The Fullness of Time
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Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 3-13-2008 The ulF lness of time Kevin Allen Florida International University DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI13101587 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Allen, Kevin, "The ulF lness of time" (2008). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1096. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1096 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida THE FULLNESS OF TIME A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS in CREATIVE WRITING by Kevin Allen 2008 To: Dean Kenneth Furton College of Arts and Sciences This thesis, written by Kevin Allen, and entitled The Fullness of Time, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this thesis and recommend that it be approved. Jog Dufresne Kathleen McCormack Les Standiford, iar Professor Date of Defense: March 13, 2008 The thesis of Kevin Allen is approved. Dean Kenneth Furton College of Arts and Sciences Dean George Walker University Graduate School Florida International University, 2008 ii DEDICATION To Jill, for the kindness, intelligence, wit, and love that inspire and sustain me. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the members of my committee for their support and guidance, particularly, Professor Les Standiford, for his unwavering encouragement from the inception of this project through to its completion. A special gratitude also to all those at Florida International University's Creative Writing program. It has been a pleasure and an honor to be in your great company. iv ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS THE FULLNESS OF TIME by Kevin Allen Florida International University, 2008 Miami, Florida Professor Les Standiford, Major Professor THE FULLNESS OF TIME is a novel about the quest for identity that transcends the limitations of moral duty, social status, and cultural conventions. Set in Tarpon Springs, Florida, in 1969, it is the story of Victor Lucas, a young Greek immigrant forced to go to war in Vietnam in another man's place in order to save the woman he loves. He must survive the war to return and reclaim his love and his rightful place in society. Based on the archetypal hero's quest as articulated by Joseph Campbell, the narrative is told from the limited third-person perspective of the main character. Though the journey is particular to Tarpon Springs in the 1960s, it echoes the human struggle and triumph in the wanderings of Ulysses. The novel's influences include Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, but is also thematically related to contemporary works exploring cultural turbulence and upheaval. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PROLOGUE: Deeper Down................................................................................................1 1. Epiphany ........................................................................................................................ 17 2. The Way Fate is Written................................................................................................31 3. Luck of the Cross...........................................................................................................53 4. For Your Loss ................................................................................................................ 69 5. When Men Walked on the Moon...................................................................................85 6. California, Maybe........................................................................................................101 7. These Things No One Wants ...................................................................................... 117 8. The Least He Could Do ............................................................................................... 128 9. The Taste of a Name So Sweet .................................................................................... 144 10. Bubbles in the Blood..................................................................................................162 11. Now I Am Nobody.....................................................................................................171 12. Pray to Go ............................................................................................................ 185 13. Like Swallowing Guilt...............................................................................................206 14. Some Choices Never Are...........................................................................................217 15. Still That Number ...................................................................................................... 222 16. Long Distance ............................................................................................................ 226 17. Wrapped in the Package of His Enemy ..................................................................... 228 18. With Much Embarrassment I Have Returned............................................................242 19. Too Small to Get Lost In ........................................................................................... 267 vi 20. Who Will You Ask For? ............................................................................................ 285 21. Old Ground Recovered .............................................................................................. 304 22. The Big House ........................................................................................................... 314 23. Spongers ..................................................................................................................... 325 24. Confession .................................................................................................................. 332 25. Deeper ........................................................................................................................ 344 26. Down .......................................................................................................................... 354 vii Deeper Down Darwin, Western Australia, 1954 As the single file of naked Greeks moved another step forward along the docks of Darwin Harbour, Stefanos Lucas closed his eyes and imagined he was back on the murky seabed in a brass diving helmet and rubber suit. Attached to the world of heaven and light by an air-hose umbilicus, Stefanos was a master of the down below, extraordinary and singular in his ability to dive deep and stay under for hours at a time. But buck naked in the sweltering December sun, his imagination failed him. He couldn't escape, not even in his head, the shame and indignity the Australians visited on the Greek diving crew every time they returned from the pearl beds off the coast of Australia's Northern Territory. The next diver in line stepped up in front of the red-faced, bespectacled Australian, Norcross, who sat on a wooden stool and watched as the Greek stopped, bent over and spread his buttocks, then turned and lifted his genitals, finally pulling back his foreskin before continuing on to where his clothes, already having been searched, were piled on a nearby bench. The Greeks called the inspector Anorchos-castrated.Only a man without his own balls would be so interested in those of others, they joked. The Australian pearl masters wished that the divers wouldn't take the searches personally. They told the Greeks not to think of the procedure as anything but a necessary safeguard of the company's investment. The owner of the company, himself descended from English cutpurses and prostitutes, understood that to be tempted was simply human nature. A man hired to dive the tempestuous South Pacific and bring up a thousand gold- lipped oysters in a day, one in a hundred of which might contain a profitable pearl, would quite naturally think from time to time of ways to spare himself such toil. It would be 1 naive to think a diver wouldn't contemplate tucking away one or two of those hard- earned jewels. The searches were a precaution, first and foremost, a way of heading off far worse aggravation should any of the Greeks be discovered trying to deprive the company of what, after all, it had worked so hard for and paid so dearly. But the Greeks weren't fools. Of course, they were insulted. The searches were an affront. The divers grew more cross and openly defiant each time they lined up for inspection. Most vocal of all was Kiri Nicholaos, who stood in line behind Stefanos cursing the Australians in general and the inspector in particular as the squinty little fellow signaled for the next diver in line to bend over. "You can look up his ass all day, Anorchos," Kiri called out, "but you'll still find shit." The inspector spoke no Greek and so couldn't know for sure that he had been insulted. But his red-faced reaction to the burst of laughter from the waiting divers made it clear that Kiri had scored a measure of revenge. Lifting his bristled chin, the inspector signaled the man to lift his genitals. "If you find a drip," Kiri said, "you better go home and check your wife." And again the waiting divers