My Life As an Alphabet

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘Why do I have to wait until I’m twenty-one?’

  Rich Uncle Brian took a bite of his burger, grimaced and wiped his chin with a napkin. Then he examined what he’d mopped up. Maybe he was thinking it would be tastier to eat the napkin.

  ‘Well,’ he replied. ‘You’re thirteen, Pumpkin. That’s too young for important financial decisions. You could waste the cash on smart phones or computers or video games or . . .’ He searched his imagination for other examples of wasteful purchases. ‘. . . things,’ he finished lamely.

  ‘Hello, Rich Uncle Brian!’ I said. ‘It’s me we’re talking about. Gel pens are the extent of my impulse-buying

  ‘True,’ he said. ‘But, even so. There’s significant money already invested. And if you only want to spend money on gel pens, why should there be a problem with waiting until you’re twenty-one?’ He said this with the air of a chess player trapping the opponent’s lone King with a Queen, two Rooks and [possibly] a Bishop.

  ‘I want to withdraw some of it.’

  ‘I’ll buy you gel pens.’

  ‘I want fifteen thousand dollars.’

  His mouth dropped open. ‘Just how many gel pens do you need?’ he said.

  ‘It’s not for gel pens,’ I replied.

  ‘Then what?’

  So I told him.

  When I finished he sat in silence. He even took a bite of his burger without thinking. He scratched his head. He screwed up his eyes. He stroked his moustache. His hand snuck into his trouser pocket, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to disturb his train of thought. Coins jingled. Finally, he looked straight into my eyes. His expression was strange.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Do you know what’s the best thing about you, Pumpkin?’ said Rich Uncle Brian finally.

  ‘Is it that I sing my own song and dance my own dance?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘It’s something you have remarked on before,’ I replied. ‘The point is, will you help?’

  ‘Of course I will, Pumpkin,’ said Rich Uncle Brian. ‘How could you ever doubt it?’

  I finished a second dim sim. They were excellent and probably better-tasting than a burger because they didn’t have an impossible ideal to live up to.

  Rich Uncle Brian dropped me outside the gate and I made my way to the shed. Dad sat at his computer, earphones on, lights flashing in their strange and beautiful sequence. When I tapped him on the shoulder he jumped and took off his earphones. Properly off, rather than leaving them dangling round his neck. He turned in his chair and smiled.

  ‘Hi, Candice,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘What are you doing?’

  He glanced at his computer. ‘You mean with this?’

  ‘Nothing else I could mean.’

  ‘I’m working on a program.’

  ‘Pursuing a dream?’

  He smiled. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Probably not, but tell me anyway.’

  He did. At length. I sat on a cardboard box while he talked. Don’t ask me what it was about, okay? I know I have read the dictionary at least ten times, cover to cover, but most of the words he used were unfamiliar to me. The more he talked, the more animated he became. Excited. Involved. It was strange. I didn’t understand how love for something so abstract could exist, but I knew I was witnessing it. I felt privileged. It was like sharing a glimpse into an alien yet joyous world.

  ‘Wow,’ I said when he finished. And I meant it.

  Dad smiled a dreamy smile. It made him softer somehow, less angular and forbidding.

  ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Not the slightest,’ I replied. ‘But I meant that “Wow”.’

  And then, suddenly, I think I did get it. And it wasn’t what Dad had said. It was the way he said it, his shining eyes, how he flicked his tongue in excitement as he explained. There is a brilliant word in the dictionary for what I experienced. Epiphany. Look it up. This wasn’t about love for a machine. What had Dad always said? ‘Anyone who can use Lego can build a computer.’ The computer was a means to an end. What Dad was talking about was pure imagination. An idea. A dream he could bring to life, not with words found in a dictionary, but with source codes and algorithms [see, I have picked up some knowledge]. He was weaving magic and building dreams and I loved him for it.

  I felt like crying, so I did.

  ‘Candice,’ said Dad. ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘I am happy,’ I said. ‘What you are doing is beautiful.’

  ‘I’ve never heard it described like that before,’ he said. ‘But thank you, Candice. That means a lot to me.’

  I gurgled and blubbed. I am a messy crier.

  ‘What about you?’ he continued after my blubbing had subsided. ‘What’s going on in your life?’

  ‘Douglas Benson From Another Dimension is in love with me,’ I said. ‘But he has solved the Earth-Pig Fish problem, so it’s a fair exchange.’

  ‘Love?’ said Dad. ‘Really?’

  ‘Probably not, really,’ I said. ‘But there’s lots of wetness involved.’

  Dad seemed rather disturbed by that last statement, but recovered well. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever asked,’ he said. ‘But what makes you think he’s from another dimension?’

  ‘It’s not what I think. It’s what he believes,’ I replied.

  I gave Dad the whole story. I have an excellent memory, so I even threw in p-branes and M-theory and multiverses. And as I talked the most miraculous thing happened. I’d assumed Dad would be as baffled by my words as I was by his. But something passed over his expression. It was . . . well, it wasn’t understanding. I don’t think so. It was as if a switch had been flicked, a connection made, a live wire brushing and sparking against another wire. Hope lit his eyes. He grabbed a pad from his desk and made notes as I spoke. Someone writing down what you are saying is very distracting, so I dribbled to a stop. Dad didn’t stop writing, however. His pen raced across the page. Finally, he slumped back in his chair, a grin plastered on his face.

  ‘Candice,’ he breathed. ‘You are a genius.’

  ‘Only a bit,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . because you are.’

  I didn’t find his words convincing, but decided not to point this out. Anyway, Dad’s face suddenly creased. It looked like he was on the verge of crying.

  Then he slipped off the verge and did.

  U

  IS FOR UNDERSTANDING

  Mum made breakfast. Bacon and eggs and grilled mushrooms. She moved around the kitchen with purpose, a defiant smile on her face. I watched from the corner of my eyes and every time she passed through a beam of sunlight arrowing through the kitchen window her face twitched in pain. But the smile stayed stuck. She had it pinned and nothing was going to shift it.

  Dad set the table and we ate together, though Mum didn’t eat much. She nibbled on a piece of toast and narrowed her eyes. Dad was also somewhere else. I could tell by his face. He asked about school, but as I replied his face glazed over. He’d nod occasionally, but he wasn’t listening. He was lost in a place where no one could follow. Chasing a dream.

  ‘I’m doing biography research in English today,’ I said. ‘I’ve been paired with Jen Marshall. We have to interview each other.’

  Dad nodded, but Mum put down her toast.

  ‘Isn’t she the little . . .’ She was searching for the right word. Or maybe an acceptable word for breakfast conversation. ‘. . . madam you told us about? The one with tattoos and body piercing?’

  ‘That’s her.’

  Mum picked up the toast, looked at it and put it back on the plate.

  ‘She doesn’t sound like someone you’d have much in common with, Pumpkin.’

  ‘Au contraire,’ I replied. ‘Jen Marshall has many wonderful qualities. I am confident we will become bosom buddies, or, a
s Jen would say, BFFs – Best Friends Forever.’

  Mum seemed dubious, but that might have been the toast, which obviously didn’t inspire her with confidence.

  Dad nodded a couple of times. Then he broke from his trance.

  ‘Could you ask Douglas Benson to come round for dinner tonight?’ he said. ‘I want to have a chat with him. I’ll cook,’ he added hastily in response to a frown from Mum, who had obviously not been consulted about this plan.

  ‘He has an appointment with destiny at six-thirty every night,’ I said. ‘But he might be able to come round after that. I will ask.’

  Dad gave another dreamy smile, which I took as a cue to head to school.

  Miss Cowie took us to the library because the English classroom was not suitable for thirteen pairs of students talking intimately. She suggested we sit on the floor or down one of the library aisles so we could have privacy. I found this exciting and proof that Miss Cowie was an inspirational teacher, prepared to think outside the square [I’ve never been convinced there is a square that most people think inside, but so many people talk about it, it must be true. Why not a circle?]. Jen Marshall gazed around the library as if seeing it for the first time, which, it turned out, was true. Miss C organised us into our pairs. Jen looked me up and down, chewed her gum and rolled her eyes. For one horrible moment I thought she might have choked on her gum again, but it was okay. She just wasn’t impressed with me. She looked over at her friends longingly, glanced at me and rolled her eyes again. She is a terrific eye-roller. Her friends giggled, pointed to their own heads and made little circles in the air. Jen rolled her eyes again. It was like a mime show and I was enjoying it, but time was marching on.

  ‘We should start, Jen,’ I said. ‘Where would you like to sit?’

  ‘Anywhere away from you, Essen,’ she replied.

  ‘Not possible, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘What about down this aisle [aisle B, reference section]? You could talk to me and your friends won’t see.’

  She chewed her gum and shifted her weight onto one hip. She looked elegant, apart from the gum-chewing, which caused her mouth to open and close like Earth-Pig Fish’s. It wasn’t very becoming. If our interview went well, I thought I might mention it. Jen is concerned about making good impressions.

  ‘Whaddayaonabout?’ she asked.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It is obvious that being seen with me is embarrassing for you. Talking to me must be even more embarrassing. If we go down this aisle, we could chat, get the assignment done and your friends would never know you’d said anything to me at all.’

  Jen shifted her weight onto her other hip and chewed faster. Then she glanced at her friends, rolled her eyes and took off down aisle B. I followed. Jen sat on the carpet and curled her legs beneath her. She has nice legs. Hers are shapely whereas mine are thin and stick-like [though I suppose that’s a shape in itself]. They are practical, just not pleasing on the eyes.

  ‘Tell me about yourself, Jen,’ I said.

  She shrugged and glanced up and down the aisle. We were alone.

  ‘What’s to say?’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about your family.’

  ‘Mother, drunk a lotta the time. Dad, God knows where. Brother who’s a retard. No offence. What’s to say?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like a happy family life,’ I ventured.

  She looked at me, properly this time, and didn’t roll her eyes. This was progress.

  ‘Yeah. So what? I bet you have one of those families that you see on TV. Everyone like all loving and drooling over school reports and going on holidays and all that crap. Well, I live in the real world, Essen. It’s not as pretty as the pictures.’

  I had a sudden image of a photograph that Mum kept on her bedside cabinet. Mum, Dad, me and Sky, and all of us smiling. I shook my head. This was about Jen.

  ‘What do you want to be when you leave school?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you for real? I can’t think that far ahead. I just want to get out of this crappy place, okay? It’s crap, all of it. The school’s crap, the teachers are crap, the lessons are crap. It’s all crap.’

  I felt she had communicated her attitude towards education very clearly. She thought it was crap [I must be honest here. Jen didn’t use the word ‘crap’ but another word that I gloss over when I get to S in the dictionary].

  ‘But you’re not, Jen, are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crap.’

  ‘Yeah, I am.’ She seemed angry at my suggestion that she wasn’t. ‘I’m crap too. In fact, I’m more crap than anything else. I’m crap at schoolwork, even though that’s crap. You name the subject, I’m crap at it. English, totally crap. Science? Complete crap.’

  ‘I could help you.’

  ‘What?’ She stopped chewing. ‘Whaddaya mean?’

  ‘I could help with your homework. Don’t worry, none of your friends need know. But you could come to my house, if you like. Or we could go to the library after school. I’m good at most subjects and I’m certain I could help.’

  ‘The library?’ she said. ‘Yeah, right!’

  Why do people say ‘Yeah, right!’ when they actually mean ‘No, wrong!’? It’s something I’ve thought about and I cannot work it out. Then again, I have difficulty working most things out.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ she added. Suspicion oozed from every word.

  ‘Because I like you.’

  ‘You’re so weird, Essen,’ she said. ‘You like me? Well, I hate you. I think you are, like, the biggest . . . penis head [I did it again] in the entire crappy school. Why would you like me, huh? I treat you like crap. Because you are crap. So what is it with you? Is it, like, the worse you get treated the nicer you try to be? Mum’s like that with the men she brings home. She’s a loser and so are you.’

  ‘Possibly, but I’d still like to help you with your schoolwork.’

  Jen shifted uncomfortably and looked down the aisle again. We were still alone. Even so, she lowered her voice.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But only if no one ever knows. You promise, Essen? Swear that no one will ever find out. ’Cos I’ve got my reputation to think about.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘And I promise.’

  ‘I’m not saying I’ll do it, like,’ said Jen. ‘But I’ll think about it. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re crap,’ she added.

  ‘’Cos I do.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘How about tomorrow tonight? You give me your address, I’ll come to your place. About eight-thirty.

  Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I wrote my address on a piece of a notepaper and handed it to her. I got the feeling she wanted to read it and then eat it, but she tucked it into her jeans pocket instead.

  She left aisle B [Reference section] ahead of me. Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw her approach her friends. There was much eye-rolling and giggling and tracing circles in the air next to heads.

  It was obvious Jen Marshall and I were bonding.

  Douglas Benson From Another Dimension was keen to come for dinner. His facsimile dad would drop him at our place right after he’d jumped out of his tree [unless it worked this time and Douglas was spending quality time with his theoretical-physicist mother and experimental-musician father. I felt the odds were good he’d show up].

  When I got home, Mum was up and watching television. As soon as I opened the door she clicked off the set and gave me a hug.

  ‘How was your interview with Jen Marshall?’ she asked.

  I was impressed on all sorts of levels. She was up. She gave me a hug. She remembered what I’d been doing in school.

  ‘All good,’ I said. ‘She’s coming round tomorrow night, but you can’t tell anyone.’

  Mum seemed puzzled, but nodded.

  ‘It’s only a matter of time before we are talking sleepovers,’ I added.

  Mum gave the puzzled nod an
other airing.

  ‘What are we doing for your birthday?’ I asked. Mum’s birthday was a couple of days away. I asked with little hope of getting a sensible reply, since I couldn’t remember the last time we had done anything to celebrate the occasion. Most of my memories are of sneaking into her bedroom, bumping my knee on her side of the bed and handing over a wrapped present in the total darkness that I knew would be un-opened in the morning. The present, I mean. Not the darkness. But this time Mum was full of life.

  ‘I thought we’d go to a restaurant for dinner,’ she replied. ‘What the hell, heh? Push the boat out. You’re only forty-two once.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I said, though it occurred to me that there really is no way to avoid chicken parmigiana and a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday To You.’ Not even near-death by drowning can stop it.

  Dinner was rushed on the grounds that Dad was desperate to get Douglas Benson From Another Dimension into his shed for a chat.

  ‘I hope you’ll like the food, Douglas,’ he said. ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘Sausage, egg and chips,’ I said.

  ‘How did you know?’ said Dad.

  ‘Because it’s the only thing you know how to cook, Dad,’ I replied. This was true. Dad had cooked probably half-a-dozen times since I was old enough to pay attention, and each time it had been sausage, egg and chips. Nutritionally, it was excellent that he spent so much time in his shed and so little in the kitchen, otherwise you’d be able to squeeze the fat out of me and use it to supply a small third-world country with lamp oil.

  ‘You think I can’t cook anything else?’ said Dad, looking hurt.

  ‘I do,’ I said.

  ‘That’s unkind, Candice.’

  ‘It’s honest.’

  ‘Sausage, egg and chips is great, Mr Phee,’ said Douglas Benson From Another Dimension, with the air of someone trying to get on the right side of a future father-in-law. Actually, it’s funny that this thought occurred to me because fifteen minutes later, as I was finishing my egg [I like to finish the egg before I start on the sausages] Douglas dropped the following into the conversation: