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Authors: Nicole Krauss
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like a dog with a bone until she’d shriek out, “I’VE GOT IT!” and scurry off to her desk to dig a hole and bury it. I decided to take things into my own hands. One day a veterinarian named Dr. Tucci came to speak to my sixth-grade class. He had a nice voice and a green parrot named Gordo who perched on his shoulder and stared moodily out the window. He also had an iguana, two ferrets, a box turtle, tree frogs, a duck with a broken wing, and a boa constrictor named Mahatma who’d recently shed his skin. He kept two llamas in his backyard. After class, while everyone else was handling Mahatma, I asked if he was married and when, with a puzzled expression, he said No, I asked for his business card. It had a picture of a monkey on it, and a few kids lost interest in the snake and started demanding business cards, too.
That night I found an attractive snapshot of my mother in a bathing suit to send to Dr. Frank Tucci, along with a typed list of her best qualities. These included HIGH IQ, BIG READER, ATTRACTIVE (SEE PHOTO), FUNNY . Bird looked over the list and after some thought suggested I add OPINIONATED, which was a word I’d taught him, and also STUBBORN. When I said I didn’t think those were her best or even good qualities, Bird said if they were on the list it might make it seem like they were good, and then if Dr. Tucci agreed to meet her he wouldn’t be put off. This seemed like a fair argument at the time so I added OPINIONATED and STUBBORN. At the bottom I wrote our telephone number. Then I mailed it.
A week passed and he didn’t call. Three days went by and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have written OPINIONATED and STUBBORN.
The next day the telephone rang and I heard my mother say, “Frank who?” There was a long silence. “Excuse me?” Another silence. Then she started laughing hysterically. She got off the phone and came to my room. “What was that all about?” I asked innocently. “What was what all about?” my mother asked even more innocently. “The person who just called,” I said. “Oh, that ,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, I arranged a double date, me and the snake charmer and you and Herman Cooper.”
Herman Cooper was an eighth-grade nightmare who lived on our block, called everyone Penis, and hooted at the huge balls on our neighbor’s dog.
“I’d rather lick the sidewalk,” I said.
22. THAT YEAR I WORE MY FATHER’S SWEATER FOR FORTY-TWO DAYS STRAIGHT
On the twelfth day I passed Sharon Newman and her friends in the hall. “WHAT’S UP WITH THAT DISGUSTING SWEATER?” she said. Go eat some hemlock, I thought, and decided to wear Dad’s sweater for the rest of my life. I made it almost to the end of the school year. It was alpaca wool, and by the middle of May it was unbearable. My mother thought it was belated grieving. But I wasn’t trying to set any records. I just liked the way it felt.
23. MY MOTHER KEEPS A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY FATHER ON THE WALL NEXT TO HER DESK
Once or twice I passed her door and heard her talking aloud to it. My mother is lonely even when we’re around her, but sometimes my stomach hurts when I think about what will happen to her when I grow up and go away to start the rest of my life. Other times I imagine I’ll never be able to leave at all.
24. ALL THE FRIENDS I EVER HAD ARE GONE
On my fourteenth birthday, Bird woke me up by jumping on my bed and singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” He gave me a melted Hershey’s bar and a red woolen hat that he took from the Lost and Found. I picked a curly blond hair off it and wore it around the rest of the day. My mother gave me an anorak tested by Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who climbed Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, and also an old leather pilot’s hat like the kind worn by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who is a hero of mine. My father read me The Little Prince when I was six, and told about how Saint-Ex was a great pilot who risked his life to open mail routes to remote
That night I found an attractive snapshot of my mother in a bathing suit to send to Dr. Frank Tucci, along with a typed list of her best qualities. These included HIGH IQ, BIG READER, ATTRACTIVE (SEE PHOTO), FUNNY . Bird looked over the list and after some thought suggested I add OPINIONATED, which was a word I’d taught him, and also STUBBORN. When I said I didn’t think those were her best or even good qualities, Bird said if they were on the list it might make it seem like they were good, and then if Dr. Tucci agreed to meet her he wouldn’t be put off. This seemed like a fair argument at the time so I added OPINIONATED and STUBBORN. At the bottom I wrote our telephone number. Then I mailed it.
A week passed and he didn’t call. Three days went by and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have written OPINIONATED and STUBBORN.
The next day the telephone rang and I heard my mother say, “Frank who?” There was a long silence. “Excuse me?” Another silence. Then she started laughing hysterically. She got off the phone and came to my room. “What was that all about?” I asked innocently. “What was what all about?” my mother asked even more innocently. “The person who just called,” I said. “Oh, that ,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, I arranged a double date, me and the snake charmer and you and Herman Cooper.”
Herman Cooper was an eighth-grade nightmare who lived on our block, called everyone Penis, and hooted at the huge balls on our neighbor’s dog.
“I’d rather lick the sidewalk,” I said.
22. THAT YEAR I WORE MY FATHER’S SWEATER FOR FORTY-TWO DAYS STRAIGHT
On the twelfth day I passed Sharon Newman and her friends in the hall. “WHAT’S UP WITH THAT DISGUSTING SWEATER?” she said. Go eat some hemlock, I thought, and decided to wear Dad’s sweater for the rest of my life. I made it almost to the end of the school year. It was alpaca wool, and by the middle of May it was unbearable. My mother thought it was belated grieving. But I wasn’t trying to set any records. I just liked the way it felt.
23. MY MOTHER KEEPS A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY FATHER ON THE WALL NEXT TO HER DESK
Once or twice I passed her door and heard her talking aloud to it. My mother is lonely even when we’re around her, but sometimes my stomach hurts when I think about what will happen to her when I grow up and go away to start the rest of my life. Other times I imagine I’ll never be able to leave at all.
24. ALL THE FRIENDS I EVER HAD ARE GONE
On my fourteenth birthday, Bird woke me up by jumping on my bed and singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” He gave me a melted Hershey’s bar and a red woolen hat that he took from the Lost and Found. I picked a curly blond hair off it and wore it around the rest of the day. My mother gave me an anorak tested by Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa who climbed Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, and also an old leather pilot’s hat like the kind worn by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who is a hero of mine. My father read me The Little Prince when I was six, and told about how Saint-Ex was a great pilot who risked his life to open mail routes to remote
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