"Boxes Full Of Boxes"
My name is Hai Burdan. The tenure of my adult life has been occupied with building a multi-national corporation without interference from State and Country. My father was a communist. My Mother had children when she was fourteen and hated them all for they ruined her body. Her body as a girl. I was the first and certainly not last of but seven children that would come in years spread by months and spans when Dad was in Germany, or otherwise out of the country on business.
When I read Biographies, or hear films about growing up in America; I always hear the same story of the father who peddled products and services door to door. A man who sold re-frigid-air machines or pens or bibles, and serial novels to little housewives with too many kids and too little money, but are persuaded by the master/father salesmen anyway. Salesmen always end up killing themselves, and my father always gave this reason as to why he was not one. I didn't blame him.
I made balsa wood gliders and miniature neighborhoods out of plywood and glue, nails and putty. I made the world I lived in and burned it all down with petrol. I built our house bigger than the rest and made sure that it went up faster than the others. I made light of being a hated child. I knew what was expected and tried my very best to help these requirements unburden my mother, for she was lost in her television and my father, and the occasional young man she was closer in age to.
My father was twenty six years older than my mother and he had his women too. In other countries even. He'd bring suitcases home and I was let unpack them sometimes. He had bundles of photographs of planes and buildings with huge smoke stacks and what looked to be piles of people. Dead people, people with their eyes open and crying; He had photos of other women than my mother, naked women and naked families with bones sticking out of their chests. Starved people, bare and crying. He had bundles of these photos, bundles with papers and thick wire string and ribbon. He was an officer or general. I never knew.
He would come home with boxes sometimes. Boxes full of boxes. All tightly packed and tied up. He put these under our house and locked the basement door. My mother didn't care what he was up to. She spent his purse and what he gave her else wise. He would bring home all types of gadgets as well. Once he brought home three television sets and a Volumetric Ham radio. A big radio with antennas. He'd make us listen to the news and the President and would laugh. I laughed too. He told us that we weren't Americans. We were better. Our blood came from far across the ocean, Europe. We were not American white. He said American whites were dirty. They made nothing happen the right way. The only thing they did right was what Hitler learned from them. The start of the genocides at the end of the fourteens.
My childhood friend was Mickey, who had a sister who loved me. She would kiss me and hold my hand when we were alone. My friend and I had adventures all over the city. Through alleys and under bridges and over rails. We rode our bikes and walked everywhere. We stole toys and paper and milk from stores all around the center of town. We'd run fast and never get caught by anyone. He was fast too. Faster than me, and I was very fast. We would hide in the lobbies of adjacent buildings and in doorways. Mickey had a love for yellow shoes. His shoes were always yellow except for once when they were washed by his Dad and got all bluish. We burned those shoes in a trash can in the alley behind the Woolworth's on 5th street. We would steal him yellow shoes and me paper to write on and make orgami with. I made anything I saw. Animals and people. I was quick to learn how and did it fantastically.
I stole a brownie camera when we were 10. We made short subject story films with his sister and cats and romance films with myself and the girl; she insisted on our having a scene where we waved goodbye to one another as we were separated by an evil warlord. Mickey played the warlord. We made films of the people in the neighborhood and neighboring areas. The stores and fights and cars and houses we wished we lived in. We made documentaries of the alley cat who had kittens and ate one. We made a film when we stole fruit from a corner stand in the village. I had a filter when we went outside to make it orange and warm. Like summer all the time.
When I read Biographies, or hear films about growing up in America; I always hear the same story of the father who peddled products and services door to door. A man who sold re-frigid-air machines or pens or bibles, and serial novels to little housewives with too many kids and too little money, but are persuaded by the master/father salesmen anyway. Salesmen always end up killing themselves, and my father always gave this reason as to why he was not one. I didn't blame him.
I made balsa wood gliders and miniature neighborhoods out of plywood and glue, nails and putty. I made the world I lived in and burned it all down with petrol. I built our house bigger than the rest and made sure that it went up faster than the others. I made light of being a hated child. I knew what was expected and tried my very best to help these requirements unburden my mother, for she was lost in her television and my father, and the occasional young man she was closer in age to.
My father was twenty six years older than my mother and he had his women too. In other countries even. He'd bring suitcases home and I was let unpack them sometimes. He had bundles of photographs of planes and buildings with huge smoke stacks and what looked to be piles of people. Dead people, people with their eyes open and crying; He had photos of other women than my mother, naked women and naked families with bones sticking out of their chests. Starved people, bare and crying. He had bundles of these photos, bundles with papers and thick wire string and ribbon. He was an officer or general. I never knew.
He would come home with boxes sometimes. Boxes full of boxes. All tightly packed and tied up. He put these under our house and locked the basement door. My mother didn't care what he was up to. She spent his purse and what he gave her else wise. He would bring home all types of gadgets as well. Once he brought home three television sets and a Volumetric Ham radio. A big radio with antennas. He'd make us listen to the news and the President and would laugh. I laughed too. He told us that we weren't Americans. We were better. Our blood came from far across the ocean, Europe. We were not American white. He said American whites were dirty. They made nothing happen the right way. The only thing they did right was what Hitler learned from them. The start of the genocides at the end of the fourteens.
My childhood friend was Mickey, who had a sister who loved me. She would kiss me and hold my hand when we were alone. My friend and I had adventures all over the city. Through alleys and under bridges and over rails. We rode our bikes and walked everywhere. We stole toys and paper and milk from stores all around the center of town. We'd run fast and never get caught by anyone. He was fast too. Faster than me, and I was very fast. We would hide in the lobbies of adjacent buildings and in doorways. Mickey had a love for yellow shoes. His shoes were always yellow except for once when they were washed by his Dad and got all bluish. We burned those shoes in a trash can in the alley behind the Woolworth's on 5th street. We would steal him yellow shoes and me paper to write on and make orgami with. I made anything I saw. Animals and people. I was quick to learn how and did it fantastically.
I stole a brownie camera when we were 10. We made short subject story films with his sister and cats and romance films with myself and the girl; she insisted on our having a scene where we waved goodbye to one another as we were separated by an evil warlord. Mickey played the warlord. We made films of the people in the neighborhood and neighboring areas. The stores and fights and cars and houses we wished we lived in. We made documentaries of the alley cat who had kittens and ate one. We made a film when we stole fruit from a corner stand in the village. I had a filter when we went outside to make it orange and warm. Like summer all the time.