. . . and from the Paradise of God without remorse drive out the sinful, From hallowed ground th' unholy, and denounce to them and their progeny from thence Perpetual banishment. Yet lest (he) faint At the sad sentence rigorously urged, For I behold (him) softened and with tears Bewailing (his) excess, and terror hide . . . Dismiss (him) not disconsolate . . .Paradise LostJohn Milton
Book XI
Perhaps because of the new found wealth, Sarge, the prize pig, brought them, my parents felt rich enough to further disturb the idylls of my reverie by bringing yet another creature into the world, this time a daughter, a red headed sister, Kenna, whom my Dad was to affectionately refer to as both his "red headed heifer," and "Susie," for some unexplained reason, both, monikers preferable to his nickname for me, "Hossfly." The disenfranchisement Kenna brought into my young life was clearly not of her own accord, but damaging nonetheless, and only healed gradually and almost imperceptibly, if fully, over the next decades. The most traumatic event of her advent was the momentous occasion of her being brought home from the hospital. It had been some days since I had seen my mother who was, understandably, away at the hospital giving birth. I hadn't yet risen to such an age that I realized the humor of the meals my dad fixed with the quartered sandwiches and sliced turnips with salt. The meals were ample and a change of pace from Mom's cooking. I intu-itively knew that the presence of my sister wouldn't measure up to having Ringo and having had Sarge. But I wasn't yet closed to the experience. The only good part of the day she came home was that Jack Caldwell (pronounced Cal'well), whom I truly admired, and who was one of my dad's students at the high school, who had been something of a trouble maker until my dad's tutelage, and who is still a fine upstanding citizen who now even has "Doctor" before his name, instead of "Jack," was baby-sitting me. Anticipating the arrival of "the baby" we walked down our dirt road that led to Highway 90 and Dixon, the county seat, and only town big enough for a hospital, to meet my Dad, Mom, and new arrival. Before Jack and I reached the highway we heard the old, black Mercury, saw its dust, saw it stumbling, tumbling along our bumpy, country road. My father pulled up; stopped the car; got out; came around to the passenger side; opened the door (it's startling to think how high those seats looked, I must have been small); and revealed to me my mother and the small heavily wrapped bundle in her arms. Perhaps with a Madonna-like, beatific smile she introduced me to my sister, who hardly looked human at all, especially since all I was shown was a small, red, wrinkled face that only presum-ably had a body, much less hair. What does one say? Nice job? I'd rather have had a cat? Couldn't we have kept Sarge? Welcome home?
While still a loss for words, my parents then concluded that the evening air might not be good for my new baby sister; so my dad closed the passenger door; returned to the driver's seat; closed his door; and drove my mom, sister and himself on down the road to their house. I stood there, still with Jack, and watched them drive away, leaving the formerly pleasurable walk home as a symbol of my own abject aloneness in the world. That my mom read with me every day, especially letting me read-a-long with the Better Homes and Gardens Favorite Children's Stories "The Little Red Hen," that she fixed me a "warm" meal every breakfast, lunch and dinner, that I still had my own bedroom, that they assured me they'd never "sell" Ringo, that my dad would take me to see a Western movie, preferably the Durango Kid, every Saturday and sometimes to the high school where he taught, was not nearly enough, then, to prevent "The Fall."
I never really understood, or even thought about it until much later, why our front porch was at the back of our house. Perhaps like so many other things there wasn't a reason, it just was. The porch was made of concrete and had white posts supporting the roof, a swing on its deck and wood stairs leading to it from the yard. Understandably, the wood stairs, which had no overhead protection, were frequently walked upon, and which were, after all, only wood, needed to be painted more often than the rest of the house. Such a "novelty" struck me as fun rather than a chore, even in these pre Tom Sawyer days, and naturally enough I wanted to help. As a true sign of his confidence in me, my dad finally agreed to let me help with the painting. An indication of his still youthful idealism and still reasonably recent wedded status was that both he and my mother were working on this outdoor project together. The three of us. My baby sister down for a nap. I was given my own paint brush. The paint was grey. Just darker than the Navy battle ships. And I started in on the steps with elan, and perhaps abandon. I, apparently in my enthusiasm, had a somewhat careless stroke since my dad admonished me several times to stick to painting just the steps. Finally, with some un-understood impatience in his voice, he gave me one of the very few commands in our life to-gether--"Only paint the steps or you cannot paint anymore!" For the moment it seemed more like a reasonable request than an actual command, but shortly thereafter he announced that I had trans-gressed, had lost my privilege, was no longer allowed to paint. I could scarcely believe my ears. Surely, given the stakes, I could not have possibly violated his trust. One, the stairs needed to be painted. Two, only the stairs needed to be painted. Ergo, my primitive Hegelian dialectical conclusion was that, three, I must only be painting the stairs. I protested my innocence. Surely his accu-sations couldn't be true. Ever the Empiricist my father put down his brush, came over to where I had been painting and asked about the large patches of grass that had formerly been green. In strictest truth I could scarcely believe my own eyes. Sure enough, there it was. Large patches of grass were now grey. I glanced furtively up at my mother, wondering if, indeed, she had painted the grass. Remembering that she could color a whole page and stay in the lines I doubted it was her. The conclusion was as in-escapable as it was impossible to believe. My dad had been on the other side of the stairs; my mother in the middle; and the grass on my side of the stairs was now grey. What manner of man was I? The evidence was conclusive. Four decades later I don't know whether I was more shocked I had in fact painted the grass, or that I had now lost my right to paint the steps. I begged to be permitted to continue, that I would never do it again. I was reminded that I had made that promise several times leading up to the situation before us. With the sharp clarity of sudden insight I realized that truly my time on the steps was over. With the illumination of inspiration and the audacity of youth I took a new tact. I sought a new venue, no longer within the strict confines of house, home, and garden . . . I voiced a completely new plea. "Then could I paint the hobby horse down by the barn?" My dad paused, then nodded yes. It would be okay, but that I should just paint the wooden horse. Thus, down by the barn, though still in visual sight of my parents, I just painted the horse. I suppose it was a masterpiece.