CHAPTER FOUR

                                          After attending a Saturday movie matinee watching “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein”, young John was fascinated with hypnotism.  The movie intrigued him because it introduced into his mind the possibility of having some kind of control over events and perhaps even people in his life.  He felt shoved to the side, like an old shoe without a mate. No one listened to him or even cared how he thought or felt.  Watching Count Dracula in the movie control Lou Costello and the lovely actresses mesmerized John.  He watched as the count made people follow his commands as if they were his puppets without strings.  That’s what he wanted in his life, someone to know what he wanted and needed, especially if he could transmit his desires without talking, using only hypnotism. 

The next afternoon, he tore a coupon from the back of a pulp magazine and ordered himself a book entitled, “How To Hypnotize Women.”  Then he watched for the mailman to bring the book to his door and it took ten full days before it arrived.  When he actually felt the book in his hand and could look at it, he never seemed to have enough time to study it properly, but he did read the chapter headings, regularly.  And concentrated very hard on absorbing the technique of hypnotism through his pores, like osmosis or like inhaling an aroma.  He wanted to know how to hypnotize other people more than anything in the world.

At this stage in his young life, John’s father was rarely at home, and during the long interims when he was not there, the domestic situation became seriously dangerous for John.  At this time, he was living with his grandmother in her apartment, with an aunt, two brothers and his dad, in the rare times when the latter was there.  Two other aunts, his grandmother’s sisters, also lived under the same roof with their husbands, John’s uncles by marriage. 

It was one of these uncles that was a crazed alcoholic, with a repressed anger bursting outward the drunker he got.  He focused his violent resentment and fury on young John, instead of on his sister, John’s mother, for her imagined and suspected infringements.  He called John a communist because he liked to watch Soupy Sales, a popular local children’s TV show host.  He criticized everything John said and did, using every opportunity or creating imaginary misbehavior so he could self-righteously and indignantly beat John around his head until he was bloodied, while he screamed his mindless blather in John’s face.  None of it made any sense to John, and sometimes he wondered why he was considered so evil if he hadn’t done anything, at least nothing he could remember.
 
Later, during his own introspection and memory-lane visits, he realized he had reminded those people of everything they didn’t like in themselves.  John’s uncles had grown up in the McCarthy era during which governmental war-mongers promoted the threat and fear of communism which they said was all around us and enslaving us.  John, like most children, didn’t care one way or the other what a communist was or could do; all he knew was that they had said he was one.  This was an example of blind prejudice and a belief system running wild, totally off the tracks.

As John grew into his teen years, he became even more of a “loner.”  There were two outlets he enjoyed for his entertainment and one was a German Shepherd named Thunder whose main talent was loosing tremendous farts into the air and enjoying wrestling with his young master when they had enough privacy and time.  The other implement he utilized with great pleasure was an old Smith-Corona typewriter, which he loved as much as anyone can love a machine he had to operate himself.  He could sit for hours, poking the stiff keys with their ivory caps and black letters.  He watched in fascination as the innards of the miniature pipe organ shape sent up corresponding metal fingers that whacked the paper held captive on the black rubber roller and resulted in a printed letter, either lower or upper case, his choice.  To John, this was a marvel and he never tired of it.  His goal became to become a proficient typist, and from that launch pad, to be a writer, a serious writer. 

The old typewriter held him captive as he used the hunt and peck method, with a finger of each hand slapping at the keys, often causing a jam with the ribbon or with the metal arms inside the concave opening on the top but he kept on.  He wrote short stories, one after another that came out of nowhere.  He was amazed at the tales that leaked out of his mind and found their way on to the paper, through his precious machine.  He had discovered he loved to write and the more he wrote, the better a typist he became.

Not many people realize the phenomenon that is the New York state reservoir system, flowing over 110 miles south from Croton Falls into the city itself with natural pressure strong enough to move water up into the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan.  The famous fire that destroyed much of Chicago in 1871, when 300 poor souls were killed and over 100,000 were left homeless was due to lack of water pressure in the city.   Chicago’s water supply needed electricity to move it along and when the power was cut off, there was no water with which to fight the fire. 

There were over 13 lakes and reservoirs comprising the New York water system as their tributaries and rivulets intermingled and wove their life-giving way down to the city.  The Croton Falls reservoir was a favorite sport-fishing hole for the natives and a place John loved to fish with his father, which was a rare occurrence in itself.  On one of these memorable occasions, John was perched atop a large rocky outcropping near the edge of the water casting his line optimistically over and over, visualizing the “big one” he was going to catch for their supper.  Suddenly, under his buttocks, the earth seemed to be moving and his first thought was “earthquake.”  He could hardly get his breath enough to scream, “Dad!  Dad!  The. . .the earth is moving over here, it must be a quake. . .”  He dropped his casting rod and stood up carefully, almost afraid the earth would open up and swallow him whole and as he looked down, he saw his own worst nightmare.

He had been sitting on a nest of baby water snakes, just coming out of hibernation, squirming like the wriggly things they were.  His father laughed about his “snaky earthquake” for years and he never did enjoy fishing the reservoir as much as he had before that bright Sunday afternoon in early spring.  Besides, no one wanted to take him fishing again, as much as he loved it, so he used his mind to get away and read every outdoor magazine he could get his hands on.  He memorized Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Sports Afield, Boys’ Life, and many others.  One of the earliest shows on television was a sportsman show starring a man named Vernon Roscoe Gaddis, a pioneer in early sports’ television broadcasting.  He was called Gadabout Gaddis, the Flying Fisherman and he flew into living room television sets every week, the ultimate father figure for many little boys.  He was the epitome of caring gentleness compared to the tough-talking wise guys of the New York streets, who were an integral part of John’s daily life.  Every week he flew his Piper Cub float plane into the most remote and beautiful wilderness settings and John watched every frame and pixel, transfixed and spellbound.  He was awestruck and lived in his dream life from Saturday to Saturday, sitting only inches from the television screen so he wouldn’t miss a nuance of that week’s adventure.  During the week, John pounded away on his Smith-Corona, writing out the stories pouring from his memory of the show, accurate details of fishing for elusive native brook trout in tiny streams meandering quietly along the perimeters of sleepy farms, or secret techniques for catching monster catfish, or how to catch big bass in farm ponds.  He had an endless supply of exciting fishing adventures to relate, all stored in his sponge-like mind, all waiting to be typed out and relished as his own true life memory. 

One day, John felt extra confident and mailed some of his stories to the editors of the major fishing magazines.  One of them actually began publishing the stories and for a long time, he lived in fear of being caught in his life of lies and deceit.  And he trembled wondering what his terrible punishment would be.  He received many envelopes from the magazine but he didn’t open any of them, so afraid was he of being exposed as a fraud.  Every time another story was published, he had nightmares of being caught.

One day when he was 17, he did open a letter from the editor inviting him up to the magazine’s publishing office on Fifth Avenue.  He was very afraid but his curiosity won out and he put on his best dress shirt and tie, tightened his belt around his skinny frame and made his way to Fifth Avenue, almost lost in the teeming crowds of humanity.  He imagined the office of the editor would have all sorts of outdoor paraphernalia he had seen advertised in the fishing magazines and he was anxious to see any and all of it he could. 

As he sat and waited in an outer office, he stared at some fishing and hunting photos from the magazines old editions and there was nothing else for him to look at but the elderly woman who was the receptionist.  She hardly paid him any attention at all, and kept answering the telephone then forwarding the call to some remote person out of sight.  After a long wait, the door to the inner office opened and a stern-faced man wearing rimless glasses and a pin-striped suit, walked into the waiting room and glared at John.

“Where’s your dad, son?”

“Uh. . .why would you want my dad, sir?”

“We want to meet the author of all the fine fishing stories we’ve been reading over the years. . .”

“Uh. . .sir. . .my. . .my dad didn’t write those.  I did. . .”

“You?  Well, you certainly have a fine knowledge of fishing, young man!  Who taught you and who travels with you to these remote spots?”

John swallowed hard and took a deep breath.  “Sir, I’ve only been fishing once in my life, when my dad took me upstate to a reservoir to fish for sunfish and bass.”

“Then who actually wrote these stories?”  The man was incredulous.

“I did, sir.”

“But. . .but how do you know so much about fishing?”

“I read your magazine.”

“Well, then how come you never cashed any of the checks we sent you?”

“Ah, sir. . .I don’t have a bank account.”

The editor laughed until he almost cried and threw his arm around John’s shoulders, saying, “My other writers are not going to believe this.  Our top fisherman has only been fishing once!  Well, son, we can keep this secret under wraps, just between the two of us.  They’re good stories and that’s all that counts!” 

John smiled and agreed then was more than relieved when the editor took him to lunch, gave him a beautiful custom Orvis fishing rod and stuffed fifty dollars in his pocket before shaking his hand and telling him goodbye.  As John left the magazine’s office, he heard the editor speak to the receptionist.

“My wife is going to have a good laugh when I tell her this story over dinner!”

John walked to the nearest streetcar stop and didn’t stop grinning until long after he got home.  He was a bona fide published writer and proud as punch of himself.

Foreward | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3| Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6| Chapter 7