Boy Wonder
by Rod Nibbe
A bony elbow jabbed Roland’s ribcage, jolting his concentration and returning his attention to the reality of a brutishly uncomfortable church pew. He had been imagining how the monotonously drab crucifix displayed over the altar could be made more appealing from the artistic application of acrylic colors.
“What!” he reacted, trying to contain his reaction to a whisper.
“Pay attention and sing along,” his mother scolded.
With her mouth near his face, Roland smelled her lipstick, cigarette and scrambled egg breath, causing him to wince. He shrugged at his sister’s snicker then looked down at the hymnal in his hands and hummed as the congregation finished singing the last verse of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
At five years old, a score of 155 on the Stanford-Binet IQ test for children earned Roland the distinction of child prodigy. Roland achieved nearly the highest level in arithmetic and spatial reasoning; he tested at the top in vocabulary, the ability to correctly continue sentences. His mother objected to the distinction. She thought Roland would become a freak, ridiculed by his peers, and never allowed to grow up as a normal child. Father was not surprised. He’d become aware of Roland’s precocity years earlier, when one evening, unattended, Roland escaped from his crib. “A little Houdini,” his father later remarked. He had climbed atop a piano bench and began striking keys. Father walked into the room and stood in the doorway, witnessing the intensity of Roland’s curious expression.
“Daddy, piano … I play piano, Daddy.” At fourteen months, Roland was talking.
“Yes, Son, piano. That’s right.” Father shook his head in quiet amazement, moved patiently toward Roland, lifted him from the bench and lowered him back into his crib.
...
Roland was thirteen now. He considered worship and Sunday church silly; people sat idle with no expression, listening to the same sermons, singing the same songs – zombies. He wondered why these people wasted two precious hours each week praying to invisible beings. His mother insisted he attend, in spite of his reasoned objections. Those infuriated her the most. That was not Roland’s intention, but he knew of no other way to talk to her. And that disturbed him, he wanted to like his mother. He wanted her to love him.
Pastor Bergman reached to shake Father’s hand.
“Good morning, Jim,” he beamed with a cherubic smile. Father shook his hand and politely nodded, “Morning Pastor.” Mother reached and grabbed pastor’s hand with both of hers. A simple greeting would not satisfy her. Always a conspicuous conversation, Roland thought.
“Oh, good morning, Pastor Bergman. I so loved the sermon. Thank you for that beautiful message. And what a wonderful way to begin a beautiful winter day. It’s so nice outside, isn’t it Pastor?”
“Why yes it is, Maggie. But I sense a storm moving in, judging from those clouds building in the west. ”
“Oh, I hope not … and the flowers on the altar are so lovely. Your wife always does such a wonderful job with that.”
“Thank you, Maggie. She does bring cheer to the morning service.”
“Oh, yes and –” Pastor interrupted and tugged her forward.
“Hello, Roland.”
“Hi Pastor Bergman,” Roland replied respectfully.
“You know, Jim,” pastor’s smile matured to a chuckle as he turned and looked at Father. “We’d be glad to have a genius in the clergy when he’s of age.” Father smiled and nodded. I’m not a genius, Roland thought. Painting well doesn’t make me a genius. Outside, Roland smirked, “Thank God church is over.”
Father eased the car out of the parking lot. Roland and his sister buckled their safety belts. Mother rummaged through her purse searching for cigarettes. She was anxious and uptight again. Over the years he’d come to know the precursors. She’d jerk her head around, fidget for a cigarette, and sometimes mumble to herself before unloading on him. The lighter popped up, she yanked it out of the dash and lit her cigarette, then spun around and glared at Roland.
“What kind of behavior was that?” she complained. “Is it so much effort for you to just be friendly to the pastor in the morning? Must you be so damn arrogant all the time? It’s really embarrassing, Roland.”
“I shook his hand, Mother. I said hello.”
“That’s all you ever do, shake his hand and say hello.” She pulled against her seat belt, which Roland thought was the only thing keeping her from lunging at him.
“You think you’re better than other people Roland, because you’re “prec –” she struggled with the pronunciation.
“Precocious, Mother, it means –”
“Shut up, Roland!” she screamed. “Just shut up.”
Roland saw the disappointment on his father’s face reflected in the rear view mirror. The car fell silent. Roland’s sister sat, her eyes fixed on her folded hands. Mother’s head ratcheted right; she stared out the window at nothing in particular coldly ignoring everyone in the car. No one noticed the tears pool in Roland’s eyes. For the remainder of the ride home, he watched Mother’s neglected cigarette ash grow longer and curl slightly before falling to the floor.
He could not make sense of this episode, his intention was only to help Mother with the pronunciation. But over the years her outbursts became more frequent and unpredictable. If his sister came to his defense, Mother shot her down, her anger intensified. Father would reassure Roland in private that he was not responsible for Mother’s anger. “She’s struggling with your giftedness, Roland. It’s always been difficult for her to accept,” he’d say.
...
Roland’s father was a professor of music at Lorimar University for Liberal Arts. He took Roland there to listen to concert rehearsals. Roland enjoyed the attention, especially years later in the art department where his advanced development was recognized by Father’s colleague. As a prodigy, Roland was rare, but as an art prodigy, he was rarer still. At age four, he had begun sketching pictures from the newspaper and National Geographic. Father purchased sketch pads, colored pencils, and crayons for Roland. Soon after he was drawing incredible animation rendered inside his imagination. Father showed these drawings to his colleague in the art department.
“Jim, these are remarkable,” he said. He held up a sketch, scrutinizing it closely. What he saw was a crystal ball suspended by a pair of hands which emerged with perfect proportion and perspective from the vanishing points on the canvas. Inside the crystal ball, Roland had drawn a variety of surrealistic faces in pastel colors. The faces were distorted, the expressions benevolent, not grotesque. The edge of each face fitted against the edge of other faces like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. All of Roland’s drawings had faces in them.
“Have you considered enrolling Roland in an advanced program, Jim?”
“Yes, I have,” Father replied. “But Maggie will not allow it. She thinks Roland belongs in a regular school with children his own age. She insists he be raised as a normal boy.”
“Perhaps, Jim. But this is not the work of a normal boy.” His eyes remained fixed on the sketch, never looking at Father as he spoke.
“I know,” said Jim. “I encourage him to continue drawing.”
...
No one challenged the silence in the car for the remainder of the ride home. As Father pulled into the driveway, the silence was finally broken by the noisy rollers in the guides as the garage opened. Roland slipped out of his seat belt eager to escape the claustrophobic tension in the car. Father kicked clumps of snow off the mud flaps then pulled the car inside the garage. As he walked toward the house he heard voices shouting.
“You will go to Lenten services on Wednesday evenings, Roland, because I said so.” Five inches taller than Roland in her Sunday heels, Mother hovered over him, inches from his face, shouting demands.
“But my sculpture instruction meets Wednesday nights, I can’t miss that, not to attend church,” Roland said. Mother’s lips tightened, her wrinkled expression wound in a knot, she stiffened her forefinger and pressed it against Roland’s chest. Her voice softer but threatening like a false calm before a storm. “You will do as you are told,” she ordered. Roland pushed away and ran up the stairs to his bedroom.
“Maggie, what was all that about?” Father asked.
“I’m fed up with his pre-kosh-ess-ness,” she ridiculed. Roland’s sister spoke cautiously. “But Mother, he only asked if he could skip church Wednesday nights to –”
“Quiet!” she interrupted. “Leave me alone. Everyone just leave me alone.” She began to cough and wheeze. Grabbing her coat she fumbled through pockets for her inhaler. Asthma and cigarettes were stealing years from her life.
Inside Roland’s room tears streamed down his cheeks. He stripped off his Sunday suit and put on blue jeans and a sweatshirt with the logo of Lorimar University on the front. He sat down to paint. He placed a fresh canvas onto the easel and selected a china bristle brush. He felt the tears drying on his face when he smiled, recalling Mother’s objection to Father spending too much money on the acrylic paint set. He drew a deep breath and began to paint. After blending colors together on the palette, he dabbed the brush and painted a circular outline of a planet in the center of the canvas. Instead of filling the outline with a solid color, he used orange, red, yellow, and ochre and painted a dispirited image of his own face. The features were stretched, the sad eyes set deep in their sockets, his yellow-blonde hair beginning as a wisp on his brow, then blown back over the top of his head, as if by wind, until it blended with the color and texture of the planet’s outline. Encircling the planet he painted rings, like those around Saturn. In orbit around the planet he painted a moon. Within its perimeter he brushed a gentle image of his father’s face. He mixed white, black, and dark blue and brushed a celestial sky surrounding the planet and moon. Dots of silver and white were added as stars, imparting a sense of depth and peace. Lastly, some distance from the center he painted a large comet, its icy surface rough and irregular, its color red and brown with a flaming tail of orange gas on a trajectory toward the planet. He painted Mother’s face on the comet. Her stormy eyes were stretched horizontal, her lips pursed, the face twisted in a menacing glare. It required hours to complete.
The paint dried as Roland watched his pet lizard in a large aquarium across the room. “Lenny licertalia.” The name appeared on a small piece of wood glued to a nail, which stuck in the sand inside the aquarium. His sister once asked him, “What does that mean … licertalia?”
“It’s the taxonomical name for lizard.”
“Whatever,” she said.
Sometimes, Roland thought, I wish I was normal, like my mother wants me to be.
Someone knocked on his bedroom door.
“Come in.”
“Roland, your Mother’s very upset. I’m going to call a family counselor, someone who can help us work through this problem. She agrees, Roland. What do you think?”
“I suppose … I mean it can’t hurt. I don’t know why she blows up at me sometimes.” He flipped a fresh canvas over the painting; he didn’t want Father to see it.
“I know. But as difficult as it may be for you to understand, your mother loves you. You need to know that.”
In all of Roland’s memory, Father mediated these matters, never taking sides.
...
One day last summer, while driving on county trunk highway K, a rural road between home and the University, Roland talked with his father about cars.
“How long did it take you to learn to drive?”
“Oh, a few weeks I guess,” Father said. “I learned in my dad’s old Chrysler.”
“We’re learning about the automobile in my American Studies class at school,” Roland said. “Henry Ford, Model-T’s, the assembly line, stuff like that. I want to learn to drive as soon as I’m old enough.” Father was silent for a mile then asked, “Would you like to give it a go, right now?”
“You mean in this car … with you? Really?” They pulled off highway K, past the intersection with county trunk highway D which led to Grandmother’s house, into a large parking lot and switched seats.
“Fasten your seat belt, always keep the headlights on, adjust your mirrors, …” Roland committed each of his father’s instructions to memory.
“Now, push in the clutch, all the way down.” Even with the seat all the way forward, Roland’s foot could not reach the floor board. The car jumped and stalled a lot like a big mechanical rabbit when his foot slipped off the clutch. After much frustration he drove the car around the perimeter of the parking lot with a big grin plastered on his face. Shifting was easier than he thought it would be, but getting started in first gear remained a problem.
...
The following day, just as Pastor had predicted, the snow began to fall. At the dinner table that evening, a palpable tension lingered from the incident Sunday morning.
“Roland,” Mother’s voice startled everyone at the table, “If school is closed because of bad weather tomorrow, I’d like you to help me take some groceries over to your grandmother’s house. She’s frightened that the weather may worsen through the week, and we won’t be able to bring her groceries and medication.” Grandma had been half blind for several years, but she insisted on remaining in her house, although she was much more dependent on others now.
“Okay,” said Roland, grudgingly. He lay awake that night, watching the storm intensify, dreading the prospect of time alone with his mother the following day.
The next morning snow continued falling hard, the sky appeared heavy with a dark gray overcast. Roland sensed something different about his mother. Her dress and appearance were casual. A comfortable turtle-neck sweater and blue jeans substituted for her usual knee-length skirt and neck-high blouse. Her hair was combed back and braided in a pony-tail. With the exception of some lipstick, her face was without makeup, causing her to look younger – and, he puzzled, happier. He pulled his seat belt over his bulky coat as Mother carefully pulled the car onto highway K. They drove for a mile, tire chains slapping the snow-packed road. Then she spoke.
“Roland, I need to talk with you about something.” He repositioned himself as far from her as his seat belt would allow, recalling everything that had happened in the house that morning, wondering what it could be that might provoke her to anger.
“I don’t know where to begin. After lashing out at you Sunday morning, then talking with your father, I realized how divided our relationship has become over the last several years. I remember the day your father and I discovered that you were gifted. I remember becoming very uncomfortable with that knowledge and denying the reasons for it. But I want to face them now, Roland.” As she turned to look at him, he studied her with a look of curiosity.
“When I was growing up, my father had very high expectations of me, expectations I could not live up to. He’d punish me for bad grades. I struggled in high school just to maintain a B average. I didn’t want to go to college but my father insisted. I tried, Roland. I studied hard in the nursing program for two years before I became pregnant with your sister. I had to drop out, I couldn’t handle all the responsibility. I did everything I could to please my father, but it wasn’t enough, and he died, unhappy with me. Roland relaxed slightly. He heard her voice begin to crack and saw a single tear leave her eye.
“When I discovered you were gifted, all those memories came rushing back … I thought it would be so easy for you. I envied you Roland. I was jealous that you were given something I was never able to earn. All these years I’ve tried to ignore your talents, to have others ignore them, to turn you into someone you aren’t. I wanted you to be normal, like me, to experience some of the struggles I did.” She was trembling now, and the car began to slow. With the palm of her hand she smeared the tears streaming into the shallow creases in her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Roland. … Oh my God, I’m so very sorry.” Her forehead dropped between her hands clutching the steering wheel as she veered off the side of the road struggling to keep the car under control in the heavy snow, and stopped. Roland’s mouth hung partially open. Unable to speak he stared at her, as if she were a statue in a museum. She gathered enough composure to reach into the back seat to grab something Roland thought he recognized. She unfurled the painting just far enough to reveal the comet. Roland’s gaze turned to the painting, his complexion ashen, his mouth fully agape.
“Where did you find th –”
“This is me … isn’t it, Roland.” Her eyes pointed at the comet, her plaintive voice cracking between sniffles. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at her.
“Yes, Mother, it is.” His voice quickened. “But I was angry when I did that. It doesn’t mean –”
“It’s okay, Roland. It’s all right, I understand.” He unbuckled his seat belt, grabbed the painting and crushed it. Mother offered no resistance. They reached over the transmission hump, wrapped their arms around each other and hugged.
“I love you, Mother,” he said.
“I know, Roland. I know you do. Everything is going to be all right.” They remained that way for minutes, their arms tied around each other, the engine running, snow accumulating on the roof of the car.
They continued on to Grandmother’s house talking like friends do. When they arrived, the house looked vacant. Mother pulled her parka on as Roland lifted two bags of groceries from the rear seat. Inside the house grandmother greeted them, always looking askance at them, her ears compensating for her eyes.
“The power is out,” she said. “Must be the storm.”
Mother started to cough and wheeze as she searched for the keys to the shed, found them on a hook, and handed them to Roland.
“Go out to the shed, honey, and bring in an armful of wood, would you? We’ll put some in the wood stove to keep it warm in here.”
“Sure, Mom. Are you okay?”
Forcing a smile she said, “Yes, I’ll be all right. Go ahead, get some wood.”
Roland heard his grandmother yell on his way back from the shed. He dropped the wood and ran. Inside, Mother was slumped in a chair, gasping for air.
“She can’t find her inhaler. I don’t know what to do!” Grandmother said.
“Call for an ambulance, Grandmother! Hurry!”
“The phone is dead. It went out when the power did.”
Mother’s breaths were short and exaggerated, desperate for air. Roland thrashed her purse for the car keys.
“What are you doing?” Grandmother asked. Roland ignored the question.
“Oh no, Roland! Don’t do that … you can’t drive. No … don’t, Roland!” Roland saw the look of disapproval beneath Mother’s panic, but ignored it. He rushed to the car, rehearsing Father’s instructions in his head. “Seat belt, lights on, adjust mirrors, push in clutch …” He sat in the front seat, adjusted it full forward, and immediately realized he’d have to back out of the driveway. He’d never practiced backing up. Questions filled his head. Where would he go if he could get onto the highway? Into town? Would he have enough time? Should he run to a neighbor’s house instead? The car lurched several times and died as he tried to engage reverse. Halfway down the driveway, it finally worked. The car was rolling. Too excited to turn around, he guided the car backward using the trees that lined the driveway. So much snow, he thought, where is the driveway? The car rolled out onto the highway. He pushed the clutch, turned the wheels, found first gear, and slowly let the clutch out. The car jumped and skidded sideways. He restarted it, thinking about his mother now, what she said to him in the car. “Everything is going to be all right.” On the second try the car hopped and lurched but remained running.
He could barely see over the accumulation of snow on the hood of the car, and it continued to fall, heavier now. He drove in the middle of the road, frightened that he’d slide into a ditch if he tried to stay in the right lane. Only the post was visible supporting the stop sign at the intersection of highways K and D. He pushed the clutch down and slowly depressed the brake. The car slid sideways slightly before coming to a stop just short of the intersection. He looked both ways. He couldn’t see far. The falling snow obscured the road. He found first gear again. He was alone. Only the knock of a poorly tuned engine was audible during an otherwise silent winter moment. “Everything is going to be all right,” he thought. Both his hands clutched the wheel. He looked up, concentrating, like one does when trying desperately to recall something from deep memory. He pictured the motion of his foot on the clutch that day in the parking lot with his father, where he finally engaged first gear without stalling. Slowly, he bent his left leg. The wet boot slipped off the clutch half way up and the car lurched forward.
Grandmother cocked her head sideways. With one ear in the air, she strained to recognize a distant sound of collision that shattered the quiet of the winter afternoon.
“Oh my God, what was that?” Roland’s mother asked. She leapt to her feet feeling some relief from the inhaler Grandmother had found buried inside the grocery bag.
“I’m not sure, dear, it sounded like ...”
Mother flung the front door open and rushed outside wailing with what little air remained in her lungs, “Roland … Roland!”
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© Copyright
2008
RKN. Nonsense, distribute widely and freely!
Last update:
7/23/2008; 8:27:49 PM.
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