16.10.11

Jupiter

Firecrackers were never much fun to me. The breeze-like silence of a late summer night was, pardon my poor eloquence, much valued as to rip it with a deafening piece of enthusiasm. I recall a night in specific when Hiram Abdullah (impossible name in a country like mine, which makes it real) threw one enormous firecracker in my direction as to awake me from my stubborn search of Jupiter. My telescope, amateur at best, was a poor tool for my endeavour. However, a false national identity never sat best with me. Besides, attempting to burst the neighbours' eardrum with a paper-and-gunpowder cocktail was barely exciting. So, I made do with the most accurate telescope my parents were able to afford. Hiram, a father of two and ideally trapped in a dead end marriage nowadays, frowned as if his brow could reach his lower lip every time I explained why I was determined to spot a planet that, in his opinion, I could not actually see. Inasmuch as he was somewhat right, philosophically speaking, it seemed a hundred times better an idea compared to what I then deemed as the idiot laughter of my peers while tomfoolerying in the streets.

Julio Vanderbilt (another impossible name) asked me once why I dared be so different, so distant, from them. He swore he was my brother, that he loved me as one of his own kin, yet he wondered hard how come I was unabashedly able to dismiss his company, his words and his experience in life, Whimsy, I contemptuously answered. It was not a lie. Those guys I grew up with bought me drinks, took me on their city journeys, and offered to pay for prostitutes for me. Nevertheless, they were a precarious tool I used to have some kind of social bond beyond my chats with the butcher and my barber (a decent man I believe to be the most agreeable person I have known), and to understand the world around me. Go play football with them, my mother would say when I sat by the radio listening to Bach. Go make friends and share with them some fresh air. I was not much into football or sharing fresh air for that matter. Go play baseball with them, she said. Just two games did they play, just two turns for me to show my quality. Hitting balls to death with a bat is incomprehensible to a large amount of men, let alone children, so lousy baseball was dropped. Go sit with them anyways, my mother would say every summer. I didn't. I sat by the window as to catch some breeze while Julio and Hiram threw firecrackers at dogs and passing cars, Meanwhile, my mother wondered how I was able to be myself and not feel alone. Because I'm looking for Jupiter, ma, and life is all about that kind search.

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