Chapter 34 - Sirach 30:7-13
“And I don’t want to see you doing it again.”
And I didn’t. At least not where anyone could find out.
“John, she’s asking you a question.”
Years earlier. I just shrugged.
“John!”
I stared into the distance. We walked away.
“I don’t know why you do that to me. You’re going to start answering me when I ask you questions.” She pointed a finger in my face.
I said nothing. I looked at the yardstick in my hand, and put it back down.
“I should just take it away from you until you tell me why you want one.”
I just kept walking. She looked up in the air. Practically staring me down. But not actually looking at me.
“Where did we go wrong?” It was a big production, for my benefit. It went on for a while.
I looked off to the side. I saw some other kids I knew. They were on a carousel. So I looked at the ground.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to do with you.”
County fair. We left early, since I was in trouble. As we pulled away, I saw a couple of other kids I knew. They were throwing rocks at each other by the horses.
When we got home, she took the yardstick and put it above the door. Where I “couldn’t reach it”.
I went back to reading.
I picked up another scrap of paper from the floor of my apartment. “We knew you would turn out fine.” I tossed it. I looked at another. “They say I can’t answer that.” They. It was not good. There’s no way to reboot a purse. I looked at the last thing I had gotten out of it. “We have to go. Say hello to everybody for me.” Nothing else had ever came out. It had seemingly stopped working. Or something bad had happened.
I made my decision. I stuck it in a pile of clothes, clothes I couldn’t fit into anymore; ugly sweaters I never wanted in the first place, button up shirts I wouldn’t wear in a million years, and I donated them all to charity. Least I thought I did.
When everyone was gone, I got out a chair, and climbed on it. I grabbed the yardstick. I got down, stuck it under the couch, and got my ball back. I smiled, whacked the side of a metal cabinet, and put it back where it was. And I went back to reading again. I had to do it fast, since my parents would be back soon, and I would get the third degree about what all I had done while they were gone.
“Why did you draw this?”
I didn’t say anything.
“What could possess you to come up with something like this?”
Still. Nothing. I looked down at the floor.
“You’re not leaving this room until you give me an answer.”
Two hours later.
“I just hope you grow out of this one day. I’m throwing this out, and I don’t want to see you doing it again.”
And I didn’t. At least not where anyone could find out. I did it in my head.
A man with a maroon fedora was giving me a lecture about what I needed to do. I phased in and out of listening. Mostly I stared at his boots.
“There are things you can and can’t change. You can try, but it won’t help. Mainly the big stuff. And when …”
Somewhere a man sacrifices a chicken to feed his family. I thought of drawing a blue chicken. Why blue? Why not? It was symbolic. Of my unhappiness, and junk. Or I stole it from somewhere. Bombs raining on the freeway. Squiggles, weights attached to arrows and arrows chasing innocent bystanders. Diseased animals roaming the city streets. A library on fire. They tried to put it out. They tried, but they couldn’t put it out. Underneath, I would write “death becomes itself”. Above, a satellite monitors my progress with approval, and a wink.
The moon is upset. He wanted to think of it first. Surrealism, that’s all I was drawing. I had dreams of cubes and still places where the surface of time became unhinged from itself. It wasn’t dirty, it wasn’t evil. It was just too much.
“Are you listening to me?” He smiled, an open mouthed smile that slid off to the right of his face.
“Not really.”
He smiled bigger.
“I figured you wouldn’t. Don’t worry about that. Just remember this: Everything happened for a reason.”
“That’s televangelist crap.”
“No no, listen to what I said.” I had planned to say more; something about empty words meant to comfort helpless idiots. He stopped me in my tracks. Not many people could do that, even when they thought they could. My talent was making them think they did. Then doing it anyway.
“That’s not to justify anything. Simply stating the obvious, son. There’s a cause behind every effect. You go back far enough, you change the path. You don’t, it happens anyway.
“I know you want to start with the big bumps in the road that matter to you the most, but there’s something more important for you to take care of first.”
“More important? Who are you anyway?”
“All in due time, son.”
“But this doesn’t –“
He threw something at my head. I fell back into a pale brown, musty seat.
And, like that, I was back on the train.
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