Thursday, 25 April 2013

a seventieth story...'cornelius obit, 1969'

Cornelius was a social hand grenade.  He was in danger of going off any given moment.  Taking the tobacco pipe out of his mouth was, on occasion, akin to removing the pin in the aforesaid projectile.  There was always a chance he would say something unspeakably vulgar, or ill-judged, often at a particularly audible volume, in a particularly voluble manner.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in view of his volatile nature, Cornelius divided opinion.  Quiet subversive types secretly delighted in his volcanic outbursts; mild mannered, easy going types (often the types who also frown upon others) despised him; the gregarious and equally (though not quite equally) combustible characters felt both comradeship and revulsion (revulsion since they are often the types who do not like their thunder stolen, or broadcast air space invaded). 

In many respects, Cornelius was a soul divided.  He loved, and he hated.  One minute he would be caressing with his left hand, the next, fighting with his right.  There was little or no middle ground, no sitting on the proverbial boundary fence.  And, of course, his countenance was as ever changing as the British weather: when buoyant his features were as bright and gay as a Spring morning; when the crimson tide of anger rolled in, his jaw became set, his tone cutting and scornful.

Social hand grenade, or party popper.  It could be difficult at first hand to decide whether you would suffer Cornelius’ verbal shrapnel, or delight in the colourful puzzle of fluorescence, as he might otherwise come across. 

Drink was typically at the centre of things for Cornelius.  Often the brown stuff.  After several Whiskeys, Cornelius, if aroused would morph into a modern-day Lord Byron, if angered, he would kick around like a wasp-stung ass, turning over tables and chairs.  He had the wrath of a Roman God, and in fairness, every now and again, the poise.

When Cornelius was feeling affably drunk, he would clap me on the shoulder and remind me his name was of Roman origin.  But I could only bring to mind Dr Cornelius and then, without too much of leap (especially in present company, furthermore, if we were out picnicking on a Saturday afternoon in the municipal park) La Planète Des Signes.  There is (or was) also Cornelius Vanderbilt, an American rail road tycoon, and Cornelius, a third century Pope.  Amen.

It’s a shame the Cornelius I knew won’t be remembered (at least for the right reasons) by very many people.  Whether you liked him or not, people of his ilk are worth their place in your life, at worst, simply in the way the can help solidify your own sense of identity.  You can define yourself against them by saying: ‘Well, I’m not like him’, or, ‘I would never do/say that!’.  Thing is, more often than we care to admit, we are thinking, wanting to do the same thing, but we don’t let on.  Which is more noble?  Which is more true to the Self?

(Truly, I’m damned if know).

Anyhow, Cornelius had the potential to be a great artist, although he could not stick at any discipline for very long.  It would be sculpture one month (the perfect medium for him to let out his worldly frustrations), oils the next (more sympathetically composed amidst the crumbling remains of various busts, and half formed heads), acrylics thereon (hurriedly painted over sheets of glass taken from his own studio windows), and so forth. 

I remember he asked me to sit for him once, so I did.  I was rather intrigued.  But following perhaps half an hour of preliminary sketches, he emerged from behind his easel and announced it was time for lunch, a lunch from which we never returned owing to copious amounts of wine with our cheese course. 

After Cornelius’ death I tried to find the unfinished portrait among the dust, grime and general detritus of his derelict studio, but could not, and consider it a shame to this day.  It would have been the perfect memento mori to a fast, incandescent and yet unfulfilled life, brimming with, in the end, unrealised promise, now half buried in the low tide of collective memory.

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