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.