stay, Glenn", announced Bill abruptly.
Glenn's face fell. He thought he would be spending one more day with his best friend.
"Well, when will I see you again?" said Glenn.
"I don't know, Glenn. I just do not know" intoned Bill.
Suddenly he ran out of the house. Glenn was upset by his behaviour; as he said later to Juanita, his wife, "I love him... and I fear for him!" Bill was uncontactable for the rest of the day, and neither Glenn nor Juanita could make sense of his behaviour. Then Juanita said "I wonder if it had anything to do with that documentary he's been working on about Kenya". Glenn pondered this proposition thoughtfully.
Six months back, Bill had led a group of political science students from Brown University on a trip to Kenya to film a documentary on the country's corruption history. The programme was going to be produced by the university and aired on channels such as CNN, BBC and National Geographics. The project included an investigation of the 1990s Goldenberg scandal and other affairs including allegations of nepotism and bribes surrounding the National Rainbow Coalition back in the noughties.
Glenn had not hesitated to express his disapproval of the enterprise, not out of ideological disagreement but out of fear for his friend's safety. The risk of making political enemies and industrial opponents was omnipresent, and if Bill were to discover any documents or national secrets that were not meant for the public eye... the Kenyan militia too could get involved. Glenn frowned as he remembered Bill's excitement at leading such an ambitious project.
"Think of all the truth that could be uncovered, Glenn," he once prattled eagerly over a plate of Escargots de Bourgogne at dinner. "All the deceit, all the lies, all the bribes... This could be a tool in exposing real corruption and eradicating it once and for all!"
Glenn sighed and buried his face in his hands as the souvenir of such far-fetched ideas came into focus. Bill was a visionary, certes, a progressionist, a revolutionary... but he was an idealist stuck in a dream world with no real understanding of the nitty gritty and the real mechanisms of politics and society. In these domains, ideology and vision were practically irrelevant.
The documentary was still a work in progress, and there was no denying that it was very impressive. Glenn was astounded by some of the information that Bill had come across about the NRC's financial activities... which included buying exorbitant cars for their personal uses between 2003 and 2004. But what Glenn was truly worried about was Bill's sudden secrecy over the last couple of months. Whenever the subject of the "Kenyan Documentary" was brought up, Bill would look away and momentarily be lost in thought before abruptly changing the subject to something else, generally the negative societal effects of globalisation or ivory trade in Thailand. Eventually, the Kenyan Documentary was automatically discarded from conversations, though Glenn never forgot about it and couldn't help but notice Bill's growing restlessness.
Then came Bill's announcement that he would be off to Cambodia, "in two very short months", he'd said as if to subliminally emphasise an ominous nature to the trip. Bill had constantly reiterated that he was off to help farmers build nippa huts, which family, friends and colleagues had applauded. But somehow, at the back of his mind, Glenn knew that something was off...
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