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- “There’s no hat or laptop that’s worth going to jail for”. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in bad shape. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty.
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. I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. “I’m not stupid, Lanie”.
The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty.
“What, Da?” I said, leaning in close. They destroyed grandma’s trunk, the one she’d brought from the old country.
“What, Da?” I said, leaning in close. What they did to him. 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. “You’d risk another ten years to print out more blenders and pharma, more laptops and designer hats? … Wow”. He was off his rocker, that much was clear.
I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. One of Da’s customers had shopped him. “There’s no hat or laptop that’s worth going to jail for”. He grinned. “I’ve learned my lesson”.
It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in bad shape. 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 closed my eyes.
- By the time I turned eighteen, they were ready to let Da out of prison. When I roused myself and picked up the flat and rescued my peeping poor tweetybird, I put a blender there. 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.
The ipolice paid in high-grade pharmaceuticals – performance enhancers, memory supplements, metabolic boosters. God knew what he went through in prison. “That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”.
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. “There’s no hat or laptop that’s worth going to jail for”.
Da. He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation. Back then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be printed.
The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. “You wouldn’t know where your old Da could get a printer and some goop? You’re a smart girl, I know that. Trig”. Back then, I could take apart and reassemble anything that could be printed. “I’m not stupid, Lanie”.
- “That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. “Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”. “Lanie, I’m going to print more printers. Lots more printers. One for everyone”.
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. 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. I felt a guilty pang about ticking him off. 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 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. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and he was in bad shape. “What, Da?” I said, leaning in close. Its little shrine in the kitchenette seemed horribly empty.
“That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”. “I’ve learned my lesson”. 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.
- They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window.
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.
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. I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. 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.
They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window. I’d visited him three times – on my tenth birthday, on his fiftieth, and when Ma died. A prison fight had left him with a limp, and he looked over his shoulder so often it was like he had a tic.
The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. “Let me tell you the thing that I decided while I spent ten years in lockup”. One of Da’s customers had shopped him.
“You wouldn’t know where your old Da could get a printer and some goop? You’re a smart girl, I know that. Trig”. 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. 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. “That’s worth going to jail for. That’s worth anything”.
“Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down. “I’ve learned my lesson”. They destroyed grandma’s trunk, the one she’d brought from the old country. “You’d risk another ten years to print out more blenders and pharma, more laptops and designer hats? … Wow”.
- 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. 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.
God knew what he went through in prison.
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. I squeezed my hands into fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palms. They smashed our little refrigerator and the purifier unit over the window.
He was off his rocker, that much was clear. They destroyed grandma’s trunk, the one she’d brought from the old country.
He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation. He had a cup of tea, and he drank it now like it was whisky, a sip and then a long, satisfied exhalation.
By the time I turned eighteen, they were ready to let Da out of prison. “Lanie,” he said, as he sat me down. 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.