Apotheosis

*The handwriting in the neatly bound pages is elegant and as painstakingly elaborate as possible. The pages vary in size and writing instruments, the earliest entries being written in crayon. The book smells singed. Only three words are carved into the first sheet.*

Pour le Père.

*Turning the page reveals the first entry. You begin to read.*

####  To You, Dear Reader, Whomever You May Be. (Written by J.J., March 2020)

The Epic of Gilgamesh is, from what I can decipher, the earliest occurrence of literature in history. I have collected four of the thirteen known tablets, including the first, the last, and what I conject to be the fourth and seventh. Written in cuneiform and stemming from ancient Mesopotamia, their creation began shortly before the original civilization’s coming war with Egypt over control of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This story in particular highlights in many ways the reason for that conflict, especially through the differing in both civilizations’ depictions of death: The Tigris and Euphrates were gentle and gave easy irrigation and bountiful harvests. As a result, views of death and the afterlife were positive. So long as they be judged as virtuous by God of justice Shamash, death to them was only temporary, a phasing on from one state of being to the next. The Nile by contrast, with its constant droughts and floodings, killed many and left the Egyptians with a somber and unforgiving outlook on the afterlife. They imagined death was sparse, hollow, and void of hopeful afterlife. It is no wonder that after years of this torment, knowing of the splendors of Babylon, they began to attempt occupation of the Mediterranean and subsequently of their peaceful twin rivers. To my knowledge this was our first ever occurrence of war on a sociological scale, and one that took a serious toll on both sides, leaving them ripe for collapsing in on themselves. I acquired the tablets on my 15th birthday, a gift from Nicolo Turchino. I still have the note he gave me on the occasion in my card-box. Needless to say. This ancient conflict comes to show that war and struggle has outset my world since its inception, however that may have come about. I tell you all of this in the likelihood that these pages you hold may very well be the last occurrence of literature in its long, turmoil riddled existence.

We must look to the past to fathom the present, to understand what drove us to the point we find ourselves in. While I have not traveled the globe frequently, (certainly with no thanks to the Reich’s rather excessive naval blockade across Afro-Eurasia,) I have smuggled what I could and retained in my mind’s eye what I couldn’t. The world is as rich in history as it is ancient. I, Johnathan Jacobson, have spent a good portion of my time delving into its secrets, and trying to uncover that which one simply ought not go through life without experiencing. Often they are hard to find. But who ever said living well would be easy? Regardless. I am preparing to make a great and perilous journey, one that I can only know for certain has succeeded once before. My chances of survival are on the slimmer side, and this could very well be the only documentation of my home left in existence. Ruins will always be eaten away by the eroding force of the wind and rain, and empires will rise and fall like waves of the sea. But language and expression is timeless, and, even if only through my own tales, (which I have been recording intermittently since the ripe age of nine years old,)  I hope to ensure that me, my world, and my people are preserved in some form or another. Rather vain though such an undertaking may be, I must concede that the thought of being forgotten keeps me restless. While I cannot hope to know whether you will view me in a positive or negative light, given the transcripts that lie ahead, I do hope that in knowing of my tales you are able to learn, from my gracious deeds as well as my mistakes. And that I may touch your soul, no matter how little.

Thank you kindly.

-Tiresias.

#### Chapter 1: The Attic Door (Written by J.J., April 1999)

Father opened the attic door. His hands weary and tiresome after hours of stitching and weaving, having dipped their calloused skin into a thousand drawers of needles, plucked as many stray threads as there were stars in the sky, and, delicately measured out an endless unfolding sea of elaborate and wondrous fabrics for men festering dark rooms and blooming cigar smoke. After which, his gentle footsteps had then found their way up the drive and stubby stairwell, carefully navigating past the 1993 Works of Leonardo Da Vinci calendar (it was father’s year to choose) and around the wine stain left imprinted into the scratchy carpeting. Down the hall to the hatch in the ceiling. Upon its paint-chipped face he began his familiar, rhythmic knock, the one that made the listener feel only safety and eager anticipation for its swinging open, in stark contrast to most other knocks the young boys oft received. The father poked his head up only to be hit by not only the wave of musty air, but also by the ceiling, which was much too low for someone of his mighty, sturdy and huggable stature. But then, wincing. Opening his eyes.

He saw him. His pale moon of a face was pressed up against the frigid windowpane, the golden sunset’s light trickling in through golden, flowing bangs, shimmering around him as if to envelop and hug him in a divine radiance. They obscured the boy’s vibrant azure eyes that weaved back and forth like someone fleeing from gunfire across the page, so enraptured by its tales of tragedy and triumph that he failed to recognize he was no longer alone. Cross-legged on the floor and imprisoned behind paperback bars of his own making, the boy flipped through countless novels, pupils aflame, page after page digested and carefully pondered over by his developing mind, sharpening by the day. His father had always known that little Johnathan was destined for greatness. But more than that, it was upon his son’s birth, upon laying his eyes on the wriggling infant in his hands, that Matthew Jacobson had truly experienced love for the first time. He would do whatever it took to make the boy happy. To give him the opportunities to grow and learn and feed his insatiable curiosity, no matter how many tongue lashings he’d suffer through, no matter how many dreary thoughts and stomach rumblings and growing pains and hideaways in the attic would plague him in his youth, because he knew, one day, they would be a long ways away from here, and they would be happy, and they would smile and laugh and wonder what kind of nonsensical dream they had been experiencing and why it had taken them so long to wake from it.

But for now. All he could suffice was to smile. To climb up into the muggy, pulpy air, and wrap his arms around the young boy, letting him wriggle free to play out the scrawling whimsicalities and intricately fashioned plot-twists of his latest and greatest play. Father watched diligently, on the edge of his seat. He noted its influences, the subtle cues and foreshadowings, preparing to discuss them at length once the curtain had fallen and bows had been taken. When that time came, he would rise up from his joint-torturing cross-legged seat across dusted and forlorn floorboards, that he would submit himself to for hours with unending, unfaltering patience, and clap like he had just seen Swan Lake for the first time.

And the boy was happy.

Father opened the attic door. His eardrums had been fried from blaring banshee screams, empty threats and demands for repentance. The pounding ache in his cranium remained even as he trudged past the 1996 bible-verse calendar (it was mother’s year to choose) that hung on the putrid, flaking rot of homes built to collapse. But he hadn’t received the brunt of it. The deflated pile of bruises, scrapes and gurgling sobs on the floorboards had. For mother had been eagerly quick to inform that she in fact was NOT finished after her third cup of bourbon that evening, that she alone would decide at what point she was done, and, most importantly, that good-for-nothing leeches such as himself simply ought to get used to it and toughen up like she had to on the farm. This, mind you, was at the point in which Joni Jacobson still had to at best half-rationalize her actions as a mother to herself, before the growing fondness for the word “faggot” in the coming years gave her an unlimited pass to dismiss any complaints or gripes as those of a god-forsaken heretic. In writing this now I can’t help but feel a decrepit, soured nostalgia for those times, that relative care-freeness we can only see through the lens of hindsight.

But in that moment the boy was miserable, and he wished for the one thing father could not provide: Escape. No matter how many times she repeated that slurred spiel, no matter how he longed to take the beating and spare his beloved child of hardship dealt too heavy and too soon, he had made a promise in a worn-in and vacuous church, where its deceitful serenity had swept him up in holy and double-barreled matrimony. He was required to honor that promise above all else. Anchored to the leaky roof and the garage that reeked of mildew and clamoring desires to settle down before it was too late. For richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, he watched it corrode away at goodness and spit out nothing but spite.

Now he watched his son. Watched him grovel and spit up red liquid rust onto creaking boards, whimpering and shivering like a cornered animal, incoherent pleas pouring out from his wounded, battered heart. He wrapped his arms so tightly around him that he could burst. Made him feel safe and loved, knowing fully well he was the only soul who would do so, and that outside of this warm embrace held nothing but hardship. His child melted into the hug. His breathing slowed to consistent, pathetic shudderings that rattled his lungs like the bars of a cage.

And yet, in the embrace of his father, the boy was happy.

Yesterday, father opened the attic door. He sat down across from me as I was reading Jared Diamond’s latest book, “Guns, Germs and Gifts,” which chronicles both Eastern and Western expeditionism and its effects upon civilizations of the New World following Montezuma II’s initial journey across the Atlantic. I tried explaining it to him. He listened as per normal, nodded along incrementally between talking points, but his eyes appeared glossed over and forlorn. Attention torn between the present and some elsewhere time or place. He then asked me how my engineering classes were going. I told him that they were fine. He questioned if I intended to pursue a career in the field, which took me aback, as it had been but less than a week since my most recent and rapturous recital of my aspirations (including but not limited to): Writing the next great American novel, performing a Bach composition for Adolf Hitler at the Stadthalle in Wuppertal, having my paintings in the Louvre, winning the gold-medal in figure skating (this I would especially like, as I would be fulfilling a dream of my own while crushing one of mother’s in a single fell swoop) and performing a jazz set with Ornette Coleman. So I told him, no, though engineering could prove intriguing at times, I by no means intended to form my career upon it. He froze in a way I had never seen him freeze before. Not when mother had barged through the screen door each New Years Eve, not when the water bill hadn’t gone through, not even when I had broken my leg in the 4th grade and screamed bloody murder upon the blacktop. His face took on a grave seriousness and became a stranger’s in an instant. It made me want to scream at him and cry just the same, but instead I too remained deathly still, awaiting my cue. It was the most agonizing silence I have thus experienced. Just his raspy, weathered breathing, which only then seemed to have begun showing its age. He wasn’t supposed to. He was impervious. He was strength, he was resilience, a force of nature and kindness that didn’t grow old but only became more renowned with each passing year, timeless, eternal, like Mozart. And yet here he was, his hair graying and wrinkles drooping beneath his eyes, trying to muster up any words he could.

He told me I would, in fact, be furthering my engineering expertise. I started repeating that I had no intention of doing so, but he cut me off. Boys such as myself, he explained, who have no Turchino blood running through their veins, do not easily get accepted into Saint Aquinas’. Quick as always to inform, I made sure he recalled that I was, in fact, attending Saint Aquinas’ School for Gifted Boys, despite not having a drop of said blood in my body. He sternly told me to remain patient and that he was getting to that, which made me feel ashamed. It was not often I was spoken sternly to by Père. He took a moment. Recollecting himself and trying to figure out how to put it into words that I would understand, which worried me even further. If you haven’t already noticed from my sophisticated prose, I’m especially adept at understanding all sorts of complexities. Just what could be so daunting that even I could not put the pieces together?

Père told me that all businesses must start somewhere, and that his textiles had initially been less than successful. I found this harder to believe. He had made such wonderful costumes and garments for me my entire life, with love imbued into each and every cross-stitch. Who wouldn’t adore his craft? But he then lectured that businesses oft needed more than the quality of their products to survive. They needed influence. They needed recognition. These were things the Turchinos had always possessed in droves since the end of the war. Père asked me if I recalled the tale of Faust. I gave but a nod. He explained that, in return for their friendship, for their customership and forgiveness of former debts, the Turchinos had demanded something of him. Some investment they could cash in upon at a later date. And the only thing Matthew Jacobson had to bargain with at the time was his newborn son’s future. So I listened. I listened as his voice began to break down, as he explained to me what inconceivable deed he had done, that he had sold and abandoned me, his son, the only thing he had ever truly and unapologetically loved, to the highest bidder. All of my dreams would ever only come second to being somebody’s asset. Some trophy to be brought out and marveled at, to churn out awards and prestige and wonders, smiling, diligent, polite, agreeable, plastic. I listened well. Even as his words became mush in his mouth, even as tears stung in his eyes and quivered down his reddened, blubbering face, I listened well. And in that moment I made myself into a person who could understand. I tore up the screaming, miserable neural highways running through my skull and rearranged them fittingly, to be complacent, nay, content with what had happened, all of that initial sorrow suffocated beneath sturdy, infallible concrete. Because that’s just what a good and clever son does. So I cradled him in my arms, as he had done to me, countless times over, suppressing the urge to capsize in on myself as this mighty, loving figure became a limp husk in embrace. I told him things would be alright. That I would be just fine, I was strong, and I would become the best, most accomplished engineer this world had ever seen.

I am happy. And I always will be. I’m nothing but happy all the time.

#### Chapter 2: The Dollar (Written by J.J., October 2000)

My first day of employment at one of the Turchino’s many restaurant establishments began as many first days of employment tend to begin: Dreadfully, in a way that makes you feel microscopic, insignificant and feeble. Nicolo Turchino, the proprietor of Bloomdido Bistro, informed me I was “a good cook, for an Anglo.” He also informed me that, above all else, my job was to keep my mouth shut and my head down. I’ve never cared to hold my head low, as my mind brims with the weight of constant and unending brilliance, and so it puts an awful strain on my neck to do as such. One idea that drifted through my head as I labored away at the stove was how strange it is to see the people, with whom you’ve broken bread, who’ve appeared in your house for pleasantries, luncheons and celebrations, for what they really, truly are; Nothing but two-bit scammers who perpetuate an endless cycle of torment, upon this sad, lonely continent, and have done so for the better half of a century now. To think that all the while, as they joked and ruffled my hair and called me a handsome young man, they were inspecting me like one of their wares, as one would carefully tend to a lamb before sending it to the slaughter. How many other memories have pruned like rotten apples on branches when I wasn’t looking? How many more will devolve into mush, tumbling from the trees, until my entire orchard is barren? There are many other, less somber concepts populating my thoughts, such as when I composed my own piano concerto within my mind as my hands delved into jars of olives, leaving my hands with their fine, salty odor, their sleek black and green coats to be chopped and sprinkled across rigatoni and farfalli as I slipped into a familiar, self-soothing rhythm. I met another kitchen-boy, named Theodore, (whose last name proved too daunting to scrawl within these pages and so I shall not attempt to do so,)  having worked here for many a year. I hope I manage to win Theodore’s friendship eventually. Though much older than I, he seems like a sweet man. He enjoys partaking leisurely strolls through the woodlands surrounding town, that have grown thick around the ruins of Japanese air-bombings, like children do around rickety old iced cream trucks, mozeying along on sizzling summer asphalt, when the sun converts our fine city into a massive broiling oven for a series of months. He speaks sparsely and seems quite shy, and although companions have been long out of reach in the harsh territories of the education system, I believe has less to do with my clearly insatiable charm and more with the circumstances surrounding social interaction, what with the disparity between our upbringings at St. Aquinas. I believe, given the chance, (hopefully this one,) that I could easily sway people into giving me the adoration I clearly deserve.

Halfway through my shift I was instructed to work the cash register. I must say that I felt notably less keen on this job than I had my kitchen duties. Art in the making, creation itself, gave way to mindless, menial labor, with each hour waging a war of attrition upon my mental faculties, but it did give me a better glimpse at the workings of the restaurant itself. Cigar smoke hung low throughout the fine-painted walls, which I surmount to be Victorian in architecture, their weaving floral patterns providing a much needed relief for the eyes from the pudgy patrons, jammed into brimmed hats and nearly bursting from their suits, big, bloated bellies engorged further by each scrape of fork against ceramic. Every once and a while a shout rose up from their gaping mouths in a far-off table, and you couldn’t quite tell if it would be followed by an eruption of laughter or gunfire. Billiards balls clacked and shivered across green fabric lawns, a rather untalented jazz band crooned from the corner, and all the blaring noises, obligations and potential threats to my safety made me want to crawl up in my attic and bang my head against the chipped floorboards. At one point in the night a patron handed me a dollar for a job well done. It was stained. A crimson smear across President Henry Clay’s brow, still warm to the touch. I stared at it. My reflection in its crusted over surface was as beautiful as ever. My hair, as per usual, perfection, and my jawline could grate fine cheeses in the backroom. But I didn’t feel beautiful. I felt vile. I felt as rotten and disgusting as the people I worked for. I wanted to scream, I wanted to rip the dollar up and throw it in their faces and curse them out for being the filth they were, I’d smash all the bottles filled with liver poison and watch all the drunken patrons wail and moan as if Jack Daniels had been their first born, and then I would march over to Nicolo and watch the life drain from its bulging eyes as I strangled it with the dish rag now imprinted into the surface of my once supple palms, and then I’d go home, and I’d take a long, long, cold shower, with all the lights off, with my arms crossed above my chest with my hands on my shoulders as if I could peel the flesh off my back and from my body and be brand new again, metamorphosing into something radiant, something pure and good, into anything other than Johnathan Jacobson. But I knew that would only get me and Pére killed. So I took the dollar. I felt it searing in my pocket the entirety of my shift. Burning against my thigh as I manned the counter with a smile, its corners tugged as if by invisible, piercing fishhooks, keeping me smiling, dancing, performing for all those happy, disgusting customers who I’d grow numb to eventually, but for now everything wouldn’t stop hurting and each “thank you, have a good evening!” felt like I was being stabbed in the throat. Finally. After what felt like at least twelve eternities. The clock struck 1:00. It. Was. Over. I stumbled home down the street, my brow caked in sweat and that putrid dollar, that grotesque, infuriating dollar, still smoldering against my pant-leg, not letting me be. The frost billowed and tore at my face, making my cheeks red like that stain, that stain that wouldn’t scrub off no matter how much my fingernail picked at it, even after I did it the way home, I don’t understand why it wouldn’t just go away.

There was, however, one reprieve from my day: Upon returning home and trudging up the stairs that complained relentlessly under my exhausted weight, I turned to my parent’s room and came face to face with the bare asscheeks of one Jason Kade, scrambling to put on his pants before I heard mother shriek and slam the door. Now, I know what you, dear reader, might be wondering. On what Earth could this event possibly be a positive occurrence? Wouldn’t walking in on your mother, in the midst of her engagement in an extramarital affair, be the icing on top of the most miserable cake of a day imaginable? This is where you would be wrong. For, you see, dear reader, this gave me something absolutely integral, that I had been lacking in dealing with the detestable hag I call my mother: Leverage. The threat of me telling Pére about Mr. Kade’s visits, (which, mind you, I had already predicted were occurring, but had never gotten sufficient evidence of until now) meant that she couldn’t lay a hand on me. Not a finger. When the two walked out of their disease-ridden boudoir, I could see it in her eyes. We needn’t speak a word. She and I both understood these would be the terms on which we would approach this delightful little scenario. I could see that desperation, that urge to yell and scream and slap me across the face, squirm to get loose like a pathetic rodent snagged in a trap, nearly desperate enough to gnaw its own tail off. And that was enough to turn a terrible day into, quite honestly, one I feel I’ll remember rather fondly.

#### Chapter 3: The Rubbish (Written by J.J., January 2001)

Upon awakening this morning, something deep in my being knew it would be a good day. I made my usual rounds, plucking emptied out bottles and cans strewn about the pitiful mass of unconscious flesh and chipped pleather, their worn, bourbon-reeking surfaces indistinguishable from one another. I scrubbed the dishes thoroughly, each speckled with grime and a lack of caring, as I’m certain the act of rinsing a dish would cause the woman to keel over, perishing then and there.

I made my way upstairs and took my ritual shower, hands crossed over my chest as the water changed from cold, to hot, to cold again, as to best awaken my faculties while exfoliating my pores. My one and only invitation to a proper sleepover, that of Marco Ajello’s 9th birthday party, enlightened me to the fact that not everybody’s shower screams like it’s being murdered when you twist the faucet on. That party ended with me doing the same, blubbering on Mrs. Ajello’s home phone for Père to come pick me up, as I had been punctured by a B.B. gun whilst playing “Cowboys and Canadians.” I, of course, had been assigned the role of the Canadian. Marco had said it had been an accident, landing that shot between my ribs that remains lodged there to this day, but I knew better. Not that I minded. I didn’t care much for the game, nor the company, anyhow. Now groggily awakened by the tap’s shrill plight, Mother and I exchanged splintering glances as I strode down the stairwell, the robe that Père made me always aflutter behind like a bird catching wind. We hadn’t spoken much of anything to one another since my exhilarating discovery. I supposed it in part to result from my mere speech igniting an unquenchable urge in her to assault my person, but I would gladly relish in silence, no matter how palpable, over her snide beratings any day. Today, though, she garbled out a pitiful “take out th’ trash, yuh good fer nothin’ fag, b’fore I smoke you next” before taking a long drag of her cigarette. I do not appreciate her smoking indoors. The furniture reeks of it for weeks on end, no matter how much tedious scrubbing I partake in. I could tell by the amusement in her eyes as I held my breath that she was doing so to torment me. But I refused. I would not inhale her toxins, letting her snide, carcinogenic filth infect and eat me from the inside, and I would not so much as acknowledge her presence as I plucked a rock-hard apple from the kitchen counter. Banging the fruit to my utmost ability upon its surface would likely fail to produce so much as a dent in either. Though the countertop would more likely be the first to give. My lungs were burning. I kept my nostrils clamped nonetheless. Passing by the bin, I stopped to look up at her for a moment, before striding straight out the door and feeling her glare sear into the back of my skull the entire length of my trek. I was toeing the line, that was most certain, and yet such a tiny victory felt akin to the unchallenged conquests of King Ashoka. Taking a long-awaited gulp of fresh air atop the porch with not a rubbish bag in sight, I ventured out, past the abandoned factories to St. Aquinas’ School of Gifted Boys (most commonly referred to as the ninth circle of hell, localized in the state of Missouri). I’m positive such an occasion would warrant a “Lord have mercy” from mother dearest. Even so, she wouldn’t know the half of it. And at that point, neither did I.

I arrived, as I always did, two hours early. As much as any class may attempt to do so, my thirst for knowledge is unquenchable, and if furthering my intellectual pursuits provided me an excuse to leave that diseased shack of deceit behind, which it so often did, I would gladly take it. Mr. Aprile, the teacher I’ve become most fond of, wasn’t anywhere to be seen as I marched past the dim-witted horde of snickering that seemed to follow my footsteps wherever they led me through these marbled halls. St. Aquinas was constructed long before the war, and its towering arches and stained glass windows reflected that, like some long-lost relic of stability amidst constant flux. If only its student body would take heed from such an admirable pursuit. I left them to their drivel, tittering over my briefcase, or my pristine hair, while theirs grew like wild jungle brush on every millimeter of their person. Dario Moretti made eye contact with me, before raising his troglodyte paw over his mouth, as if he thought it would make his comment about my high-water trousers any less audible. Or perhaps to make its message all the more so, feigning his attempt at secrecy to make his actions all the more enraging. If the latter was his intent he was most certainly succeeding. I did not break eye contact. I took a bite of my apple. Then proceeded to go about my studies.

Mr. Aprile was out sick. We had a substitute in class. Mr. Grassetti, fitting to his name he had scrawled across the chalkboard, had a big belly that pulled at what little of his shirt he tucked in and serious, droopy eyes that hid behind his thick-rimmed glasses. He went through roll call, pronouncing each glottal stop and fricative with delicate care, that is, until he got to me. He just stared at the page, in confusion, like it must have been a mistake. He just called out “Johnathan?” not even bothering with the surname. “Present,” I replied. And that was that.

The rest of class went swimmingly, for a time. Maths and chemistry went along without so much as a hitch. Then we were discussing Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, which I had been rather excited to go over with Mr. Aprile, for he always had his way of pushing my understanding of a text that next level I craved. So, hoping his temporary replacement would do the same, I began to divulge into the sociohistorical context surrounding the text’s formation, how 14th-century Italy’s religious values shaped the text’s message of finding balance between faith and reason, and how its allusions to ancient Roman poets harkens to this central message as well. He just sat, and stared at me, looking to my peers for some sort of guidance. “You sure like to hear yourself talk,” he grumbled, eliciting a gleeful chittering from the seats surrounding me. I refused to break eye contact with him, or acknowledge their amusement. That glazed apathy in Mr. Grassetti’s stare told me that I was smarter than him. Hungrier than him. I intended to prove as such. “I’m simply making up for what little you have to say.” The class got a real kick out of that. From the back of the class I heard Dario even let out a “nice one,” which I think is the nicest thing he’s said to me. But Mr. Grassetti just smirked. And he asked, “who here doesn’t think John should be here?” Even by my peers' standards, they were astonished to hear such a remark, and from a teacher no less. And yet, one by one. Each and every person around me raised their hands skyward. I thusly excused myself to the restroom.

I stared into the cracked mirror. My hands trembling as they clutched the sink so hard that my knuckles went white. Whiter than the ghostly smoke that once trailed up from factory corpses surrounding this delightful little place of education, after all, lord knew it was all sunshine and smiles at St. Aquinas! I wanted to leave. I wanted to stomp out that door and cuss out every single one of those snide, arrogant little pampered devils with their gelled hair and foreign-import cars their blood-money-grubbing fathers bought them. I wanted to tear their carefully constructed acts open for all their peers to see, turn the halls into an operating table, where I laid bare what derivative, fickle urges made each and every one of them tick. But I reminded myself what Père sacrificed to get me here. How my doing so would put all that hard work to waste, how I’d be throwing the both of our futures in the rubbish. I would do no such thing. Instead. I would *make* them think I should be here. I would leave them no other option but to grovel and plead for my forgiveness, as I snatched up every scholarship and academic achievement award they hoped would push their measly chase for adoration along, and when I strode across that stage as Valedictorian, nay, as the highest achieving and most-belonging person the school had ever witnessed, they would sigh, and huff, and concede I was meant to be here more than they. This thought is what held back my tears as I returned to the classroom, my chin held high and my hair as gorgeous as always.

I suffered through their inquisitive stares for another series of hours. In sitting down, Dario opened his mouth as if about to expound some snarky comment, but then promptly closed it, perhaps thinking it overkill considering the day’s events. Part of me wanted the chance to shoot back, to tear him to shreds before his peers, but another part of me thanked him for what little consideration he had. My verbosity did not falter. I remained as insightful and dedicated in my studies as ever, and was sure to make a point of it. Mr. Grassetti would learn the hard way that one could not shut Johnathan Jacobson up so easily. Alas, with the tolling of the bell I found myself free to leave the insidious halls and breathe in my home’s bomb-ruined breeze, and never before had it tasted to sweet. Each pothole and crumpled chain link fence seemed to smile, and commend me for making it through another day. Through their calloused scabs upon the landscape a plethora of weeds sprung up, including a lone, proud-standing dandelion, telling me that I, too, could flourish amongst hardship. I heeded their wisdom well. Thanking whatever cosmic force guided me to greatness as I moseyed home.

Opening the door I was greeted by an overfilled rubbish bag flung at my face, plastic bloated and haphazardly torn, sending me toppling to the asphalt. Mother soon towered over me, spewing out shrill hatred regarding my lack of this and that and whatever she projected the blame of my attitude this morn upon. I didn’t say anything. Merely picking up what wadded up napkins and cigarette butts now littered our driveway, and before long her feeble lungs tuckered themselves out from shouting, and thus she lit up another cigarette before stomping indoors. I sighed, worrying the dandelion had forsaken me as the drivel of cleaning up her incessant messes consumed me. It was only moments later I felt my shoe crunch against something plastic. Looking down. I saw a positive pregnancy test. Clear as day. And I realized, truly, that my initial spout of joy on awakening had not been unfounded. Soon enough I’d have a little sister or brother to call my own! Whether it was Père’s or Kade’s (the former of which being highly unlikely, I can’t imagine they’ve engaged in intercourse since my conception) mattered not. I would help dress them, burp them, make them giggle and smile and teach them the ways of the world, we’d play all sorts of games and read books under the dim glow of candlelight, I’d teach them to spell, to cherish the arts and the beauty of the world, and to shoulder its hardships. Because, more than anything, we’d be there for one another, and that would be enough. What Père had long provided for me I could in turn give, and in the prospect of such reciprocity, I felt whole. He needn’t be informed right away, of course: Soon enough mother’s bump would show, and the three of us would burn that bridge as we got to it. Sweeping up the last of the rubbish, I tossed it into the bin. Only good things seemed to lie ahead.

#### Chapter 4: The Knife (Written by J.J., June 2001)

I helped Père prepare supper last night. I always do when time permits, as his responsibilities oft leave me to make dinner and wait for his late return, at which point we have our daily chat whilst he heats the leftovers up in the “microwave.” It’s a new invention, made in Italy according to the imprint on the metal, and one Père’s employers (and I suppose, now mine as well) have dangled before us like a prize for our cooperation. Heats food up in a matter of seconds, as if it were fresh out of the pan. I suppose, in light of my fast-approaching applications for higher education, that I’ll need to start pondering what inventions I’ll want to provide the world with. I can only hope they bring the world joy. Anyhow. Making supper together has become an increasingly rare treat, like rediscovering a snowflake you’ve stowed away via matchbox in summer, what with my new job and his steadily increasing clientele.

I cut the vegetables with our Santoku knife, yet another gift from the Turchinos to keep the both of our dwindling senses of patience at bay. Imports from Japan aren’t easy to come by, after all. Père and I have been on a Shakespear kick lately, and tonight as we diced and threshed we discussed Macbeth on account of our having watched its Japanese adaptation by an up-and-coming film visionaire named “Kurosawa.” Brilliant use of color in spite of its monochromatic medium. One line by King Duncan (dubbed Lord Tsuzuki) which I’ve found greater truth in with each passing day is that “there’s daggers in men’s smiles.” And just before his betrayal at Macbeth’s hands, no less! I find daggers in just about everyone’s smiles these days, like a skimmed over clause, that underhanded smack that comes with every affirmation of my triumphs. Knowing they are not mine. But their’s. Only lived through me. Père’s always been a greater fan of the line “if you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak them to me, who neither beg nor fear your favors, nor your hate.” To guess the fate of man, Pére says, is to try to look to the clumps of seeds and guess which will prosper and which will perish before they have chance to bloom. Though, it is not lost on me that in humoring my aspirations, Pére does just that. Does that make such appraisals disingenuous? I think not. My Pére loves me so that he just can’t help but see what I see. He’s as entranced by my fantasies as I am, and I suppose all of our notions about the self generate thusly. We act, we sell one another on that act, until the act and person become synonymous with one another. What a glamorous show life is, only if you let it be! And yet how treacherous if we forget, even if for a moment, that we made up its script centuries ago. But, just as in Shakespear, our adaptations are shaped by circumstance. Kurosawa’s script and my script may be the same, but our varied understandings of the world and our surrounding culture might frame the text differently. These were among the things Père and I discussed at length over our meal.

An upcoming school project has required that Dario Moretti visit my abode. I felt a dread like nothing else as I went through my day, imagining what sort of drivel would be spewed from him and mother alike. I honestly would fail to be surprised if they hit it off quite nicely. Through their mutual loathing of my person they have much in common. I could feel his eyes boring into my back as Mr. Aprile lectured on the wondrous technological innovations of Germany, ones the lot of us would never see in our lifetimes, all because we were born upon soil of the biggest transnational irrelevancy to ever grace the Earth. Sometimes the wrinkled faces of yesteryear tell us how things once were. Those of the new generation know better. What good will such hollow references to glories past bring us now? We lost the war. To the Germans, the Japanese, the United Tribes of Sioux. They took Canada back. They took it all back, in a sense, all the ideas and places we had stolen in dribs and drabs, held up to be our own, framed in the scope of our self-ordained excellence. Now all that’s left to do is pick up the pieces. Start anew, if such a thing even exists. These were among the things Dario and I discussed at length as we walked back to my house. As much of a brazen jerk he may be at times, he does have a head on his shoulders. He can be thoughtful when he wants to be, but, when under scrutiny of Salvatore Turchino and his lackeys, bends like a blade of grass in the idiot wind blowing through their rancid teeth. Dario is quite tidy which I, of course, respect a great deal. His grandfather was a capo to old Don Corrado, and so his family can always afford nice soap. Even when he sweats after rugby he’s not *completely* repugnant, which is commendable, as most of the other boys turn Latin into a sweat lodge when they’re through. I’ve asked him how he does so, once. After calling me a queer, and I’ll be quite honest, I ask for such insults with these inquiries, he informed me he pilfers lemongrass from his kitchen to stuff into his gym bag, but to never tell a soul. I didn’t, and began doing the same in the week that followed. Works wonders. No matter what impression you may gather from this, I still would hardly call us friends.

We came to a stop outside my house and I could not bear to move my ankles another step. This, of course, incited some light ridicule, as most things do. But Dario soon could tell from my face this was no laughing matter, and deflated like the last dirigible over the Pacific. He’d seen the bruises I sometimes arrive at school with, and with how gossip spreads, hardly anyone in town knew not of mother’s… Exploits. Especially not after Bloomdido’s Christmas party of 1999. Sometimes I still think I see her spittle crusted over on the ceiling when bussing tables. What a night that was. Dario didn’t say he was sorry, but I could tell he wanted to. I shook my head at him before he had the chance. It was better to just get this over with.

She was asleep, on the couch, when we arrived. No big surprise. I could see Dario peer over the scattered bottles and cans, cracks in her pleather armchair, the river of spit oozing down her chin, as if a morose museum-goer, huffing and sighing at the hidden plight in Monet’s shaky brushstrokes, for within their beauty held a man going blind. His eyes became lighthouse beacons, scouring over troubled waters from its detached, omniscient gaze from the shore. It was only at the clearing of my throat that he was startled from this vantage point, forced to confront that this was real, and not for his amused viewing. Dario was not without his own plights, of course, nobody at St. Aquinas was. His father was a gambler, whose good favor with the Turchinos might as well have derived solely from the exuberant amount of money he had lost to them in blackjack. But it felt as good as it did demeaning to give at least one of those insufferably pampered, grease-peddling parasites a reality check. This is what it was like for the people on the outside. Spending our lives in *their* debt, drinking *their* liquor to numb the ensuing worries they brought, until there’s a black hole of a person in every home, that swallows up all the good from the others, so they can repeat the cycle for all time. Not me. I refuse. Even if I have to pick up the mess she leaves, *they* leave us, time and time again. Dario must have felt my seething gaze, because he made a tense attempt to fill up a cup of water, which turned out to be more of a rust puddle, before pouring it out and suggesting we head upstairs to crack the books. I, of course, wasn’t opposed.

I brought him to my room. Only Père is allowed in the attic. This meant we were on the same floor as mother, although with how hard she sleeps, I hardly thought it to be a problem. As we studied Dario made it his business to root through my things and regurgitate snarky remarks, and at around the hour-and-three-quarters mark became promptly entranced in the worlds of my paintings. I smirk. He asks me who made them, to which I raise my eyebrows. And the defeat, the begrudging admiration on his face, was well worth all the lunch funds he must have amassed from me over the years. Exquisite. But then he rather ruined it all. Dario told me he was sorry. I told him that was a first, and there was no need to start now. But no, he’d insist, he had always felt sorry for me, As if. But then, letting out a dithering sigh as he sat down upon my bed, he explained that really did listen to me in class. That every time he’d roll his eyes at one of my tangents, he was hanging on each word. He noticed the way I’d wring out my bags of Earl Gray with my spoon in my morning studies, clapped the loudest after my trumpet solos in jazz ensemble, and even admitted I spoke beautiful Italian. “Nobody else at Aquinas is like you,” he said, “because nobody else has as much to prove.” He smiled, though one couldn’t tell if it held daggers or not. I could feel his breath, reeking of figs, and mine, reeking of a strange concoction of resentfulness and titillation, tangled up in the space between us. I gripped the mattress beneath us until my knuckles went white. I leaned in. So did he. About goddamn time.

Until, click! Enter stage left, you’ll never guess who, it’s only the drunken, scowling witch, shaken from her drunken stupor to dispense His word! You’ll imagine the joy I felt, of course.

Mother had always been fond of the word “faggot,” as a caricature more than anything else, so I cannot say I was disinterested in seeing how she would react to my being caught (or at least nearly being. Impeccable timing as always, mother, still kissless, hats off to you!) in a blatantly homosexual act. I studied her face with a rather quizzical look upon mine, which I’m sure just ate at her all the more. But then she did something I never expected. She turned away. Began stomping into the kitchen. It was at this point in which I realized Dario needed to go home immediately. I urged him to jump out the window into our backyard to run, and he thought I was crazy. But when mother came back with the Santoku knife he had undone the rusty latch and clammored out before one could even utter those three syllables, ah, so lovely on the tongue only the evening prior. She didn’t chase after him because she didn’t need to. Doing so would only waste her precious time. Père wouldn’t be home for another 18 minutes or so. She intended to capitalize on each and every one.

I’ll spare you the gritty details. It was all somewhat of a blur anyhow, to the point where my usually near-perfect recollection has struggled in charting out this chapter. She cut my left hand and wrist, my right thigh something awful, and along my back. Thank heavens she missed the face. I kept her at bay, for the most part, by running up and down the stairs. Lungs like her’s aren’t exactly known for their longevity, especially when she shrieks with all her might between her raking for air. In the 17th minute I nearly lost hope. I figured I was a goner, and that all my tribulations had merely culminated in (almost) kissing one of the dredges who had kept us beneath their boots our entire lives. But then I heard the jingle of Père’s keys in the door handle and I knew I was saved. What proceeded was just as much of a daze. Père began packing his things. Mother’s tone changed from spewing liquid hatred to sobbing belligerently that we couldn’t leave her. My mother, dear reader, my sweet old mother. Isn’t she just a doll? Relishing in her powerlessness, I began to pack my things as well. Many keepsakes I had to bid farewell. My records, for one, and many of my fondest and earliest paintings. But within twenty minutes or so we were bag-in-hand, headed out the door. But it would never have been that easy, not in a million years. Mother made a last ditch effort to make us stay. She grabbed me. She held the knife to my throat. “One more step,” she warned, “and he gets what’s coming to’s ‘em.” Pressing the frigid steel to my burgeoning Adam's apple, I realized, then and there, that I had never burnt that bridge I desperately needed to. Père knew not of my unborn sibling. I would be leaving them here. To suffer here, with her, without guidance, without Père nor I to look to. I couldn’t condemn anybody to that, let alone that of my own flesh and blood. This more than the imminent possibility of death (but, I must confess, still in large part due to its possibility) began to finally make me crack. My resolve eroded into a fit of blubbering, which brought a worry I’ve never seen to Père’s face. He raised his hands up where she could see him. Told her that we weren’t going anywhere. She gripped me tighter. Prodded my jugular with serrated edge in hand. I then felt a surreal wave of calm. Whatever happens here, happens, it occurred to me. My palm found its way to Père’s umbrella, somehow, as if through divine grace. I thwacked the knife away from her, its glistening edge casting shimmers as it clattered across our crumbling home, and I caught one last glimpse of the Proverbs calendar (it would be the last year mother got to choose) before the door slammed behind us.

The neighbors peered out through their blinds. This had been coming for years, and everybody knew it. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Dario heard the gossip trickle in before he even arrived home. I don’t think we’ll be talking about much of anything from here on out, which is sad as I’ve only now begun to realize he wasn’t a *total* stuck-up, even if he still mostly is. Mother slams her bloodied palm on Père’s window. It leaves a stain, and makes clear to everybody that this was her doing above all else. We’ll need that for when we come groveling to the Turchinos, I suppose. Père steps on the gas. A flood of relief washes over my body, cleansing me of 16 agonizing years of living by Joni Jacobson’s word. We both laugh, and embrace one another at the first stop-light, hugging each other as we both tremble like autumn leaves in the breeze. When the light turns green, I see the house dwindle from the backseat. J'ai versé une larme pour un frère que je ne connaîtrai jamais.

I helped Père prepare supper tonight. Our new apartment is much smaller, populated with furniture scrounged from roadsides that I refuse to touch, but it is better than our car, that is most definite. The kitchen is less filled with the stench of quarter-full bottles as it does mildew. I much prefer it. I tried to help cut vegetables again. But I couldn’t. I tried to grab the rust-speckled knife, I really did, but my hands refused to cooperate. With every attempt I could feel my scabbed-over wounds searing. That frigid steel upon my neck. Red stinging tears filled my eyes. She had already taken so much. How could she now take cooking from me? Père embraced me. Said things would have a way of working themselves out, no matter how dreadful they seemed now. I’m usually a sucker for his speeches. I wanted to be again. To believe him. I still nodded, smiled, and talked like I did. But instead we only act. We sell one another on that act, until the act and person become synonymous with one another. I don’t know how much longer I can retain my suspension of disbelief.