“Watch this,” said the young man as he sat opposite me in the grey swivel chair. In his mid-thirties, Donovan looked younger with an unlined round face and large round eyes. In his hands he held a feather. A large feather that was a rich blue fading to turquoise on one side and vivid yellow with a charcoal overcast on the other. It was ragged from handling or wear. Donovan held it in his left hand by the waxy quill and ran his fingers delicately over the ragged areas. His fingers were long and slender, making one think of pianists or surgeons if you bothered to
really notice them. He was an artist among other things. His very rough,
scarred hands could do wonders with delicate media.
I sat passively watching him, thinking about what I’d recently learned about him. IQ in the genius range, tremendous aptitude toward creative ventures, unusually sensitive to the world around him. His ink blot tests told me what his motivation was. Most people are motivated by money, sex, popularity, or love...all of which can be reduced to sex if you think about it. We want money to acquire things which will make us attractive to those whom we fancy ourselves. We want to be popular with
whatever gender most excites us. Love and sex are rather self-explanatory in this setting though there exist those who would argue they are separate entities. I wasn’t here to argue, but to learn and try and offer solutions to this man’s mental anguish. Without
seeming to do much more than stroke the feather, I saw the rifts heal and hold...making the object whole and beautiful once more.
“I never knew this could be done,” he told me, seeking tiny flaws to gently correct. “Do you know how many feathers I’ve picked up, then discarded in my lifetime because they were all raggy lookin’ like this one? It never occurred to me to be patient and gentle with them. I didn’t know I could make them look brand new.”
Donovan’s motivation, according to his ink blot tests, was peace. Obviously, he was not finding it in satisfactory quantities in his life.
He twirled the brightly colored feather slowly between forefinger and thumb when he had finished with it. There were still a few strands which had broken at some point and thus could not be mended, but what he’d done with the rest was impressive not only because he had deduced how to rehook the tiny filaments which gave the feather strands their overall airfoil shape, but because a grown adult in today’s world had taken the time to pick up a shed feather anyone else might have glanced at, then dismissed, and discovered what means were necessary to restore its original beauty. It was now flawed only if you sought flaws. My job was to learn the procedure which would restore him as well.
“Where would you care to begin?” I asked softly, watching the distant
vision of wonder in his unfocused eyes. Part of his youthful appearance might be his lingering youthful way of seeing things, I realized.
“My first memory is from way back. I mean, most people don’t believe I
can remember so far back because most people I’ve talked to can only remember back maybe to first grade or so. But, I remember my mother carrying me down a hall and through the doorway on the left at the end of the hall. The room was small. I can’t recall everything that was in it. She needed to change my diaper. That was back when they still used safety pins in ‘em, and I can remember they were oversized and one was a pink dog’s head with floppy blue ears and a blue bowtie, and then there
was a yellow duck with an orange bill. I know there were three different
kinds...but I can’t remember what the third one was...a cat or a giraffe. She set me down on this sort of table top and she was talking to this redhead who had followed her down the hallway. Beautiful long red hair. The phone rang while she was fiddling with the diaper, and she got distracted and stuck the safety pin through the diaper and into my right hip. I think I probably squalled out, but she was distracted and
looking toward the hallway. That’s all I remember of that.”
Donovan wasn’t particularly fond of or close to his parents. They had adopted him when he was only a few months old.
“Mom drank and liked to watch soap operas. She sometimes played board
games with me, but mostly I think she just tolerated me. I don’t really
think she knew anything about children or babies, but they bought me because I think she knew her marriage wasn’t gonna last and she’d be lonely someday. I guess I gave her a sense of purpose. She used to treat me more like a doll than a person. She would make me stand still on the bed while she adjusted these ridiculous outfits on me...velvet and ruffles and little ties and stupid hats and things. Every day was like
being made up for a trip to the portrait studio. And then I’d want to go
out and play, and of course, being a toddler, I’d get dirty, and then
she’d scream at me and shake me and slap me across the face for ruining
her stupid little expensive suit she’d bought me.
“She had a hard plastic comb, a big one, that she’d grind into my scalp
like she was digging furrows for crops, trying to make my hair lay straight and perfect. It hurt like hell, and I’d say something or cry and she’d crack me on the skull with that damn thing until I shut up again. I wasn’t allowed to cry around her. My life wasn’t bad enough
that I should ever have to cry about it.”
“Crying made her upset?”
He nodded. “I was always supposed to be this picture-perfect angel, and
picture-perfect angels don’t cry. I had these silly patent leather shoes, and if I scuffed them just playing in the house, she’d scream at me and slap me. She was always yelling and hitting me. I could do nothing right around her. I tried to play outside as much as possible just so I wouldn’t have to be near her.”
“What did your father think of her behavior?”
“As far as I knew, it was okay with him. I dunno. He never stuck up for me. Never told her I was just a little kid, so let me go out and play... He was always watching TV when he was home, which wasn’t often. TV or sleeping in his big Lay-Z-Boy chair. I wasn’t supposed to run and I wasn’t supposed to make noise when I played, so I was always trying to avoid being around the two of them.”
“Did you have any friends?” I asked him.
“I’ve never really had any friends. I mean, there are people who have been sort of nice to me, but no real buddy-buddy pal-pals. I had no friends when I was that little. I mostly played by myself.”
“Even outdoors?”
“Yeah. The yard wasn’t even fenced in. We had snakes in the yard. Copperheads and garden snakes mostly. I was supposed to start yelling if I saw one so Dad could come out with a shovel and chop its head off. One day, for a couple of weeks really, these big hogs kept coming into the yard and I couldn’t really go out and play around them. I guess they came from a neighboring farm. Mom was scared they would hurt me. I hated being made to stay indoors where I had to watch everything I did and every little noise I made around her. Dad worked. He seemed like he was gone almost all the time. I liked seeing him when he got home, because sometimes he’d bring me toys or act silly with the dog. We had an Irish wolfhound. It was huge. That’s how I got this scar across my nose
here...the main one. I don’t remember it but Mom said the dog got excited about something one day and reached up to claw at me to get my attention and accidentally opened this flap of skin across my nose.” Donovan shrugged like he didn’t care. He’s much more comfortable around animals than humans and seems to have a very good understanding of much of their behavior. It made sense he would be resentful of his absent father and cruel mother, but not the dog or the hogs.
“You have quite a few visible scars,” I mentioned.
“Yeah. Another one on my nose came from when I dropped a Coke bottle. It was glass and a chunk bounced back up and cut me. My chin got split ‘cause my parents were teasing me one day. I had an inflated rubber ball, like a beach ball but sturdier. I liked to kick it towards the wall in the den and have it bounce back at me so I could kick it again or pounce on it. They were sitting in their chairs. The wall was behind them, it was opposite the TV. When I kicked the ball back toward the
wall, it bounced and hit one of their chairs and stayed there, behind it. When I went to go get it, they stretched out and held hands, blocking my way. They wouldn’t let me through to get my ball. They’d keep flinging me backward if I ran at their arms, laughing if I stumbled or fell on my ass. If I tried to climb into one of their chairs with them to scramble over the arm and get behind them, they’d throw me off to the floor. So I backed up as far as I could go and ran at them. When I got to their hands, they let go, and I fell between them, striking my chin on the carpet. I remember they were laughing so hard. The den was in the basement, so beneath the carpet was concrete. I lifted my head and the blood just poured from it. Mom jumped up and waved at Dad to do
the same, to come get me. She said she could see the bone jutting through the pulpy flesh. I had to get stitches. I remember getting them. The doctor came at me with this big needle, and I told him if he stuck me with it, I was gonna punch him in the nose. I think they all laughed. He had three or four people trying to hold me down. I think I was maybe two or three years old at the time.
“Then most of these little scars are from cats and dogs that we’ve had. A lot of them have faded.” He stroked a few white lines almost fondly, remembering various years worth of pets. No stories were brought forth
to explain them. The railroad-track style scar running across the bottom
of his chin had caused him the most concern. “My leg got broken when I
was in elementary school. I’ve had fat lips and black eyes...lots of bruises. They don’t leave scars.” Not visible ones, I mentally conceded, watching him frown thoughtfully.
"I think I was in second grade when she broke my leg. I was in the bathtub and she wanted me to stop playing and get out because she was expecting company over for dinner. I was using the handhold over the soap dish and the edge of the tub to support myself as I rose up, and she grabbed my right arm and shook me, causing me to lose my grip on the handhold and fall. For some reason, she had to get me out...I wasn't
supposed to get out on my own. I fell hard, sort of half slipping, and it hurt. She jerked me out of the tub then, wrenched me out by my arm and started trying to get me into my pajamas. I was angry and crying
because she'd hurt me, but as usual, she just kept telling me, 'Oh, shut
up!'. The next day, when I got out of bed, I couldn't walk. She took me
to work with her, then finally took me to a doctor on her lunch break. My left leg was broken."
I said, "She didn't know your leg was broken?"
"As usual, she just didn't care. Anytime I got hurt or felt sick, she'd
scream at me to shut up or say, 'You're not dying!'. I literally had to throw up in her presence or be bleeding profusely for her to believe I was sick. I nearly severed my big toe when I was little. I had to be rushed to the emergency room for stitches. It was the only time I ever got injured and she actually reacted like it bothered her. I'd get hurt quite a bit. One day I fell off my tricycle and some neighbors saw it happen and took me inside their home to paint my skinned knees with
mercurochrome and bandage them. I was amazed by their kindness, but I soon started faking injuries just so they'd be nice to me some more. They caught on and told me I had to go to my own house when I was hurt. It's too bad they never figured out there was no sympathy at my house, no kisses on boo-boos, no cookie came with each Band-Aid like the other kids I knew got at their houses."
"Is that when you realized that you were being abused?"
"Oh, no," Donovan said brightly, but his look was dull, the focus internal. "That wasn't until later when Mom decided to be a chaperone at one of our school's yearly field trips. It was fourth grade. She was terrible, making all of us stay in single file and snarling at us to shut up, making us stand outside with her while she took a cigarette break and miss the movie our class was supposed to see. She wouldn't
even let us buy things at the museum gift shop because she knew we'd split up to look at stuff. One of the other kids finally whispered to me, 'Is your mom always like that?' And that's the first time I figured out there was something wrong with things at my house. The other kids didn't get slapped all the time or screamed at all the time. Do you know how she used to help me clean my room or pick my toys up? She'd throw everything I owned into the hallway and whatever didn't break I was allowed to put away again. I never knew other kids didn't have to live
that way. I thought everyone's parents beat them and treated them like crap."
Carefully, I asked him, "What do you think her motivation was?"
"Looks. Perfection. Like I said, everything always had to be picture-perfect. That's why she made us all stand in line silently at the museum. It looked like she was this model chaperone with everything under control. She could only stand my toys being out for so long, and then it would drive her crazy to see her home didn't look like a magazine because Evil Kneivel was on the floor by the stairs, or I'd left markers on the coffee table, then ran outside to play. One of the reasons my father divorced her was because she couldn't stand the way the house was set up. She'd move the furniture around at least monthly.
Never satisfied. I think she was trying to mask the wrong turn her life had taken. If things look good, they must be good, right? That's how she always acted, as long as I've known her. Wouldn't go to the corner store for cigarettes without lipstick on..."
The man before me was presentable enough, though not magazine-polished.
His dark brown hair was a few weeks past his last haircut, which I
suspected he'd trimmed up himself. A hint of shadow streaked one side of
his jaw, toward the back near his ear where he'd missed a spot shaving.
His complexion wasn't flawless, but clean and healthy looking nonetheless. He was average in this respect, sitting there in a muted beige, dark grey, and blue plaid shirt with olive drab shorts that didn't quite go with it. His life with a parent obsessed with
appearances had allowed him to accept things as "good enough". His hatred of her made him do the opposite, but not to the same extreme. Donovan didn't quite stand out, but he wasn't repulsive, either.
"You rebelled against her ideals."
"They were absurd. Don't let a little kid play. Don't let them cry. If
you're sick, pretend you're not 'cause it looks better. No one could live up to that. Somebody egged the house once and she sat at the dining room table and cried. I never knew who it was or why, but it happened in broad daylight. She just cried and cried. Egg dripping off the house is not something you see in Good Housekeeping."
"Do you have any idea what might make her strive so hard for visual
perfection?"
"Don't know. It's just what she's always wanted. When the house we lived
in started falling apart after twenty years, the washer and dryer went
kaput, dishwasher went up, refrigerator wasn't cooling anymore, pipes were leaking in the walls, closet doors were falling from their hinges, the settling walls started making the old interior paint rip and tear...she had new carpeting installed. Painted the 'fridge and broken dishwasher. Hired someone to wallpaper and had a screened porch installed out back. Everything was still falling apart, but the house sure looked a lot better!" he said sickly, allowing his head to droop.
"You never saw this behavior in her parents or siblings?"
"Her father died before I was adopted. Her mother lived in a cottage made out of an old donkey stable. She kept it clean enough, but never moved the furniture around. It looked the same every year I visited her. She was meticulous about her yard, though...not exceptionally so, but she watered every night and tried to keep the flower beds shaped, the yard raked. Then again, she was retired and didn't have a car, so
gardening became her full-time hobby. One of her sisters lived in an old
two-story home at the base of a cul de sac. It was nice and homey-feeling with knickknacks and comfortable furniture. She kept it clean enough, but nothing extraordinary. The only thing I recall her going all-out on was Christmas dinner, when she'd cook a feast for the
whole family all by herself. The other sister was a slob. Cat hair and broken gizmos all over the place. Dishes in the sink and on the counter. She was a gambler, though, so she always owned like one really, really expensive piece of jewelry, or she'd buy a convertible with cash, or take a cruise paid in cash."
"What was your father like?"
"I don't know if I've never seen him sober or if I've never seen him drunk. He'd start his mornings with a screwdriver."
I mentioned, "You said your mother drank."
"They both did. That's why I don't. They were both workaholics. I like
to have fun."
I half-joked, "What kind of music did they listen to?"
"Dad liked The Beach Boys, The BeeGees, Cat Stevens...Mom liked Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, The Oak Ridge Boys." Knowing what was next, he added, "I'm into alternative rock."
"Tell me more about your father."
"He wore a dress at home when he was just relaxing. His mother-in-law made it for him as a joke, but he found it comfortable and would wear it while watching football. I envied that man and wanted to be like him...except for the dress, of course. I remember climbing up on the edge of the bathroom sink so I could see into the mirror and try to shave when I was three. Mom flipped and screamed at me, then told him when he got home. She turned it into something embarrassing. I wanted to
shower with him, but the shower was too hot and I wasn't used to how it fell so hard on me, so I'd sit on a ledge at the back of the tub and keep my eyes down so water wouldn't splash in them. It didn't matter that I wasn't actually showering...I was alone with my Dad. That's all that mattered to me."
"He didn't abuse you?"
"He just wasn't there, and when he was, he didn't seem to care what she did to me."
"He never hit you or yelled at you?"
"He hit me once...we were fishing, and it was my first time, and I thought the fish would just keep biting and we'd pull them into the boat. It was boring, and I was restless, so he swatted my ass because I was bothering everybody else. His wife didn't like me. I didn't care for her either. Sometimes I'd do something wrong, then try to cover for it with a lie because I didn't want him to think I was a fuck-up, and I didn't want her yelling at me. Sometimes he'd catch me in a lie and he'd chase me with his belt, but it was mostly for show. She'd think he was going to beat me with it, but I'd be shrieking and laughing as he chased me through the house out of her sight."
"This was his second wife."
"Yeah. After the divorce. She was younger than him. Mom was older than
him. I think she was resentful of me because she couldn't have kids of
her own and because he still had ties to his ex-wife."
"I see you've got her pegged."
Smiling crookedly, he shrugged. "Sounds reasonable. I don't hold it
against her, but I think she could have handled the situation better."
"Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about your father or his wife?"
"He used to hook me up to the dog chain in the yard. I wanted to follow him everywhere, and if he wanted to hang out with a neighbor or something without me, he'd hook the dog's chain to the back of my pants and let me stand there and try to free myself and scream for help."
"When you were quite little?" He nodded. "Why didn't he leave you in
your mother's care?"
"She was always busy making biscuits or watching TV or drinking or something."
"What happened between you and your father? You're not especially close
to him now."
Donovan shook his head and let it droop again. "I disappointed him. I was supposed to go to college, then move to some big city and have a career."
"Then...your father was money motivated?"
"Could be. We were never that close, but he always liked eating the best foods from the best places and he travels the world and gets new vehicles every two years and always has a really nice house. He'd take me with him when he'd go drinking, give me forty dollars in rolled quarters and tell me to hang out in the arcade next door. If I ran out of money, he always had more. I don't think he was so much into
appearances as he just enjoyed living a better life...when he wasn't working his tail off and sleeping when he could. I got to stay at his house a couple of weekends after the divorce. He was almost never there. Always working or grabbing a nap whenever he could. He'd leave at five in the morning, call around noon to check on me, wake me at midnight when he finally got home, then be gone by five again."
"But, you got to go fishing..."
"Sure. He and his wife liked to entertain friends. When friends of
theirs came over, they cooked sumptuous meals at home or took everyone fishing or crabbing. A kid I'd known when I was younger was visiting the day we fished. That was the last time I saw her. I always thought we'd grow up and get married. She was beautiful and fun to be with. She liked playing rough and being a tomboy and stuff. Our parents had known each other for years. I used to go to her house and spend the night
sometimes."
"So, you did have a friend?"
"I don't know." He screwed his face up in thought. "Girls are funny. If we were alone, she'd do anything with me and we always had a great time, but as soon as a friend of hers or one of her cousins showed up, I was somebody to beat up and pick on. I could never figure her out. We'd play marriage and indoor football. She showed me her stuff...she wasn't the first girl to do it. We'd kiss sometimes if no one was around, and then she'd punch me and call me names if anybody entered the room."
"She liked you."
"I don't know. I liked her, but she could hurt me. Not physically... I just didn't understand her."
"Was she your first girlfriend?"
"How could she be my girlfriend only when we were alone? I don't think so. We were just curious. When I met her again as an adult and mentioned how we used to play marriage, she made a terrible face and denied everything. I'm nothing to her now. She went on towards a career as a pro tennis player, but hard partying in college destroyed all that."
"When did you drift apart?"
"After her mother died and my parents split. She went to a different school. She didn't live that close. We'd never seen each other all that much anyhow...just now and then, so it was no big deal."
"You still think about her."
"No. Almost never. I have no sympathy for people who use drugs and alcohol to screw up their own lives. That doesn't make sense. She had a real promising future...God knows what she's up to now."
"But, she was the closest thing you had to a friend as a child?"
"Pretty much. Mostly I was alone. Sometimes I played with neighborhood
kids or was made to put up with the kids of friends of my parents. I
eventually cannibalized my board games for parts to make other things with since I only played board games alone." He was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “They used to play board games with me...CandyLand and
Chutes And Ladders. Until I wound up in the hospital. That was second grade. Then I used to still get board games for Christmas and stuff, but nobody would play them with me. I still don’t know all the rules to Monopoly or Life.”
I gave him a moment to collect himself before gently prodding, “The
hospital?”
“It was those stupid patent leather dress shoes. We were on our way to
church and my ankle twisted and I fell on my knees and slid down the stairs. The shoes were new and had smooth soles and the stairs were carpeted. My right heel was sort of jammed beneath me, and the heel was sharp edged plastic. I started bleeding from the rectum after that. She took me to the hospital. I was there for three months. They said it was a fissure the heel had torn in my flesh from outside. Like a contusion,
but the flesh inside was irreparably damaged. I bled when I defecated.
They eventually discovered that caffeine would do something to the blood
vessels around the tear that would cause them to open and bleed. So they
declared me allergic to caffeine. No chocolate, no Pepsi, no coffee, no
nada. Of course, when I had a birthday while still there for observation
and testing, my mother brings chocolate cupcakes as my treat. I really liked it there. At the hospital. I made a lot of friends amongst the patients and staff. A nurse there would take me early when I was supposed to get testing done so we could play cards in the hall. She
taught me cards. I’d never played with them before then. There was a teenaged boy who’d broken most of his bones in a bicycle accident and I would go visit him and read to him. There was a girl who needed her pubic bone broken and reset because it was growing strangely. She was my friend, and I tried to be with her the day they had broken the bones. She was in her room screaming terribly and her mother had to get angry
with me to keep me from rushing to her side. The night nurses would let me stay up late and sit in their laps and draw pictures for them at their desk. I had a lot of fun there.”
“You had friends and attention and people who cared about you.”
“I think that’s the only time that’s ever happened.”
“What made playing board games stop? Learning card games?”
“No. They had CandyLand in the playroom at the hospital. My Dad came to visit me and we were gonna play it with the little girl and her mother. I thought I got to go first because I’d only ever played the game at home with my parents and they’d always let me go first. When I started reaching for a card, my Dad slapped my hand and said the little girl
should go first. I didn’t understand. That’s not how the game was played. Certainly my friend would understand and let me go first. But Dad kept telling me I was wrong and I was spoiled and shouldn’t be acting that way. I was embarrassed he’d hit me in front of her even though it wasn’t much of a slap, so I started screaming how unfair it was because I always went first! That’s just how the game was played! It was the first time anybody ever called me spoiled, and to think he was the one to do it after spoiling me that way... I refused to play at all,
and he got angry with me and left without kissing me or even saying
goodbye. I was all alone in the playroom and the little girl was staring
at me strangely and her mom looked disgusted with me. I didn’t know I had done anything wrong. I didn’t know any better. After that, my parents never played any board games with me again.”
“It was easier than trying to explain to you the concept of sharing and
taking turns.”
“I was an only child. No cousins my age. No real friends. I hadn’t had many opportunities to experience sharing or taking turns. If I was spoiled, it was their fault. You don’t spoil yourself at that age...”
“Did people continue to call you spoiled after that?”
He said, “No. Just his second wife. She thought I was spoiled because I was a picky eater. My parents never bothered introducing me to new foods--they’d just feed me whatever I seemed to like. So I grew up on hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, buttered noodles, corn on the cob, bologna & cheese, and Twinkies. They kept bologna and Twinkies in the vegetable crisper so if I was hungry, I could go feed myself. I was always feeding myself. Especially if any other kids came over. I’d go tug open the
‘fridge and show them my own food set where I could reach it. They seemed to think that was pretty amazing. We’d eat a whole packet of bologna or a whole box of Twinkies, then I’d have to sit through dinner. Mom used to cook crown roasts and racks of lamb, but only for her friends she entertained. If we went out to eat, it was usually fast food
for me. If they wanted nice restaurant food, they’d hire a baby-sitter. I got used to eating the same few bland things over and over. Dad’s second wife fancied herself a French cook. The first time she set vegetables in a cream sauce in front of me and breaded pork chops, I was clueless and asked if I could just have bread or something. She got angry at me. She made scrambled eggs for breakfast one morning and I
wouldn’t touch them. I told her Mom always fried mine. She said I was
spoiled. She was right, but she didn’t have to be so mean about it. She had no patience with me and refused to go out of her way for me on any matter. All she did was fuss when I dragged my heels. I’d have been happy eating bread and drinking soda and nothing else, but she’d whip up something exotic to me then complain if I refused to touch it or did and found I didn’t like it. I couldn’t comprehend why she never took the easy way out and just fed me bread or crackers. Dad didn’t care. I think
she enjoyed having reasons to complain about me to him. I’m pretty sure she hoped I’d seem like such a pain in the ass to her that he’d agree I shouldn’t visit any more. She eventually won. I haven’t had contact with my father now for close to eight years.”
Pray for the light. Pray that you last that long. The Long Hour Before Light is a classic collection of Horror tales, re-mastered by Champagne Book Group
