by Dave Eggers
Maybe I’m already sick. It’s already growing inside me. Something, anything. A tapeworm. AIDS. I have to get started, have to get started soon because I will die before thirty. It will be random, my death, even more random than theirs. I will fall somehow, will fall like she fell, when I found her. I was six and it was midnight, and I found her when she fell down the stairs and opened up her head on the black-slate floor. I had heard her moaning and I walked down the hallway, the green-carpet floor, and at the top of the stairs I saw a figure, in a nightgown, crumpled at the bottom. I walked slowly down the stairs, in my pajamas, with feet, my hand on the railing, having no idea who this was, almost knowing but not knowing at all, and when I was near enough I heard her, the voice hers: “I wanted to see the flower.” “I wanted to see the flower,” she was saying, three or four times, “I wanted to see the flower.” Then there was the blood, black, on the black slate floor, her hair matted with blood, now red, brown, glistening. I woke my father up and then there was the ambulance. She came home wearing a bandage around her head, and for weeks I was not sure she was her. I wanted it to be her, believe it was her, but there was the possibility that she had died and this now was someone else. I would have believed anything.
It s too cold to lie bare-chested. I get up and Toph gets up and he runs and I throw the frisbee ahead of him, leading him by a good twenty yards but the frisbee, because I have thrown it perfectly, floats up, floats slowly, and he reaches it with time to spare, overtakes it, stops, turns, and catches it between his legs.
Oh, we are good. He’s only eight but together we are spectacular. We play by the shore, and we run barefoot, padding and scratching into the cold wet sand. We take four steps for each throw, and when we throw trie world stops and gasps. We throw so far, and with such accuracy, and with such ridiculous beauty. We are perfection, harmony, young and lithe, fast like Indians. When I run I can feel the contracting of my muscles, the strain of my cartilage, the rise and fall of pectorals, the coursing of blood, everything working, everything functioning perfectly, a body in its peak form, albeit on the thin side, just a bit shy of normal weight, with a few ribs visible, which, come to think of it, might look weird to Toph, might look kind of anemic, might frighten him, might remind him of our father’s weight loss, of the way his legs, as he sat at breakfast in his suit, that fall, after he had given up on chemotherapy but was still going to work, his legs were like dowels under his flannel pants, thin dowels under those gray flannel pants, now so baggy. I should work out. I could join a gym. I could get a weight bench. At least get some free weights, a few dumbbells. I should. I have to. I have to present to Toph a body exploding with virility, flawless. I need to be the acme of health and strength, instilling confidence, dashing doubt. I need to be indomitable, a machine, a perfect fucking machine. I’ll join a gym. I’ll start jogging.
We throw the frisbee farther than anyone has ever seen a fris-bee go. First it goes higher than anyone has thrown before, so that in the middle of the pale blue there is only the sun’s glazed headlight and the tiny white disc, and then it goes farther than anyone has known a frisbee to go, with us having to use miles of beach, from one cliff to the other, thousands of people in between, to catch it. It’s the trajectory that’s important, we know that, that the distance relies on both velocity and angle of flight, that you have to throw the living shit out of the thing, and also put it on the correct trajectory, an upward trajectory both straight and steady, not too high, not too low, because if it’s sent on the right upward path, its momentum will carry it almost twice the distance, the second half on its way down, the second half a gimme, meaning that you need to only provide for half of its distance yourself, its momentum providing for the second half, when finally its forward progress slows and slows and stops and it falls, as if parachuting, and then we move and run under it, our quick steps scratching into the wet sand and when it falls, it falls into our hands, because we are there.
We look like professionals, like we’ve been playing together for years. Busty women stop and stare. Senior citizens sit and shake their heads, gasping. Religious people fall to their knees. No one has ever seen anything quite like it.
III.
The enemies list is growing quickly, unabated. All these people impeding us, trifling with us, not knowing or caring who we are, what has happened. The squirrelly guy who sold Toph that cheap lock for his bike—his new bike, the one we bought last year, for his birthday, just before we left Chicago—I wanted to punish that man—he said it was the best lock they had, “invincible, no sweat” he said—and the bike was stolen within the week. And that idiot in the van, who backed over our little Civic, with both of us in it, at a stoplight, in the middle of Berkeley, me forced to picture it happening that second, the van continuing, monster-truck-style, over the hood, onto us, Toph crushed, slowly, me watching, helpess— And something should be done about (or to) that gaunt and severe woman on the BART, the one with the hair pulled back so tight she looked half-onion, who sat across from us, kept looking over her book, at us, disapproving, as I rested my feet on Toph’s lap, like I was a molester— And the secretary at school, with her blaming look at me when he’s late for school— And that other woman, the across-the-street neighbor, a haggy creature with the chubby son, who stops her gardening and stares every time we leave the house. And the owners of the Berkeley hills sublet, who kept our deposit, citing (or claiming) damage to just about everything in the house. And most of all, those real estate people. Cruel, vicious, subhuman. Those fuckers were unbelievable.
“Where do you work?”
“I don’t have a job yet.”
“Are you in school?”
“No.”
“And this is your...son?”
“Brother.”
“Oh. Well. We’ll let you know.”
We had no idea where to look. Toph’s new school has no bus service, so from the start I knew I’d be driving him to and fro regardless of where we lived. Thus, in late July, when we started looking for a place for the fall, we cast our net wide, considered, at least initially, almost every neighborhood in Berkeley, Albany, and southern Oakland. After discerning that between my income— assuming at some point that notion would become reality—and Toph’s Social Security money—he’s entitled to a monthly stipend, equivalent to what would have been paid our parents, we presume—we could pay about $1,000 a month, we set out.
And were soon struck with the relatively dingy reality of our new lives. There would no longer be hills, or views—that sublet was a freak occurrence. We would have no garage, no washer and dryer, no dishwasher, no disposal, no closets, no bathtub. Some of the places we saw didn’t even have doors on the bedrooms. I felt terrible, felt personally responsible; I began to look without Toph, to spare him the gore. We were in decline. In Chicago we had a house, an ample kind of house, four bedrooms, a yard, a creek running behind, huge, hundred-year-old trees, a little hill, some woods. Then there was the sublet, the golden house in the hills, its glass and light, overlooking everything, mountains, oceans, all of those bridges. And now, in part due to the inevitable implosion of our household—Katie doesn’t want to live with all of us, Kirsten and I need some time apart, and Beth and I, like any grown siblings with any kind of history behind them, knew one of us would be found bloody and dismembered if we continued to occupy the same four walls—we had all accepted smaller, humbler situations. Beth would live alone, Kirsten with a roommate found in the classifieds, and Toph and I would find a two-bedroom, would try to live close, but not too close, to one or both of them.
I had wanted a loft. For years I had pictured my first postcol-legiate rental as a huge raw space, all high ceilings and chipped paint, exposed brick, water pipes and heating ducts, a massive open area where I could paint, could build and house enormous canvases, throw stuff around, maybe set up a basketball hoop, a smallish hockey rink. It would be close to the Bay, and a park, and the BART, grocery stores, everything. I called a few places listed in Oakland.
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“What’s the neighborhood like?” I asked.
“Well, it’s kinda funky. But our lot has a gate.”
“A gate? What about a park?”
“A park?”
“Yeah, I have an eight-year-old. Is there a park nearby?”
“Oh please. Get serious.”
Even when we accepted the prospect of a one-story two-bedroom in the flatlands, people were unkind, ungiving. I had expected open arms from all, everyone grateful that we, as God’s tragic envoys, had stepped down from the clouds to consider dwelling in their silly little buildings. What we were getting was something eerily close to indifference.
Early on, we had seen a listing—two bedrooms, yard, North Berkeley—and had made the call; the man sounded enthused, definitely not evil. But then, on a warm and blue day, we drove to his house. As we got out of our little red car and walked toward him, he was standing out on the porch, he looked stricken.
“This is your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Ooh,” he said, with difficulty, as if the O were an egg he was forcing through his mouth. “Jeez, I expected you two to be older. How old are you guys?”
“I’m twenty-two. He’s nine.”
“But on the application you said he had an income. I don’t see how that’s possible.”
I explained Social Security to him. I explained to him the inheritance of money. I was cheerful about it, emphasizing that we were well aware that it was a little unusual, but anyway, now that that’s out of the way—
He tilted his head, his arms folded. We were still on the driveway. We were not being invited into the house.
“Listen guys, I don’t want to waste your time. I’m really looking for a couple, an older couple preferably.”
The wind sent to us the smell of those white flowers that are everywhere, the ones on the bushes. Rhododendrons?
“Can you see where I’m coming from?” he asked.
On the BART, on the way to an As game, we sat, Toph and I, reading side by side, and across from us was a young woman, Latina, a little older than me, with her daughter, a bit younger than Toph. The woman, small and in a white shirt, was playing with the hair of the girl, who was sucking on a drinkbox. They could be sisters, with a wider age-gap than Toph and me—or could she be her mother? If she’s 25 and the girl 7... it could be. They seemed nice. The woman was not wearing any rings. I wondered if we could all move in together. She would understand. She would already know how it is. We could combine our households. It would be so good, we could share all the responsibilities, babysitting no problem. Toph and this girl would be friends and maybe would end up getting married— And maybe the woman and I should be together, too. But she looked like she had a boyfriend. Did she? That secure look. So at ease. Not just a boyfriend, but a good man, too. A large man maybe. A boyfriend who lifts heavy things for a living. Or could, if he wanted to. She was now turning the girl’s hair around her fingers, around and around, the black threads tighter and— But we wouldn’t have to be romantic. We could just have a happy household. The boyfriend, whose name could be Phil, would be a okay with it, part of the mix. But he wouldn’t be living with us. That would be too much. No sleep-overs, either. No underwear or bathrooms or showers. But maybe she’s not with anyone. Phil went away. Phil was drafted. He was a Peruvian citizen and was drafted, and we were sad for him, but that’s how it goes, sorry Phil. So. How would we decorate? That would be a problem. But I would defer. Yes, defer. To have a happy easy house with help from this woman and to have her and Toph content in their room with their stomachs on the carpet and sharing some book I would defer.
In mid-August, by now desperate, I walked into a small adobe house a few blocks from Beth’s new apartment. The owner was a large, middle-aged black woman, looking not unlike the Bible-reading woman who had been with my mother at the end. The house was perfect. Or rather, it was not at all perfect, but was far less imperfect than anything else we’d seen. The woman’s son had just gone to college—she was also a single mother—and she was picking up and moving to New Mexico. The house was about the right size for us, snug on a street dappled through a canopy of interlocking greenery. There was a backyard, a porch, a shed, a sun-room even, no dishwasher or laundry but it hardly mattered, with us a few weeks from school starting—when she asked about financial matters, I threw down my ace.
“I’m worried about your lack of a job,” she said. “Listen,” I blurted. “We can pay. We have money. We could pay the year’s rent all at once, if you want.” Her eyes widened.
So we wrote the check. At this point, all sense of thrift has fallen away. We grew up in a tightfisted house, where there was no allowance, where asking for $5 from our father elicited the heaviest of sighs, required detailed plans for repayment. Our mother was far worse—would not even shop in Lake Forest, where everything was overpriced, would instead drive ten, twenty, thirty miles to Marshall’s, to TJ. Maxx, for bargains, for bulk. Once a year we’d all pile into the Pinto and would drive to a place on the west side of Chicago, Sinofsky’s, where for $4, $5 each we’d buy dozens of slightly flawed rugby shirts, holes here and there, extra buttons, collars ruined by bleach, pink bleeding into white. We grew up with a weird kind of cognitive dissonance; we knew we lived in a nice town—our cousins out East often made that point to us—but then, if this was true, why was our mother always fretting aloud about not having the money to buy staples? “How will I even buy milk tomorrow?” she would yell at him from the kitchen. Our father, who was out of work a year here, a year there, never seemed impressed with her worry; he seemed to have it all worked out. Still, we were ready for and expected sudden indigence, to be forced out of the house in the middle of the night and into one of the apartments on the highway, at the edge of town. To become one of those kids.
It never happened, of course, and now, though we are not rich, and there is very little money actually coming in, Beth and I have tossed away the guilt associated with spending it. When it’s a matter of expense versus convenience, the choice is not a choice. While my mother would have driven forty miles for a half-priced tomato, I’ll pay $10 for it if it means I don’t have to get in the car. It’s a matter of exhaustion, mostly. Fatigue loosens my wallet, Beth’s even more, loosens the checkbook tied to Toph’s account. We are done sacrificing, Beth and I have decided—at least when it’s unnecessary, when it involves money, which, for the time being at least, we have. Even the larger expenditures, those that require Bill’s approval, are pushed through with little resistance.
We lasted about a month without a washer/dryer. Every weekend, Toph and I would stuff our laundry into four plastic garbage bags, grab two each, his pair smaller, throw them over our shoulders and stagger, peasant-like, to the place around the corner and down the street. Because there is no way to carry two large, overstuffed garbage bags at once, after half a block Toph would have dropped one of his bags. With its cheap plastic ripped and his shorts and Bulls T-shirts spilling across the sidewalk, he’d run back to the house to get another bag to replace it. Seconds later, he’d return, with his bicycle—
“What are you doing?”
“Wait. Let me try something...”
thinking he could balance the laundry bags on the seat and the frame, and of course that wouldn’t work for shit, so we’d be on the sidewalk, picking it all up, four bags of laundry, the clothes stuck in his bike chain, on the neighbor’s lawn, ants making homes inside— twenty minutes later and only fifty feet from our front door. There was exhaustion, there was exasperation, there were thoughts of washing clothes in the sink or shower. The next day we called Bill, hummed loudly through his mild objections, and finally bought ourselves a washer and dryer.
They’re used, both found and delivered for $400, and they’re loud, and they don’t match—one is beige and one is white—but good lord, they’re beautiful, beautiful machines.
The house is about half the size of the last place, but it’s full of light, and there is room in t
his house, there is flow. The floors are wooden floors, and because the first room becomes the kitchen, there is room, if one is so inclined, to run from one end of the house to the other, without hitting a door or a wall. As a matter of fact, if one happens to be wearing socks, one can run, hypothetically, from the back of the house, through the kitchen, and when one gets to the hardwood of the living room, fig-2
one can jump, slide, and make it all the way to the front door, sometimes still at full speed (fig. 2).
We feel temporary here, like house-sitters, vacationers, and so we do very little in the way of mingling with the community. The immediate neighborhood includes an older lesbian couple, an elderly Chinese couple, a black man/white woman pair in their early forties, and Daniel and Boona next door, sandaled and beaded, unmarried—and just friends, it seems—both in some kind of social work. Elsewhere on the block are single mothers, divorcees, widows, widowers, single women living with single men, single women living with single women, and, a few blocks away, there is even Barry Gifford. Only here would we blend. Only here, by comparison, would we seem ho-hum.
We repaint the entire house. Toph and I do it all in one week, with rollers, skipping the corners, the molding, leaving the rooms loose, fuzzy, Rothkoesque. We do the family room a sort of light blue, and the living room a deep burgundy. My room is salmon, the kitchen is an off-yellow, and Toph’s we leave white—until one night, the night before his 10th birthday and in the middle of a spell of nightmares, for decoration and protection I paint two huge superheroes, Wolverine and Cable, on his walls, one flying down from above, one standing over his bed. He sleeps through the entire process, the paint dripping onto his bedspread, his exposed left leg.