Forbidden Pez part 4 At

March 11, 2003

Forbidden Pez part 4

At random intervals. . .well . . .they seemed random but probably averaged out into regularity, Hammond would uncloak the dark wood behemoth and fire it up. This was something his dad had forbidden the children to do on their own but had taught them the vaguely masonic ritual anyway. These are the subtle tortures perpetrated by parents. The one chance to “drive the car” when perched on Daddy’s lap on the back country holiday leads to a hundred reckless joyrides by the age of seventeen. Dangle the carrot then deny.
Flick the left hand toggle forward. Count to five steamboats. Listen for the whirring motor to speed up and then flick the other toggle. “Turn on run after start is on”. Committed to memory. Hardly dangling the carrot but still Hammond fired the beast up whenever his parents were sure to be gone long enough. He did it because he could.
Unwittingly he had fallen in love with the smell of warming oil and particles of house dust burning on the blue hot glass of vacuum tubes. It took five minutes or so to really float up from the belly of the organ and the amp at the bottom of the Leslie rotating speaker cabinet that sat across the room under the carpet of doilies and congregation of Hummel figurines.
Fetishism was indeed inherited. Infatuations substituting for real love until they felt like they must be real love. Obsessing could bring you so close to such tiny objects. You explored them with your fingers and committed their weights and dimensions to muscle memory. For Hammond it began with toys that simulated the real thing. He jumped the purple “Silhouette” Hot Wheel (tm) from bookshelf to table and made the sound of its trajectory with his mouth. He controlled and suspended it between his fingers in a way that allowed his eye to get close enough to see the red walled tires spin down after liftoff. He learned to simulate the arc . . .front wheels up . . .leveling off . . .lowering . . . and landing with that axle to axle rocking bounce. His eye was close enough to imagine himself inside the space-age bubble canopy in the tiny plastic bucket seats. Imagination could change your size and shape. Toys became tools of transformation like hammers were necessary to frame the house. For most of his wayward friends drugs had taken over this job by the twilight of high school. Toys had not evolved along with them. There was no “cool” and no coming of age in toys. Collecting was perhaps the only way to legitimize Hammond’s ability to stay connected to his powers of transformation and and allow him to travel into other dimensions. He protected and coveted. He lost friends who wouldn’t go with him. Their transformations included spiritual quests, childbirth, graduate work and world travel. He didn’t travel but still rose to the upper echelons of this boutique consumer underground.
There were people in Belgium who knew who he was but he never had to go there to be known. His name was broadcast like a 1-800 number in the 24-7 world of E-bay, fanzines and mail order houses. He was soon to be crowned king of this hidden world. He had pulled excalibur from the stone. How would he announce it to his subjects? This lost week had been his silent blowout. No hookers, no blow, no sweat soaked wantonly unbuttoned shirts and gob flying onto the long lenses of prying paparazzi. That did not happen to lords of his domain. His coronation would present two possible roads -- all the money he would ever need or a long and glorious reign over his peer group.