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Dad always used to tuck me in, and he'd
tell the greatest stories,
and we'd read the New York Times
together, and sometimes he'd whistle "I
Am the Walrus," because that was his
favorite song, even though he couldn't
explain what it meant, which frustrated
me. One thing that was so great was
how he could find a mistake in every
single article we looked at. Sometimes
they were grammar mistakes, sometimes
they were mistakes with
geography or facts, and sometimes the
article just didn't tell the whole story.
I loved having a dad who was smarter
than the New York Times, and I loved
how my cheek could feel the hairs on his
chest through his T-shirt, and how
he always smelled like shaving, even at
the end of the day. Being with him
made my brain quiet. I didn't have to
invent a thing.
When Dad was tucking me in that night,
the night before the worst
day, I asked if the world was a flat
plate supported on the back of a giant
tortoise. "Excuse me?" "It's just that why does the earth stay in place instead
of falling through the universe?" "Is
this Oskar I'm tucking in? Has an alien
stolen his brain for experimentation?" I
said, "We don't believe in aliens." He
said, "The earth does fall through the
universe. You know that, buddy. It's
constantly falling toward the sun.
That's what it means to orbit." So I
said, "Obviously, but why is there
gravity?" He said, "What do you mean why is there gravity?" "What's the reason?"
"Who said there had to be a reason?" "No one did, exactly." "My question was
rhetorical." "What's that mean?" "It means I wasn't asking it for an answer, but
to make a point." "What point?" "That there doesn't have to be a reason." "But
if there isn't a reason, then why does the universe exist at all?" "Because of
sympathetic conditions." "So then why am I your son?" "Because Mom and I made
love, and one of my sperm fertilized one of her eggs." "Excuse me while I
regurgitate." "Don't act your age." "Well, what I don't get is why do we
exist? I don't mean how, but why." I
watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit
his head. He said, "We exist because we exist." "What the?" "We could
imagine all sorts of universes unlike
this one, but this is the one that
happened."
I understood what he meant, and I
didn't disagree with him, but I
didn't agree with him either. Just
because you're an atheist, that doesn't
mean you wouldn't love for things to
have reasons for why they are.
I turned on my shortwave radio, and
with Dad's help I was able to
pick up someone speaking Greek, which
was nice. We couldn't understand
what he was saying, but we lay there,
looking at the glow-in-the-dark
constellations on my ceiling, and
listened for a while. "Your grandfather
spoke Greek," he said. "You mean he
speaks Greek," I said. "That's right. He just doesn't speak it here." "Maybe
that's him we're listening to." The front
page was spread over us like a blanket.
There was a picture of a tennis
player on his back, who I guess was the
winner, but I couldn't really tell if he
was happy or sad.
"Dad?" "Yeah?" "Could you tell me a story?" "Sure." "A good
one?" "As opposed to all the boring ones I tell." "Right." I tucked my body
incredibly close into his, so my nose
pushed into his armpit. "And you won't interrupt me?" "I'll try not to."
"Because it makes it hard to tell a story." "And it's annoying." "And it's annoying."
The moment before he started was my
favorite moment.
"Once upon a time, New York City had a sixth borough." "What's
a borough?" "That's what I call an interruption." "I know, but the story won't
make any sense to me if I don't know what a borough is." "It's like a
neighborhood. Or a collection of neighborhoods." "So if there was once a sixth
borough, then what are the five boroughs?" "Manhattan, obviously, Brooklyn,
Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx." "Have I ever been to any of the other
boroughs?" "Here we go." "I just want to know." "We went to the Bronx Zoo once,
a few years ago. Remember that?" "No." "And we've been to Brooklyn to see the
roses at the Botanic Garden." "Have I been to Queens?" "I don't think so." "Have
I been to Staten Island?" "No." "Was there really a sixth borough?" "I've been
trying to tell you." "No more
interruptions. I
promise."
From Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, pages 1-15. Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves
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