Chapter 5 Section 4

I was in my mother's room, sitting with her, watching TV and chatting.We paused from time to time in order to recall the original events.A person talks about something that triggers a memory, and then reminisces about the past together. My mother had a special way of recalling past events as they were.She mentions names and events, letting them levitate, attaching neither pleasure nor regret.Sometimes she just utters a word, a word or phrase that points to the past and reminds me of things I haven't thought of in decades.She felt confident in what she recalled, and traveled through time with a certainty that she could not apply to the present moment, hour, or day.She often asks in a self-deprecating tone: What day is it today?Should I go to Mass today, or tomorrow?Driving her to mass and then picking her up was the most reliable and satisfying thing I did on a weekly basis.I knew when, what, and how long Masses would start, and I made sure she had enough cash with her to cover the donation.We sat in the room talking, and the atmosphere seemed to have no effect on her.The moment she recalled touched me with great force, something ordinary, yet with great force.If you haven't experienced it, if you're not there, it's normal stuff.I saw her sitting there quietly, carefully recalling the past years.

When my children were little, I used to say to them that the big rope is the rope used to hold the boats together.Or, as I used to say, the floor between two rooms is called a joint.It's called a saddle. We bought her a dresser, air conditioner and a firm mattress that is good for her back.She speaks with affection of the names of the family members who record the special ordeals she has endured.We both stopped talking, lost in thought.There were barrettes in her hair, which was still brown or had become metallic strands that shone in the light.We sat there with the TV on.I know she doesn't talk too much, doesn't recall casually.She's in a position of control here, guiding the conversation safely through those pauses.

After the riots in Los Angeles, my son started wearing baggy shorts, hats tilted back, and sneakers with bulging tongues.Before that, he had been an unclassifiable person, sitting in a room with a computer, a kid who had just turned twenty.He dresses the same throughout the year, and he goes to job interviews in clothes similar to what I wear when I walk my dog—a continuum in him. We design and manage landfills.We are waste brokers, arranging the transportation of dangerous goods in countries around the world.We are waste priests, teaching people how to deal with all forms of waste.Talking to Clara Sacks in the desert, I pretty much mentioned the scope of my work.At times, her own career is highlighted by the way she transforms and absorbs waste.I don't want her to feel that I'm implying some kind of similarity in attempt and point of view.

Celebrities don't want to hear that someone else has qualities like them.This can make them uneasy and feel like something is moving inside their clothes. My father's name was James Costanza, or Jamie Costanza.If you add up the letters of the name, you get 13. At home, we remove the wax paper from our cereal boxes.We have a recycling cabinet where newspapers, tins and jars are kept separately.We rinse used cans and empty bottles and put them in their own compartments.We separate tin from aluminum.On the day of the garbage collection, we put each type of waste in separate containers and put those containers - the English word receptacle comes from the Latin verb meaning to get again - at the door of our house on the sidewalk.We use paper bags for used paper bags, and larger paper bags for smaller ones, and we put the larger paper bags next to the other containers.We peeled the wax paper off the cereal box.We have worked so diligently on these tasks that I can't think of words to describe them properly.We also dispose of yard waste, we roll old newspapers but don't bundle them.

Sometimes, the two of us watch TV when we stop talking.We watched reruns of "The Honeymoon," and my mother laughed when Ralph Crampton flailed his arms and complained loudly.This is the only occasion where I can hear her laugh.Looking at these images and seeing familiar things, she must have felt a certain sense of release in her heart.The apartments on TV are poorly furnished, the wife Alice in an apron or rags, and Norton wearing a queer tweed hat on his stupid head.Of course, these things she only knew superficially, superficially—not actually—similar to what she knew.The similarity is superficial, yet touching, perhaps even true in a mystical way.Just look at the picture on the screen. It's dull, gray, and dated, so different from the memories she brought into her dreams.She slept in a room in Arizona, which must have seemed very strange to her.But Jack Gleason on screen makes the place more plausible—he draws her to the center of perception.

A bollard is something that goes over a bollard. I've noticed that there are people who are actually in administrative positions and play around with their roles.Is this true of myself?Between you and your work, you maintain a fickle distance.There is a space of self-knowledge, a sense of performance in some form, laced with pent-up panic.Perhaps you show this in a forced gesture, or in the habit of clearing your throat.In this space, something from childhood swaggers by, a feeling of playing games, or a sense of immaturity of the self.However, it is none other than yourself that you are pretending to be.This is incredible.

In shrewd fashion, Marianne asks little questions about what I was like when I was seventeen, what I looked like when I was seventeen.They talked about my father.I heard their voices in the silence after dinner.I listen in my living room with a magazine on my face.What my mother said was something I already knew: that he had an amazingly accurate memory and never had to put numbers on paper.This is the legend on the street where my house is located.When I was eleven, he left home.I only heard that story later.He had a photographic memory for everything, and he was a nobody in the barbershop, the sweatshop on the city's garment street, the corner of the street, the lobby of the hotel.He can remember the details of each bet, so he never has to put the numbers on paper.That's the story that's tied to his name.In a sense, this awe led to his sudden death, or to his unexplained disappearance.

She stood in the doorway, forming a solemn silhouette.We drove off the interstate, joined slow traffic heading toward the mall, and finally found the side street where our daughter's house was.She stood there, already pregnant, and the physical changes were very obvious. My mother used to tell Marianne old stories, speaking in a half-Bronx dialect.I sat there, hearing their words intermittently over the rhythmic sound of the dishwasher.We used emerald green wall paint and repainted the mother's room to make Leni's room dark, warm and comfortable.We bought her a television set, refinished the mirrors, fitted her with a firm, wholesome mattress, and a case of sparkling mineral water that was scented—lime limes, I think.

In my office in the bronze tower, I used the rogue's menacing language to comic effect.I said to a consultant who turned in a late report: "I -- Mario Badalatu -- I'm going to tell you one last time, I'm going to knock your family's heads off." The accent was greatly appreciated by those present. In the Netherlands, I went to Vaam, a waste processing plant that processes a million tons of waste a year.I'm in a white Fiat, and outside the window is a mountain of trash as high as a building.Wave after wave of steam rose from the garbage dump, and the pungent stench filled the air, entered my mouth, and got into my clothes.How could I feel like I was born with this experience?Why does such an experience leave such a deep mark on one's own life?Why does the smell seem to tell people about themselves?The Vaam manager drove me through rows of rubbish.I feel that every stink has something to do with ourselves.We live in this world and encounter a scene that has the characteristics of both medieval and modern society: a city piled up with garbage, a hell that emits a strong smell, and all kinds of perishable things are piled together, as if our whole life something to carry.

If you saw him in a crime scene, the kind of man he was was indescribable.But after the riot, he donned a San Francisco Raiders cap and a maxi T-shirt with dark glasses dangling from the pocket.Everything else hasn't changed.He's in a room full of chips and CDs.Still the same shy boy, but with a more vigorous body, a social person with the characteristics of a minority ghetto. We—my mother and I—sat in our room, watching reruns of the TV show.He left her for a while after I was born.It is for this reason that I take my mother's surname instead of his.She thought he would not come back.She told me that she got a lawyer to do it.Courts generally rule that children must retain their father's surname until they reach legal age, after which they can choose which parent's surname to use.However, the lawyer filed a plea and deceived a judge.So, the surname on my birth certificate is Xie.Later, he came back and stayed at home for a long time, until the day he went out to buy cigarettes, which was about ten years ago.She didn't know where he was from.When she said this, she showed a slightly resigned look.It seemed to her that this was what we—her, me, and my brother—were meant to be.Maybe, I misread what she meant.She wanted to say, in rhythmic life words, this is where he came from, this is where he went.

I flew home and landed at Sky Harbor, Phoenix.I often wonder how people leave airports - any airport - so quickly?After the plane landed, the captain turned off the seat belt light, and the passengers crowded on the seats and in the aisle, took out their belongings from the luggage lockers, waited for the door to open, and then swarmed forward.When we get to the door, there will be more people, some are getting off the plane, some are waiting for the plane.At the baggage claim area, the flow of people is getting bigger and bigger, the voices of passengers, the sound of the airport announcement, and the sound of roaring engines are all in one piece.Passengers left with their luggage, toilet supplies and underwear, medicines, lotions, makeup powders and hairsprays.Many people meet at this airport on the edge of the desert on a hot day with worn underwear tucked up in their travel bags.I wonder, who are they and where are they going?how so?Why did they scatter in all directions so quickly and so mysteriously?For a few minutes, so many people dragging their luggage on the shiny floor, scattered in all directions, without a trace.how did you do that? I used to explain things to my kids.I used to take something and say to the kids, look at the ridges on the bottom of the tube of toothpaste, it's called a crimp line. Gleason is dead, but still with us, in this room.Iris liked him, and he was the only one who could make her laugh, in the old drying box, in the bus driver's uniform, flailing his arms like a jiggling piece of fat.He pumped his fists and strode around.Alice, you are going to the moon.My mother likes what she is familiar with.The more he said this, the more he liked her.We felt, in the room, that we were becoming more and more connected to Gleason.He repeated it to us and it was sure to make us laugh, the kind of joke we need to hear at the end of the day.Gleason was hurt.He knocked on the table and fell to his knees, his head tilted, looking at the sky.He is a laughing stock with a memorable history.Stupid jokes, unspeakable jokes, jokes about rabbis and priests, honeymoon jokes, jokes involving dialectics.Some jokes survive years after they have been forgotten.As long as Jack is in the room, we are happy.His pained expression came alive in Arizona. I picked her up and made sure she had the cash to donate during Mass. We build pyramids of trash above and below ground.The more dangerous the waste, the deeper it is buried. The word Plutonium is derived from Pluto (Pluto), the god of the underworld and ruler of the underworld.Someone took him to the swamp and deposed him, much the same way he is done today.It was also said that it was done in order to make him into something else. I love rushing home from the airport and changing into sweatpants and a t-shirt.I run along the sewer, Sophie's voice echoing in my head.Sometimes we see the plane take off, rising higher and higher in the sun, calculated with precision.I think about my son Jeffrey when he was a kid.He felt that he had the talent to get the plane out of the sky and control space and matter.That power came out in a powerful way, from spells that didn't belong to any category. Sometimes I sit with her and listen to Mass together, in English.What a tasteless thing it was, no whispers, no echoes, and yet still the best time of my week.I took her arm and led her out of the church.Her figure is not thin, but she seems to be shrinking, slowly losing vitality. In my hands, it is like rice paper used to wrap sugar. He was shaving with a towel over his shoulders and his underwear, the undershirt.The noise of the blades I love to hear, the sound of sandpaper scraping against a bushy beard.The brush in the shaving cup, the blades, the towel slung over the shoulder, and the hot water running from the tap—the heat, the technique, the cutting edge. Dominus vobiscum (God be with you), the priest used to say that.We walked out of the foyer, and some kids yelled: Dominique, search them.What good is Latin if the formal codes cannot be reduced to the words of the street? It's something science fiction uses, it's something horror movies use.But Jeff was too shy, too timid, to test it out in real life, not even when his sister was whistling in his ear and distracting him.