The Gum Thief Read Online Free PDF Page A

their garage sale, and they went for the expensive ones with little strings and grommetted string holes. I got their address because if they take that much care, they probably have some pretty good stuff.
    Back to you.
    Who's Joan? And even if you've had fifty jobs, you seem like you could do better than working here. And you mentioned a car crash way back. Who was in it? What happened? Funny how I can ask you these questions on paper but not to your face. BTW, it's fun pretending I don't know all this stuff about you. Are you getting off on it as well? Let's keep it this way. It keeps life interesting.
    Five minutes later: Kayla came in and asked me the strangest question. She wanted to know if it was true that tomatoes grow at night. I said, "What?" But she said that tomatoes are members of the nightshade family, and one of their main characteristics is night time growth. I asked why she was asking me this, and she said, "Well, you act and dress like you're totally into death, and nightshade is a poison, and all that."
    "You asked me this because I wear black lipstick?" I said.
    "Pretty much."
    I told her to go ogle it.
    Ten minutes later: Just back from the PC aisle. I couldn't wait for Kayla-the idea of being able to generate nutrients without needing sunlight was too exciting not to immediately investigate. Alas, I couldn't find the answer online, but now I'm determined to make a garden out of plants that only function in the dark.
    It's so quiet here in the staff room right now-I like being in here alone. I can only concentrate when things are totally quiet, like being in a forest with no people. I did that growing up-I hiked into the watershed for miles so that I couldn't hear anything man-made. It was so perfect. I look back now and can't believe I didn't end up as cougar chow.
    But I'm thinking about what you said right at the start of all of this-about people wanting out of their lives, even if their lives look great from the outside. I saw this picture in a magazine of this family in some flooded place down in the South. There they were, up on their roof, having a barbecue and waving and smiling for the camera crew in the helicopter. It was like they got a Get Out of Jail Free coupon and had change imposed on them rather than having to change themselves.
    Blairzilla just walked in. Break over. Pretend you're me again.

Roger

    A few years back I had to organize my son Brendan's funeral. Joan was completely wrecked, and I was barely keeping it together. I remember sitting there with the funeral director, trying to think of what to say in the death notice or whom I could invite to speak. I drew a blank, and the director, an older guy-white hair, a head shaped like a stone dug out of a Scottish field, a guy who'd been through a trench or two-suggested that no one had to speak and we could recite grade school stuff like the Lord's Prayer. He said that most people know it by heart, and we could all get through the proceedings with a sliver of dignity.
    He must have smelled my breath-tequila-because he looked at me a moment, then went to his desk and pulled out some very peaty Scotch, almost like soil syrup, and poured both of us a few fingers. He told me that most people who come to arrange services don't believe in anything. He said that if he's learned anything from doing his job, it's that if you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis. He said we're told by TV and movies and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change-and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. They become messes and tend to remain messes. Having a few default hymns and prayers at least makes the lack of crisis-born insight bearable. The man was a true shepherd of souls. Why don't men like