The Dead Do Not Improve Read Online Free PDF Page A

grabbed my hand but did not turn to look at me. Then, with flourishing modesty, she said, “Williams.”
    “I went to Bowdoin.”
    “That’s a great school.”
    And then we were past the van.
    We walked up and down the block three more times. At each passof the van, I made sure to ask some stupid question. Perfomance Fleece’s hand was cold and well lotioned, but her palms were covered with calluses. She talked about Williams, her opinions of California, most of which had to do with political things that were foreign to me.
    I talked mostly about small restaurants and small magazines. In response, she just kind of pursed her lips, asked me unrelated questions about who I knew at Bowdoin. It turned out we knew two people in common, but I only knew their names and not their faces. I took a risk and talked some shit about those two faceless people, and Performance Fleece laughed and agreed. Quickly, I forgot why we were walking or what we were doing out on the street. Girls just have that effect on me, I guess. On the fourth pass, without thinking much about it, I stared into the van.
    It was the Advanced Creative Writer. He was crying into his hands. An older man with a Pancho Villa mustache was sitting in the driver’s seat. He was talking to the Advanced Creative Writer, but when he caught me staring, he shut up. The Advanced Creative Writer looked up.
    Then, to my horror, his eyes narrowed in recognition.
    16 . Both men stepped out of the car, screaming about something. I caught a couple curse words—
puta, pinche
—but everything the Advanced Creative Writer said in English was lost on me. Performance Fleece blanched and stepped away. The Advanced Creative Writer took a giant step up onto the sidewalk and pressed his scowling face up to my own.
    Try to understand. I spent most of my childhood split between aforeign model of grace and my father’s personal brand of macho. (I apologize for talking about him so much, but we must try to understand one another, and since we’ve all moved past the era when understanding was only a collection of Buddhas, zenny poems, fucking Tigers, weird pickles, and creative spins on rice, we are only left with fathers. Anyway.) After one of my fights in the middle school cafeteria with Daunte Degraffenreid, my father was called to take me home. When he walked into the office and saw me sitting on a bench next to Daunte, who, even back then, would have been described by even the most well intentioned of my friends as a “big black dude,” an unrecognizable look spread across my father’s face. Again, as with all of his looks, I cannot define this face as one thing or another, but with the benefit of the years (dead parents are easier to understand) and some photos of him at my sister’s high school graduation, I can say that the look on his face was something akin to pride. A few years later, when I listened to Ronizm rap about how some people have to scrap to maintain dignity that is not their birthright, my thoughts on the matter were confirmed and committed to instinct. Yes, there is something about the deference of white guilt and I have certainly had my flings with it, but in the end, I’ve always come back to this unspoken lesson from my father: Indulge in all the liberal politics you need, son, but when it comes time to fight, you don’t have the luxury to not fight.
    Which is all a way of saying I slapped the shit out of the Advanced Creative Writer. It felt good. Of course it did. The man with the Pancho Villa mustache got out of the car, cursed at me, and collected the Advanced Creative Writer up off the sidewalk. As they staggered back to the van, the Advanced Creative Writer yelled, “You’re fucking dead. You and your fucking girlfriend.”
    I looked over at Performance Fleece. Was she impressed? Had she heard the Advanced Creative Writer refer to her as my girlfriend? Ah, yes! She was chewing her lip, staring off at Mel’s faggy scooter, calculating a new