she no longer really existed at all? I tried to tell myself that
I was still me and that Mom was still my mom, but never with conviction. I am
myself, I whispered again and again in the dark. I live my own life. I imagine my own worlds. That’s what I
kept telling myself.
“Mom’s
been arrested for soliciting,” I told Pedro one night. “That means Mom slept
with men and they paid her. She didn’t just take money from men, she engaged in
business relations. That means they took something from her too.” Pedro was
dreamily envisioning a new redwood knickknack shelf with Y joints and notched
shelves. He was twiddling his thumbs in his lap like a little boy. “Mom has
been committing crimes I didn’t even know about. She has stolen real cash and
valuable cars. She even sold drugs once. She put two men in a hospital and at
least one man in a morgue. Mom has
been committing these secret acts without my help, because she’s got a terrible
temper and can’t help herself. What’s more, Pedro, Mom can be cured. Her
condition is something that can be altered by the proper medication, regulated
by trained doctors and commercial, cost-effective therapy. Mom has a very bad
temper, Dad says. Mom has a very bad temper and I’ve never seen it.” I was
feeling hot and flushed. Something gave in my stomach, like a loose floorboard.
I started to cry. “Mom’s someone I don’t know at all, Pedro. That’s why I’m
growing up so wild. That’s why I’m doing things I really shouldn’t do. Perhaps
that’s why I even did those things to you, Pedro. But I can’t remember. I can’t
even remember what I did to you anymore.” I tried to stop, but I couldn’t stop crying.
The atmosphere of my small room turned moist and clinging. I felt as if I were
crying inside the womb of some hibernal animal.
“If
you’re gonna play hardball, you’re gonna get hurt,” Pedro said wisely, drifting
away into the mist. “We’re all grown-ups in this game, kiddo. We’ve all got to
live the lives we’ve got to live.”
Pedro’s
easy aphorisms disguised a real truth. There were still some very important
things Pedro wasn’t telling.
SOUND
AND GRAVITY
________________
9
ODDLY enough, it was during
this period of Mom’s increasingly alcoholic estrangement that I began to
experience anything like that “normal childhood” one usually encounters only in
books. I grew inured, if not accustomed, to the patent bliss of domesticity. I
developed a system of routine chores and scheduled ambitions, marking each day
on the calendar as I doled out payments to our landlord and utility franchises,
milkman and insurance broker. I took two paper routes. I studied every morning
and, every evening, fixed both Mom and myself a perfectly edible meal. Two or
three afternoons each week I would go out to what I referred to as my “job” in
order to earn money with which to “put bread on the table.”
As
a paperboy, I was kept informed when my clients went on vacations, and so, on
routine afternoons, I broke into carefully preselected homes and took jewelry,
portable televisions, cordless phones and microwaves, along with the more
alluring household appliances, and transported them downtown on the bus, where
I sold them at one of the various pawnshops frequented by gaunt men in loose
socks who stood about exposing swollen veins in their necks and foreheads, or
glowered at me from behind massy and varnished oak countertops as they
inspected my merchandise and contemplated ludicrous sums.
“Ten
dollars,” they said, eyeing me suspiciously, not concerned with where I got it
so much as how little I would take. “It isn’t worth my trouble. It isn’t worth
my time.”
“Make
it fifteen,” I replied, chewing my impassive bubble gum. “Maybe it’s worth a
little of your trouble. Maybe it’s worth a little of your precious time.”
I
even acquired during these days a friend. Rodney was twelve years old, and
lived in the corner
I was still me and that Mom was still my mom, but never with conviction. I am
myself, I whispered again and again in the dark. I live my own life. I imagine my own worlds. That’s what I
kept telling myself.
“Mom’s
been arrested for soliciting,” I told Pedro one night. “That means Mom slept
with men and they paid her. She didn’t just take money from men, she engaged in
business relations. That means they took something from her too.” Pedro was
dreamily envisioning a new redwood knickknack shelf with Y joints and notched
shelves. He was twiddling his thumbs in his lap like a little boy. “Mom has
been committing crimes I didn’t even know about. She has stolen real cash and
valuable cars. She even sold drugs once. She put two men in a hospital and at
least one man in a morgue. Mom has
been committing these secret acts without my help, because she’s got a terrible
temper and can’t help herself. What’s more, Pedro, Mom can be cured. Her
condition is something that can be altered by the proper medication, regulated
by trained doctors and commercial, cost-effective therapy. Mom has a very bad
temper, Dad says. Mom has a very bad temper and I’ve never seen it.” I was
feeling hot and flushed. Something gave in my stomach, like a loose floorboard.
I started to cry. “Mom’s someone I don’t know at all, Pedro. That’s why I’m
growing up so wild. That’s why I’m doing things I really shouldn’t do. Perhaps
that’s why I even did those things to you, Pedro. But I can’t remember. I can’t
even remember what I did to you anymore.” I tried to stop, but I couldn’t stop crying.
The atmosphere of my small room turned moist and clinging. I felt as if I were
crying inside the womb of some hibernal animal.
“If
you’re gonna play hardball, you’re gonna get hurt,” Pedro said wisely, drifting
away into the mist. “We’re all grown-ups in this game, kiddo. We’ve all got to
live the lives we’ve got to live.”
Pedro’s
easy aphorisms disguised a real truth. There were still some very important
things Pedro wasn’t telling.
SOUND
AND GRAVITY
________________
9
ODDLY enough, it was during
this period of Mom’s increasingly alcoholic estrangement that I began to
experience anything like that “normal childhood” one usually encounters only in
books. I grew inured, if not accustomed, to the patent bliss of domesticity. I
developed a system of routine chores and scheduled ambitions, marking each day
on the calendar as I doled out payments to our landlord and utility franchises,
milkman and insurance broker. I took two paper routes. I studied every morning
and, every evening, fixed both Mom and myself a perfectly edible meal. Two or
three afternoons each week I would go out to what I referred to as my “job” in
order to earn money with which to “put bread on the table.”
As
a paperboy, I was kept informed when my clients went on vacations, and so, on
routine afternoons, I broke into carefully preselected homes and took jewelry,
portable televisions, cordless phones and microwaves, along with the more
alluring household appliances, and transported them downtown on the bus, where
I sold them at one of the various pawnshops frequented by gaunt men in loose
socks who stood about exposing swollen veins in their necks and foreheads, or
glowered at me from behind massy and varnished oak countertops as they
inspected my merchandise and contemplated ludicrous sums.
“Ten
dollars,” they said, eyeing me suspiciously, not concerned with where I got it
so much as how little I would take. “It isn’t worth my trouble. It isn’t worth
my time.”
“Make
it fifteen,” I replied, chewing my impassive bubble gum. “Maybe it’s worth a
little of your trouble. Maybe it’s worth a little of your precious time.”
I
even acquired during these days a friend. Rodney was twelve years old, and
lived in the corner
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