Thursday, February 03, 2005
"Tuesday with Cory" (Part 1 - Unedited)
Part 1 - Unedited
To tell the story of my reconstruction, I need only return to the day of the accident itself. The times then were no simpler than they are now. Perhaps I was; the product of youth, I suppose, being what it is - easy in its freshness to feel without limitations; invincible to the immutable laws surrounding us. On the day of the accident, I was quite simply in perfect condition. And now -- how many hundreds of years later is something I have not permitted myself to know -- now I am more perfect. Until the next accident, after which more work will go into the preservation of the youthful spirit with which I was born. For what else is worth the effort?
Today, as usual, my father woke me up. He opened the door to my room and asked me a simple question. "What's two plus two?"
His tactic was almost always effective. He'd ask a question. I'd answer it. Only the act of thinking, sometimes struggling, to figure out the answer, was enough to take the teenager in me out of slumber and into the shower.
"Five."
"Good answer, smartass. Now get out of bed. Time for school."
Shower. Wheaties. And watch the clock on the microwave.
7:15.
Dad gets out of the bathroom with a newspaper, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Let's get going. You have a pop quiz today."
Dad was a teacher at my high school. He taught English. All the kids loved him. He was the kind of teacher that made you read books with swear words, then pick the best swear word sections to read aloud in class. He was raised by General Abbott. Born in Panama. Then schooled at the Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico. Then the 60's, then inner rebellion, then outer rebellion. He still wears a high and tight flat top, but everything else about him was iconoclastic.
Rebellion skips a generation. It's like big boobs. The generation that has em doesn’t know how to live with em. Then generation that doesn't wants them so bad.
The pop quiz is in my first class which is English which, this year, I have with my dad. He lied about the quiz.
Cory, standing in front of the class, reading aloud from Mao II:
Omar told her, 'Once you live in the street, there's nothing but the street. Know what I'm saying. These people have one thing they can talk about and that's the little shithole they live in.'
Snickering. Dad tells them to grow up. Cory continues:
'The littler the shithole, the more it takes up your life. You know what I'm saying. You live in a fuckin’ ass mansion you got to think about it two times a month for like ten seconds total. Live in a shithole, it takes up your day. They cut the shithole in half, you got to go twice as hard to keep it so it's livable. I'm telling you something I observe.'
Cory is in character. My dad picked him because he's got this street thing going. A smart kid. Not book smart, really. But not book-dumb either. He gets things. Especially Omar's monologue. Which is why he answers my dad's first question.
"So, what the fuck is Omar rambling about?"
"I think he's saying that the smaller the world you live in, the more obsessed you get to protect it."
"Good. And?"
"And nothing. Omar's a product of the street too. He can see the street, but he can’t see past it. But the rich, they get to sit up high and look past it all."
"Why does that matter? What's that about?"
"Complacency, I guess. Isn't Omar telling Karen this because she represents the rich? Her world makes about as much sense to him as his does to her. She's a tourist in the slums, isn't she? Who’s got time for tourism but people who aren't all bent out of shape about their own little world. She's not fighting for scraps of food and rent. But she's fighting. She's fighting to make sense of the world."
"Good."
Cory sits down on cue. Then the class discussion begins for real. Dad gives a good lecture. And kids live for this existential shit. Especially high school kids.
After class Cory catches me in the hall and pulls me aside. “Hey I got an idea.”
"Yeah?"
"Well, it’s not my idea. It’s DeLillo's idea, actually. Or maybe your dad's. I don’t know exactly. But anyway."
"Yeah, anyway."
"Anyway, what do you think about cutting class for the rest of the day and going downtown with me?"
"Fuck no."
"Fuck no why?"
"Fuck no because I'm not cutting class."
"C’mon, man. I'm being serious."
"No."
"You don’t want to get in trouble?"
"Right."
"Because of your dad?"
"That and I don’t intend on spending the rest of my life in detention."
"Is that all?"
"What I need more reasons?"
"Yeah you do. Especially when you hear what I got planned."
Normally Cory didn't act like this. He had street smarts, sure. But he was not one to take unnecessary risks. One rainy summer day when we were like 10 years old, Mark Rosenblatt, Cory and I were riding our bikes outside Mark's house. Riding around in the puddles getting soakcd was fun, but one thing came to another and we decided to build a ramp from a bunch of bricks and a couple of planks of wood. Doing jumps was Mark's idea and Cory didn't want to do it. "That's stupid. I'm gonna get killed." We never convinced Cory to do jumps on the ramp and that's why he didn’t end up with a scar on his nose from going head over heels into a storm drain.
"A real learning experience," he said. "Seriously. You'll love it. I promise. You won't even get grounded. I swear it."
Cory was right. I never got grounded. Instead, I got paralyzed from the neck down. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
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