Fruits of the Inner City
The Wise Man, The Strongman, The Handyman, The Scatter-Brain (#3)
Translated by Joe Váradi and published here with the permission of the original author Lackfi János, and of the brilliant illustrator Jacqueline Molnár. Scroll to the end for previous chapters.
THE WISE MAN
Mr. Sage sits in the arcade,
his hair gleaming white
just like clothes fresh
out of the machine in a
commercial for laundry detergent,
when I ask how he gets it so white
he just nods, with a broad smile,
Mr. Sage’s face is full of wrinkles
like the tips of my fingers when
I soak in the bathtub too long,
which Mom isn’t crazy about, I ask
is it okay if I feel it, he nods with a smile,
his skin is dry like paper,
I used Mom’s eyeliner once to
paint my face full of wrinkles,
which Mom wasn’t crazy about,
she had to scrub it endlessly,
I ask Mr. Sage if he enjoys the sun,
since his head traces the path of the sun
like a sunflower, to this he
also nods, with a smile,
and when the sun sets,
his door opens, and out comes
his caretaker to wheel him back in,
tells me that I should run along home now,
that I can visit another day, but that
I should know Mr. Sage is deaf,
nerve damage or something, and
regardless of who speaks to him or who doesn’t,
he’ll always nod, with a smile.
THE STRONGMAN
Dandelion is a welder,
works all day in a shower of
sparks, welding iron, which after all
is no cake walk, think of it, you can
cut cake with iron, but not
iron with cake, am I right?
Maybe Dandelion likes cake,
I’m not sure, but he definitely loves meatloaf,
it’s full of energy, and you need energy
to weld, everyone can smell it when
it’s meatloaf night at Dandelion’s,
and he makes it all disappear,
sitting in his sleeveless undershirt,
his muscles popping, his biceps
like two pears, his forearms bulging
eggplants, his shoulders plump
cantaloupes, with a flashy tattoo,
LAURA FOREVER!, though his wife is not
Laura. He is bursting with energy,
no wonder he can toss his two
naughty young boys way up to the ceiling and
catch them midair, and no wonder
Mr. Melon always asks him to repair
the railing of the staircases,
and each time Dandelion suits up in
overalls, puts on asbestos gloves
and his Darth Vader mask,
leans into his work, with welding rod
and oxygen tank in hand, his shadow
shimmering on the walls like a scuba diver,
and the shower of sparks surround him,
our own little fireworks show.
THE HANDYMAN
Mr. Beet can fix anything,
even things he’s never seen before,
in fact he enjoys fixing those things more,
these blasted new toilets can go
straight to hell, his voice echoes
in the courtyard, as he pounds the door
or the iron railing with his fist, then
rubs his hands and goes back inside the flat
of whichever neighbor asked for his help.
Can’t wait to hit another snag,
so he can yell and vent, “what dimwit
good-for-nothing designed this junk?”
then go back in, with glee, to
rack his brain even harder,
to fix the unfixable,
to conquer the impossible,
Mr. Beet enjoys this immensely.
By the time the owners come home,
he’s standing in their doorway,
taking drags from a cigarette
pinched between his two fingers,
and dismissing the compliments
with a wave, “don’t mention it,
the stubborn beast put up a good fight, but
in the end, victory was mine!”
When a washing machine or refrigerator
goes bust in the building, Mr. Beet
pounces on it like a lion on its pray,
picks it apart, fixes the motor, mounts it on
stroller wheels and welds it to loose pipes, to
build a handy little lawnmower, someone
will want to buy it, for sure.
The building is woken at five a.m. on a Saturday
to the screeching of an angle grinder,
as Mr. Beet removes the tray of a cast iron sink
with furious noise, this will be the lawnmower’s
casing, everyone leans out their windows,
fists pumping, yelling — stop that immediately!
and he glances up through his safety goggles,
waves back at them with glee,
then continues his work.
THE SCATTER-BRAIN
Mr. Cactus, the math teacher, writes equations
on shreds of paper, for years now working on a
the same problem, if he were to solve it, he
could submit it to the Nobel-committee,
he’d be guaranteed a prize,
because the problem is nothing short of phenomenal
and if he were to solve it, which of course he will,
then finally he could quit that blasted school,
those disinterested, callous kids will be the death of him,
they haven’t a mathematical bone in their bodies,
this is what drives Mr. Cactus mad, it’s not him
they insult, but Sacred Math itself, and this he cannot
tolerate, yet the problem still eludes him,
gets away from him at the last moment,
so he must focus on this and nothing else,
this very impactful problem consumes all his
energies, and he really shouldn't say any more,
lest someone attempt to steal his ideas,
Mr. Cactus guards his notes with his life,
and so he has a regular lock, a security lock
and a five lever dead lock on his door,
of course he often forgets the key in the lock,
just as he regularly burns his dinner,
smoke wafting through the staircase,
leaves his shopping bag outside his door,
spoiling the milk by next morning,
puts his pants on inside out,
and last time he pulled out of his pocket
an old receipt and his keychain,
kept one, threw the other in the trash,
and when I chased him down with the
keychain I had just fished out of the trash bin,
with faint anticipation of some reward,
he put it away, and said, merely: “Hm, kiddo!”
