Mark Dunn - Ibid - A Life

30. “Dear Mr. Blashette Stop Regret to tell you my brother Andrew Bloor passed away last night Stop”Evetta Paton’s telegram is preserved in Jonathan’s papers. It is slightly crimped and discolored on the right edge where it had apparently met with some form of moisture.

31. It was a deep depression lubricated by great quantities of alcohol.Alvira Paine, The Last Days of Pompous: Twelve Stories of the Famous and their Final Season (Charleston, West Virginia: Royce Press, 1970), 190–222.

32. “Uriah, my good man, there is something terribly wrong with these shoes.”Author’s interview with Zachary Hensley. The very inebriated Jonathan simply hadn’t the wherewithal to remove the shoe trees from within.

33. The nightmares did not recede for several weeks.Jonathan’s sleep was often disturbed by images of Bloor’s funeral in Omaha and attended by feelings of enormous guilt. No doubt, Jonathan was plagued by worry that the harsh words he delivered to his friend and mentor might have contributed to his death. During this period, perhaps for subconscious diversion, Jonathan also dreamed that he was being pursued by disembodied lobster chelae. In another dream he was called upon to address an annual stockholders meeting wearing only ruffled rumba pants. Jonathan’s Diary, various entries.

34. “ You’ll be Abishag to this David.”Alvira Paine, The Last Days of Pompous , 190–222. Wishes for comity between the two never materialized. Cloretta Connell withdrew her services to Jonathan three full weeks before Uriah was to return to resume his duties as Jonathan’s manservant. Jonathan, who wasn’t happy with even a temporary loss of his trusted man Uriah, went out of his way to make the young nurse and companion feel uncomfortable and unappreciated in her duties, putting to active use the ubiquitous drool cup, and on at least one occasion staging his drowning death in the koi pond. Such shenanigans were not at all in keeping with Jonathan’s usual gentle and sensitive nature. Unfortunately, many of his last months were spent in broken spirits, often rising to heavy frustration and anger. God and fate were the usual objects of his bitterness and rage; but on occasion, a young nurse, pizza delivery boy, supermarket sacker, or his own son might find themselves inadvertent victims of Jonathan’s contempt for youth and its taunting promise.

35. And then, suddenly the clouds lifted.The complete diary entry follows. This is the last time Jonathan would put down his thoughts here. Though he lived for another three months, he was never to pick up the book again.

May 2, 1962

Today I met a little boy named Robbie. He knocked on my door. Uriah was going to send him away, but I heard his wee voice and thought he was a little Brownie selling Girl Scout Thin Mints. Oh how I love Thin Mints. “It isn’t a Brownie with Thin Mints, Mr. Blashette,” said Uriah. ”It’s a boy. He says his name is Robbie. He would like to speak with you.”

I asked Uriah to bring the boy into the living room. My legs were covered with a lap blanket. I was still fighting the cold that had arrived on Monday and I was, at the moment, slightly chilled. “Have a seat, young man. What can I do for you?”

Robbie sat down and immediately began to squirm as boys his age will do, especially when they set their eyes on bowls full of M & M’s. I nodded for little Robbie to take a handful and he dug in. “I used to have a little boy like you,” I said.

“What happened to him?” Robbie asked.

“He grew up to be a man. He now runs a very big company. Now, how can I be of service?”

“My teacher sent me here,” Robbie answered, his mouth oozing the chocolate brown of the half-masticated candies. “She said you could help me with my composition. I have to have it finished by Friday.”

“She thought I could help you? What is your theme about?”

“I had a funny idea. Are you a funny man? Maybe she thought you were funny and you could give me funny ideas I can put in it.”

“I haven’t been feeling all that funny lately, son. Uriah, do you think I’ve been very funny lately?”

“No, sir. Not for some time.”

Robbie was eyeing those M&M’s again. I picked up the bowl and set it in his lap. “So what is the idea?”

“I wanted to write a story about a boy who joins the circus. There is a very special thing about him. He has three legs.”

I shooed Uriah away, afraid that he might divulge an important fact that I had no desire at that moment to convey to the boy. Then I leaned forward, feigning intense interest in this most amazing anatomical phenomenon. “Three legs! My, oh my. Now, young Robbie, why did you decide to give this boy three legs?”

Robbie shoveled another handful of M&M’s into his chocolate-daubed mouth and replied, “My grandfather told me about a boy he knew who had three legs and he went to the circus and later he became a great man.”

“A great man? Hmm. What did he do that made him so great?”

“He helped Granddaddy not be so afraid of squirrels. I think that my grandfather now knows more about squirrels that any man alive.”

“And that makes this three-legged man a great man?”

“Granddaddy says he helped other people, too, this man. He spent his whole life helping people. My grandfather says that third leg — that’s where his heart is.”

Uriah dropped something in the dining room that made a loud crashing sound — a sound very near the door to living room. Uriah had apparently been eavesdropping. He’d rib me about this statement for the next month, I was sure of it.

I looked the boy squarely in the eye and said, “And that’s why you want to write about this man?”

Robbie nodded. “Do you think you can help me?”

“I just might be able to.”

“Why do you think my teacher Miss Lyttle sent me here to see you?”

“Probably because I used to know that man, too. Used to know him very well, in fact.”

Robbie set the M&M’s aside. The thing about their not melting in the hands isn’t entirely accurate. I called for Uriah to bring the boy a napkin.

“Did you know my grandfather, too?”

I nodded.

“What was he like — when he was young?”

“I’ll make a deal with you, Robbie. I’ll tell you everything you want to know about your grandfather as a young man. But do this for me: don’t write a story about a three-legged man. Write one about your grandfather. He was a fascinating man. He was a good man. I’ve known a lot of wonderful people in my life — people whose stories hardly ever get told. His is the story you ought to tell.”

I convinced Robbie. I also convinced myself of something: that there is no one great man. Only millions of men and women in possession of tiny pieces of greatness, which when put together, when assembled in the aggregate make the whole. I am a piece of a very large jigsaw puzzle. One of the corner pieces. The one you go for first — important for a time, different from most of the others. But then, in the end, in the big picture, just one of many. Maybe this is what had been percolating in the back of Bloor’s mind all those years. All that wondering over how I was to fit in. How I was to contribute in a big way to that something bigger than myself. I wished that I could write to him and tell him what I now knew :

“Dear Professor Bloor,

It should interest you to know :