The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry(49)

“Nice to have someone to cook for. You were up there a long time,” she says, pouring him a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Her apron is turquoise, and she is wearing black exercise clothes.

“Hey,” Lambiase says, “did you happen to read Maya’s short story for the contest? I thought the kid should have been a shoo-in to win.”

“I haven’t read it yet,” Ismay says.

“It’s basically Maya’s version of the last day of her mother’s life,” Lambiase says.

“She’s so precocious,” Ismay says.

“I’ve always wondered why Maya’s mother chose Alice.”

Ismay flips a pancake, and then she flips another. “Who knows why people do what they do?”





Ironhead


2005 / Aimee Bender

For the record, everything new is not worse than everything old.

Parents with heads made from pumpkins have a baby with a head made from iron. I have, for what I assume will be very obvious reasons, been thinking about this one a lot lately.

—A.J.F.

P.S. I also find myself thinking of “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff. You might give that a read, too.





Christmas brings A.J.’s mother, who looks nothing like him. Paula is a tiny white woman with long gray hair that has not been cut since she retired from her job at a computer company a decade ago. She has made the most of her retirement in Arizona. She makes jewelry out of rocks that she paints. She teaches literacy to inmates. She rescues Siberian huskies. She tries to go to a different restaurant every week. She dates some—women and men. She has slipped into bisexuality without needing to make a big thing about it. She is seventy, and she believes you try new things or you may as well die. She comes bearing three identically wrapped and shaped presents for the family and a promise that it isn’t thoughtlessness that has led her to pick the same gift for the three of them. “It’s something I thought the whole family would appreciate and use,” she says.

Maya knows what it is before she’s even through the paper.

She’s seen them at school. Almost everyone seems to have one these days, but her dad doesn’t approve. She slows down her unwrapping speed to allow herself time to figure out the response that will least offend both her grandmother and her father.

“An e-reader! I’ve wanted one for a really long time.” She shoots a quick look over to her father. He nods, though his eyebrow is twitching slightly. “Thanks, Nana.” Maya kisses her grandmother on the cheek.

“Thank you, Mother Fikry,” says Amelia. She already has an e-reader for work, but she keeps this information to herself.

As soon as he sees what it is, A.J. decides to stop unwrapping the present. If he keeps it in the paper, perhaps it can be given to someone else. “Thank you, Mother,” A.J. says, and then he bites his tongue.

“A.J., you have a moue,” his mother notes.

“I don’t,” he insists.

“You must keep up with the times,” she continues.

“Why must I? What is so great about the times?” A.J. has often reflected that, bit by bit, all the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat. First, it had been the record stores, and then the video stores, and then newspapers and magazines, and now even the big chain bookstores were disappearing everywhere you looked. From his point of view, the only thing worse than a world with big chain bookstores was a world with NO big chain bookstores. At least the big stores sell books and not pharmaceuticals or lumber! At least some of the people who work at those stores have degrees in English literature and know how to read and curate books for people! At least the big stores can sell ten thousand units of publisher’s dreck so that Island gets to sell one hundred units of literary fiction!

“The easiest way to get old is to be technologically behind, A.J.” After twenty-five years in computers, his mother had come away with a respectable pension and this one opinion, A.J. thinks uncharitably.

A.J. takes a deep breath, a long drink of water, another deep breath. His brain feels tight against his skull. His mother visits rarely, and he doesn’t want to spoil their time together.

“Dad, you’re turning a bit red,” Maya says.

“A.J., are you unwell?” his mother asks.

He puts his fist down on the coffee table. “Mother, do you even understand that that infernal device is not only going to single-handedly destroy my business but, worse than that, send centuries of a vibrant literary culture into what will surely be an unceremonious and rapid decline?” A.J. asks.

“You’re being dramatic,” Amelia says. “Calm down.”

“Why should I calm down? I do not like the present. I do not like that thing and certainly not three of that thing in my house. I would rather you have bought my daughter something less destructive like a crack pipe.”

Maya giggles.

A.J.’s mother looks like she might cry. “Well, I certainly didn’t want to make anyone upset.”

“It’s fine,” Amelia says. “It’s a lovely gift. We all love to read, and I’m sure we’ll enjoy using them very much. Besides, A.J. really is being dramatic.”

“I’m sorry, A.J.,” his mother says. “I didn’t know you’d have such strong feelings about the matter.”