Young James Joyce Punk-Rocked My Teenage World
How a 1904 "Fuck-You" pose came to quiet my high school bullies
Thundrundunduruntunderrunthunk.
Returned books, once stacked, crashed as an avalanche, sliding off the book cart onto the library floor, cracking the ovum of silence. Thin books spread and made an island around my feet while some heavier books landed on their spines, splitting open like bird wings. The librarians at the front desk looked on.
“Are you okay?”
“Yup”, I said, sheepishly picking up a book and returning it onto the cart.1
641.5 - Cooking - Soups
A cookbook. Thunk.
One book sorted on the cart, to be placed in order by Dewey Decimal number.
At 4:30pm, I would be at the public library, after school attending my job as a library page. I would be corralled in by brown book carts with precarious unordered piles of returned books, jutting upward like horns. The mission was simple. My job was to sort and order the books on the book carts and then return them to their proper place on the library shelves.
939 - World History - The Destruction of Carthage
To the right. Thunk.
Another book sorted.
Before venturing out into the stacks, you had to sit and order the books in their carts first. This would be my time to reflect. It had been a few months walking through empty high school hallways alone, working in silent libraries, immersing myself in my dreams among stacks of books, and discovering those looming moments when I could scribble down my fuzzy thoughts in a lined notebook.
God knows, I wasn’t happy.
641.5 - Cooking - Stews
Another cookbook. To the left. Thunk. Done.
The taunts started slowly, a creeping swell over time into a tsunami of rumination. A few months back, my friends started to call me Monkey, punctuating their presence with stupid “ooh-ooh-aah-aah” whoops. They renamed me and I was left scrambling to understand why.
Certainly my parents were different from their parents, from looks to culture to disposition. I had a different last name to them. I grew up in a big city in Ontario, and they grew up in a small Canadian Prairie town. All my family lived in the suburbs in the East, and all their relatives lived here in the West. I was different and I felt angry and ashamed about where I came from. I would bristle, sitting amongst this ‘cool-kid’ group on hallway benches, saying nothing because I just wanted to belong.
When they got bored teasing me they’d sweep their gaze among the bustling students who would be on their way to their next class. They would narrow their eyes and lock onto other kids whom they had terrorized since elementary school.
939 - World History - World War II
Picture book. To the right. Thunk.
Almost everyday, they would target Leo. They would call him an alien, because I guess he looked different or always wore the same clothes or had a strange-looking hair cut. I would see him shuffling by, gritting his teeth flat, moving past the gauntlet as fast as he could. And I would feel so bad because I would just sit there with these ‘friends’ hurling insults. And I would be doing nothing, saying nothing to draw attention to me.
I would catch up to Leo later to soothe my own feelings of guilt. So we’d talk about the classes we were in, maybe talk about the homework we needed to do, skirting around the obvious unpleasantness he experienced earlier that day or that week. He seemed happy to chat with me though, probably because no one actually talked to him.
523.88 - Science - Black holes.
In the middle. Thunk.
“Where have you been?” Byron asked in low tones. Although Byron still sat with the ‘cool-kids’, I noticed he seemed suspiciously absent whenever the group worked themselves into a name calling frenzy.
“Nowhere”. I replied.
I didn’t want to tell him that I dumped them all. I couldn’t tell him how much I detested their bullying. They were so freakin’ boring and dumb. I felt like I was kicked into a ditch, unworthy to amble on the same path as they did. I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him about the private covenant I made to myself to walk along those ditches, to make them my new side streets by choice, anything just as long it was something different. I couldn’t tell Byron that they were using him too and one day – they might turn on him as well.
I couldn’t say anything. So I turned and walked away.
292.13 - Greek Mythology.
To the left. Thunk.
Sometimes I would notice new or interesting books in the unsorted piles. I would gather these books into the crook of my arm and then deliver them to the display book shelf by the front desk. Most things displayed on this shelf would be snatched by patrons within days, perhaps within hours. I would see most books appear and then disappear. Then it would reappear again alongside new books which would be added into general circulation.
But I noticed one book that appeared to stay in one spot on the display shelf and didn’t move. For weeks.
I would stare at this book cover, an old early 1900s black and white photo of a mercurial young man in wool trousers, waist coat and wool flat cap, head tilted, hands in pockets, his shoulders square and front facing. It was as if this youth stepped outside the cover, occupying the shelf space with this “Fuck-You” pose, conveying more charm and mischievousness than braggadocio.2
I recognized the author’s name since he was listed in our recommended short story reading list for English class. His name was James Joyce. And the book on the shelf was “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”.
Perhaps it was his gaze, beckoning through the decades and beyond. Or perhaps it was his giant reputation mostly earned posthumously as a writer. Or maybe I had a bad day at school and I needed to escape. Or maybe it was just the silence I felt everywhere back then, and I needed to connect with anyone, even someone who had lived in 1904 who later would remember those summer moments through the imagined eyes of a character named Stephen Dedalus.
Something compelled me to reach for it. To crack it open. Hungry for a map so I could mark up the margins and point the sails of my questions, billowed and filled with the winds of inspiration, to home… wherever that was…
A year and a half later, at the Davy Byrnes Pub in Dublin with my backpack at my feet and my first Guinness ever in hand, I scried through the thick deep brown liquor, wondering what or who pulled me there, looking through for some ghostly affirmation, a secret alphabet emerging between reality and story to introduce a new opening that began as…
Once upon a time, there was…
Thunk.
As a teen, what did I carry back then?
Special thanks to
(The Pipe Writer). I appreciate your attention and excellent feedback - a tip of my flat cap to you, Simon. And thanks to my Writehearted Peeps, , , , , I appreciate your feedback!
Sometimes a beginning begins with a fall. See the book that I will never read past the third paragraph, Finnegan’s Wake (p.3),
Hugh Campbell put together an excellent article about the famous photo of Young Joyce taken in 1904 Dublin by his University classmate, C.P. Curran. Check it out.
This is one of the most innovative story presentation ideas I can remember ever reading. I loved standing there with you, sorting books, while your story unfolded. I'm inspired by the creativity and uniqueness of this approach Mark.
Mark, the whole piece worked. Congratulations! This one passage stood out for me - and if I had to guess, it came straight from your muse and you captured it quickly before it dissipated:
“Hungry for a map so I could mark up the margins and point the sails of my questions, billowed and filled with the winds of inspiration, to home… wherever that was…”
So beautiful.