TIMKEN : A NOVEL

(re-post)

Chapter One
"Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmothy Kennnnnnneth!"
His mother's voice would build and tumble from the doorway of their rooms in the Impossible Wing of the rooming house. Some inner nudge would have alerted her to awareness of the extent of the time of his absence. She would lay down her magazine or cease to portray her thoughts - this, more likely - on the streetscape outside the window, and send a voice search.
But first she would have to rise from her chair, the old padded rocker where she spent so much of her time the year they spent in that house. And where she, across that year, became increasingly padded.
Timken was a watcher. Twice he had been in the room when, not realizing his nearness, she had unfolded the search for him. He had noted the ritual. The sameness appealed to him and even the third time he would have remained still and quiet and watched but she had noticed him before it fulfilled.
Here is what she would do. She would rise from the old rocker like a woman three times her size. Slowly and ponderously.
At aged five Timken did not wonder at this. It was how his mother moved, that year. In later times he would speculate on that oddity. Did she consider herself far heavier than she was? Move to an increasingly perceived girth?
For now he loved to watch the slow motion.
Down quickly would go the magazine or the head quickly jerk eyes away from what she was 'seeing'. (Timken would never realize the extent of these 'portrayals' but he would get a glimpse from her odd journaling.) Then, with underwater slowness she would press elbows down onto the arms of the chair. It was as if the mind had leapt to alarm but the body could not match the speed. So she would press the bones of the elbows past the padded flesh of the arm down onto the padded arm of the chair to wood. Move body up and away from the cushioned back. Grip the arms where some previous tenant's cat had clawed the fabric to nibs if not actual tatters. Slide her hands back, stop, adjust her feet to a staggered position as if for better leverage, hands back more, then the gradual pushing upward. Once he had heard her elbow crack but she gave the sound no notice.
The second time he watched her he was a split second ahead of her, waiting in a sort of anticipation for her to fulfill his expectation of where she was moving next, and how. Perhaps it was his need to feel some sort of control over his world, to orchestrate the next move. At five he did not understand the force of the upheaval from The Big House to here.
As she pushed herself upward she seemed to be concentrating inwardly because there was no glancing around, no thought that he had not strayed. She accepted that he had left. Even the time he had been there, seated on the bed, his presence had gone unnoticed. It was as if her fear of his distance from her made her blind to his nearness. Later he would wonder if hysterical blindness was hereditary and his episodes, gene-, as well as trauma-, induced.
Once standing she would wriggle her feet back into whatever footwear she had been wearing. She seemed to have restless feet that sought escape from her shoes if she was not actually in motion. Once she had slipped them off while on a streetcar and had to scramble to find the one that somehow slipped under the seat as their stop came up.
Free from the chair, shod again, she would start for the door with her mouth already forming the words of his name but yet a silent litany. The rooming house was large with too many nooks and crooks that could stall and snag a voice. Perhaps she sought to avoid the obvious soundcatcher of the doorframe of this room by waiting until she could call along the hall.
And always - or almost, so - before speaking she would do a quick wet of lips with her tiny tongue and use thumb and forefinger of her left hand to trace a hard line from mouth corners down her full bottom lip.
"Of course, at that age, I didn't think of it as her left hand, when I 'told' myself about her," he would say to his most beloved lover years later who would persist endlessly and never tire of hearing the most minute details of Timken's life. "I remember 'telling' myself - 'her hand with the purple ring. It was the hand with the purple ring that etched her lips.' Her left hand." And he would not need to give a pretend laugh to apologize for such behavior, for such endless chronicling of his mother, then or now.
Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmooooooothy Kennnnnnneeeeeth! By the third bouncing out of his name someone would have answered. It was a large, rambling house, the Impossible Wing a nuisance of an addition, but there was a good bush telegraph system in case he really was out of voice range.
Someone would inform her of his whereabouts and his mother would nowhere approach the panic that silence to her call might have brought.
It was not a rooming house where people seemed to absent themselves all day at work. That would have been a strange experience for Timken, in any case. Never exposed to a nine to five routine he would never, his whole life, be comfortable with it.
This was a peopled house. At any hour of the day or night there was someone in many somewheres.
Megan would call out. "He's here with me, Arie." Likely in the kitchen. Likely baking something. Or doing food preparation for whatever meal was next Or clearing up from whatever meal was last.
Whatever had possessed two people to give up satisfying careers and open a bed and breakfast that almost immediately attracted people who became permanent residents? Megan would tell one story. Max would tell another. Oh, not together. Not in direct contradiction. Arie would thread the strands in her journals and give Timken information to mull over in later years, but no resolution. Whatever had possessed...
Mrs. Marchoff would chop out words. "He's on the porch, my dear. I told him he could. Not to worry. I can see him. He's playing with a kitten. A clean kitten. Not to worry." Her voice sounded congested, even in summer. Timken had overheard Megan say she was a "closet smoker" and he would marble this delightful phrase around teeth and tongue. Once he popped into her closet when he was in her room and found that it did smell of smoke. He had some idea that smoking wasn't bad if you couldn't see yourself doing it.
His mother would not understand many, if any, of the content of Mrs. Marchoff's reassurances coming, so garbled, up a flight of stairs, down two hallways, but she would be reassured by the form.
Sometimes Timken would shout out his whereabouts.
"I'm here!" he laughed hugely from his nest on the bed , that one time she had not seen him there. "Here I am!" from the corner where he had been sorting ...., and she had not seen him sorting or watching.
"Shhhhh.......," she would tell him. He was the only child in the rooming house.
She would never pretend not to see him. After that, when he would sit silently in the room and wait on her noticing his absence so he could watch her ritual of reaction, she noticed him. Immediately. It was as if she could accept his presence but not his perusal of her. She didn't like people staring. Or pointing.
The first time that she had noticed him immediately, disappointed to be so easily and early 'discovered', he had leapfrogged the charade and practically screamed, "Here! Here! Here!"
"Shhhhhh!!!" she had said. But no one even once mentioned this noise or complained.
Perhaps his voice was really not so loud.
Perhaps it was welcomed in this house of older people for reasons pertinent to the individual.
Perhaps he really dreamed that whole year and it never existed at all.
There were too many tactile memories to make this more than an intriguing consideration but he still liked and invited the jolt it gave him the odd time over the years he allowed the notion mind space.
(to be cont.)

Posted on July 02, 2004 at 12:23 PM | Permalink

Chapter One
"Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmothy Kennnnnnneth!"
His mother's voice would build and tumble from the doorway of their rooms in the Impossible Wing of the rooming house. Some inner nudge would have alerted her to awareness of the extent of the time of his absence. She would lay down her magazine or cease to portray her thoughts - this, more likely - on the streetscape outside the window, and send a voice search.
But first she would have to rise from her chair, the old padded rocker where she spent so much of her time the year they spent in that house. And where she, across that year, became increasingly padded.
Timken was a watcher. Twice he had been in the room when, not realizing his nearness, she had unfolded the search for him. He had noted the ritual. The sameness appealed to him and even the third time he would have remained still and quiet and watched but she had noticed him before it fulfilled.
Here is what she would do. She would rise from the old rocker like a woman three times her size. Slowly and ponderously.
At aged five Timken did not wonder at this. It was how his mother moved, that year. In later times he would speculate on that oddity. Did she consider herself far heavier than she was? Move to an increasingly perceived girth?
For now he loved to watch the slow motion.
Down quickly would go the magazine or the head quickly jerk eyes away from what she was 'seeing'. (Timken would never realize the extent of these 'portrayals' but he would get a glimpse from her odd journaling.) Then, with underwater slowness she would press elbows down onto the arms of the chair. It was as if the mind had leapt to alarm but the body could not match the speed. So she would press the bones of the elbows past the padded flesh of the arm down onto the padded arm of the chair to wood. Move body up and away from the cushioned back. Grip the arms where some previous tenant's cat had clawed the fabric to nibs if not actual tatters. Slide her hands back, stop, adjust her feet to a staggered position as if for better leverage, hands back more, then the gradual pushing upward. Once he had heard her elbow crack but she gave the sound no notice.
The second time he watched her he was a split second ahead of her, waiting in a sort of anticipation for her to fulfill his expectation of where she was moving next, and how. Perhaps it was his need to feel some sort of control over his world, to orchestrate the next move. At five he did not understand the force of the upheaval from The Big House to here.
As she pushed herself upward she seemed to be concentrating inwardly because there was no glancing around, no thought that he had not strayed. She accepted that he had left. Even the time he had been there, seated on the bed, his presence had gone unnoticed. It was as if her fear of his distance from her made her blind to his nearness. Later he would wonder if hysterical blindness was hereditary and his episodes, gene-, as well as trauma-, induced.
Once standing she would wriggle her feet back into whatever footwear she had been wearing. She seemed to have restless feet that sought escape from her shoes if she was not actually in motion. Once she had slipped them off while on a streetcar and had to scramble to find the one that somehow slipped under the seat as their stop came up.
Free from the chair, shod again, she would start for the door with her mouth already forming the words of his name but yet a silent litany. The rooming house was large with too many nooks and crooks that could stall and snag a voice. Perhaps she sought to avoid the obvious soundcatcher of the doorframe of this room by waiting until she could call along the hall.
And always - or almost, so - before speaking she would do a quick wet of lips with her tiny tongue and use thumb and forefinger of her left hand to trace a hard line from mouth corners down her full bottom lip.
"Of course, at that age, I didn't think of it as her left hand, when I 'told' myself about her," he would say to his most beloved lover years later who would persist endlessly and never tire of hearing the most minute details of Timken's life. "I remember 'telling' myself - 'her hand with the purple ring. It was the hand with the purple ring that etched her lips.' Her left hand." And he would not need to give a pretend laugh to apologize for such behavior, for such endless chronicling of his mother, then or now.
Timothy Kenneth. Timothy Kenneth? Timmmmmooooooothy Kennnnnnneeeeeth! By the third bouncing out of his name someone would have answered. It was a large, rambling house, the Impossible Wing a nuisance of an addition, but there was a good bush telegraph system in case he really was out of voice range.
Someone would inform her of his whereabouts and his mother would nowhere approach the panic that silence to her call might have brought.
It was not a rooming house where people seemed to absent themselves all day at work. That would have been a strange experience for Timken, in any case. Never exposed to a nine to five routine he would never, his whole life, be comfortable with it.
This was a peopled house. At any hour of the day or night there was someone in many somewheres.
Megan would call out. "He's here with me, Arie." Likely in the kitchen. Likely baking something. Or doing food preparation for whatever meal was next Or clearing up from whatever meal was last.
Whatever had possessed two people to give up satisfying careers and open a bed and breakfast that almost immediately attracted people who became permanent residents? Megan would tell one story. Max would tell another. Oh, not together. Not in direct contradiction. Arie would thread the strands in her journals and give Timken information to mull over in later years, but no resolution. Whatever had possessed...
Mrs. Marchoff would chop out words. "He's on the porch, my dear. I told him he could. Not to worry. I can see him. He's playing with a kitten. A clean kitten. Not to worry." Her voice sounded congested, even in summer. Timken had overheard Megan say she was a "closet smoker" and he would marble this delightful phrase around teeth and tongue. Once he popped into her closet when he was in her room and found that it did smell of smoke. He had some idea that smoking wasn't bad if you couldn't see yourself doing it.
His mother would not understand many, if any, of the content of Mrs. Marchoff's reassurances coming, so garbled, up a flight of stairs, down two hallways, but she would be reassured by the form.
Sometimes Timken would shout out his whereabouts.
"I'm here!" he laughed hugely from his nest on the bed , that one time she had not seen him there. "Here I am!" from the corner where he had been sorting ...., and she had not seen him sorting or watching.
"Shhhhh.......," she would tell him. He was the only child in the rooming house.
She would never pretend not to see him. After that, when he would sit silently in the room and wait on her noticing his absence so he could watch her ritual of reaction, she noticed him. Immediately. It was as if she could accept his presence but not his perusal of her. She didn't like people staring. Or pointing.
The first time that she had noticed him immediately, disappointed to be so easily and early 'discovered', he had leapfrogged the charade and practically screamed, "Here! Here! Here!"
"Shhhhhh!!!" she had said. But no one even once mentioned this noise or complained.
Perhaps his voice was really not so loud.
Perhaps it was welcomed in this house of older people for reasons pertinent to the individual.
Perhaps he really dreamed that whole year and it never existed at all.
There were too many tactile memories to make this more than an intriguing consideration but he still liked and invited the jolt it gave him the odd time over the years he allowed the notion mind space.
(to be cont.)