Linda Harder, the girl next door:
"When did I know that he was going to be a poet? Oh, when
you think about it, it was there from the beginning. The story I
remember is one his sisters told about him when he was 6 or 7.
His parents used to have these big parties. I mean, nobody
had much money, but the Rutherfords could always get a huge crowd of
all kinds of different people together and everybody had a good time.
They'd pack the kids upstairs, put them to bed, and peopled arrive
and the party would start and go on 'til late at night.
Michael'd lay in bed, quiet until 10 or 11, when the party
was going good and his brothers and sisters were asleep. Then he'd
ease out of bed, pull on his underwear and sit in the center of the
kids' bedroom. He'd pull his knees up to his chin and wrap his arms
around his legs.
`I'm invisible. I'm invisible. I'm invisible,' he'd say softly
over and over until he felt invisible. Then he'd get up, creep
downstairs and join the party. He'd steal peanuts and pretzels and
the onions and olives out of drinks, and then he'd sneak back
upstairs and eat the stuff as he sat on the rug in the bedroom.
`I'm invisible. I'm invisible. I'm invisible,' he'd whisper
again and go back to the party. This skinny little kid in his
underwear would be wandering around watching all the adults,
thinking he was invisible, And none of the grownups ever said
anything to him, or smiled, or even seemed to see him.
Then he'd go upstairs and fall asleep and in the morning
he was visible again and people could see him. But he wouldn't
talk to anybody about what he'd done, because he was saving his
magic for the next party."
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Michael Rutherford is a graduate of SUNY Albany with a BA in English
and a Masters in Library Science. He is the founder and director of
Alternative Literary Programs (ALPS) and co-founder of Cultural Conspiracy,
Inc. which publishes Artists with Class, a quarterly addressing the concerns
of teaching artists. When he was younger (as opposed to his ongoing
childhood) he translated Catullus and published numerous poems. Now that he
has grown older and more garrulous, he has moved into prose, writing
literary sword and sorcery tales. His novella, THE TALE AND ITS MASTER,
Spring Harbor Press, 1986 was nominated as one of the year's best fantasy
novellas and then anthologized in THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY STORIES, DAW Press
in 1987. His collection of fantasy novellas, THE INFINITE KINGDOMS, followed
in 1990. Currently he has a fantasy novel, MORTAL BEAUTY, making the perilous
rounds of publishing houses.