Tarzan

[Non-fiction]

My son’s little fingers cradle the iPad to his chest. “Apad,” he says, looking up at me, “pickcha?” His wide eyes are imperatives. This really is something he doesn’t need, but kids are good at convincing you they do. He’s only one and a half, for god’s sake, and he’s already swinging off me with jungle vines of emotion.

It makes me think of another male with David in his name. A man I met today, who told me he’d volunteered himself for a prodigal return. David identified himself as a “maths teacher”, was “more of a maths type than a literary type”, looked to be in his early to mid thirties, wore a white striped business shirt, dark slacks, and had a close-cropped shock of reddish hair vaguely reminiscent of Tintin.

Tintin was fond of crusades too. When David was eighteen he’d come to Sydney Uni to do a BA, but had “failed”. When I asked him how he’d failed, he told me, in a clutter of non sequential events, about how his parents had gone bankrupt the same year, how that had affected his other siblings adversely, and on top of that he’d contracted chicken-pox. He mentioned something about “toxic friends”. Then, after a hesitation, he also explained that he’d been struggling with coming out.

I fired off a few frantic questions to try to get to grips with this torrent of information, and he responds openly, in an unemotional, intelligent way.

We establish that he’d gotten a credit in his first semester. He’d been used to, was indeed expecting HD’s, and couldn’t deal with what he perceived to be a total “failure” on his part. He stopped attending. He wandered through parks and browsed shops, anything other than confront what was happening to him. He explained that he went on this way for months, cradling his failure, keeping it a secret, until finally he’d been forced to admit it had all gotten away from him.

Now he’s back, studying that old bugbear of his, literature, and with a look in his eye how I would imagine St George did as he levelled his sword at the dragon.

He was in the thick of it. He admitted it’s “pure machismo”, but I cant help think there’s something else going on.

I think of my little boy. He’s reflected in everything. Everything is alive, to him. It’s not so different for David either. His are wide, open, honest, filled with his perceived imperative. His jungle might be burning, but the vines are long enough.

I’m not so different, either. We all swing heartily upon those vines, and swing we must, lest they strangle us.