Transcript
Page 1: George Saunders, "My Flamboyant Grandson" Handout Page

462 . Ceorge SaundersMy Flamboyant Grandson . 463

GEORGE SAUNDERS

Geo.ge Saunders was born in 1958 in Amarillo,Texas, He trained as a scientist

at the Colorado School of Mines and after graduation worked in Sumatra and

Indcnesra, analyzing seismic data in order to prosped for oil. During that time

lre rvas also writing, and eventually graduated from the M.F.A. program at

Syr.:use Unrversity. He is the author of the collections CivilWorLond in Bod

Dec ne ( l99tr), a PEN/Hemingway linalist, and Postorolto (2000). Known for his

hilarious and often absurd depictions of contemporary life, Saunders follows

the tradition of great American satirists, such as KurtVonnegut,Jr: In an inter-

vreir with tfe AtlonLic, Saunders talked about hovr he achieves humor in a

51et y: "l've been asked if when l'm writing I know it's funny, and I think the an-

sw€r rs generally no. Because I think funniness has something to do wrth com-

pre;sion.When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent

nrc:e than I need. Sometimes l'll write a whole page and there'll be just one lit-

tle ;chtick that's good in there. l'll eventually just cut the rest and go with that,

ancl rf I'm lucky I get to something funny A lot of it has to do with knowing how

to -ut, so that you get a juxtaposition of strange elementsl'

My Flamboyant Grandson

J ha,l brought my grandson to New York to see a show. Because what isI hc always doing, up here in Oneontaf Singing and dancing, sometimesto my old show-tune records, but more often than not to his favorite CD,"Babar Sings," sometimes even making up his own steps, which I do notmind. or rather I trv not to mind it. Although I admit that once, cominginto his room and frnding him wearing a pink boa while singing, in thevoice of the Old Ladg "I Have Never Met a Man Like That Elephant," Ihad t, r walk out and give it some deep thought and prayer, as was also thecasc rvhcn he lumbered into the parlor during a recent church couplesdinncr, singing "Big and Slow, Yet So Very Regal," wearing a tableclothspray painted gray, so as to more closely resemble Babar.

I';cing a man who knows something about grandfatherly disapproval,having had a grandfhther who constantly taunted me for having enlargedcalve;-to thc extent that even today, when bathing, I find myself think-

rng unkind thoughts about Grandfather-what I prayed on both occa-sions was: Dear Lord, he is what he is, let me love him no matter what. Ifhe is a gay child, God bless him; if he is a non_gay child who simply verymuch enjoys wearing his grandmorher's wig while singing ..ld"i*"lrr. tothe dog, so be it, and in.ith..."r. let

-. communicate my love and ac-ceptance in everything I do.

Because where is a -child

to go for unconditional love, if not to hisgrandfatherf He has had it tough]i.r -y

view, with his mother in Nevadaand a father unknown,.raiyd by t i, gr"rramother and me in an otherwisechildless neighborhood, ptaying "tori.

ir, "

tirry yard that ends in a grave-f.ard waf . The boys in trli scfro-ot

".. h"rJ o' hi_,

", "r. J.-grlr,

", "..the teachers, and recentry we found his book bag in the Susquehanna,and recendy also found, taped to the back of his jacket, "

al.og"rorynote, and the writing on ir was not all that childish_tookirrg, ;d therewere rumors that his bus driver had written it.Then one day I had a reveladon. If the lad likes to sing and dance, I

s":ghl why not expose him to the finesr singing

"n.t a"i.ir1g there isfSo I called I-800-CULTURE, got or'pro_irror-y Voucher in-the mail,and on Teddy's birthday rt. toof the train down to New york.

As we enrered the magnificent lobby of the Eisner Tl;;;., I was ingood spirits, saying to f'eJdy, The size or *ri, stage will make that littlestage I built you behind th; gara*e look patheti., Jh.r, ,.raa.rty _. *.r.stopped by a stern young fbllow (a Mr.'Ernesti, I berieve) who said, weare sorry, sir, but vou cannot be admitted o., -.r.ly "

-nro*orory

V:1.h.1, are you kidding us) you -rrr,i"t1-your

Voucher and your proofof Purchases from at least six of o,r, U",o, Artistic Sponsors, such asAOL, such as Coke, and go at once to th.

-it"a._ption Center, on Forry_fourth and Broadwav. to get your rear actuar tickets, and please do not belate' as latecomers .-rroib. admitted, d;.;" special effects which occur

:1'Ir "y which require total darkness in

-d"r to simulate the Afiican

;ungte at night.Well, this was news to me, but I was not about to disappoint the boy.We left the Eisnerand started up Broadway, the Everly i."a"r, _ ,fr.

:*I* :."ding the

.Everty Strips.in o,r, ,to.s, the building_mounrednuilscreens at eye level showing images reflective of th! p..rorrrtPreferences we 'd stared o' orr,

-orirlrly E;;ly preference Worksheets, thenumerous cybec Sudden Emergent screens outthrusting o, do*o-thr.rrt-ing inches from our faces, and in addition I courd very clearly hear the

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464 . f.eo;ge S:'-.inders

s()und only lnessages bcing beamcd to me and mc alone via various KakioAural Focussers, such as one dr.rt shoutcd out to me between Forty-sec-ond anci Forty-third, "Mr. Petrillo, you chose Burger King eight times lastiiscal ycrr but only tw() times thus fbr this fiscal year, please do not forsakeus no% thcre is a store one block north!," in the voice of Broadway starF,laine lVcston, while at Forty-third a light-pole-mounted Focussershouted, "Golh'. Leonard, remember your childhood on the farm inOr.reontal Why not reclaim those roots with a Starbucks Country Roastf ,"in a celcbrity rural voice I could not identify, possibly Buck Owens, andthcn, bt'st of all, in the doorway of PLC Electronics, a life-size Gene Kellyhologram suddenll, ap;leared, tap-dancing, saying, "Leonard, my data in-dicates vou're a bit of an old-timer like myselfl Gosh, in our day life wassimpler, wasn't it, lronardl Why not come in and let Frankie Z. explainthc latcst gizmos!" And he looked so real I called out to Teddy, "Teddy,l<>ok thcre, Gene Kelly, do you remcmber I mentioned him to you as oneof the arl-time great dancers?" But Teddy of course did not see Gene Kelly,(icne B-elly not being one of his Prefbrences, but instead saw his heroBabar, sr.r'inging a small rnonkey on his trunk while saying that his data in-dicatcd that Tccldy did not yet own a Nintendo.

So that was fun, that was very New York, but what was not so funwas, by the time wc got through the line at the Redemption Center, itwas ten minutcs until showtimc, and my feet had swollen up the way theydo sho,'tly betore they begin spontaneously bleeding, which they havedr>ne cvcr sincc a winter spent in thc fieezing muck <lf Cho-Bai, Korea. Itis srxncthing I have learned to live u'ith. If I can sit, that is helpful. If I canlean agrinst something, also good. Best of all, if I can take my shoes off.!\4rich I did, leaning against a wall.

All around and above us were those towering walls of light, curvingacross l;uilding fronts, embcddcd in the sidewalks, custom-fitted to lightpolcs: c cartooll l ion eating a man in a suit; a rain of gold coins fall ing intothe car,oc of a naked rain-forest family; a woman in lingerie running abottlc ,lf Pepsi between her breasts; the Merrill Lynch talking fist asking,"Are 1,ou kicking ass or kissing it)"; a perf-ect human rear, dancing; a faketlock of geese turning into a ficld of Bebe logos; a dying grandmother'sroom lrllcd with roses by a FedEx man who then holds up a card saying"No (iharge."

A.r:d standing beneath all that bounty was our litde Teddy, tiny andsad, wirclse grandtlther could not even manage to get him into onecrumn'1'shou' .

My Flamboyant Grandson . 465

, So I said to myself, Get off the wall, old man, blood or no blood, justkeep the legs moving and soon enough you,ll be there. And off we went,me hobbling, Teddy holding my arm, making decent time, and I think wewould have made the curtain. Except suddenly there appeared a citizenHelper, who asked were we from out of town, and was that why, via re-moving my shoes, I had caused my Everly Strips to be renderedInoperativel

I should say here that I am no stranger to innovative approaches toadvertising, having pioneered the use of towablc signboards in oneontaback in the Nixon years, when I moved a fleet of thirty around town witha Dodge Dart, wearing a suit that today would be found comic. By whichI mean I have no problem with the concepr of the Everly strip. That isnot why I had my shoes off. I am as pauiotic as rhe next guy. Rather, as Ihave said, it was due to my bleeding feet.

I told all this to the Citizen Helper, who asked if I was aware that, byrendering my strips Inoperative, I was sacrificing a terrific opportunity toCelebrate My Preferencesl

And I said yes) yes, I regretted this very much.He said he was sorry about my feet, he himself having a trick elbow,

and that he would be happy to forget this unfortunate incident if I wouldonly put my shoes back on and complete the rest of my walk extremelyslowly, looking energetically to both left and right, so that the higher den-sity of Messages thus received would compensate ficr those I had missed.

And I admit, I was a little short with that Helper, and said, youngman, these dark patches here on my socks are blood, do you or do younot see themf

Which was when his face changed and he said, please do not snap arme, sir, I hope you are aware of the fact that I can write you upl

And then I made a mistake.Because as I looked at that Citizen Helper-his round face, his pale

sideburns, the way his feet turned in-it seemed to me that I knew him.or rather, it seemed that he could not be so very different from me when

I yas a young man, not so different from the friends of my youth-from|effie DeSoto, say) who once fought a Lithuanian gang that had stuck anM-80 in the ass of a cat, or from Ken Larmer, who had such a sweet tenorvoice and died stifling a laugh in the hills above Koi-Jeng.

I brought out a tlventy and, leaning over, said, Look, please, the kidjust really wants to see this show

Which is when he pulled our his pad and began to write!

E&,.,,

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465 . C,e:rgc Saurrders

Nou', cven being fiom Oneonta, I knew that being written up does

not take ()nc or two minutcs, we would be standing there at least half anhour, aftcr which rve would havc to go to an Active Complaints Center,where thcv would check our Strips fbr Operabiliry and make us watchthat correctivc vidco callcd "Robust Economy, Super Moral Climate!,"which I had already been madc to watch three times last winter, when I

was ()ut of work and rvc could not af-ford cable. And we would totally

miss "Babar Sings"!Pleasc, I saicl, please , we have seen plenty of personalized messages,

via both rhe building-mounted miniscrccns at eye level and those sud-

clcnly out-thrusting Cybec Enrergent Screens, we have learned plenty fbr

onc day. honcst to God we have-furd ire said, Sir, since when do you make the call as far as when you

have rece'vcd enor.rgh useful information from our Artistic Partnersl Andjust kept ,.r,riting me up.

Well, there I was, in my socks, there was Teddy, with a scared look in

his eycs I hadn't seen since his toddler days, when he had such a fear ofchickcns that we could ncver buy Rosemont eggs, due to the cartoonchicken c'n the crrton, or, if we did, had to first cut the chickcn off, withscissors ue kept in the car for that pulpose. So I made a quick decision,and seizel that Citizen Helper's ticket pad and flung it into the street,shcluting at Teddy, Run! Run!

And :un hc did. And run I did. And while that Citizen Helper floun-dcred in the strcet, torn between chasing us and retrieving his pad, weraced dori'n Broadway, and glancing back over my shoulder I saw a hulk-ing youn;; nlan stick out his foot, and down that Helpcr went, and soon I

was handing our tickets to the same stcrn Mr. Ernesti, who was now lessstcn], an(l in we went, and took our seatsr as the stars appeared overheadand thc Lisner was transtbrmed into a nighttime jungle .

And suddcnly there was Babar, looking with longing toward Paris,u'hcrc thc ()ld I.ady was saying that she had dreamed of someone namedBabar, urd dici any of us knowwho this Babarwas, andwhere he mightbc founcil And Tcddy knew the answer, fiom the Original Cast CD,which rv;rs llabar is within us, in all of our hearts, and he shouted it outu.'ith all :lrc othcr childrcn, as the Old Lady began singing "The KingInside of You."

Anci lct mc tcll you, fiom that moment everything changed for-t'cddv. I am happy to report he has joined the play at school. He wears ascarf evcrvwhcre he goes, rhr()wing it over his shoulder with what canonlv be ,lescribeci as bravado, and says, whenever asked, that he has de-

My Flamboyant Grandson . 467

cided to become an actor. This from a boy too timid to trick-or-treat!This from the boy we once found waiking home from school in rears,padlocked to his own bike! There are no more late -night crying episodes,he no longer writes on his arms with permanent

-"rk.r, rt" t."p. out t,i

bed in the morning, anxious to get to school, and dons his scarf, and is al-ready sitting at the table eating breakfast when we come down.

The other day as he got off the bus I heard him say, to his bus driver.cool as a cucumber, See you at the Oscars.

When an Everly Reader is reading, then suddenly stops, it is not hard totrace, and within a week I received a certified letter setting my fine ar onethousand dollars, and stating that, in lieu of the fine, I could elect to re -turn to the origrnating location of my infiaction (they included a map)and, under the supervision of that cittzen Helper, retrace my steps, shoeson, thus reclaiming a significant opportuniry to celebrate My preferences.

This, to me, is not America.

_ What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him notbug you respect his not buying. A gny has a crazy notion different fromyour qazy notion, you pat him on the back and say hey, pal, nice crazynotion, let's go have a beer. America to me should be shouting all thetime, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong) some of th.-nuts) but, please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.

But do the math: a day's pay, plus train ticket, plus meals, plus taxis toavoid ttre bleeding feet, srill that is less than one thousand.

So down I went.That Citizen Helper, whose name was Rob, said he was glad about

my change of heart. Every time a voice shot into my ear, ielling methings about myself I already knew, every time a ceiebriry hol.gramwalked up like an old friend, Rob checked a box o.t

-y Infraction

correction Form and said, Isn't that amazing, Mr. petrillo, that we cando tlat, that we can know you so well, that .. ."r, help you identi$r thethings you want and needf

And I would say, Yes, Rob, that is amazing, sick in the gut but tryingto keep my mind on rhe five hundred bucks I was saving and on alr thedance classes that would buy.

fu for Teddy, as I write this it is nearly midnight and he is tapping inthe room above . He looks like a bird, our boy, he watches the same musicalfifteen times in a row. walking through the mall he suddenly emits a ran-dol line of dialogue and lunges off to the side, doing a dancl srcp that re-sembles a stumble, spilling his drink, plowing into a group of incredulous,

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468 . Af hrl Sharma

snickering Oneontans. He looks like no one else, acts like no one else, his

clothes are increasingly lik" plumage, late at night he choreographs using

plastic Army men, he fits no mold and has no friends, but I believe in my

heart that someday something beautiful may come from him. (2002)

AKH IL SHARMA

in New Delhi, India tn 1972, Akhil Sharma immigrated to the United'.. /

' ..AjZ" family had moved from India to eueens, New york, rwo years

earlier. The accident occurred during the boys' summer vacadon, on a visitwith their aunt and uncle in Arlington, Virginia. After the accidlnt, Ajay,smother cam€ to Arlington, where ihe r"aitel to ,ee rRma'vafit,*.L.ou.r.At the hospital, she told the doctors and nurses that her sofi had been ac_cepted into the Bronx High School of Science, in the hdpe that by high-lighting his intel.ligence she would move them to make,i greater efforr onhis behalf. Within a few weeks of the accident, rhe irs,jr*i. ."-f*y ,"iathat Aman should be ransferred to a l"* .#;riyl;. ;il;:;

""uterm one . But only a few of these werc any good,3nd those *"r.'fuil, *dAjay's mother refusdd to move Aman untii

" spap opened in one of them.

so she remained in fulington, and Ajay rt"y.4g''too, and his father visited

Surrounded by Sleep . 469

and works a\ investment banker in NewYork By the time he

thre:, he had alneady published stories in such magazines as thein such magazines as the $tlontic and

the New Yorker: l\n interview whh the Atlontic, Sharma tal$ about what

driv:s his characterl:1'My characters are motivated by a dgfire to improve

lishr d in 2000 and won the PEN/Hemingway award

stor,es, rncludrng "Surrounded'py Sleepl ' have

from Queens on the weqkends *h"r, i. **"1;.kid ;i"y;;r;nrolledat the local public school'and in Septemberf{e started nftn-gr"a..

Before the accident, Ajqy had never pfyed much. In lidia, he and hisbrother used to go with their mother t/ttt. t"-pte every Tuesday night,but that was mostly because there wa/a good d.isarestaurant nearby. InF:1.", his family wenj to

" \-# oJy on important holy days andbirthdays. But shortly after Ajay's',f'othe, tame to Arlington, she movedinto the room thar he and his bro/er had shared during"the ,umm..

"rrd

take any.form; the picturef M"h"t-" Gan\i -",

,h.r" because he hadappeared to her in a drelm after the accidentrand told her that Aman

all-represents a

Fother: was pub-

first fidion.Three of his

selected for the Eest

Amlrtcon Short Stories. Discussin|'{row hemade an altar in a corner. She /{rew.an old flowereJ;fr..i

"r.r-" *raa story Sharma has said, board box that had once held felevision. On top, she put a clay lamp, an'Wnen I was younger I started with\he and would work up to thal incense-stick holder, and posty'ards depictrng various gods. Theie was also

No v I start with an incident that could in the storyThe difficutty a postcard of Mahatma Ga/dhi. she exprafted to Ajay that God couldof starting this way is that the story ts \nger plot-driven.You have to keep

your reader hooked through br inte\est in the way you tell the story

rnst:ad of through the promise of payoffi' \\\\

il fnlyrj',,oaubiryl their lips with water and rice. Mi[;;A;Jn, ro,onty waterr ?".ryt' he did not like ro eat. As weeks passed and Aman did

nor fecov.er rn-trfre to return to the Bronx High school'lf Science forrne nrst.clay otflasses, his mother began doing things thar.qalled amen_uon to her pi9ty. She sometimes held the prayer lamp until'it blsteredher palms. lnstead of kneeling beficre rhe altar, she lay face diwn. shefasted twice d week. Her attempts to sway God were not so differentfrom Ajay's performing somersaults to amuse his aunt, and they madeGod seem human to Ajay.

by Sleep

Ar. August afterr7.6on, when Ajay was ten years old; his elder brother,\-/lnran, dove iry/o a pool and struck his head on the cement bottom.For threc minutegl he lay there unconscious. Two boyi'continued toswim, Kicking aDl rplashing, until finally Aman was spo;ed below them.Water nad entq,fed through his nose and mouth. It had filled his stomach.His lu,rgs collapscd. By the time he was pulled out, he could no longer

think, talk, chew, or roll over in his sleep.

would recover andleast half an hour befor/ the altar ivery mornin

At first, she prayef with absolute 'humility.

1^l .,,o., Jrrs praycp wrrn aDsolute humtlty. *Wh\tever you do will be

goo. because you ape doing it,', she murmured to the posicards of Ram


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