An Experiment

An Experiment

Lying awake one night trying to remember the name of the winged horse of Greek mythology, I felt like Thurber who went through something similar trying to remember a town in New Jersey with two parts to its name. Unlike Thurber, I wasn’t even coming up with the equivalent of his Walla Walla or Gorgonzola. (The name of his town, by the way, turned out to be Perth Amboy.)

I suddenly latched on to the idea of Freudian analysis. I had been steeped in the reading of the subject at the time. I guess it must have been when I was working at the library, so that’s a full twenty years ago. Well, sometimes a good story takes time to gestate.

I had no great love for Freudian philosophy, probably because of its ice cold rigidity but I had to give the old devil his due. So I embarked upon my grand experiment.

I concentrated on the elusive name. Nothing! I tried again. Nothing! I knew I was trying too hard. Take it easy. Grasp at anything, however nebulous. That’s the ticket. Just like meteors whizzing by my spaceship/ Reach out! Grab anything?

Then one by one they came and this is what I got:

Paracelsus ----- Paraguay ----- Uruguay ----- Bucephalus ----- and, before you could say Joy Sigismund, there it was in all its pristine splendor: Pegasus!

Well now, it’s all out and I could get to sleep. I turned over, quite self-satisfied. Good old Siggy.

What’s the matter? Oh-oh. The thought now nagged me (and this is Part II a la Joie): How come I couldn’t remember? Do I dare probe this out? Well, the job’s not complete otherwise and I’ll never get to sleep. O.K., here goes.

PEGASUS: ----- PEG ----- GIRL’S NAME ----- MARGARET ----- the only one who comes to mind is the daughter of a neighbor of long ago ----- completely inconsequential. No doubt about it ----- PEG ----- WOODEN PEG ----- CRIBBAGE ----- LCDR. S. ______________,

A navy medical officer who liked to play cribbage, who was antagonistic to me and was instrumental in my transfer from a station I liked to one I didn’t like. I found out later that he was convinced that I was an Armenian Jew. (That would be an even tougher nut to crack than Sammy Davis Jr.’s.)

So there it was, pure and simple. I slept like a god.

(Ca. 1981)