Being There

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Chance and establishes his realm within the Old Man’s garden. Chance loves gardening and spends most of his time there. He works meditatively, paying attention to the flow of water over the leaves and petals. He thinks about how plants are similar to yet different from people. They cannot think nor can they know themselves. They do not have human awareness, but like people, they require care and nurturing to thrive.

Chance lives the other part of his life in his bedroom. He watches television with the same rapt attention with which he gardens. When he turns the channels using the remote control, he muses on how television transforms the complex world into a series of easily digestible images. By changing the channels, he can move backward and forward in time. The process of watching TV brings him into being.

Chance cannot read or write. His mother, who had intellectual disabilities, died in childbirth. The Old Man took Chance in as a child. He is not a blood relation and has intellectual disabilities. When Chance was young, the Old Man threatened to send him to an insane asylum if he strayed from his designated areas—his room and the garden. A maid brought Chance’s meals to his room so that he need not enter any other part of the house.

At the end of the chapter, Chance hears the maid screaming. He enters the Old Man’s room for the first time and finds her shouting into the phone. The Old Man is propped up in bed, slumped dead against the window. Chance looks at him, says a peremptory goodbye, and leaves.