Read Online What’s Happening? by John Nicholas Iannuzzi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Nicholas Iannuzzi
Ads: Link
â by what degree of consanguinity they are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly â¦â Who the hell are THEY anyway? This outside direction began to back up in Ritaâs mind like a log jam, until she felt they were prescribing her entire life.
She remembered how she began, just for spite, for kicks, to do things that this unwritten, unnameable code wouldnât have approved: how she stole cigarettes from Fatherâs package, how the smoke tasted awful, and how she beat the smoke out of the bathroom window with a towel. It was an exciting feeling to have done something unusual, something daring, something she had thought of by herself.
After a while, this socially-dictated position which Rita was supposed to reflect became so ludicrous in her mind that she was able to follow the precepts which her parents and they dictated only with the same precaution required in taking vile medicine: swallow hard and grimace. This made her more sick and more restless, however. She couldnât stand the stifling rules imposed on her without reason; she couldnât stand being a lump of clay. She wanted either to enjoy life or to end it. Thus, she fled from her familyâs house to find the freedom and tolerance and independence for her own opinion in the Village. Then, whole areas of darkness fell away from her eyes. Like a newborn child, she began to discover hidden aspects of herself. Suddenly, she disagreed with her parents about more things than ever before. Somehow, they seemed even more stagnant, static, molded, the way everybody was.
Rita followed Father down the stairs toward the kitchen, wishing there might be a way through which they could understand each other more.
Their house was large and spacious. It was a private, three-story wood-frame house with turrets and ramparts and terraces reaching into the sky like a medieval castle. The architecture of all the houses on this street was similar. Each new house followed and matched the time-worn, approved pattern of the one before it. Father had had it built for Mother ten years before, and what a wonderful present it would seem, except that it was a demanded present, dedicated only to the neighbors, and erected not by love, or for the comfort of those who lived within, but by a need to have an external monument to the prowess of its owner.
Rita thought the house foolish, like everything else in itâwasteful, tasteless. It was foolish to build a house using modern materials to falsely recreate ancient expedienciesâsupporting beams which did not support but hung, just as the people within did not support changing life but clung frightenedly to prescribed traditions. â If it was good enough for others, itâs good enough for us ,â
The interior was decorated gaudily. Her parents and their friends were influenced in their tastes and followed those modes that were expensive, massive, and patently luxuriousâregardless of the needs of the room. Velvet drapes hung in huge folds from a cornice across an entire wall in the living room. Ornate scallops topped these cornices, and flimsy curtains underscored them. Plush overstuffed chairs and couches were spotted about the room. A thick rug with a design of flowers and vases covered the floor. A piano that no one played and candelabra and knicknacks, all bedecked with designs and gilt, completed the ostentation of the room.
Her parentsâ entire life was, like this house, equally without reason. All undertakings bore witness to the fact that they could be afforded; money was spent for the sake of spending it, regardless of the tasteless, choking effect.
âYou sit over here, dear.â Mother pointed to Ritaâs seat at the kitchen table. The kitchen was the family room, where the family spent its time. The gaudy, rich trappings in the other rooms were preserved and enshrined to the honor of Pecunia Rex . The family remained in the
She remembered how she began, just for spite, for kicks, to do things that this unwritten, unnameable code wouldnât have approved: how she stole cigarettes from Fatherâs package, how the smoke tasted awful, and how she beat the smoke out of the bathroom window with a towel. It was an exciting feeling to have done something unusual, something daring, something she had thought of by herself.
After a while, this socially-dictated position which Rita was supposed to reflect became so ludicrous in her mind that she was able to follow the precepts which her parents and they dictated only with the same precaution required in taking vile medicine: swallow hard and grimace. This made her more sick and more restless, however. She couldnât stand the stifling rules imposed on her without reason; she couldnât stand being a lump of clay. She wanted either to enjoy life or to end it. Thus, she fled from her familyâs house to find the freedom and tolerance and independence for her own opinion in the Village. Then, whole areas of darkness fell away from her eyes. Like a newborn child, she began to discover hidden aspects of herself. Suddenly, she disagreed with her parents about more things than ever before. Somehow, they seemed even more stagnant, static, molded, the way everybody was.
Rita followed Father down the stairs toward the kitchen, wishing there might be a way through which they could understand each other more.
Their house was large and spacious. It was a private, three-story wood-frame house with turrets and ramparts and terraces reaching into the sky like a medieval castle. The architecture of all the houses on this street was similar. Each new house followed and matched the time-worn, approved pattern of the one before it. Father had had it built for Mother ten years before, and what a wonderful present it would seem, except that it was a demanded present, dedicated only to the neighbors, and erected not by love, or for the comfort of those who lived within, but by a need to have an external monument to the prowess of its owner.
Rita thought the house foolish, like everything else in itâwasteful, tasteless. It was foolish to build a house using modern materials to falsely recreate ancient expedienciesâsupporting beams which did not support but hung, just as the people within did not support changing life but clung frightenedly to prescribed traditions. â If it was good enough for others, itâs good enough for us ,â
The interior was decorated gaudily. Her parents and their friends were influenced in their tastes and followed those modes that were expensive, massive, and patently luxuriousâregardless of the needs of the room. Velvet drapes hung in huge folds from a cornice across an entire wall in the living room. Ornate scallops topped these cornices, and flimsy curtains underscored them. Plush overstuffed chairs and couches were spotted about the room. A thick rug with a design of flowers and vases covered the floor. A piano that no one played and candelabra and knicknacks, all bedecked with designs and gilt, completed the ostentation of the room.
Her parentsâ entire life was, like this house, equally without reason. All undertakings bore witness to the fact that they could be afforded; money was spent for the sake of spending it, regardless of the tasteless, choking effect.
âYou sit over here, dear.â Mother pointed to Ritaâs seat at the kitchen table. The kitchen was the family room, where the family spent its time. The gaudy, rich trappings in the other rooms were preserved and enshrined to the honor of Pecunia Rex . The family remained in the
Similar Books
