I am not saying I ever wanted to wear a top hat, although there is a black Stetson in my bedroom waiting for the day when I am in good enough shape to wear it and not feel silly. There is no more ridiculous character in a Western than the paunchy coward dressed up as a sheriff or a top-class outlaw. Despite my knowledge that appearances are a distraction from character, I wouldn’t mind being considered handsome. That is, a pleasant distraction for some people. As a child, I couldn’t understand the concept of vanity. A story like Snow White fell absolutely dead on me, except for the scenes where the dwarves mined and the evil queen cast spells. It wasn’t until puberty that I perceived the benefits of a nice face. When I wrote “a story” two sentences ago, I of course meant the Disney movie. I am not so precocious as to have read any of the written versions until I was a teenager. I have now read a good amount of the canon, not out of reverence so much as to know if it lived up to the grotesquery I heard. If I learn that a work of art I admire was inspired by another, my attention gets fixed on this older reference like a magnetic pole. I am not always more impressed by the thing that comes before. Like looks, history can psych you into expecting something more enlightened or barbaric than you are going to get. The first author whose stories I collected was H.P. Lovecraft, and he is a fine example of how a human being can be remarkably forward thinking and cartoonishly racist, to the point that you wonder how smartness and stupidity don’t cancel each other out and leave the man a vegetable. As if to embarrass me from beyond the grave, he made one of my favorite stories “The Rats in the Walls” with a cat named after his real-life Ragdoll. Either you have heard the name, or you will look it up now. Pardon me if you happen to be drinking water at the time. If you offer me some liquid courage first, I am sure I could explain the virtues of the story to you, even if it is deranged, paranoid, bigoted trash. Or I’ll see the look on your face and pull my hat down to hide my shame.
75
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator