The following creative example is in response to PART TWO of Bernays' and Painter's (1990) exercise titled An Early Memory: The Reminiscent Narrator.
In PART ONE of the exercise, B&P challenge writers to recollect and recast the event on the page via the perceptions and emotional tones appropriate for a child. As a result, B&P argue that writers will run less of a chance of intentionally influencing reader's perceptions of what is written, and simply report the basic "facts" of the memory instead. In PART TWO of this exercise, however, B&P challenge writers to re-color the same event, but this time through perceptions and emotional tones appropriate for an adult. As a result, the objective of this exercise is two-fold:
1.) explore the underlying "meaning" of the memory that writers simply "reported on" in PART ONE, and
2.) do so by recasting/recoloring the memory in a perspective, point of view, and overall emotional tone appropriate for an adult.
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The Neighbor's Moat
Impulse control, as I’ve heard some psychologists call it, has never been one of my strong suits. When the feeling of not knowing makes my skin crawl, I do not have the control to push it aside and focus even for a second on the other things in my life that I desperately should do, or desperately need doing. In comparison to the mountains of fly-infested dishes piling gradually higher in the sink, to fixing the relationships corroding in the acid bath of my decisions, I cannot or will not tolerate being so uncomfortable in my own skin.
When I was seven years old, I received the first glimpse I can recall of what I am capable of when confronted with the impossibility of not knowing. As I kicked a favorite soccer ball back and forth in the open lane of grass separating the reclusive neighbor’s house from my childhood home, I noticed that some sort of construction was taking place in the adjoining back yard – the majority of grass had been completely removed, and a deep, freshly-dug, moat-like trench lined the rear of the house. Propelled by my impulse via the guise of accidentally kicking my soccer ball closer and closer to the curious scene, the ball suddenly vanished from my sight, followed by a quite, yet noticeable, splash. As I peered into where the ball had disappeared, I noticed that the trench was filled with a rather high volume of water, most likely from the combination of the intense rain we’ve been having that summer, as well as the contractor’s inability to understand the concept of adequate drainage.
The trench wasn’t just moat-like, but a real moat in every way that I could logically discern. Like a real moat surrounding a castle, this moat-like trench surrounded a structure that could need guarding if the owners wished. Like a real moat surrounding a castle, this moat-like trench was deep and filled with dangerous looking water, deep enough and watery enough that it could trap an intruder for later judgment. But, I could not figure out if it was indeed a real, honest-to-God moat, or a fake moat-like substitute. Because I have never seen a real moat, I was worried that my comparative criteria were flawed, and I decided to test my hypothesis further. If it was a real moat, a real intruder would indeed become hopelessly trapped, I concluded.
Having devised a reliable experiment, I began to brainstorm possible subjects, focusing on my younger friend and adjacent neighbor Kevin, who I thought best fit the profile – like me, he couldn’t resist a construction site. But unlike me, he wouldn’t be calculated enough to immediately perceive my designs for him.
Kicking the ball briskly through my yard to Kevin’s, I did my best to look like a normal child at play. But, my twists and turn did not even carry me half way through the yard until I was intercepted by my mother shaking out the foyer rug on the front steps, and placed under the lens of her scrutiny.
“Why are you so dirty?” she immediately demanded, noticing the physical most indications of my plot.
“Just playing,” I returned, doing the best to focus my attention on clumsily dribbling the ball at my feet than her eyes carefully assessing me. “Can I go over to Kevin’s?”
“You look like you are up to no good,” she turned over over in her mind. As she continued shaking out the rug, the increasing cloud of dust, dead skin cells, and dog hair masked any potentially remaining tells. Finally, her struggle with the rug had won her immediate attention, and she sent me on my way with nothing more than a warning to not get my clothes any dirtier than they already were.
Kevin’s dad answered the door, and I asked if Kevin could come out and play. Flying out of the front door, Kevin stole the ball at my feet, and I engaged him in this play to keep up appearances.
“Hey, you wanna see something really, really cool?” I asked after quickly growing tired of our game of cat and mouse.
“What is it?”
“I found a giant hole in their backyard that looks like a moat.”
“Like a castle?”
My heart raced so suddenly at the quick progression of my experiment that I found it nearly impossible to speak. But this was a different type of racing heart than getting yelled at for getting my clothes too dirty, or running from the adjacent neighbor’s German Sheppard that we shot it with the hose. This was the first taste of the racing heart that now runs me.
“Just like a castle,” I managed to choke.
I reenacted my initial surprise and curiosity at discovering the neighbor’s construction site, and Kevin continued to fall hook, line, and sinker, just as my father would say after returning home with the latest piece of electronics that he didn’t really need. After allowing Kevin several victories in king of the hill atop the construction site’s small, scattered piles of dirt, all conditions but one were in place to initiate my the final stage of my experiment – Kevin was still much too far away from the edge of the moat-like trench.
As fate seemed to have it, Kevin had a stronger kick than he expected, and the soccer ball plummeted into the watery chasm of the moat-like trench following a final victory kick. As he leaned over the moat-like trench to recover the results of his miscalculated contact with the ball, the final condition of my experiment fell into place. As if out of instinct, my impulse immediately reacted, and the accelerating momentum of my seven-year-old form sent Kevin falling head first into the watery prison bellow, his screams to my back as I retreated to assess the outcomes of my experiment.
From a secure vantage point behind the utility shed in our backyard, I could hear Kevin’s cries bellow hopelessly from the moat-like trench. Although I could see an occasional hand desperately brush the rim of what was once merely a moat-like trench, Kevin was not exiting the hold of the honest-to-God moat under his own power. As Kevin’s mud-covered hands continued to rake back and forth across the edge of the now-confirmed moat, the sheer joy of knowing surged through me, my impulse tearing my body from the safety of the utility shed and sending it running and skipping around the backyard. If anyone was watching me, they would have seen the normalist, happiest child in all of Oakdale.
As I tumbled and zigzagged my way home, my mother was already lying in wait for me in the open threshold of the front door, hands on her hips, telephone in hand, my father standing slightly behind her with arms sternly crossed on the now dust, skin, and dog hair-free foyer rug.
“Kevin’s father is on the phone,” she yelled frantically at me as I approached. “Did you push Kevin into that hole in the neighbor’s backyard?”
“Yes.”
“Why on earth did you do that?” She was begging now, completely bewildered by such a guilt-free affirmation to such a dreadful question.
As I excitedly explained that Kevin helped me to test if the moat-like trench in the neighbor’s backyard was indeed a real moat (and that it had passed the test wonderfully), she rudely interrupted, simultaneously informing me that I was not allowed to play with Kevin anymore because I hurt him so terribly, and apologizing to Kevin’s father for my behavior.
Uncomfortably shifting his position on the foyer rug, my father asked me a question that I have pondered in various tenses and terms ever since the day I discovered the neighbor’s moat –
“Was it worth it, son?”
More than you or anyone else can possibly imagine.
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