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- I’d visited him three times – on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and when Ma died. They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window. The coppers smashed my father’s printer when I was eight.
“You’d risk another ten years to print out more blenders and pharma, more laptops and designer hats? … Wow”. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month before I’d need to print new bearings and other moving parts.
They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window. My tweetybird escaped death by hiding in a corner of his cage as a big, booted foot crushed most of it into a sad tangle of printer-wire.
“Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
“That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. I’d visited him three times – on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and when Ma died.
“That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. They took the printer away, of course, and displayed it like a trophy for the newsies. One of Da’s customers had shopped him.
“Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone”. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. They brought him out the door and let the newsies get a good look at him as they tossed him in the car, while a spokesman told the world that my Da’s organized-crime bootlegging operation had been responsible for at least twenty million in contraband, and that my Da, the desperate villain, had resisted arrest.
- A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. “Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone”. He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation. I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
“Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”. “You’ve been in prison for ten years, Da. Ten. Years”. One of Da’s customers had shopped him.
“Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down. “What, Da?” I said, leaning in close. They brought him out the door and let the newsies get a good look at him as they tossed him in the car, while a spokesman told the world that my Da’s organized-crime bootlegging operation had been responsible for at least twenty million in contraband, and that my Da, the desperate villain, had resisted arrest. They destroyed grandma’s trunk, the one she’d brought from the old country.
“I’m not going to print none of that rubbish, never again”. “Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear”. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic.
“Come here and listen to your stupid Da”. I closed my eyes.
He grinned. The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms.
- Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty. He grinned.
I closed my eyes. “Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear”. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in bad shape.
They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window. “Come here and listen to your stupid Da”.
“Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear”. “I’ve learned my lesson”. “Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”. He was off his rocker, that much was clear.
“That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. I saw it all from my phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching it on the screen and wondering how, just how anyone could look at our little flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home of an organized crime kingpin.
The ipolice paid in high-grade pharmaceuticals – performance enhancers, memory supplements, metabolic boosters. I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. When I roused myself and picked up the flat and rescued my peeping poor tweetybird, I put a blender there.
What they did to him. It was made out of printed parts, so it would only last a month before I’d need to print new bearings and other moving parts. Back then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be printed.
- “That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window.
God knew what he went through in prison. “There’s no hat or laptop that’s worth going to jail for”. “Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone”.
They took the printer away, of course, and displayed it like a trophy for the newsies. I saw it all from my phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching it on the screen and wondering how, just how anyone could look at our little flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home of an organized crime kingpin. I was embarrassed when the minicab dropped us off in front of the estate, and tried to keep my distance from this ruined, limping skeleton as we went inside and up the stairs.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. What they did to him.
“Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear”. The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. The kind of thing that cost a fortune over the counter; the kind of thing you could print at home, if you didn’t mind the risk of having your kitchen filled with a sudden crush of big, beefy bodies, hard truncheons whistling through the air, smashing anyone and anything that got in the way. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty.
“I’ve learned my lesson”. Da. “Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down.
“I’ve learned my lesson”. He grinned. “Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down.
- The kind of thing that cost a fortune over the counter; the kind of thing you could print at home, if you didn’t mind the risk of having your kitchen filled with a sudden crush of big, beefy bodies, hard truncheons whistling through the air, smashing anyone and anything that got in the way. “You’ve been in prison for ten years, Da. Ten. Years”. “Come here and listen to your stupid Da”.
A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic. I remember the hot, cling-film-in-a-microwave smell of it, and Da’s look of ferocious concentration as he filled it with fresh goop, and the warm, fresh-baked feel of the objects that came out of it.
“Come here, Lanie, let me whisper in your ear”. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in bad shape. “Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”.
He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation. When he was done, he looked like he’d been brawling with an entire rugby side. I saw it all from my phone, in the remains of the sitting room, watching it on the screen and wondering how, just how anyone could look at our little flat and our terrible, manky estate and mistake it for the home of an organized crime kingpin.
He grinned.