Theft by Finding

by David Sedaris

  Man ordering at Butera’s deli/prepared-foods counter: “Hey, give me one of them chickens what spins around.”

  May 9, 1989

  Chicago

  This morning I made a list of chores that might lift my spirits:

  1. Lose ten pounds.

  2. Rewrite the last two stories so I can start something new.

  3. Paint a picture of a mole.

  4. Make myself go out when I don’t want to.

  Again this year I made Mom a Mother’s Day card. It reads:

  M is for the Morbid things you showed me

  O is for the Other things you did

  T is for the Thousand bucks you owe me

  H is for the things you found I Hid

  E is for the Error of my caring

  R is for the Ranch house you call home

  Mother dear, I wish that you had shown me

  how to shave and how to use a comb.

  May 28, 1989

  Chicago

  I have seen two fistfights this weekend. One was across the street from Steve Lafreniere’s, where two men confronted a skinny guy they’d seen beating a woman. “You ain’t supposed to hit girls, you stupid fuck, you asshole,” they said as they punched him.

  Later, on Beacon, I passed two men fighting over a small bicycle, just pounding on each other.

  June 21, 1989

  Chicago

  Since moving farther north I’ve been taking the bus to the IHOP. On the way home tonight I sat across from a woman with teardrops tattooed on her face. She had a bad complexion and hard features made all the more jarring by her outfit: a skirt and blouse, the blouse one of those high-collared ones with ruffles that a conservative lady might wear. The skirt was cream-colored. From my distance I could see that the clothes were cheap. I’d seen this woman before, but never sober.

  After a few blocks, a man boarded. All the teeth on the right side of his mouth were missing and when he saw the woman, he said, “Doris!” He commented on her clothing and said it was fancy.

  “Yes,” she said. “I decided to wear a dress for once in my life. Wonders never cease, do they, Roy!” She raised her hand to swipe away her bangs and I saw that there was a tattoo on her forehead as well.

  July 4, 1989

  Chicago

  While on my bike I passed a woman walking with two young children. The little girl had a plastic six-pack ring wrapped around one of her feet, and her mother, noticing it, shouted, “What the fuck are you doing, bitch?”

  July 20, 1989

  Chicago

  There was a shooting in Amy’s neighborhood last night. She and her boyfriend, Paul, heard the shots from their living room and figured they were firecrackers until they saw a crowd gathered in front of the house across the street. The man who lives there is very ugly and is missing a hand. In its place he wears not a hook but a pincer that starts at the elbow and is sort of like a crab claw. Eight police cars came. Officers led the man out of the house and started to cuff him, but then they noticed his pincer, at which point they took him by the arm and locked him in the paddy wagon.

  On All My Children, Erica is being stalked by a dwarf. For a long time they just showed a hand that would draft ugly letters to her and turn off the local news whenever she appeared. I get the feeling I’m supposed to know who this person is, but I’ve been watching regularly for only four years so I’m at a loss. Meanwhile, on One Life to Live, Vicki has been shot in the stomach. Megan watched it happen and hasn’t made a sound since. I’ll bet anything she inherited Vicki’s multiple-personality disorder.

  July 21, 1989

  Chicago

  I was right about Megan. Vicki’s shooting triggered her latent inherited multiple-personality disorder and turned her into someone named Ruby Brite, who likes gambling and speaks with a Brooklyn accent.

  July 25, 1989

  Chicago

  Amy gave me her old toaster, which I put in the pantry and forgot about until last night at two a.m. I’d already had dinner, and plenty of it, but still I made two peanut butter sandwiches with canned peaches on them. I don’t eat like this when there’s no pot in the house, but now I’m back to sucking up everything in my path. Peanut butter and peaches? Since when do those two things go together?

  July 30, 1989

  Chicago

  I was standing on Clark Street when an elderly woman approached riding one of those electric carts people take to when they’re not quite crippled enough for a wheelchair. “Out of my way, asshole,” she said. I moved to the side, and after driving a couple of feet past me, she chained her little chariot to a parking meter and hobbled into the restaurant I had just walked out of.

  July 31, 1989

  Chicago

  Jewel is having a sale on chickens, 49 cents a pound, so I bought several and stood in line reading an article in New Woman titled “Infidelity: How to Keep Your Man from Straying.” It included several warning signs, as you need to know when your boyfriend or husband is feeling insecure and neglected. You need to take notice when he loses interest in sex, and you have to fight, fight, fight to win him back. The article suggested that a man’s infidelity is always the wife’s or girlfriend’s fault. It never considers that maybe he’s just an asshole.

  August 7, 1989

  Chicago

  Anatole Broyard on Jane and Paul Bowles in this week’s New York Times Book Review: “Their marriage was so open it yawned.”

  The blind fellow was at the IHOP last night with his father, and I listened as they discussed geography, particularly the states that make up the Great Plains, the Sunbelt, and the original thirteen colonies. Then he asked his dad about New York City, saying he’d heard they have no alleys there and that the people are rude.

  “Rudest sons of bitches on the face of this earth,” his father said. “It’s crammed full of rude people and rich foreigners—Jews, Arabs, Japs—and they make it so you can’t afford to shit.”

  The blind guy has a small voice and is very polite. His eyes are in the far corners of their sockets. Last night I noticed a lot of food stains on his shirt. The blind guy’s father, when talking about New York, reached behind himself and used his knife to scratch his back.

  August 9, 1989

  Chicago

  I was at the Roseland Bike Shop, waiting for them to repair my handlebars, when a woman came in. Behind her were two children, a ten-year-old boy, blond with a dirty face, and a teenage girl riding a small pink one-speed. Earlier, apparently, the mother had spoken to the owner, Ken, about his buying it. He’d offered a low price, so the mother and her two children had walked down Broadway looking for a better one. Now they were back.

  “I just got her that bike last Crusmus,” the woman said.

  “No way,” Ken told her. “That’s at least seven years old. It has a banana seat, for Christ’s sake! They don’t even sell those anymore.”

  “Last Crusmus,” the woman repeated. She had shoulder-length yellow hair and wore a sweatshirt with DAMN, I’M GOOD! written on it. “I saved and saved to buy her that bicycle. I got it at Woolworth’s. You can check with them! I got the papers somewhere at home but’ll have to root around to find them.” She wiped her mouth with her hand. “I’m a poor woman, Ken.”

  “Aw, Mom, shut up,” her daughter said. “Please shut up.”

  “I’ve got me thirteen children—eleven of them living—and seven grandchildren.” She looked to be around forty—a very hard forty—but I didn’t doubt the thirteen kids. The daughter took off down the street then, and her mother called after her. “Bonnie, Bonnie, you better get back here.” She wiped her mouth again. “Don’t mind her, Ken, she just thinks you don’t want to buy her bike.” She turned back in the direction of her daughter. “Bonnie, you better get back here before I slap the shit out of you.”

  August 11, 1989

  Chicago

  I was at the liquor store, buying a bottle of Canadian Club as a thank-you gift, when a drunk man approached and told me not to be frightened.
He was absolutely hammered, this guy, and said he wanted me to buy him some potato chips, the kind in a large-portion bag—Big Grabs, they’re called. I brushed him off, and when I got to the register, out of nowhere he laid the chips on the counter beside my bottle of Canadian Club.

  The cashier saw what was going on and snatched the bag away. Then he pointed to the door and shouted, “Out of here, you!”

  When I stepped outside after paying, the drunk was waiting for me. He was very angry and got up in my face, demanding that I give him money. I handed him a quarter and he said, “A dollar and a quarter.”

  I needed to unlock my bike, so was in a bind. Drunk or not, this guy had clearly been in a lot more fights than I had. I didn’t want to give him $1 because by this point, I hated him, and it was more like getting robbed than doing someone a favor. Luckily, just then a friend of his walked up and said, “What are you, begging for money again, Ronald? Begging? Dogs beg, man.”

  This gave me a chance to unlock my bike and ride away.

  August 21, 1989

  Emerald Isle

  I was up by eight thirty this morning and we were all out on the beach an hour later: Mom, Amy, Tiffany, and me. Mom was in a terrific mood and talked about her father, who was an alcoholic but a cheery one. Whenever Mom or Aunt Joyce came home late with friends, he’d get out of bed and cook for everyone, make spaghetti sauce, pies, anything anyone wanted. He’d fill the tub with water and let ducklings splash around in it. As a teenager, Mom was allowed two sweaters per winter, but she sweat so badly that they were ruined in no time.

  August 27, 1989

  Raleigh

  I rode home from the beach with S., and on the way we stopped at Pappy’s Army Surplus. One of the T-shirts they’re selling pictures a handgun and the words SMITH & WESSON, THE BEST IN FEMININE PROTECTION.

  While looking around, I learned that last Christmas, S.’s sister-in-law sent her a half-eaten box of candy. The year before that, she gave her a broken jewelry box made of stained glass.

  September 22, 1989

  Chicago

  I went to Barbara’s Bookstore to hear Russell Banks talk about his new novel, Affliction. I’d read Continental Drift, Searching for Survivors, Success Stories, Trailerpark, and The New World and liked them all. He wore tan-colored slacks, a striped shirt, a sport coat, and loafers and read for twenty minutes. Afterward I bought the book and stood to get it signed. The first woman in line told Russell Banks that she’d tried to get his phone number from Richard Ford’s wife, but since Ford’s wife couldn’t find it, she’d decided to come in person and give him a list of questions she’d like answered. The man behind her went into a lengthy explanation of why he himself writes and was very particular about the inscription he wanted. I was next in line, and just as I opened my mouth a woman appeared with a paperback copy of Continental Drift and said, “Excuse me, hi! It says on the back that this is a novel about American life. Is that true?”

  He said politely that it was not a novel about all of American life, but, sure, it had Americans in it.

  I never know what to say when I’m getting a book signed.

  September 26, 1989

  Chicago

  I asked my beginning writing students to compose fan letters, and today we read them out loud in class. Most were sincere in the way I hoped they’d be, but one kid’s amounted to hate mail and was addressed to his mother. He wrote about being shit out of her cunt. Then he reminded her that he was not her fucking boyfriend, and on and on. Afterward no one knew what to say.

  My fan letter was to Joy Williams.

  September 27, 1989

  Chicago

  Ted called last night. “All my life I’ve been looking for Mr. Right, and here I’ve wound up with Mr. Wong,” he said, referring to his new boyfriend, James Wong, who is from Hong Kong. Ted’s sister, meanwhile, has started playing guitar and singing gospel songs, mainly in malls.

  October 10, 1989

  Chicago

  I worked four different jobs this week—school, Betty, Evelyne, and Shirley—and during the last three of them, I fantasized about moving to New York and living in the apartment of that drug dealer I visited last June. It wasn’t huge, just a one-bedroom on the third floor facing the street. In my fantasy, people come to visit me, but I don’t have time to see them because I’m so busy. Because of the book I’ve had published, I am often recognized when I go out. I am very trim and lots of people call me. I don’t know how I’d ever get the drug dealer’s apartment or, more important, the book. There’s still a lot to work out.

  October 24, 1989

  Chicago

  Today in class I wrote Spotlight on Love on the blackboard. Then I drew a spotlight aimed at the words to show I meant business. “Today I’d like us to talk about breakups,” I said, rightly figuring that everyone had a story to tell.

  E. started off by talking about his hometown girlfriend, who he’d just learned had been cheating on him.

  “That’s because she’s trash,” I said, trying to make him feel better. “She’s a liar and a skunk, and this is how she gets attention.” I said that what goes around, comes around, and in time the guy she was seeing now would be cheating on her, just like she cheated on E.

  He was glad to hear it.

  Next came M. and A., who both had good stories. Then it was J.’s turn and she ran out of the room crying.

  K., a young woman who is always tardy and wears lots of makeup, said that she’s not currently involved with anyone but is pursuing a guy who is already in a relationship.

  Boo. Hussy. Troublemaker. No one came out and said this, but our attitudes conveyed it. I love teaching college lately.

  October 29, 1989

  Chicago

  Mom arrived for a visit yesterday, and we went from the airport to the Palmer House, where we had a cup of coffee. We walked around, we went to Amy’s, we took naps, and today we’re going shopping.

  I was on the L, reading a book, when someone said, “Sir?” I looked up to see the most terribly disfigured person imaginable. He took my breath away, a black man who’d been horribly burned. His head looked like a candle in the shape of a head, the skin slick and dripping down like wax. He was missing both his hands, and there was a can attached to his bandaged stumps. Taped to it was a sign reading NEED MONEY FOR OPERATION.

  Man, it scared the life out of me.

  November 1, 1989

  Chicago

  Mom left today at four. She was a big hit with my beginning students. I brought her in for my Ask a Mother segment, and she was fantastic and answered everyone’s questions with humor and wisdom.

  Last night we went to Eli’s for steaks. I was wearing a tie but not a jacket, so I had to wear one the restaurant provided that was way too big for me.

  November 2, 1989

  Chicago

  Paul enrolled in a technical college in Durham and has been assigned an English paper in which he needs to compare and contrast two things. The teacher said it might be good to compare the people of Raleigh to those who live in Durham. “In this town, folks are curious and will allow you to merge into their lane, while in Raleigh they’re all too busy and stuck-up,” she said.

  Paul is thinking that for his paper he’d like to compare mushrooms to acid.

  November 21, 1989

  Chicago

  I’ve been offered a chance to teach summer school. The class lasts three weeks and pays $2,300. It’s five days a week, three hours per day, and I could use the money to move to New York.

  December 21, 1989

  Chicago

  On the last day of class I took my students to the Walnut Room, where we sat by the big Christmas tree and had cocktails. Everything on the menu had a festive name. One item in particular was called something like God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen California Blush Wine.

  Afterward I went with Ben and his mother to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, where the two of them ate bacon cheeseburgers. His mom could be fifty but looks younger. She wore a
knit bonnet, and through it I could see gray hair but couldn’t determine how much of it she had. This was the ten-year anniversary of her divorce. At first she thought she’d order the pancakes and have a beer to go with them. Then she changed her mind and went with the bacon cheeseburger, deciding that instead of beer she’d have coffee. Ben’s mother works at B. Dalton and earns $75 per week. I liked her a lot.

  1990

  January 1, 1990

  Raleigh

  At midnight Gretchen and I were driving down Glenwood Avenue. Someone honked his horn for no reason, and I looked at my watch and realized it was the New Year. A new decade, even, one I am entering with an electric typewriter. (Christmas present from Mom.)

  Everyone says, “Thank God the eighties are over,” and I wonder if they say that about every decade.

  This afternoon I worked on the Clark Avenue rental property with Paul. Last week during the cold snap, Dad set up a kerosene heater that covered everything with soot. The former tenant had left the freezer door open, so it’s black in there as well. Paul and I spent a day washing everything down, and then Dad drove over and the three of us painted while listening to the FOXY 107 countdown. Everyone in our family listens to black music, everyone, all the time.

  January 4, 1990

  Raleigh