Thanks for the Memories Read Free Page B

country perhaps, but the same class. First week and giddy. Another group displaying an immature lack of understanding of his passions; a deliberate turning of their backs on the possibility—no, not the possibility, the surety—of learning something wonderful and great. It doesn’t matter what you say now, pal; from here on out, the only thing they’ll go home remembering is the fart.
    C h a p t e r 3
    h at i s i t a b o u t f a r t jokes, Bea?”
    W “Oh, hi, Dad.”
    “What kind of a greeting is that?”
    “Oh, gee whiz, wow, Dad, so great to hear from you. It’s been, what, ah shucks, three hours since you last phoned?”
    “Fine, you don’t have to go all Porky Pig on me. Is your darling mother home yet from a day out at her new life?”
    “Yes, she’s home.”
    “And has she brought the delightful Laurence back with her?”
    He can’t hold back his sarcasm, which he hates himself for, but unwilling to withdraw it and incapable of apologizing, he does what he always does, which is to run with it, thereby making it worse.
    “Laurence,” he drawls, “Laurence of A— inguinal hernia.”
    “Oh, you’re such a geek. Will you ever give up talking about his trouser leg?” She sighs with boredom.
    Justin kicks off the scratchy blanket of the cheap Dublin hotel he’s staying in. “Really, Bea, check it next time he’s around. Those trousers are far too tight for what he’s got going on down there. There should be a name for that. Something-itis.”
    t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s / 1 9
    Balls-a-titis.
    “You know, there are only four TV channels in this dump, one in a language I don’t even understand. It sounds like they’re clearing their throats after one of your mother’s terrible coq au vins. You know, in my wonderful home back in Chicago, I had over two hundred channels.” Dick-a-titis. Dickhead-a-titis. Ha!
    “Of which you watched none.”
    “But one had a choice not to watch those deplorable housefixer-upper channels and music channels of naked women dancing around.”
    “I appreciate one going through such an upheaval, Dad. It must be very traumatic for you, a sort-of-grown man, while I, at sixteen years old, had to take this huge life adjustment of parents getting divorced and a move from Chicago to London all in stride.”
    “You got two houses and extra presents, what do you care?”
    he grumbles. “And it was your idea.”
    “It was my idea to go to ballet school in London, not for your marriage to end!”
    “Oh, ballet school. I thought you said, ‘Break up, you fool.’
    My mistake. Think we should move back to Chicago and get back together?”
    “Nah.” He hears the smile in her voice and knows it’s okay.
    “Hey, you think I was going to stay in Chicago while you’re all the way over on this side of the world?”
    “You’re not even in the same country right now.” She laughs.
    “Ireland is just a work trip. I’ll be back in London in a few days. Honestly, Bea, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he assures her.
    Though a Four Seasons would be nice.
    “How’s Porrúa doing?” He asks after his cactus plant.
    “Really, Dad, you have to get a life. Or a dog or a cat or something. You can’t have a pet cactus.”
    “Well, I do, and she’s very dear to me. Tell me you’ve remem- 2 0 / C e c e l i a A h e r n bered to water her, I don’t quite trust you after your attempted assassination of her with a tennis ball.”
    “It was years ago, the cactus survived, get over it. I’m thinking of moving in with Peter,” she says far too casually.
    “So what is it about fart jokes?” he asks again, ignoring her, unable to believe his dear cactus and Peter, the jerk who is corrupting his daughter, have been mentioned in the same sentence.
    “I mean, what is it about the sound of expelling air that can stop people from being interested in some of the most incredible masterpieces ever created?”
    “I take it you don’t want to talk about my moving in