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An Essay on Healing

by Victor Bull

78 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0077; ISBN 1-55212-413-4; US$15.50, C$17.50, EUR12.50, £9.00

An Essay on Healing is a short novel - 47 pages, plus a seven page sequel. The story is told through mixed media - verse and prose. The verse has two functions. It establishes the main character and the healing theme; it provides transition between parts of the story. Traditional prose is the medium for the primary story, which is re-enacted through the main character's flashback memories of his WWII trauma and healing. Six short verse essays, selected for their humor, are provided as Addenda.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book The story opens with two pages of verse, which introduce the main character, Alan Brockton, and establish the theme of healing. Brockton is in his sixties, nearing retirement. He trips while jogging, falls, and breaks an arm. While recovering at home his self-pity and self-blame drove away friends and associates. To overcome his bad attitude and promote healing, he recalls when he was in his twenties in WWII. He had been grievously injured by a German land mine in France which left him blind in one eye and with a crippled arm and leg. Brockton's memories re-enact the story of his difficult re-hab and healing. A sub-plot which had complicated young Alan's recovery at that time, was the concurrent death of J.J., his older brother, in the war with Japan. Alan's anger and resentment at J.J's death left him unable to grieve. Alan's healing from his injuries and his brother's death provides the conflict and drama of the book. His fullest knowledge of healing is learned through and shared with a young lady also wounded emotionally by the war. Yuki Takatori is a Japanese-American, U.S. citizen, who spent the entire war locked inside a U.S. detention camp. Alan and Yuki meet in college. Their relations begin with a mutual prejudice. Alan's was in reaction to Yuki's ethnic and racial characteristics, which he identified with the enemy that killed his brother. Yuki's distrust was in response to Alan's initial antagonism. Their relationship progresses to shared respect, friendship, and intimacy. In this process they healed themselves and each other.

About the Author I was born 26 April 1923 in New Orleans, La, where I completed a Catholic grammar, and a public high school. In October, 1942, during WWII, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy. In September 1944 I was a Radio Operator on a small, Navy, working ship stationed in the sea port, harbor city of Cherbourg, France. One autumn afternoon in Cherbourg I was a passenger in an Army truck which detonated a German land mine. I suffered injuries like Alan Brockton's in An Essay on Healing. Post war, I attended Columbia U., School of General Studies, NYC, NY, graduating cum laude Feb 1950, with majors in English Lit and Creative Writing. In the early 1950s I wrote, Innocence Was a Lion, my first novel, handled by the literary agency of Ms. Mavis MacIntosh. Two publishers made identical offers to publish it within a year if I produced a second acceptable MS. I failed at that and moved to Texas to accept a civilian job with the Air Force as a Management Analyst. In the 1970s, I resumed writing as a hobby. I have a large quantity completed of, Different Ways of Seeing the River, a picaresque novel set in New Orleans about the fictional Brockton family, primarily Alan and his father. The chapters are entities, i.e., may stand alone as short stories. In 1985 I retired as a Senior Management Analyst with 30 years tenure. I continue to solicit representation by an author's agency for the publication of my work, especially prose fiction. In addition to its merit, my work should gain marketability through my age, 77. In this era of increasing life spans, my work might gain readership among seniors as the product of a contemporary "Grandpa Moses," in the medium of literature. The comparison here is to the earlier, highly successful, "Grandma Moses," in graphic arts. As Essay on Healing's portrayal of Yuki's incarceration in a U.S. prison camp during WWII is based on the actual history of those years. The story might well be considered as the basis for a film, big screen or tv. I am a Life Member of Disabled American Veterans, DAV.

Sample Excerpts

Part One. SPRING, 1993

Al Brockton goofed in early spring:
He broke an arm while composing a poem.
He was jogging in his neighborhood,
the well known route he always took.
In his mind, he was reviewing lines
for a new poem. Next moment, he
was Mr. Knot-Head of The Year:
he tripped on the roots of a big oak tree,
which a moment before, the prudent voice
inside his mind warned him to avoid.

He lay where he fell, incompetent
with pain and shock, bewildered by
a stifling crush of citizens
with piteous eyes and fulsome words:
"Old fogey fell and can't get up."
Someone's Boom-box blared Rock and Roll.
Otherwise the crowd behaved.
No one sold ice cream on a stick,
raspa, tacos, or T-shirts.
EMS arrived and whisked him away.

The E.R. medics were seasoned pros
devoid of banal sympathy.
The cast they applied reflected this,
an antique, Gothic, ugly thing,
a mile of gauze, embedded with
a ton of clammy, plaster stuff
wrapped round Al's arm from finger-tips
to mid-bicep, with elbow bent,
and forearm pinioned at his chest,
designs he though befit his misdeed.

The first day after the accident
the ugly cast was soiled and stunk
of Al's own sweat. He welcomed this
as self-inflicted punishment.
To broadcast his stupidity,
he made a list of friends to phone,
with his sad tale of pity and blame.
But through some odd coincidence,
all soon gave reasons to avoid
his sad recital of self-abuse.

Al's attitude brought more rebuffs.
The morning paper delivery kid
still left the paper at Al's front door,
but no longer paused for friendly chats.
Then Tinker, the old dog, that Al
stopped taking for its daily walk,
began to stay in the yard outside,
instead of resting on the floor
beside Al in his recliner chair
to watch the Muppets on TV.

The final omen was the vine
he'd started from a cutting
inside a jug on his book case,
and strung on string above his chair.
His goal was to fill the room with vine,
verdant and healthy, cleansing the air,
where he and Tinker enjoyed TV.
Then the leaves directly above his chair,
and nowhere else inside the room,
first wilted, then turned brown, then died.

It was time for attitude review.
Al did not have to dig too deep:
he had abandoned self-respect:
he'd come home mad and stayed that way.
This attitude reminded Al
of another era long ago
when he came home from WWII
burdened with trauma and self-pity,
and the long, slow healing, finally,
through a girl, a place, creative release

and the artists' craft of point-of-view
for rendering the why of what was, the sense
of what is, and the healing how of what shall be.
Al invited memories of that time
and just that act, and the prospect
of re-attaining healing grace
evoked a sudden joyous release
like champagne shaken vigorously
a moment before the cork is popped
and in the manner the wine explodes

thus also did Al's memories...

...LATE SUMMER, 1945.... He was rehabilitating from war wounds caused by a German land mine in Normandy, France. He could walk without crutches or a cane; perform most tasks with his right hand; was adapting to blindness in his right eye for most functions except those requiring depth perception, most notably driving an automobile.... In the hospital he had experienced pain negatively: by denying it. There, for 11 months he endured pain stoically. He underwent 7 operations to insert first wires, then pins, then bone grafts to repair shattered bones in his right leg and forearm, and plastic surgery to reduce scar tissue on his temple next to his blind eye. Throughout, he repressed all expression of pain, verbal or body language. Then when he returned home, and was in his parents' house again, he experienced the nightmare flashbacks that re-enacted all the pain he had either forgotten, or ignored, or repressed. In the middle of the night during sleep he screamed with unbearable pain his mind had recreated in his leg, which in sleep he clutched and implored someone to shoot him, to end the torment.
He awoke from the seizure with his mother, Ariola, holding him as she had done when he was a child, comforting him as she'd done back then, saying, "There, there, Hon, you'll be all right. I'm here, everything's all right." And gradually he relaxed and without shame regressed to childhood, comforted by Ariola, weeping softly as he returned to sleep. The flashbacks left him weak and distracted with realization the land mine incident had not been painless, as his short circuited memory had implied. In fact, it had been so painful, his mind had blocked consciousness and later recall. But it was there, hidden, with potential to recur at any time at a nightmare.

The eye was his worst injury. It was worse than blind: it no longer focused where he directed his vision. Instead, it drifted to the side. When he re-focused his good eye, the bad one also moved into focus, but quickly drifted away again. He attempted exercises to rehabilitate the damaged eye, standing in front of a mirror, consciously moving it into balance with the good eye. Each time, it drifted away, out of balance. He felt anger and self-pity over this condition at first, later replaced by self-consciousness, timidity, and aversion to meeting strangers.
That was when the body of J.J., his brother who was six years older, and killed in the Pacific War, had been recovered and buried in the Punch Bowl National Cemetery in Oahu, Hawaii. He remembered not being able to cope with his grief for J.J. He was troubled by fragments of an old memory which had been pleasant. But J.J's death, and his own inability to express grief, had distorted the memory into a recurring nightmare...

...SPRING, 1948...A striking coincidence, which Alan had considered fateful, even surreal, was that Yuki was the same number of years older than Alan as J.J. had been. The year Alan and Yuki met, she was 6 years older, 31 to his 25. The surreal aspect was not simply that Yuki was 6 years older, she was also the same number of months, weeks, and days: Yuki had been born the same year, month, and date as J.J. Alan, troubled by complex, unresolved anger and fear which prevented him from truly grieving for J.J., silently, in an un-formulated, vaguely wishful manner, regarded Yuki as perhaps a messenger, or arbiter, even perhaps a healer. Influenced by that connection, eager for her approval and good graces, Alan became obsessed with pleasing Yuki. When he enjoyed something, he quickly thought of sharing it with Yuki, to please her, and for the satisfaction he enjoyed from giving her pleasure.
Throughout the year, in addition to tickets for plays they enjoyed, he presented her at various times with her own copies of works he had just read that impressed him greatly: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and novels by Stendahl, Flaubert, Joyce, and Steinbeck. Because he derived great pleasure from pleasing Yuki, he invested much effort in writing and rewriting his scripts and would not bring a manuscript to her until he considered it finished. He did not discuss his works-in-progress while he was developing them. But he relished exchanging ideas about the techniques of character development, dramatic conflict, and point of view: her comments invariably stimulated his thoughts.

Alan remembered how intimacy had occurred as an agreeable fulfillment of expanding friendship. He recalled one gorgeous spring afternoon. Riverside park trees and bushes were erupting with new life of leaves and blossoms. The air sparkled and the sky was a tall, blue expanse where slow moving, popcorn clouds drifted. Instead of lunching inside at the cafeteria, he and Yuki bought take out sandwiches on Broadway and were walking to a bench overlooking the Hudson River and the Jersey cliffs. As they walked their hands touched. Alan moved to withdraw from contact and was formulating an apology for clumsiness. But Yuki's hand quickly closed on his in warm, pleasant, touch-joy, as she smiled, saying, "Nice. I like." Pleased at the contact and her words, Alan silently enjoyed the moment, then teased, "More Buddhist values?"
Yuki squeezed his hand, leaned closer, and whispered, "Man-woman values, Mr. Brockton."
They proceeded to their bench with hands linked, shoulders touching, leaning together. When Alan sat, the palms of his hands were damp with sweat, his pulses thudded pleasantly, his breathing was deep and fulfilling. Warmth in his face indicated he was blushing, and there was a tightening and throbbing in his crotch area. He was enjoying a mild adrenalin rush. He realized he was staring at Yuki, who was regarding him in a calm, attentive manner, and he said, "Yuki,"then swallowed, cleared his throat, prepared to speak again, said, "Yuki," and paused.
Yuki interrupted, "Yes. I agree. I want to, also. And we shall. One day soon. Not at night when we are tired. A day like today."
Striving to suppress his elation, Alan said in a casual manner intended to match Yuki's placid directness, "Next week is final exams. The week after is spring break before new semester. We can go to my place." "Yes," she agreed. "That'll be fine."

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