Faustina Zulfer reads this diary

Thursday, May 16, 2002 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

I received an odd email today:

Dear 'Zaziel,

Why do you want to name your son after opera-singing eunuchs?

Yours Truly,
Faustina Zulfer

That's it. That's the entire message.

My first thought was: I don't have a son. My second thought was: Do I have a son? Did I unknowingly commit an act of paternity in my lurid youth, and now it has come back to haunt me?

Two problems with that: First, I'm still living in the midst of my lurid youth, so how can it come back to haunt me when it hasn't gone away yet? Second, demands for child-support are always couched in very specific terms, usually by lawyers. They don't come disguised as abstruse and cockeyed queries from inscrutable and faintly forbidding inquisitors.

My third thought was: If I had a son, and I wanted to name him after an opera-singing eunuch... well, why not? If I want to name the kid Alessandro, or Baldassare, or Girardin, or Nicolino, why the heck not? And why should I have to explain it to someone named Faustina? Why should I have to explain it to anyone? Why doesn't she write to Mr. and Mrs. O'Neal and ask them why they named their little boy Shaquille after a barber from Poway*?

But maybe she has....

~

*We lived in Poway, CA when I was six-to-seven years old. The mater's hairdresser in Poway was a slim licorice whip of a Saudi with sparkling black hair and eyes, named Shaquille. He owned both a beauty salon and the barbershop next door. He also owned a pair of Rhodesian Ridgebacks, beautiful tawny-coated dogs that I remember as serene, friendly, obedient creatures. They were always at the barbershop when I came in for a haircut, which I did with embarrassing frequency. It's funny to remember the things that embarrassed you when you were a kid. My hair was very thick and fast-growing (it still is), almost to a comical degree. I mean, it was almost cartoonish, how fast my hair would outgrow a haircut, like I had dumped a whole bottle of Acme Gro-Hair-Anywhere on my head. And for some unreasonable reason, this was cause for acute shame when I was six years old. Shaquille thought my hair was a marvel. Every time I came to his barbershop for a mow, he would show me off to anyone within shouting distance (or so it seemed.) He never got tired of telling people to "Look at the hair on this kid. Do you believe the hair on this kid?" But even with all the mortification he put me through, I loved going to his place for my haircuts. He was one of the few adults, aside from my parents, who wasn't intimidated or bewildered (or frightened) by my intelligence. I was a something of a child prodigy, and I realize now that I must have been possessed of a mature percipience that verged on the uncanny. To most adults I must have seemed like a changeling, or a Child of the Corn, or a Damien. And I suppose my penchant for chattering about Dante's Inferno didn't do much to dispel the impression. I wonder, would it have soothed their discomfiture if the adults had known that my favorite part of La Divina Commedia was the pictures?

I became a big fan of Gustave Dor� when I was six.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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