everything. My brother said that he could give up eating three meals a day. I looked at him and I couldn’t tell whether he was serious or not.
“How many times a day do you eat?”
“Three. Four.”
“And how many times a day are you saying you’re willing to eat from now on?”
“Once.”
A week later my brother found a job at a gym. At night, when he got home, we talked and made plans. I dreamed about having my own hair salon. I had reason to think that the future was in small salons, small boutiques, small record stores, tiny exclusive bars. My brother said the future was in computers, but since he worked at a gym (sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms), he’d started lifting weights and doing all the things people do to build their bodies.
Gradually we gave up on getting an education. Sometimes I didn’t go to school in the mornings (the incessant light was unbearable). Other times it was my brother who didn’t go. As the days went by we both ended up staying home in the mornings, yearning for school but incapable of going out, getting on the bus, walking into our respective classrooms, and opening the books and notebooks from which we would learn nothing.
We killed time watching TV, first the talk shows, then cartoons, and finally the morning shows with interviews and news about famous people. But more about that later. TV and videos play an important role in this story. Even today, when I turn on the TV, I seem to get a glimpse of my criminal younger self, but the vision doesn’t last long, no longer than the time it takes the TV to fully come on. For an instant, though, I can see the eyes of the person I used to be, my hair, my scornful lips, my cold-looking cheekbones, and my neck, cold too, like marble. The sight always gives me a shiver.
Around this time, because of his job at the gym, my brother developed a strange habit.
“Want to see how I’m doing?” he would ask.
Then he would take off his shirt and show me his muscles. Even though it was cold and the apartment wasn’t heated, he’d take off his shirt or his T-shirt and show me the muscles that were timidly emerging from his body like tumors, protuberances that had nothing to do with him or with my image of him — of his scrawny adolescent body.
Once he told me that he dreamed of being Mr. Rome and then Mr. Italy or Master of the Universe. I laughed in his face and gave him my frank opinion. To be Master of the Universe you have to train from the time you’re ten, I told him. I thought that bodybuilding was like chess. My brother said that if I could dream of owning a mini-salon, he had the right to dream of a better future too. That was the word he used:
future.
I went into the kitchen and got our dinner started. Spaghetti. Then I set out the plates and silverware. Still thinking. At last I said that I didn’t care about the future, that I had ideas, but those ideas, if I really thought about it, never extended into the future.
“Where do they go, then?” howled my brother.
“Nowhere.”
Then we would watch TV until we fell asleep.
Around four in the morning I usually woke with a start. I would get up from my chair, clear the dirty dishes from the table, wash them, straighten the living room, clean the kitchen, put another blanket over my brother, turn down the TV, go to the window and look out into the street with its double row of parked cars: I couldn’t believe that it was still night, that this incandescence was night. It made no difference whether I closed my eyes or kept them open.
II
One day my brother rented an X-rated movie and we watched it together. It was horrible and I said so. He agreed. We watched the whole thing and then we watched TV, first an American series and then a game show. The next day my brother returned the movie and rented another one. It was X-rated too. I said that we didn’t have enough money to rent movies every day. He didn’t answer. When I asked him why he’d rented the same
“How many times a day do you eat?”
“Three. Four.”
“And how many times a day are you saying you’re willing to eat from now on?”
“Once.”
A week later my brother found a job at a gym. At night, when he got home, we talked and made plans. I dreamed about having my own hair salon. I had reason to think that the future was in small salons, small boutiques, small record stores, tiny exclusive bars. My brother said the future was in computers, but since he worked at a gym (sweeping floors and cleaning bathrooms), he’d started lifting weights and doing all the things people do to build their bodies.
Gradually we gave up on getting an education. Sometimes I didn’t go to school in the mornings (the incessant light was unbearable). Other times it was my brother who didn’t go. As the days went by we both ended up staying home in the mornings, yearning for school but incapable of going out, getting on the bus, walking into our respective classrooms, and opening the books and notebooks from which we would learn nothing.
We killed time watching TV, first the talk shows, then cartoons, and finally the morning shows with interviews and news about famous people. But more about that later. TV and videos play an important role in this story. Even today, when I turn on the TV, I seem to get a glimpse of my criminal younger self, but the vision doesn’t last long, no longer than the time it takes the TV to fully come on. For an instant, though, I can see the eyes of the person I used to be, my hair, my scornful lips, my cold-looking cheekbones, and my neck, cold too, like marble. The sight always gives me a shiver.
Around this time, because of his job at the gym, my brother developed a strange habit.
“Want to see how I’m doing?” he would ask.
Then he would take off his shirt and show me his muscles. Even though it was cold and the apartment wasn’t heated, he’d take off his shirt or his T-shirt and show me the muscles that were timidly emerging from his body like tumors, protuberances that had nothing to do with him or with my image of him — of his scrawny adolescent body.
Once he told me that he dreamed of being Mr. Rome and then Mr. Italy or Master of the Universe. I laughed in his face and gave him my frank opinion. To be Master of the Universe you have to train from the time you’re ten, I told him. I thought that bodybuilding was like chess. My brother said that if I could dream of owning a mini-salon, he had the right to dream of a better future too. That was the word he used:
future.
I went into the kitchen and got our dinner started. Spaghetti. Then I set out the plates and silverware. Still thinking. At last I said that I didn’t care about the future, that I had ideas, but those ideas, if I really thought about it, never extended into the future.
“Where do they go, then?” howled my brother.
“Nowhere.”
Then we would watch TV until we fell asleep.
Around four in the morning I usually woke with a start. I would get up from my chair, clear the dirty dishes from the table, wash them, straighten the living room, clean the kitchen, put another blanket over my brother, turn down the TV, go to the window and look out into the street with its double row of parked cars: I couldn’t believe that it was still night, that this incandescence was night. It made no difference whether I closed my eyes or kept them open.
II
One day my brother rented an X-rated movie and we watched it together. It was horrible and I said so. He agreed. We watched the whole thing and then we watched TV, first an American series and then a game show. The next day my brother returned the movie and rented another one. It was X-rated too. I said that we didn’t have enough money to rent movies every day. He didn’t answer. When I asked him why he’d rented the same
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