Shunned (292 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Zandy1123 (View user info) at 2004-09-21 09:07:15 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Harmen Cocke never did fit in. For as long as he
could remember, people treated him differently. They
laughed at him, teased him, beleaguered him verbally
and sometimes, physically.
When he was in grade school, Harmen was most
self-conscious of his name. Introductions were always
the most difficult for Harmen. On his first day of
third grade, his teacher, Ms. Weinstein called roll...
"Benjamin Adler?"
"Here!"
"Abigail Bennett?"
"Here!"
"Harmen Cocke?" Ms. Weinstein's face turned red as she
held back her laughter.
Harmen's classmates began to giggle and whisper at one
another.
"Is Harmen Cocke here?" The teacher repeated.
"Here." Harmen's meek voice had barely reached Ms.
Weinstein's ears as she continued roll call.
As time went by, Harmen found ways to defend himself
against the attacks on his name. He even found ways
to interpret their insults as compliments. When a
classmate would call him 'Hard Man Cock,' Harmen would
simply say to himself, "Damn right!"
In his teenage years, Harmen was less concerned with
his name and more concerned with an even greater
embarrassment: his parents, both of whom taught
English at his high school.
You see, Harmen's parents were not your average
parents. His mother, Agnes, was the only daughter of
Dutch emigrants who settled in the United States in
the late 1930s. Agnes' parents ran a tight ship at
their home in central Ohio. Upon their arrival in the
U.S., Agnes' parents sought the warm embrace of the
Roman Catholic faith, which ultimately meant that
Agnes was to adhere to the same belief system and
lifestyle.
But Agnes, at the age of 17, had her own plans. She
moved to San Francisco after convincing her parents to
allow her to attend a Jesuit university there. It
wasn't long after her arrival in California that Agnes
sought the cool embrace of the Beat movement.
It was 1958 and the Beat was strong in San Francisco.
Agnes was a regular in North Beach and a weekly
fixture at the Vesuvio Cafe, where she quietly
performed her own form of stream-of-consciousness
poetry before small audiences too paralyzed to speak
or move. She ended each performance with her
trademark stretch of silence. The audience would sit
silent, fully entranced by Agnes' presence...she would
raise her arms slowly above her head, pause, then
*snap* her fingers, resulting in unabashed cheers and
applause. Agnes was beautiful.
Michael Cocke knew Agnes was beautiful. Michael was
Agnes' first friend in San Francisco. They found
themselves sitting at the same table in a crowded
coffee house during an evening of Alan Ginsberg. When
Ginsberg later sat at the same table, Michael and
Agnes were too lost in each other to even notice.
They quickly fell in love and moved in together.
Meanwhile, Agnes' parents continued to send money for
rent and school, unaware that they were supporting her
devilish lifestyle.
Just short of her 19th birthday, Agnes became
pregnant. In a panicked effort to appease her parents
the young couple decided to get married. They had a
traditional wedding with family and friends, cake and
flowers. Soon after returning to San Francisco,
however, Agnes and Michael resumed their beatnik ways,
which were anything but traditional.
Their first-born child was Harmen.
Harmen was named by Agnes after her great great great
great great great great great great great great great
great grandfather; the great Dutch painter, Harmen
Steenwijck. When Agnes and Michael married, Agnes
agreed to take Michael's last name if and only if she
could name their first-born child. Agnes saw this as
a victory because she knew her parents would force her
to take the name of her husband anyway.
Agnes did not take the task of naming her child
lightly. She wanted a name that was unique and strong
- a name that had some personal significance to her.
It wasn't until the baby was nearly two months old
that Agnes' parents sent her a book about her family's
Dutch ancestry.
"Oh, Michael! What about the name Bart?" Agnes called
from the living room, "my mother's great grandfather
was Bart Visser. He was a cobbler in Amersfoort."
"A cobbler! Now that's a noble profession!" replied
Michael half-joking.
"Oh shoosh...be serious. Don't you care that our baby
doesn't have a name yet? He'll be two months old soon
- he really should have a name!" Agnes said with
concern.
Michael entered the living room, wiping his hands with
a dish towel. He walked behind Agnes and kissed her
on the forehead.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be insensitive, I just
didn't realize it was going to be this difficult to
name our child."
"It's awfully frustrating. I wish I could find a name
in one of these goddamn books my mom sent..."
As she said the words, Agnes flipped hurriedly through
one of the volumes and stopped on a random page. She
gasped...
"Harmen! What a fantastic name! Look here,
Michael..." as she pointed to the randomly selected
page.
Michael peered over Agnes' shoulder and saw a small
picture of what appeared to be an illustration from a
book about Pirates. Below the picture, read the
following:
'STEENWIJCK, Harmen - Dutch painter (b. 1612, Delft,
d. 1656, Leiden)
For Harmen Steenwijck, a still-life painting is filled
with objects of desire. Is his art a precursor of
Modernism and beyond?'
"Wow! I didn't realize there was artistic talent in
the family!" Michael said wryly.
"Oh, I just love it! Do you think it's unique
enough?" asked Agnes.
"Well, I don't know anyone named Harmen. And our last
name isn't all that common, so I don't think you'll
find many people..."
"Check the phone book!" Agnes demanded, cutting off
Michael in mid-sentence.
"What??"
"I said check the phone book! If we can't find it in
the phone book, then it has to be unique!" Agnes'
small-town Ohio rationale was shining.
Michael ran for the kitchen and retrieved the phone
book from the top of the refrigerator. He entered the
living room with the phone book open, running his
finger down each page. The turned the page again and
continued tracing with his forefinger. Then he
stopped...
"I can't find it...it's not here...there's no Harmen
Cocke."
"There's no Harmen Cocke." Agnes repeated quietly.
------------------------------------------------------
And thus one of life's great truths is revealed:
There is, never has been and never will be any Harmen
Cocke.
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 12:20:46 EST (#)
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