Read Online Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz - Free Book Online
Authors: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Ads: Link
change hurt but I didn’t know why it hurt. And nothing about my own emotions made any sense.
When I was younger, I’d had this idea that I wanted to keep a journal. I sort of wrote things down in this little leather book I bought, filled with blank pages. But I was never disciplined about the whole thing. The journal turned into a random thing with random thoughts and nothing more.
When I was in the sixth grade, my parents gave me a baseball glove and a typewriter for my birthday. I was on a team so the glove made sense. But a typewriter? What was it about me that made them think of getting me a typewriter? I pretended to like it. But I wasn’t a good pretender.
Just because I didn’t talk about things didn’t make me a good actor.
The funny thing was, I learned how to type. At last, a skill. Thebaseball thing didn’t work out. I was good enough to make the team. But I hated it. I did it for my father.
I didn’t know why I was thinking about all these things—except that’s what I always did. I guess I had my own personal television in my brain. I could control whatever I wanted to watch. I could switch the channels anytime I wanted.
I thought about calling Dante. And then I thought that maybe I wouldn’t call him. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone. I just felt like talking to myself.
I got to thinking about my older sisters and how they were so close to each other but so far away from me. I knew it was the age thing. That seemed to matter. To them. And to me. I was born “a little late.” That’s the expression my sisters used. One day, they were talking to each other at the kitchen table and they were talking about me and that’s the expression they used. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say that about me. So I decided to confront my sisters because I just didn’t like being thought of that way. I don’t know, I just sort of lost it. I looked at my sister, Cecilia, and said: “You were born a little too early.” I smiled at her and shook my head. “Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that just too fucking sad?”
My other sister, Sylvia, lectured me. “I hate that word. Don’t talk that way. That’s so disrespectful.”
Like they respected me. Yeah, sure they did.
They told my mom I was using language. My mother hated “language.” She looked at me with the look. “The ‘f’ word shows an extreme lack of respect and an extreme lack of imagination. And don’t roll your eyes.”
But I got in worse trouble for refusing to apologize.
The good thing was that my sisters never used the expression “born too late” ever again. Not in front of me, anyway.
I think I was mad because I couldn’t talk to my brother. And I was mad because I couldn’t really talk to my sisters either. It’s not that my sisters didn’t care about me. It’s just that they mostly treated me more like a son than a brother. I didn’t need three mothers. So really, I was alone. And being alone made me want to talk to someone my own age. Someone who understood that using the “f” word wasn’t a measure of my lack of imagination. Sometimes using that word just made me feel free.
Talking to myself in my journal qualified as talking to someone my own age.
Sometimes I would write down all the bad words I could think of. It made me feel better. My mother had her rules. For my father: no smoking in the house. And for everyone: no cussing. She didn’t go for that. Even when my father let out a string of interesting words, she looked at him and said, “Take it outside, Jaime. Maybe you can find a dog who’ll appreciate that kind of language.”
My mom was soft. But she also very strict. I think that’s how she survived. I wasn’t going to get into the whole cussing thing with my mom. So I did most of my cussing in my head.
And then there was this whole thing with my name. Angel Aristotle Mendoza. I hated the name Angel and I’d never let anybody call me that. Every guy I knew who was named
When I was younger, I’d had this idea that I wanted to keep a journal. I sort of wrote things down in this little leather book I bought, filled with blank pages. But I was never disciplined about the whole thing. The journal turned into a random thing with random thoughts and nothing more.
When I was in the sixth grade, my parents gave me a baseball glove and a typewriter for my birthday. I was on a team so the glove made sense. But a typewriter? What was it about me that made them think of getting me a typewriter? I pretended to like it. But I wasn’t a good pretender.
Just because I didn’t talk about things didn’t make me a good actor.
The funny thing was, I learned how to type. At last, a skill. Thebaseball thing didn’t work out. I was good enough to make the team. But I hated it. I did it for my father.
I didn’t know why I was thinking about all these things—except that’s what I always did. I guess I had my own personal television in my brain. I could control whatever I wanted to watch. I could switch the channels anytime I wanted.
I thought about calling Dante. And then I thought that maybe I wouldn’t call him. I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone. I just felt like talking to myself.
I got to thinking about my older sisters and how they were so close to each other but so far away from me. I knew it was the age thing. That seemed to matter. To them. And to me. I was born “a little late.” That’s the expression my sisters used. One day, they were talking to each other at the kitchen table and they were talking about me and that’s the expression they used. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say that about me. So I decided to confront my sisters because I just didn’t like being thought of that way. I don’t know, I just sort of lost it. I looked at my sister, Cecilia, and said: “You were born a little too early.” I smiled at her and shook my head. “Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that just too fucking sad?”
My other sister, Sylvia, lectured me. “I hate that word. Don’t talk that way. That’s so disrespectful.”
Like they respected me. Yeah, sure they did.
They told my mom I was using language. My mother hated “language.” She looked at me with the look. “The ‘f’ word shows an extreme lack of respect and an extreme lack of imagination. And don’t roll your eyes.”
But I got in worse trouble for refusing to apologize.
The good thing was that my sisters never used the expression “born too late” ever again. Not in front of me, anyway.
I think I was mad because I couldn’t talk to my brother. And I was mad because I couldn’t really talk to my sisters either. It’s not that my sisters didn’t care about me. It’s just that they mostly treated me more like a son than a brother. I didn’t need three mothers. So really, I was alone. And being alone made me want to talk to someone my own age. Someone who understood that using the “f” word wasn’t a measure of my lack of imagination. Sometimes using that word just made me feel free.
Talking to myself in my journal qualified as talking to someone my own age.
Sometimes I would write down all the bad words I could think of. It made me feel better. My mother had her rules. For my father: no smoking in the house. And for everyone: no cussing. She didn’t go for that. Even when my father let out a string of interesting words, she looked at him and said, “Take it outside, Jaime. Maybe you can find a dog who’ll appreciate that kind of language.”
My mom was soft. But she also very strict. I think that’s how she survived. I wasn’t going to get into the whole cussing thing with my mom. So I did most of my cussing in my head.
And then there was this whole thing with my name. Angel Aristotle Mendoza. I hated the name Angel and I’d never let anybody call me that. Every guy I knew who was named
Similar Books
