Read Online Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris - Free Book Online
Authors: David Sedaris
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drugs there.
Twelve
: I take my seat on the cold concrete floor, watching as a full-grown woman kneels before an altar made of fudge. She’s already
put away a gingerbread cabin, two pints of ice cream, and a brood of marshmallow chicks — all without saying a word. The effect
is excruciating, but I have no one but myself to blame. I find myself attending these performance pieces the same way certain
friends drop by their AA meetings. I still do a lot of selfish and terrible things. I do not, however, treat myself to hot-cocoa
enemas before an audience of invited guests. Minor as it seems, this has become something to celebrate.
The woman onstage has tottered on stilts fashioned from empty cans of Slim-Fast. She’s taken her eating disorder on the road,
conditioning her hair with whipped topping and rolling her bangs in finger-size breakfast sausages. Just when I think she’s
finished with all her props and is ready to toss up an ending, out comes a bust of Venus made from cake frosting. Looking
around, I notice my fellow audience members examining their cuticles and staring with great purpose at the exit sign. Like
me, they’re thinking of something positive to say once the spectacle is over and the performer takes up her post beside the
front door. The obvious comment would come in the form of a question, that being, “What in God’s name possessed you to do
such a thing, and why is it that nobody stopped you?” I’m not here to cause trouble, so it’s probably best to remark upon
a single detail. When the time comes, I take her sticky hand in mine and ask how she manages to keep her frosting so stiff.
This is neither damning nor encouraging. It is simply my password out onto the street, where I can embrace life with a renewed
sense of liberty. The girl standing in front of the delicatessen stoops to tie her shoe. I watch as farther down the block
a white-haired man tosses a business card into the trash. I turn for a moment at the sound of a car alarm and then continue
along my way, unencumbered. No one expects me to applaud or consider the relationship between the shoelace and the white-haired
man. The car alarm is not a metaphor, but just an unrehearsed annoyance. This is a new and brighter world, in which I am free
to hurry along, celebrating my remarkable ability to walk, to run.
You Can’t
Kill the Rooster
W HEN I WAS YOUNG , my father was transferred and our family moved from western New York State to Raleigh, North Carolina. IBM had relocated
a great many northerners, and together we made relentless fun of our new neighbors and their poky, backward way of life. Rumors
circulated that the locals ran stills out of their toolsheds and referred to their house cats as “good eatin’.” Our parents
discouraged us from using the titles “ma’am” or “sir” when addressing a teacher or shopkeeper. Tobacco was acceptable in the
form of a cigarette, but should any of us experiment with plug or snuff, we would automatically be disinherited. Mountain
Dew was forbidden, and our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word “y’all,” and before
you knew it, you’d find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated
form of
you all
was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church.
We might not have been the wealthiest people in town, but at least we weren’t one of them.
Our family remained free from outside influence until 1968, when my mother gave birth to my brother, Paul, a North Carolina
native who has since grown to become both my father’s best ally and worst nightmare. Here was a child who, by the time he
had reached the second grade, spoke much like the toothless fishermen casting their nets into Albemarle Sound. This is the
grown man who now phones his father to say, “Motherfucker, I ain’t seen
Twelve
: I take my seat on the cold concrete floor, watching as a full-grown woman kneels before an altar made of fudge. She’s already
put away a gingerbread cabin, two pints of ice cream, and a brood of marshmallow chicks — all without saying a word. The effect
is excruciating, but I have no one but myself to blame. I find myself attending these performance pieces the same way certain
friends drop by their AA meetings. I still do a lot of selfish and terrible things. I do not, however, treat myself to hot-cocoa
enemas before an audience of invited guests. Minor as it seems, this has become something to celebrate.
The woman onstage has tottered on stilts fashioned from empty cans of Slim-Fast. She’s taken her eating disorder on the road,
conditioning her hair with whipped topping and rolling her bangs in finger-size breakfast sausages. Just when I think she’s
finished with all her props and is ready to toss up an ending, out comes a bust of Venus made from cake frosting. Looking
around, I notice my fellow audience members examining their cuticles and staring with great purpose at the exit sign. Like
me, they’re thinking of something positive to say once the spectacle is over and the performer takes up her post beside the
front door. The obvious comment would come in the form of a question, that being, “What in God’s name possessed you to do
such a thing, and why is it that nobody stopped you?” I’m not here to cause trouble, so it’s probably best to remark upon
a single detail. When the time comes, I take her sticky hand in mine and ask how she manages to keep her frosting so stiff.
This is neither damning nor encouraging. It is simply my password out onto the street, where I can embrace life with a renewed
sense of liberty. The girl standing in front of the delicatessen stoops to tie her shoe. I watch as farther down the block
a white-haired man tosses a business card into the trash. I turn for a moment at the sound of a car alarm and then continue
along my way, unencumbered. No one expects me to applaud or consider the relationship between the shoelace and the white-haired
man. The car alarm is not a metaphor, but just an unrehearsed annoyance. This is a new and brighter world, in which I am free
to hurry along, celebrating my remarkable ability to walk, to run.
You Can’t
Kill the Rooster
W HEN I WAS YOUNG , my father was transferred and our family moved from western New York State to Raleigh, North Carolina. IBM had relocated
a great many northerners, and together we made relentless fun of our new neighbors and their poky, backward way of life. Rumors
circulated that the locals ran stills out of their toolsheds and referred to their house cats as “good eatin’.” Our parents
discouraged us from using the titles “ma’am” or “sir” when addressing a teacher or shopkeeper. Tobacco was acceptable in the
form of a cigarette, but should any of us experiment with plug or snuff, we would automatically be disinherited. Mountain
Dew was forbidden, and our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word “y’all,” and before
you knew it, you’d find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated
form of
you all
was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church.
We might not have been the wealthiest people in town, but at least we weren’t one of them.
Our family remained free from outside influence until 1968, when my mother gave birth to my brother, Paul, a North Carolina
native who has since grown to become both my father’s best ally and worst nightmare. Here was a child who, by the time he
had reached the second grade, spoke much like the toothless fishermen casting their nets into Albemarle Sound. This is the
grown man who now phones his father to say, “Motherfucker, I ain’t seen
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