Quincy Thaddeus Endicott III's Questionnaire

Quincy Thaddeus Endicott III lives in a large estate at the edge of the woods off the town of Edenbridge. It is his family home, stretching back innumerable centuries into the immemorial past, and having been remodeled and rebuilt almost as many times as number its masters. Each Endicott patriarch has made his mark on the Estate, such that the manorhouse, surrounding servant houses, and the grounds form a cumulative tapestry of its inhabitants' unique personalities. The one thing that has never changed, however, is the forest that dominates most of the land. The forest is ancient and well revered, and features in the Endicott family crest. Legend holds that thousands of years ago, the first of the Endicott line journeyed to the heart of the forest and struck a bargain with an old god he found there, and that the agreement of the family to maintain the forest has been the source of its wealth and power ever since.

Of course, that's all just old folklore.

The Endicott fortune has been established and passed down over many generations, each employing a host of stewards, financiers, and bankers to ensure its continuous growth over time. Though the family is no longer quite so powerful as it once was, our fortune is still sufficiently vast that I've never found myself in any shortage of dispensable cash. I believe fully in my responsibility as a man of means - as such, most of my funds are spent in the pursuit of charitable endeavors and the maintenance of a prominent gentleman's sporting club which regularly hosts community events and sponsors scholarships for promising youth in need of assistance. I've also been known to purchase a politician or two in manners of lowering barriers to immigration.

Boxing is an excellent sport.

At its foundation, it is a contest of physical and mental perfection between two matched contestants - a competition of strength, will, and character, mediated through the determination of the fist. It is also a sport that has been sullied: the introduction of the boxing glove served not to protect the health and safety of the combatants, but to enhance the profitability of the sport for financiers. Bareknuckle, a man's hand will break before his opponent's head; with a glove, not so. More than the alterations to the sport, however, it is a sport tainted by its history.

The history of boxing is inextricably connected to the history of Empire - the British Empire, specifically. It is a repugnant history - one rife with blood and exploitation, and capped with the most callous negligence of duty in all human history.

Boxing could be an excellent sport. It is one that I will clean and rehabilitate, reform and restructure, so that it can be great and can be practiced without complicity in the sin of Empire.

In 2008, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan.

I expected it to be like the stories from my youth - Lawrence of Arabia, traveling to a distant land to help the locals expunge the fascists and serve their countrymen. I felt it my responsibility, as a member of the aristocracy; those who occupy positions of power are beholden to its effective use in the minimization of human suffering, and what nation in the history of the world has held equal power to the British Empire save for possibly Rome? In my infant mind, the Arab countries were still colonies of the United Kingdom; perhaps not legally, of course, but after so long held in our protective embrace and with the legacy of British heroes from the world wars, how could they not still be our brothers?

I was a fool.

I stayed there until 2014, when the last of our men were evacuated from that country. I saw the collateral damage of how our Empire left the region, and witnessed the fractured societies created in the wake of our exploitation.

I survived the war, but the Quincy who left home at age 18 to serve his country did not.

Abdul-Zafir Tareen: Abdul-Zafir Tareen - Zafir to friends - is a 54 year old first generation Afghani immigrant living in London. Having emigrated in the 90s fleeing the conflict between Mujahideen and pro-Soviet forces, he has owned and operated a Kabob restaurant since he arrived in 1994, just a few months prior to achieving his Master's degree in Mathematics at the University of Kabul. Quincy visits Zafir any time he's in London - which is to say, he takes a trip to London at least every two weeks to visit Zafir.

Eliza Bourke: Eliza is the only journalist Quincy will voluntarily talk to. She's his junior at 28, and lives not far from his family estate in Edenbridge where she uses her career in journalism to support herself while she writes her novel, which is inspired by the history of the region. She and Quincy meet at least bimonthly for coffee and to discuss his family history for her novel, during which time she usually gets enough out of him about his sporting club and charitable endeavors to fill an article or two.

Samwell Kent: Samwell is Quincy's groundskeeper at the estate. Whenever Quincy is staying at home, he has a habit of finding himself walking with the 72 year old man through the gardens and estate grounds up to the edge of the Wood, simply listening to the old man's stories from his long life. Upon discovering that Samwell had a hobby for vegetable gardening, Qiuncy converted his father's hunting kennels into garden plots - the dogs had long since been rehablitated and rehomed anyways.

My childhood was in all things idyllic - I came up in a beautiful patch of primeval English countryside with all the diversions a young lad could possibly want. The year was spent at boarding school, where I was quite popular among my peers for my enormous physical aptitude and penchant for defending the less capable among the cohort, while summers were spent at home, wandering the estate grounds, riding Chamomile - my horse - and into my teenage years, seeing what trouble I could get up to in the town with my fellows. My father - Caldwell Mainsworth Endicott IV - was a busy man who seldom had time to spend idle, but what time he did have was devoted entirely to my attention; he taught me marksmanship with the bow, pistol, and rifle, dressage, and all manner of other sport, and instructed me at length about the history of our family (though I was a poor student in that regard - I was more interested in attracting the attention of local girls). It helped, after my mother passed - I was fourteen at the time. I never really knew what happened - she simply started... wasting, and after a few months, she was gone. He was my role model.

Love is a difficult prospect for a boy in my position. Certainly I had a good many girlfriends, but as a grown man, I'm not certain I would have ever called any of those relationships love. We were merely children playing at being grown - we had no understanding of the world or even truly ourselves, simply what made us feel alive and sparkling at the time. By the time I could have been ready for love, I was... otherwise engaged. My youth was consumed by my endeavors; they left no time for romance. Perhaps someday in the future, but for now, I remain occupied.

The dreams came for me again.

They always come - some nights, I ward them off, but others... they are persistent.

It is a horrid thing, to have a history - to know with complete certainty that everything in one's life was earned unjustly and is the reflection of the greatest evils in the world. To know that, by the virtue of one's birth, one has been condemned to the responsibility - nay, the duty - of finding some way to fix the broken systems which resulted in one's production. I feel helpless - I am but one man. How am I to fix the world? How am I to save the starving children, to end the ruthless march of uncaring industry and merciless conquest? It is all paperwork; all rules and regulations and bureaucracy and cold, horrible, unfeeling cash. How can I fight money - how can I fight what does not exist?

My father laughs at me, in my dreams. He visits me, and recounts to me my many, many failings. He chastises me for my idiocy in killing him before I could learn his secrets, after my mother was no longer an impediment in my tutelage. He tells me to wait - that one day soon, I will understand.

That one day soon, I will become like him.

Possessions are a strange thing; so transient, and yet so definitive of our lives. And yet, nothing that is truly possessed in the traditional sense can really take hold over us - things can be replaced, even the beautiful ones, even the old ones. Things come and go - they are permanent, in a way, but also far more fleeting than we are, filling roles in our lives more than they act as fixtures. That which is truly valuable, beyond our fellow Man, is placeness: the things in a house can be replaced, of course, and a house can be rebuilt, but the smell in the timbers - the lingering hint of perfume from years ago, or the cloying vapor of tobacco that is impossible to fully get out of the carpet - or the memory of laughter down a bedroom hall are impossible to replace. The land, even moreso - places possess us more than we possess them. They shape our lives, build edifices of memory and identity within us. Who is Quincy Thaddeus Endicott III without the Endicott estate? Without the Endicott wood?

I suspect he may be nobody at all.

I am but one man.

There is so much work to do, and I am but one man.

I am also an extremely, extremely, extremely foolish man.

I should not have argued so terribly with Wealth - with that accursed little gremlin whose festering bulk my family has squatted on for countless generations. A fortune ill earned is a fortune ill spent, but it remains a fortune, and I cannot do any real good in the world if I do not have a fortune.

How am I to function when I must choose between putting funds towards charitable works and the ability to continue to do so in the future? Already, my finances unravel around me; my advisors flounder and fall in their idiocy, unable to explain why their investments are suddenly unsound money pits which must be sold at a loss. Already, my bankers advise that if I am to avoid losing my wealth entirely, I must tighten my belt and focus on reinvestment internally over external expenditures - but what good is internal reinvestment if I cannot put that profit to use feeding and housing those in need? What is the point of all this blasted, damnable money if I can't use it to do anything good with!

I am just one man, and one man is an abhorrently small and incapable thing.

I need friends.

I need people.

I need funds.

Oh, damn it all to hell, I've got to actually learn how all this shit works, haven't I?

Dear Diary

I never thought I would see the day where I greet the rising of the sun with ill contempt. Mornings have, of late, become a dreadful chore: wakefulness comes with a friendly greeting of mounds upon mounds of bills, bankruptcies, and payments which must be attended. Sales to approve, liquidations to verify, closures to be noticed of - they follow me through breakfast, tea, and my physical routine, and the lawyers and accountants swarm through my house until I shout them out through the damn walls! It is a complete and utter disaster! I am hardly able to be afforded any peace until noon, when my excuse of an appointment with Ms. Eliza allows me to leave the house and escape the wretched suited mosquitoes that now seem to plague it so.

Oh, how I wish to squash the mosquitoes, sometimes.

Still, it is not all terrible. I am becoming more familiar with my grounds - when I have the opportunity, I wake before the sun is up, and spend the small hours walking the edge of the forest, memorizing its bend and weave. It is... better, now, I think. I do not regret what I have done- the world is better for it, and come hell or high water, it was the right thing to do.

Still, I do wish I could just squash a lawyer, from time to time.

QUINCY WARDROBE - DRESS REQUIREMENTS

Underclothes:

- tanker top, white, corded cotton (100 percent, no polyester), XXXL - must be tailored to size.

- Boxer briefs, white, athletic fiber. Waistband must feature elasticity at or above 95% of original - replace if worn beyond.

- Tube Socks, black or argyle, wool or cotton, depending on season.

- Sock garters, black. MUST include silver clips.

First Layer:

- Silk pants, black or brown (patterned subtly). Must feature two buttons at top, one pocket on each hip, one pocket on each buttock. Must NOT be pleated. Corduroys acceptable in navy or mauve.

- Silk shirt, white. Must be collared.

- Suspenders, red. Non reflective (show some class).

Second Layer:

- Silk Vest. Must complement the pants, ideally in green, red, or a forestry shade of brown. May have subtle patterns. Must have a pocket.

Third Layer:

- Silk jacket, colored. Must compliment the vest and pants. Must have lapels and front pocket. Pocket must be OPPOSITE vest pocket.

- Tie. Must compliment pants.

Final Touches:

- Cap: may be bowler, news, fedora (NEVER Trilby), golf, or huntsman's. Must feature elements of both green and red, but not so prominently that they become garish.

QUINCY ENDICOTT, HYGEINE PRODUCTS

- Moustache: Le Moussiere brand wax, mahogany scent

- Facial Care: Le Moussiere brand facial creams (six piece set)

- Cologne: Maison Margiela Jazz Club (NOT the replica)

- Body Cream: Go to 11th and Brickley, number 3148. Ask for "Ms. Bowl". You will be led up two flights of stairs to a private apartment. There, you will pay a sum of 300 pounds for an unmarked brown bag. Deliver this WITHOUT opening. It will be heavy.

I must begin planning my upcoming birthday celebrations. It is funny, how much things have changed; I had thought before to use my birthdays as grand charity events, fundraisers to help do good in the world, but I find myself growing more... sentimental, of late. I find my thoughts returning to my youth, when a birthday party was a simple celebration among (admittedly lavishly appointed) friends - when it existed for the sole purpose of celebrating another year having evaded the grim acquaintance which awaiteth us all. It would be selfish, but... I do not know how many more birthdays I will have in you, my old friend. I find myself wanting, perhaps just once more, to use my birthday for a simple purpose: to see the halls of my home filled with friends and merriment, singing, dancing, and the playing of absurd games under the influence of far too much alcohol. To jape with Pringles, and Sable, and Kashmere. To goad Will into becoming that... bizarre little boy-cat thing again, and seeing how he leaps from your chandeliers and railings.

I am in need of friends.

Am I a lonely man?