Aquarium by David Vann

Author:David Vann
Language: ara, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2015-02-12T21:08:24+00:00

My mother drove too quickly in the snow and slush. The temperatures low, and there could have been ice already.

It’s not enough, my mother said. Even ripping off his arms would not be enough. Reaching in through his ribs to tear out his heart, that might do it. Or crushing his skull slowly in a vise so he could feel what the pressure was like. All those years, just pressure, endless pressure. You’ll never know. You’ll have no fucking idea, and so you’ll think I’m a monster and he’s a saint. But that’s fine. I don’t give a shit what you think. You have six more years of room and board, and then you can leave and tell me to fuck off, tell me what a crap mother I was, how you hate me and all the rest of it. I don’t care.

I leaned in close to my door and looked at the houses flying by, too fast down this hill, the feel of the tires loose and sliding. Clinging to the door handle and my seat belt.

The problem is, you can’t believe anything that happened before. It’s just a story to you. It isn’t real. You think the world began with you. But it didn’t. It began with me.

My grandfather would be driving home in the snow and cold without windows. Just the cold wind, freezing, and pebbles of safety glass everywhere. Wearing his sport coat and collared shirt, this was what made it unbearably sad, I see now. An old mechanic trying to look like a gentleman. Trying to have dignity, trying to put his life in order, driving that night in the waste of a car, exposed. No headlights or taillights, and he could easily have had a collision. I was so worried I could hardly think. A dark shape drifting, waiting for impact.

If he made it home, he’d be leaving the car out to fill with snow, going inside alone. He had invited us to live with him.

You’re not giving me the silent treatment, my mother said. You’re going to talk with me.

She was looking over at me while she drove. On the highway now, safer than sliding down that hill.

Answer me.

Okay.

You tell me what happened. You tell me what he did when I was fourteen.

He left.

That’s right. Tell me more.

He left while your mother was dying, and you had to take care of her.

That’s right, but far too fast. This went on for years. Do you understand years? Every day?

It went on for years.

What was one day like? Tell me about one day.

I hated my mother then. I wanted to leave her and live with my grandfather. I wouldn’t have to get up so early, I said.

What?

If we lived with him, he could take me to school later.

My mother slapped me, hit me with her open hand as I hid against the door and covered my head. You will not fucking do that to me! she yelled. Slapping at me and trying to stay in her lane, swerving.

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