Panorama City Read Online Free Page B

discovered, while breathing my own air in a janitor’s closet, I discovered in my head an idea that stuck with me all through school, that saved me many trips to the blankets and closets, which was that when those boys were making fun of me, they weren’t making fun of someone else. That idea gave me strength, Juan-George, most of what people call strength is just belief, is just believing that you’re strong, I mean mental strength, no matter what you believe you’re not going to be able to lift a car above your head. The idea that I was a shield made me into a stronger shield. After my so-called mistake, though, it stopped. Nobody mentioned your grandfather, nobody made jokes about burying him in the yard, nobody commented on my manner of walking with my hands behind my back, nobody tried to steal my binoculars, nobody tried to convince me of anything preposterous, nobody laughed, and so for the first and only time in my life Madera felt like a lonely place.
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    That evening I got a call from Aunt Liz, your grandfather’s sister, I hadn’t seen her in years, she asked first if I was okay, if I was doing okay. Then she told me, despite the fact that I was twenty-seven years old and perfectly able to take care of myself, despite the fact that I had friends everywhere in Madera and made new ones all the time, despite the fact that I could ride my bicycle into town and find interesting work to do every day of the week, she told me that it would be best if I packed my things and left my bicycle and got on a bus and came to live with her in Panorama City. She was concerned for my well-being, she was concerned about my ability to take care of myself, she thought I should be with family in this time of need, her words, rather than in that drafty old house all alone, also her words. I got to thinking about what Madera had been like that day, I got to thinking about how things had already changed because of my so-called mistake, which got me thinking about whether I really wanted to go back to being Mayor, and I felt a shift inside me, a movement. I thought about your grandfather’s radio, about my idea to move his radio into the kitchen, and I thought about what other things I would like to change, I don’t usually do much thinking about change, I am not one of those people who seeks out change, it is not one of my qualities, but if I can say anything about the shape of life, if I can give you any idea of what it is like to live a whole life, even one cut short at the Madera Community Hospital, I can say this, which is that everything stays the same for a long time, and then suddenly there comes a moment when everything changes. Aunt Liz talked for a while about keeping an eye on me, she talked about my potential, and while she talked I thought, my head was somewhere else, I thought about what it would be like to be Oppen Porter instead of Mayor, I thought about going someplace where no one had ever heard of my so-called mistake, where no one had seen me covered in algae from when I went coin hunting in the wishing well, where no one remembered the time I went over the handlebars on a scooter while trying to see if the headlight was working, I hadn’t thought of sticking my hand in front, your grandfather had said it was physically clumsy but philosophically admirable, I was the type who required primary sources, his words, I wasn’t going to settle for shadows in a cave. I had enjoyed being Mayor, I was a good sport, as they say, I had been a good sport, but I was done.
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    [Extended beeping sound. Nurses talking.]
An automatic pump sends painkillers into my veins, without them I would be in unspeakable agonies, Dr. Singh’s words. The doctors have made a plaster statue of me, but only literally, I am a rigid mass of what Dr. Singh called bonesetting, the setting process, all we can do is wait, his words, wait it out and see how you do, he said, at which point I knew he was a man to