Was

Jonathan could remember modeling a head in clay. He was playing at the back of the house, where his father was building a patio. His father was laying large slabs of stone, chipping the edges to make them fit in a patchwork-quilt pattern. For some reason, Jonathan had been given clay, real clay instead of plasticine. Jonathan's father had artistic ambitions as well, which the clay had been meant to fulfill.

And Jonathan was suddenly seized by the idea of clay. Out of it, from nowhere, he worked the head of a caveman. Jonathan loved cavemen, loved the idea of living in rock chambers, wearing hides and talking in grunts.

Jonathan the adult could still remember the caveman's face, his apelike brows, his monkey nose, his hedgehog ears and, above all, his expression. The flesh around his eyes was crinkled, ready to blink in dismay at the modern world into which he had strayed. The lips were half-open, as if the caveman were making up his mind to speak.

The tough little boy had even been sociable, in his own way. Hovering around the edges of the memory was another little boy called Robby Polk, who lived across the field. Jonathan's relationship with Robby was uneasy. Both of them liked to win, but Robby was better at it.

Robby looked at the caveman head and said, 'That's lousy.'

Jonathan was pleased. He felt he had caught Robby, trapped him into being petty. Jonathan's father had no kiln in which to bake the head. When the caveman finally dried, he split down the middle. Jonathan knew what Robby would say.

'Good,' said Robby, and Jonathan knew he had made him look small. He smiled and looked away and pretended Robby was not there.

His mother looked at the caveman head and stroked Jonathan's disordered hair and said, 'There are always compensations.'

The bad little boy hated most books. He tore up the ones he didn't like. They were written by adults for children. Jonathan knew that not because anyone told him, but because he sensed it in the books themselves. They were not written for children at all. He tore up a library book called Anatole. It was about a French mouse and it told cheese jokes about Camembert and Roquefort. That was a joke for adults. What child would know anything about French cheese? Why write books for children if you knew nothing about them, if you were really writing for adults?

There were honorable exceptions. He loved a book about a monkey, called Curious George. George kept getting into trouble, breaking things. Jonathan also loved a book called Space Cat. It was rather long-winded, and Jonathan would torment himself by forcing his way through the languorous opening. It was about a cat and a space pilot who became friends. They went to the moon and Space Cat had his own spacesuit, with a sausage- shaped piece for his tail. On the moon, there were floating silver globes, full of light, that were alive.

And, Jonathan loved The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

He did not have the real book. His parents did not know that he could read. They read aloud to him and thought he just looked at the pictures. They had bought him a slim, picture-book version. There was a pretty, blond Dorothy and a smiling Scarecrow. The Wizard was shown as several different things, a beautiful woman and a monster. There was only one page that showed a witch, but she soon melted away like all bad dreams.

Jonathan loved a few books and hated the rest. He hated mechanical toys and model cars. Most of all, he loathed television.

In the first place, it was full of murder. Dale Evans would be tied to a chair-horrible violation-and even though he knew Roy Rogers would arrive in time, riding Trigger, it was still terrible. Why, he thought, why watch anything that you hated, telling yourself that it would be all right in the end because it was a TV show? If the only comfort was knowing it was not real, why watch it at all?

He also hated the thing itself. His parents' television stood on four spindly legs. It was as if it could walk, with its one huge unblinking eye. Jonathan had dim memories of seeing a film on that one blind eye, a film in which an alien disguised himself as a television set. Jonathan could imagine, so clearly, the television suddenly lurching toward him, shooting electricity in lightning bolts from its blank screen.

If his parents turned it on and there was a Western or a cartoon, things he was supposed to like, he would scream and run away or howl until it was turned off. His parents, still grateful that he had recently ceased to smear lipstick over everything, would leap forward to turn it off.

But worst of all, everything on television was in black-and-white.

Jonathan loved color. He loved red. He wanted everything in the world to be full of color. So what, the adult Jonathan would often wonder, what had made him change?

In November 1956, Jonathan saw the first broadcast of the film version of The Wizard of Oz. The movie started at 9:00 p.m. and would go on until eleven. Jonathan had never before been allowed to stay up so late. He wore his red-striped pajamas and his red bathrobe. He was covered by his Indian blanket and he leaned against his mother on the gray and itchy sofa. His father passed him a cup of hot chocolate in the brown highwayman mug. Jonathan felt very adult.

His parents were obviously excited themselves. Television was still new. The idea of seeing such a great film for free seemed a wonderful advance. Jonathan understood that the film was something delightful that had happened to his parents when they were young. They talked about it at great length as the commercials unwound. They were a mine of misinformation about it.

They told him that the story was a very old fairy tale that someone had updated and made modern. They told him that the little girl who played Dorothy had only been twelve when she played the part (though that seemed very old to Jonathan).

Then the CBS eye, black and floating against clouds, came up, and a man said in a voice of portent, 'CBS presents a Ford Star Jubilee.' There were advertisements for cars. Then the talking continued. '…a masterpiece of literature,' said the announcer, 'which has fascinated children and adults for years, ranks with the great works of all times.' An old man talked to a little girl about how her mother had starred in the movie. It went on and on. What TV Guide had not said was that the film itself was only 101 minutes long-but the slot was two hours. Even Jonathan's parents began to shift uneasily.

Jonathan was in a kind of panic. He knew that he would fall asleep soon. Why couldn't they have all the talking after the movie?

A picture of a record sleeve came up. It showed a girl, and-there they were!-the Scarecrow and the Tin Man