Here we are again. Another spring has risen over Gramercy Park, but it’s a different New York, a different America, indeed, a different world since last I updated. The best case out of all of this is that I’ve been afforded time. Time away from the daily tasks of the law firm. Time to focus more on the stories buried in our vaults, here in New York and in London. Thanks in kind to London’s trusty key master Mallory. Her help in this time has been invaluable.
I’ve pressed on in my examinations of the youngest and newest member of the Blacksyte Solicitors, LTD legacy: John. It seems odd to be doing a deep dive on someone who is a contemporary. But the bulk of our archives here in New York cover John Blacksyte’s time in America. Brief though it was, a deep dive on this period has revealed an incredible amount of intrigue that I’m able to fill a novel length of material with. A first draft has been completed and as I stare down the barrel of refining the second, I thought I’d share a piece written by John, himself, during the very period in question. Namely September through November 2005 roughly. This piece, writing for a nonfiction writing class, was composed in the very center of my research. It dives to the very heart of what John was dealing with during this time. And has enlightened my perspectives into his youthful naive character that was soon to be changed forever.
M, Archivist.
John Blacksyte
‘Memories’
English 302 - Nonfiction Writing
29 September 2005
Memory is a fickle friend. We tend to hold the good ones close. Good friends, beloved family; those hundreds of cherished moments from the past that bubble excitedly at the surface of daily consciousness. But beneath the calm reflective surface, in the depths of more suppressed experiences, other memories swirl in darker, murkier and uglier depths. Deep down below lies the things rather left forgotten. Spectral fragments that make up the darker side of ourselves. While we bathe in the comfortable reminders on the surface, things have a way of bubbling up from the bottom. It catches us off guard. Creeps up on us unexpectedly. It’s hard to pinpoint what spurs these darker apparitions to emerge. Is it a present experience inciting a lightning connection with something thought forgotten? Uncertain for sure, but when they do return, they bring up with them all the emotional sensations associated, encapsulating us in that terrible moment again. It lingers just as fresh as it did originally. And, this time, it becomes harder to forget.
Between ‘90 and ‘97, my parents, George and Annaliese, and I lived in Hong Kong. A dirty and congested, yet wondrously beautiful place. I count this period amongst the happiest of my life. My father was on detachment from the Royal Marines to the embassy of the British Crown Colony. From the moment of our arrival, he fell in with an eccentric attachè to the embassy’s Asian finance commission. When I met this apparition, Aneurin Llewelyn was a jolly, gray bearded giant stuffed into a pristine white and red rugby sweater. He had a deep gravelly laugh that crawled slowly up from his belly and out through his terrible teeth and great big rough hands more suited to a laborer than a finance man.
Aneurin was infectiously friendly, but somewhat rough at the edges. Of the Chinese locals in particular, he was often known to refer to them as those yellow chinks. Despite these slightly racist leanings, Aneurin roared with a life that had seen many things and exuded an oppressive amount of patriotic Englishness. To think back on it makes me cringe. Blind patriotism to Aneurin’s extent is foreign to me. Even my father, Royal Marine Captain - For Queen and Country, etc, found such devotion from a natural born Welshman confounding. But all the same, my father took to Aneurin like a son. Personally, I never thought of Aneurin as a grandfather. I had one, living quietly in Bath. I came to see Aneurin as more of a devoted, yet abrasive, uncle than a grandfather.
Every Sunday, the whole family would drive up to Aneurin’s house for a traditional Sunday roast. He lived alone in a provided mansion nestled into the western face of Victoria Peak, overlooking the high rises of Kennedy Town below and Hong Kong harbor beyond. The house itself looked like three match boxes of varying size, stacked on top of each other and offset. Everything was at right angles; straight green clay walls, flat roofs, and square bay windows jutting out in perfect symmetry. A well manicured lawn wrapped the grounds to a small garden at the back.
I spent most of these Sunday jaunts sitting in that back garden with Aneurin’s Akita dog, Brendah. I’d be day dreaming, gazing up towards the peak above, while Aneurin’s booming voice echoed from the open French doors. He was always giving my father a reassuring pep talk and calling my mother a Kraut while pouring her more wine.
On a particular Sunday visit in May, the city had been held for weeks in the oppressive grasp of oncoming summer humidity and I found myself at the very back of Uncle Aneurin’s garden, under a canopy of low hanging Earleaf acacias branches with Brendah. I was eleven at the time and was beginning to find necessary solace in separating myself from my parents on these weekend visits. I spent as much time out of that house as I could. Aside from lacking air conditioning, Aneurin was a habitual pipe smoker. It was hotter, more humid, and chokingly smellier inside than out.
Girls were suddenly on my mind now, I recall. A particular girl if I remember right, but that’s another story. I was doing my usual bit of daydreaming, when Brendah sauntered up to me. Her playful brown eyes were bright as ever, her bushy tan and white tail, rolled over on itself, wagging with glee. I immediately noticed she was holding something in her mouth and as if knowing that I knew, she dropped whatever it was at my feet. I looked down and was immediately struck with horror and surprise. What she’d bared at my feet as some kind of gift, was in fact a baby bird, pale pink and featherless.
The bird was alive but barely. It was covered in dog drool and shriveling in the short grass. It was pitiful and helpless. I almost thought it fake at first. My mind drew blanks as to what to do with it. Had it fallen from its nest? I searched for a nest nearby in the branches overhead, but came up with nothing. I also recall seeing very few birds in the sky that day. Looking back down at the shaking little creature, I knew I couldn’t pick it up. A nearby gardening spade came to the rescue, and I scooped up the featherless bird with it. Brendah jumped with glee as I walked it toward one of the shorter acacias.
When the mind is panicking to help in a crisis, it’s uncertain why some notions arise as they do, but at that moment I thought it best to set this baby bird into the crook of one of the acacias. Probably in the hope that, maybe it’s mother would find it. In hindsight, it seems rather stupid, but I was only eleven.
Baby bird in tree, I stepped back to see that it would stay put. It’s helpless beak opened and closed, it’s eyes wide as if stunned, it’s body expanding and contracting in rapid breaths. It didn’t stay in the tree long and eventually fell from the branch and onto the ground to be quickly seized again in the merciless jaws of Brendah.
Brendah circled and wagged as I chased her, yelling for her to drop the bird. But she thought this was a game. Baby bird hidden in the clasp of her mouth, she wanted to be chased around the garden. I wisely knew that the best course with Brendah was not to play along. I simply reset myself in my spot at the back of the garden and, as if on cue, Brendah dropped the bird from her mouth and sauntered obliviously over to me. I stood and patted her on the head and, feigning disinterest, went over to the baby bird she’d dropped. It was much worse for wear now. Nearly dead, it’s breaths slowing. My naive boyish heart ached for the little thing, strangely. I scooped it up in the gardening spade again and carried it back to the trees, but looking down at it’s helpless, now slightly mangled little body, I knew it wasn’t going to make it.
Trying to be helpful, my mind whirled for a solution. It found one, one I probably hoped at the time would be quick and correct. To think about it now makes me shiver. The same tinge in my chest which I felt that day, has returned. I laid the little bird down on the short grass, it’s breaths visibly non-existent now. It was hard to look at, my eyes drifting up toward the tool of execution. The old lawn roller, though heavy, went quickly over the smooth grass. The baby bird disappeared underneath the rusty green drum and I dared not roll it any further or pull it back. I dropped the handle and stood back in horror of what I’d done. The realization of my actions coupled with the crippled weakness in those wide little eyes, burned into my mind, and forever into my memory.
Reflecting on all this now, I still feel a deep remorse for my actions. Did I help end that bird’s suffering or only increase it? In the many Sundays that followed, I never went back to look. The lawn roller, like an old headstone, in Anuerin’s back garden was a constant reminder of what I had done. A reminder of what I was capable of. I can still see those wide little eyes creeping back into my vision, vivid as ever. They haunt me now. For years, I hadn’t thought about that day. Forgotten almost completely. But recently and abruptly, my memories have turned on me. Things, ugly things, have broken the calm surface of my cerebral serenity. Memory has betrayed me, and I wonder if I’m better or worse for the reminder.
