Patterns Papillon on the Wing (Part 6)
The next few weeks were powerfully awkward in my world, I remember that clearly. The questions far outnumbered the answers (but, to be honest, that seemed thematic to the situation of being twelve, and not so much about the situation of these life-changing neighbors that had invaded the house next door). I absolutely remember a solid shift in the conversational tones at that time. My parents, usually so open in their communication with me, had gotten 'careful'. They weighed their words a lot more, they seemed to have a serious "life is complicated and must be peeled apart, layer-by-layer" routine going most of the time. I wasn't comfortable with this at all. I so wanted to tell them (and finally did, many months later) that I was fine with George being "retarded". That all seemed harmless enough to me. I liked Jeb in school. I liked that he was so simple, never mean to anybody, never once acted like this person or that person was not worth at least a greeting in the hallway with a genuine smile attached to it. I especially liked his generosity with bananas, too, of course - but I was NEVER afraid of Jebby. I saw no reason to be. Michael Myers in those "Halloween" movies scared the pants off of me. Retarded people did not (despite that my parents were soundly convinced that this was not the case). As always, my Mother and Father did the "grown-up" thing. They underestimated me in a slightly insulting way, or so it seemed to me. I spent far too much of my time, before and during and after George Thunderhack, trying to assure people that I wasn't as painfully monkey-like as they tended to assume when they saw that I was 'just a kid'. Was I somewhat chronically uneasy around George? Well, yes I was. But (and I stopped wasting my hints trying to clear up the matter soon after I saw that no one paid attention) my uneasiness was NOT that he was impaired in any way. Or that he liked coffee and not root beer - even though that particular thing did irritate me a lot, as I look back. My problem with him was the only 12-year feeling I had, apparently, that made complete sense but that everyone over the age of 13 seemed to miss: George Thunderhack was drawn up, in my mind, to fill the shoes of my best pal for a summer, my comrade in all things two kids do together in the summer. My co-bike racer. My one-on-one basketball opponent. Maybe the kid I'd sneak my first cigarette with or the one I could talk about girls (and their bewitching mysteriousness) with for hours on end and with speculation unregulated. He was a disappointment! On sight! He was "big". His voice was deep. His muscles were all where they were supposed to be and looked the right way. He wasn't significantly clumsy, which made me seem clumsier. I came to learn that he'd already been on dates! He'd had a girlfriend or two? He was of no use to me in the "growing up/wondering what life would be like when we got older" scheme of things. George was grown up already. And I had resolutely decided, from Day One, not to forgive him for it. That he had a slight learning disability (or whatever 'better' phrase my folks overused for that so-called problem for weeks on end) was of no consequence to me at all. That he had it in a 23-year old body was a complication that galled me endlessly.
And, all that other stuff aside, George perturbed me daily with his skills, too. At everything! One morning I actually saw him out repairing his roof! Yes, his roof (and he seemed to know exacly what he was doing, which only peeved me more). He gardened. His Mother reported that George's marigolds were the talk of the whole neighborhood at their last house. He read good books, I remember that. J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas Adams and the like. He dressed annoyingly right (Mom said he always looked especially dapper, which made me surmise that I must have had the general appearance of somebody living on Skid Row). Oh, and I've forgotten to mention ~ George even had a job! He made his own money! It turned out that he gave vocal lessons to youngsters - ahem, even younger than I was - and people paid him to do it. This I found peculiar until I heard George singing one day as he was out on his back porch, painting the floor. As he busied himself scraping and taping edges, he sang. And sang. And sang some more. Guess what? I'd never, not ever in my short amount of life, heard anybody anywhere sing that well. Mom said he sounded just like Perry Como (whoever he was). All I knew was that he certainly sounded better than I could ever hope to. Needless to say, George's list of regrettable traits grew longer with each day. According to the list I'd been keeping, anyway.
Finally, I thought it was time I just asked him an important thing or two. We'd talked about several things over the days as they went, things like my getting a bigger bike with more gears, how much we both liked that new movie "The Fugitive" (George thought that train wreck was the most exciting thing he'd seen all year, and talked about it endlessly), about the worms that seemed to overpopulate the ground he was planting seeds in. Stuff like that. And we'd even spent an hour one night talking more about veins, arteries, the mastery of the heart and the skill of it as it pumped blood that become rivers, that sustain life, that fertlize the human spirit. *Note: if that last topic doesn't sound like the sort of thing a "retarded" person talks about to you as you read this, trust me when I say that I felt the very same way ... and I was even more shocked that he invariably made it sound sensible, too.
One day, as George was sunbathing in his back yard in June, I strolled over as I often did. I was slightly surprised that he wasn't busy doing something perfectly outstanding and remarkable around his house. Remodeling the kitchen? Perhaps finding a cure for cancer?
"Hey, George!" I announced myself. "Taking it easy this afternoon, are you?"
He looked up and smiled. His teeth were disturbingly perfect and maintained. It made me remember that first day. That missed appointment. The mistaken identity. His dead Father's boxes...
"So, tell me. I watch you work over here and you seem to know how to do EVERYTHING, George! And you do it right, too. Or so it seems. Where'd you learn to do all this stuff? Did your Dad teach you?" I tried to sound impressed and curious, without sounding either one too much.
Young George scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked at me, and with a sharpness, a clarity, a "well-that's-a-dumb-question" expression painted forehead-to-chin, said "Don't complicate things, that's all. Look at what's there and figure it out. You can do it if you really want to. And you'll do it right if it really needs doing."
That first time I heard him say that it sounded like a trifling remark from a mind that I didn't quite connect the dots in. From a guy I was still hoping to figure out (grudgingly) as I was doing it. It didn't seem like an answer AT ALL to me. But, as time went, it became the one phrase, that one small group of sentences, that have burned George Thunderhack into my memory (and my soul) forever.
And, all that other stuff aside, George perturbed me daily with his skills, too. At everything! One morning I actually saw him out repairing his roof! Yes, his roof (and he seemed to know exacly what he was doing, which only peeved me more). He gardened. His Mother reported that George's marigolds were the talk of the whole neighborhood at their last house. He read good books, I remember that. J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas Adams and the like. He dressed annoyingly right (Mom said he always looked especially dapper, which made me surmise that I must have had the general appearance of somebody living on Skid Row). Oh, and I've forgotten to mention ~ George even had a job! He made his own money! It turned out that he gave vocal lessons to youngsters - ahem, even younger than I was - and people paid him to do it. This I found peculiar until I heard George singing one day as he was out on his back porch, painting the floor. As he busied himself scraping and taping edges, he sang. And sang. And sang some more. Guess what? I'd never, not ever in my short amount of life, heard anybody anywhere sing that well. Mom said he sounded just like Perry Como (whoever he was). All I knew was that he certainly sounded better than I could ever hope to. Needless to say, George's list of regrettable traits grew longer with each day. According to the list I'd been keeping, anyway.
Finally, I thought it was time I just asked him an important thing or two. We'd talked about several things over the days as they went, things like my getting a bigger bike with more gears, how much we both liked that new movie "The Fugitive" (George thought that train wreck was the most exciting thing he'd seen all year, and talked about it endlessly), about the worms that seemed to overpopulate the ground he was planting seeds in. Stuff like that. And we'd even spent an hour one night talking more about veins, arteries, the mastery of the heart and the skill of it as it pumped blood that become rivers, that sustain life, that fertlize the human spirit. *Note: if that last topic doesn't sound like the sort of thing a "retarded" person talks about to you as you read this, trust me when I say that I felt the very same way ... and I was even more shocked that he invariably made it sound sensible, too.
One day, as George was sunbathing in his back yard in June, I strolled over as I often did. I was slightly surprised that he wasn't busy doing something perfectly outstanding and remarkable around his house. Remodeling the kitchen? Perhaps finding a cure for cancer?
"Hey, George!" I announced myself. "Taking it easy this afternoon, are you?"
He looked up and smiled. His teeth were disturbingly perfect and maintained. It made me remember that first day. That missed appointment. The mistaken identity. His dead Father's boxes...
"So, tell me. I watch you work over here and you seem to know how to do EVERYTHING, George! And you do it right, too. Or so it seems. Where'd you learn to do all this stuff? Did your Dad teach you?" I tried to sound impressed and curious, without sounding either one too much.
Young George scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked at me, and with a sharpness, a clarity, a "well-that's-a-dumb-question" expression painted forehead-to-chin, said "Don't complicate things, that's all. Look at what's there and figure it out. You can do it if you really want to. And you'll do it right if it really needs doing."
That first time I heard him say that it sounded like a trifling remark from a mind that I didn't quite connect the dots in. From a guy I was still hoping to figure out (grudgingly) as I was doing it. It didn't seem like an answer AT ALL to me. But, as time went, it became the one phrase, that one small group of sentences, that have burned George Thunderhack into my memory (and my soul) forever.
3 Comments:
A wonderful Sunday sunshine through the cold rain and wind we're having over here.
Thank you for that! :)
By denni19, Nov 04 07 9:15 AM
Ok, there, Gats, I haven't been around for a while, but my accolade is just the same...splendid, sir!
Your story is absorbing, original, and it makes one go back to that awkward, complicated twelve years old.
You know, one of the things that I have always though makes a superior story is the ability to create characters names. It is one of the things that the illustrious Stephen King does quite well, and so do you. Both George's last name and the janitor's full name are brilliant, and they help the overall feeling of your story immensely.
Once again Mr Gatsby, thank you for the great escape.
Bass
By bassman68, Nov 27 07 8:57 PM
Good to see you're still here and reading, there, bassman :). I thought I might have lost one of my valued readers, and was happy to see your comments today! Thanks, too, re: the compliment about characters' names (it's one of those things that I've always noticed, too - when the name fits the development of the "person" having it in a story). Thunderhack is a rather obvious 'device', I'm sure (and will become moreso as it goes) - but the janitor in the school is based on a REAL fellow that I remember from Grades 1-5. His name was even Jeb. In his case, then, I stole the name but the man in this story fit him as a soul and a person so nicely I decided to "use" him. I'm pretty sure he'd be flattered (except maybe about that chalk tray incident ~ since that actually happened to him and isn't one of those things he'd likely remember with even a shred of fondness). Anyway ... just had to pop in here and ramble a little.
And maybe get myself motivated to get the next 'Part' posted too, eh?
By Gatsby722, Nov 29 07 6:38 AM