Gabriel Moseley, “A Man Stands Tall” (The Masters Review Anthology, Volume VI)
This story is another highlight from The Masters Review Anthology, Volume VI (2017). It’s available online,
The story begins with a contradiction: a family is leading a
rugged, nearly colonial life in Montana, while being constantly recorded by
cameramen who shadow them wherever they go. This life, we soon learn, is staged
for a reality show in which three ordinary families are subjected to the living
conditions of “genuine Montana pioneers” (p. 2) for six months.
Tom signed up for the show because he wanted to toughen up his
son, Ajay. Helen, Tom’s wife and Ajay’s mother, doesn’t seem to be as committed
to the show as Tom. Ajay is becoming hardier, it seems to Tom, and has
befriended the Dukes, a group of boys that indulges in rough games and seems to
Tom to be a good match for Ajay.
The story is set in motion when Ajay walks in with a broken
pinky finger. Later, off-camera, Ajay admits to Tom that one of the Duke boys
broke his pinky. Right then, “Tom felt that this was one of those moments where
someone’s life could fork. He could either teach his son how to be scared for
the rest of his life, how to be a coward, or he could finally teach his son how
a man stands tall” (p. 9). He chooses the latter: he prepares a sock mace for
Ajay and tells him to use it only if the Duke boys try to hurt him again.
Everything seems fixed. But, one day, Ajay doesn’t come home. Helen and Tom become very concerned. Tom can’t admit to Helen that the Dukes had, in fact, broken Ajay’s finger intentionally. He can’t admit that he had armed his son with a sock mace. Looking for answers, he goes to the Dukes’ house. The Dukes are part of the program, so the exchange is recorded—and eerie. One of the Dukes, Brandon, had a purple bruise over his eye. He is playing with a sock puppet. They are all very kind to Tom and say they don’t know where Ajay went.
Tom returns home, and escapes from the cameras to watch over
the Dukes’ house. When Brandon goes to the outhouse, Tom snatches him from
outside, overpowers him, and hurts him enough to force him to say where Ajay
is. We are reminded along the way of the fork in the road Tom had faced when he
advised Ajay to fight off the bullies (“They followed the river downstream
until it forked. They kept to the near side, as the river cut through the
valley, passing close alongside the foothills of the mountains. Finally the
path broke away from the river and headed upward, deeper into the forest” [p.
16]).
Brandon leads Tom to a horrific clearing in which Ajay “lay
stretched out like a starfish,” his wrists and ankles tied to four trees around
him; “The ropes had been tied so taut, his limbs so fully extended, that his
back barely touched the ground” (p. 16). Tom releases Ajay. He knows that he
will be judged harshly, even if he acted out of “the most ancient, the most
fierce form of love” (p. 17). He realizes that Ajay will be “forever weak,
afraid, and broken” (p. 17).
A good story, “A Man Stands Tall” reminds us how often we
can become blind to people by becoming enamored with ideas.
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