My name is Gestalt, but it’s not really anymore. I got my name changed in Hostivice this week. I'm not supposed to tell anybody because I could be punished for defection. I shouldn’t even be writing any of this, but I suppose the violation has already been committed. Can the ŠtB smell the ink of a ballpoint pen? Have they trained their dogs to do that yet?
I got this diary while I was saying my goodbyes to my other teachers who taught at my old gymnázium. It's actually a Czech mathematics book, but something had gone wrong in the production and all of the pages ended up being blank. They gave it to me because they didn't want all of the paper going to waste. I like writing in it. It's so big and weighty, holding it in my arms makes me feel like an author.
A very special author who has been on a world wide journey!
Yesterday morning Máma and I went to Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavians let us into Italy. It was so hot!!! I got to try pineapple for the first time. We took a little plane from Milan to Coney Island. I am staying in a welfare hotel. I think it is very comfortable but Máma doesn’t think so. I like their mattresses. Sometimes I lay on my stomach and press my head to the side of the mattress and shift the weight of my body around just to hear the sounds of the springs bend and squeak from within. It sounds like a man whispering to me through the wall.
I saw people sleeping on the beach overnight, on blankets or towels taken from the hotel. In a way, everyone is sleeping together on one mattress, snuggled up on a heavy comforter of rocks, sand, and bones that had a bigger journey across the ocean than I've had. I was briefly lost there, but a man found me and took me back to the hotel
(Lawley's depiction of people sleeping on the beach)
I will not be here for much longer. Tomorrow my mom and I are going to our new home in Nebraska. A great big, white house just for the two of us. A woman named Sandy is sponsoring us. She told me that if I work at her mental health center and my mother works at her wedding dress shop, we can live there.
The house was here before the cornfield, and the cornfield was here before the funeral home across the road, probably. I woke up on the bare mattress upstairs which had left a floral pattern on my face in the morning, which really scared me because when I looked in the mirror I thought I had a rash.
I drew a picture of my new house
I am standing in the kitchen right now. The clock on the stove says “11:46” and the sun is shining. I don’t even know what to do right now. My mom got up at 4 am to a call from the freight terminal telling her that our belongings had just arrived on a train. Before they were in Rhode Island they were on a cargo ship in Germany, and before they were in Germany they were in our house. We don’t have a car, so my mom got on the public bus. I wanted to look up the name "startran", which was on the side of the bus I only briefly saw her step onto, but we don't have a computer.
I cant remember exactly what I packed because it was hard to see through all the tears. We left a few things in the Czech Republic, like our kroje and some cookware and a few other things in boxes I never looked in because they were shoved under the beds. Those things we left behind are with my grandma, who isn't even my grandma. My mom isn't even my mom either.
My grandma refuses to say I'm adopted. Instead she calls me a wild animal because my mom found me in her rabbit pen in the middle of winter. My grandma says I had a tail and large cornets sticking out from the sides of my head. I don’t really believe her now, but when I was little I did. I told all of my classmates that I was a víla and I got a punishment for lying.
My grandma owned the rabbit farm before my mom did, so I think that's why she doesn’t like me too much. I intruded on a conversation.
There was a man named Tonda who taught me English. The government made it so that you couldn’t learn it in school. I had to keep my knowledge of English a secret. I had to keep Tonda a secret too.
My mom knew people who had access to these underground teachers. It was the final expense of the entire process of moving to America. We had to sell all our rabbits. The price to pay for language made me wish I had no throat to speak it at all.
I met him on a rotating schedule so that nobody could find us. We met under the bleachers behind the soccer field. Just us together in our little metal triangular schoolhouse. It had to be just us.
The way his hairline falls back around his temples gives me the impression that he has lived a rugged life, but his nails are pristine, like they get regular maintenance every week.
At the end of our sessions he makes a gesture. With pinched fingers he glides them across his lips from one end to the other, as if he was zipping his mouth shut. He then points at me, encouraging me to do the same. And I do. I'll do whatever he tells me. We are indebted to each other. He has taken my rabbits and I have taken his language. But what we both have are secrets. We could be in very big trouble if the secret police find out.
(Lawley's depiction of Tonda)
I haven't been busy besides unpacking my things from the freight terminal and taking apart and putting back together the television remote countless times. That's actually the problem. I don’t have anything to do now, but there is so much to do. It’s endless. I could read the television guide, I could paint the house, I could walk the dog that we don’t have, I could hitchhike until I don’t know where I am anymore. But I must stay nearby. I start my new job soon.
The building the hill slants downwards at nearly an 180 degree angle, and has a big blue PVC banner tied to the front that reads “Bleeding Heart Mental Health Center.
11 June, 1986
It smelt like sawdust on the inside, which almost had distracted me entirely from the ridiculously large old fashioned bank vault just past the receptionist’s desk. It used to be a bank. There were large pots of fake flowers and rows of chairs lined up against both walls, which forced you to look at the other miserable people sitting across from you. My interview was with a lady who had messy brownish-blonde hair. I avoid calling it dirty blonde. Her name was Sandy. She wore navy heels with a silver buckle on the toe of each shoe. There was a thin line from her skin-toned tights on the back of her legs.
Sandy was so kind. She looked happy to interview me, happy to take me to a room in the back, happy to give me a job, happy to adopt me as one of her own. I didn’t need a masters degree, she said, which was nice to hear because I'm not in school. I haven’t even thought about school ever since I graduated from my old international school. I was seventeen when I graduated because as soon as I got my Czech citizenship at age four, my mom rushed me out the door and right into school. I wouldn't have cared if the kids weren't so mean to me! I used to catch pheasants in my school bag and release them at the other kids as soon as I got there.
Getting citizenship was hard because the pediatricians couldn't tell what sex I was by looking. I remember them prodding me constantly with their cotton sticks and metal devices. They didn't let me say no because they didn't think I could. I remember how it felt. Sharp, scary, twisty feeling. Wishing they could get done sooner.
I started cleaning my room again today. It's not in the exact state I want it to be. There's always papers, receipts from grocery shopping for my mom, coiled into a big nest on my desk. Something that suggests I'm not done here yet.
It's not just in my room I guess. It's in the pantry, where there is a half eaten box of entertainment crackers or 2 quarts of milk left that should be used before it goes bad in a few days. The gas tank to my car that needs to be filled. Socks needed to be paired with each other. Grout that needs to be scrubbed. The lint trap that needs to be emptied.
It seems like I am not done here yet. Not done living. I always have to do something. I always have to finish what's started.
When I started cleaning my room I was under some sort of guise that this would be the last time I cleaned it. The last time I finished financing our grocery bills. The last quart of milk I drink. The last drive I take. The last drive I take will follow the last time I put the key in the lock barrel, which will follow the last time I unlocked my car and opened the door.
The day that happens will not be the day hell freezes over. It will be a day like any other. A day where I suddenly have it in me to let go of the wheel and let the weight of my every day disappointment hold the gas pedal down.
It's hard for me to tell you what he looks like because when I look at his face, his features blend into the space around him and he becomes two dark black dots. Two black dots that burn into my skin and narrow and move around within the limited confines of the whites of his eyes. They scold me, somehow, without sound or touch.
That is until he speaks. When he speaks I suddenly become aware of his lips and the way his teeth grow out from his gums like they've been placed in his mouth incorrectly.
“Sha-wn” is how it is pronounced, but “Sean” is how it it is written. I thought it was pronounced Seen. Ever since he corrected me, the name no longer looked like that. It is a bit like an egg. If you’ve never seen an egg before. You look at the egg and think, that's food! But it isn’t. You have to break it open and cook it first. Then you get the food. You’ll never see the egg the same way again.
(Lawley's attempt at visually illustrating what he is talking about).
I don’t think I'll ever see him the same way again. Not after this week. That is a secret for another book. Maybe a different pen name.
The eater of many things. Steak, eggs, fried catfish. Sean had invited me over this past weekend while his aunt took his mom to Omaha get her hernia removed. I wore his shirt to his house. He was very surprised. Well I didn't think it was surprising. He left it at my house in a bag of other stuff from when he was cleaning out his car. His house didn't have a working outdoor outlet to power his vacuum so he came to my place.
I told him it was like wearing a fish shirt to an aquarium. Im wearing a Sean shirt to see Sean.︎ He told me he'll have to get it back. And I didn't like how that made me feel. I didn't like how it made him uncomfortable. I wanted to undo this. I took it off right away and when he turned around, I seemed to have surprised him again.
The feeling was very intense. Overwhelming. I recall feeling warm, like sitting in a hot vehicle. At first he took the shirt from me and undid the folding I had done and threw it over my head as if attempting to catch me in a butterfly net. He seemed panicked, anxious to conceal my body his clothes again, but thats when he slowed down. I couldn't see what he was doing because my head hadn't made it through the collar of the shirt, but I could feel him begin to carress me slowly through the shirt as he pulled it down. His breathing was uneven. I never knew someone was strong as he was could possibly struggle with one of the body's simplest funcitons. I wiggled my way through the rest of the shirt and watched his hands make their way down to my waist and then back up again to my armpits, as if trying to get the shirt to fit me perfectly.
But the shirt didn't fit me.
5 days. I've thought about it. That's how long it would take somebody to find me.
What's 5 whole days? The rough part of the week. The part of the week where everyone is dressed up nicely and going to work and coming home to eat the same food every night. There are more important things to do than notice that I haven't been into work in a few days. More important things to do than worry about the smell coming from my room, or the fact that the milk hasn’t been finished or the fucking lint trap is full and hasnt been emptired and the dryer burns down my house down with my stupid body trapped inside it. But I am already dead. Because by the time the house burns down, it's Saturday. Maybe mom comes home and sees there is no house left. The firemen come to see the scene. And then it is Sunday. 7 days, actually. 7 days is how long it would take.
Sean always tells me the story about the day his dad was buried. He says that it was so windy, a chicken laid the same egg seven times. I laughed so hard I spit out my juice and had to run to the kichen sink to catch what was dripping down my chin. His dad died 5 years ago because someone shot him while he was crossing private property on the way to work. He was always late to everything, according to Sean. I feel bad for laughing at the chicken story because, he opened the story with saying it was a funeral. I hope he doesn't think Im laughing at his misfortune. He's had a very sad life. I am not supposed to write about this due to a confidentiality agreement between Sean and I (as his therapist), but Sean told me that he was just about 18 when his dad died.
My Mom left me in America while she goes back to the Czech Republic to take care of my grandmother. She has whooping cough. I wanted to go along but that would mean I miss work, so I decided to stay here in Nebraska. Now Im regretting it because my mom decided Im not old enough to stay on my own so she put her rabbit statue in my room to watch me! I am 21, and she put a statue in charge!!! She says it can talk to her *but I don't believe it *(Lawley scratches this part out due to paranoia that the statue can actually understand him). When I was 18, my family found a two headed rabbit on our farm. It lived for a few minutes and then died. My family thought it was a sign of god. I didn't believe it as first because why would god give us an animal destined to die? Is he cruel? My grandmother put dried the rabbit out and put inside a box and sealed it shut with carpenters glue. She had some independent smith in Prauge make a small statue of it to put on top. Ive never seen her spend so much money before. Its sort of unusual my mother and I ended up with it. My grandma always seemed to like it more.. Sean is coming over today to keep me company.
There is loud tapping and on my wall coming in from the other room that gets longer and louder every day. Its been going on for weeks. I think they might be mounting a shelf?
I love the fried catfish Sean makes me. He comes to my house with a tupperware container of the fish hes caught and fried. Only Im allowed to know where his favorite fishing spot is, he says. Catfish has been the only thing I've been eating lately. He sits down on the couch an I lay over his thighs because he rubs my back whenever Im on my stomach. He tells me the story about his uncle who had type 2 diabetes. He has told me the story twice now but I dont mind. He starts the story the same way each time. “Did I ever tell you the story about my uncle and his donkey? His foot came off in his boot due to diabetes. He smelled so strongly of sugar that his donkey couldn’t stay away. He ate him and then licked his boots clean”, he says and then awkwardly strokes my calves as if he doesn't know where to place his hands. Im like the donkey that can't stay away. I love sugar. Ill lick his boots clean.
The noises are so loud. I want to go in the next room to see what is up, but I don't want the contractors to think they are bothering me. They cant help the sound a hammer makes. Im sure Ill see it once it's done.
When I look at Sean directly in his eyes, we make a big tunnel that is joined at both of our optic nerves and runs all the way down to the little nerves at our feet.
We make a ring, sometimes, when he is penetrating me. A beautiful ring. A beautiful ring god should wear on his finger and never take off. I never want to stop being that beautiful ring. Whole, round. I want the tunnel of our bodies to go on forever. I never want the tunnel to stop.
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(Lawley's illustration of said tunnel and ring).
Somebody put a note on my window. It is written in Czech but written crudely so it gives me the impression that said author is an imbecile. I bet it was Evan.
Mom is very sick. I want to help her but she has her door locked. She is coughing. It sounds like there is an animal trapped in a box with no air. There are no windows to the outside from her room. I can't see her. She won't let me.
Perhaps she was dead for a long time. Not literally. Dead the same way I've been dead for years. Disinterested. Already parted ways with the world around her. She parted ways with me a long time ago. Her goodbye was her bedroom door that she used to separate us a week before. That's when she really said goodbye.
Her body was taken out of our house today. I thought, does she want her blanket? But she had one. They wrapped her in a new one. I thought it was too tight. She hates when her clothes are too tight. She never wears socks. But she didn’t seem to fight the paramedics. She's been dead for days.
I went into her room. It was my first time being there since we moved here. I searched for her in every corner. Of course I knew she wasn't there. I had just seen her come out on an ironing board on wheels. She was just moved to another room. I could follow them and see her there. But knowing her, she'd probably shut the door on me there too.
Sandy called me. She asked me if I was okay and if I had hired a trauma cleaning professional. I didn't even think about it. I didn't think I had to be the person to call and tell some people with a mop and bucket that my mom died. My mom died. My mom died. No, shes just moved into a different room. No, shes right here in this vase. They did a wellfare check up on me. Oh you think I neglected my mother? You think I killed her? You think she let me even get close enough to choke her to death? Fuck you. Fuck you. fuck you fuck you fuck you. fuck you fuck you fuck you
Mama mama!! The iron curtain soldier is raping me! hes raping me! But you can't hear me. You've been dead for years.
Im too scared to go to work. But I have nowhere else to go. Sandy told me to take off of work but I can't stand being around the men cleaning my moms room. Im mad at them. I want to throw things and tell them that shes not in there and she hates visitors and that they should just leave. I go to work to avoid seeing them. But work doesn't feel good either. The noises in my wall arent from renovation in the room next to mine. Nobody even goes in there. I peaked through the door yesterday at 5 pm when the noises were the loudest they had been and there wasn't anyone in there. Theres a large crack going down the wall. Does it say something? I don't feel good. I feel sick and Im writing this in the bathroom on the floor. It feels like electricity is running through my mouth and Im salivating intensely and can't stop. Ive thrown up.
When Lawley came back from the bathroom, that was the end of his diary
