Random Acts of Senseless Violence

R
ANDOM
A
CTS
of
SENSELESS VIOLENCE

Also by Jack Womack

AMBIENT
TERRAPLANE
HEATHERN
ELVISSEY
LET'S PUT THE FUTURE BEHIND US
GOING, GOING, GONE

Jack Womack

Copyright © 1993 by Jack Womack

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

First published in Great Britain in 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Womack, Jack.

Random acts of senseless violence / Jack Womack.

p. cm.

eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-5558-4761-6

1. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.O575R36   1995   813′.54—dc20       95-38204

Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

FOR MY PARENTS
ANN TRUITT KARRENBROCK AND
JACK WOMACK, SR.

FEBRUARY
15

Mama says mine is a night mind. The first time she said that I asked her what she meant and she said ‘Darling you think best in the dark like me.' I think she's right. Here I am staying up late tonight so I can write in my new diary. Mama gave it to me for my birthday today. I love to write. Mama and Daddy write but I don't think they love to write anymore, they just write because they have to.

I got a new bedroom for my birthday too. It's not a surprise like my diary was. It's not a new room but the maid's old room. We had to let her go but I don't know where she went. Her name was Inez and she was nice but she never said much to me or my sister Boob because her English wasn't very good. Boob is my little sister and she has her own room now too. Her real name is Cheryl but we have names for each other that we've always used. Boob is her name and Booz is mine.

My real name is Lola Hart. Faye and Michael Hart are our parents. We live on 86th Street near Park Avenue in New York City.

Mama and Daddy helped me move everything into my new room this morning after my new furniture came. I have a new bed and new lamp and new desk and chair. I also got new sweaters and shoes and a dictionary for school.

I love my new diary the best of all my presents. I'd better go to sleep now but I'll be back tomorrow. More birthday treats then, Daddy says. I know he's telling the truth because his face gives him away when he lies. Good night.

* * *

FEBRUARY
l6

Today is Sunday and tomorrow is President's Day and I have a wonderful long weekend to do nothing. Daddy took us to brunch today at Rumpelmayer's as the extra birthday treat he promised. Rumpelmayer's is all pink inside like me and Boob. I used to like it more than I do now, it's not as good as it used to be. Boob likes it but she's still a kid. We had ice cream sundaes and naturally Boob got extra hot fudge. Daddy wanted to buy me a stuffie but I'm too old for those now, I think. I'm twelve. Mama says ‘That's not old at all sweetie not at all' but it is. I already have more stuffies than fit on my bed now anyway. Boob started crying because she wanted a stuffie but Daddy said she didn't have a birthday so why should she get one? Then he bought her one anyway a little brown rabbit. Mama called Daddy a sucker.

Boob is nine and spoiled rotten but I love her anyway. ‘Kiss it Booz' she said and then when I wouldn't she held her rabbit on her lap the whole time we were there. It has fudgy ears now. She wanted to wear her My L'il Fetus pack when we went to brunch but Mama wouldn't let her. Aunt Chrissie who lives in California sent it to her as a Hanukah present. My L'il Fetus is a doll baby that fits in a pack Boob ties around her stomach. When you press its button it kicks her like a real baby would. Mama and Daddy don't like it but Boob loves it. She'd even wear it to school if they let her but they won't.

I hate babies. They're messy and squirmy and smell bad. I never want to have one. The more I write the more I think about what I want to write. I'm tired though. I have a lot of time tomorrow and think I'll write a lot more.

FEBRUARY
19

I never wrote you on Monday because I wasted too much time thinking about what I should write. I think years from now a diary will be interesting when you can read it and see
what you were doing that you forgot about later. If I'd had a diary when I was five or six it would be something to read now. I think I'd be embarrassed but I'd want to read it anyway. I asked Mama if she ever kept a diary. She said ‘Yes darling but I stopped and I'm sorry I did.'

‘Why did you stop?' I asked.

She said ‘I was a foolish girl.'

‘Who said so?'

‘My mother darling my mother always told me I was a foolish girl. All mothers tell their daughters that.'

‘You never told me that' I said.

‘That's because you're not a foolish girl sweetie.'

‘I know' I said. ‘If I never stop writing in my diary then I'll always know what I did.'

‘Yes darling that's why your father gave you your diary. So you could remember how sweet life is even when it doesn't seem like it is anymore.' I wanted to talk to her longer but she was working on her résumés and had to get back to work so I left her alone. Daddy was downtown talking to a director. I was bored so I went in the bathroom where Boob was taking a bath. She was sitting in the tub trying to squeeze water out of her baby. ‘You're drowning it' I said.

‘I'm not' she said and splashed water on me. ‘Don't get wet Booz' she said. I brushed my teeth. Boob started washing her hair and stuck her butt in the air so she could get her hair wet and when she did I goosed her. She jumped and hit her head on the tub and started crying.

‘Don't be a baby Boob' I said. She yelled for Mama but finally stopped when Mama didn't come in. Boob's only really upset when she isn't crying, she's Niagara Falls most of the time but it doesn't mean anything and we know it doesn't. It only works if you don't know Boob. When she got out of the tub she smacked me with her towel but I ignored her and then she went away.

A typical day. Now I'm lying on my bed wondering if I want to remember everything I do. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't.

FEBRUARY
20

I'm sticking to my writing schedule much better now and here I am writing you again two days in a row. I've decided I'm going to give you a name so I don't think I'm talking to a wall like Daddy says he feels like when he talks to us sometimes. Your name is Anne, that's a good name for a diary and I'll never show you to anyone else. What I tell you is just between you and me.

Let me tell you more about myself Anne. As you know I'm twelve and Boob is nine. We were both born in New York at Lenox Hill hospital but our parents are from other places. Mama is from Los Angeles and Daddy is from Chicago. They've taken us to both places on vacation. I don't like Los Angeles or Chicago. They're horrible places and I'm glad they're burning down.

Mama was an English professor at New York University until they let her go last semester. She teaches 20th Century Literature when she teaches. Right now she's trying to get another job at another school but isn't having much luck. She also writes books and papers on what writers were really doing when they were trying to do something else, that's the way she explains it. Students aren't very good any more she says. ‘Darling they're so dumb you want to pinch them to see if they're asleep. But sweetie they're so sweet too and they do try and they have so many problems you have to let them get away with murder sometimes.'

Mama says even when they read something they really don't. She says it's because TV erases their minds. But she and Daddy watch TV all the time. Daddy writes for TV. When she was still teaching I asked her if Daddy distracts her students. ‘Oh darling he writes good things they'd never watch anything like that nobody does' she said. She misses going to work and I hope she gets to go to another college soon. Doesn't look good so far, that's what Mama says.

Daddy belongs to the Screenwriters Guild. He wanted to be a novelist but Mama says he's no Charles Dickens. He writes scripts for movies. They haven't produced any yet
but he gets paid for them anyway. He's had shows on TV. Last year he made a lot of money but not much this year. That's the way it's always gone before. Mama and Daddy aren't so good with money I don't think. Sometimes we have more than they know what to do with and then the next month we'll be broke. It doesn't matter. Somebody always owes Daddy money but never as much as he owes somebody else. Whenever Mama and Daddy talk they always start talking about money if they talk long enough. They've been talking a lot lately.

Boob tried to put her silly My L'il Fetus on me tonight to see what I'd look like pregnant. I threw it on the floor so she said she was going to turn me in for child abuse. Boob can be so immature. She was fun to play with when I was younger but I don't want to play dolls with her now. It makes her mad but I can't help it. I love her but she's so crazy. When we had the same room she sometimes would crawl in bed with me before I went to sleep to tell me all the nice things Daddy said to her.

‘Daddy said I was the best girl he knew' she said. ‘That's what he told me Booz. The best girl he knew.' ‘Go away Boob' I say. ‘He's going to take me to the circus when it comes to town.' ‘Good now go away Boob.' ‘You want to go to the circus Booz?' ‘I want to go to sleep.' Usually I have to push her out before she'll leave. Once she fell on her arm and we thought she broke her wrist. She was crying too much so I figured she hadn't and she didn't.

Sometimes even if Boob doesn't bug me I can't get to sleep Anne. Seems to me though I can if I write you before I try to sleep. That's not the best reason to write you but it's a good one. I want to go to sleep now, I think. I don't know what I want sometimes.

FEBRUARY
21

Today at school our gym teacher Miss Norris showed us a video about sex diseases. What can happen to you if you do.
It was a heaver and my best friend Lori and some of the other girls got sick but I think they just pretended so they could go to the bathroom and smoke. It was really boring in school today. If it was spring we could go on the roof and play games. Last month it got up to eighty for a week and Miss Norris put up the volleyball net and we had a great time until it got cold again.

Boob and I love school. We go to Brearley which is a girls only school. Some of my classmates say they miss having boys around but I don't see how. Boys are really stupid and I don't know why anybody would want to be around them they're as bad as babies. Mama asked me last year if I minded going to a girls school and I said not at all, I wasn't interested in boys. Mama said ‘Boys are awful scamps and worse my darling but you'll be thinking about them soon enough.'

‘Why should I?' I asked her. She gave me a big hug and kiss.

‘Angel that just happens and by the time you realize your error they have you hooked my darling because boys are very cunning that way.'

‘Daddy was that way?' I asked her. She shook her head. ‘Why didn't you know?'

Mama said ‘They get more cunning as they get older my darling.'

I'm sure that's true but I can always outsmart them. I'd much rather write to you Anne than worry about what some stupid boys are doing. It doesn't make any sense to me. I know you understand.