Wellington Napoleon Dowd - 1. Chapter 1 - What's in a Name?

“Wellington Napoleon Dowd.” The name, my name, was a clever witticism, a small revenge of my father’s on his wife’s family. It turned out to be a joke that followed me later in life in a very different way. My father wasn’t mean spirited, he simply could not resist absurdity. It became more than absurd in middle school. But more about that later, I was introducing myself.

I am the scion of the two leading families of Millsville, the Wellingtons and the Dowds.
Between them, they owned the mills where nearly the whole town worked, the homes the townfolk rented, the local saloons and the stores they frequented on the short main street. The once great fortunes generated by all this had long ago dwindled along with the members of both families.

As a last ditch means to retain control over the rapidly reducing remaining revenues in the quickly rusting industrial town, the two families had grudgingly agreed to the marriage of the only two remaining individuals. This union was sanctioned only due to lack of other suitable suitors. I was their joint result, though how that came to be is completely mysterious. I have never known my parents to communicate in any way, save through the intercession of servants or myself and that only to inquire if the other yet lived.

My mother remains in her suite of rooms in the west wing of the house, the Dowd Mansion, where she reclines a la Recamier, suffering the pain and anguish of life. Quelle drame. She continually consumes medication for her unspecified afflictions, gin, I believe. She is not to be disturbed. While once reputed to be a great beauty, indolence has encapsulated that beauty in growing layers of opulent fat. Still, she exudes elegance and style in her consuming occupation of retirement. That is her legacy to me.

My father? I have known from a very young age that my father is as gay as a summer stock production of Meet me in St. Louis. His place of seclusion is his studio in the north wing of the mansion. He was said to be ‘artistic’ in his youth and still has several works in progress: a painting begun long ago yet untouched in my memory, a novel yet to materialize on the blank pages on his desk and a musical work of which the same four bars are sometimes scratched out on an out of tune violin. My father’s inspiration of choice is bourbon.

I’m certain of my father’s paternity, despite the obvious unlikelihood, due to the striking resemblance between us that has developed as I have matured. The monumental portrait of him in his early twenties that hangs in the grand staircase could be of me, though I think I’m a bit more masculine. Further, my seemingly innate mastery of the American Musical Theatre oeuvre clearly marks me as his own true son. His too refined artistic nature, somewhat sharp wit and my name are his legacy.

I am summoned to my mother’s chambers on occasion where my failings are meticulously called out. I suppose my existence is continuing evidence of the two worst events in my mother’s life, her wedding and my conception. My father welcomes my company, even joining in youthful play. Our favorite game was playing knights. A battered suit of amour that stands in the upper hall is our opponent of choice and is duly dubbed ‘Lancelot.’ Lancelot can put up an impressive defense considering his inanimate state but generally succumbs to our repeated assaults. Our level of success is gauged by the number of clangs his helm makes down the winding stone stairs his perch commands. In these affectionate moments my father, calls me an abbreviated ‘Well’, despite my mother’s instance that I be addressed as ‘Master Wellington’ in accordance with the sense of propriety her family’s station demands.

So to most of the world, I was known as ‘Well Dowd.’ Curse Middle School, that place where cruelty foments. Oh, but I was introducing my family and household.

Rounding out the household are the cook, Mrs. Cooke, and man of general duties, Gardener Butler Gardener. Mrs. Cooke and Gardener have established a comfortable togetherness, less as employees or servants and more as borders with a few light, often neglected, duties. Legend has it Gardener did start out as a gardener, but moved inside one year when the weather turned. He actually will dress in livery for special occasions which is a great improvement over his usual overalls. Still, Gardener is as close to a ‘regular guy’ as I have known.

Somehow each of my parents assumes the full staff of yesteryear still awaits their becks and calls. Still these two, Cook Cooke and Gardener are the ones who by and large raised me with some affection and far too much formality in the virtual absence of my parents.

The above described ‘menage’ occupy the Down Mansion. More San Quentin than San Simeon, the massive granite pile would appear to have been the result of an unhappy collision of a Romanesque monastery and a Gothic cathedral, you know turrets, arches, stained glass and an overarching air of oppression. The germ of its design must have been sprung from an opium addled brain further steeped in a Poe-inspired melancholy. The gardens and lawns, long gone to bramble and thicket, are surrounded by a wall built to defend against any and all invading Huns, Mongols, and Visigoths. There is no question great expense was incurred in its construction and on its grounds, and impress it does – as well as depress.

Few are seen to approach the Dowd Mansion, save the weekly visit of the grocer and Tony the Barber to attend to my father and annual visits by the family accountant. It might be a lonely place in which to spend a childhood, yet here I did with only those mentioned and some imaginary friends. These and I had the run of the great house until I reached the age when schooling is required.

Egalitarianism was the reason my father cited for my enrollment in the local public school rather than the family’s traditional private boarding school, though I suspect economy was the true factor. The fateful day arrived in September. I was dressed according to my mother’s instruction in attire appropriate to our station, somewhere between little Lord Fauntleroy and an undertaker. So appareled, I descended from the house along the drive to the somewhat battered gates, squeezed through to await the school bus.

The creepy silence that greeted me on the bus evolved into admiration for the bravery necessary to live in the legendarily scary Dowd Mansion. I was small and quiet, but not unliked among my school mates. Naivete protected me in those early years from the taunts I would bear later. In that time, I enjoyed being ‘normal’ in school, learning that other children had affectionate parents, no servants, small houses and friends. By the third grade I realized that I could conceal the bow tie, that my mother required and that I quickly discarded on leaving the front door, in the hollow of an ancient tree in the front lawn. I made what concessions I could to popular appearance to try, as all children must, to fit in. By fifth grade, most of my school mates had forgotten any distinction my family connections had originally imposed. I was happy in my ignorance.

Then it came to pass – Middle School. That first day remains seared into my memory. The trend toward consolidation of local schools swept me away from the local and familiar to an institution serving a broader, more worldly scope. All the familiarity that diffused the peculiarity of myself and family were gone. My odd attire marked me from the instant of stepped off the bus. But it was in the small hell called ‘home room’ that my life was ruined.

The home room teacher intoned each of our names, reading from the official class roster. “Danforth, James? James Danforth?”

“Here,” came a student’s reply.

“Dowd, Wellington? Wellington N. Dowd?

“I’m usually called ‘Well.’”

“Well N. Dowd?” I heard my name in a new way for the first time as some wag from the back of the room chortled. At first I didn’t get the joke. I only understood as the teasing began and for reasons of cruelty or sympathy, one of my class mates put me wise. The worst part of the joke was that the signs of maturity so many of my class mates had begun to show evaded me altogether. I looked and felt like a child.

And so I would remain over the next seemingly interminable years. Gym class, a nightmare for many was supreme torture for me. Short, scrawny, in every way diminutive me was harassed by all others, eager to display their emerging masculinity – this made all the worse for the taunts of “Well N. Dowd – NOT, get it?”