The Man in My Basement

15

along with a notebook, two dirty dinner plates, and a 16

dozen loose stones that I had picked up — from the bed.

17

I lay with arms and legs dangling over the sides of the 18

small mattress. On the windowsill next to my head was a 19

book I had been reading. Neglect’s Glasses. It was a science-20

fiction novel about a kid in the ghetto who had found a 21

pair of sunglasses somehow imbued with the intelligence 22

of an alien race. The ghetto child, just days away from his 23

initiation into a youth gang, is drawn into a swirl of 24

knowledge that takes him places that he never knew were 25

possible.

26

I laid there on my bed, reading, for well over an hour.

27 S

The boy, whose name was Tyler, was transformed into the 28 R

unknown hope of humanity. He did good things because 34

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The Man in My Basement

the glasses always made him feel the emotions of those 1

lives he touched. And so when he hurt people, he experi-2

enced their pain. Helping others made Tyler feel good 3

about himself.

4

I would have read the whole book that night if it wasn’t 5

for chapter twelve. That’s where Tyler looked closely at his 6

parents and in a flash of divination realized that his father 7

would soon be dead. I couldn’t take the revelation and 8

threw the slender hardback into the tin trash can, deco-9

rated with astronauts, that had sat in the same corner for 10

more than thirty years. The book hitting the can set off a 11

burble of beer bottles jostling together.

12

There were five empties in the can under a holey T-shirt 13

and a few wads of paper. I found four more under the 14

bed. On the outside of the windowsill, there was one 15

dead soldier, as Clarance called them. That started my 16

journey back through the house. There were bottles 17

everywhere. Some were only half empty. One or two al-18

most full. There were bottles on the front porch, in the 19

backyard, on the patio chairs. On the roof there were a 20

few left over from friendly spring nights when Laura and 21

I made love in my sleeping bag up under the stars.

22

They were behind the couch and on the inside ledge of 23

the fireplace. By the time I finished, there were fifty-one 24

bottles on the old dining-room table. Those empties 25

would make me two paper dollars. And with them I 26

could keep my pride.