Rocko Troy Part 2: Philosopher

Rocko is the delivery man for the pet food distributor—one bag at a time.

Rocko is looking forward to his middle-age crisis. He anticipates the wrecklessness, the abandon, the thrill of risk-taking. If only it would hurry and get here before he is too dry to celebrate the emergence of Rocko Troy, wildman.

He spends his evenings being an umpire at little league games during the spring and summer. He referees grade school football games in the fall. In the winter he is a catcher for a school of little ballerinas. They always trust him. “Rocko said” starts many a conversation between child and parent. “Rocko said I could hit the ball, and I did.” “Rocko said if I would practice every day I could dance in New York City.” Sometimes parents ask Rocko to say things to their kids, and he will if it he thinks it is the right thing to say. Rocko knows kids. He knows how it feels to be scared and little.

Rocko is a philosopher.


(This completes Rocko Troy.)

(Stay tuned for Gordon Tudor Patrick, pet groomer extraordinaire.)

Rocko Troy Part 1: Greek Unorthodox

Rocko is and always has been the runt of the litter. He looks like Mr. Peepers from the 50’s. He was the last kid picked for baseball and soccer; he was never picked for football. The other kids would rather play with short teams than invite Rocko to be on their team. But Rocko watched all the games and is a die-hard football fan. He follows the Miami Dolphins religiously. He knows all the players, the plays, the coaches, and statistics on every season since 1970.

Rocko hails from a large family of Greek lineage. Like Estrella, he has 12 siblings. But he is number 13. He likes to say that he is ‘lucky 13.’ He also likes to say that he is a baker’s dozen, but he won’t say a dozen whats. All his brothers and sisters are married and most have children. He loves his nieces and nephews and shares Estrella’s passion for family. That is not the only passion he would like to share with Estrella, but she terrifies him. Estrella is so juicy, and he is so prunish.

Rocko’s family is located around Tampa and most of his brothers work in construction. The women cook and take care of the babies. Rocko calls himself Greek Unorthodox. Mother Troy apologizes to Rocko that she had run out of “juice” by the time she was pregnant with him. He lacks the juice to live life with abandon, but he would like to — sort of — if it wasn’t so dangerous and well, unhealthy. And Estrella with her untamable hair makes him long for more of the Greek juices.

(continued)

Robbie Part 2: A Real Technician and a Real Coach

When Robbie is in high school, he is a coach’s dream with a baseball. There is talk about a farm team scout checking him out while he is still a junior. Robbie is good. Edna talks with Mamacita and with Estrella. She knows that Robbie cannot be alone in a big city. He needs people who love him, to take care of him. For all his athletic ability and good nature, Robbie has too low an IQ to survive in a high stress, high demand environment. Estrella convinces one of Emily’s clients, who is the head of the parks and recreation department, to woo Robbie as the municipal t-ball coach, under the guise of Robbie’s talent for baseball being a saving grace for the little boys who need a coach and role model. She also convinces Emily—and this is the really difficult job—to hire Robbie at the clinic. Emily doesn’t have anything against Robbie personally, but she does have concerns about the safety of her patients. Not wanting to insult Estrella or put her patients at risk, she offers a compromise: Robbie Hightower can come in to Mayfield Veterinary Clinic two hours a day to clean kennels.

The day after graduation from high school, Robbie starts as a cleaner at Dr. M’s clinic. He coaches the t-ball team and finds that he is very satisfied with his life. He loves being around the kids and the animals. He was really scared about moving away from home and is happy to have his mom and dad tell him he can play baseball in Clearwater and doesn’t have to move to Chicago.

Robbie’s sister Sylvia, who breeds miniature Schnauzers, changes her vet to become a client of Emily’s clinic, specifically so Robbie will be there to take care of her girls. His sister Linda, who accumulates needy cats, brings all of her brood to the clinic. Seeing Robbie with these animals convinces Emily that he does belong at her clinic. Robbie never lets intellect get in the way of his connection with the animals in his care.

Robbie learns slowly but carefully and is now, after five years, proficient with all of the equipment at the clinic and is a valued and trusted employee. He never gets careless with his charges, tests, safety procedures, or routines. He is reliable and sweet.

His family is proud that he is a contributing member of society. He is proud to be a real technician and a real coach.

(This completes Robbie Hightower.)

(Stay tuned for Rocko Troy, pet food delivery man and ever-hopeful suitor of Estrella de Ramón.)

Robbie Hightower Part 1: Baby Brother

Robbie Hightower is the baby of his family. His dad is a mail carrier and his mother works part-time as a dispatcher for the de Ramón pest control company.

Mr. and Mrs. Hightower have three children. Older sister Sylvia is eleven when Robbie is born. She is embarrassed to have to admit to herself that her parents actually, well, you know. Sister Linda is eight. Baby brother Robbie is the best gift her mom and dad could ever give her. She dresses him, feeds him, talks to, and adores him from the moment he comes home from the hospital. She uses her doll dishes to feed him when he is outgrowing his bottles. Robbie is always “Linda’s baby.”

When Robbie is three, Sylvia enters high school, and the Hightower family needs to increase their income. Mama (Edna) gets a job as part-time dispatcher for Ramon De Ramón Pest Control. Mamacita de Ramón likes Edna, and insists that she bring her little boy to work with her so she won’t have to worry about childcare. The two women become cross-generation friends: Edna is like a daughter to Mamacita, and Robbie is her honorary grandson. Estrella has known Robbie since his 3rd birthday. She calls him Christopher Robin because he reminds her of the gentle sweetness of the Pooh characters. Estrella gets so used to seeing Robbie around whenever she drops by her family’s business that she sort of takes it for granted that he will always be there.

(continued)

Cynthia part 2: Home at last, in Florida

When Cynthia confronts James, he denies all; Cynthia doesn’t fall for his denial and James responds with disdain for her “excessive morality.”

Cynthia walks out on James, talks with her parents, and packs for an art-buying trip with her mother. Mom, Cynthia and Gideon head south to art galleries.

They go to Atlanta, then swing south when the mother becomes intrigued with work by an artist in Clearwater, Florida. Mom and Cynthia decide to go meet the artist. The weather is perfect, they haven’t had time together in a long time, and what the heck. Meanwhile, Dad the CPA is handling things fine at home in DC, but missing them like crazy. Dad also spends time and energy seeing to it that Cynthia gets the best possible settlement in the divorce.

When Mom and Cynthia meet the artist Armando, the attraction between Cynthia and Armando is immediate and Gideon falls in instant love with Armando’s miniature Poodle, PooDoo. (So named because she was so hard to housebreak. “What is that?” “Poo Doo.”)

Mom goes back to DC and tells Dad not to worry, that Cynthia is going to be just fine.

When Cynthia has to take Gideon to the vet, she goes to Armando’s vet, Emily Mayfield. At the clinic, Estrella and Emily are writing a help wanted ad for a vet tech. Hearing them, Cynthia tells them not to write the ad, to hire her. Asked if she has any experience, she tells them no, but she is a really fast learner and a hard worker. They aren’t convinced, so Cynthia makes them a deal: “I’ll work for you for the first month for free. If you’re not satisfied, then run the ad.”

They never run the ad.


(This completes Cynthia Powell.)

(Stay tuned for Robbie Hightower, vet tech assistant.)

Cynthia Powell part 1: Washington, D.C.

Cynthia is the shortest member of her family. Her father is a CPA and her mother owns an art gallery that features her own sculpture along with the work of other artists. Cynthia is the older of two children. George, her brother, is two years younger, and really got on big sis’s nerves as they were growing up.

The Powell family lives in Washington, D.C., where Cynthia and George go to public schools. The teachers think of the two of them as a matched set. Though neither is at the top of her/his class, each is a good strong student -- reliable, hard worker, good citizen.

Cynthia gets a scholarship to George Washington University, and majors in political science. At college she meets the charismatic, gonna-set-the-world-on-fire political scientist James Lowell Weber. After they graduate, they get married. Both are hired to work for a polling organization that is a front for right-wing fundamentalists. It doesn’t take Cynthia long to figure out that the fundies hired James and her because they “look” right for a public image (as Blacks) and are expected to have the right ideology as graduates of George Washington (i.e. be good conservatives). Finally, Cynthia discovers that James has no moral compass. He refuses to leave the organization because it looks good on his resumé, and also because he thinks it wouldn’t be “smart politics” on his part.

Cynthia leaves the organization and works at her mother’s art gallery.

James’ work hours expand more and more, until he is hardly ever home when Cynthia is. As much for protection as company during her morning run, Cynthia gets a chocolate Standard Poodle. She names him Gideon. At the running park, Cynthia overhears a conversation that can only be about her husband James, which solidifies her suspicions about his excessive hours away from home.


(continued)

A. Michael part 6: “A” is for Academic

The science teacher, Miss Wilson, and A. Michael’s mother Reecca become friends through church, and they talk about A. Michael. Reecca is aware of her son’s inability to make the human connections. Miss Wilson believes A. Michael needs to learn humanity from his animals. She encourages the study of animals that undergo metamorphosis, animals that nurture, animals that live in interdependent communities. Miss Wilson stretches A. Michael’s imagination and his innate scientific talents and, through the animals, the scientific method. His mother complements these same lessons from the human side.

A. Michael is the valedictorian of his high school class. He speaks on the topic of starting at the top. By the end of his four-minute speech during graduation ceremonies, he manages to alienate everyone in the audience. This is the moment when Reecca and Aaron realize there is something not quite normal about their son.

Later, when A. Michael wants to enter vet school, Miss Wilson is the only teacher who will write a letter of recommendation. Miss Wilson marries the high school English teacher, Mr. Simonton. To her husband’s surprise, she remains a mentor and a friend to A. Michael all through his years in college, vet school, and beyond.

(continued)

A. Michael part 5: “A” is for Accomplished

By the seventh grade, A. Michael is the pet of the science teacher and just a another student to the English teacher. Although his papers are technically correct, the topics he chooses bore her to tears. Michael never participates in discussions in class. The only “discussions” he enters are one-on-one conversations with the science teacher, and even then A. Michael is condescending. His worst assignment is to write a sonnet. He writes it, “Paean to Pythagoras,” as a strictly mathematical construct. It is correct, but reads like an equation--heartless, soulless. He gets an A. His dad loves it and posts it at work. A. Michael continues to learn to excel and not to connect.

In high school, he begins to collect the animals that make up his menagerie. He acquires them as his fascination with his biology teacher, Miss Wilson, begins to intensify. She knows more about things that interest him than anyone else he has ever met. When she talks about characteristics that are best exemplified in X animal, A. Michael acquires X animal to see for himself. Miss Wilson understands A. Michael in ways that his parents cannot, his other teachers will not, and he does not.

When Uncle Father (Stuart) visits and tries to engage A. Michael in theological discussions, he finds his nephew passionless and uninvolved. Stuart’s own passion is not even acknowledged. A. Michael does not understand how religion can be anything but a task one does because one must.

In high school, A. Michael belongs to the National Honor Society, Chemistry Club, Physics Club, Math Club, and Chess Club. He is never elected to any office in any club. A. Michael does not date in high school, but Aaron and Reecca don’t worry about that because they recognize their son is a late-bloomer.

(continued)

A. Michael, part 4: "A" is for Alone

A. Michael is utterly, totally, completely, and irredeemably in love with all members of the animal kingdom . . . except humans. His awe for the perfectly evolved body of a slug is matched only by his disdain for a human with a backache. Even a slug knows better than to lift more than his musculature safely allows.

A. Michael was never popular in school. When he couldn’t intellectualize away his yearning for friendship with other humans, i.e., playmates, he turned to other animals for his emotional needs. Because his parents indulged him, he was able to keep a fantastic menagerie in his own room. He built elaborate homes for his various species, often inventing innovative little ecosystems so he could share his space with exotics.

To his delight, A. Michael discovers that teachers leave him alone and let him read in a corner as they teach the basics of phonics. He finishes his work so quickly that he “earns” the right to go off by himself. He does not have to interact with the other kids or the teacher. He is rewarded for excelling and thus encouraged to remain isolated. A. Michael always chooses to be alone when given the opportunity. He always chooses reading about science and non-fiction. He has no interest in storybooks, dramas, mysteries. He wants facts. He hates biographies, and when his third grade book report on Pasteur dwells more on the process of scientific discovery than the man, his teacher gives him an A+ and doesn’t make note of the oddity.

A. Michael participates in all the religious schooling and rituals in much the same way as he does English assignments. He does them without emotional involvement. He is an altar boy because it is expected and because doing it pleases his parents. When his parents are pleased, A. Michael is allowed to continue being alone. In catechism class, he does not question the teaching; he sees them as assignments in memorization.

(continued)

A. Michael, part 3: "A" is for Arrogant

Reecca, understanding the pain and private humiliation that Aaron’s sterility causes him, implies to all family members that she is the member of their team who is incapable of producing more children. The family, even though they know of Aaron’s bout with mumps, is grateful for the opportunity to believe Reecca’s fiction. A. Michael becomes, more than ever, their reason for being, their proudest accomplishment, their total focus.

A. Michael’s innate aloofness is magnified by his parents’ unquestioning adoration. He doesn’t have to do anything to please them, so he never has to learn any coping devices that would enable him to know how to please others, or even guess that such actions might be helpful to his own cause, if not anyone else’s.

At age five, A. Michael changes his name for Stuart from Uncle Stuart to “Uncle Father.” It drives Stuart mad. That’s why A. Michael does it.

Each of A. Michael’s parents hail from large families, and it grieves them so much to be restricted to only one child that they pour into little A. Michael too much attention, too much love, too many expectations, and way, way too much pride. What “takes” the most are the attention, expectations and pride. A. Michael is one arrogant guy. It’s so ingrained in him that it may even have been congenital. Hardwired, as it were. Arrogance deeper than bone.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the situation, A. Michael does have some abilities that are highly exceptional. First of all, he is a scientific genius. The paths of deductive logic; the intricate inter-relationships of structures, energies, components and properties; the unlikely similarities and shocking differences; the blatantly obvious and the unfathomably mysterious—all the forms and facets of life paint a tapestry in A. Michael’s brain that is as clear and decipherable to him as a photograph labeled, “Life: You Are Here.” His ability to recognize unlikely similarities gives him remarkable diagnostic skills. His near-photographic memory enables him to function as a walking encyclopedia of pharmacopoeia.

Apr. 9
A Michael part 4: “A” is for Alone

A. Michael is utterly, totally, completely, and irredeemably in love with all members of the animal kingdom . . . except humans. His awe for the perfectly evolved body of a slug is matched only by his disdain for a human with a backache. Even a slug knows better than to lift more than his musculature safely allows.

A. Michael was never popular in school. When he couldn’t intellectualize away his yearning for friendship with other humans, i.e., playmates, he turned to other animals for his emotional needs. Because his parents indulged him, he was able to keep a fantastic menagerie in his own room. He built elaborate homes for his various species, often inventing innovative little ecosystems so he could share his space with exotics.

To his delight, A. Michael discovers that teachers leave him alone and let him read in a corner as they teach the basics of phonics. He finishes his work so quickly that he “earns” the right to go off by himself. He does not have to interact with the other kids or the teacher. He is rewarded for excelling and thus encouraged to remain isolated. A. Michael always chooses to be alone when given the opportunity. He always chooses reading about science and non-fiction. He has no interest in storybooks, dramas, mysteries. He wants facts. He hates biographies, and when his third grade book report on Pasteur dwells more on the process of scientific discovery than the man, his teacher gives him an A+ and doesn’t make note of the oddity.

A. Michael participates in all the religious schooling and rituals in much the same way as he does English assignments. He does them without emotional involvement. He is an altar boy because it is expected and because doing it pleases his parents. When his parents are pleased, A. Michael is allowed to continue being alone. In catechism class, he does not question the teaching; he sees them as assignments in memorization.

(continued)

A. Michael, part 2: Only Child

Reeca’s brother Stuart MacGregor comes to visit when A. Michael is three months old to perform the baptism. All the hordes of relatives are there to celebrate. When Father Stuart takes his nephew A. Michael Kendrick in his arms to perform the baptism, A. Michael promptly pees on himself, his beautiful white lace baptismal gown, and Father Stuart’s beautiful black velvet priest’s stole. Stuart still laughs over the ingratitude of A. Michael’s first ceremonial act.

Reecca stays home to care for A. Michael and Aaron. Aaron posts photographs of A. Michael all over his office and on his office door, in case someone is passing by and hasn’t seen the latest and greatest.

During A. Michael’s first spring, a mumps epidemic sweeps the campus, felling the unlucky college students who hadn’t suffered this disease at the appropriate time of their lives. And Aaron.

As childhood diseases so often do, mumps hits the grownup Aaron much more seriously than any child. He is ravaged by fever and, sure enough, the infection moves to his testicles. Aaron is rushed to the hospital, where he is isolated and packed from the waist down in ice. Aaron survives the mumps, but his fertility does not.

After two years of trying in vain to conceive another child, Aaron and Reecca agree to go to Michigan’s teaching hospital to undergo fertility tests in the then-new program. The results are conclusive and irreversible: Aaron is sterile.

(continued)

A. Michael Kendrick part 1

A. Michael Kendrick’s father, Aaron Kendrick, is from Michigan. His own mother, father, brothers and sisters all still live in or near Lansing, Michigan. Aaron attended the University of Michigan, majoring in math.

A. Michael’s mother, Reecca MacGregor, graduated from high school in Florida, but had schemed, with her cousins on her father’s side, for two years to be able to return to Michigan. She lived with her aunt and uncle so she could pay tuition as an in-state student at the University of Michigan. She majored in nursing.

Reecca’s cousins are girl cousins. One of them has a crush on this guy in her chemistry class. She talks Reecca into going on a double date with her and the cute guy and a friend of the cute guy’s. The cousin and the friend wind up having a lot more in common, and Reecca and ‘cute guy’ hit it off. ‘Cute guy’ turns out to be Aaron Kendrick. Reecca and Aaron begin dating and soon are an “item.” They marry shortly after graduation. Reeca’s brother The Right Rev. Stuart MacGregor comes to Michigan to perform the wedding mass. Reeca's and Stuart’s Aunt Sister attends the wedding.

Aaron gets a job with the University. Reecca gets a job with the county clinic. Four months after the wedding, Reecca gets pregnant. She continues to work through the pregnancy. The two of them are mighty excited. This is the happy beginning of the big family that they both want. Reecca works at the clinic through the seventh month of her pregnancy. The last two months she and Aaron spend being excited and preparing the nursery for the baby.

The baby, A. Michael Kendrick, is born with one of the largest attendants of grandparents, aunts and uncles that the Lansing hospital has ever had in the waiting room on the maternity floor. It was an easy birth; everything went smoothly and according to expectations.

Proud new parents Reecca and Aaron come home from the hospital to truckloads of flowers and cards. And casseroles. All is well in paradise. Reecca’s cousins are thrilled that Reecca and her family are going to stay in Michigan.

(continued)