Bokelskere.no

I didn't care whether I graduated or not. That was their problem. I could just stay around getting older and older and bigger and bigger. I'd get all the girls.

"What's for dessert, Mama?" my father asked.
His face was horrible, the lips pushed out, greasy and wet with pleasure. He acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't beaten me. When I was back in my bedroom I thought, these people are not my parents, they must have adopted me an now they are unhappy with what I have become.

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”

What a weary time those years were - to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

It was a joy. Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.

The other few customers were babbling wildly about Pearl Harbour. Before, they wouldn't speak to each other. Now, they were mobilized. The Tribe was in danger.

I heard my father come in. He always slammed the door, walked heavily, and talked loudly. He was home. After a few moments the bedroom door opened. He was six feet two, a large man. Everything vanished, the chair I was sitting in, the wallpaper, the walls, all of my toughts. He was the dark covering the sun, the violence of him made everything else utterly disappear. He was all ears, nose, mouth, I couldnt look at his eyes, there was only his red angry face. "All right, Henry. Into the bathroom." I walked in and he closed the door behind us. The walls were white. There was a bathroom mirror and a small window, the screen black and broken. There was the bathtub and the toilet and the tiles. He reached and took down the razor strop which hung from a hook. It was going to be the first of many such beatings, which would recur more and more often. Always, I felt, without real reason. "All right, take down your pants." I took my pants down. "Pull down your shorts" Then he laid on the strop. The first blow inflicted more shock than pain. The second hurt more. Each blow which followed increased the pain. At first I was aware of the walls, the toilet, the tub. Finally I couldnt see anything. As he beat me, he berated me, but I couldnt understand the words. I thought about his roses, how he grew roses in the yard. I thought about his automobile in the garage. I tried not to scream. I knew that if I did scream he might stop, but knowing this, and knowing his desire for me to scream, prevented me. The tears ran from my eyes as I remained silent. After a while it all became just a whirlpool, a jumble, and there was only the deadly possibility of being there forever. Finally, like something jerked into action, I began to sob, swallowing and choking on the salt slime that ran down my throat. He stopped. He was no longer there. I became aware of the little window again and the mirror. There was the razor strop hanging from the hook, long and brown and twisted. I couldnt bend over to pull up my pants or my shorts and I walked to the door, awkwardly, my clothes around my feet. I opened the bathroom door and there was my mother standing in the hall. "It wasnt right," I told her. "Why didnt you help me?" "The father," she said, "is always right." Then my mother walked away. I went to my bedroom, draging my clothing around my feet and sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress hurt me. Outside, through the rear screen I could see my fathers roses growing. They were red and white and yellow, large and full. The sun was very low but not yet set and the last of it slanted through the rear window. I felt that even the sun belonged to my father, that I had no right to it because it was shining upon my fathers house. I was like his roses, something that belonged to him and not to me...

Jeg gikk rundt i biblioteket og lette etter bøker. Jeg trakk dem ut av hyllene, en for en. Men det var bløff alt sammen. De var fryktelig kjedelige. Det var side etter side med ord som ikke sa noen ting. Eller hvis de sa noe, brukte de så lang tid på å si det, og når de hadde sagt det, var du altfor trøtt til at det spilte noen rolle.

De eksperimenterte med fattigfolk, og hvis det virket, benyttet de behandlingen på rikfolk. Og hvis det ikke virket, var det stadig nok fattigfolk å eksperimentere med.

Mor gikk på den dårlig betalte jobben hver morgen, og fattern, som ikke hadde noen jobb, gikk også ut hver morgen. Selv om de fleste naboene var arbeidsløse, ville han ikke de skulle tro han var uten jobb. Så han satte seg i bilen hver morgen og kjørte av sted som om han skulle på jobben.