Once upon a time there was a young boy. He lived in a room. The room was on the second floor of a house, but the boy didn't know who lived in the other part of the house because he did not come out of the room. There may have been other people in the house. There may not have. That is not important.
Sometimes in the deep of the night, the boy would arise from his bed and go to stand at the window. Down below on the front lawn, under a lone tree, stood a wolf.
The wolf had yellow eyes and sharp teeth and a long red tongue. It was looking up at the window. It was looking up at the boy. The boy looked down at the wolf...and as he did, the wolf smiled up at him. Then the wolf called to the boy in his soft language.
"Come down, little boy. Come down," the wolf said.
But the boy would not come down. Of course not, for if he did, he knew that the wolf would eat him!
Yet something inside the boy called to go down--that is, something of himself actuallywanted to go down. Something in him wanted to feel the bright, sharp horror as the wolf took him into his grasp. Into his mouth.
But the boy did not go down. No. He stayed in his room and did things. Many things.
He read many books, books of lands far away. Of pirates and space ships and dashing men with glittering swords. Stories of men who had fists of steel....stories of the good men and the bad men and the supermen and the Robin Hoods and how they came charging in and beat the bad guys down, down, into the bush. The bad guys were crying, yes they were. Oh, it was sweet!
And so the boy stayed in his Story Room, for that is what it was. It was a room in which to have adventures. To explore. To find magical things. Oh yes, one more thing. Our boy knew a secret. And the secret was this: As long as he stayed in the room, nothing could ever hurt him.
Outside was the wolf, and many other terrible things as well. But as long as he stayed in the room, you see, none of this could touch him. He could not be harmed in any way.
Allright. Now you understand.
One night the boy did something strange. There was no explanation for it, really. What he did was this.
He reached into a cabinet in the room and pulled out a can of shaving cream. It was the old fashioned kind, the really thick, puffy kind of shaving cream....you remember....the kind that came in bright red and blue striped aerosol cans.
Now the boy went to the window of his room carrying the can of shaving cream with him. He opened the window, then he took some of the shaving cream and squirted it into the palm of his hand. Then, the boy began to send the little puffs of shaving cream floating out the window.
Down and down and down the puffs went. To where, it was impossible to say. They just floated off into the sky. Somehow it was all a part of the something much bigger. Something the boy could feel but that he had no name for. The shaving cream puffs floating off into the sky....out the window....out into the cool night summer night air. Into the darkness.
And so the boy sent the shaving cream puffs floating off into the night.
Whooooooosh. Off they went! Bye, bye.
Down below, in the yard, under the tree, something moved. The boy squinted his eyes. He thought perhaps it was the wolf, watching him. But no matter how hard he looked, he saw nothing.
After all the shaving cream puffs had been sent off on their journey, the boy climbed into his bed. The sheets were clean and white and cool. Then the boy pulled the blankets right up to his neck, and settled back into the pillows. Ahhhh.....
After a bit more time, he began to do something. It is a bit difficult to describe, but if you listen carefully, you’ll understand.
What the boy would do is, he would let his mind float outside of his head. It was not a magical feat or anything like that. In fact, it was a very simple thing to do.
And so the boy’s mind would float out of his head--like the puffs of shaving cream floating out the window. First, it would float up to the ceiling, where it would bounce around...ping, ping...like that. Then soon, when it got comfortable in its new surroundings, the mind would float to other places. While it was out there, the mind would grow to various sizes, kind of like a balloon that got bigger or smaller as it needed to do.
Now came the really nice part. Once he knew that his mind was happily (and safely) on it's own little adventure outside of his head, the boy would do the second part of his special trick. He called it simply "melting." What he would do is , the boy would kind of go all soft inside. He would melt himself away until eveyrthing else outside of him began to come inside him.
Oh, it was magic allright. No doubt about that. You see, what would happen is, the empty space inside the boy was so big--think of the Grand Canyon if you wish--that it could fit all kinds of things into itself! Do you see? Of course you do!
And so, with all that space, the boy could let all kinds of things come inside him so that he could taste them and smell them and sample all the different treats--because that's exactly what they were. Special treats.
Sometimes the things would be like food or music.... or perhaps they were like two children floating down a river at night. The moon is hanging over them the sky, and they're floating down there on a dark raft, asleep. The moon is bright yellow hangs low in the sky. And down below, in the water, ----deep down at the bottom of the river--is a woman. She is dead, and she is very beautiful. Her hair floats out from her head and her eyes are open and they are blue and they are nice. She is down there in the water and she is dead, and it is good because the water is a very peaceful place to be and it wraps around you and keeps you safe.
And up above, you see, the two sleeping children would be floating down the river, fast asleep on their magical wooden raft. And the best part of all, you see, was that was only on the tippy top of the thing--the thing that floated inside the boys head.
Much of the inside was water. Or things in water. Fish floated by saying hello, hello. They made those curious little O things with their mouths and looked about with their big goggle eyes, all happy and amazed.
Many things would float by in the water. People waving....ships in bottles....children flying kites. Even a girl in a black sweater, I think. Her name is Julie. She is beautiful and has thick black hair which floats out from her head in long tendrils.
And the boy would swim around himself in the water, which was in the space inside his head where his mind used to be. He was inside himself, you see, and he could float around in there. It was a very sweet feeling, this swimming around inside your own head, because you could go upside down or rightside up or waaaay down to the bottom....deep, deep down by the FUNNEL (some people call it a drain).
And down there you could look up through the crystal blue of the water, and you weren't really upside down or rightside up because of course we all know that inside a mind there is no up or down or left or right or anything like that.
So our boy could play like that for hours or even for days at a time if he wished. And finally, when he would finish melting, he would sleep. And when he slept his mind (which had been bouncing around on the ceiling having a fine old time)would come back inside his head. Bloop! And then it too would fall asleep because it was also tired from having its own set of adventures exploring all the nooks and crannies of the boy’s room.
So you see, all these things worked together, and that is what made it so nice. And it could happen again and again. The boy had learned the trick of doing it, even though he didn't think of it as a trick.
Allright, now we'll tell you another story. Our boy is sleeping now, so let's just let him sleep for a bit. Don't worry, we'll come back to him after he's had his rest.
This story is about a parakeet. A parakeet named Samson. Somebody had named Samson Samson, but we do not know who. Mabye it was our boy, or maybe it was somebody else. It doesn't matter, really. Samson was your typical parakeet. An ordinary green parakeet, that's what he was.
Samson lived, for a time, in a cage with several other parakeets in a Kresge's five-and-dime store in a nice neighborhood in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The dimestore was full of all the things that are always in dimestores--needles and thread, clothes (cheap but clean), red checkered tablecloths, a section of candies, books, magazines, balls of yarn, bottles, picture frames.... Oh you know....all these things!
Samson was in the part of the store where the animals were kept. There were, besides himself, lots of other birds. They were a very squawky bunch, indeed! Also the store contained many aquariums filled with fish and snails and things. Little bubbles went bloop, bloop bloop and they played “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window” on a small radio behind the counter. Everybody loved this part of the store.
All of the ladies who worked in the dimestore were old and very nice. One lady, Mrs. Curry, would come to feed Samson every day. She'd give him clean water and fresh bird seed and every so often, for a treat, she'd stuck in a piece of fresh green celery, which Samson liked to chew on.
"There you go, birdie," Mrs. Curry would say. She kind of chirped when she said it. She was really very old, and Samson knew she probably wouldn't be around too much longer.
One day, a young woman and her son came into the dimestore. The woman was very pretty, with dark shiny hair and a very nice smile. Her boy was named Norman.
Norman was not quite so nice as his mother. He would sometimes do mean things. Mostly to his little sister, Sippie. But fortunately, Norman was not the kind of mean child that would later grow up into a terrible person or anything like that. No, he just liked to play tricks on people, which many children do, you must admit.
So Norman and his mother brought Samson home and put him in his cage on a nice wooden table in the dining room and fed him every day. On special occasions, they would let Samson out of his cage so that he could fly around and explore the house. But the problem was, Samson would always get lost, or try and hide in the curtains or behind the couch or something. So soon Norman's mother told him that Samson had to stay in his cage.
Now one day, Norman was home alone. His mother was at work at the dance studio...which was located above a delicatessen in a not so nice part of Cleveland. She had to work long hours, especially after her husband (a rather rotund man jovially refereed to by his friends as “Fat Pete”) had died of a liver ailment.
On this particular day, Norman decided that he'd let Samson out of his cage. Poor old Samson needed to fly around, stretch his wings, all that stuff. Besides, Norman liked watching Samson fly.
Now, while Samson was flying around, batting into the curtains and the windows and things (Samson was a bit retarded, if you must know the truth), Norman went down into the basement, where he had a secret special room that was all his own. He kept all his special things in there--his chemistry set, his inventions (stink bombs and such), his comic books, his electric trains--all his favorite things. Norman even had a lock on the door of his room and a big sign saying KEEP OUT!
Well, what happened was this. You've probably already guessed it, actually. While Norman was down in his secret room, working on one of his inventions, Samson accidentally flew right into the gas burner on the kitchen stove. Norman's mother had left the left-over beef stew from last night’s dinner heating up on the stove, and Samson flew right, smack into the fire and burned up....just like that!
When poor Norman came up from his secret basement room, he found Samson lying on the kitchen floor, right near the stove. He was all brown and crispy and in fact, he didn't really even look much more like a parakeet anymore. Norman was very scared of what his mother would do to him when she got home from work. He thought of going out and buying another parakeet, but he knew that it probably wouldn't work. His mother was too smart for that, and besides, Norman had a bad way of looking guilty when he did bad things (which was fairly often).
Instead, Norman buried Samson out in the back yard, and decided to take whatever punishment his mother decided that he deserved.
But then another thing happened. It was kind of bad.
As Norman's mother was leaving the dance studio, she was hit by a car....a 1953 green Plymouth sedan, to be exact. She was killed instantly, they said. The driver of the car was never found.
Well, by now, you have probably already guessed that Norman is the boy who lived alone in the room that he never came out of. So really, you see, this isn't two stories at all--it's one story. A story with many parts. But in order to understand this story, you'll have to go along with the fact that it must be told in a very precise order. Otherwise, it will simply not make any sense at all.
OK, now that you understand that, let us go back to the boy sleeping upstairs in his room. You now know that his name is Norman. He is nine years old and he doesn't go to school. He doesn't do any of the things that most nine year old boys do.
(to be continued)
©harsh reality productions, 1998
See what happened in 25 years?
Cleveland Links
Mad magazine collection
Shaker Square Tales
Going downtown on the Rapid Transit....
Betsy Geller’s hairy arms (I loved them)
Pistachios Under Terminal Tower
The Magic Shop
EC Comic books
The Return Of Steel Man
Morton Abes crummy house; Renate Lemn and Jeanie Rackle....
the smell of the leaves
”Short Fat Fannie” in the record store
3-D comics
