III.
Archibald
Ellen, 2E 61st St. New York City, NY was
the address of my destination. Uncle Archibald. I had heard the name,
but hadn't seen the man until the memorial service. He looked like an
Archibald. He was 12 years my father's senior and although he shared
with my father a slimness of figure, beyond that there was no
resemblance. If I had to match his appearance to that of a bird, it
would definitively have be a turkey vulture. And not only because he
was bald and wore black turtlenecks. He had a loose head.
That is, he could have fit at least two of his heads into the amount
of skin that he had around his neck and scull. All this was further
accented by his drooping nose and the horn-rimmed glasses he was
always wearing.
I
was sitting in the back seat of his Prius and we were just entering
The City. As I peered out on the NYC afternoon, I saw for the first
time the hustle and bustle that was to be home for me. Under normal
circumstances I may have been somewhat shocked by the magnitude of it
all, but I was quite used to abnormal circumstances by now, so this
was pretty much a walk in the park, so to speak. We wove our way
through the traffic in silence and--surprise, surprise--arrived at our destination in
silence. He was, I think, preparing the speech I was to be the
audience for upon our arrival at his flat. And what a destination
it was! My parents had said he wrote books, but I hadn't thought
doing that could have bought such a stupendous apartment. It was on
the 17th floor and overlooked Central Park.
The
door latched behind us and I stood in awe as Uncle Archibald began
his speech, “First off, I want to begin by saying that I am not a
nice sort of person, Liam. I did not claim you from the court after
all these months because I feel an emotional attachment to you, but
rather because I felt a extremely inconvenient sense of Scottish duty
toward my brother's son. You may be wondering why you hadn't met me
before--erm--you know, and I can give you two reasons. First, I really
am quite busy with my job and when I am working, I like to be alone.
Second, your parents and I had conflicting views on certain things
that made our relationship somewhat strained.”
At
this point he paused, adjusted his glasses, twitched his nose, and continued.
“ Now for a rule: you are not to disturb me between the hours of
seven in the morning and six in the evening. This means no noise. Do
you understand?” A hasty nod from me followed, in the hopes that it
was over, but unfortunately my hopes were unfounded, as he went on, “Aside from
that you can do whatever you want, as far as I'm concerned. I have
also arranged the details of your education. I hear you have quite
the little brain in there so I am prepared at all costs to cultivate
it. The Spring semester starts next month and you will attend a
highly touted private preparatory school which runs through high
school. We will be going there for a placement test and a tour next
week. Follow me and we'll get settled in your room.” He then
turned to pick up my luggage and, as he was in the midst of lifting
my suitcase, he paused and said, “Oh, and one more thing. You are
not, under any circumstances, to call me, 'Uncle Archie', if you wish
to remain living under the present conditions. My name is Archibald.”
It did not seem that he expected and answer, so I made note of it
and waited for him to show me to my room.
He
led me out of the central living area and into a short hallway. Uncle
Archibald's flat was decorated in a way I hadn't ever been
familiarized with. There lots of lines, splotches, and irregular
shapes in the enormous canvases that were placed on his walls. Some
of them, at times, faintly resembled human shapes. That they could
serve any purpose other than to confuse one's mind to me seemed
impossible. My child's opinion of them held more truth than I
realized at the time, as the opinions of one's younger years often
do.
There
were three doors in hallway, one on the left and two on the right. I
often thought it would have made more sense to have one on either
side and then one at the end, but I guess that would have been too
symmetrical for my uncle. Instead of a door at the end there was a
three dimensional painting which made the hallway look as if it
continued on endlessly. As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing
about that painting was that sometimes when Uncle was getting
frustrated about this thing he called, “writer's block,” he would
resort to Scotch Whiskey, get drunk, and almost invariably walk into
the painting with a crash and a veritable torrent of words that I
think it better not to repeat.
My
room was more of the same. Complete randomness. Everything was made
to look like it was upside down. The floor had lights in it and the
ceiling was made of wood paneling. The only thing that looked normal
was the bookshelf because you really can't go wrong with them. This
may sound strange, but I became attached to that bookshelf. It was to
me a beacon of normality; it was my Statue of Liberty, for within
it's shelves it held the key to whole new worlds: worlds in which I
could forget my world. Upon entering what was to be my room, I ran to
the bookshelf and and placed Ferdinand and
Winnie the Pooh next
to the other books. My two books were dwarfed by the fifteen or so
other books in the shelf in both size and width. Over the next few
days, while I was waiting somewhat impatiently for the tour of my new
school, I found that all the books were by written by the same
author. Excited by this discovery, I asked Uncle Archibald about it
towards the end of dinner. My not so confident, “Uncle Archibald?” broke a
seemingly indomitable silence. An annoyed sigh escaped from his
mouth and was followed by a disinterested, “What is it, Liam?”
“I've been looking at the books in my bookshelf
and—and I was wondering why they are all written by the same
person.”
“Hm, that's a good question. Well, its because they
were all written by me.”
“Oh, so you pretend you're a different person when
you are writing?”
“Yes, its called using a pen-name. I do it so people
don't bother me.”
Now I knew why he was always writing—it seemed to me
that if I were him I would want to pretend to be a different person,
too. Thankfully, I had the sagacity to know to keep that thought to
myself, so I merely said, “Oh, that sounds fun!” and ran off to
my room.
The
day of the visit finally arrived. It was a beautiful old school
called, McGregorson Preparatory School. The
campus building were all stone-cut per-Victorian style in
architecture and everything was in order in a pristine and beautiful
way. We met the Principal, Dr. Helm, a very proper looking lady, and,
after making a tour of the campus, I took the placement test.
I placed in the fifth grade. Everything just seems to
fall into place for me when it comes to learning and understanding.
It seems that my mother's patient guidance in reading and elementary
math payed itself off. I rather wish she could have been there to
give me a proud hug and kiss. Instead, all I got was a stiff, “Well
done,” from Uncle Archibald.
We returned to his flat in silence and made our way to
our rooms in silence. Me to read and him to write. I found it hard to
concentrate, though. For the first time in months I was excited about
something.
School.
I couldn't wait to find out and experience what
it held in store for me.
_______________________________________________________________________
....So yeah, sorry I didn't get it up last night...I've been really busy with training etc.
Till next time,
-Thomas
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