A Writer's Tale

THESE THREE PIECES, TWO POEMS AND A WORK OF PROSE FICTION, were published in Helicon, the literary magazine of Glenbrook High School in 1961, when I was in the 9th grade. Somehow, I won a five dollar prize for one of them.

These are printed here exactly as they were published, in spite of my strong urges to revise them.

And I’m printing all three pieces, in spite of my almost overpowering urge to omit the Sousaphone poem.

Enjoy.

Or not.

He Never Lost His Head

Tim Harvey’d been a sad boy; He’d run away to sea. Now’s commander of a man-owar, Wounded and on his knee. The hull was blown to pieces. And most his crew was dead,

But ol’ Tim Harvey, Well, he never lost his head. He upped and fired the cannon And he sank the enemy. He hopped into a dinghy And he made far out to sea.

His food was almost not And the sun was bloody hot. And though his body Was filled with lead, Ol’ Tim Harvey, Well, he never lost his head. For days he made his way Through tossed-up water and nightblack sky,

Water smooth as glass And a sun that burned him fast, Till finally he spied a tropical isle And swam sharky waters for about a mile. He reached the beach Torn, half-dead, But Ol’ Tim Harvey, Well, he never lost his head.

Now big, fierce natives With spears and gleaming knives, Up and come a’ runnin’, To where Tim Harvey lies. They danced their wild dances As they poked him with their lances. Then they speared him nice and neat Until his heart had ceased to beat.

And then… Tim Harvey, Well, he lost his bloomin’ head.

Ode to a Wayfaring Sousaphone (Tune of “Deep in the Heart of Texas”)

Your big round lips, Like paper clips, Boom, boom, boom, boom, They taste like iron filings. Your brassy skin, It feels like tin, Boom, boom, boom, boom, It’s filthy as a piston. Your lousy breath Will be my death, Boom, boom, boom, boom, Why don’t you brush your mouthpiece? Your voice is loud, It stuns a crowd.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, It’s low and sick and fuzzy. You’re big and broad. Oh yes, oh Lawd, Boom, boom, boom, boom, Ye gad! You sure are homely.

365 Days A Year

A TALL, RED-FACED BOY FINALLY REACHED HIS HOUSE AFTER A MILE’S walk from the high school. He opened the back door into the kitchen. His mother and Mrs. MacHony sat at the table sipping coffee.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. MacHony. Hi Mom.”

“Hello Sidney,” came from both.

“Think I’d better do my homework. Got an awful lot tonight.”

Sidney carried his three books upstairs to his room. He turned on the light, for the sky ‘was already becoming gray at five o’clock. The industrious student threw his geometry book onto his desk, first. He always did the homework that he hated most, first. After scanning three of the assigned problems, he decided to do one. He knew that he would receive total credit for working only one of the fifteen problems assigned. Problem finished, though undoubtedly wrong, he slammed the book shut and threw it aside.

History. Nothing but a long reading assignment. He could get away with skipping it.

English. Read twenty pages in the reading book. He cleared a pile of Miscellaneous Paraphernalia from his bed, then sprawled out on the bed, on his stomach. Boring story.

Every story in the book seemed boring.

The conversation in the kitchen suddenly toned down to whispers. Sidney’s eyes scanned the pages, but his ears closely followed the conversation. Secret tones were a sign that the two gossipers were saying something that they did not want a third person to hear.

“You know, you’re absolutely right. They are pampered too much.” The unwanted third person recognized his mother’s whisper.

“Yeah, they been sheltered, you know? When my husband was just in grammar school he got up at five to deliver papers!”

“John says the same thing. He says that these teenagers don’t know what ‘work is.

Actually, I believe that they don’t understand what a cruel world they live in. Some day they’ll come to a rude awakening. It’s extremely sad; everything is just handed to them.”

“That’s the business, gal.”

“My Sidney complains about shoveling an inch of snow. He makes excuses right and left.

Really! After all the things we do for him with no payment at all! He get’s $2.00 a week for doing absolutely nothing.”

“Right. My Harold, just the same. Never does a thing first time I ask him. I usually end up threatening an allowance cut. That hits him were it hurts the wallet. Ungrateful! He won’t go out and get a job, either, and he’s sixteen. Simply disastrous! I really quite think he’s afraid of the Cruel World. Afraid he can’t get hired or might have to get a job where he has to work. I mean, this problem is reaching disaster stages. Oh! Hello, Sidney.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll walk the dog,” he told his mother.

“You haven’t done that in years!”

“It’s sort of a nice day today. Anyway, I figured Rex would get a kick out of it.”

“Well, don’t walk too close to Jefferson. We don’t want Rex run over, do we?”

“No, Mom.” Sidney clipped the chain onto an iron ring on the dog’s collar, then opened the door.

The dog burst out of the house, pulling Sidney close behind. They ran together down the dark, deserted street. “Slow down, boy.” Sidney slowed his own pace, but the dog pulled on. “Come on, would you slow down!” Finally, half running, the boy reached the highway, Jefferson. He walked the dog up the sidewalk, which was blue in the dim street light, and slippery, until he came to the crossroad sign.

“Time to go home, fellow. Let’s go. Come on!” The strong boy did not want to pull at the leash for fear of hurting the dog’s neck, but the gnawing wind convinced him that he had better pull. He could not let the dog run around smelling every what not in sight. “Come on.” He jerked the leash. Rex planted his paws firmly in the snow-spotted mud.

“Doggone. Let’s go.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, old fellow. That was pretty mean. You can stay out here as long as you want. It’s a lousy business, having a chain on you. You’re a real good guy.” Sidney bent over and patted the terrier.

This seemed the cue for the dog to start being cooperative. It led Sidney down Jefferson and up the lonely side-street to their home. Sidney pushed open the heavy, brown door to the kitchen.

“And then she had the nerve, the nerve, mind you, to say I shouldn’t of laid down the king!”

“She sounds quite nasty.”

“That’s the gospel. Just doesn’t have any regard for other people’s feelings.”

Sidney replaced the leash on its hook in the utility closet and hung up his jacket. He smiled at Mrs. MacHony as he squeezed between her chair and the counter. Past the woman, he went up the stairs to his room. He switched on the light over his desk, then set the portable tape recorder he had been given for Christmas, on the desk. He turned it to “play.”

“… that melancholy burden bore

Of never nevermore.

But the Raven still beguiling

All my fancy into smiling… ” and Sidney turned off the tape recorder.

He laid his head on his hands. On the ink blotter covering his desktop he noticed an epitaph he had copied from Bartlett’s. He read the scratchy print out loud.

“It is so soon that I am done for;

I wonder what I was begun for.”

Sidney stood slowly, pushing away his chair. He walked to his closet. He opened the door and pulled out a bulky leather case. He unzipped the case. He pulled a .22 caliber rifle from it, and walked with the rifle back across the room to the window above his desk.

Then, Sidney aimed the rifle and clicked the trigger at automobile headlights pushing bleakly through the darkness of far-off Jefferson.

the end

Postscript

When I first wrote “365 Days a Year” and submitted it, there was a different ending.

Either Sidney shot himself (committing suicide), or he actually fired his rifle out the window at cars passing on the road (committing mass murder). It was one or the other.

Whichever ending I used, I was told by my English teacher that I had to change it.

A sign of things to come.

Also, most of the story (though being a blatant imitation of J.D. Salinger) is extremely autobiographical. My parents were not happy about it.

My mother, in particular, had a problem with the story. She apparently suspected that she might be the inspiration for the mother in the story.

Also, Sidney’s strange behavior made my English teacher and parents fear that I might have some sort of psychological problems. There was speculation that maybe I needed a shrink, but I was never actually sent to one.

Oh well.

You can’t please everyone…