The Full Cleveland (12 page)

“Some end in death
and
marriage.”

“But there's still a sequel, right?” She didn't answer because the Rapid arrived.

•   •   •

On the train, I was staring out the window watching a cement wall fly by, thinking that Melanie died, and that was sad, though not as sad as what Rhett said to Scarlett, but it did make it a story that more or less ended in death or marriage, when Mary Parker turned to me and said, “So? Should I make you as beautiful as Scarlett O'Hara?”

I sort of smiled at Mary Parker.

“No joke. This is serious.”

This was true. Nothing was more serious than the beauty of Scarlett O'Hara. I looked in Mary's cool brown eyes, wondering if what she had in mind was one of Mickey Knight's emotionally damaging Before and Afters. I didn't feel like telling her that despite the best beauty products money could buy, I just wasn't makeover material.

“Look, I'm not talking about a miracle here. You simply have to grow to understand your beauty comes from the inside out.”

Oh. She was talking about that kind of beauty. She was talking modest, loving, and pure. The kind of beauty you find in the eyes. I had been quite clear from day one, I wanted the kind you found on your face.

“And what's inside?” Mary Parker continued. “Inside, you've got a heart and a mind. And, importantly”—here she pointed to a place somewhere below my neck, under my collarbone, to the right of my left arm—“a will.
That's
how you become beautiful. You
will
it. You can will yourself into anything. You can will yourself into the United States presidency if that's what you want. A lot of undeserving crackpots have.”

I thought of my brother Matt.

Then Mary Parker told me she had been experimenting with will. She said she had developed a theory that a person could be, have, or accomplish anything she wanted if the person could just convince herself that she could be, have, or accomplish anything she wanted. She said the hard part was not doing the thing, but convincing yourself you could. She said the hard part was will.

“Sure. But what do you do about
that?”

“Good. I'm glad you understand so far.”

Then Mary Parker said she had invented a system of what she called “Parallel Actions,” just “Parallels,” for short. She explained that a Parallel was a tricky thing, but for the sake of argument, a thing not unlike a metaphor, in this case an action, through which you got the sense of accomplishing your objective by accomplishing a like objective, a similar objective, or a totally unlike objective to which you could still liken the feeling and emotional equivalent of your objective. She said these Parallels trained your will, taught it to get used to getting what it wanted, so it knew it could.

“I see,” I said, because I sort of did. I told her about my own theory, how I wanted to stop poverty by making the thought of it unthinkable. “Could you do something like that?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, getting pretty excited, for her. “Yes and no. It's the same principle. But I don't have much confidence in getting you to the point where you could stop poverty. For that I'd have to make you as good as Gandhi, as smart as Einstein, and probably as rich as Rockefeller. I'm not attempting the impossible here. You'll have to settle for being as beautiful as Scarlett O'Hara.”

“Gee, I don't know …”

“Don't take me too literally, Boyce. What I am offering you, what I'm fairly sure I can give you, is a parallel persona to Scarlett O'Hara's. The total package. Brains, beauty, and a way with men.”

I wanted to think about it, I guess.

While I did that, we rode along on the Rapid Transit and I stared at a strange hole in its floor. It wasn't a complete hole, you couldn't see the ground screeching by or anything, but you sure could hear it, and it did give you the feeling if you stepped a little too hard on that thin path, you might fall through a deep, dangerous hole. I thought, even if Mary Parker could do as she claims, it should be rather obvious why I cannot be part of the experiment. The key ingredient of Scarlett O'Hara's infamous “persona”
was
her beauty. And beauty was kind of out of the question for me. People didn't seem able to decide if I were pretty, or pretty unappealing. The consensus was, I looked like a choirboy.

“Well, okay, then,” Mary Parker said, a little impatient. “You just let me know.”

We rode along for quite a while. I didn't realize until later that Mary Parker had missed her stop, and now would have to get out and cross the tracks and take a Rapid Transit going back toward downtown. I guess I should have realized it, but I was quite absorbed with the thin patch on the Rapid floor, and the screeching sound of the metal wheels on the rusty old Transit tracks.

Finally I said, “Are we talking about good-looking, or what?”

“Yes, I mean physically beautiful.”

“Okay, do you think that's even possible, under the circumstances?”

“See? That's the problem.”

“Okay, even if I believe you, how are you going to make it happen?”

She brightened up. “The Parallel I've chosen for you is starvation.”

“I'm not even fat!”

“It's the fat on your
brain
I'm worried about. It's keeping you from being what you could be.”

This sounded like an insult, even though I knew it was science.

“For ten days, if you do it, you'll have only coffee, milk, and pipe tobacco. And you'll consume only books.”

“Am I going to eat them?”

“Don't take me too literally, Boyce. Or Zu.” She hesitated. “Do you mind if I call you Zuzu?”

I never could stand the wretched name, none of my friends used it, most of them didn't even know it, I'd made sure of that, but I kind of didn't hate the idea of Mary Parker using it because she actually knew what it meant, even if it only meant I was a three-year-old moron. So I finally said it was fine.

“So, Zuzu,” she said, nodding and trying the new name out. “Listen up.”

Then Mary Parker told me that in her experiments, she'd discovered that starvation of the body has a profound effect upon the will. She believed that the body welded with the will during starvation, that, in effect, the body fed off the will to sustain itself. Therefore, one's wishes or dreams, which Mary Parker considered of the will, would be “physicalized” through starvation. So, if I wished and dreamed and believed in being beautiful while simultaneously starving myself and reading good books, I would be beautiful! And soon too.

I said, “Why milk?”

“That's how babies do it. You're starting from scratch, see.”

“Can't we just go with Gandhi? I think there's more potential in starvation there.”

“Maybe we'll get to him later. I feel more comfortable starting you out on Scarlett O'Hara. This is all new ground, you understand.”

“Sure, sure. Just as long as you don't mix them up. I'd hate to end up being as beautiful as Gandhi and as good as Scarlett O'Hara.”

“Oh, don't worry about that. I'm going to oversee the experiment carefully. I've already selected your books.”

“You have?” I really stared at that hole in the Rapid floor now.

“Your mind and your heart are, in essence, your will. I've checked you out, I wouldn't try this with anyone. I think your heart is in the right place.”

That was a compliment, so I said, “Thanks.”

“But your mind could stand, well, some enhancement.”

Old Zuzu again. I was going to have to take this up with my father, for sure.

“Please listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once. Are you listening?”

I was a little startled at Mary Parker's deep seriousness. I nodded yes I was, and got ready to concentrate.

“I've chosen mostly philosophy and poetry for you to study, in some cases, memorize. I'm hoping you'll be able to search beyond the boundaries of the rational or known. I want you to reach past reason, because pure reason is confining and limits your imagination, thus your ability to create. And your major responsibility in life is the creation of your self. You can't do this successfully if you're limited to the rational. The books I've chosen will help you incorporate all that life is that you don't see, the part of life past consciousness. I can't tell you how crippling it is to accept only that which is made evident by observable fact and reason as the whole truth.”

“So … to be beautiful, you believe I need books.”

“Absolutely. You should also see lots of movies, though I'm not sure why. I think, maybe, because they perpetuate myth, and myth is an important part of your self-creation. And see them twice through, at the very least, at a sitting. And then go back and see them twice more. Of course, you don't have to do it. But it would be an important experiment for me.”

I figured, whatever. Now that teenage life had thrown me into a kind of diminishing returns beauty contest with Mickey Knight and all my other drop-dead friends, I might as well give philosophy, poetry, cinema, and starvation a shot. “Okay. I'll do it.”

“Good. One thing, though. I'm going to try to give you knowledge. But wisdom you'll have to get on your own.”

I nodded. That was profound.

“And one other thing?”

I looked at her, waiting to hear something else to remember for life.

“If you want the persona we're talking about?”

“Yes?”

“You have to lose the crew cut.”

My hand rose immediately to what there was of my hair.

So, because I believed then, as maybe I still do now, that there was no one smarter than Mary Parker, I allowed her to conduct her wild experiment on me. I began to starve myself, under her guidance. Each morning, I skipped breakfast at home, saying I had to go work on a special project at school. Then I skipped lunch at school. Then every day at four, I came shakily through the back door and listened for Clarine. She should be in the basement, doing laundry. Everybody else should be out doing sports. The boys should be practicing football or basketball. Cabot should be riding or taking tennis lessons. Lucy should be skating. Mother should be coaching any number of them, because Mother was the all-round best athlete in the family.

I'd take off my shoes and carry them into the kitchen, careful not to alert Clarine. Then I made my daily pot of coffee. At first I didn't know how to make coffee. At first I put eight tablespoons of coffee grounds into the basket, and one cup of water into the pot. Next Assembly, I passed a note up to Mary Parker, asking if I could switch to tea. But then she wrote down how to make coffee the real way, with eight tablespoons of coffee and
eight
cups of water. If I wanted to, she turned around and whispered, I could throw in one for the pot. “One what?” I asked, plenty worried.

“Never mind.” She grinned. “Either way, it'll make your hair grow.”

So after I learned how to make coffee properly, I decided I even enjoyed it. I'd pour it into one of those mugs with the TV station call letters Dad was always bringing home because he was in advertising, sit at the breakfast room table and stare out the leaded windows into infinite space. I'd seen Mother and Clarine, both beautiful, do the exact same thing for years.

After my eight cups of coffee, it was time for my hand-rolled, pipe-tobacco cigar. I tiptoed from the kitchen to the library and and locked the door. Then I took an envelope from Mother's secretary and the tobacco pouch from Dad's desk. I cut off the flap of the envelope, then shaped that into a square. I folded the bottom of the square and sprinkled pipe tobacco into the crease. Then I rolled it and licked the gum on the envelope, ending up with a sort of huge, ecru cigar, sometimes with the words “Cranes” or “Tiffany & Company” engraved on the side. I slid this into the breast pocket of my uniform, slipped up the back stairs to my bathroom, opened the window, and lit up.

The beauty of it was, I was able to think so brilliantly. Four days into the experiment, I'd already found some very feasible answers to some of the very complex philosophical questions Mary Parker had posed to me. And I had my reading list to stimulate me further. Sartre. Nietzsche. Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, and others. Plus the poets. I read their great works in the bathroom, while smoking the ecru cigar.

After six days of experiment, I wasn't what you could call hungry, but I was what you could call high. I went through the paces at school, though often laughed inappropriately, cried inexplicably, and fell asleep at my desk uncontrollably. Then, as I lay awake at night, I felt my body feeding off itself, as Mary Parker had predicted it would, feeding from my heart, my mind. My will.

To avoid dinner at home, I claimed I had to go back to school to work on the special project. What I in fact did evenings was sneak around on the Rapid Transit to see movies two times with Mary Parker. We saw mostly old ones, at the revival house, but we saw new ones too, at the mall. We saw Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and many more.