Is That a Monocle?

Every time I do laundry, Lester stares down from atop the stackable washer and dryer. And when I say stares, I mean that he blankly keeps his eyes shifted to the left while smiling a rather grimacing smile. His vintage clothes are showing major signs of wear and are full of moth holes. The persistent heat from the dryer isn't helping matters. The lifesaver-looking medallion I strung onto a ribbed green strap is becoming dull. Lester deserves a better place my home than locked away behind laundry closet doors, but the fact that he creeps out visitors (and literally makes children cry) creates a bit of an issue. Besides, though he has a cool vintage style about him, he doesn't really match my contemporary design motif.

He used to be a great conversation starter. People would walk into the guest room of my Austin home, and immediately walk out with confused (or terror-stricken) faces and an uncomfortable muttering of "Um, Jenée? Why do you have a Black ventriloquist doll seated cross-legged on the dresser? It's really kind of creepy."

To which I would nonchalantly respond, "Oh, that's just Lester" and launch a lecture-like inquiry into why they had to differentiate his color.

"If that had been a Caucasian ventriloquist doll, would you have referred to it as 'white'?" To which most of my family and friends would just roll their eyes and request that I please remove it from their room.

My nieces and nephews would come to visit me when they were little and run out of the room screaming. Though I let them know it was "just Lester," they would still ask with tear-soaked faces that I please remove him and put him in my room- - or in the outdoor shed.

Lester the ventriloquist’s doll is far more misunderstood than my next-door neighbors' African Gray who desperately craves touch. I have no idea what Lester craves, but from the reactions of anyone who has ever encountered him, you would think he craves their bloody and beating heart in his hands. Poor guy.

This morning while unloading the dryer, I stared up at him with a great sense of empathy. What a crappy life. He just sits there– all the time. I decide to pull him from his resting place on a stack of appliances and rest him atop the pillows on my bed. Strangely, I'm instantly uncomfortable and utter, "Dude, you really are kind of creepy."

Still feeling sorry for him, but super uncomfortable with him lounging on my bed, I pick him up and place him seated near the armrest of my sofa.

While he sits lifeless and smiles at the wall, I make a second cup of espresso and reminisce about how Lester came to be in my life.

Months before the holidays every year, Dad would lug home three Sears catalogs; one each for me and my younger sister, Julie, and one for the magazine rack.

When our brothers were finally born and on the toy wish list scene, Dad would heave five of those suckers into his arms and walk through the front door as if he himself was Santa Claus (well, uh... anyway).

All four of us kids thought thumbing through the Sears catalog and marking the toys we wanted from Santa was just about as groovy as getting Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books delivered to us in the mail. (My mom was part of one of those weird book clubs that sent you a dozen books for a penny. I still don't understand that business model, but I suppose I'm partially grateful for it's once-upon-a-time existence since it helped to spur my love of books and reading).

Every year in my beloved Sears, Roebuck & Co catalog, I'd circle Lester, the Black ventriloquist doll with afro and cool cap, the ribbed turtleneck shirt and corduroy pants and vest. I loved him. I loved his style. I wanted him. For some reason, though, when it came to Lester the ventriloquist doll, my parents (a.k. (at the time) a. Santa) ignored my request, even as it grew more emphatic over the years.

After a couple years of being dissed by Santa, I began going to extremes to make my point. I would use a King-sized permanent Sharpie to circle Lester, and I'd circle him so many times that the repeating circumferent strokes would begin to tear the page, while the rest of the suboptimal and less significant toys I would circle with one stroke of a blue Bic pen. I hoped my indication of which toy was most important to me was being conveyed via this method. Alas, I was proven wrong every single year. Santa apparently didn't get it! I'd get all the other damn toys I'd circled with the blue Bic pen, but never Lester! So I started drawing arrows pointing to the heavily marker-encircled ventriloquist doll named Lester. Still nothing.

I was so upset one year that I took it up with my parents and threatened to write a scathing letter to Santa. I think they came up with some excuse about Santa thinking I wasn't quite old enough for a ventriloquist doll. Being pretty easy-going about things, I accepted this reasoning and hoped that this year Santa would find me mature enough for Lester.

Well, let's just say that Santa did in fact find me mature enough for a ventriloquist doll the following Christmas.

On that fateful Christmas morning, pre-dawn after only getting a couple hours of sleep due to hours of eating meat pies at Grandma's after Midnight Mass, my family gathers sleepy-eyed around the Christmas tree.

I see, leaning against the wall near the tree, a box that could very much fit the entire body of Lester the ventriloquist doll. I feel like Ralphie in A Christmas Story who has just sighted the box housing his Red Ryder BB gun. I am so excited I can't stand it, and because I'm the oldest child I get to open the first present.

I'm also the kid who loves surprises, and the only one who would later in life not go looking for hidden presents once we all knew that Mom and Dad were in fact Santa Claus. In most cases, I would have saved the best present for last, but it had been too many years awaiting this moment. I was going to open that huge box first, and the joy of finally coming face to face with Lester would set the tone for the entire glorious day!

I shred the wrapping paper from the box (this is before Mom and Dad decide to become environmentally-friendly and wrap our gifts in newspaper. We went through a few years where the under-the-Christmas-tree color scheme was very monochromatic. We thought they were so ahead of their time on this one. But looking back, I think my dad just might've had a bad bonus year at work).

The leaning box does indeed entail a lifeless ventriloquist doll, but to my disappointment, it is not only a doll named Willie, but he is dressed in a plaid polyester suit and his right eye sports a monocle. His hair is made of the same plastic that his body is made of, and that plastic hair is styled in a badly gelled comb-over. And he is white.

Dad, annoyingly enthusiastic, declares, "Oh Née Née! Look, it's Willie!"

I'm dejectedly thinking, "Who the f*%k is Willie?!"

I don't know this doll that resembles a bad impersonation of Alfred E. Newman, and I don't want to know him! Where is Lester?!

Mom chimes in, "What do you think, Née? Do you want to practice some of your ventriloquism with all of us?"

Practice my ventriloquism? I'd like to shove this strange doll's head down the garbage disposal and shred him into a million pieces. This is the creepiest looking doll I've ever encountered, and where the heck is Lester?

Instead of tearing the head off my new ventriloquist doll and noting forcefully how incredibly ridiculous Santa is, I just respond, "No, that's okay. I'll practice later."

Dumbfounded, I carry my lifeless Willie over to the sofa and plop him and myself down so I can be audience to my sister, now opening her first gift.

I don't recall how the rest of that day unfolded, but I do know that it did not consist of the same glorious joy I had anticipated when I saw the box leaning against the wall near the Christmas tree. I don't even remember how dad framed the entire Lester versus Willie gifting. I suppose he said something about Santa’s having run out of Lesters. What I do remember is that there were many times when I would get frustrated with my little sister or my little brothers and I would want to punch Willie in the face. I resented him because he wasn't Lester, and even at age 9 I wondered if the only reason Willie was even in my life was because someone, Santa even, had an issue with Lester being Black.

In retrospect, I think my 9-year-old self missed the point a bit. I'm sure my parents were aware of my activist tendencies; no doubt they had already imagined a version of my “If that were a Caucasian doll…” lecture. I mean, I had already fought with a Catholic priest– and won– to keep the name Francis (as in St. Francis of Assisis) on my confirmation stole when he threatened to make me change it to the feminine spelling. They probably didn’t think I needed to dive into diversity-awareness activism at age 9. I don't blame them; better to punch poor Willie in the face than squabble with every kid who might disrespect Lester.

Years after college, my beloved aunt Jolene greeted me at our family lakehouse and asked me to go to my godfather's home two doors down and look on the piano. There was something there I needed to grab. I figured I was going to retrieve some baked goods or a potluck dish to bring to the back deck for our Sunday dinner.

When I entered my godfather's home and walked to the piano, I saw Lester propped up on the piano bench, with his hands on the ivory keys. I laughed and cried at the same time. My aunt had scoured eBay for years looking for the exact replica of the Lester I so desperately wanted from ages 6 to 9 (apparently there have been a lot of different variations of him made over the years). She found him, purchased him, and gifted me with one of the best surprises ever!

For this reason alone, I will never be without Lester, despite his creepy grin and his shifty eyes that don't actually shift.

By the way, not long after that Christmas, Willie's monocle shattered. It could've been because I punched him really hard in the face, but I honestly don't remember. All I remember is how happy I was to retire him to the attic. I was about as happy to get that doll into the attic as I was when I "accidentally" flushed down the toilet the pro-life bracelet that Mom and Dad made Julie and me wear.

That is definitely a story for another time.