Last year I worked at the
federal courthouse in South Boston's Seaport District. From my desk I could look out the window at the
Children's Museum, which is notable from a distance for the gigantic blow-up Arthur the Aardvark figure that stands guard atop its roof.
At that time, however, the
bespectacled Arthur was a far-from-imposing sentinel, as through most of my year at the courthouse he was barely inflated to half-capacity. As a result, Arthur kept his vigil in a sort of awkward slouch, straining at the wires that held him in place. All the hallmarks of abdominal cramping were there. I used to sympathize with him on Wednesdays, after wolfing down one of those buffalo chicken wraps from the court cafeteria.
At one point when I was looking for work earlier this year, I found myself speaking with the
attorney who represents Arthur in trademark matters ("brand management" is, I believe, the term that he uses to describe his practice). I remarked to him that Boston's Arthur Colossus had looked a bit worse for the wear recently:
Is he doubled over in pain because of some plot development in his books that I don't know about? Has he, I wanted to know,
been diagnosed with hepatitis?
Whatever the reason for it, I ventured to say,
allowing that Affable Aardvark to wither away, hunched over, buffeted by the angry Seaport winds, on top of a building for months at a time is not an approach that I personally would find consistent with healthy "brand management." The attorney agreed, and he thanked me — no doubt, with tongue in cheek — for my critical input.
As some of you know, I started work again several weeks ago. My new office digs are in the Seaport, and my window fronts on the Children's Museum. It's a different angle on Arthur — I sit twelve storeys higher, the building is further away, and it is positioned such that I am now looking at him from behind. That said, as I regard him from this new perspective, Arthur's condition seems much improved. I hear he is taking regular interferon treatments, and he is certainly looking much more robust for it. He sits up perfectly straight — with the posture of a buck private on his last day of Basic, one might say — and from his perch on the roof he is able at last to give a spirited greeting to the children who visit the Museum, as his hoisters no doubt intended him to do in the first instance.
All is well, I say, that ends well. I don't doubt that I played some small part in the Aardvark's convalescence. But you all know me — I don't hunger for credit or accolades. It just warms my heart to know that I contributed.
