Once she had sold those things, there wasn’t anything else to sell. She missed some payments, then people were calling on the phone about it for a while. That brings us to Saturday morning.
We woke up and there were two really big guys outside. They broke into her car and drove it away. I yelled a bunch of stuff at them and tried to call the police, but my aunt said it was useless. The repossession men and the police have an understanding. One of my favorite books was in the back of the car, too, and that they stole. Maybe the car was theirs to take, I don’t know. But the book, Barbarian in the Garden, by Zbigniew Herbert, that was my book, and there is no way they were ready to appreciate it. You have to read probably five hundred books before you can read that one.
My aunt said now I had a good thing to look forward to. What was that? She said now when I go to used bookstores eventually I will find it and there will be a kind of reunion. In the meantime, there are plenty of other books to read.
She didn’t even complain about the car—not once. I was hoping she would shoot them. That’s what was in my mind when I saw how big they were. I know she has a pistol. It’s because of what happened to my father and mother. She isn’t a violent person, but being the first one there (I was at a friend’s house when it happened), I think it was hard for her. By the time I got home, past the police, and so on, there wasn’t anything to see, so I never saw it. My mom was already in the hospital; my dad was at the morgue. I am glad I didn’t, because it really fucked my aunt up. But, I am also a bit jealous, because I feel like it was my thing to see and I never saw it.
PREDICTION
My aunt will say in about ten minutes that we should walk down to Muscha Park and feed the pigeons and read and then afterwards eat a hot dog from a vendor. We will then go to the park and we will sit and feed the pigeons some bread that we got for free from a bakery and we will read and afterwards we will eat a hot dog from a vendor. That is—one hot dog for the two of us.
I wanted to be vegetarian once, but it isn’t in the cards. Buying nice vegetables is pretty expensive. Maybe one day.
When I think about what my future holds, it is a bit like looking into the sun. I flinch away, or I don’t and my eyes get burned down a bit, like candles, and then I can’t see for a while.
The way we have things laid out—it makes it easy to know how to behave, but it isn’t so clear that I will be a success. I have no intention of going to college. Someone told me about a program that is at a school near us, a good school. The program sounded neat, so I read one of the professor’s books. He is a real big shot, and gets prizes, goes to fancy places. There is a picture on the school’s site of him shaking hands with the president, if you can believe it.
His book was terrible. It was intellectually weak. I don’t think his brain is very strong—or somewhere along the way it got polluted. Not to mention that he fraternizes with petty oligarchs.
My question is—why would I go to study with someone like that. I have no intention of bowing intellectually to such a person. My aunt says that I am vain and that I boast, but she doesn’t know that I talk to no one.
WHAT HAPPENED
It went just like that. My aunt was feeling pretty bad about the car. I don’t think she cares about having a car, but I think she was embarrassed for me, because it will be hard for me at school to live in a garage and be broke and have no car. It won’t be hard for me in a metaphysical sense—I can handle it. But, people will turn against me. Public opinion, if you will.
She is cheerful, though, so after a few minutes, she asked if I wanted to get some air, and I said yes, and we went out and down the street. Most people would be pretty stressed out about having to go somewhere with my aunt, because she looks pretty weird. She wears a hat that—let’s just say, I have no idea where she got this hat. She has a turquoise coat and she wears those huge black sunglasses that can cover other glasses, but since she doesn’t have other glasses, I’m not sure why she does it.
I should say, I was sad once when I went with her to a restaurant and we saw a girl from Parkson. It was a girl who I thought was smart and maybe could be my friend, but once she saw my aunt, I knew it wouldn’t happen. I felt bad about it—this was the combination:
part of me felt angry at my aunt for causing it;
part of me felt awful that I wouldn’t get this friend;
part of me felt okay because obviously the girl was terrible if she cared so much about what other people think that she would disqualify me on the basis of my aunt.
The whole thing was even worse because it was supposed to be a celebration. I had this problem for a while where I couldn’t stop crying, so I was out of school for two months and just crying all the time. It made me get brutal headaches. This was the first two months that I lived with my aunt, after the thing happened. So, at the end of that time, when a week or two passed, and I wasn’t crying anymore, my aunt said we should celebrate. Even though we couldn’t afford to, she knew it was the right thing to do—so we went to a restaurant. That’s when this happened, which made me feel even worse. Because my aunt is great. Fuck anybody who doesn’t approve of her!
Of course—I expect that I will look as strange to people as my aunt does if I live as long as she has. I think back then it looked to me that there was a chance I would be able to go undetected—that I could pass through society without being noticed. Since I realize now that people are against me anyway, it is easier for me to stomach having people think my aunt is a freak.
So, ultimately, I can’t take credit for being okay now with my aunt’s weirdness, is what I’m saying. I’ve just accepted that we’re painted with the same brush.
We walked down to the park. There were no pigeons. I don’t know where they had gone to, but when we tossed some bread on the ground, there were many pigeons. My theory is—they hide inside the park benches and wait.
If you want to say, Lucia, there is no inside of the park benches, I won’t argue with you. But, then you have to say where the pigeons come from.
After that, we read—I read a book about cremation in China. My aunt read Faust in German. The hot-dog guy gave us two hot dogs because he felt bad for us when my aunt had to pay for the one hot dog with change.
I want to add about my aunt that she does everything with an immense amount of dignity—so it isn’t that she really looks like a weirdo. It is just that people have so little acumen these days—they don’t even know what dignity looks like. Or, a few do. Like the hot-dog guy. He was moved by her display.
PREDICTION
Tomorrow I will go to the Home to visit my mom again. I will wear a raincoat and I will take the number 12 bus all the way down Ranstall Avenue and change to the number 8 at Bergen. While I am riding the bus, I will read more in my book about Chinese cremation. While I am reading that book, someone will try to talk to me. I will grunt and indicate that I am reading a book. When I get to Stillwell, I will get off the bus. No one else will get off it because no one else will be on it at that point. I will walk half a mile to the entrance, and then half a mile past the gates to the main building. At the main building, I will get a guest pass and I will be escorted to my mother’s room. She will not be in the room. I will then be escorted to the fish pond. She will be sitting in a rocking chair next to the fish pond. She will be wearing a medical gown. Her hair will be in a ponytail (she never wore it in a ponytail). I will approach her and speak to her. She will once again fail to recognize me. I will sit with her for a while until it becomes clear that it isn’t doing anyone any good. Then, I will go back and hand my pass in. I will walk back down the drive. I will walk to the bus stop. I will get on the number 8 bus. I will take the number 8 bus past Ranstall past Wickham, past Arbor, to Twelfth. There I will get out. I will go into the bowling alley, Four Quarter Lanes, and I will sit at the bar and my friend Helen will pour me a drink. This time I will try to drink it a little slower. Probably, I will drink a glass of water first. (If I am hungry or thirsty and someone gives me a beer or a mixed drink, I will almost always drink it too fast, or faster than I should.)