Deconstructing Dylan by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online Page A

of something wonderful. I was not convinced.
    Nessie, or
Nessiteras rhombopteryx
, was first officially reported in 1880 but folklore suggests it goes further back. In 1934, a doctor from London even produced a credible photograph. Although many Nessie trashers called it a hoax, others have argued it is the genuine article of a real creature. Other photo ops followed for the beast. I’ve seen the results of them all and some are fuzzy, but several are quite convincing and seem to have stood up under contemporary scrutiny as the real thing. I discounted the idea that it was a giant eel but preferred the theory that it was a leftover coelacanth somehow isolated in the loch after some dramatic change of geography, perhaps when the sea levels dropped and the loch was no longer attached to the nearby Moray Firth.
    I never accepted the story that Nessie had climbed up out of the water in 1933 and was seen snatching a lamb from the hillside where he feasted on it beforetrundling back into the water. My Loch Ness monster was no meat-eating carnivore.
    My Loch Ness monster was as real to me as the blue jay sitting in the tree outside my window in the morning. He was a gentle lost being, a survivor against all odds and a reminder to all those who put too much faith in science and reason that extraordinary things happen and are not easy to explain. That egotistical scientist on TV would not take that away.

C HAPTER T EN
    My father was still out of town and I came home to find my mother slightly inebriated. “I’m going through a difficult phase,” she said. “It’s probably my age. Something hormonal, nothing more. That’s my guess.”
    â€œIs it something between you and Dad?”
    â€œYour father is wrapped up in his work right now. He doesn’t have time for me. We’ve always been quite independent but right now — I just don’t know about these feelings I have — like I want to cry all the time. Come here. Give me a hug.”
    I hugged her and she hugged me tightly. She sobbed but did not cry. This was entirely unlike my scientist mother. Always reasonable and cool. I would make a point of looking up menopause on the net and see if I could help out. “Everything will be all right,” Isaid, not knowing what I was talking about. I just knew it was what she would say if I was feeling really down.
    â€œYou were the world’s most beautiful baby,” she said.
    â€œJust what a boy of sixteen wants to hear.”
    â€œBut you were. Look.”
    She got up and went for her purse, came back and flipped her wallet open to a photograph: me, not long after I had come into this flawed world. “See.”
    â€œI see,” I said, staring at the picture. I turned the wallet sideways and looked at another photo of me as a baby. Face perfectly the same. But the photographic style was different and it was faded. As if this other one had been left out in the sun. And then there was this feeling in the pit of my stomach.
    My mother reached over and closed the wallet, put it back in her purse, dabbed at her tears, and then stood up. “I’m sorry about the theatrics.”
    â€œI’ll do anything I can to help if you need me.”
    â€œI’ll be fine. Your father will be back in a few days. Maybe we can go to Lawrencetown, to the beach. Something about being by the sea makes me feel better.”
    In my bedroom, I pondered this reversal of roles. Me, worrying about my mother, taking care of her. While my classmates were out smoking dope, drinking to excess, or having carefree unprotected sex, I was home in mybedroom worrying about my mother’s psychological health. From the net I learned that menopause occurs in women between the ages of forty-six and fifty-four. The woman ceases ovulation. There is a decline in the production of estrogen. The psychological effects vary dramatically. Some women have little or no mental change. Others go through what