A Day in the Life of Forrester - Pt. 2
Descent to Madness
By: Karen Walker (Serris)
Co-Author: Stephanie Watson (SLWatson)



Disclaimers: Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV's Frank both belong to BBI. I'm not making any money from this, but I wish I were... does that count?



- --------- - --

Makeup. That was the thing about funeral parlors; they dressed a corpse in a nice suit, dabbed on some rouge, and then people came through with their false sympathy and forced compassion. They shook your hand, sometimes they hugged you, and then they went home to watch the Twins game. It was a mockery: A circus for fools, and in the middle of the circus the plush maroon carpeting showed the room as the center ring, the ring master standing not far from his clowns.

The funeral director was dressed completely in black, a proverbial carbon copy of every other suited man that had attended. Of course, each day was the same for this man. He would get up in the morning, put on a suit exactly like every other one in his closet, and go off to work to pay his respects to those signing the checks. Afterall, he only needed to know their name and three simple words: "My greatest sympathies."

Clayton Forrester was now a doctor in the field of science, and with a degree in Physiology, death was something he knew far too intimately to be taken up by the play that was being acted out. More than anything it disgusted him; made him want to reach out and choke the life from these people.

His mother, however, seemed very much taken with the attention she was getting, and that annoyed him even further. She cried shallow tears when someone would come to talk to her, but while the attendance was low, she would find herself drinking the complimentary champagne and looking at her nails.

Dead is dead. There would be no miracles, no joy, no satisfaction that a once living human being had "gone to a better place". There was nothing else, and there never would be. Yes, people had preached their words of wisdom to the young man, telling of Heaven and the beautiful things that awaited his father, but what they didn't understand was the fact that Clayton lived on facts... proven facts.

He thought these grim thoughts without a single change in expression. He hadn't smiled, cried, or so much as let a word slip since that morning. The foremost thoughts in his mind were of contempt, and those buried deeper down were fragmented, desperate, and filled with hurt and frustration. Beneath the calm outside, the first few layers of thought, there lay the same thoughts any son would go through at seeing their father in a casket.

As each person filed past the casket, they would say things such as, "Oh, he was such a great man! I've known him a long time," or some similar variation of that. Was this a game to them? Huffing out a breath, Clay crossed his arms and leaned against a wall. It all came down to who knew his father first, from what he could tell. Almost like the one who had met him as a baby would get a prize for it.

Who cared, though? He was gone, and nothing they said would change that fact. Why not just take their walk past the coffin without a word? It would make more sense, wouldn't it? Still, the game continued and the trophy, though unseen, was passed back and forth between those who had known the family. From a friend to a best friend; from a teacher to a student. On went the game, person by person.

Eventually, everyone filed out of the parlor, leaving Pearl and her son alone with their passed relative. Pearl wiped her eyes, leaving streaks of light mascara, and made her way to Clayton, hugging him. Clay hugged her back as any son would, but still offered no clue to his feelings. The scene remained quiet for a moment before Pearl pushed away from him, smacking him across the face and leaving a nice red mark immediately after.

Flinching back with the unexpected move and the burning, stinging pain that remained, Clay glared at his mother, "What was that for?!" His voice showed his surprise and perhaps showed a slight bit of the betrayal that he felt for the brief moment after the connection.

Pearl pointed a contemptuous finger at him, narrowing her eyes, "You haven't even gone over to see him yet, and you didn't say anything to those nice people who came!" Stepping back, she gestured with the finger, emphasizing her words.

Shrugging, he leaned back against the wall again, brushing off the accusing tone that ground at his brain. "They were too busy trying to upstage each other... trying to win the gold medal for being Dad's best friend." With a smirk, he crossed his arms, happy with his comeback.

Still glaring, she moved in closer, finger poking at his chest, "You were a spiteful child, Clayton, and you still are! I see how it is now! You sit there and make nice until we get you through college, then you turn on us... You never loved him!!" She cried her words out as loud as she could, pushing Clay even harder against the wall.

"That's a lie!!" He yelled back defensively, his voice booming out and echoing off the cold, dead walls before he pushed her back and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Pearl moved to go after him, but growled slightly as she reached for the handle, figuring it would be pointless to make a scene, and went back to her chair.

It was a dreary day outside, and Clay stalked across the not quite empty parking lot to a willow, taking some refuge under it's branches. How dare she?! She doted on her husband when he was home, but whenever he spent nights and days in his lab she would complain. Clayton had never presumed to be so two-faced. He loved his father... admired him. He had been a scientist in the highest sense of the word, and he had spent his life trying to make other people's lives better. He wouldn't have appreciated the charade being played out.

For a moment the young scientist that was left in his father's image thought about punching the bark of the willow, but he doubted that would make him feel any better. Instead, he let his thoughts hone back in on his mother. Angrily and with more thoughts of vengeance than he could count, he rubbed the red spot where her hand had struck and tried to narrow down the options. Maybe some hydrochloric acid placed in her perfume bottle...

He barely registered the rain that seeped down, and he didn't notice the little man working his way down the hedge line with some clippers. Well, he didn't notice him until the man merrily started clipping away at the collar of his suit, missing his jugular vein by an inch or so. That snapped him from his furious daze, and he whirled, "What do you think you're doing?!"

The man grinned an infectious grin, his white hair a sharp contrast with his boyish face, "That suit practically hangs off of you, so I thought I would resize it," he replied, amiably, and started on the sleeve. He was a hefty, yet had the same aura to him as a puppy, or something else that couldn't hurt someone without a serious effort. Hanging from the white hair was a single spit-curl, perfectly formed just as the rest of his hair. In fact, he had quite a clean appearance for such a clumsy man.

Clay yanked his arm back sharply, leaving the cuff of the suit hanging on the ends of the clippers, "Whoever you are, kindly go away!" He snapped, crossing his arms and showing the amazingly large difference between the lengths of his sleeves.

"Here for the Forrester funeral?" The little fellow asked, not giving a single indication that Clay had even spoken, "I even got to help with the makeup on this one." He seemed excited by his addition to the corpse, smiling a quirky grin as he put his clippers to his side.

"Well, you put too much rouge on!" Clayton scolded, for lack of anything else to say, and looked over across the parking lot to where the people who had just left the parlor laughed and joked with each other. A sneer began to form on his young, lanky features as he watched.

"I was going for that Marilyn Monroe look with him. He had the same look on his face as she did in that one movie..." The man continued his babbling for a good minute before he finally stopped, noticing Clay twitching. Making a slightly annoyed face, he pushed at Clay's arm, "Hey, you okay?"

Blinking, Clayton took a deep breath, "How can they act like that? They went in and said they were so sad and now they might as well be watching some comedian!" Making a fist, he ground his teeth before looking to his unexpected companion. "Who are you, anyway?"

Smiling cheerfully, the man offered his clippers before realizing his mistake, changing the clippers to the other hand before offering the correct one, "I'm Frank!"

Looking down at Frank's hand, Clay raised an eyebrow, making no move to shake the gloved hand, "Frank who?"

"Why, TV's Frank! I work here because everyone else fired me, and here I get to put makeup on people!" Frank nodded, matter-of-factly.

Clay gave him a long, hard look. This man was callous towards death and sadness, but at least he wasn't a hypocrite. He turned back to watching the people across the lot, putting on a somewhat pompous air, "Dr. Clayton Forrester. Is that really your name?"

Frank didn't even blink, "Son, right? Man, you should have talked to your mum about the rouge. She was definitely going for the opera queen look."

Clay tried to chew back a smile, but failed. Frank had no idea how accurately he had called that, "Certainly. Hand her the stage cue, and she's on."

A moment later, the funeral director walked out and nodded to the group of people who had congregated, then made his way over. His politeness was incredibly forced, "Frank, don't you have something better to do?"

Frank got a sheepish look, "I guess so..." He shrugged, tossing Clay a slightly apologetic glance, "Talk to ya later!"

Clay nodded, but the funeral director butted in before he could reply, "Allow me to offer my most sincere condolences, Dr. Forrester. Your father was a wonderful man, and an incredible humanitarian."

A long moment passed, and Clay turned his dark eyes back to the funeral director and away from Frank's retreating form. Slowly, and with as much contempt as he could manage, he answered, "And you, good sir, are nothing but an actor... living in the world of scripts and false emotion," A smirk crossed his face, "Better run along. Your next role will be here soon." Then, with a certain amount of dignity about him, Clayton Forrester walked away.