by Mihran Kulhanjian
I was born fatherless. I didn’t know what that ment before. I know now; I’m twelve. My name is Marcus Mitchum. My Mother is not ashamed of me like my grandmother for being without a father. I heard her say she was very proud of me in front of my grandmother one night when they were arguing in the kitchen when I was in the living room watching T.V. It’s funny, in a way, how you hear things you probably shouldn’t, especially when it is about you. The talkers always think you are farther away than you are. During this argument (I don’t know what it was all about, really), I heard my mother tell my grandmother (her mother) that I am a child of God and I was meant to be. My grandmother doesn’t think so. I haven’t seen her in a longtime since then. My mother and I live by ourselves. It’s only the two of us. My mother loves me. She tells me this every day before I go to school and before I fall asleep at night. I love her, too. I’m pretty lucky, I guess.
During the summer I played my first year of baseball. I knew a boy who told me he was a self-made bastard. He had no parents at all—lived in a foster home with five other kids. I didn’t know it worked like that, but I took his word for it. I told him I wasn't self-made. I told him my Father was God. He thought about that for a while and asked if he could have God as his Father. I said sure. Believe He is your Father and believe that Jesus is His Son and that He died for us so we could go to heaven live with Him.
In baseball I sat on the bench most of the time. When I’m got sitting on the bench, I play right field. I’m not very good. Four of the coaches are the fathers of four of the boys on the team. They are the starters. They’re good players. They’ve played for a longtime—five or six years. One good thing about sitting on the bench is that you get to observe the people around you. And you get to know the people by the way they act, behave. Even during practice, I stand around a lot and watch my team members trying to play and the coaches trying to instruct. Sometimes, I don’t think these coaches know what they are talking about. I learned more about baseball and about hitting by reading a book by Ted Williams than listening to these coaches. I got the book at the George Nye Library, that’s in Lakewood, California—where I live. It’s not too far. I ride my bike there a few times a week. I also ride my bike to the Icabonie Library. Sometimes the coaches would yell at there own kids and I felt bad for the kid when the yelling started, they were my friends, my teammates, and the yelling never helped. It just made everyone feel bad. And it made the coaches look foolish. I was lucky; I didn’t have a dad to yell at me. No one ever yelled at me, ever. I’m glade for that—I’d probably just walk away anyhow. What was really dumb looking is when the coaches started yelling and arguing with each other. That was embarrassing to watch.
I’ve started the 6th grade this week and so far, so good. There is a girl in my class who sits beside me, on my right. She has long dark hair that shines like the feathers from a crow. She is a quiet girl, smart too. Her skin is light—creamy like. She has dark, almost black eyes. I’ve only looked at her twice in the face. She is hard to look at. I see her sometimes in the cafeteria, but most times she brings her own lunch. I think about her sometimes when I am alone. When I lay in bed I sometimes think about her and what she is doing. I don’t think she has any friends. I always see her by herself. She doesn’t hang out with the other girls. She is not loud or forceful or rude in anyway. I think maybe that’s why I think about her. I thought about writing her a letter.
I’ve gotten into the habit of writing letters to people I don’t know; what I mean is, I don’t know them personally. They are usually famous people. I have a collection of them in a journal book I put together. I take them out randomly from my journal and reread them and sometimes even change them. I started sending them out, but a lot of them came back. I think some of the people are dead. That’s why I began writing them in my journal—I didn’t want to bother with sending them out anymore. I have one here if you’d like to read it? It was to a writer called William Saroyan.
Anyway, I sent him this letter because I liked his book very much. It took me four days to read it. And I finished it the Sunday following Thanksgiving. It was nice then; the air started getting cool and I felt strong and Christmas was only a few weeks away. It was the best time of year.
I really shouldn’t share this letter with you, because it is private, but I’m sure he, Mr. Saroyan, wouldn’t mind; I think he died a while ago.
Dear Mr. Saroyan,
My name is Marcus Mitchum. I was digging through some boxes in my grandmothers’ garage and found a box labeled “books.” Well, while rummaged through it and there were a lot of cookbooks and sewing books and crocheting books, and then at the bottom of the box I found your book, “The Human Comedy.” The title sounded interesting. I thought it might be funny—maybe a funny story. It’s a hardcover book and it’s in O.K. condition. When I thumbed through it, it looks in pretty good shape. There is some pencil scribbling in it and it had that dusty smell that books get when they sit around a long time. It didn’t bother me that much; but sometimes it made me sneeze and I had to wipe my nose a few times when reading. I took some cologne I got from last Christmas from my uncle Lou and sprayed it. That cologne started to irritate my nose. Anyhow, I got through your book O.K. Well, some parts were funny, but it’s really kind of a sad story, first about the Mexican lady, and because I sort of figured out the ending, but I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want it to end that way, but I had a feeling it was—I hoped that it wouldn’t. Here’s what I think about your book:
The older brother, Marcus, is in the Army and he gets killed. You don’t say it, but if you’re reading it, you know what happened. I was sad to read what was happening, because my name is Marcus, too. And it was like I died. Every time the name Marcus was mentioned in the book, I kind of took on that person—I became him. I know that sort of thing sounds weird, but Marcus is not that common of a name and after awhile I felt that Homer and his little brother, Ulysses, were my brothers—Bess, my sister, and I felt I knew Mr. Spangler and Mr. Grodin. And I liked Lionel, too. And the track coach, I hated him. He made me really mad and I wanted to cross out and scratch out his name in the book. He didn’t belong in the book with all the nice characters. He really made me angry and I am always surprised when I see, or hear or read about grown up people being mean, like the track coach. But I didn’t do that. I just left it. I even started thinking the hurt soldier, Tobey George, was my friend too. It was like I knew these people in real life. And even Mrs. Macauley, I got to feeling she was my Mother at one point. I know this probably sounds strange. But you see, I don’t have much of a family, kind of like Tobey George. I’m no orphan like he was, but, I guess it would be nice having brothers and sisters, you know, people to talk to and do things with.
After I finished the book, I went to the George Nye Library on Saturday and wanted to find out about more books you’ve written. I found this big book called The William Saroyan Reader. It was filled with lots of short stories. I like short stories. I started reading a story each night from it. Some nights I’d fall asleep, but when I woke up in the morning, I’d pick up where I left off. They’re not bad, the stories. I have a few favorites. Can you guess which ones they are? Well, I don’t expect you to answer that question. But I’ll tell you the ones that I like best. “Dear Greta Garbo” (that Felix guy was some kind of an idiot), “War,” “Corduroy Pants” and in “My Name Is Aram,” I liked, “The Pomegranate Trees” and “The Poor and Burning Arab.”
I liked the story about all the different kids with the different nationalities and how they are different in many ways. You called the story “War”—it’s an O.K. title I guess. Kind of short though. After I read the story, I started looking at kids differently. And it is true, I think, that maybe kids whose parents were born in different countries are different; they act different and maybe they sometimes don’t like other kids different from them, like countries don’t like other countries, they’re always at war, and their customs and the way they behave are different. I know why the Jewish boy cried, because he couldn’t stand the fighting even when he wasn’t involved. He didn’t understand why people fought and it hurt him inside so much he had to cry—and it was ugly like you said.
In “Corduroy Pants,” I have a pair of corduroy pants with cargo pockets and I have to say they are my favorite pair of pants; they are a tan color—my mom got them from the L.L. Bean catalogue. They are a good, comfortable pair of pants and I wear them every chance I get. I even wear them several days in a row during the summer or during Christmas vacation. I sleep in them too—when it’s cold.
The reason I liked “The Pomegranate Tree” was because I like to plant things too; and a lot of what I plant doesn’t seem to live very long. I felt bad for Aram’s Uncle, because I knew how he felt. You see, when you spend a lot of time planning something out and it doesn’t work out like you thought it would, or maybe the way you hoped it would, you get kind of depressed. Sometimes I feel sad when I think about the little trees and flowers and tomato plants I planted and all of them dead. I planted them for my mother as a surprise. And in a few weeks they were all dead—and that was a surprise, too. My backyard is a graveyard for plants now. But I have a healthy patch of weeds and tall grass growing up the back fence, and weed flowers that don’t die. I think I’ll try it again. I think I need only to know a little more about planting, and watering, and fertilizer and plant food. Next time I go to the George Nye Library, I’ll ask the librarian about gardening and planting books. There are thousands of farmers around the world who must know something about keeping plants alive.
“The Poor and Burning Arab” was a weird story. The funny thing is, your uncle in the story, Khosrove reminded me of my uncle, although, my uncle isn’t Armenian, he plays board games and poker and he acts just like Khosrove—when he is winning he criticized the loser for complaining, but when he is losing, he is the worth loser ever, just like Khosrove. He throws tantrums like Khosrove and whines worse than anyone when he’s losing. I thought that was a funny thing—almost like you were talking about my uncle Lou. And I can understand the no talking conversations Khosrove and the Arab have. I sit sometimes without talking at all. I can sit a longtime with other people and not talk. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. We know what we are thinking about. And people who have things in common with one another don’t have to talk to know what the other is saying. I think this one is one of my top two favorite stories. It makes me think about not talking.
Well, that’s about it. I’m glad I had this chance to tell you how I felt about your stories. I look forward to reading more of them.
Your friend,
Marcus Mitchum
