Theft by Finding

by David Sedaris

  October 16, 2000

  Philadelphia

  There’s a scale in the hotel bathroom and I found out that I weigh 131 pounds. The last time I weighed in, I was 157, but that was before moving to France; 131 is too low. It’s a weakling’s weight. I’d like to get up to 140 but still have a flat stomach and a thirty-inch waist. Is that possible?

  October 20, 2000

  Springfield, Missouri

  Springfield has got to be the most depressing city in the United States. The trip from the airport to the hotel was hideous, and things didn’t improve much between here and Hammons Hall. The land is flat and covered with failed strip malls and chain stores surrounded by empty parking lots. From my window I can see a Big Kmart (aren’t they all big?), a Walmart, an ALDI, an AutoZone, a Donut Connection, a Master Wang’s Chinese restaurant, a Western Sizzlin’, and a Git ’n’ Go. Most towns have such a strip, but here even the McDonald’s is failing to thrive. You get the idea people would leave if they could only sell their houses and summon up the energy to pack.

  Branson, Missouri, is forty-five miles to the south, and the fact is heavily advertised. It’s aspiring to be the new country-music capital, and the Springfield roads are hugged by billboards for the Osmond Family Theater, the Grand Mansion, the Grand Palace, Bonniebrook Park, Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Christian Theater, the Dixie Stampede, and the Dewey Short Visitors Center. I’ve chosen to take my few days off in Chicago but actually wouldn’t have minded going to Branson to see one of the two musicals based on the life of Jesus. I could then see Andy Williams and Jeff Foxworthy at the Grand Palace and eat dinner at Buckingham’s Restaurant and Oasis. Then again…

  On Wednesday my watch broke, so yesterday I went across the street to the saddest mall in America. Half the stores were shuttered up and the fountain had been drained. The food court was gone except for a place called Granny’s Fudgery, a wooden cart surrounded by card tables. I imagine the mall started going downhill when it accepted Walmart as a tenant. Anything you could find at Bill’s Card Shop and the Record Bin could also be found there, where a customer could pay less and buy everything in one shot. I’d been to only one Walmart in my life before this and I was shocked at how ugly it was, even by American standards. It was a mammoth jumble of absolute shit made more chaotic by brightly colored signs and promotional displays. Yesterday’s Walmart was even worse than the first, but the employees were incredibly friendly. Maybe that’s normal, but I think my two years in Europe made it seem even stranger. You’d never get that kind of treatment at Leclerc or any of the other French superstores.

  The woman at the jewelry counter replaced my battery and seemed genuinely concerned when the watch still failed to work. “What can we do?” she said. “Did you buy this here or at another Walmart? Maybe we can get you a refund.”

  It seemed strange of her to suppose I’d bought my watch at a Walmart, but I imagine her assumptions are most often correct. It’s a hideous place, but the people are really nice, even the customers. I also bought a folder, some eucalyptus throat drops, and a cold medication called Zicam that had been recommended by Megan’s father. I sprayed it into my nose and it unclogged within seconds.

  For one reason or another I was flown first class from Cleveland to St. Louis and then on to Springfield. I’d never really cared about first class, but yesterday, because I was sick, I really enjoyed it. It was nice to be in a big comfortable seat and have the row all to myself. The stewardess started serving me as soon as I boarded and I received tea in a real cup. Passengers on the way to coach looked me up and down and made little comments such as “I guess I ought to continue on to the poor people’s section.”

  On the first leg, there were five of us in first class. On the second flight, there were four, including a tall man wearing a brown suit and cowboy boots. The plane took off and shortly afterward I turned to find him clipping his toenails. It wasn’t a quick effort but a virtual pedicure, followed by fifteen minutes with an emery board and a vigorous buffing session. He spent the entire flight this way, and by the time we landed, the carpet at his feet was littered with fine dust and nail trimmings.

  Because of my cold, my ears stopped up upon landing. It was an odd sensation and I spent my hour and a half layover straining to hear the boarding announcements. It was as if I had a pillow over my head. The St. Louis airport has those glass smoking tanks and the ashtrays are regularly emptied.

  October 30, 2000

  San Francisco

  I couldn’t smoke in Bob and Lisa’s house, so we set up a sewing table on the deck where I could sit and work. Yesterday morning I got up early and had just finished my first cup of coffee when I realized the door had locked behind me. It was seven thirty and I felt certain that if I waited a few minutes, Bob would come down to let the dog out. Chessie, their border collie, made an appearance at around eight and we regarded one another through the glass door. I hoped that envy might drive her to start barking, but aside from one quick yip, she kept her mouth shut. It was cold but not freezing, and I’d dressed in a sweatshirt and a black jacket Lisa’s mother-in-law had sent her the day before.

  Operating on the insane hope that maybe the door was set on some kind of timer, I got up from the sewing table and tried to reopen it every few minutes. To the neighbors it must have looked as though I were trying to break in and write about it at the same time, and I worried that one of them might call the police. I waited until around eight thirty and then I jumped off the side of the deck, walked around the house, and rang the front bell. Bob answered in his bathrobe and I was grateful I’d come to stay with him and Lisa. Were it anyone else in my family, they would have ignored the bell, hoping that whoever it was would eventually give up and go away.

  November 9, 2000

  Greencastle, Indiana

  I called Dad last night after dinner. He asked about my visit with Tiffany and I tried to be positive. She was pretty wound up yesterday, but other than that she seemed to be on a fairly even keel. It just troubles me that she can live in such filth. On several occasions during my visit, she referred to herself as poor, and that depressed me. Most people would say they’re broke. That word suggests a temporary setback. Poor, on the other hand, conveys a permanence. She sees poverty as romantic and claims to be perfectly happy. Last week she found a frozen turkey in somebody’s garbage can. I can see taking it home and using it for target practice, but she took it home and ate it. I hate thinking that someone in my family would eat a turkey found in the garbage.

  Tiffany uses overhead lights, not caring how harsh they are. She wakes up and the first thing she does is turn on the TV. Joints are smoked early in the day, and then she gets on the phone and hustles little jobs. On Tuesday she stripped some boards for an odious antiques dealer.

  There was talk about getting something full-time, maybe with benefits, but I’m guessing she’ll find an excuse to reject it. She’s not lazy, Tiffany, but she has a hard time dealing with expectations. Robert came by in the evenings and the two of them sat on the sofa switching from one station to another and talking through everything. I liked Robert. He seems to genuinely care about her and is a good listener.

  On Tuesday afternoon she cried while telling me a story she’d recounted a year before. She cries a lot and the episodes generally end with a list of things she’s doing for herself. “I get out of bed in the mornings. Do you understand? I get up.” The accomplishments are tiny, but I guess they’re all she’s got.

  November 10, 2000

  Chicago

  Televisions at the Indianapolis airport showed that Bush was ahead by 210 votes, with one district left to recount. Who ever thought the presidential election would come down to the number of people you’d find in a movie theater? It might be resolved tonight, but I doubt it.

  I liked the Star Market in Somerville and was surprised that Tiffany goes instead to the corner store in her neighborhood, which is much more expensive. Even a coffeepot would save her money, but instead she makes it by
the cup. I always thought that Dad would be good at teaching low-income people how to grocery shop. He’s smart with coupons and bulk-buying, but when you have no money and are miserable, I guess you can’t get too worked up over a ten-pound bag of pinto beans. When I was broke I shopped very carefully, but then again I was never clinically depressed. I keep reflecting on my conversations with Tiffany, and it’s frustrating. The slightest hint of criticism sends her over the edge, so I would wind up saying nothing. It’s probably for the best, as most people don’t really want advice.

  November 19, 2000

  New York

  After landing in Denver, I ran to the smoking lounge, where I saw a woman hotboxing a cigarette while pushing a baby confined to a wheelchair. Bringing ordinary children into the smoking lounge is enough to earn you glares, but a baby in a wheelchair could possibly lead to a lynching. Boy, that took nerve.

  December 14, 2000

  Paris

  Apparently I don’t have AIDS. The French bank received my blood test and approved my mortgage, so, though I haven’t yet read it on a piece of paper, I’m guessing I’m negative. This is sort of major, as, for the past fifteen years, I’ve just naturally assumed I was infected. Every time I sweat at night, every time I get a sore or run a fever, I think that it’s finally kicked in. It wasn’t always at the front of my mind, but it was always there. It sounds goofy, but it’s going to take a while for the news to sink in. I’m not disappointed; I just need to figure out what to do between now and the time I develop cancer.

  Sophie and Philippe picked me up in a taxi and we went to a TV station in an ugly suburb. This was for a cable program called Paris Première hosted by a handsome anchorman who stood at a desk and read from slips of paper rather than a monitor. I’d been offered the option of speaking in English, but I just went ahead and did it in French.

  The segment lasted maybe five minutes and it passed quickly. I then had my makeup removed and watched on the monitors as the host had a fit and yelled at the cameramen. There was something wrong with the placement of an object, and when it happened a second time he got even uglier. It was fun. My seven o’clock interview was canceled, so after the TV appearance Sophie and I went to the office, where I signed thirty books and then walked home.

  Apparently the Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s favor, so last night Al Gore conceded. I had to call Dad for some information and the conversation got scary when he started talking about the election. He’s always been a Republican, but it saddened me when he started quoting Rush Limbaugh and trashing what he called “the liberal mainstream media.” It’s always the papers’ fault. Conservatives tell the truth. Everyone else lies. Dad was foaming at the mouth over how Gore tried to steal the election. “I’ve been so upset I haven’t been able to sleep,” he said.

  Last night Hugh went to dinner with Leslie and paid $130 for a baked potato wrapped in aluminum foil. It came accompanied by a teaspoon of caviar. There was a bowl of borscht and a tiny dessert, but still, the centerpiece was a 35-cent potato. He was shocked by the price and tried to justify it by saying that in the past Leslie had often paid for his dinner. He’d saved money over the years, and now he was spending a little. Yes, but for a potato? “And I got to sit next to Yves Saint Laurent,” he said. This still didn’t justify $130, and he knew it. Besides, ten minutes after taking his seat, Yves Saint Laurent signaled the waiter and asked to be moved. For the past week, Hugh has been painting for Diane Johnson, and the potato amounted to two days’ worth of work.

  2001

  January 13, 2001

  Paris

  Yesterday at Shoppi I noticed a black man wearing a crocheted jester’s hat and bell-bottom jeans trimmed in lace. The first time I saw him, he was looking at fish and pushing a baby carriage. I dismissed him as a nut, but then I decided he was just a father, maybe a musician. At the fruit and vegetable scales I stepped over to look at the child and saw that it was a doll—white, maybe two feet tall, and dressed in a hooded down jacket. It wasn’t a baby but a little girl with matted blond hair that had obviously been washed with soap. Amy and I stood behind the man in line and listened as he held a conversation with her. “Hello,” he said, and then, in a higher voice, “I need gloves.”

  It was, he explained, his daughter talking. “She is cold tonight, but so is everyone.”

  The man said that he and Michael Jackson were both fathers, and that it was a lot harder than it looked. He kissed the doll on the head and told me that portable phones had improved the world’s mood. In the ’60s everyone was very serious, but now, due to technology, people were lightening up. The doll complained about the long wait and he comforted her, saying they’d be home soon. The man was buying two whole trout and four cartons of orange juice. He was very nice to the cashier and she was nice back, each of them wishing the other a happy New Year.

  I told the story to Manuela last night, and she accused me of making it up. Then I told the story of Chantal’s father beating his dog to death with a stick. Hugh was there to back me up, which ultimately made my doll story more credible. Plus I had Amy as an eyewitness.

  January 22, 2001

  Paris

  We had dinner at Peggy’s with Armistead and an American painter named Richard. Steven had told me about him, but it didn’t register until he mentioned he’d inherited the estate of the surrealist painter Leonor Fini. At one point, the conversation turned to a San Francisco cellist named Dorothy. “Oh, I’d love to go to her house,” Peggy said. “She’s bald.”

  I love the way her mind works. Later she told a story about her and her best friend, Flicka, dating a pair of Samoan cousins when they were in their twenties. The guy she went out with was named Ziki Fuapopo, and the story she told involved his mother, a pile of cocaine, and a group of men dressed in lavalavas.

  March 21, 2001

  New York

  It’s been two years since I’ve had a drink. Amy gave me a bathroom scale for an anniversary present, and, without my shoes, I weigh 132. The other day in Greencastle I weighed 144, so I’m figuring one of the scales must be wrong. Hugh will give me a present tonight when he gets home, and maybe this evening I’ll have a piece of cake. It’s almost best not to mention it, as any celebration of sobriety seems so painfully childlike. “I know, I’ll have a tea party and invite all my invisible friends!”

  April 10, 2001

  San Francisco

  After last night’s reading, Ronnie, Blair, and I went to dinner with a critical care nurse who’s in the process of writing two novels and told me that in 80 percent of all burglaries, the intruder defecates on the bed. If not the bed, he’ll shit on the carpet or the dining-room table. It’s done as a final fuck you to the homeowner but seems like an awful lot of trouble. It’s hard enough to use a strange toilet, let alone a mattress or carpet, so why bother? Do the burglars save up or can they just defecate on command? Is this a trick they learned in prison?

  April 30, 2001

  Paris

  On the front door of a restaurant I saw a sign reading DINNERS, LUNCHS, RECEPTIONS.

  It’s hard to say the word lunches with the missing e: lunchs.

  The city of Paris is continuing last year’s ad campaign. The goal is to get people to clean up after their dogs, and the billboards read YOU HAVE GOOD REASON NOT TO PICK UP. HE DOES IT VERY WELL IN YOUR PLACE. One ad pictures a child sitting on the grass and using a cookie cutter on a Great Dane–size pile of shit. Another, my favorite, shows a blind man with six good-size stools speared on his cane. Shit isn’t terribly photogenic and the stools come off looking like the grilled sausages served at one of the many Greek restaurants off Saint-Michel.

  May 3, 2001

  Paris

  I had an interview with a German man who writes for the equivalent of the Ladies’ Home Journal. He was a portly fellow with white teeth and glasses who wore a button-down shirt and a new pair of Levi’s. He told me that his sister is clinically depressed and read Naked during a month-long visit to a psychiatric hospit
al. According to him, once she’d finished, she loaned it to a fellow patient, who, in turn, loaned it to someone else. The book seemed to lift people’s spirits, and as a result, the hospital has made it recommended reading. I’m not sure whether I believe this, but it’s extremely flattering to think my book is being passed around a German asylum.

  May 5, 2001

  La Bagotière

  Until last night we slept on a bed that came with the house and felt as though it had been stuffed with marshmallows. We’d lie down and roll to the middle, where we’d sink to the bottom and wake up feeling like someone had taken to us with a stick. I’ve been offering to buy a new bed and finally Hugh accepted. We went to Lepage in Flers, an ugly aluminum-sided building filled with equally ugly furniture. Our salesman was a small man with blond hair who invited us upstairs and pointed out the various features of the display models. “Allez-y,” he said.