Bright Boy
February 04, 2009
When I was just a child, my father gave me trophy made of ice engraved with the glistening words "To my Bright Boy". I carried it with me everywhere.
In the mornings, my mother, father, brother, sister and I all crowded around a wooden kitchen table with an awful green plastic tablecloth. Had we done our homework? Did we have our shoes? Our backpacks? Eggs and bacon and milk and juice exchanged hands willy nilly in the rising panic before we all rushed out the door to school. My father looked at me over the chaos, bringing it, in my mind, to a hushed whooshing with his knowing stare and raised eyebrows, and tapping his index finger to his temple. He smiled, and I smiled back, giddy. I was his bright boy. The clamber of breakfast climaxed in a swirl of children moving in a far from direct trajectory towards the front door, leaving lunches, homework, snacks and clothes in our wake. We waved our affectionate goodbyes and received our hurried well wishes and then SLAM! The front door closed, my mother collapsed with a sigh into an armchair in the foyer, and my father made his way to the office behind the house.
One time, my father installed a metal bar across the back door as a security measure. The bar was bolted directly into the cement on the left side of the door, about chest high. It was intended to swing across the door at a slight angle toward the floor, and, with a metal eye on the far side of the door slipping through a slit in a flattened portion of the bar, be secured in place with a monstrosity of a padlock. The trouble was, the bolt on the left hand side was ratcheted down pretty close, and the bar itself couldn't clear the door handle. My father was stumped, at least, he certainly played the part well. My mother and our gardener stood back and admired the problem like a piece of art. I suggested the bar swing left, the far way, all the way around to come down from the above the door handle.
"I tell you what!" My father exclaimed. "You are a bright boy! Look at that!" I basked in his approval shyly, turning red about the ears. Within weeks, there was a permanent scuff along the wall in dark iron streaks from where the bar was rotated, all the way around, each night.
Another time, I was out in our courtyard preparing a special kind of danger with all the ignorant precaution-less innocence of little red riding hood. I was an eleven year old boy, and had recently graduated to the fire stage. I had filled a glass test-tube about halfway full with some very flammable liquid, (presumably kerosene), sealed the mouth end of a balloon to the mouth end of the test-tube, and was heating the liquid with a separate flame. I honestly do not remember the end goal, but I must have been driven with a curiosity akin to that of the young henry ford when he ventured to fly a kettle like a zeppelin by sealing it up tight and boiling the contents.
The balloon expanded, slowly at first, then with all the ferocity of some sort or comical cartoon sketch out of a Dr. Seuss book. At some point, with the balloon now the size of a pumpkin, I noticed a small breach in the seal to the test-tube, and an arrow shaped blade of vapor hissing out angrily. I regarded it studiously, leaning in close to locate the leak.
BANG! BANG! BANG! My father was slamming his hands against the courtyard facing kitchen window with his eyes all whites like two bathroom sinks. He was shouting something in a shrieking, far from discernible voice, and in my instant and profound panic, his look alone knocked me onto my back in the way that only a wildly frantic commotion from a father can.
I fell backward not a moment too soon. With a menacing WHOOSH a column of flame leapt into the air, audibly gasping for air and sucking a powerful breeze towards it that tussled my hair like an eighteen wheeler flying by at eighty miles an hour. It choked instantly, and went out with a faint "pop" that was a little silly sounding and uncharacteristic of the moment. A neat hole, four feet in diameter, was burned in the canvas sheeting that roofed the inner courtyard.
My father came bounding out of the kitchen in a flash, simultaneously pinned by fury, fear, and relief. He caught me up in his arms and pressed my head against his neck, like a child holding far too tight a puppy or a kitten.
"My God!" He thundered, "I tell you sometimes you are too bright for your own good!"
I was a stunned to say the least, but through my failure to grasp the situation I was able to make out a few words I'd heard before. I hid a smile, hugged my father around the neck with one arm, and felt for the cold trophy in my pocket with the other.
When I left home nearly a decade later, my trophy began to melt. I thought nothing of it. I dropped out of high school, botched a military career, started and abruptly stopped college twice - each time my trophy growing smaller and smaller and my hands and pockets in turn, wetter and wetter. Either I didn't notice or I didn't care. I talked about the things I had done - or hadn't done, I guess - casually, conversationally even with a mildly boastful disposition.
One night I went to a party at a friends college dormitory. Past ten o 'clock a small group of girls stopped by, pushing into the crowded rooms through clouds of cigarette smoke, hoping for free beer and attention - both of which were readily available. I picked out the prettiest one, walked right up to her, and cooly asked her if she wanted to dance - offering my hand. She took it, but only for a moment.
"Eww! Your hands are wet!" She recoiled with what appeared to be real disgust on her face, and I followed in with a quick explanation.
"You see, my dad gave me this trophy when I was a kid, and..."
She wouldn't have any of it, and turned away without a word, grimacing and gesticulating to her friends. The disgust on her face settled into me slick and slow, turning my stomach only several minutes later like I'd drank a glass of vegetable oil.
Weeks later, at a different party, I was engaged in simple conversation with a girl wearing intensely eccentric clothes. After she complained that a guy at that same party had insulted her clothing, I assured her that his comments were benign on account of his general ignorance and inability to recognize individual expression.
"Thanks," She said. "But you can't use 'benign' that way."
I argued that you could, that "benign" could be used to convey harmlessness, drawing from its usage in medicine.
"I mean, I guess. It makes you sound uneducated though, and people won't understand what you mean." She paused, then added, "I'm an English major."
"She is." Another girl chimed in.
I put my wet hands into my wet pockets, feeling for the remnants of my credibility.
Months later I took a girl out to dinner. She was a college student. I wore thin gloves so as to be prepared this time in the off chance that I would feel inclined to touch her over the course of the evening. Things seemed to be going well, she was smiling and laughing quite a bit and appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself.
At one point, I offered to help her with her homework. She declined politely and I insisted.
"You wouldn't want to do that, I have to write a paper about Napoleon." She said, pronouncing "Napoleon" a syllable at a time and wrinkling her nose into an unbearably condescending eye smile. She seemed to feel that the necessity of her enunciation was endearing, which made things even worse. I tried not to look angry.
"I'm actually really interested in that sort of thing." I argued. "I just read 'The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte' not three weeks ago. Political revolution is really intriguing to me, specifically when the cast includes a sort of patriotism inspiring larger than life hero."
She wrinkled her nose again and dipped her head to sip on her straw, eyes twinkling.
"Didn't you try to go to college - a few times?"
"What!?" I began in protest, stumbling for words.
"No, no, no!" She hushed me sympathetically, "It's fine. Some people are just better at some things, really. I'm sure you're great at - well, lots of things."
I didn't take her out again.
If incessant approval and affirmation is not the way to raise a kid, what is? Perhaps it's more complicated than I can really "get my head around". God knows I'll think twice before having children.
Tags for this piece: story introspection ego kids family