Dance On My Grave Read Online Free PDF Page A

believes that nothing unusual or strange or exciting or odd ever happens to them.
    I am so convinced of this, am so used to thinking of myself as the perfect example of Joe Comatose, the story of whose life would kill you, that when something out of the ordinary does happen I don’t even notice. I could walk into the black hole of Calcutta and just think it was rush hour at the doctor’s.
    In fact, I have a theory that people are nothing more than the sum of the things they think they are. This is not an idea I thought up. I’ll be honest, I got it from Kurt Vonnegut, whose books I was reading all the time this last summer. The idea goes like this: If you think you are a handsome, six-foot-three, blue-eyed genius who writes better songs and sings them better than anyone else in the world, then you tend to behave as if you are a handsome, six-foot-three, etc. etc. This explains why there are so many homely, five-foot-four, putty-eyed popcorns gyrating about on stages all over the place, strutting and fretting and hankering after autograph hunters andmanagers anxious to sign them up for stardom. It’s what they believe about themselves that matters, you see. We are what we pretend to be, Vonnegut says, so we had better be careful what we pretend to be.
    And it works just the same the other way. I think of myself as an unexciting schlunk so I guess I act like an unexciting schlunk and so grow into an unexciting schlunk. Very attractive, eh?
    Now back to me entombed in the sumptuous Gorman wash-house.
    As soon as it sank in that Mrs G. might have a triflingly overactive Id, I started worrying about the bathroom door. I had not locked it, you understand. And she had promised (had I heard right?) to return with a cup of sweet steaming tea. (The day was becoming utterly precipitate.) Unfortunately she would, no doubt, return. bearing her sweet steaming Id as well. And I could do without the former if having it meant suffering a generous portion of the other. As you’ll gather very soon, I like having a bit of the other, but I also like choosing who I get it from. And Mrs G. didn’t figure in my list of preferences.
    I rose from the Florida blue intending to secure the door. My skin was glowing scalded red from the volcanically hot water and my blushing anxiety. I had one foot in the tub and one foot raised over the edge when the door opened. Expecting the re-entry of Mrs G., I snatched at a towel hanging from a rail just out of easy reach. In my haste I slipped and fell, plunging back into the depths of the sarcophagus and sending a tidal wave over the side.
    But it was Barry, carrying the promised tea, who witnessed this further cack-handed—
correction:
cackfooted—goof.
    ‘Swimming again?’ he said. ‘Want me to dive in and save you?’
    ‘I thought you were your mother,’ I said, attempting toretrieve my dignity by feigning a final rinse before leaving the bath. (Why is it when you’re embarrassed you act like an idiot?
Answer:
Because when you’re embarrassed you feel like an idiot. See—you become what you think you are.)
    ‘Relax,’ Barry said. ‘I heard you getting the treatment so I waylaid her on the landing.’
    ‘Not sure which was worse,’ I said. ‘Being upset in the ocean or tangling with your mother.’
    ‘Personally,’ Barry said, laughing, ‘I’d rather capsize any day.’
    He reached for the towel I’d missed and handed it to me as I stepped onto the prairie.
    ‘Soak a bit longer if you want,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep Mother at bay. Anyway, she has to go to the shop in a few minutes. It’s my day off so she has to see to things.’
    I took the towel. ‘I’m out now, and I’ve got to moor my pal’s boat. Then I have to be in school at two-thirty to meet a teacher.’ I glanced at my pile of dank clothes. ‘Don’t fancy wearing those again.’
    Barry said, ‘Forget it. Everything’s sorted. I’ll deal with the boat when I take care of mine. That gives you plenty of time. I’ve