Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

yet. Ron offered to buy me a five-piece drum set. Money can't buy me love, obviously, but I asked if it would have Zildjian cymbals. He said, “Whatever you want,” and then he took my yo-yo off my desk and started to walk the dog with it. I know he just wanted to be friendly, but it made me incredibly angry. “Yo-yo moi!” I told him, grabbing it back. What I really wanted to tell him was “You're not my dad, and you never will be.”
    Isn't it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls “the National Geographic.” She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it's too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa's camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn't take it with him when he left her. She said, “Maybe he wanted you to have it.” I said, “But I was negative-thirty years old.” She said, “Still.” Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn't, because there aren't enough skulls!
    So what about skyscrapers for dead people that were built down? They could be underneath the skyscrapers for living people that are built up. You could bury people one hundred floors down, and a whole dead world could be underneath the living one. Sometimes I think it would be weird if there were a skyscraper that moved up and down while its elevator stayed in place. So if you wanted to go to the ninety-fifth floor, you'd just press the 95 button and the ninety-fifth floor would come to you. Also, that could be extremely useful, because if you're on the ninety-fifth floor, and a plane hits below you, the building could take you to the ground, and everyone could be safe, even if you left your birdseed shirt at home that day.
    I've only been in a limousine twice ever. The first time was terrible, even though the limousine was wonderful. I'm not allowed to watch TV at home, and I'm not allowed to watch TV in limousines either, but it was still neat that there was a TV there. I asked if we could go by school, so Toothpaste and The Minch could see me in a limousine. Mom said that school wasn't on the way, and we couldn't be late to the cemetery. “Why not?” I asked, which I actually thought was a good question, because if you think about it, why not? Even though I'm not anymore, I used to be an atheist, which means I didn't believe in things that couldn't be observed. I believed that once you're dead, you're dead forever, and you don't feel anything, and you don't even dream. It's not that I believe in things that can't be observed now, because I don't. It's that I believe that things are extremely complicated. And anyway, it's not like we were actually burying him, anyway.
    Even though I was trying hard for it not to, it was annoying me how Grandma kept touching me, so I climbed into the front seat and poked the driver's shoulder until he gave me some attention. “What. Is. Your. Designation.” I asked in Stephen Hawking voice. “Say what?” “He wants to know your name,” Grandma said from the back seat. He handed me his card.
    GERALD THOMPSON
    Sunshine Limousine
    serving the five boroughs
    (212) 570-7249
    I handed him my card and told him, “Greetings. Gerald. I. Am. Oskar.” He asked me why I was talking like that. I told him, “Oskar's CPU is a neural-net processor. A learning computer. The more contact he has with humans, the more he learns.” Gerald said, “O” and then he said “K.” I couldn't tell if he liked me or not, so I told him, “Your sunglasses are one hundred dollars.” He said, “One seventy-five.” “Do you know a lot of curse words?” “I know a couple.” “I'm not allowed to use curse words.” “Bummer.” “What's 'bummer'?” “It's a bad thing.” “Do you know 'shit'?” “That's a curse, isn't it?” “Not if you say 'shiitake.'” “Guess not.” “Succotash my Balzac, dipshiitake.” Gerald shook his head and cracked up a little, but not in the bad way, which is at me. “I can't even say 'hair pie,'” I told him, “unless I'm talking about an actual pie made out of rabbits. Cool driving gloves.”