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^—Name— ^-^
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^—Mothers name Wi«d Detectives
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of^rou^^^^j^____ ^
residue
New York State Psychiatric Hospital
West Branch
EARLY HISTORY: A SUMMARY:
wmstabibtuihnhunhattedtrteSuheoyaehwitlhaitpwredtyarurhealosecaSnsefcryhoteab^tslumioi,tsvsrtfUsbhinuuabaa-etrstlnrteihiidheKookr,eonneoMrvslrflasyPoaic.ofescvWsfetoatdenmlahKrctaataoaaldtemivmcJeurneaetolachstnaaseKeewtsrcoproiqnvwhytuuaaolhNacmfsaesiaKbsw,onnehmtevdtreeiaraYewtscnmotohhescrefioefm,kenonrirstgl-il.a«rfopuehr^lwehfnoeoi-ertrarr^rr.mbE. ^eahlxhO^nun=meaeht^seo»criblnu^tooa^tntlartnyyt/pwdi^aoiur,nn^rwnetg°hmwlmJet^aoiaeh^nndnlt^en^detlift^bhisos/st^hsnnf,;pesogs^^rrhbf.i^ieit^n^^b^psfo^gho^o^^et^rwupfToh^eanrf^^nsco^^ee^^vtxrlw1^ih^tt9oied.^fa3nte^f5ieh.n^^,
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HHLpHtoloamectehef'ot^rhweoPrscrthoibleldxecmeusnCsdheeisrldrocfeanrea.ipnroMHseetviwtaJsuetresasedym,ilt^tv^e.^d^f^V^t^o^^^'%th^e-^7"^^f^^.^^^^^^^^-,^^^,f^^^^^^^^^!^t^if
ton
^°^.
when it was decided that he was intelligentand howme^el^l^^a^^t^^^^^s^^c^^h^^ooJl^fw°ro™orjmK^,
hte
ftion in normal society. During his time atvery
his mother's negative influence, Kovacs did
^^^^^uscation
ei^elling P^rti'oularly in the fields of literature in the 43:»a%,^ta^
an impressive ski
as well as possessing 11^^
gymnastics and amateur boxing. While quiet an^ rf
fshy^ especially with women, Kovacs was capable a
long and well-reasoned conversations with hif
classmates and instructors, and struck most peo|
as a serious but likeable child who was merely
b il^_wi thdrawn,
,^*"***-'^»*v^is aside, it is clear that his loathii
/ of his mother remained undiminished. Shortly
before Kovacs left the Charlton home in 1956,
news was received that his mother, who had never|
made any attempt to contact her child and who hr
continued to become further involved in the worl
of small-time vice, had been murdered. Her body
had been found in a back alleyway in the South
Bronx, the cause of death being the forced ing
estion of Drano pleaning fluid-A man named Georc
Paterson, Mrs. ]fovacs' pimp, was later charged
/
^ll^ri^f^i- •;:€?>?- ---^^ -ifindustry ir. ^ ^^ ^'^PlovmF'n* .
^^rst of ^ <=*^,.;^ -- •«-
' ^^^^^cs lefi-
tL"as eleven, !^''^" °" the set ?„^ ^*^^ ^t the Ch^^ir °P^^= °f
,S( Charlton by Walter Kovacs
1 rtpupr ^e^ i^y '^^'^*
Home
W^ parents
H .^..t,odt
yc. don't .™« «ho tn. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^.^^ ,,,,
po,,,U3. .^9— -- ^- '^"; ;; p. ..-..t T.^.^., be»use .. 11^«^ ^-
^.0 ..C. .^ost p.o.a.l> .e wa. ^^^ \^^ [^^^ ,, ,,, ..„ ..1. f^.t for .
^J
country and w^.t ... r,,ht. J^^^'^^ ^ ,^ ,,„, „e.
^
00. ™. a.. t...s -;--;\:; ; rl.d of .a..ed .e to. ^e .roppea t..
^^ Charlton t#^^
<T^y Home
DREAM, 5/?7/S3
,1. J"f her i,.,at. H. got hU .h.l. '"' ""' ''' '^"' '° ^^^ *' -t
'^« ^o.se was .,1 ,,,,,,,„, ,,, ^^^^^ ;" -^-'-. > ^a. o.t of t.e .oo. b.t
t" f-^ -™. I .,, „,nfng dow. this so " '""" '"^''^^' ^° ' -"^ ''-^
f r,
the .™.. ... ,Hey .,.n't .avVan. ^1^e '"^^"^ " ""^ ^^^^ -^ ^^
-^ ^-^ a.d c..3t ., .,.,,, ^;:;,;rr '^''" ^^'^ ^^'™" '-^"- -^"- -
e.rs, t.o on eithe. side of the head '"^ ^^' ^°" ^°"^'* ""^J- ^^^ their
each othe.r a; well, but
^™wTng iTHntio f.M' , rnfe,^i)r, .h,and,s were
thev
y ^ '"""''" ='^<^h other,
h;,rt =ii ,
-^-PP-5 up. ,,,,p,, ,,„^^, ^^^^^ me^ ^^ a crab, and there w.. so.ethir,g
a- .nde™.ar .„ ,tuff. T Jr"The, .ere co.in 't l. ^" ' -^ ^* «- trc.sers
T'"
^-1-9. «hen , .„,e .p. Dirty feelings t
' ^ '" ' "°^^ ^^^^ ' ^^^
^__J_tCfil^ lust taTktng about it,-'
^^wn tHe dmsh of* nr. Muicoir
10/2.
JV
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A BROTHER TO DRitGONS
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BLOOD-FROn THE
5H0ULDER-0F" PALLAS
lTlL!Jl2Jl2jl2ll2;l2jl2)LI « Y A N E1) I I. D R E I R E R G tiLllOllLiLadElE
Ds it possible, 1 wonder, to study a bird so closely, to observe
and catalogue its peculiarities in such minute detail, that it
becomes invisible? Is it possible that while fastidiously calibrating
the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose
sight of its poetry? That in our pedestrian descriptions of a
marbled or vermicuiated plum-
age we forfeit a glimpse of living
canvases, cascades of carefully
toned browns and golds that would
shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of
color to rival Monet? I believe that v^e do. I
believe that in approaching our subject with
the sensibilities of statisticians and dissec-
tionists, we distance ourselves increasingly
from the marvelous and spell-binding planet of
imagination whose gravity drew us to our studies in
the first place.
This is not to say that we should cease to establish facts and to verify our information, but
merely to suggest that unless those facts can be imbued with the flash of poetic insight then they
remain dull gems; semi-precious stones scarcely worth the collecting.
When wc stare into the catatonic black bead of a Parakeet's eye we must teach ourselves to
glimpse the cold, alien madness that Max Ernst perceived when he chose to robe his naked
brides in confections of scarlet feather and the transplanted monstrous heads of exotic birds.
When sonic ocean-going Kite or Tern is captured in the sharp blue gaze of our Zeiss lenses, we
must be able to see [he stop motion flight of sepia gulls through the early kinetic photographs of
Muybridge, beating white wings tracing a slow oscilloscope line through space and time.
Looking at a hawk, we see the minute differences in width of the shaft lines on the
underfealhcrs where the Egyptians once saw Horus and the burning eye of holy vengeance
incarnate. Until we transform our mere sightings into genuine visions; until our ear is mature
enough to order a symphony from the shrill pandemonium of the aviary; until then we may
have a hobby but we shall not have a passion.
When I was a boy my passion was for owls- During the long summers of the early fifties,
while the rest of the country was apparently watching the skies for incoming flying saucers or
Soviet missiles, I would hare across the New England fields in the heart of the night, sneakers
munching through the dried grass and bracken towards my watch, where I would sit peering
upwards in hope of a different sort of spectacle, ears straining for the weird scream that meant
an old bird was out combing the dark for sustenance, a mad hermit screech, glaringly distinct
from the snaring hiss of a younger owl.
Somewhere over the years; sometime during the yawning expanse between those snug years
in the afterglow of a war well won and these current times, huddled in the looming shadow of a
war unwinnable;someplace along the line my passion got lost, unwittingly refined from the
original gleaming ore down to a banal and lusterless filing system. This gradual tarnishing had
gone unnoticed, unchecked, finally calcifying into unthinking habit. It was not until compara-
tively recently that I managed to catch a dazzling glimpse of the motherlode through (he
accumulated dust of methodical study and academia: visiting a sick acquaintance at a hospital
in Maine on behalf of a mutual friend, walking back across the shadowy parking lot with my
mind reduced to blankness by the various concerns of the day, 1 suddenly and unexpectedly
heard the cry of a hunting owl.
raRir^r^^rarata^raia^la^raRln^l^R^fTlT^f^rara^raiT
It was a bird advanced in years, its shriek thai of a deranged old man, wheeling madly
through the dark and freezing sky against the ragged night clouds, and the sound halted me in
my footsteps. It is a fallacy to suppose thai owls screech to startle their prey from hiding, as some
have suggested; the cry of the hunting ow! is a voice from Hell and it turns the scrabbling voles
mylo statues, roots the weasel to the soil. In instant of paralysis there on the glistening
macadam, between the sleeping automobiles, 1 understood the purpose behind the cry with a
biting clarity, the way I'd understood it as a boy, belly flat against the warm summer earth. In
that extended and timeless moment. I fell (he kinship of simple animal fearalongwith all those
other creatures much smaller and more vulnerable than I who had heard the scream as I had
heard it, were struck motionless as I was. The owl was not attempting to frighten his food into
revealing itselL Perched with disconcerting stillness upon its branch for hours, drinking in the
darkness through dilated and thirsty pupils, the owl had already spotted its dinner. The screech
served merely to transfix the chosen morsel, pinning it to the ground with a shrill nail of blind,
helpless terror Not knowing which of us had been selected, I stood frozen along with the
rodents of the field, my heart hammering as it waited for the sudden clutch of sharpened steel
myfingers that would provide first and only indication that I was the predetermined victim.
The feathers of owls are soft and downy; they make no sound at all as they drop through the dark
stralas of the sky. The silence before an owl swoops is a V-Bomb silence, and you never hear the
one that hits you.
Somewhere away in the crepuscular gloom beyond the yellow-lit hospital grounds I thought I
heard something small emit its ultimate squeal. The moment had passed. [ could move again,
along with all the relieved, invisible denizens of the tall grass. We were safest wasn't screaming
for us, not this lime. We could continue with our noclurna! business, with our lives, searching
for a meal or a mate. We were not twitching nervelessly in stifling, stinking darkness, head first
down the gullet of the swooping horror our (ails dangling pathetically from that vicious scimitar
beak for hours before finally our hind legs and pelvic girdle are disgorged, our empty, matted
skin curiously inverted by the process.
Although I had recovered my motor abilities in the aftermath of the owl's shriek, 1 found that
my equilibrium was not so easily regained. Some facet of the experience had struck a chord in
me, forged a connection between my dulled and jaded adult self and the child who sprawled in
faint starlight while the great night hunters staged dramas full of hunger and death in the opaque
jet air above me. An urge to experience rather than merely record y
had been rekindled within me, prompting the thought \ ^f
.
processes, the self^evaluation that has led to Ihis current
article.
As I remarked earlier, this is not to suggest that I
immediately foreswore all academic endeavor and
research pertaining to the field in order to run away
and eke out some naked and primordial existence \^
v ,^
in the woods. Quite the contrary: I hurled myself ^ \^
\jJr ^^^.. .
into the study of my subject with renewed fervor, _^
able to see the dry facts and arid descriptions in
the same transforming magical light that had
favored them when I was younger A scientific understanding of the beautifully synchronised
and articulated motion of an owl's individual feathers during flight does not impede a poetic
appreciation of the same phenomenon. Rather, the two enhance each other, a more lyrical eye
lending the cold data a romance from which it has long been divorced.
Immersing myself avidly in dusty and long untouched reference books 1 came across
forgotten passages that would make me almost breathless, dreary-looking tomes that would
reveal themselves to be treasure houses of iridescent wooden I rediscovered many long-lost
gems amongst the cobwebs, antique and functional stretches of descriptive prose which
nonetheless conveyed the violent and terrible essence of their subject matter effortlessly
1 stumbled once more across T.A. Coward's engrossing account on an encounter with an
Eagle Owl: "!n Norway I saw a bird that had been taken when in down from the nest, but it not
only assumed the typical terrifying attitude, but made frequent dashesal the wire, striking with
its feet . U puffed its feathers out. framed its head in its wings, and fired off a volley of loud cracks
from its snappmg beak, but what struck me most was the scintillating flash of its great orange
eyes''
Then of course there is Hudson's account of the Magellanic EagleOwl which he wounded in
Patagonia: ' The irides were of a bright orange color, but every t ime I attempted to approach the
bird they kindled into great globes of quivering yellow flame, the black pupils being surrounded
by a scintillating crimson light which threw out minute yellow sparks into the air'' In long*
buried words such as the foregoing 1 caught some of the searings apocalyptic intensity that I had
felt in that wet hospital parking lot in Maine.
Nowadays, when I observe some specimen of CBrine nodua, I try to look past the fine grey
down on the toes, to see beyond the white spots arranged in neat lines, like a firework display
across its brow. Instead, i try to see the bird whose image the Greeks carved into their coins,
sitting patiently at the ear of the Goddess Pallas Athene, silently sharing her immortal wisdom.
Perhaps, instead of measuring the feathered tufts surmounting its ears, we should speculate
on what those ears may have heard. Perhaps when considering the manner in which it grips its
branch, with two toes in front and the reversible outer toe clutching from behind, we should
allow ourselves to pause for a moment, and acknowledge that these same claws must once have
drawn blood from the shoulder of Pallas.
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