Jasper Jones

by Craig Silvey

He said that Twain was as wise a counsel as any, and that if every man read at least one of his books at some time in his life, it would be a far better world for it.

‘It’s a big thing for me to trust you, Charlie. It’s dangerous. And I’m askin you to do the same. I can’t force you to do nuthin. But I hoped you might see things from my end. That’s what you do, right? When you’re readin. You’re seeing what it’s like for other people.’

‘I mean, I know people have always bin afraid of me. Kids specially, but old people too. Wary. They reckon I’m just half an animal with half a vote. That I’m no good. And I always used to think, why? They don’t even know me. Nobody does. It never made sense. But then I realised, that’s exactly why. That’s all it is. It’s so stupid, Charlie. But it means I don’t hate them anymore.’

This shit is poison. And I realise I’ve been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I’d adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. I can’t trust anything. If sex turns out to be this bad, I’m never reading again. At this rate it will probably burn my dick and I’ll end up with lesions.

See, most people you meet, they’ll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they’re lying even before they’ve started speaking. And it seems the older they get, the more brazen and desperate folks become, and they lie about things that don’t even matter.

‘So that isn’t courage. He’s a man of steel, you retard. He’s invincible. He doesn’t need to be brave. If a bullet can’t possibly hurt you, how is it brave to stand in front of one?’

All this has done, really, is firmed my resolve to get smarter. And not without a measure of spite. It’s made me thirsty for new words. Every time I encounter one for the first time, I look it up and bank it. Every new word is like getting a punch back. No matter how obscure or archaic, I eat them up and let them settle. And I vow not to forget them. I collect words and lock them away; stored like a hoard of gems.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. My head tilts. Exactly. That’s what I’d wanted to say to Jeffrey about Superman. I wish he were here; I’d wave that quote like a red flag.