"Oh, I can pick it from your simple mind so easily. The rule
being that after you provide your sexual services to him he allows you
to pickpocket from the pants that he drapes on a chair. If he awakens
he beats you or disparages your existence in front of the family but if
you are quiet you can take most of what he has in his pockets and run
away throughout the day."
"When I'm not working. That is kind of how it has gone. He has
always been kind enough to see that I get a vacation every week. He
was always telling Mother that I needed to be something other than an
illiterate slob and the least they could do was allow me to go to the
library once a week. I would usually go there...sometimes a movie or
standing at a newsstand reading the comics. That is sort of how it
was. Now we aren't working so I didn't take very much yesterday. Hey,
if you can read my simple little mind so easily, why do you bother to
ask things?"
"To amuse myself a little. Did this pickpocket game occur when
your parents were alive?"
"Yes, it began when I was eleven. What could I have said to
anyone? I was hated. You said so yourself. I wasn't going to make it
worse by humiliating myself that way. They wouldn't have believed me;
and they wouldn't have wanted to think about something so disgusting.
Anyhow, Kazem always had me swear that I'd keep it secret and he is the
only one who has really cared about me-as much as people care about
others. Maybe not so much." He became taciturn.
"Quiet!" said the mosquito belatedly. "I hear something." It
paused and looked through the small window of the basement apartment.
"Oh, it is your mother driving up now."
"She doesn't drive. She doesn't own a car."
"She does now." Jatupon remembered that she always did buy
lottery tickets that mendicants sold from wooden attaché cases hung