Chapter 3 from "The Unicorn and the Polymath"

 

Chapter Three

Nothing becomes part of the past faster than a goodbye. This is an especially difficult lesson to learn for someone whose mind and body are pulling him in different directions. Opposing forces need a referee, or at least some battle lines, to enforce fairness and check each party’s worst inclinations. This is true and generally works in sport; however, it is less the case in war. My mind and body were at war. And it was difficult to tell from moment to moment who had the upper hand. Likely it is my experience, and my experience alone, that a body which is maturing at a glacial pace is a vicious opponent for the mind; perhaps a bit like David and Goliath; the image of a smaller opponent knee-capping a larger one comes to mind. For me it is no coincidence that the brain/mind reside at the summit of the body; the brain travels continuously from a place of dominance at the top, to all other parts of the body, performing physiological feats miniscule and gargantuan, doing its level best to keep us safe while operating at maximum physical capacity. The mind, on the other hand, while metaphorically housed in the same region as the brain, not only has various and sundry agendas which compete with the brain; but also seems to have no desire to set off on a course for adventures; the mind seems quite content to lord over the body at a safe distance from the constant physical maneuvers. As we grow older our brain makes fewer and fewer physiological ventures; but for most of us our minds can continue to grow and prosper, or at least can remain devilishly clever enough to annoy the brain and body. But maybe, just maybe, the fact that the brain isn’t traveling away from home as much as we grow older is pissing off the mind; they are spending entirely too much time together and the mind, ultimately always a home-body no matter how much we like to think otherwise, now wants nothing more than to get as far away from the brain as possible. This may explain the phrase “I’m losing my mind” – how often do you hear youngsters say that? Not very often, I suspect, unless of course they are highly intelligent ones?

And that notion brings us back to me, Rowan-Michel Turnip (notice the repeated 3^rd person references – product placement at its finest!). As a typical infant enters the world, those first couple of years are marked by a tremendous number of new adventures from the brain to virtually all the body’s ports of call; that is, except the most fascinating and exotic of all! Oh, the irony of the genitals residing below the body’s Equator!

Now that I’ve reacquainted everyone with these fantastic if facile notions, imagine my predicament; the mind of a 30-year-old trapped with the brain and body of a four-year-old, uninterested in most of the brain’s wanderings, has read all the brochures on Destination Masturbation, can easily picture in his mind’s eye (sorry, brutal pun) all the best tourist sites, all the sights, sounds and smells; but the bloody brain has no interest in acquiring that particular passport stamp. This is a far more torturous state to be in than that of the 12-year-old mind; because that largely undeveloped consciousness is just along for the brain’s ride, with no earthly idea where it’s being taken.

It’s all quite troubling if you can’t find humor in it; fortunately, I was able to do just that, and from the start, for the most part. For you see, the highly developed mind can wait out the meticulous torture of the brain and body; however, this also explains the numerous trials and tragedies of lives that do not make it out of their teens; these poor souls and their minds are not able to survive the brain/body dimwits and bullies.

All that said, moving to America meant that I never had the chance to enjoy the distinct pleasure of swimming through the water-logged refuse of the Liffey; or climbing the slimy rocks of the Giant’s Causeway; or donning the red and green…would all the beauty that I instinctively understood and could see, but could not experience, be the same in America, a place so young that its collective mind still hasn’t seemed to catch up to its brain and body?

“Mummy, spare me the grotesque details of an ocean voyage.”

I nearly let this thought slide off my tongue as my parents packed steamer trunks and suitcases; the trunks marked “New York.” Instead, I squeaked dumbly, “Are we going on an aeroplane?”

Mummy offered up her crooked smile and said, “Yes, Rowan – isn’t it exciting?”

I decided to go in for something more flippant with my next remarks. “Do you think I don’t know what this means?” I motioned to the luggage with a mocking air.

“We’re confident you know exactly what it means,” my father replied haughtily. Mummy offered nothing more than a shrug in his direction. Evidently my oral report on Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall”, for which mum had fastidiously prepared me, was too advanced in father’s eyes and still stuck in his craw.

“Your father is going to work at the United Nations!” was mummy’s attempt at smoothing the waters.

“I would have much preferred taking an ocean-liner to our new home.”

“That’s a bit inconvenient, Rowan,” father rejoined, “seeing as how I start work in three days time.”

Mummy chipped in heroically, “You’ll be happy to know that the trunks will be making the voyage at sea.”

“Yes, I suppose that is small consolation,” I smirked. I sneezed from the ancient smell wafting from the trunks and recoiled. These indifferent objects occupying my life were not doling out solace; even if I would have been content with the travel size.

Perhaps it should have been a warning that my parents were now excluding me from their silences.

My hours of inner darkness now mimicked the outer panoply of night’s intentions…”

Thus began my initial journal entry as we jetted by night to something called LaGuardia. I was determined that this and all future journaling should be disguised; so, I had seen fit to develop a neo-cuneiform, assigning most of the English alphabet to a character largely of my own creation. However, this only served to raise mummy’s ire, as she had taken great pains to school me in actual cuneiform; and now was under the mistaken apprehension that her lessons hadn’t taken. It was indeed a delicate balance that I must strike; exemplifying a normal if gifted developing intellect whilst not exposing the enormity of the ruse.

The flight from London to New York was a mostly pedestrian affair; marked by the conspicuous absence of my parents from their seats for an extended period, which I later discovered was their deranged attempt at joining the Mile-High Club; something which I imagined must surely have resembled a painful, extra-contorted game of Twister, given the dimensions of the plane’s restrooms, about which I complained in a lengthy diatribe on the feedback form; which I submitted in cuneiform, neo-cuneiform, English and Gaelic. I steadfastly refused to use the crayons given me, however; I’m nothing if not an aesthete. I must add with relish that the stewardesses were much more cooperative in allowing me to observe their tight skirts clinging to their delicious bottoms as they bent to serve drinks than would be the case thirty years later when I traveled the world on business; in particular a stewardess who said she hailed from Jamaica was driving me wild with the incredible contours of her derriere; I complimented her on her ebony skin, another striking feature I had never witnessed in lily-white Northern Ireland; this netted me an extra orange juice and a pinch of the cheek with her perfumed fingers. For half a moment I thought of requesting the crayons to do a sketch, so enticing were her measurements; but checked this thought as giving away the farm in tight quarters. Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian would have nothing on this lovely! Also, she gave me a box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers from her secret stash; possibly feeling she had dashed my hopes and that I had the visage of a spurned lover. Okay, maybe just the former.

If ever a house, or a neighborhood for that matter, could be described as non-descript, it is the dwelling that my parents chose for us in Freeport, Long Island, New York, in the year of our lord, Nineteen hundred and sixty-nine A.D.

You must understand that, although modern-day Ireland is no peach architecturally speaking, at least there had been some imagination shown in previous generations, with Trinity College’s stone archways, Dublin’s multi-colored doorways and the Botanic Gardens Palm House in Belfast. So, you can imagine my immature glee upon discovering that the person responsible for the LIE and car-centric Long Island is called Moses! But instead of parting the Red Sea, this far-from-biblical figure parted the blacks from the whites and the haves from the have-nots with the Cross Bronx.

But it’s hard to imagine a physical environment more diametrically opposed to everything my parents held dear than Robert Moses’s Long Island. At least papa and mummy had the good sense to position us within a few blocks of the LIRR.

     Some random phrases that no one ever dared utter to me as a boy genius: “Open your mouth and close your eyes and you’ll get a big surprise”…”Pull my finger”…”Go play in the freeway”…

Millard Fillmore Elementary School. Yet another sparklingly sanitized edifice with absolutely no character. A wave of disappointment swept over me as I entered what I predict will never be hallowed halls of this pretentious wanna-be institution of learning. Even the name was uninspiring; kids in Manhattan and Brooklyn got to attend schools anointed with titans like Isaac Asimov, Louis Pasteur, even – holiest of holies – Pope Pius X! But my school is assigned a second-rate president? When they handed out names, this place thought they said Thames, and they said, “that doesn’t rhyme, silly!” – and so we were stuck with Fillmore. I immediately launched a petition to have the name changed to Muhammad Ali Elementary; this bird never found its wings, however; and I suspect the reason for this is that too many of my classmates’ parents still insisted on calling him Cassius Clay; a stance to which I naturally objected as xenophobic beyond belief. My second petition called for a name change to Captain Beefheart Elementary; while this one was wildly popular with the ankle-biters (likely because they interpreted my enunciation as “Bee-fart”) the administration put the kibosh on the Captain quick, fast, and in a hurry. This would be just the beginning of countless authoritarian efforts at forestalling my attempts at cultivation.

This desire to engage with the political process aligned with my attempts to place myself squarely in the intellectual firmament of the school, which were met with bemused silence mostly, and that from the teachers! Perhaps if I had waited until my graduation from the sandbox, my endeavors might have met with more success. Nevertheless, I strove to maintain a mature outlook as I turned my attention to the school’s grounds; a seemingly mystical fairyland wherein my classmates escaped with tremendous glee and in Pavlovian fashion, at the strident ringing of a bell. In observing this peculiar ritual, particularly as it often arrived in conjunction with the start of luncheon, I soon came to realize that dignity and a singular purpose are hard-earned when your peers’ idea of culinary exotica is playground dirt.

I decided it would behoove me to befriend the school’s groundskeepers and janitors to help me get the lay of the land. Enter one Mr. Clarence Mularkey. Mr. Mularkey, sensing that he was indulging an other-worldly intelligence (a quick-witted old plodder, I’ll give him that!) gave me an extensive guided tour of the buildings and fields. If there was to be no student senate for me to manipulate or at least lobby, I would be the master of the playground. While Mr. Mularkey gabbled about the increasing number of half full lunch-bags littering the roofs, I noted two strange but welcoming structures: a six and a half-foot high replica of a half-timbered house, presumably for child’s play, as I saw no miniature horse-sized dogs around; and an enormous tyre, possibly removed from one of those semi-trucks you never see in Ireland, easily large enough to seat six to eight small children in a circle. When I inquired about the lonely giant tyre, the subject was immediately closed by Mr. Mularkey, who cited the problems of the inner ring of the thing filling with rain water, coke cans, used condoms and ciggy butts, residue from the older children who used it as an all-seasons flop house.

While the ball fields and sand lots were as pastoral or beach-like as any self-respecting Long Island athlete or ruffian could wish for, it was the tiny play-house that I’d set my sights on. Amazingly, Mr. Mularkey indicated that the older children pretty much stayed away from the kiddie structure, possibly out of some unspoken code of preserving the plaything’s innocence. This was as unexpected as my brush with the doll-like stewardess! What a coup! Due at least in part to my unusual interest in the Lilliputian edifice, Mr. Mularkey said he would give the house a new coat of paint and even install a small lectern in one of the unfurnished corners (okay, yes, all the corners were unfurnished).

Naturally, you are thinking, “why a lectern?” Well, instead of a normal seven-year-old who sends away for a Charles Atlas muscle-building program or Sea-Horse kit from the back of a comic, I instead asked mum and father for a correspondence course in marital husbandry as a Christmas gift. Newly-minted with the proper credentials, I was well on my way to marrying off my schoolmates in the little half-timbered chapel. As the number of my flights of fancy increased in proportion to the acquisition of powers of the state, Mr. Mularkey poo-pooed my request for an ecumenical stained-glass window in the tiny house.

Because marriage is largely an adult transaction, I struggled to come up with inventive ways to make the exchanging of vows appealing to my elementary school colleagues. I found, however, that when it comes to the conversion of betrothed to betwixt, all ages of the fairer sex have entrenched ideas; and further, that these were bound to clash violently with my own; and this was largely because I cared not a whit about anything to do with the nuptials, save the power invested in me by the state of Arkansas.

Despite the girls’ insistence on 24-hour notice so that they could prepare their frilly dresses; and my suggestion to the boys that they consider wearing their Easter Sunday best, advice that was bound to be largely unheeded by self-professed Big-Wheel daredevils; I was mostly looking down from the altar…er…lectern at huckleberries in grimy hand-me-downs; a pre-pubescent sweat-funk, the result of vigorous turns on the seesaw, filling the now even tinier house; grim-faced cherubs, unsympathetic in every conceivable way, whining “can we hurry this up? We want to play tether ball before recess ends!”

Then, She happened.

I did not know how to construct a prayer at that time – and the church hasn’t existed long enough to be in my DNA regardless. But if I could have prayed, I would surely wish for the ability to proffer a prayer that would bring me into conjugal relations with one Corrie Perez.

Coralinda Perez.

One-half Puerto Rican, one-quarter Native-American, one-quarter European – and one hundred percent gorgeous.

She bounded through childhood in fits of dreams aglow…

I decided to solicit some spiritual advice in this prayer construction enterprise, a form of outreach unheard of in my immediate family since the early 1960s, and completely absent in my own short existence on the planet.

Although I was much more sympathetic to the Jewish faith, with its deeper and wider traditions (not to mention its superb film and theater personalities), I ultimately concluded that it would be wise to confer with a cleric from what I assumed was Corrie’s faith tradition. Thus I came under the tutelage of one Padre Nils Lundgren (that’s right, a name as incongruous as mine).

The good padre took on the kind of public assistance which I required with guarded relish. It seems that, while he was flattered to be thought of in such a light, he was also a bit disturbed by the idea that a seven-year-old boy would seek romantic guidance, and from a priest no less. His opening statement to me was “You do realize that priests take a vow of celibacy, don’t you?”

Reminding myself for the thousandth time that I was in fact seven-years-old by appearance, I lobbed him a softball. “I am only seven, padre, but I have the heart of a 70-year-old!” Wait, that’s not right, I thought. “You know what I mean, father, I have developed a heart filled with love in a short period of time.”

This appeared to startle my prayer-slinging adviser. Damn, I thought, I’m coming on too strong; precisely what I do not want to do with Corrie. “Don’t be alarmed, padre,” I continued, trying to disguise my floundering, “I ask for nothing that you do not offer to others who are in love. Do you not provide marital counseling in your parish?”

This seemed to mollify him a touch. “That is correct, my boy. I just didn’t want to give the impression that I am here to parcel out advice of a carnal nature, regardless of age.” This coming from a priest who as it turns out had undertaken his share of incautious groping.

Attempting to follow his course of thought was laborious, but I soldiered on energetically. “It’s quite an occupational hazard you have, isn’t it, father? I understand that prostate cancer rates in the priesthood are sky high. Once you’ve taught me how to pray, I promise I will say a prayer that the church may muster the courage to release its priests from their vows of celibacy, so that you may at least masturbate in good conscience.”

Now I had really bumbled into dangerous territory. The good padre was clearly frightened and possibly angry. He cleared his throat and with an effort maintained a measure of composure. He leaned into my face menacingly closely and muttered, “Where did you learn those dreadful things?”

“Sorry, father, I had some notes that my mum had written down for me…oh, heavens, they’re here somewhere…” I patted my pockets aimlessly. The card file shuffled in my head and parceled out this ill-advised nugget. “I live by my wits, father.”

No longer presenting even the pretense of fear or astonishment, he intoned still firmer, “Where did you learn to talk like that?” He was rapidly becoming a troublesome figure for me. I decided to press my luck, or perhaps press my advantage. “My parents do not attend church…they are, what is it called, last Catholics?” I thought this error suitably credulous for a regularly-scheduled precociousness.

“Lapsed,” the good padre admonished.

“You wouldn’t discriminate against me because I don’t attend your church, would you?”

Father Lundgren crinkled up his bushy brows, possibly not trimmed since around the advent of Vatican II, and inched almost imperceptibly away from me. Evidently I had given him still more reason to be afraid, quite apart from my sardonic wit.

“My dear child, I think you will find that our little parish is quite welcoming to all-comers.” This new tack he had chosen told me that I had once again seized the upper hand.

After stifling a titter at his unintended pun, I now met his tired grey eyes with a look of triumph. “What was the name of your parish again, padre, ‘Our Lady of the Flowers’, or some such?”

“Please don’t blaspheme, boy,” he said drily.

“So, shall we begin, padre? How does prayer work, exactly?” Father was incapable of spoiling the fruits of my labors.

Meanwhile, back on the playground, having managed to make it through another school day without falling from the dizzying heights of the overborne swing set, I was preparing to preside over my next scheduled nuptials, when none other than the dreamboat of Long Island Sound, Coralinda Perez, waltzed into the tiny house, sailing the good ship tootsie-pop with beastly Bradley Simmons in tow.

Simmons had already become something of a nemesis for me, in part because of his refusal to produce a shred of evidence for his claim that he was the bastard love-child of baseball legend Al Simmons and actress Jean Simmons of “Guys and Dolls” fame. I simply won’t suffer fools, particularly ones who tell tall tales; and anything involving Simmons was not your typical schoolyard bull session.

Coralinda, or Corrie, as she was known, piped up, “We want to get married!”

I gasped in horror, turning daggers on Simmons, who shrugged sheepishly at me. “You can’t mean that, Corrie,” I cried.

“What’s it to you, Mr. High and Mighty. Isn’t that what this fancy podium is for?”

“It’s an altar, I’ll have you know,” I began, in a pathetic whine. “And besides, it takes a far sight more than an altar to preside over the exchanging of vows. Besides,” I gestured from their heads to their toes, “you two are scarcely dressed for the occasion.” I took particular exception to Simmons’s choice of the “Have a Nice Day” t-shirt. I bore no grudge, however, for his lavender cords; an excellent choice for any season.

A tiny little gamine called Florence, who had been standing warily at the entrance mining her nose for treasure, suddenly shouted, “The boys never have to wear their Sunday best!” Only the girls! It’s not fair!”

“That’s right, Rowan-Michel,” demanded Corrie. “So, put that scarf around your neck and let’s get this show on the road! Recess is only ten minutes long and time’s a wastin’!”

“It’s a stole, Corrie,” I whimpered as I reverently smooched, then donned the sacred fabric. “Why must you belittle the vestments?”

“If you stole it,” whined the gamine, “I’ll tell the principal!”

I could not help noticing that there was a note of sympathy in Corrie’s voice when she spoke my name. It was there that I saw my opening, and the color of the sky changed in my favor. It appeared my next order of business with the good padre was to inquire as to the necessity of an annulment for the Dreamboat and Simmons.

The girls had won the day – but only today…or so I thought. Silly me. After all, the Equal Rights Amendment was on the horizon, and my parents and I would be part of the struggle, the sort of cause a Turnip could never abandon for its lack of friends. The struggle to win Corrie’s affections, however, had only just begun.

Chapter 2 from "Mirth As It Is In Kevin"

 

Chapter Two – A Harrow-ing Introduction

Daylight filled the room as my heavy sleep was felled by an unbidden morning. Ghostly plumes of fog arranged themselves outside my window, ready to be let in and choked on. It was a typical Harrow School morning for an atypical Harrow boy. And my roommate, 18- year-old Wallace Fox, had just upchucked into a too-shallow straw boater.

My introduction to public school Wally was an onslaught of personal disclosures; that his was a family of prominent laughing-stock, kept back by a chain of misfortunes that seemed on the surface to be brought on by the lighting of social dumpster fires and the burning of bridges. An uncle gambling away multiple fortunes; a cousin who bullshitted his way into muckraking journalism (under an assumed nickname!) and yakked his way into multiple defamation suits; and most demonstratively for our present purposes, his ill-fated father, Colwin Fox, whose law practice was undermined by its titular head’s disbarment-worthy criticism of a judge whom had presided over one too many of Colwin’s poorly conceived arguments.  Connected with Wally in my mind were scenes of social degradation and public humiliation; and in my 17-year-old head positively swimming with teenage attempts at allegory, aphorism and allusion, I imagined his family crest taking the form of a giant cartoon mouth garlanded with wicked verbiage.

I found this particular morning unflattering to my current adolescent condition; so, tunneling under the covers, I attempted to return to dreamland.  My newly assigned roommate, despite having no hangover remedies to speak of (‘Hair of the Dog’ still being at least a decade in the distance from our lexicon) made it his morning’s mission to keep me awake and loop me into his post-carousal routine.

“While you were copping a nod, I was on the horn with some friends who can sneak us into a licensed premises.”

I pulled the sheet down to reveal one weary glaring eye. “’Copping a nod’ is grossly dismissive of my desire to get some real shut-eye,” I spat, “and isn’t sneaking into a licensed premises what you did last night?”

What I quickly discovered as our friendship began to burgeon is that Wally Fox exercises absolutely no discipline over his appetites.

Talking of appetites, I next saw my troublingly curious roomie after he had scrubbed and powdered himself into a splendidly florid condition for his arrival at the communal dinner table.  We at Rendalls were quite house proud, and particularly covetous of our meal menus, which to us read like a cornucopian feast; until we discovered that there was no discernible difference in catering among the hallowed houses of Harrow.  This caused unbounded amounts of consternation, until Wally Fox leapt into the fray with his all-nonsense take on house living.

“This must be my lucky day! Chicken Kiev again!”

Wally made a hard, bouncing landing on the bench next to me, startling more than one of our reserved schoolmates and insinuating his slovenly eating habits into our previously tranquil meal.

“Are you twats still getting your ekker intercoursing on the merits of and demerits of house meal offerings?”

A new boy called Blanche chimed in feebly, “It is my firm belief that the reason you see more Bradbys boys at the tuck shop is the inferior quality of their catering.”

“I’ll wager your firm belief couldn’t measure up to the sustained wood of my trouser furniture! Firm this, Blanche!”, as Wally raised a closed fist in our general direction.

“Charmingly over-familiar, Fox. Yet, as ever, scarcely contributes to our understanding.”

“Perhaps you lizards could take a survey of those old goats lining up for morsels.”

“Oh, God,” I spluttered into my chicken. “One of those old goats is my mother!”

Meanwhile, at the headmaster’s office…

“Someone has deposited a gaggle of pensioners at our doorstep…”

“We have doorsteps at Harrow? I wasn’t aware and did not authorize.”

“All right, perhaps they were ditched at the proscenium arch – is that better?”

“Why are you pestering me with this?”

“It seems one of them, a certain Margaret Hickinbotham, proposes a filial claim to one of our pupils.”

“Well, that would be the one called Hickinbotham, I should think. Christ on a digestive. Can’t you sort this out on your own?”

“I should be remiss if I did not point out that the nameplate on the door I’ve just passed through reads ‘headmaster.’ I defer to the superior judgment which this title implies, not to mention the wage packet. Come, Dudley, and demonstrate for this community that the faith they have placed in you is justified.

“You seem strangely unconcerned that with a thirty-second phone call I could render your wage packet superfluous.”

“If you promise to make that call right now, which would ensure that I’ve no further participation in the scene currently unfolding in the dining hall, well, I double-dog dare you…”

“Quite. I much preferred your former Pickwickian manner to this…this…well, I haven’t identified it yet.”

“That manner still resides in me, sir. It’s your fecklessness that brings forth a quite other character.”

“Can you at least debrief me on the motives for the appearance of these interlopers?”

“It appears to be a field trip, sir.”

“Right. A field trip which just happens to contain among its participants the mother of one of our pupils.”

“I really do think we should make haste, sir. You see, Ms. Hickinbotham is reciting dirty limericks.”

“Christ, why didn’t you say so! I thought perhaps hostages were being taken. Hustle now, Roger – lead me to the front!

The faint light of an October morning wove its way through threadbare curtains, as I awakened to scattershot images of familiar figures elbowing their way into my drugged vision. Or at least I assumed it was a drugged vision I was seeing this strange world through; because the last thing I remember before disconcertingly waking up in my bed in full dinner dress was the image of my mother mocking 17-year-olds for not laughing at her filthy jokes; and my schoolmates, their faces bright with the feel of a new autumn, returning fire with incredulous nincompoopery; and all the while mum was working the crowd under an assumed nickname.

“Don’t you get it, boys? Ben lives above Paddy’s non-existent abode, to get out of trouble…oh, it’s no good having to explain a joke of such extraordinary subtlety…”

 “Is that what the People’s Friend thinks is fit to print these days, is that it?”

“How would you know? No one under the age of forty reads the People’s Friend!”

My first waking moments after this travesty found me with the overwhelming feeling which Dorothy must have felt in her bed at the end of the Wizard of Oz; the only thing that seemed to be missing was a traveling showman. However, it could be argued that Meg filled that bill.

“You’d worked yourself into quite a state, Kevin. But what’s it all about?”

As I lay their soaking in the waves of a spirited conversation, evidently concerning my well-being, I found that their voices could not be lifted above the tedium of schoolmarm concern. This was chiefly due to the fact of Wally, who, while coming from a long line of eloquent mischief-makers; and having the bizarre fortune of being both endearingly normal and wildly charismatic, leading the ludicrous conversation swirling around me; as one might expect from a socially inept descendant of the realm of the emblazoned.

“He’s always been like this,” harped a feminine voice too familiar to presume such cheekiness in mixed company. “Forever embarrassed by his mother’s antics.”

“You don’t say?” Wally piped. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? Falling away in a faint like that. Seems wholly disproportionate to the circumstances.”

“Try telling him that! I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve suffered – he’s a good son – but the occasional bouts of theatricality are off-putting.”

“If I may interject,” the assistant headmaster ventured, “he appears to be on the verge of awakening.”

“On the verge of awakening, or on the verge of an awakening? It’s a crucial distinction.”

“I shan’t speculate on the boy’s metaphysical condition, only his stage of consciousness.”

“Perhaps we can solve him together, Meg. I could do with a project. Harrow can be quite stifling for a precocious ne’er-do-well like me.”

Despite all this high-minded tripe, Wally Fox was bound sentimentally to the old way of life. Which means he is very much “of” Harrow. He has no oppositional fortitude, no latent hatred of the establishment to bring to the surface; and certainly no sincere desire to get to the bottom of Kevin Hickinbotham, as it were. This was never more true than as I watched Wally peeling off his Harrovian jersey before mother had even darkened our threshold in exit; as if in discarding the garment he was also discarding any notion of undertaking a conversation with me on any subject beyond his newfound fascination with the member of the Hickinbotham tribe whose Jovan musk still lingered in the air.

On the approach to the local Polytechnic, one finds conspicuous the absence of the guardian gargoyles rising snarling from the abutments which grace our buildings at Harrow. It is this kind of aesthetic nitpicking in which I had begun to partake as my scandal-prone roommate continued to descend into paroxysms of puerile pedantry on the subject of comedy; and how my mum was going to school him in the art of the rib tickle. That is, if he could stop thinking about how to get another pickle tickle long enough to have anything else enter his fool head.

“Circulate, laddie, circulate!”

Night’s reflection on the lake fomented dazzling acres of moonlight, as I wandered moodily round the grounds of the polytechnic. This had become my form of respite whenever Wally dragged me to a shindig that was not to my taste. I had just struck out wildly with a Poly girl whose hair was not plainly British in color and whose manners were not recognizably adolescent. After this abysmal failure I was sucked into the undertow of intoxication, getting absolutely stomped on foul whisky. I found myself careening around the various rooms of the labyrinthine house till finally, swathed in malevolent belches, I slumped pooped in the ill-heated drawing room. The room was stubborn in its emanating stink of moisture, as if recently bombarded by pit-stained academics donning insensible forms of tweed.

I had absolutely no intention of circulating.

It soon became clear that putting my backfield in motion might have been the better notion, as presently I was approached by yet another far-from-bright-eyed, considerably less-than-bushy-tailed bird on the make; causing me to reconsider the socialization aspect of the gathering, as this one was leaden with a fruity-drink drunk disposition. Without so much as a wink of a nod of foreplay, she was crawling up my not inconsiderable pantleg and kneeing me in the groin as she surmounted my mid-section, as if she were after something beyond me and the now-groaning sideboard; and as I fell back under the thrust of her comparatively feather weight and steeled myself for a fully-clothed rape scene, she adjusted her glasses that didn’t need adjusting, giving her the appearance of lopsidedness. Just as I was about to close my eyes (or it could have been hold my nose, the mingling of furniture polish and her alcohol breath was making me gag), she listed to the port side, wildly overcorrected to starboard, and collapsed face-first into a tray of canapes.

I must admit I quite admired her pluck; and she had crafted her movements with the accuracy of a sober person, at least until the sudden keeling into party pastry.

Wally woke up the next morning with what appeared to be unclaimed unrewarded baby teeth stuck to his cheek; in point of fact these curious items were the lost earrings of his overnight lover.

“Where do you reckon those came from?”

He accepted my bleary-eyed half-stare as a reply.

In his rumpled fireside manner, Wally stoked the electric fire with a flippant flick of a switch.  Everything in his morning’s manner indicated to me that he had no intention of allowing the momentum of the last two nights to stall; even his usual sloppy making of tea was particularly strident in its handling of cup and saucer. Too bad I didn’t have any bets on how quickly my prediction would come true.

“Hey, Fox, telephone call for you!”

Wally sprang up and out to the hallway telephone as if his very day depended on it.

“Shut the bloody door!” I cried hopelessly. When it came to goings on in our house, Wally admitted no privacy, for himself or others. Our entire floor would likely be in on whatever he would cook up on the telephone.

Through the grogginess of a stubborn if light hangover, I picked up snatches of Wally’s end of the conversation, which from the sound of it was the arranging of yet another night on the prowl. That is, until I detected a marked change in the nature of his ringing tones.

“I’m not a child!

“What does it matter that I’m seventeen?”

“This wasn’t a problem when you were shagging me this morning!

“I know you are but what am I?”

Sheepish couldn’t begin to describe the attitude that overtook Wally as he returned to our rooms. His countenance was one of the babysat boy who realizes that his sexy babysitter does in fact look upon him as “just a kid.”

“Kev, old son, we’ve been found out.”

“Who’s we? Did someone report the theft of their baby-teeth earrings?”

He proceeded to describe for me the other end of the just completed phone conversation. The following is what Wally heard as his previous night’s conquest tried to convince her friends to paint the town with Wally and me.

“I’ve got something going with a couple of Harrovians – are you in?”

“Oh, they are pale-faced hopefuls, to be sure, but they’re adorable…”

“You can’t possibly be this stupid…”

“Who wants to tell her?

“They’re sixth formers, you bloody cow!”

There was something of especial satisfaction in the knowledge that Wally had been rejected by someone who may be wondering if they had just hours earlier sauced someone below the age of consent.

“Had some misgivings, did they?”

“Yes, you could say Miss Givings was hyper-vigilant in her squaring things away.”

“I can’t think why I’m so cast down by this turn. Jesus, even her cigarettes were an unmentholated bore…”

Harrow is a public school, and therefore a regime of some psychological force; wherein the principal warring factions of society are established; achievement versus nature. Was it Jung who said, “We wholly overlook the essential fact that the achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of a diminution of personality”. A symptom of lingering pubescence, at least in the case of Wally Fox, is to do battle with forces arrayed against his nature. The sloughing off of his personality would come later; Wally would make one last stand in defense of nature. I found myself caught in the crossfire of the dueling factions of fate.

As I looked wistfully over the unfathomable horizon of my future, farther and rarer than memory can reach, it all seemed a folkloric deceit. Every school tradition we upheld, every Harrow custom we took up and carried on; every belief the ancients instilled in us, staring down from musty portraits with a beady leering; had not one whit of the substance of promise.

And the substance of promise is what delivers us back onto the shores of Wally’s fickle nature; where it strikes me as incredible that fortune lays it on so thick. Wally seemed to have all the advantages and privileges and capacities that one would hope for – and indeed expect – from a shiny Harrovian. Yet he managed to tear through all the credit he’d been gifted; called in and fumbled every favor; and burned every bridge, and still managed to come out smelling like a grand champion rose. But this rendering fallow the gardens of promise had swallowed me up and blinded me of my purpose, so all-consuming was Wally’s fulsome presence.

Giving up my masturbatory practices of youth now seemed frightfully short-sighted, as I found myself freed from Wally’s depraved purposes for at least this evening. As my randy rooms-mate continued his persuasive onslaught with several house denizens he’d targeted as replacements for my role as his wingman, I began to prepare mentally for a night of tranquil self-love.

Recalling Wally’s words of wisdom as regards the use of opiates and hallucinogens as aids to the physical act of love (“I find that a little ganja before making it helps things along”), I turned my attention to the aesthetics segment of my carefully worked out plans for an evening without Wally Fox. This was ushered in by the lighting of scented candles, rendered even more necessary than usual as Cox directed at me a particularly searing flatulence in his departure. “You know I can’t abide your stench directly before mealtimes! It puts me off my food!” However, on this night so pregnant with the potential for solitary pleasures, I simply wouldn’t allow this attempt at derailing my ambitious agenda; as I called forth the soul-fluffing power of Buddhist meditation.

“I am one with the universe.”

It’s not as if Wally and I have ever enjoyed the delightful sympathies of friendship (his knowledge of my inability to sustain an appetite for anything sensate when confronted with unappetizing aromas notwithstanding). Being his “friend” meant only that you fluffed his ego and that you were comfortable and indeed found joy in the fleeting moments of debauchery that he would lead you into. As part of his entourage, you could find no intimacy or even familiarity, only the temporary thrill of being part of one of his escapades. He was capable of holding onto scraps of knowledge about others only because of a prodigious memory for trivialities; and only as this knowledge related to his mostly nocturnal activities; who has access to the best pot, who knows the bouncers at undiscovered dens of iniquity and houses of ill-repute; who had connections with those off-licenses who were known to turn a blind eye to under-age consumers. In fact, everyone he’d come in contact with in the time I’d known him was assigned a nickname related to what they acquired for him or provided access to him. He chose me as a friend as a “front”, to give the appearance of normalcy whenever a suspiciously unfamiliar extended family member would appear at our doorstep to enquire of his well-being. You didn’t “know” Wally Cox; you simply discovered bits and pieces of half-truths and seemingly fanciful tales that accompanied his ranting and raving about a dodgy childhood.

And yet, I was determined to know him, and to change him; and I was remorseless in pursuit of this prize. Delusional? Probably, but we all need our projects.

Something I had overheard him mutter in a candid moment when he thought no one of “import” was listening, is quite useful in understanding my status in his sorry excuse for a life. “My latent life’s purpose illumined by the wit of a middle-aged widow”.

Could it be that my mother was not a front, but in fact a means?

Then, not 15 minutes after he had vamoosed and left me to what I thought was to be a quiet night of imaginative wanking, he came bursting into our rooms like a madman.

“I’ve been accepted to Cambridge!”

“And I suppose that means I can expect to be accepted too?”

Chapters 3 & 4 from "Eirene and Sandra Go Garage-Sailing"

 

CHAPTER 3

   “Back from the wilds, are we?”

   Sandra Feld had, in the months leading up to her fateful encounter with Eirene Byrne and Percy Linfield, settled into an unpretentious five-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s East Village. She was truly at the height of her fame, though visitors to her new home might not guess that a literary and cultural icon inhabited the space but for the presence of an enormous personal library. The task of bringing order to a brilliant but disorderly woman’s life, and in particular the sprawling collection of books and papers attached to her, fell to me, Brent Gustafson. I became Sandra’s personal assistant through a wild concatenation of events triggered by her lack of enthusiasm for the project of sorting her affairs, my relative proximity, my servile inclinations, and our shared fascination with all things Feld. It was quite literally my dream to be the keeper of the Sandra Feld wing of the New York Public Library. She found me tolerable primarily due to my Scandinavian heritage (She had once written and directed an independent film in Sweden) and curious mix of Nordic stoicism and incisive New York wit, the latter faculty acquired largely at the feet of numerous lovers who proposed to groom me for Broadway fame, but instead availed themselves of my superior grooming capabilities. I had flirted with coiffurage while still installed in my childhood home of Malmo, finally setting aside these aspirations when I could no longer resist the enticements of a fling with Broadway. That I am unabashedly, unashamedly gay sealed the deal between Feld and me. Proclaiming little taste and even littler patience for romantic entanglements, Ms. Feld enlisted me as her squire with the peace of mind that evidently stems from the assurance that my admiration for her lies solely in an apprehension of her cerebral facility. She did allow me one non-intellectual indulgence — I could brush her delicious mane of hair when she was in town and reasonably sorted — as well as attending to the tasks of cataloguing her literary, filmic, and taste-making achievements when she was on the road. While it is true that the job of assisting Ms. Feld is often joyless, there is a distinct air of commiseration that I find quite increasingly addicting.

   I got gooseflesh when I heard the key turn in the front door and saw her plop down on the settee in the entrance hall, waving a handkerchief in her face. She always had a story to tell after her adventures, whether foreign or domestic, and I could be counted on to sit in rapt attention.

   “The ‘wilds’ – right. Don’t be tiresome, Gus,” was her reply to my query. “The place is quite beautiful, actually. Not without its man-made charms as well.”

   “Oh, do tell, lovey, you know I’m dying. I spent half the afternoon peeping out the window in anticipation of your return.”

   “You’re far too familiar with the goings-on in East 2nd Street for my liking,” said Ms. Feld. “But I’ll give you a reprieve this time, as I’m feeling rather generous.”

   “Well, the kettle’s on the boil, old girl — shall we retire to your study?”

   Feld’s study was always the optimal listening space, at least for me, for the spinning of her yarns. I already had Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 1” playing quietly as accompaniment on her magnificent 1920s-era gramophone.

   “I must say I’m surprised you haven’t asked about Amie,” I said. “I trust she knew you were going to be away?”

   Amie is a graduate student at Columbia and a rumored lover of Sandra’s whom I have on occasion squired round the neighborhood to “keep up appearances.” Sandra had also been known to dispatch me in escorting Amie to synagogue; a “chore” Sandra had abandoned a few years ago, evidently steadfastly determined to solidify her status as “culturally Jewish,” a vastly misunderstood and misused term. It is still unclear whether she just assumed that I would convert; surely a Herculean task for an irredeemable former Christian like myself. Perhaps if she had seen me forlornly pacing back and forth in front of the synagogue, wishing to be inside where the action is, she would disabuse herself of the entire project. Alas, one lives and hopes for a stronger commitment one way or the other.

   “All in due time, dear one. Consider your concern for Amie registered. My thoughts are utterly scattered, Gus. I feel so extraordinary, it’s a bit disquieting. But there is so much to tell. I’m afraid you’ll have to indulge me this evening. Where is that ciggie lighter you found in the Bowery market?”

   “First drawer on the right. No! It’s in the pigeonhole directly behind you.”

   This was a delightful surprise, accustomed as I am to the ritual of coaxing out of her even so much as an excerpt from one of her essays. I seized upon her unusual solicitousness and casually plopped onto the divan in the corner. She followed my lead and pushed an easy chair directly in front of me. She curled a leg underneath her in the chair with the lighter and a cigarette while I held her teacup and saucer.

   “I’ve never seen you so fresh coming off a transcontinental flight,” I said. “What gives?”

   “Gus, I’ve made a discovery. Or more accurately, a few discoveries. I’ve discovered a novelist — or maybe an essayist. There’s just one problem.”

   I sat up alertly in the divan, in part because I could scarcely believe she used the word “discoveries” - or a variation - so closely packed together. “What?”

   “She’s been dead for nearly two years! But before I continue, I must tell you that to fully comprehend all of this, I’m going to have to take you back to Oxford – and, regrettably, to Post-World War II France.”

   “Splendid! I’ve never seen Oxford – or France. But why regrettably?

   “Well, dear boy, this whole story might never have been told if tragedy hadn’t befallen a young French woman who charmed and bedeviled me at Oxford.”

 

CHAPTER 4

 

   “Aren’t you the lucky one, Sandra! The only student at St. Anne’s with a roommate who spends more time at the house library than in her rooms.”

   “Clearly you fail to recognize that I’ve also been paired with the most slovenly of roommates,” said Sandra, “and I’m sure you’d agree that this somewhat negates the benefit of relative solitude. What is more, she makes a worse mess of the study, which is where I spend the bulk of my time. Would you care to make a swap?”

   Paula Chambers had her rooms just down the hall from Sandra Feld, and it had never occurred to her that the new girl from America, with a preceding reputation of learned perspicacity, would object so strenuously to an untidy roommate who was gloriously absent. In fact, Paula now wondered how Sandra had ever noticed the girl missing, as Sandra was rarely seen with her nose outside of a book or without a pen poised on a writing pad. Except, of course, in this moment, which, judging by the icy look Paula now received from her housemate, had been elongated far beyond Sandra’s bounds for tolerating interruptions.

   “I take it from your silence that a trade isn’t in the cards,” said a bemused Ms. Feld. “Perhaps that’s for the best, she’s been gated anyway. Which leaves open the possibility of parceling her time more evenly between here and the library. This is of no interest to me regardless.”

   “I reckon she’s keen on escaping your optical daggers,” said Paula. “Not that it would bother me in the least. Indeed, I find you quite charming….”

   At this Sandra pointedly turned a shoulder to her visitor. Paula surged ahead anyway. “I mean, you will admit her temper is more suited for…”

   “For Lady Margaret Hall?” Sandra sighed into her books. “I’ll not argue that point. Tradition has its attractions. And her gangly athleticism might be a nice fit for a sportier house. I don’t shun her, you understand, I simply see her as a nonentity.”

   “Yes, yes, I’m already well acquainted with your views on the existence of others. I just…” Paula’s attention was diverted to a rather large mass of discarded papers in the waste bin. She quietly raised a foot to the edge of the bin to see if she could catch a glimpse of something written or typed on the pages, all the while continuing her monologue so as not to tip off Sandra to her snooping.

   “I just…I don’t know…everyone can do with a little encouragement. Perhaps if you mentored her.”

   Paula removed her prying eyes and foot from the bin just as Feld turned to re-engage in the conversation. She was able to ascertain from her brief investigation only a portion of what might have been a title for a paper…or perhaps a story? Rumors had floated almost from the moment of her arrival that Sandra Feld aspired to a literary career.

   “You can’t be serious!” Feld thundered. “I didn’t come from America, with all the attendant baggage, literal and metaphorical, to boost the sense of self in a future South Kensington socialite.”

   “Take it easy,” Paula pleaded. “I’m merely suggesting that it might do to gain her confidence in the service of a more harmonious living arrangement. Incidentally, you seem to know quite a bit more about Kensington, South or otherwise, than one would expect from a Yank. How did you come about this knowledge?”

   Paula now wondered if Feld had caught sight of her surreptitious spying. Do I dare broach the subject of the rejected bundle? she thought.

   “One need only read a bit of Evelyn Waugh or E.M. Forster to get a sense of the geography of class. As for the fitness of an attempt at a more cohesive rooms environment, I’ll apply my customary measured approach to your suggestion. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have considerably less interest in this conversation than you do in the contents of my trash bin.”

   Paula gulped audibly. She quickly calculated the dangers involved in pursuing the subject. “I say, that appears to be quite a lot of work to dump unceremoniously.”

   “Who said there was no ceremony?” Sandra countered. “Just minutes before your arrival, I exclaimed vociferously that the project that lies there forlornly in the trash was perfectly wretched. I’m surprised you didn’t hear my cries, even down the hall. Alas, I came to my senses before setting it ablaze.”

   Sandra now rested her elbow on a textbook and fingered her shoulder-length shock of dark hair. She peered up at Paula with a slightly renewed interest that could not have been deciphered through the one Feld eye that was open.

   “A friend of mine had a Bphil seminar with you,” Paula began, “and said that Professor Hampshire referenced your literature background on more than one occasion. Mightn’t that wretched pile of pulp be a work of fiction?”

   Sandra smiled demurely. “As far as I’m concerned it is now a work of nonfiction, for it is a true and verifiable fact that every word of it belongs in the garbage.”

   “May I have a look at it?” asked Paula.

   “I’d rather you didn’t,” replied Sandra.

   Presently there was a knock at the door.

   “Qui ça?” asked Feld. She mouthed “Who’s that?” at Paula, feeling compelled to translate.

   The door creaked open and Eirene Byrne, Sandra’s favorite Bphil professor, appeared before them. Feld abruptly scrambled to her feet and stood facing Mrs. Byrne as erect as a Buckingham Palace guard.

   “I didn’t mean to sound flippant, Mrs. Byrne,” said Sandra in a breathy blast. “It is always a pleasure to see you. What brings you to our humble house this evening?”

   “You’ll pardon the intrusion and the hour, Ms. Feld,” said Eirene Byrne. Sandra’s tutor and principal mentor then stood silent, evidently waiting for an introduction to her companion. An awkward silence filled the room. Paula, meanwhile, was still marveling at Feld’s seeming servility.

   Finally Eirene rejoined the abandoned salutations. “Mightn’t you introduce your friend?”

   Sandra gawped at Eirene, then at Paula. “Oh, dear me, I’ve completely abandoned my manners! Mrs. Byrne, this is Paula Chambers, a philosophy waif who appears to be on the verge of a switch to reading literature, or at least the never-to-be-published variety. Paula, this is my esteemed and incomparable tutor, Mrs. Byrne, whom you will surely encounter in a lecture someday if you’re able to resist the temptations of trash-barrel novels.”

   Eirene Byrne was already well aware of Sandra’s prickly demeanor; it having appeared primarily in a generalized superiority in the lecture-hall setting—but had rarely observed it directed at an individual. She prized Sandra’s bewildering mélange of inscrutability and transparency; there was never any question of her brilliance in virtually any intellectual endeavor in which she cared to partake. It was simply a matter, in Eirene’s view, of astutely directing her energies. This, she recognized, was all she could hope to accomplish in terms of being party to furthering Sandra’s burgeoning career, for Ms. Feld possessed intellect in spades, indeed in every suit. She was an enthusiast, Eirene believed. She would not be stopped.

   “I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Mrs. Byrne,” Paula chirped. “Indeed I have hoped to be among your charges at some point in my career here. Mightn’t you advise…”

   “Come, come, my dear, time and circumstance will bring you before me, and no sooner than is necessary. Ms. Feld,” Eirene continued, speaking in her Dublin voice, aggressive yet lilting, and turning from Paula. “I have this evening brought along a companion of my own.” Eirene turned back to the door and appeared to summon someone from the corridor with an index finger. A wondrously petite and Gallic-looking female form emerged from behind the opened door.

   “Ms. Feld, I should like to introduce you to Marcelle Verlaine. She, like you, I ardently believe, is a literary talent of extraordinary dimension. In particular, I think you will find her experiences as an ingénue in the French Resistance quite fascinating.” Eirene cupped Marcelle’s elbow and brought her closer to Sandra and Paula. “You see, Marcelle, Ms. Feld is an evolving Francophile. I hope one day soon to introduce her to the wiles and charms of your fascinating culture. I shall enlist you to assist me in this project.”

   “How do you do,” said Marcelle, in unmannered, unaccented English. Sandra had always enjoyed the challenge of determining another’s mother tongue in the shortest sentence possible in the lingua franca. She played a version of “Name that Tongue” in her head, endeavoring to identify the language via the accented English. She recognized straight away that she would have failed miserably with Marcelle.

   “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Ms. Verlaine,” said Sandra, beaming and stepping forward to offer her hand. “In my short time at Oxford, I have quickly apprehended that to catch the eye, academically speaking, of Mrs. Byrne is a task of Herculean proportions. Clearly you are a woman of estimable ability and character to have done so. I congratulate you!”

   “Mrs. Verlaine,” said Marcelle with unquestioned emphasis. “I am a married estimable woman. But you may call me Marcelle.” She shook Sandra’s hand vigorously and retreated a step to stand beside Mrs. Byrne, all the while trading vaguely forced grins with Sandra and Paula.

   “I’m recently married myself,” Eirene inserted, “and must return to my husband now. I was rather hoping the three of you could get to know each other better. It might prove quite profitable for all concerned.” She touched her finger to her brow as if she were wearing a hat, signaling an imminent departure.

   Sandra rushed to the door to usher Eirene out properly. “Do give Mr. Crikey my best wishes, won’t you?” she asked breathlessly. “Shall I walk you out, Mrs. Byrne?”

   “No, my dear, I can find my way.” Eirene pulled Sandra out into the hall. “Do pay some attention to Marcelle. I’ve rather had my eye on you for mentoring, and I believe that Marcelle fits the bill from a sensibility perspective. Please report your impressions to me as soon as possible.”

   “You can count on me, Mrs. Byrne,” Sandra said with a strained enthusiasm. “Thank you for choosing me to take on such a challenging project.”

   “My dear, you speak truer than you know.”

   Sandra watched longingly as Eirene waved over her shoulder and strolled down the corridor, and she didn’t return to the girls on the other side of her door until well after Eirene had regained the street. She wanted so much to be walking Mrs. Byrne to her cottage instead of taking the measure of “Mrs.” Verlaine in her rooms. Her reluctance was apparent as she re-entered the room and slowly closed the door. Marcelle and Paula were already deep in conversation. This activated Sandra’s ire as well as her proprietary inclinations.