Chapter 11 Run with scissors (10)

Still, there was a crack, about seven and a half inches, between the roof and the top of the window.This number is exact because it's the only one we've ever measured. For eight months of the year, rainwater passes through this gap and falls into a jar.The jar sits on the kitchen table almost all year round.For the remaining four months, the jar was used to collect snowflakes falling from the sky.On holidays, we put on woolen hats and gloves and prepare a big dinner in the kitchen. Although the skylight is rough, it does brighten up the kitchen and often fill it with sunlight. "I really like it here," Hope said, as she dumped the rain-soaked blanket into the pool. "It's a bit of a hassle, but it's worth it."

Dr. Finch agrees with her: "It's the skylight that brings a sense of humor to the kitchen." Agnes wasn't too happy: "It's a disaster," she muttered.Of course, she said that because she once dropped her purse on the kitchen table, right where the rain fell. Kate is not like a member of Dr. Finch's family.Slender and shrewd, she liked Laura Nairo opera and classical jazz.She regularly dates handsome black youths.Her apartment is immaculate, with Oriental rugs and African reproduction cult images.She sent her daughter Brenda to a ballet school.Although she and her husband divorced, she kept her husband's last name.Even so, she was one of the most loyal members of Dr. Finch's family.

Others, however, disagree. "Just a snob," they always said of Kate.But I am in awe of her.Sometimes, I even get excited because Kate allows me to wash her car, or help her remove the outer windows (to keep out the rain, snow, and wind). When she gets back to Sixty-seventh Street, I'll get dressed up, like going on a date.I try to be as attractive, well-mannered and courteous as possible.With her around, I can ignore the rest of the family. My awe of her comes from the fact that she happens to have everything I most desire in life.She's a professional groomer, or to be exact - I could use a name I hate, a hairstylist.

Kate plans to have her own beauty shop one day and I think this is the bond of our relationship because I have always had a dream to open my own chain of stores all over the world and have my own hair care line , let these products form a monopoly situation in market sales.I am a firm believer that the existing hair care products on the market are doing too much damage to the roots.I don't know how to make my products less harmful, but I have some thoughtful packaging ideas that can give consumers a harmless impression. Kate graciously gifted me her past cosmetology school textbooks.It's a hardcover book, with a bold title printed on a pink cover and bold font: The Beauty Handbook.It contains black-and-white line drawings that explain the many procedures that cosmetology school students must master before they can receive their internship license.It has everything from how to clip your curls with bobby pins to fresh wavy hairstyles, and it's explained very clearly.I was determined to master all of these before going to cosmetology school.I can't pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.I wasn't sure about graduating from cosmetology school, so my best bet was to dig through the "Beauty Handbook", of course, some cosmetology methods are no longer used today, or they are not even legal For example, "cold perm", is to tie the iron wire to the hair, soak the hair in water, and then make the iron wire conduct electricity.

Working with hair is my favorite thing to do, and it is also the most suitable career I think of.Now, becoming a doctor seems like an impossible dream to me.Also, I'm too old to be a talk show host.Also, although I spend hours a day writing what I see and feel in my journal (because I feel like I might not even be able to live without journaling for at least four hours a day), when a The idea of ​​a writer never entered my mind.My mother was a writer, but she was also a madman, and the people who read her poems were just the repressed women she taught at home in writing classes, or the friends she talked to on the phone.Many years ago, she published a collection of poems, and since then, no collection of poems has come out.I knew from then on that I couldn't live like her without money or fame.I long for letters from admirers, and I want expensive watches. "I'll be a great male friend," I said to myself, "if only I could start a beauty chain as famous as Vidal Sassoon." End of life.

If I want to be a world-class beautician, I have to prepare for it.As hard as I could, I coaxed members of Dr. Finch's family, and several of Dr. Finch's patients, into allowing me to cut their hair.In fact, I do have many tricks to make them sit on the chair obediently and wait for my treatment. However, there is one problem that I have never had a chance to solve, and that is the cold finger method. Despite my many attempts, I have had trouble successfully finger straightening curly hair, even by slightly reducing the curl. "The beauty school, are you really required to learn this? This cold finger perm, did they test you?" I asked Kate.

"Yes, that's right. If you want to get into beauty school, you have to learn cold finger perms," ​​Kate said with a smile. "I know, it's outdated, I mean, it's hardly used anymore. .However, cosmetology schools still require students to master this method, despite its unpopularity. And, sadly, the "Beauty Handbook" that introduces cold perm method was actually written thirty years ago." I worry that I won't be able to master the cold perm technique because my fingers are too big, and I'm also worried that I won't have the ability to twist my fingers into the desired shape forever.

This seemingly insignificant incident seemed to suggest to me that it might destroy my ideals, and I often fell into this idea and couldn't extricate myself.In the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep and no one was bothering me, I would lie in bed and write a diary, emotionally recording these feelings until my fingers were numb and I drifted off to sleep from emotional exhaustion. I remember one night when I felt extremely uncomfortable.The burning of my fingers became more and more irritating to me, especially after I consulted Fern's friend Julian Christopher.In Amherst, he owns a barber and beauty shop called Good Mood.He told me the same message as Kate did, that I had to master the cold perm technique in order to be eligible for a trainee license from the cosmetology school.So, on that hot summer night, I lost sleep.All the electric fans in Dr. Finch's house have been used by other people, so I have to use Alberto brand VO5 hair treatment oil to process my hair.Wrapping my hair in a Saran clear plastic hood, I lie on the bed and try to write down my anxiety to release it.

At three o'clock in the morning, I still couldn't fall asleep.I worry that sooner or later my cold fingers will ruin my career.If I can't get this damn thing sorted out, they won't let me graduate at all, and if I don't graduate, it means I can't get a certificate, and without a certificate, it means I can't fulfill my dream of starting a hairdressing empire.I asked Kate, and she said that at that time, the invigilator from the beauty school will stand opposite you and watch you complete the whole process of cold perm.To me, this is going to be a big problem.Even if I were allowed to perform cold finger perms on the hair of anyone in the doctor's family, my chances of success would be close to zero.Well, let me be in an exam environment, and there is an invigilator under my nose, who will judge my performance at any time, then I will be completely dead.I hate being judged by other people.I hated all schools, and I didn't want to take any exams, so the combination of these two reasons was my death sentence.I feel like my fate is at an end.I think that the future may turn around, and I will work as a waiter's assistant in the Chinese restaurant called "Hunan Restaurant" in Amherst. Then maybe one day, I can really graduate and become a professional dish washer. I will definitely be more depressed: God, how did I end up like this?How did all this happen?

So, why don't I make some preparations and try to go to college?I'm fourteen and I'm supposed to sit at the kitchen table with my dad and say, "Dad, I'm going to Princeton, they have a great baseball team, and I don't care if my grandpa goes to Harvard. Do I Can't you choose what you want? Like Sinnett." But right now, I'm lying on a shabby double bed with someone's urine stains on the sheets, but it's definitely not mine.I have been living in the house of my mother's psychiatrist, and I eat something like sesame candy for breakfast every day.Just this morning, Dr. Finch went into the bathroom. He takes a shower every morning at five, looking like a psycho.Little did he know, though, that Pubil put the little fish he won at the supermarket into the bathtub.So, when Dr. Finch went into the bathroom and saw the bathtub filled, he thought Agnes had suddenly decided to be a good wife and filled it for him.He climbed into the freezing cold bathtub, and there were about twenty-five small fish swimming in the water. I can't imagine how many he passed, but his howls could be heard throughout the house.

Why is my life getting more and more depressing?What have I been doing wrong all this time?Ah, God, I just heard, a strange sound coming from outside the door.I hope that's not a serial killer.Ever since I saw the movie All Saints' Eve, I've always been on my nerves and worried about a serial killer popping up.Any of Dr. Finch's patients was a potential killer, especially the woman who owned the "Blue Moonlight" restaurant in Northampton.Just looking at her gives me goosebumps.She looks like she likes to eat children, otherwise she wouldn't be so fat.She always looked very hungry and bewildered.She is warm and friendly, which is the usual disguise for serial killers who target children. Then there was a light knock on the door.After the knock on the door, it was the sound of fingernails hitting the wooden door rhythmically, it was Neil. "Come in." He opened the door and walked into my room. "Hi, little one." He sat down on my bed, close to my head. "No, you don't! Sit on the bottom of my feet, or better yet, on the floor," I told him. He shrugged, his eyes softened. "I'm in a bad mood tonight, honey, don't be so cruel, be nice to me, okay?" I was silent, his overly intimate attitude made me very uncomfortable. "Why don't you talk? You know, baby, whenever and wherever I think about you, it's like there's nothing else in my life. My life is a stage, and it's all dark. , there is only one light in the center of the stage, and that is you." It gratifies my vanity that he associates me with the stage or the lights, but I still don't think much of his intimacy, so I say without thinking, "Is that so? You're unlucky, because I'm not Missed you that way. I thought you were a poor wretch, you made me sick." I like to use the word "disgusting" a lot lately, maybe it's influenced by Natalie, when she describes everything that disgusts her, there are tens of thousands of swear words coming out of her mouth, I remember it in my head There are quite a few, so words like "disgusting" have also been included in my poor vocabulary. Neil was crying!He bent over, covering his face with his hands.The palm he held was like a cup, as if he was drinking water from a stream. I was surprised, I didn't expect him to be so fragile, fortunately he is a man in his thirties, but he looks like a woman, I sneered at his hypocrisy. "Well, cry! You're a wretch! You deserve to suffer! You're a terrible loser! You make me look down on you." I wanted my words, my voice to sound ruthless.As expected, his face was very ugly, his eyelids drooped, and his eyes were melancholy, like a hurt hound.At that very moment, I felt that I had mastered the art of hurting him.I find it very useful.It never occurred to me that I could easily control the emotions of a man twice my size at such a young age.So instead of empathy and pity, I crave the ultimate in control that I never felt before.Of course I was selfish, I never thought why I did it, never thought it was wrong for me to do it.I just love the feeling of being in control of him, it makes me feel powerful and powerful. However, he was obviously hit. In just a moment, the melancholy in his eyes disappeared and was replaced by anger. "You're a devil," he said, "you're a damn devil! You're not like a fourteen-year-old kid, you're not innocent and innocent. You don't let me near you, and you say you're gay, you deserve to be Gay? You're a bloody sadist! The way you treat people," he spat, "is fucking disgusting! I can't believe you're alive!" I laughed and said, "Okay, keep talking! You poor loser! Talk all your anger out, don't keep it inside, or you'll get sick. You immature kid , Is there anything else you want to say?" I squinted my eyes and stared at him, hoping that I would look like a threat: "If you touch a hair on me, I will call the police immediately, and you will be arrested for rape. Then the rest of your life is useless, because you will slowly rot behind bars." Next, I gave him a fatal blow! "Now, get out of here quickly!" He turned around, said nothing, and left alone. I listened to him go down the stairs, convinced he had really left, and then I lay down on the bed and took out the journal. He just left.He came here to fulfill his wish—an instinctive wish like that of a billy goat or a wild leopard.As in the past, he still failed because I firmly refused him.Whenever he tried to get close to me, the smell of his body made me throw up.He always tried to force me to do something, which made me hate him all the more.I hate him for being unbearable.Although we have had close contact, I don't like that feeling.I don't know why some people take great pleasure in talking about certain things.If that's the price of being gay, I don't like it one bit.I'd much rather be a hairdresser, which is usually considered a gay thing.They don't understand what I'm thinking at all, I want to make my business bigger and stronger, which is the most fashionable way of saying these days.There's a beauty parlor in Springfield, and there's a sissy gay man there, God, if I'm as bored as he is, doing haircuts and massages to older women all day long, I might as well kill myself!To sink to that virtue, I'd kill myself tonight, and I wouldn't wait a minute. As I write this, a painful and disgusting feeling gradually hits me, and I think about my cold fingers again.Maybe I should do an internship with a wig.I can use my change to buy a cheap wig, so I don't have to beg the doctor's family to borrow their hair.Something else seems to be disturbing me... Ah, I remember, when Neal left, there seemed to be something strange in his eyes, which scared me.I think he's more likely to be a serial killer than the female boss of "Blue Moonlight".He is very likely to kill me.If he had a meat cleaver just now, he would have stabbed me in the body!Why did he do that?How he must have frightened me!Sometimes I wonder if I really don't know him.Of course I don't know why I hate him so much sometimes.Maybe he was too weak and poor, and there was something about him that I didn't like, that was there from the beginning.I often think about two years ago, the night I told him I was gay, he was so happy: "Being gay is a good thing, I'll be your friend." Soon after, he wanted to get too close to me , which annoys me.So, sometimes I get angry when I see him, as if he owes me something.I don't know if I should share my feelings with the doctor.He always said that if you don't let your anger out, sooner or later it will destroy you.I did try to vent my anger this evening with a nasty attitude, but it didn't work, maybe I should yell at him.Tonight, I also told him that if he dared to act recklessly, I would call the police immediately.I think this trick is quite effective, he must be a little scared, his eyes are much more normal, even a little helpless and discouraged, and then he left.Hehe, this is the best way, I finally have a way to deal with him. Of course, I would never do that, I wouldn't actually go to the police, if he reads this diary, he'll know I was scaring him.I won't use this method against him again in the future, so I'd better keep this method hidden.I swear to God, all I'm thinking about right now is going to cosmetology school, and it's killing me so much.It's a miracle that I'm still alive and well, and it's unbelievable that I didn't commit suicide.However, there seems to be something in my body that is constantly active, and I think it has something to do with the bright heat and the future.It's in my body, and once it's aggressive, it's like everything changes.By the way, one more thing I know tonight is that Alberto's Bakery Ointment works really well. read shit There are some strange things in the world. They are not fictional stories in literary works, nor are they fictitious plots in film and television dramas, but they really happen in real life.Think about it, if someone or something violates your will, puts you in a predicament, embarrassment, hurt, pain or even anger, instead of fighting to the end, you gradually develop a heart of love and nostalgia , It seems to be "Stockholm Syndrome" (referring to the hostages' various manifestations of flattering, cooperating, tolerant or absolving the hostages) or some other name, which can describe this strange situation.For example, you just enlisted in the army to receive shooting training, and the machine gun in your hand rattled non-stop, and the recoil it produced was rapid and intermittent, making your shoulders ache, but instead of feeling the pain, you Produced the pleasure of incomparable enjoyment. Perhaps this explains why, that morning, I didn't feel scared, but put the shirt with the singer Pat Benata over my nose to block out the strange smell, and I couldn't take my eyes off me, staring curiously at the toilet bowl. thing. Hope was visibly moved, nearly in tears: "Oh, God, that's unbelievable!" she murmured through her fingers as she put her hands to her face. Natalie was also standing in the bathroom, leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest.She plans to go to Smith University in two years, and for the future Smith University girl family, this scene is not good. "See it?" Dr. Finch pointed to the feces he left in the toilet and asked loudly, "Pay attention to the size of this poop!" Hope leaned closer to the stool, as if she were standing in front of a jewelry store display case, poring over her engagement ring. I looked over her shoulder. Agnes walked briskly down the aisle: "What are you all making a fuss about in there? Why are you all gathered in the bathroom?" She squeezed her shoulders in, eager to know why we were all staring at toilet.Her mouth opened wide, "What's that?" Dr. Finch's face was flushed with excitement. "See? See the tip of this thing? It's just out of the water, and straight up, how penetrating!" "Yes, Dad, I saw it! It just crossed the water, and as you used to say, it's a pillar of the sky, isn't it, Dad?" said Hope, who was a good daughter of Dr. Finch. "That's right!" The doctor applauded loudly, "It's absolutely right, this is the one pillar supporting the sky!" He straightened his body, "Do you know what this means?" Agnes walked to his side and tugged at his arm: "Doctor, please," she persuaded her husband, "Calm down!" "Agnes, go get the shovel," ordered the doctor. "Doctor, you'd better calm down!" Agnes tugged him even harder. He jerked his arm out and pushed Agni Potato out of the bathroom, "Quick, get the shovel!" he yelled. Agnes leaves quickly. "Tell us, Dad, what the hell does that mean?" Hope asked. Natalie and I looked at each other and then looked away, knowing that if we couldn't stop laughing, Dr. Finch would yell at us. "It's saying, our economy is on the mend. That's what it means, nothing else! I mean, things are going in a good direction, because this shit is pointing up in the toilet and it's pointing straight to the sky, pointing God." Hope yelled happily, as if she had won a million dollars in the lottery. She clapped her hands while she yelled, and kissed Dr. Finch on the cheek. "Okay, okay," said the doctor, "this is my daughter." He looked at me and Natalie, "Can you see how important this is? God is a very funny man. He's the funniest guy in the universe, and that's how he puts it -- he wants to tell us that from now on we're in a completely different situation and we're going to be fine." I was both humiliated and fascinated.Natalie covered her face with her hands and muttered something. When Agnes returned with the shovel, before she could say a word, Dr. Finch snatched it from him and handed it to Hope: "I hope you can carefully shovel it out of the water and take it outside." Let dry. Place on a picnic table, out of the sun." Hope picked up the shovel without hesitation, ready to do it. "Okay, it's time for us to get out," Natalie said. "Don't go, let's wait and see." I grabbed her arm. "I don't want to see my sister shovel my dad's poop out of the toilet and take it outside to dry," Natalie said with a grin. Dr. Finch laughed too, and said, "That's why she—Hope—was my best daughter." "Did you hear that, Natalie?" Hope deliberately annoyed her sister, and stuck out her tongue. "Good luck, Hope, Daddy's favorite! Hurry up and shovel you!" I watched patiently as Hope carefully scooped up the snake-like feces coiled up from the toilet and slowly lifted them over the toilet, dripping with the shovel and the feces.The feces sat on the shovel like a meal, something common in the Finch household, whose name I can't remember at the moment.I am curious and wonder if the doctor's words are accurate.If God is indeed a great comedian, and he uses it to imply that our situation is improving, that is really good news, and it is comforting.Maybe today is the time for me to think about going to cosmetology school.