THEODORE VON GRIFT lives a counterfeit life neither out of habit nor choice but out of self-defense. His tastes have been carefully acquired. Soft-boiled eggs, steak tartare, the smell of peonies, lawn tennis: the list has nothing genuine about it, since appreciation for Theodore von Grift is only an act. He abandoned his authentic self so long ago that he wouldn't recognize him if he met him on a street in downtown Baltimore. That he lives at number fifty-five Penrose Street in Baltimore, Maryland, is as unnatural as any other aspect of his life. His position as a bank officer, his wife and two children, his four bedroom house?all contribute to the elaborate composition. He is not who he is and doesn't try to resolve the paradox. Instead, he fills in the role he originated, each day adds new details and by 1927 has grown so intricate, so complex, that the many people who early on identified the mask of personality for what it was have dwindled to a perceptive few. To one, in fact. Theodore is being revealed, investigated, stripped and examined by a mere child. He doesn't even know the boy's name, nor have they ever spoken. But every morning the boy is sitting on the porch steps of number sixty-three when Theodore walks by on his way to the trolley stop on Fulton Avenue. Sixty-three is the most dilapidated house on the block, the shingles sloughing, the shutters hanging crookedly, and ordinarily The odore would have ignored these neighbors. But there is something about the way the boy looks up from the scab on his knee and stares: a wise, unnerving stare, as though he can see beneath Theodore's clothes. The odore has spent half his lifetime protecting himself from acute observation, has perfected impenetrability and is to acquaintances and family what lead is to the x-ray. And now, in his forty-ninth year, he has met his match in an unkempt little boy. He could easily take a roundabout route and avoid the child. But the challenge is too compelling: he walks by number sixtythree in order to test himself, and though he continues to fail the test, he has not given in to discouragement. If one sheet of lead doesn't shield him from those prying eyes he will try two; if two don't suffice he will try platinum. Eventually he will be to the child what he is to everyone else?only surface?and the boy will forget what he has seen. Young children have short, selective memo
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Jun 1, 1996
John Haigh 
Open Access