Speaking Out (of his mind!)	Speaking Out Archive

Each of us, I'm sure, has a particular favorite story of courage and perseverance in the face of adversity. My own special hero in this department is a certain Harry Sfincter-Niles.

Harry's life has not been an easy one. As a teenager he attempted to augment his family's meager income by caddying at a nearby golf course. It was only his third Saturday on the links when he was the tragic victim of a hit-and-run accident.

Rumor has it that some local bank officer, who'd had a few too many, was at the controls of an electric golf cart when it backed over Harry, crushing both his big toes.

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Harry's mom and dad, like Harry himself, were not the kind of people to make waves. Instead of pursuing the affair and asking a lot of questions that might embarrass the club or any of its fine members, they agreed to quietly drop the whole matter.

In the same spirit, Harry decided that the way he'd cause the least trouble for everyone was by spending the rest of his life in bed supporting himself through aggressive telephone sales work.

It was around this time that his mother took a part-time position as our cleaning lady, and I had the opportunity to meet Harry. We soon became fast friends. We'd only known each other for three years when Harry confided in me his shameful secret, that he sometimes had homosexual desires.

I told him that he wasn't the only person in the world who suffered from this affliction, and that the Roman Catholic Church, to which he was a dedicated adherent, made a distinction between the morally neutral act of experiencing homosexual impulses and the morally repugnant act of expressing those impulses. This information seemed to provide him with much relief and comfort.

One day last spring Harry called me with some terrifically exciting news. He told me he was about to undertake a project of a spiritual nature that would provide his life with new meaning and purpose. He had been admiring the photos of Boston's Archbishop Bernard Law, when he was seized by an inspiration.

"I have decided to do a portrait of Bishop Law made entirely out of human hair."

"That's a wonderful idea," I responded.

"But wait," he said, "I haven't told you the most exciting part. I'm not planning to use just any hair. I'm going to restrict my materials exclusively to pubic hair. I figured what more appropriate demonstration of my devotion to the Church could I offer than to redeem something as loathsome as my pubic hair by transforming it into something as beneficent as Bernard Law's face."

I was awestruck at the daring of his vision. "But Harry," I continued after a few moments' reflection, "Have you considered the difficulties involved in such a project? To begin with, human hair is not the easiest medium in which to work. And pubic hair, with its tendency to curl and the shortness of its strands, is the most difficult of all human hair to fashion artistically. And have you thought about where you will get..."

"Lester," Harry interrupted, "My mind's made up! As for supply, don't worry about it. I've already phoned several local leather and bike clubs who are into shaving. They've assured me that it would be their pleasure to provide me with all the pubic hair I can use."

Harry spent the past year addressing himself to this enterprise with a single-minded purposefulness that was reminiscent of the creative obsession of other great artists. Without question, it was a labor of love.

The portrait was nearing completion when I received a frantic phone call from Mom Niles: "Lester, can you come over right away. There's been a terrible accident."

Apparently a driver for Wonder Bread, with an unstable medical history, had spent the last twenty-four hours bingeing on Twinkies and non-decaffeinated Coca-Cola. In his dazed condition he was only able to supply sketchy details. At any rate, somehow he maneuvered his delivery truck into the one-way street on which Harry lived - only heading in the wrong direction! He swerved to avoid an oncoming parked car and crashed into a tree that snapped and fell through the window next to Harry's bedroom-- the room in which Harry kept Bernard Law when he wasn't working on him.

The portrait was totally ruined. Mom Niles wanted me there when she broke the news to Harry.

When we walked into his room he took one look at our faces and said, "Don't tell me. I already know. It's the Bishop, isn't it. The tree got him." The two of us just nodded. "Well," said Harry, "Then what are we waiting for? I'd better get back to work since now I'm a year behind schedule."

That's Harry Sfincter-Niles. No tears, no histrionics-- just quiet commitment and dedication to making this world a little more beautiful place in which to live. Now there's a role model for you.