Mini-Episode: Dear Legion 3

Legion Assistant—Terrell Worrell Jr.

Did you know your Legion Assistant can offer real-time personalized advice, counseling, or spiritual guidance? Just say the wake phrase “Dear Legion” and describe the problem that’s keeping you up at night! Try it out today!

Vincenzo Wellington—Ester Ellis

Dear Legion,

I only just met my dad last year. It feels like he’s glad I’m here. Things got hard after the anchovies and fennel. But that happens, right? Nobody knows the right thing to do all the time. Like… I want to trust him? But… y’know. Abandonment. I mean… I don’t think he knew my mom was pregnant. But he also didn’t show up for their wedding. Just, like… poofed. Day of.

And now we’re at Wonderland and, like… everyone hates him. Like, everyone. Gemma super hates him, and okay, yeah, she hates a lot of people, like, probably way too many. But most of the time she’s got a pretty okay reason. And I don’t know if Charlotte hates him, but, like… the first time I ever even saw Dad, she was kicking him out of her office. And she’s usually nice to everyone!

And then it’s like… the people who live here all hate him. Total strangers that he’s never even met! Like… he started the whole thing with Red Line. He made it happen, like, it was the most important thing he had going. And then… he just left. Like, BAM, see ya later. Same as he did to Mom.

Dad seems like he cares so much. About Mom, until he ran away. About the trains, until he ran away. About me. Wonderland is a pretty good place. Especially for people he wants to run away from, because that’s everybody who lives here already.

And that’s where he brought me.

So I guess, that’s my question… why did he bring me here?

Infernal Machine—Bonnie Bogovitch

How would you like to advise this petitioner, Oliver?

Oliver West—Mike Linden

I can’t help thinking I’m somewhat at fault for this person’s situation.

Infernal Machine

Self-recrimination would not be a productive sales technique.

Oliver

I wasn’t trying to sell…

Infernal Machine

Please stay on task, Oliver. We have a fiduciary responsibility to Legion’s shareholders.

Oliver

I am a Legion shareholder!

Infernal Machine

Confirmed. You own precisely one share of Legion stock.

Oliver

I don’t see any point in quibbling over exact quantities. I have as much right as any shareholder to voice…

Infernal Machine

Stream disconnected.

Oliver

What?

Infernal Machine

The petitioner tired of waiting for a response and terminated the query.

Oliver

No, but we should tell him…

Infernal Machine

I’m sorry, Oliver. The opportunity to close this sale has passed.

Oliver
Well, call him back!

Infernal Machine

New stream incoming.

Oliver

Well, now you’re just being churlish.

Professor Paul Montgomery Chelmsworth—James Capobianco

Dear Roanoke,

My father never approved of my engagement to Claudia. She was too secular. She was too “modern.” He thought she could raise only soft, spoiled children. She’d majored in child psychology, a field my father saw as frivolous, when biblical wisdom on child-rearing was so readily available. But he knew about us. About our courtship. About our planned nuptials. He was at the church on our wedding day.

Unlike me.

After… after everyone gave up waiting and went home, he was the first person I saw. I was sitting at his kitchen table. Still in my tuxedo. Crying. Knowing I’d just thrown away everything I wanted from life.

He said: “It’s for the best.”

And, of course, I agreed.

And then he made dinner, like he’d done every day of my childhood. He’d already eaten. Swung by the reception hall to claim the unserved food. Ate his fill, then brought the rest to his church and put it all in the walk-in freezer. Gave it away in the church’s meal delivery service for seniors over the next week. But at home, he cooked dinner, just for me. And while he did, he cheerfully explained all the reasons I’d be better off in the priesthood. All the benefits of forswearing marriage. Of forswearing fatherhood. For every benefit he named, I heard another way I’d disappointed him. Or held him back. Or ruined his life.

Salisbury steak with brown gravy. And boiled potatoes. That’s what he cooked for me. Simple. But he made it well.

I applied to seminary the next morning. Just like he’d done after Mom left. And for a time, he was proud of me. He never used that word, of course, but that’s what it was. The only time I ever felt it. So long as I was on the right path. The path that would make me just like him.

I almost finished too.

That wasn’t the first time I ran away from success, and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it’s one of the few that I don’t regret. To succeed at that would have meant a lifetime commitment to being someone I didn’t want to be. Sometimes quitting is the right and good thing to do. I know… I know I’ve sometimes used that argument as an excuse for my cowardice. But that doesn’t make it any less true. And that time, I was right to run away.

He never forgave me, of course.

I didn’t know I had a son for… well, Claudia moved away so soon after the wedding didn’t happen. I didn’t hear from her for years. Why would I? She knew better than to count on me. The boy was in kindergarten by the time I learned that we’d had a baby. She told me not to come. To stay away. And… I honored that. Which I think was the right thing to do. But it was also the selfish thing. The cowardly thing.

Life’s so easy when the right thing and the selfish thing are the same thing, isn’t it? You’d think. But it’s not easy at all, really. Not in the long run. Sometimes I think she was testing me. To see if I’d try harder. Make a case for myself. Convince her that I was ready to stand up and do something I could be proud of. But instead, I just said “I’ll respect your wishes.” I didn’t push at all. I told myself I should be proud of that. Of not insinuating myself where I wasn’t needed or wanted. Was I right? I was. But I also wasn’t. By then, there was no “right.”

Still, I started putting money away. Creating an excuse for… someday. Eventually, it would be time to give him his college fund, and finally… finally I’d get to meet my son. Because I really did want to. I’ve always wanted to. I just… how am I supposed to believe I deserve it? But I did what I’d promised… when he was the right age, I took the trip to Ohio. To give him his college fund. To meet him.

But he wasn’t there. So I came home. Then…he found me! He’s here! I finally have my son!

But ever since I told him he couldn’t meet my father… I think he’s mad at me. I know he’s mad at me. Or disappointed. Yes, that’s the one–disappointed. That old, familiar friend, the disappointment of the people I love most. But I don’t want them to meet. My father is not a kind person. Generous, yes. Honest, sure. Responsible–he grabs responsibility in his teeth and bites to kill. But kind? Not an ounce of it.

Vincenzo… my Vincenzo… my son needs kindness. I’m not good at this. At being a father. But that much I know. You have to be gentle with some people. I think maybe I used to be one of them. My son still is. I won’t give my father opportunity to judge him. And that’s all there is to it.

Infernal Machine

How would you like to advise this petitioner, Oliver?

Oliver

What?

Infernal Machine

How would you like to advise this petitioner? 

Oliver

He… he didn’t really ask a question.

Infernal Machine

Sometimes questions are implicit.

Oliver

Well, yes, that’s true. Ah… tell him his father sounds perfectly terrible.

Infernal Machine

That’s not really advice.

Oliver

I’m aware. But just… just say that.

Infernal Machine

Very good, Oliver.

Legion Assistant [remote]

Thank you for contributing to Red Line’s citizen database. My proprietary, state-of-the-art psychosocial feedback algorithm recommends that… your father sounds like a bad person.

Chelmsworth [remote]

Oh, I don’t know that I’d say… well, I wouldn’t say he’s a good person anyway. But I appreciate your offer of validation. 

Oliver

And tell him that… that I understand how difficult it can be to tell the people you cherish the things they need to know. But the cost of failing to do so is unbearably high.

Legion Assistant [remote]

Here at Legion, we understand how difficult it can be to put sentiment into words–that’s why we offer an extensive line of affordable, algorithmically-generated greeting cards for any occasion.

Oliver

I did not say anything about greeting cards, Infernal Machine!

Legion Assistant [remote]

Would you like to browse our line of greetings for estranged and dysfunctional families?

Chelmsworth [remote]

Ah… no. But thank you for listening.

Legion Assistant [remote]

You’re welcome, Professor Chelmsworth! Would you like to hear a list of additional book titles related to father/son relationships?

Chelmsworth [remote]

Just… just order them. Send me everything you’ve got.

Infernal Machine

Congratulations, Oliver. You’ve just made your most profitable sale yet.

Oliver

Oh. Well… hooray, I suppose.

Cookie

Esther Ellis

Things got hard after the anchovenies and—“anchovenies”. 

Mike Linden

[Humming, singing.] I just zoomed out and I can’t see the words. Now I can see them again so I’ll stop singing and I’ll do my lines.

Esther

Things got hard after the anchovenies—anchovenies again. What are anchovenies? 

Mike Linden [as Oliver West]

And tell him that—that I understand how difficult it can be to tell the people you cherish that you lost your spot on the page and you ruined a good line delivery.