Important Things That Don't Matter: A Novel - Softcover

Amsden, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060513896 ISBN 13: 9780060513894

Publisher: William Morrow & Company, 2004

Synopsis

So Dad's around lately. That's it. And I want to tell you things, throw fragments your way that I barely understand. Because it's just funny, flat out, the way someone you don't even know can get up in your face, tweak things that should be so ordinary. Or I think it's funny. Maybe you will too.

Hailed by The New Yorker as "a fictional report from the strip-mall front lines of Generation Y," Important Things That Don't Matter is a provocative, moving, darkly funny portrait of family and divorce, a boy and his father, the eighties and nineties, and sex and intimacy that raises vital questions about a generation just now reaching adulthood.

About this title

About the Author

While a student in New York, David Amsden worked at the New Yorker and New York magazine, where he is now a contributing writer. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he is at work on another novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Important Things That Don't Matter

A NovelBy David Amsden

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2007 David Amsden
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780060513894

Chapter One

Up Late with Dad and Shirley

Dad will be waiting at the gate.

That was the plan. It was late, well past midnight, likethe latest I'd ever known the world with eyes open. Me andMom were exhausted from the flight, me letting loose thesedizzying yawns every twenty seconds as the plane taxiedin, the whites of Mom's eyes all stained with bloodshottributaries. The tendons in my hand still stung from Mom'ssqueezing it the second the landing gear opened up -- shedidn't let go until it was clear we were down, clear no one around her was burning to death. Mom hated takeoffs andlandings, was convinced we all got only so many. You'd seethis in her eyes at times, and not just when planes wereinvolved -- this fear-stained look, like something tragic was coming right at her, right there nipping at her earlobes.

I leaned my head on the little oval window, checked outthe flat landscape: runways and windsocks, these sparks inthe dark, going from two- to three-dimensional, thanks tothe pinpoint flashing lights of white, green, blue, red. Ilooked at the lights until my eyes watered up, the colorsblending inside them, forming these wild shapes. Then I'dhave to blink and start over. Out in the distance you couldsee Dulles, all whitewashed and glowing, its roof like afrozen wave begging to crash.

The plane stopped now, completely, fasten-seatbeltsigns binged off, the overhead fluorescents flooded thecabin, making everyone's face tough to stomach: all green-yellow, pasty. Their eyes were gray. People getting their bags out from the overheads now, the silence was broken up by the cracking of knees, fingers, shoulders, toes, elbows, necks.

"Sit tight, honey," Mom was saying, getting our thingsin order, putting my Crayolas back in their box --

"Do you want to hang on to the red?"

"Yes." I had a thing for carrying the red one in mypocket.

-- and now my He-Man coloring book, now my die-castCorvette Stingray and the G.I. Joe sniper expert who wasinto using the car as a skateboard. All shoved into herpurse, next to her how-to-make-your-business-work book,or her how-not-to-stress-out-while-making-your-business-workbook, or whatever she was reading, which alwayshad something to do with self-improvement.

I kept busy by smashing my forehead against the plasticwindow, feeling my nose turn to Play-Doh. I pretty muchthought about half the universe in terms of Play-Doh then.In school we'd started playing with it, making Play-Doh alphabets, each of us assigned one letter. Twenty-five of us in the class, my name starting with an A, I got to do A and Z. This made all the kids wish I was dead, but really, I could've cared less about the letters -- I just liked eating the stuff, how it got all salty. You know, like ocean-flavored bubble gum.

"Stop that," Mom was saying.

I was now pressing my open mouth against the window,inflating my cheeks. Drawing smiley faces on the plasticwith my tongue.

"I want to be home."

"Well, licking that filthy window's not gonna bringhome here any quicker," Mom pointed out.

- - -

Now Mom was saying come on, let's go, said we're readyand took my hand, led me out into the aisle in front of her. Mom kept her hand on my head as we skittered down theaisle, having to stop every second for old people, who allhad to look at me with the same glazed empty smile. Thestewardesses looked as sleepy as Mom standing in thedoorway, their makeup starting to flake off, smeared likesomeone sent them through a carwash by mistake, wavinggood-bye, sleep well, bye, bye now, good-bye. To me onewent --

"Sleep tight."

-- and the other, squatting down, went --

"Don't let the bedbugs bite, you cutie."

-- which always freaked me out, that little rhyme. Imean, do you know anyone who has any idea what bed-bugsare? And, say you're asleep, how can you make surethey don't bite you? It's funny how when you get older,you realize half of what adults tell you as a kid is meant to turn you into a crazed insomniac by the time you hittwenty. I'm twenty now, so trust me. I know what I'm talking about.

- - -

The tunnel leading to the gate was even brighter than in the plane, and cold. We'd been in Florida, so this was my first time feeling cold in about a week. At five years old this is a substantial chunk of time. We'd been visiting a friend of Mom's, some lady she knew in high school who was stuck in Florida because her dad was about to die. You know, because old people are always going down to Florida to die. It was all sad, I know, but I didn't really understand. Every time we went to the hospital to visit the dad I'd be stuck in some room with a thousand other kids my age, some day-care center run, as they all are, by a psychotic old lady. Not that I cared -- there were enough crayons and construction paper in there that after fifteen minutes I'd have no idea where I was.

"Oh it's cold," I was saying.

"I thought you told winter to go away before we gotback," Mom said, taking me by the hand.

"I did."

"Are you sure?"

"I did, I swear."

"Then why's it still cold?"

"I don't know. When are we going to be home?"

"I know, sweetie," she said, all patting my head. "Realsoon. I'm tired too."

Continues...

Excerpted from Important Things That Don't Matterby David Amsden Copyright © 2007 by David Amsden. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060513896
• ISBN 13: 9780060513894
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272