Read Online When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris - Free Book Online
Authors: David Sedaris
Tags: HUM003000
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neighborhood, the witches and ghosts, the vampires, robots, and, oh God, the mummies, I can only hope that, like me, they work at home.
Road Trips
The house I grew up in is located in a subdivision, and when my family first arrived the front yards were, if not completely bare, then at least close to it. It was my father who rallied the neighbors and initiated a campaign to plant maples along the side of the road. Holes were dug, saplings were delivered, and my sisters and I remarked that, with the exception of birds, trees were the only things on earth that weren’t cute when they were babies. They looked like branches stuck into the ground, and I remember thinking that by the time they were fully grown I would be old.
And that’s pretty much what happened.
Throughout my teens and early twenties, I’d wonder if my father hadn’t made a mistake and ordered pygmy maples, if such a thing exists. During my thirties, they grew maybe three feet, tops, but after that their development was astonishing. The last time I saw them, they were actual trees, so tall that the upper branches on the left side of the road mingled with those on the right, forming a solid canopy of shade. This was a few years ago. I was in Raleigh for the night, and my father took me to a party hosted by one of his neighbors. I used to know everyone on our street, but since I’d left there had been a lot of turnover. People die, or move into condominiums, and their homes are sold to young married couples who scrap the earth-toned carpets and build islands in the kitchens. The interiors of these houses used to look the same, and, eventually, as each is bought and remodeled, they’ll look the same again, but in a different way.
The party was held at what I thought of as “the Rosens’ place,” though that was two owners ago. The hostess was one of the new people, as were her guests, and it surprised me that my dad knew everyone’s name. Here were Phil and Becky, Ashley and Dave, and a high-spirited fifteen-year-old, who threw himself onto the sofa with great flourish and referred to my father as a she, as in “Lou Sedaris, who invited
her?
”
“My son is gay!” the boy’s mother announced, as if none of us had figured this out yet. He may have attended one of those magnet schools for the arts, but still it floored me that a ninth grader in Raleigh, North Carolina — on the street where I grew up — could comfortably identify himself as a homosexual. I felt like someone in a ten-pound leg brace meeting a beneficiary of the new polio vaccine. “
She
just happens to be my father, young man, and I’d appreciate it if you’d show her a little respect.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When I was this kid’s age, you’d be burned alive for such talk. Being a homosexual was unthinkable, and so you denied it, and found a girlfriend who was willing to settle for the sensitive type. On dates, you’d remind her that sex before marriage was just that, sex: what dogs did in the front yard. This as opposed to making love, which was more what you were about. A true union of souls could take anywhere from eight to ten years to properly establish, but you were willing to wait, and for this the mothers loved you. You sometimes discussed it with them over an iced tea, preferably on the back porch when your girlfriend’s brother was mowing the lawn with his shirt off.
I kept my secret to myself until I was twenty years old, and I might have kept it even longer had a couple not picked me up when I was hitchhiking one night. It was 1:00 a.m., and the last thing I expected was a ride in a Cadillac. Stranger still was opening the back door and discovering that the people inside were old — my parents’ age, at least. The car smelled of hair tonic. A CB radio crackled from its berth beside the steering wheel, and I wondered who they could be talking to at this time of night. Then I noticed that the woman was wearing a negligee. She leaned forward to press the
Road Trips
The house I grew up in is located in a subdivision, and when my family first arrived the front yards were, if not completely bare, then at least close to it. It was my father who rallied the neighbors and initiated a campaign to plant maples along the side of the road. Holes were dug, saplings were delivered, and my sisters and I remarked that, with the exception of birds, trees were the only things on earth that weren’t cute when they were babies. They looked like branches stuck into the ground, and I remember thinking that by the time they were fully grown I would be old.
And that’s pretty much what happened.
Throughout my teens and early twenties, I’d wonder if my father hadn’t made a mistake and ordered pygmy maples, if such a thing exists. During my thirties, they grew maybe three feet, tops, but after that their development was astonishing. The last time I saw them, they were actual trees, so tall that the upper branches on the left side of the road mingled with those on the right, forming a solid canopy of shade. This was a few years ago. I was in Raleigh for the night, and my father took me to a party hosted by one of his neighbors. I used to know everyone on our street, but since I’d left there had been a lot of turnover. People die, or move into condominiums, and their homes are sold to young married couples who scrap the earth-toned carpets and build islands in the kitchens. The interiors of these houses used to look the same, and, eventually, as each is bought and remodeled, they’ll look the same again, but in a different way.
The party was held at what I thought of as “the Rosens’ place,” though that was two owners ago. The hostess was one of the new people, as were her guests, and it surprised me that my dad knew everyone’s name. Here were Phil and Becky, Ashley and Dave, and a high-spirited fifteen-year-old, who threw himself onto the sofa with great flourish and referred to my father as a she, as in “Lou Sedaris, who invited
her?
”
“My son is gay!” the boy’s mother announced, as if none of us had figured this out yet. He may have attended one of those magnet schools for the arts, but still it floored me that a ninth grader in Raleigh, North Carolina — on the street where I grew up — could comfortably identify himself as a homosexual. I felt like someone in a ten-pound leg brace meeting a beneficiary of the new polio vaccine. “
She
just happens to be my father, young man, and I’d appreciate it if you’d show her a little respect.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When I was this kid’s age, you’d be burned alive for such talk. Being a homosexual was unthinkable, and so you denied it, and found a girlfriend who was willing to settle for the sensitive type. On dates, you’d remind her that sex before marriage was just that, sex: what dogs did in the front yard. This as opposed to making love, which was more what you were about. A true union of souls could take anywhere from eight to ten years to properly establish, but you were willing to wait, and for this the mothers loved you. You sometimes discussed it with them over an iced tea, preferably on the back porch when your girlfriend’s brother was mowing the lawn with his shirt off.
I kept my secret to myself until I was twenty years old, and I might have kept it even longer had a couple not picked me up when I was hitchhiking one night. It was 1:00 a.m., and the last thing I expected was a ride in a Cadillac. Stranger still was opening the back door and discovering that the people inside were old — my parents’ age, at least. The car smelled of hair tonic. A CB radio crackled from its berth beside the steering wheel, and I wondered who they could be talking to at this time of night. Then I noticed that the woman was wearing a negligee. She leaned forward to press the