one my old humor pieces...very indigo...and i didnt know it ...11

                                                 PUMPKIN PATTY

                                                            OR

                                  CONFESSIONS OF AN EX-GENIUS

PROLOGUE

          While some people pretend to remember incidents of their infanthood, I have always had total recall, from the moment of conception till the present moment.  In one particular instant about 6 months after my conception, I remember thinking life was a series of accidents - mother had forgotten her pill and the TV was on the fritz-some you survive..I was also very impatient and the thought of being stuck here forever, in my mother's womb, as comfortable as it was, was depressing me to no end.  I had things to do, places to go, and I was still meditating on all the pressing matters that needed my attention, when I realized that I was being thrown out - evicted - born.  Of course, Tilly Eulenspiel, the Brunswick peasant from the 14th century, immediately came to mind-

"Mit diesen apparaten machen wirden damen dauerwellen; an jenen tischen werden sie manikurt and dort sind die waschbeken." Translated from old german into new english - "Life is long on taxes and short on breath."

From the beginning

          My mother Rory, of strong Irish stock and blest with her fair share of common-sense, decided with my father, a conservative, pinstriped, Wallstreet analyst, at 3 months of my conception, that I should attend the Red Riding Hood Kindergarten at 79th and First. The fact that I was put on the waiting list, didn't weaken their resolve in any way. They had good genes and to the best of their knowledge (father was from D.C.), there were no idiot skeletons lurking in either family closet.  All their family skeletons had a fair amount of intelligence. Morals didn't enter into their calculations; if there were a few pirates, rakes, whores, or horse thieves, they were at least intelligent, they were never caught.

          My mother, Rory missed her mother and after expensive long distance phone calls imploring her to come to New York for the special event, decided (against the better judgement of her sensible husband, her obstretician, Dr. Papupulolous, to go to Dublin.

          The following story is the story of an ex-genius. It will be a short bio so as not to lose those who are between commercial breaks, or who have the concentration span of a dried out fig-newton.  It may not be inspiring for all those ex-geniuses out there ,but it has to be better than "Eisenhower the Man" or "Life and Times of Mable Schmurtz" who died and lived in total obscurity, before electricity, at the turn of the century.  This biography was for some even more obscure reason translated into 9 languages, including Chi Chu, spoken by 23 people in the swamps of South Selat, Makasar who having no stop signs in their neighborhood never bothered to learn to read.

          I was born, April 12, 1951 -on  flight #32 - Aer Lingus, destination Dublin, on the wing Second Class. After only a few hours we were promoted to First Class.  When my mother's dilemma became known, the First Class immediately left the plane, not so much as to give the poor woman room, as to be elsewhere when this vulgar act was happening.  In those days, certain things were frowned on. They were of the firm conviction that my mother acted in very bad taste and that she was being extremely unreasonable. You are probably asking yourself (First Class no doubt) why they didn't just land the plane?  Well they couldn't see through the pea-soup fog that covered London and even though the pilot had literally flown through the war, he was Irish-catholic with 9 kids of his own and could not be aroused to an emergency level mode. He told the hysterical flight attendant to:

a)       Clear the area (unnecessary)

b)      Call for a doctor. Of the 82 remaining passengers on board, 15 were doctors, 23 veterinarians, 8 bookmakers, 6 horse trainers, 29 soccer players, and a Lebanese who needed a change of air.

c)       Call for a priest. There were 12 Catholic clergy and 5 pastors who looked at each other with unchristian sentiments -- those sentiments that have been interpreted as "undiluted hate" by people gifted with E.S.P.

d)       Call for a double-scotch, it was past lunch.

e)       "And take one yourself, Mary my girl! That's an order -You're driving me around the Bloody Bend!"

          If Freud, (God bless his sick, perverted "Id" ) were here, he would not only explain the ultimate consequence of genius and wanderlust, which afflicted me much later, from deep-rooted, neurotic, compulsive origin of cause and effect, but would have pointed out my obvious unresolved hostility towards my mother. This is not true, I was out in a matter of minutes and my mother was having a toddy with the pilot when they landed the plane. The fifteen minutes delay on the official estimated time of arrival was due to the pilot who was having trouble communicating with the tower.

          They baptised me in a short ceremony, after my grandmother Patricia, who still refused to come to visit. By the time, I was 4 months old, much like Orson Welles, I had been diagnosed as a "possible genius", by several eminent experts with long faces, bald pates, and Van Dyke goatees that gave them an air of geometrical abstraction - a modern painting, of three black interrogation lines standing solemnly on white canvas, and hanging over the crib like a "Frank Stella" suspended in a sterile void of the nursery.

          I could say Mama and Dada in 48 languages; some as ancient as the crocodile (Pampayuwawa), the cockroaches of  New York - (Hittite), and the hairdresser on Spring Street (Hieroglyph).  Again much like Orson Welles, my head was bigger than my body. This did not worry them. They were sure that like Orson, I would somehow outgrow it.  I didn't however and to the consternation of all, it grew as my body grew.  It didn't bother me too much.  I admit there were times it was a pain in the neck. I then had to carry it around, under my arm, like a medicine ball, and of course, it was totally inadaptable to coordinated sports.  But I was a happy baby.  For a genius, I was very good-natured, and more surprising still, for a genius, I liked people.

          By the time I was 8 months old, I began giving seminars in my nursery, (Saturdays and Wednesdays - free admission) for learned men from all over the world, who came "en masse," tearing each other apart to be first on line.  A lot were unfortunately skeptics, who came only to discredit me.  A lot were curious. Some were looking for answers to their intellectual quests, some to solve their familial, conjugal problems and a few for someone sympathetic to talk to.

          As usual some of them were smart and asked questions that were interesting, others were barbarically and unequivocally stupid.  For these, I would adopt a Buddha position and stare blankly at my toe nails and suck on my pacifier till they left. They would inevitably call me a fake, an idiot and walk out angry or smug. All in all, however, I liked meeting new people but it grew wearisome when they didn't understand that I required 16 hours sleep and 8 feedings daily or I grew cranky.

          Some of my eminent visitors:

          Dr. Vedakates (Professor of Physics in Finland) - Nobel Prize, a handsome Nordic, with only one obsession - time "Patricia," glancing furtively at his Bulova watch, and heaving a sigh across the nursery that ricocheted off a stuffed giraffe before landing on an orangutan - "tell me; what do you see for the equilibrium of the quantum mechanics in structured time and space?"

          "Yes, I read that last month in the "Lancet," but Doctor you shouldn't under-estimate the unquantified power in the dormant "stucks" in your equation. If they were awake they won't do you any good."

          Doctor Vedekates, watching her intensely, said to himself, she is brilliant, no doubt about it, but with that head, who will marry the poor girl?

          Chin Chang Ling, Professor of Ancient History not so ancient, "Oh so ugwy, we drown her, but oh so smart."

          Dr. Livingston IV, who had just returned from Egypt where with the assistance of his friend of the family's Stanley IV, an archeologist, dug up some Sumerian's monthly trash in the middle of someone's weekly tennis game, at the Cairo English Club. "This Patricia is rather rummy, what not?  Wished the deuce I had discovered her, what?" David, who was an anthropologist, commented after serious reflection and after refilling his Wodely pipe with Country Squire, "Yees, old bean, quite a shocker, what? I said, I say, a bally leap for mankind, hey old thing?"  To anthropologists who are used to subterranean levels of intelligence anything is a leap.

          Institutions from all over the world, had installed special equipment to measure my every movement, my thought patterns, and my mental abilities. My parents were thrilled I was a genius.  They enrolled me into Waldo III, a school for the specially gifted children, that I outgrew within the month. The courses exceeded the norm:

Example of first semester curriculum

-        Space Travel Continuum and the Most Economical Ways of Applying it.

-        Transcendent Philosophical Evolution - Re-Evaluation of Life and the Cheapest Way to Live It.

-        The Re-Molecular Re-Structuring and Zapped Into the 9th Dimension/Or the Bermuda Triangle and the Most Economical Way to Dematerialize.

          After a few weeks however, I was teaching the courses to the professors and re-vamping the curriculum, to a new, improved method of high assimilation, when they realized that Waldo III was stunting my growth, and decided unanimously to kick me out. The government felt that it would be in everyone's interest if I from that point on, taught myself.

          My favorite place then became, after the kitchen, the micro-film projector room. In no time at all, I had digested every library on the planet, from the Mid-Manhattan to the 22,000 clay tablets of King Asurbabipals (701-500 B.C.), losing my eyesight in the process. My appetite was insatiable.  I blurped and burped my way through Diderot's Age of Reasoning, Plato's Treatise on Epistemology, Ontology and Logic; Diaries of the 750 wives of Solomon wherein his absence was recorded faithfully; Maps and Strategical Warfare by Hannibal, Napoleon, Ghenghis Khan and Rambo: Egyptian scrolls covered in Mesopotamian dust, Sades inventions of tortures; scripts, tablets, fiches, anything I could lay my hot little hands on.

          Needless to say, by the time I was 9 months old, indifferent to all these incidents, I was totally kinetic, making not only diaper rash a thing of the past, but also scraped elbows and carpet burned knees. I also could fly. I would fly from the library to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the crib. Mother was ecstatic. "Patty could fly before she crawled. Not only is she brilliant, but beautiful."  Of course, no one had the heart to tell her the blinding truth. "Darling, where did you put my camera? I want to take pictures of Patty landing in the crib."  The fact that my head was bigger than Kodak 35 millimeter print, did not discourage her in the least. She kept a running catalogue of me burping, drooling, sleeping, flying and smiling with celebrities. To my profound embarrassment, these pictures lined the walls of the house.  My mother's favorite was my picture with Kissinger. Mine was the one with Bedriah Shihk, sitting on a bed of nails, for he definitely looked more confused than me. My father thought "I am glad the kid is smart..no college tuition..but who will marry her?"

          Before the year was out, 2 kidnap attempts had been attempted. One by the "Croatian Goat Cheese Factory Workers Liberation for Weekends Group" and the other - notorious "Calabrian Sheep Herders Union for Freedom from Poverty." This was serious. Who knows whose hands I could have fallen into.  The government though now worried about my welfare, was in the middle of another tedious and costly Presidential investigation..things moved rather slowly.

          One day, while teething on the S.E.M. Compactor Stabilizer embedded in the instrument panel in my nursery, it came to me like a deja-vu, the doubtful gift of telepathy, which I called "mind read."

          Being unaware of this development and preoccupied by yet another kidnap attempt, the government thought it wise to put me under wraps. Within a matter of days, they relocated the entire family to where they could keep an "eye on me." The heart of Mount Rushmore. 10,000 feet under.  The secret bunker of the president in case of Nuclear Conflagration. I was told that of the 10 throughout the country, this was by far, the largest and most complete.  The scientists, security, and nutritionist/best friend, Anita, moved with us to continue their experiments and studies. My parents took it as would a Hindu from Calcutta - fatalistically.  They were allowed to visit me weekends and all 7 American holidays.  to occupy their time in the meanwhile, they were given free rein of the facilities.

          Mount Rushmore's installation was dug out in the shape of a garage in a shopping mall. It was approximately, with its 22 floors, the size of Luxembourg, Albania, Lower Bohemia, Transylvania, or New Jersey. It measured about 200,000 square feet, terminating just over Lincoln's worried punk hair into a peak of 2,000 square feet. My parents drove everywhere. I wasn't allowed to circulate without my chauffeur, Johnny Rising Sun who was half Cherokee and half American. His only vice was gambling. He took this job to cure himself, but when he wanted to bet on the weather, I knew it was a relatively harmless pastime and we made it a daily affair. The fact that he would invariably win, hardened my conviction that he cheated. It was only later that I found out that his father was "Running Rain" and his mother, a psychic on the Beverly Hills Police Department payroll. I did point out these unfair advantages, but he only laughed and then pointed out my peculiarities.

          The government in order to justify the costs, wrote up a report on my possible potentials, "We believe that with the proper cosmetic surgery (the doctors stumped on this one, entertained several surgical procedures such as "Dr. Viking Lapland's, famous for his exhaustive studies in Borneo, "Cut off the head and plunk it on another body" which was later rejected for lack of Caucasian donor) and with the right amount of programming, we could use her in a myriad of ways. She could be perfectly sensational agent. Just think what she could do for us at the next Nuclear Disarmament Summit? What she could do in Las Vegas/Monte Carlo?"

          While all this was going on, I was becoming more and more depressed. Nobody had realized to what point I had been traumatized by Mind-Read, simply because no one knew.

          They consulted my private Austrian psychiatrist, Dr. Kleinstaad, the living portrait of Toulouse Lautrec.  He was famous for his consistent lack of humor, and his treaties "The Psychosis for the Japanese to Copy Everything They See."  His diagnosis was "Inherent in genius and knowledge of the world in all its aspects, is sadness, sorrow and eventually an overwhelming desire to commit suicide.  This is a normal stage of her development.  She vill get over it."  But she, I mean me, did not get over it.  By the end of the week, I had lost 2 pounds.  This was bad for Dr. Kleinstaad's record.  He went over the data again and again until he stumbled upon the answer.  He was surprised.  When he realized that I could read thoughts, his thoughts, Kleinstaad resigned.  As the news spread, the ranks thinned out dramatically.  Only a few from the original team stayed.  The ones who didn't care what I thought.  My nickname "Pumpkin Patty" came through their thoughts for the first time.  My parents were not exempt.  Mommy, "If only Patty wasn't so smart.  Who will marry her?" Daddy, "Maybe she isn't mine?"  Anita, the friend/nutritionist, "Esta hija, pobrecita, is too wierd for this world."

          I know some people thought I was leading a Cinderella life, but I hated closed spaces, and though the government did all that was in their power to make me happy, I was an ingrate.  I wanted out.  Mount Rushmore, a presidential refuge had an unhealthy, suffocating ambiance of paranoia.  People who worked here waited their whole lives for the BIG BOOM that would put an end to the 'Coca Cola Wars,' cockroaches in New York and dictators in South America.  I was elaborating an acceptably painless suicide, when I suddenly flashed on the theory of Demolecularization!

          With a little practice, I could re-arrange my molecular structure, leaving behind a perfect projected facsimile of myself for the scientists to argue with.  Only Johnny was onto my secret.  I was thrilled. I would go through the mountain at night and fly about the countryside.  At first, I visited the immediate environs and little by little I began visiting other countries just by thinking about them.  For nearly 8 years, I wandered the entire planet.  I visited places that are not even on the map; I went up the Amazons, down the Nile, around the city of Paris, through the canals of Venice, in the caves of the Auvergne, under the Catacombs of Rome, over the wall of China.

          I also went to "Special Events" around the world: Carnaval in Rio, Wine Tasting in Languedoc, Skiing trips in Val d'Isere, Polo Cup in Abu Dabai, Elections in Turkey, Gran Prix in Monaco.

          I tried to do it for longer and longer periods, but my projection was not good at entertaining difficult scholars when I was gone.  It became increasingly difficult until I decided to divide the molecules in two separate entities (cellular memory and de-densification), so I could be both places, but this cut the enjoyment in half and of course, I couldn't go as far as long.  This nearly killed me!

          It was on one of these flights of re-entry, my Mount Rushmore entity was discussing a fascinating new theory with Professor Blieburgo and so engrossing was the problem that I missed my timing of re-solidification and split my head wide open against the poker face of George Washington.  My Mount Rushmore self faded away on impact and the scientists alerted security.  It wasn't long before they found me slapped against George's cheek.

          They put me on Airforce One and flew me to Boston Memorial where Dr. Bill Bones Jr., the best neuro-surgeon with a team of 12 specialists, operated on me for over 23 hours.

          March 3, 11:15 a.m. - "I awoke feeling strange, a little out of space, time, focus.  A pretty woman in white, leaned over me and said something.  What is she saying?  I want my mommy."

          When I came out of my coma, two years later, it was the opinion of the eminent doctors that I would be "possibly retarded" and that my nickname Pumpkin, as a vegetable, would be more appropriate than ever, despite the fact that my head since the accident had stopped growing.

          The bad news was given my parents.  They were thrilled.  The government stamped "officially deceased" on my file and pulled out all the grants, equipment and interest that had been gathering dust in the last few years, waiting for me.  I returned to the nursery with a herd of flying pink elephants and blue hippopotamus painted on the walls, and peopled with stuffed toys of every denomination of the animal kingdom.  It was the old neighborhood.  They accepted the new me without question.  Though I was 15, I was mentally 3.  I was never happier.

          My mother who had kept a scrapbook of all photos and news clippings: London Times, Chicago Times, La Vanguardia, Zeitung Berliner, the Desert Rumor, Ashahi Shimbun, Il Corriere de la Sera, Le Monde, The Indian Express, Washington Post, Tibetan Karma, the Weekly Scalamonger and Bad News International, that she sent to friends and enemies alike, excerpted this from my first interview after the accident.  It was covered by the only reporter who was interested.  A Cub Reporter from Pascack Valley High School in New Jersey.  This was his first interview.  I was no longer interested in news and had to be bribed with a Big Mac, Big Fries, Cherry Pie, and a Chocolate Milkshake, before spilling the beans.

Cub Reporter: "Tell me Pumpkin...how do you feel about being retarded?" (Although a little green, he shows potential). 

Pumpkin: By now between the fries and the cherry pie.."I really hadn't given it much thought, but I guess I couldn't be happier about the change..since everyone leaves me alone, and no more ugly thoughts."  (Translated from baby talk by the Cub Reporter's sister Suzy), who easier to please, had settled for the chicken-Mc-Nuggets, small fries, frosty freeze with nuts drowning in caramel sauce.

Flashback

          Jenny, Patty's aunt, visiting for the first time with husband Boris, who owned a hardware store in Brooklyn (Rory, showing them with motherly pride her new creation), said to her husband, Boris.  "Boris..WOULD YOU JUST LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL BABY!!"  (To herself "I  have never in my long life seen anything this UGLY!  Uglier than the wrath of God.  And Jenny, being a God-fearing woman, crossed herself three times, and being a superstitious woman, once for good measure.  Boris, with an expression of fear mixed in with disgust on his face, leaning away from the crib, with one foot out the door, said, not without imagination and profound feeling that "there for the grace of God go I.  "I..oh yes, uh, isn't she a living DOLL OR WHAT? (What is right...Dog Meat! Rory should never have flown TWA).

          At 17, I fell on my head in the kitchen, while reaching for my barbie doll, I had left after dinner.  I then knew things I knew I had known.  Images of things past flooded through my head, bringing sadness.  I became what was diagnosed by the same doctors who had diagnosed me "possibly genius," "possibly vegetable," as "possibly normal."  As such, I started leading a normal life, attending High School (the teachers complained of day dreaming.  I wasn't about to give up my traveling, even if it was stationery), and wishing for normal things.  Boys.  Black leather Mini to go with my Mad Max top.  Straighter teeth.  Green eyes instead of camel dung brown.  My parents however, worn out by all the excitement and changes and longing for some kind of continuity in their lives, joined the Peta Tiqwa Kibbutz, leaving my raising to Jenny and Boris.  They needed an heir for their hardware store in Flatbush, I could tell they would have preferred a boy - but what the hey...

          At 19, for the obvious reasons, I married the boy next door.  Hank.  His parents owned a travel agency and Hank had a crazy sense of humor.

          It wasn't long before Hank and I were blessed with a baby boy, Johnny, whom I named after Johnny Rising Sun.

          At 5 weeks, Johnny could tell you what was on any TV channel in the city, in any country, at any given time around the world.

          At 6 weeks, I took Johnny up a Poplar tree in the Park and dropped him on his head...

THE END????