Prelude - My Name

SO oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance. -The Bard

In the white darkness of the mind, at that point where the axon reaches desperately for the next neuron lies chaos. The brain has no power over that terrible space called the synaptic cleft. And yet, we still think… Sometimes… - unknown


When I was younger, they used to laugh at my father, and by extension myself, for his idiosyncratic home called “The Library.” It had been a foolish notion of his to give tours to everyone around town because he was so proud of it. I suppose it was just my misfortune that I had been born only a few short days prior to the completion of the bullet-shaped building.

When attempting to tell my story, it is difficult to decide whether to start with that first day in which I was forever linked to the Library or follow the crowd and go with the more typical day of my birth. Both were foolish days, but it seemed a time of foolishness all around. Perhaps it might be best to start the way my father starts it… with me relaxing in the womb.

My father’s aunt came to visit that day. With her, as was often the case, came her three insane children. Allow me to paint the scene. My mother and father were living in one of the bottom apartments on Ridge road in west Wichita. These days, that may as well be called the city center. At the time, though, it was a cute, if start-upish neighborhood.

But first, the doorbell rang.

My mother, a small, dark-haired woman with a strong nose, soft eyes, and clay-mation grin sighed and put her hands to either side of the lounger she’d just slumped into. She had returned from work not long before and was finally comfortable. “You forgot the keys again, didn’t you?” she said to herself. My father, who had rung the doorbell, now began to knock. Her eyes assumed the look of a tired deer as she stood up and sidled to the door. My father hated that look, and she loved him for it.

However, this time he did not notice. She turned the knob, and he leapt inside, slamming the door closed behind him. “She’s coming,” he whispered. His throat sounded dry.

“Who’s coming?” replied my mother.

“They’re coming!” he responded.

“Who…,” she thought for a second. “No!”

“Yes,” said my father and ran to the kitchen. In later years my mother would often recount this story and laugh at the amazing speed that burst forth from my father’s heels. For now, she went through the rapid process of monster-proofing the apartment. The glass was locked away in the closet. The fancy silverware, given as a present from my father’s other aunt in New York, was hidden above the refrigerator. The older blankets and quilts were folded and stored in a closet marked “moth-balls.”

In the meantime, my father was in the kitchen, stowing away and tying down any implements that might cause a foolish or reckless soul to kill himself. There had already been too many close calls. When he finished, he hurried back into to living room to find my mother finished as well. He hugged her, briefly placed his hand upon her belly and what was likely my shoulder and then they both flopped into the couch. My mother turned on the television, and the doorbell rang for the second time that day. The sound of the doorbell was overpowered, though, by the much more insistent sound of eight fists hammering at the door from its base to a point midway between the knob and the top edge of the door jam.

My father grinned, kissed my mother on the cheek right beneath the ear-lobe, and called, “It’s open.” On the television played a swing band. My parent’s decision to get a satellite dish with music had been a celebrated one.

The knob turned, and my father’s cousins spilled in like so many bowling pins at the end of a strike. “Hi, Natey!” called my father’s aunt, who regularly ignored my mother on the grounds that mom was far too attractive for the rest of the family. In other words, my mother had replaced my great aunt as the “cute” one, and the most galling part was that my mother did not try to be adorable. “Did you say something about pasgetti?” My father’s aunt tried to be adorable all the time.

An awkward pause filled the air until my mother spoke. “Yes, Nathan, did you say something about pasgetti?” She looked at him with an expression that stumbled between fear and resignation.

My father, for his part, shot his wife a look of helplessness and apology before saying, “I may have mentioned it in passing. I’m sorry, Alice. I hadn’t realized you were bringing the family over.” This was not true. “I’m not sure if we have enough.”

Alice gave them both a look filled with angelic sweetness. She lived for these moments. She thrived on being the victim. “Oh. Don’t worry. I kin get somethin’ whipped up at home. I only had a ten hour shift today. It wasn’t too bad.”

My mother shot dad an unreadable look, sighed, and hoisted herself and her third trimester belly up with a grunt. “No, no, Alice. You can eat with us. I’ll just add more noodles to the water.”

The next two hours were a painful affair that my parents choose to skip over when telling the story. Suffice it to say that Aunt Alice has a knack for digging at just the right wounds; everyone ate dinner; the house was in shambles; and two of the three children were crying.

When supper ended, my parents began to clean up, but were interrupted when my aunt called from the living room. They followed the sound of her voice. Aunt Alice was at the door. She had collected her children without any help from my parents, which was sure to be a sore point in the next few weeks. She explained to my mother that a proper house cleaning was always the job of the hosts, and that she needed to get home to sleep before another ten hour day. It was at this point, as the conversation wound down and it seemed as though no problems of any major consequence were on the horizon, that my destiny was set. My aunt asked the question.

“So what are you going to name him?”

My parents looked at one another and gave, in unison, the same response they always gave, “We don’t know yet.”

“You’ve got to name him something that won’t embarrass him. He’ll probably have the same temperament as both of you and will end up crying and whining all the time.” As I said, Aunt Alice had a way of picking at holes. “And while you’re at it, I’d level that stupid house of yours before you’ve finished it. What kind of weirdos build a library for a home? Your boy will be the laughing stock of the town. He’ll probably be called something nerdy like Poindexter…”

“Or Dewey?” my mother said. And that was it. My aunt did not get the joke. Heck, I did not get the joke when they told the story to me (“Dewey Decimal, get it? We live in a library,” Dad explained). The trouble was that my aunt assumed any joke that went over her head was mean-spirited and rude, and to top it off my mother was the joker.

“Well to hell with that!” said Aunt Alice. “Both of you just be that way! I could tell you all didn’t want me here anyway. See if I ever come back!” And that was the last we saw of Aunt Alice. At least, it was the last for a little while. It’s hard to keep Aunt Alice away. And that’s also how I came to be named Dewey. My father was proud of my mother’s quick thinking, and my mom liked the name. To this day, I’m still not sure whether I should be grateful to my aunt Alice or curse her until the end of days. I suppose we shall see.