Theft by Finding

by David Sedaris

  I wished it weren’t too late to add that line to our play. Then I noticed that we’re listed in the special children’s section of Time Out.

  “Our show?” Amy said when I told her about it. “The one that includes the pot-smoking and cursing and has the line ‘Psssst, Glen. Hey, Glen, you want a blow job?’ in it?”

  I’ll worry about it tomorrow.

  June 28, 1997

  New York

  As if Amy didn’t have enough to do with learning her lines, one of her friends has invited herself over to cook eels. I don’t know how she gets herself into these things.

  She was in the drugstore today and saw a female police officer open a bottle of base makeup, cover a blemish in her nose, and then place the bottle back on the shelf. A cop!

  July 1, 1997

  New York

  We did a read-through of the play for fifteen people from Lincoln Center and when we finished, John, the man in charge of the festival, stood up, saying, “Well, I don’t care what anyone says. I liked it.”

  Afterward I walked through the park for a while, thinking. On my way back home a woman, very thin with a missing front tooth, entered my subway car and said, “Can I please get a little fucking attention?” When no one looked up, she called us a bunch of stuck-up snobs. “You’ll give money to those other bitches. You’ll help them but not me, so fuck you.”

  She got up in someone’s face and the young woman gave her money, as did the next person she confronted. “Well, that’s just fucking great,” the woman said. “Fucking great, shitheads.”

  July 6, 1997

  New York

  Last week Amy gave Hugh and me a large plastic tankard of industrial cooking oil for deep-fat frying and this afternoon I carried it to the Laundromat, having mistaken it for the nearly identical tankard of detergent—same size, same color. The only difference was the spout. That’s what stopped me from pouring a cupful of it into the top of the machine. If I had, the best thing to do would have been to walk away, buy new clothes and sheets and towels, and never return to that Laundromat again. I’m guessing stuff would be pretty much ruined after going through an oil cycle.

  July 11, 1997

  New York

  Last night was one of the happiest of my life. The play was sold out, every seat taken, with folding chairs set up at the back of the theater. I had no idea our Times review was out until Amy called to tell me about it. Then I heard from Drew, the choreographer, who read it out loud to me before I could stop him. It’s as if I wrote it myself as a joke. They mentioned Hugh’s set and his inventive direction. “Vulgarity just shouldn’t be this funny, but it’s being ridiculed, reveled in.”

  Really, we ridiculed it?

  I hoped they’d praise all the actors equally, and it hurts that they left out Toby and Sarah. I can’t understand their choices, but it’s a glowing review. After last night’s performance, the Lincoln Center Festival people took us to dinner at a swank restaurant. I was so certain this play would fail.

  July 28, 1997

  New York

  Last night I watched Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, a ten-minute program stretched out to an hour. “Is this genuine film footage of a visitor from another planet, or just a cruel hoax designed to prey upon our worst fears? We’ll be back in a moment.”

  I kept waiting for the actual autopsy, but for the most part we saw the same shot over and over: a doctor in a protective outfit gesturing with a fountain pen toward the alien’s flesh wound. The alien itself looked like a child in a Halloween mask, its genitals blurred out with one of those scramblers. Interviewed were several people who had witnessed the Roswell crash fifty years ago. An unstable-looking woman said she was threatened by government officials to keep silent. “We saw the saucer on the ground and two little people who were crying and trying to resuscitate a third alien, who looked like he was more than likely dead. Then the two live ones ran over and clutched this metal box. I don’t know what was in it but remember thinking, That box means something to those two aliens.”

  July 29, 1997

  New York

  Ben Brantley wrote an overall review of the Lincoln Center Festival in yesterday’s Times. “‘Astonish me,’ Diaghilev’s much-quoted artistic dictum, is the imperative brought by the sort of people who attend self-defined ‘cultural events’ like ‘Les Danaides’…But only the Sedarises’ ‘Incident’ provided astonishment. This brother-and-sister playwriting team has an unparalleled ear for American cultural clichés and an equally fine hand for twisting those clichés into devastating absurdity.”

  The news of the review was ruined by a call from a People magazine photographer. They’re running a story about the book, and she phoned saying she’d like a picture of me either wearing a towel or peeking out from behind my shower curtain. This is what happens when you choose the title Naked over, say, Quiet Dignity.

  August 31, 1997

  La Bagotière

  Hugh and I awoke to the news that Princess Diana has been killed, literally hounded to death by photographers. I’ve been listening all morning to the BBC. Correspondents interview one person after another, one of them an “agony expert” who said it’s often very painful when people die.

  October 3, 1997

  New York

  Tiffany called collect this morning, sobbing and saying that she can’t leave the house. It happens every so often. Other days she can leave but still wakes up crying. I feel bad for her but can’t understand the problem. Isn’t there some kind of medication for this? She talks about Mom, about the school she went to twenty years ago, all this stuff from the past, over and over.

  October 5, 1997

  New York

  Hugh and I went with Amy and Mitch to see Kiss the Girls, the worst thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was another of those “I think we’ve got a serial killer on our hands” thrillers. I sat beside a stranger, and twenty minutes into it we were nudging one another and rolling our eyes. Making it worse, I had to sit through another endless preview for Titanic. Who do they think is going to see that movie?

  October 18, 1997

  Columbus, Ohio

  I was met at the Columbus airport by a fellow named Rick, who was kind and positive and announced with genuine excitement that he was taking me to a restaurant called Johnny Rockets for lunch. “You’ll totally love it,” he said. “It’s a fifties-style place where the waitresses chew gum and offer to draw things on your hamburger buns with plastic ketchup squeezers. They sing sometimes, too, and give you a nickel so you can play the little jukeboxes they have on the tables!”

  It sounded awful to me, but I didn’t want to disappoint him, so we went, my teeth gritted. When the waitress did indeed offer to sketch something on my hamburger bun, I requested a swastika and then wished I hadn’t.

  “Or a face,” I said. “A happy face would be great too.”

  Rick, bless him, reminded us that before it was taken over by the Nazis and turned into something ugly, the swastika was a Celtic symbol of good luck.

  After lunch he took me to Target, and I learned he’d recently won a year of free groceries by entering a sweepstakes at Big Bear, a local supermarket chain.

  October 20, 1997

  New York

  Women are angry in New York tonight. On the corner of Houston and Thompson, I heard a black woman yell at her boyfriend, “Because let me tell you something, motherfucker, I don’t need you.”

  Continuing south down West Broadway, I fell in behind a white couple, the woman walking several steps in front of her boyfriend. “Don’t you ever fucking shush me, you asshole, especially in front of an employee.”

  Apparently he’d been trying to make a dinner reservation and asked her to pipe down so he could hear the hostess on the pay phone he was using. This was clearly the wrong thing to do. She went from being shushed to complaining about the stupid way he goes about giving and receiving information. “Like whenever we get into a cab and you ask the driver how he’s doing tonight. And nobody
fucking cares how he’s doing, least of all him. All he wants is the goddamn address and there you are, trying to be his best friend, so don’t shush me.”

  He didn’t do much in terms of defending himself, and I got the idea that dinner would be one long tirade. It’s pretty rare to go from a fight to a pleasant meal. Maybe he could have said, “You know something, you’re right. I apologize. That was thoughtless and I’ll never do it again.”

  I followed them for blocks, hoping he might take this approach, but he never did. It irritated me, the way she kept snapping her fingers to make a point. I wondered what he was doing with her, but by the time we hit Broome Street, I wondered what she was doing with him.

  October 23, 1997

  New York

  I think it’s strange that neither of Hugh’s parents bought the People magazine he’s in. His father says, “I’m not wasting three dollars. Just tell me what the article says.” His mother leafed through an issue at Target, then phoned to say, “I’ve got better pictures of you at home.”

  Any other parent would have bought a dozen copies. It’s not like getting a set of encyclopedias. I mean, really.

  November 20, 1997

  New York

  Paul called from Raleigh and told me he had two black eyes. Apparently he started a fight with a guy in a bar, a guy who was much taller than him, and stocky.

  Me: And when did he stop beating you?

  Paul: When he was done.

  November 26, 1997

  New York

  Walking back from the movie theater, I cut through that little pedestrian area between 3rd and 4th Streets. There, a white man, a guy around my age, was sitting on a bench and screaming, “Are you fucking deaf? I asked you what time it is.”

  He was yelling at a group of three young women, one of them Japanese. When none of them answered, he got up off his bench and followed them. “Hey, you. That’s right, Jap, I asked you a fucking question.”

  One of the women turned around then. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were talking to us.”

  “Don’t fucking apologize!” the man screamed. “Just give me the fucking time.”

  This happened a few hours ago, yet I can’t stop thinking about it and hating myself for being such a coward. The correct answer to the man’s question was “It’s time for you to learn some fucking manners.” He wasn’t a lunatic, but you could tell he’d spent some time in prison. I wonder what he’ll be doing for Thanksgiving, then I wonder where he learned how to ask people questions.

  November 29, 1997

  New York

  I went to have my hair cut and sat in the chair beside a man who’d just gotten out of jail. The barber asked what he’d been in for and he answered, “Aggravated assault. I had to beat up some Italian woman because she didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut.”

  I thought the barber, who was Italian, might slit the guy’s throat, but instead he just turned the TV up.

  December 20, 1997

  New York

  I bought a half dozen books this week on horrible diseases, some for me and some to give to Gretchen for Christmas. My favorite picture is of a woman with horrible arthritis. Her fingers are twisted and tapered, almost like carrots, yet her nails are beautifully manicured and painted. She’s working with what she has. The same is true of the gum diseases viewed through lipsticked mouths.

  December 26, 1997

  New York

  Continuing our tradition of seeing movies about black people on Christmas Day, after opening presents, Dad, Lisa, Paul, Amy, and I went to see Jackie Brown. Last year I think it was The Preacher’s Wife, and the year before that Waiting to Exhale. We really wanted to see Soul Food this year, but the only screening was at nine a.m.

  Afterward, over dinner, Dad mentioned a woman we used to know from church. “I saw her not long ago, and golly, she looked just like a man,” he said. “She’s got a beard and everything, like a bristled hog.”

  When Gretchen scolded him, he said that he hadn’t meant that as an insult. “The hairs of a bristled hog are used to craft some of the finest brushes there are, both for painting and shaving! I used to have one, as a matter of fact.”

  1998

  January 1, 1998

  New York

  I went to Helen’s to deliver the tangerines she’d asked for, and she answered her door looking like an old Mafia capo, in big dark sunglasses. “I fell and broke the regular ones,” she told me. We hung out for a while in her kitchen, and before I left she gave me a nutmeg-colored pantsuit she thought Amy might wear. “All my friends have fat asses, so I don’t have nobody else it would fit. Tell her to wash it in Woolite or, what the fuck, tell her she can wash it in any old shit.”

  January 2, 1998

  New York

  A young woman called, saying, “Who is this?” I asked who she was calling for and she said, “What number is this?” After I told her she said, “You don’t have to yell at me.” Then she said she’d call back in a few minutes and hung up.

  Several hours later a man called and asked if I was David Sedaris. “Me and a bunch of friends bought you a present and want to come over and give it to you.”

  I said it wasn’t a good time and suggested he call me back tomorrow. How dumb is that?

  January 7, 1998

  New York

  I went to deliver Helen her chicken cutlets and she sang “I Got You, Babe” in honor of Sonny Bono, who died two days ago in a skiing accident. “I like that Chastity,” she said. “And her father was very understanding when she tolt him she was lesbian.” I stayed for an hour and she recounted the various fights she’s had this week. “I’m not a troublemaker. I just stay out of it now.” Before I left, she gave me another pantsuit to give to Amy, one with a studded top. It’s hard to imagine Helen in it, but she swears she used to wear it to church. “The monsignor said, ‘Hey, hotshot, where’s your horse?’ I tolt him it was in the garage. Ha! You laugh, but that’s what I tolt him.”

  January 20, 1998

  New York

  The woman below us, Franny, died last night, a few months shy of her 106th birthday. Helen told me about it and said, “My mother died when she was forty-six! I remember asking her, ‘Hey, Ma, what are you going to give me for my birthday?’ She said, ‘I’ll give you something you’ll never forget.’ And she did. She died.”

  That Helen. Everything has to be about her.

  January 21, 1998

  New York

  I called my agent Don to discuss the Little, Brown situation and he began by talking about Mary Todd Lincoln. Then he moved to Abe Lincoln and then to FDR. The mention of Bill Clinton heartened me, as we were finally moving into the present decade, but then he went back to Collier’s magazine before finally saying it’s best to just sit tight and let Little, Brown make the next move.

  January 24, 1998

  New York

  I listened to a lot of talk radio today. The president is caught up in a sex scandal that could ruin him if it’s proven he encouraged the young woman to lie to the grand jury or whoever it was who needed to be lied to. One station offered a prize to whoever could give the scandal the best name. I’m sick of attaching the suffix -gate to everything, though it’s hard to sneeze at either Fornigate or Tailgate, the top two contenders. Who knows what will come of it.

  January 26, 1998

  New York

  While straight men watched the Super Bowl on NBC, the other networks fought it out for the women and homosexuals. Funny Girl was on channel 9, and the Bette Midler remake of Gypsy played on channel 2. Meanwhile, channel 13’s Nature special was devoted to cats. Hugh and I switched back and forth from musical to musical to the mother calico teaching her young to hunt. It’s a lesson that Dennis, our cat, apparently slept through.

  February 10, 1998

  New York

  Helen called me over to rub some Tiger Balm into her back. Our mutual neighbor Joe had offered to do it, but she turned him away, saying she didn’t want to
get raped. “I’m not into that,” she told me. “Especially in my own bed.” The other night she confided that her real name is Elena, and that her childhood nickname was Rocky because she got into so many fights. She sent me home with some spaghetti sauce that had chunks of chicken breast in it. Hugh threw it in the garbage, just as he threw away the veal she gave me the day before yesterday.

  February 13, 1998

  New York

  A German publisher has offered a nice advance for Naked and Don thinks we should take it. “That’s what the Japs coughed up,” he said.

  February 15, 1998

  New York

  Helen called at eight a.m. and then again three hours later. “Get over here. I made you the chicken with the potatoes and peas.” I went and she told me about her latest fight with the deli on Spring and Sullivan. Their delivery boy is deaf and Helen’s accusing him of stealing her pen. It seems a simple enough mistake. The kid probably used it and then accidentally stuck it in his pocket. I think of how confused he must have been when Helen lunged at him, demanding it back. She later called the deli, saying, “That freak ain’t allowed in my house no more. He wants a tip? Let him keep the fucking pen!”

  She accuses the Grand Union deliverymen of stealing canned goods from her order and selling them on the street. That’s how paranoid she’s gotten.