Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

“Don’t you know it’s illegal to peddle pussy in this town?”

On our last night at the beach, at around three a.m., we started throwing sopping-wet washcloths at each other. The sound of one smacking against someone’s face, or their back, was the funniest thing ever.

I’ve had it with Briggs Hardware. Again today when they asked what I was looking for, I was at a loss to tell them. “Something wooden,” I’ve said in the past. “Something shiny.” I don’t want a tool to do something with; I’m just looking for something to draw. In the toy department, I asked to look at one of their jack-in-the-boxes. The saleswoman got snippy when I didn’t want to buy it, and when I reached for my knapsack and said I could explain, she said, “I don’t want to see none of your old mess.” I turned to leave and saw all the employees standing at the front counter talking about me. They think they’re hot stuff because the store was pictured in National Geographic.

“Faggot.” It seems to be written all over my face lately.

Tomorrow I return to work at Mrs. Winters’s house. Last spring her porch was painted, and I’m to scrape up the drips. She’ll likely stand over me while I do it, monitor me the way she did when I removed her storm windows. She’ll play radio station WPJL (We Proclaim Jesus Lord) and pick, pick, pick. She and her husband cleaned Trailways buses for forty years, and because they’re black, I imagine they’ve heard every insult in the book.

Neil is being punished for jumping onto the counter and eating my raw scrambled eggs. I’ll probably untie her tomorrow.

1982

I wondered why the rent and bill situation always has to be so desperate. Then I realized I made it desperate. I am desperate. I saw an ad in the paper for a waiter at the Capital Club. I didn’t apply because if they hired me, I’d have to miss All Things Considered every night. Plus I don’t have the outfit to apply in, or the look.

Today I broke a rake, a shovel, and a hammer—every tool that was placed in my hands. I saw a lot of centipedes under the house. After I crawled through a pile of cat shit, I decided to call it a day and go home.

Neil has left some fluid on the bed. It isn’t urine. It doesn’t smell bad. It’s just fluid.

my birthday blanket.

They couldn’t verify it, so I went through my trash and found my receipt inside a can of lima beans. It was covered with rust-colored juice.

The woman at the phone company addressed me as “Mrs. Sedaris” until I couldn’t stand it anymore and corrected her. That always happens. They think I’m a woman—a woman named David.

Body Heat.

“Do you remember how to say the word snowman in Greek?” she asked. “I’ve forgotten since our last lesson and it’s driving me crazy.”

After work I met James at the Laundromat. He’s black and a bit older than me, and these are a few of the things he said: “I bet you’re sixteen years old.” “I just like to be nice and meet new people.” “I love all kinds of music.” “I unwind in South Carolina.” “Why doesn’t your wife do the laundry?” “Aren’t you a family man?” “Don’t you be lonely living here alone?” “I’ve never met anyone like you.” I gave him my phone number because he wants to cook me dinner.

James called last night at one. He was looking for an Amoco station and asked if I wanted to come along for the ride. I was awake, so I said OK. He pulled up a while later in a blue car that had four doors and was new and clean. We drove for almost an hour to all the stations he knew were closed. Then, four blocks from my apartment, we went to one that was lit up. It was two a.m., and when we opened the door to the inside where you pay, a camera flash went off. They do that because of theft. Afterward James talked about prison life. He’s never been but was stopped once for speeding by a state trooper and said it was the most terrifying experience of his life.

When James’s other brother was killed in Vietnam, the government sent someone to inform the family. That was in 1967. His mother worked in a school cafeteria. I asked a million questions, and he was good about answering them. “Can I trust you?” he asked in the front seat of his car. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” I told him. He asked if we could be friends, and I said you shouldn’t ask things like that. It sounds too third-grade. If you’re meant to be friends with someone, you’ll be friends. There’s no need to talk about it. James asked a lot of questions a person shouldn’t ask.

Back at the apartment, during sex, I thought about a lot of different things; my new trash can, for instance, with the pedal. I was a thousand miles away and wishing I’d never answered the phone.

On the phone last night Gretchen told me that I’m rotting away in a crummy house next to the IHOP. I got angry because it’s true and changed the subject to next year’s Christmas.

This morning I stepped on a nail. Afterward I had to literally pry it out of my foot. I mean, it was in all the way up to the board. Now my foot is swollen, and it hurts to walk across the room.

On the bright side, it’s taken my mind off my inflamed penis. Maybe tomorrow I can cut off a few fingers to take attention away from my foot.

Crutches are a real drag, but I like having people open doors for me.

My burning penis is not syphilis or gonorrhea but just some kind of bladder infection. That’s the good news. The bad is that they’ve finally cut off my gas.

My grandfather Leonard was like that, like me. He would avoid bills and loan what money he had to friends. Mom grew up having her father wander home drunk and broke. I’m not drunk or generous, just broke.

It annoys me when someone assumes he’s stronger than me and calls for a third set of hands to help. I am not a physically weak person, just uncoordinated.

Once he had a rod stuck up his penis to search for scar tissue.

a pie safe

“gnawing on some pussy.” That sounds pretty severe, to gnaw on it. Tommy’s sister is a lesbian. She’s straightforward about it, and when she brings her girlfriends home to meet the family, Tommy’s father kisses them on the mouth, hoping, his son says, “to get the sweet taste of pussy on his lips.”

Driving home from Greek class, we passed a weaving drunk on the street. “That man lives in my apartment complex and once asked me to go with him to Charades Lounge for a drink,” Lisa told me. She lit a cigarette. “I would have gone if I’d known for certain that he was going to pay.”

“Now, I’m a lady and I like lady colors,” she said. “I like me some pink and yellow.” Mrs. Ewing begins stories with the line “You won’t believe this, but one time…”

“I’m gone.”

Charlie Gaddy was at the IHOP, causing heads to turn. He is the anchorman on Eyewitness News and a local celebrity. At the restaurant, one woman after another stepped over to say hello. One asked which syrup he preferred, and he said, “In my opinion, the blueberry is best.”

I want to find a good birthday gift for Mom and am willing to spend $20. She’s been a very good mother this year, so I’m looking for a German-made windup mouse.

I worked today with a black man named Charles T. who backed into a Southern Bell van as we were leaving Capital City Truck Rental in our huge flatbed.

Charles T. can’t make out a word white people say. After he asked “What?” fifteen times, I started talking like him and he understood.

Charles T. plays cards in a one-story brick house behind the landfill. Last week he lost $400. We passed the Wakefield Apartments, and he pointed to a unit and told me that a few days ago, two brothers lost $9,000 gambling there. “The key to life is knowing when to stop,” he said. T...

Last night Dad came to visit. He walked in without knocking and went straight to my bed and lay down on it.

“Well, aren’t we domestic.”

When I was in high school, Dad would sometimes come into my room and lie on my bed. Sometimes he’d talk, but most often he was silent.

Last night I went crazy for marijuana. I was Jack Lemmon tearing up the greenhouse in Days of Wine and Roses. I looked for (and found) pot in the folds of album covers I had used to deseed long-ago ounces and quarters. I found some under the sofa cushions. Then I pulled out the couch and looked under the radiator. I turned the place inside out and got a little stoned but not much.

February 16, 1982

He uses the word nigger loudly and freely in that neighborhood, and it annoys me because we are guests there. What if Mrs. Ewing heard him? She’d be so hurt.

After she left for work, I went looking for the door to her hot-water heater and found a magazine called Players’ Exchange. It’s for black swingers and is arranged by state. There were only two North Carolina swingers listed. One was a submissive lesbian who wrote that she was potty-trained and ready to travel. I’m assuming the magazine belongs to Mrs. Ewing’s son, the one who was in Vietnam and lives with her.

I went to the movies last night with Sally and Lyn’s friend Mitch, who is gay and cute and wore a pink sweater. He lives in Atlanta. On his little finger was a ring with jewels in it. As the movie started, he emptied half his popcorn bucket into my lap, saying, “Here, David, have some.” It wasn’t an accident, but I wasn’t sure how hard to laugh. I don’t know how to react to Mitch.

the Kerwins

Dad called last night to ask if I wanted to go to Greece with him, Lisa, and Paul. He’s paying for the plane tickets and hotels, so of course I said yes—how could I not? They’re all going for two weeks, but I think I’ll stay longer. I figure I’ll need at least $600. I’ll also need to make accommodations for Neil, who’s mine now, completely.

Yesterday was Dougie’s birthday, and he wore a cap with a Confederate flag on it to work.

To celebrate his birthday, Dougie went with Bobby and Tommy to a club called the Switch. They must have gotten really loaded, as the only one who came in today was Bobby, and he didn’t show up until noon. There was a lump on his head, and he said that he got it when two bouncers took his watch and threw him out. He didn’t seem angry about it, just resigned.

This morning a female sheriff walked through my front door without knocking. I went into the kitchen, and after I identified myself, she apologized. She was looking for apartment number 6. I was glad to point it out to her. I hope she takes those two and locks them up.