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8:24pm January 3, 2012

➸ surface shine when you stalk some little answer: I think after I finish Hannibal I will re-read Flowers for Algernon,...

andromedalogic:

I think after I finish Hannibal I will re-read Flowers for Algernon, because I initially read it in sixth grade and I now have insight into why it had such a profound impact on me. (Definitely identified with Charlie pre-transformation but didn’t know how to toggle this identification with my…

I remember that book. We had to read a passage from it in seventh grade and then I read the whole thing. Honestly at the time none of it made any sense to me at all. 

But a piece of the part we had to read at school stuck in my memory pretty well. I just found it and copied it from a website:

My frends from the factery Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to go with them to Muggsys Saloon for some drinks. I dont like to drink but they said we will have lots of fun. I had a good time. 

Joe Carp said I shoud show the girls how I mop out the toilet in the factory and he got me a mop.  I showed them and everyone laffed when I told that Mr Donnegan said I was the best janiter he ever had because I like my job and do it good and never come late or miss a day except for my operashun. 

I said Miss Kinnian always said Charlie be proud of your job because you do it good. 

Everyone laffed and we had a good time and they gave me lots of drinks and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted.  I dont know what that means but everybody likes me and we had fun. I cant wait to be smart like my best frends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly. 

I dont remember how the party was over but I think I went out to buy a newspaper and coffe for Joe and Frank and when I came back there was no one their. I looked for them all over till late.  Then I dont remember so good but I think I got sleepy or sick. A nice cop brot me back home. Thats what my landlady Mrs Flynn says.

But I got a headache and a big lump on my head and black and blue all over. I think maybe I fell but Joe Carp says it was the cop they beat up drunks sometimes. I don’t think so. Miss Kinnian says cops are to help people. Anyway I got a bad headache and Im sick and hurt all over. I dont think Ill drink anymore.

And then, when I realized that this entire scenario was the story of my life?   (See this old post about passivity if you really want the gory details, I wrote it in response to a mother who thought her autistic son was displaying wisdom when he took it as all in good fun when kids dumped sand on his head and said “This is what happens to retards”.)  That passage was the first thing that came to mind when I realized my friends were not friends.  And I felt just as sick as he did when he realized what was happening. 

I remember nothing of the rest of the book.  The bits I just saw impressed me as rather stereotyping.  But yeesh that one part could have been a scene from my life. (Only people liked getting me stoned instead of drunk. And then pretending security guards were coming so they could laugh as I jumped out the window and ran into the woods.  This happened many times and I never put the pieces together.)