The Kid
A small boy lies awake and alert in the dark, his hand cradling an electrical switch. He has been waiting for several hours. In the next room a fat man stirs, then rises uncertainly from his bed, shuffling his feet to find his slippers. He is aware that there is unseen danger, and he moves cautiously through the inky blackness in what he hopes is the general direction of the bathroom. The boy is ready, and makes his move. Suddenly there is a blaze of light, as two rows of Christmas tree lamps, arranged on the floor, come to life. Miraculously, a shining path is created—a veritable "landing strip" which will guide the good man down the hall and around the corner, to where he can safely relieve his bladder. Our Hero, having rescued the world from potential disaster, lapses into a deep and satisfying slumber. Next morning at breakfast, the story will be told—initially, by the amused overnight guest, and then a thousand times more by his mother. "My Son, the Genius," she will repeat and repeat. To anyone...anywhere...who will listen.
I was that small boy, of course. We remained inseparable, he and I, until we reached the age of fourteen. From that point on, my skin and its contents continued to develop, while I remained behind—happily ensconced up here in my cranium—a teen-ager forever. Tough on the rest of the world, I suppose, but a pretty good deal for me.
There is no reliable record as to when my creativity first came to the fore. I am told that when I was just a little guy, I built an impressive tank from parts of a Mekano set. It moved slowly and had a limited range equal to the radius of its extension cord, but it had incredible power. It once attacked my mother, moving a heavy kitchen chair in the process. I seemed to be on the right track, but when a perfectly good brassiere became enmeshed in the drive mechanism and had to be destroyed, my military career was abruptly ended. Such are the fortunes of war.
Insect heroism
An excursion into the field of science met with a similar lack of success. Repeated deep-sea experiments conducted in our bathroom basin yielded an obvious truth: two-thirds of a ping-pong ball bonded to a furniture coaster with plastic wood makes a poor bathysphere. The thing leaked like crazy. None of the volunteers–hardy house-flies chosen for their resistance to everything but fly-swatters—ever survived a full night of submersion. In time, I became discouraged, but to this day I still believe I was on the right track. Plastic wood was the weakness. Had it occurred to me, I probably would have invented marine epoxy.
In search of "Bugsy
"My life as a boy is more or less a blur. When one gets moved around as much as I did—fourteen schools over twelve years—one tends to lose contact. Now, I wouldn’t know where to find any of my old classmates. (Bugsy Knight, can you hear me out there?) How did I get to where I am today, in terms of my artistic output and the odd way my mind seems to operate? I really couldn’t say. In those days, I believe I was normal. Like any kid, I overdosed on hot dogs at Yankee Stadium, cried when Lou Gherig died, and even tried on my older sister’s garter belt in front of the mirror while she was downstairs in the hotel coffee shop. Once in Arizona, I chased a horned toad down a hole and found an Indian skeleton. Normal kids do things like that, I suspect. Of one thing, I am sure. I never planned on being an artist.
Details of manufacture
Long ago, I stopped trying to understand this strange piece of machinery I call ‘me". However, I do have certain basic information on date of delivery and manufacture. My father was an inventor, and I can probably trace my creativity back to his side of the family. Along with this quite positive hand-me-down characteristic, I inherited another less-attractive one. When I am deep in thought, my features contort into an expression which can only be characterized as that of a crazed weasel—a phenomenon which also takes place when I am seated at the piano, and which is one of the reasons I will probably never realize my fantasy of playing dinner music in a charming restaurant. But if I ever do manage, they will surely ask me to play from behind a curtain.
One white whisker
When I was fourteen, I went to live with my father in his East 57th Street apartment. He was a charming man, and quite clever. He had a fascinating English accent which he acquired, I supposed, when his unit went through England on the way to World War I. His own New York accent rubbed off, and was replaced by something a trifle more British. Later on, when he owned a fancy home in Newport, Rhode Island, the new model must have fit in well. Daddy carried a small piece of shrapnel in his neck, which I admired very much. He always wore Oxford cloth, button-down shirts—which smelled of Bakelite (a molding material), and was the custodian of a single, white whisker at the end of his nose—about a millimeter in length—which I’d try to pluck when he fell asleep. When I think about it now, I cringe. He should have killed me on the spot.
Fish-eyes, pop flies & red dogs
We had a cocker spaniel named Jackie that I once painted red by mistake. The paint was supposed to go on the hull of a boat model, but it missed the Normandy and landed on Jackie. Daddy was not amused. I didn’t get to see much of my father because he was so busy. Every day---and most nights---he was at his Long Island City workshop, fiddling with his inventions. However, from time to time, he’d bring a lovely lady home for me to fall desperately in love with. One, a real Russian Countess named Luba, I admired almost as much as I did the great Babe Ruth.
Daddy had a Filipino man-servant named Ricardo who cooked revolting fish-eye soup until he got the order from Daddy to cease and desist. During the dog days of summer, he and I would play catch on the dirt baseball diamond beneath the Queens borough Bridge.
And right now...that’s about all I can remember about my life.