The town of Tristesse was founded in 1820 by a small group of wayward Bonapartists that had fled from France to the United States after the abdication and exile of Napolean I. Originally part of a much longer congregation that included Count Lefebvre Desnouettes and went on to found the city of Demopolis, the Tristessian Bonapartists denounced the plans of their brethren in Demopolis as much too idealistic. Originally, the land had been purchased from the United States Congress for the founding of a city whose economy was to be based almost entirely on olives and grapes, but the would-be Tristessians argued in favor of more local crops like cotton and corn that would actually have a very good chance of growing in that area. So a small splinter broke off from the main body of French pioneers and founded their own town on a river not too far away, where they could live more sensibly. When the Congress learned, however, that Demopolis fell outside of the bounds the Bonapartists had been given, they were forced to abandon their city altogether. The inhabitants of Tristesse, however, escaped forcible removal by simply pretending to not be French.
In the years that followed, Tristesse thrived by simply being accessible to Mobile by waterway. Because cotton had long been its major economic resource, the textile industry took hold in the town and transformed a large portion of its population from poor farmers to relatively less poor industrial workers. It was a joyous time for Tristesse.
During the American Civil War, however, Tristesse was not so fortunate. Since it was a valuable Confederate port, the town's main docks and the main bridge that led into and out of town were destroyed, effectively shutting it off from the rest of the world. Nevertheless, life in the town continued on as if nothing had happened, and so it was that when the South underwent its period of Reconstruction, during which railroads replaced waterways as the main form of transportation for goods, a train station was constructed in Tristesse, opening it back up to the world around. Tristesse was ready for it, and it flooded the market with its stockpiles of cheap grain and textiles. "The Town that Disappeared" had reappeared and flourished. Almost overnight, the inhabitants had become secretly wealthy.
At the turn of the 20th Century, a small private college was founded in the town. Originally, it was intended to become a premier agricultural school, but it soon switched its focus to the liberal arts. Tuition was high--even as far as private college tuition goes, yet scholarships were offered for any Tristessian who wished to attend. This became a sort of pattern with the town--always favoring its own over outsiders, which in a different sort of way again cut the town off from everything else.
By the time Vitus Bethel was born, Tristesse had become the sort of idyllic small town that Norman Rockwell paintings were based on. The town had a population of approximately twenty-five thousand, not counting the additional twelve hundred students living in the dormitories of Elba College. The majority of the town's inhabitants earned their upper middle class wages at the garment factories on the edge of town. The rest worked in the privately owned shops that lined the town streets. The city planners had been careful to keep Tristesse a small town that had room for later expansion, so the streets were designed in a simple grid pattern that allowed residents to easily walk from one end of town to the other without the need for a car, a flaw that proved problematic for other small Southern towns in the mid 20th Century.
Every morning when he was a boy, young Vitus would leave his house at 1492 Maple Street and walk the three blocks to Swaney Elementary School. After school let out, at precisely three o'clock every afternoon, Vitus would venture to one of two places--the comic book store, which was exactly four blocks away, or the antique store, which was also exactly four blocks away in the opposite direction. It was a choice that sparked a constant battle for supremacy of his mind. Would he choose the action and adventure he so very much desired? Or would he be tempted again to look at the artifacts of a mysterious past--where every item could have once been owned by an eccentric mad scientist or a world-wandering adventurer. Then after he made his daily decision and spent the following forty minutes rummaging through books or items that he certainly could not afford, young Vitus Bethel returned home.
Very little could be said about Vitus' home life that would interest anyone beyond those who know him on a personal level. His parents, Victor and Violet Bethel, were kind and loving. They taught him wrong from right, to respect others no matter what, and how to tie his shoes, among a myriad of other things that bored him and had no place in the life of a future action hero. Then there was his sister, Vera, who was three years younger and nothing at all like her brother. Young Vitus had always dreamed about leaving Tristesse and seeking his fortune elsewhere--like the deserts of Egypt or the plains of the Serengeti or even the red mountains of Mars, if the opportunity presented itself, but young Vera was content in Tristesse. She played with her dolls and hosted neighborhood pretend-tea parties, which were renowned among all the proper young ladies of Tristesse. Her dream was of becoming a house wife, and settling down on the very same street she grew up on with a home of her own. Every once in awhile, though, something big comes along that seems to pause all dreams to the point that one is never entirely sure that they were dreams at all.
When Vitus was seventeen and Vera was fourteen, Victor and Violet Bethel were involved in a tragic accident. On the way home from a parent-teacher conference, during which Vitus' teacher expressed concern over his distant and imaginative behavior, their car was struck by a man who had fallen from the sky. It seems that at the very moment Victor and Violet Bethel left the campus of Tristesse High School, a skydiver named Jerome Reno had leapt from his plane and realized that his parachute had failed to open. So Jerome Reno panicked, and as a result, he crashed straight into Victor Bethel's windshield, causing him to lose control of his vehicle and plummet over the side of the road into the river below. A memorial service was held for all three victims in the town's main park, but young Vitus was too unnerved by the steady stream of skydiving mourners that landed nearby to stay for the entire duration.
Now orphaned, Vitus and Vera were sent to live with their grandmother, who lived in a house exactly one block south of their previous home. Neither of the Bethel children were ever the same after that accident, and yet they pretended that it had never happened. Vera, now too old for the tea parties she had thrown as a girl, took to throwing real parties--though not the wild, disorienting parties one would expect a teenager to host; rather, these were dinner parties, where everyone was expected to be on their best behavior and dress accordingly. It was as if all the manners and values of the tea parties were transplanted into something slightly more grown up.
Vitus began to question his own mortality, yet he absorbed himself even further into a fantasy world where he was an unstoppable force of nature, someone that could defy death and all the conventions of society in the same breath. When he graduated from high school, Vitus left Tristesse. Though he had been offered a full scholarship to Elba College, as was still the tradition of the town, he took another offer instead, one that took him far away from the town and river he had once loved yet grown to despise. He left his sister behind. He and Vera were never very close, but he felt ashamed of himself for snipping one of the few familial bonds he had left on this mortal coil. He never offered an apology, and he knew Vera resented him. They seldom spoke after that. The last time he'd heard from her was when their grandmother died--Vitus was nineteen and Vera sixteen. He did not attend the funeral.
In the years that followed, Tristesse thrived by simply being accessible to Mobile by waterway. Because cotton had long been its major economic resource, the textile industry took hold in the town and transformed a large portion of its population from poor farmers to relatively less poor industrial workers. It was a joyous time for Tristesse.
During the American Civil War, however, Tristesse was not so fortunate. Since it was a valuable Confederate port, the town's main docks and the main bridge that led into and out of town were destroyed, effectively shutting it off from the rest of the world. Nevertheless, life in the town continued on as if nothing had happened, and so it was that when the South underwent its period of Reconstruction, during which railroads replaced waterways as the main form of transportation for goods, a train station was constructed in Tristesse, opening it back up to the world around. Tristesse was ready for it, and it flooded the market with its stockpiles of cheap grain and textiles. "The Town that Disappeared" had reappeared and flourished. Almost overnight, the inhabitants had become secretly wealthy.
At the turn of the 20th Century, a small private college was founded in the town. Originally, it was intended to become a premier agricultural school, but it soon switched its focus to the liberal arts. Tuition was high--even as far as private college tuition goes, yet scholarships were offered for any Tristessian who wished to attend. This became a sort of pattern with the town--always favoring its own over outsiders, which in a different sort of way again cut the town off from everything else.
By the time Vitus Bethel was born, Tristesse had become the sort of idyllic small town that Norman Rockwell paintings were based on. The town had a population of approximately twenty-five thousand, not counting the additional twelve hundred students living in the dormitories of Elba College. The majority of the town's inhabitants earned their upper middle class wages at the garment factories on the edge of town. The rest worked in the privately owned shops that lined the town streets. The city planners had been careful to keep Tristesse a small town that had room for later expansion, so the streets were designed in a simple grid pattern that allowed residents to easily walk from one end of town to the other without the need for a car, a flaw that proved problematic for other small Southern towns in the mid 20th Century.
Every morning when he was a boy, young Vitus would leave his house at 1492 Maple Street and walk the three blocks to Swaney Elementary School. After school let out, at precisely three o'clock every afternoon, Vitus would venture to one of two places--the comic book store, which was exactly four blocks away, or the antique store, which was also exactly four blocks away in the opposite direction. It was a choice that sparked a constant battle for supremacy of his mind. Would he choose the action and adventure he so very much desired? Or would he be tempted again to look at the artifacts of a mysterious past--where every item could have once been owned by an eccentric mad scientist or a world-wandering adventurer. Then after he made his daily decision and spent the following forty minutes rummaging through books or items that he certainly could not afford, young Vitus Bethel returned home.
Very little could be said about Vitus' home life that would interest anyone beyond those who know him on a personal level. His parents, Victor and Violet Bethel, were kind and loving. They taught him wrong from right, to respect others no matter what, and how to tie his shoes, among a myriad of other things that bored him and had no place in the life of a future action hero. Then there was his sister, Vera, who was three years younger and nothing at all like her brother. Young Vitus had always dreamed about leaving Tristesse and seeking his fortune elsewhere--like the deserts of Egypt or the plains of the Serengeti or even the red mountains of Mars, if the opportunity presented itself, but young Vera was content in Tristesse. She played with her dolls and hosted neighborhood pretend-tea parties, which were renowned among all the proper young ladies of Tristesse. Her dream was of becoming a house wife, and settling down on the very same street she grew up on with a home of her own. Every once in awhile, though, something big comes along that seems to pause all dreams to the point that one is never entirely sure that they were dreams at all.
When Vitus was seventeen and Vera was fourteen, Victor and Violet Bethel were involved in a tragic accident. On the way home from a parent-teacher conference, during which Vitus' teacher expressed concern over his distant and imaginative behavior, their car was struck by a man who had fallen from the sky. It seems that at the very moment Victor and Violet Bethel left the campus of Tristesse High School, a skydiver named Jerome Reno had leapt from his plane and realized that his parachute had failed to open. So Jerome Reno panicked, and as a result, he crashed straight into Victor Bethel's windshield, causing him to lose control of his vehicle and plummet over the side of the road into the river below. A memorial service was held for all three victims in the town's main park, but young Vitus was too unnerved by the steady stream of skydiving mourners that landed nearby to stay for the entire duration.
Now orphaned, Vitus and Vera were sent to live with their grandmother, who lived in a house exactly one block south of their previous home. Neither of the Bethel children were ever the same after that accident, and yet they pretended that it had never happened. Vera, now too old for the tea parties she had thrown as a girl, took to throwing real parties--though not the wild, disorienting parties one would expect a teenager to host; rather, these were dinner parties, where everyone was expected to be on their best behavior and dress accordingly. It was as if all the manners and values of the tea parties were transplanted into something slightly more grown up.
Vitus began to question his own mortality, yet he absorbed himself even further into a fantasy world where he was an unstoppable force of nature, someone that could defy death and all the conventions of society in the same breath. When he graduated from high school, Vitus left Tristesse. Though he had been offered a full scholarship to Elba College, as was still the tradition of the town, he took another offer instead, one that took him far away from the town and river he had once loved yet grown to despise. He left his sister behind. He and Vera were never very close, but he felt ashamed of himself for snipping one of the few familial bonds he had left on this mortal coil. He never offered an apology, and he knew Vera resented him. They seldom spoke after that. The last time he'd heard from her was when their grandmother died--Vitus was nineteen and Vera sixteen. He did not attend the funeral.
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