He started the day reading from a book with a torn cover and thumb-stained pages. One learns very little here [at the Institute], there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is to say, we shall be something very small and subordinate later in life.[1] The author of the ragged and thumb-stained book, a gloomy depressant, had lived in one of the many insane asylums that bespeckled the mountains overlooking the town below. After he’d read a passage or two, which he did more than once, as he mistrusted his ability to retain what he’d read, he threw the book onto the floor, hissing and grumbling like a cracked water heater. Most days started like this, never with a handshake or a pleasant how do you do, which he’d have happily reciprocated with an outstretched hand and a friendly fine thank you kindly, but with uncommon words and hocky syllogisms.
He liked boysenberry jam and cod cheeks. Most days he ate whatever was in the larder, soda biscuits and tinned fish, sardines and tuna, requeijão checo, which he bought from the Greek Deli, and day-old bread. He ate whenever he felt hungry, filling the hole in his belly until the feeling went away. His granddad ate blue steak and half-cooked mutton, spring lamb and salted white fish. He covered everything in Mickelson’s Horse Radish, cutting his food into bite-size pieces no bigger than the end of his thumb. His granddad drank Irish Porter, a full glass for lunch and supper, a half for breakfast, letting the ale settle before gulping it down, claiming Porter was best drank at room temperature and with no head. He remembered the stern look on his grandmamma’s face, and how she never said anything twice, expecting you to pay attention the first time.
‘…there’s nothing like fresh eggs and ham…’. He often spoke to himself with the hope of garnering an interest in what he had to say. As he seldom said anything of importance, he garnered very little. He once spoke with the littlest dogman, inquiring if he had the exact time. The littlest dogman, seeing that he had been fooled into listening to someone of mean to middling interest, flipped him off with a snicker and a jeer. That evening he skillet fried kidney with onion and wild garlic, forking tiny forkfuls into his mouth, eager to savor the sweet urine tang of organ meat and ground vegetable. He recalled an evening some 100 years past when his grandmamma made a savory meat pie, crimping the edges with a fork, the pie flaking on the bulb of his tongue. He recalled many such things, things not all that interesting, but remembered just the same. Dejesus left the park and headed southward, his greatcoat coattails flapping as he strode.
The day had began with a visit to the overseers to oversee what he’d overseen the night before. In the park behind the Waymart Dejesus saw a man with an overly large head talking with a man with an overly small head, the two comparing the size of each other’s head. Finding this of mean to middling interest, he stopped to listen, paying heed to the words they used to describe their heads. ‘…mine is oblong and squarish…’ said the overly large headed man. ‘…and mine rhomboidal and roundish…’ said the overly small headed man, both men comparing the size of their heads with the aid of a plumb string. ‘…were it to start raining…’ said the man with the overly small head, ‘…I could protect my head with an oak leaf, not one drop of rain hitting the top of my head…’. ‘…and I…’ said the man with the overly large head, ‘…could find refuge under the Seder grocer’s awning, the warm smell of baked bread taunting my nose…’. Having declared the benefits of having a head of their size, both men went their separate ways, heads jaunting as they went, Dejesus heading southwesterly, the sun just below the northernmost tip of the horizon.
He liked boysenberry jam and cod cheeks. Most days he ate whatever was in the larder, soda biscuits and tinned fish, sardines and tuna, requeijão checo, which he bought from the Greek Deli, and day-old bread. He ate whenever he felt hungry, filling the hole in his belly until the feeling went away. His granddad ate blue steak and half-cooked mutton, spring lamb and salted white fish. He covered everything in Mickelson’s Horse Radish, cutting his food into bite-size pieces no bigger than the end of his thumb. His granddad drank Irish Porter, a full glass for lunch and supper, a half for breakfast, letting the ale settle before gulping it down, claiming Porter was best drank at room temperature and with no head. He remembered the stern look on his grandmamma’s face, and how she never said anything twice, expecting you to pay attention the first time.
‘…there’s nothing like fresh eggs and ham…’. He often spoke to himself with the hope of garnering an interest in what he had to say. As he seldom said anything of importance, he garnered very little. He once spoke with the littlest dogman, inquiring if he had the exact time. The littlest dogman, seeing that he had been fooled into listening to someone of mean to middling interest, flipped him off with a snicker and a jeer. That evening he skillet fried kidney with onion and wild garlic, forking tiny forkfuls into his mouth, eager to savor the sweet urine tang of organ meat and ground vegetable. He recalled an evening some 100 years past when his grandmamma made a savory meat pie, crimping the edges with a fork, the pie flaking on the bulb of his tongue. He recalled many such things, things not all that interesting, but remembered just the same. Dejesus left the park and headed southward, his greatcoat coattails flapping as he strode.
The day had began with a visit to the overseers to oversee what he’d overseen the night before. In the park behind the Waymart Dejesus saw a man with an overly large head talking with a man with an overly small head, the two comparing the size of each other’s head. Finding this of mean to middling interest, he stopped to listen, paying heed to the words they used to describe their heads. ‘…mine is oblong and squarish…’ said the overly large headed man. ‘…and mine rhomboidal and roundish…’ said the overly small headed man, both men comparing the size of their heads with the aid of a plumb string. ‘…were it to start raining…’ said the man with the overly small head, ‘…I could protect my head with an oak leaf, not one drop of rain hitting the top of my head…’. ‘…and I…’ said the man with the overly large head, ‘…could find refuge under the Seder grocer’s awning, the warm smell of baked bread taunting my nose…’. Having declared the benefits of having a head of their size, both men went their separate ways, heads jaunting as they went, Dejesus heading southwesterly, the sun just below the northernmost tip of the horizon.
[1] Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten
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