"Áron Antal" - Page 3

Áron Antal

Mr. Able was a proud citizen of Sanctuary; he was a friendly fellow, liked by everyone in town. He was a nice old man, polite and calm, did no harm to anyone in his life, and was totally healthy both mentally and physically, despite his age. He had only one son, who lived in California, a businessman, so much so that he hadn’t been able to visit in years. He wasn’t at Mrs. Able’s burial. She died five years previously, on the thirteenth of July, from a heart attack caused by a wild night-motorbike-rider, whose exhaust was so loud that it caused Mrs. Able’s end. That was the reason that Mr. Able hated bikers so much. He never liked them, even when he was young, it wasn’t his style; but he started hating them more when the Japanese sportbikes invaded America with their four-row engines and fancy paint jobs. These bikes were super appealing for the youngsters, who put loud exhausts on them and thought that the road was their racetrack. And he downright hated them since his wife had died from one of them.

He was about to turn seventy-five the next day, on the thirteenth of July.

– Five years have passed in loneliness – he thought. – My only wish is that my son could visit me. I haven’t seen him in the past seven years. He couldn’t even come to his mother’s burial; he was too busy. And since then I haven’t spoken a word with him. How could his job be more important than his mother’s burial? But perhaps I should forgive him. He was trying to establish his life. At that time he found himself a girl. I wonder what happened with their relationship? But since our argument we haven’t exchanged a word. I don’t even know that he can forgive me.

With these thoughts in mind, he fell asleep in his bed.

In the morning, he woke to the sound of someone ringing the doorbell. He put on his bathrobe, went to the door, and opened it. To his biggest surprise, instead of the postman, he saw his son.

– Father! I would like to apologize for how I behaved and what a jerk I have been throughout all these years! Please forgive me, for mom’s sake!

– Oh son, I will!, I will! – cried out Mr. Able in tears.

– You don’t know what a relief it is for me to hear that!

– I know it.

– Also, happy birthday, dad.

–Thanks, son. Have you…

– Yes I have visited mom, and said a proper goodbye to her. I hope that she will forgive me as well.

– I’m sure she has forgiven you already. But come on in!

They talked all the day through, about Shaun’s business, life, and about how he was going to marry his girlfriend the next summer.

– I’m so glad to hear that! I always know you would find the perfect one one day.

– Oh, I almost forgot! – said Shaun.

– Forgot what exactly? – asked Mr. Able.

– Your birthday present! Come out, it’s in my van.

They walked out to the street where Shaun’s business van was parking. When he opened the back door, Mr. Able was speechless. Inside the van was a vintage motorbike. But when Mr. Able was finally able to get a word out, his son got a phone call.

– Sorry, dad, but I have to go now, it’s very important, but I’ll come back as soon as possible – he said, pulled out the bike from the van, hugged his father, and drove away.

Mr. Able was standing, wordless. His son had given him the one thing he disliked the most.

– I shall kill what killed my wife, he thought, walked to his garage, took a gas canister and a lighter, and approached the motorbike. But when he was about to pour gasoline on it and burn it, he realised that his son did not know the circumstances of how his mother died, and it was a present after all, so he decided to keep it. He put it into his garage and tried to forget about it.

One month later, Mr. Able realised that he had a motorbike, and started thinking. After an hour or so, he came to a realization about why he never liked the riders; he actually did like them once upon a time. He remembered a day that he had long forgotten: he was standing by a motorbike shop with his friends in 1963, staring at a special limited Hungarian model: Pannonia MT63 motocross, which was a rare Hungarian import, said to be more reliable than any Harley-Davidson, sold with T1 models of the same trade. They talked about how from their saved money they would all buy one of these (they were way cheaper than other brands), but fate thought otherwise. The next day, his father’s station wagon broke down, which he used to commute to the next town to earn money for his family, and they had just renovated their house, so they had very little savings. Mr. Able thought he would help his family out, so he gave all his savings, the fruit of years of hard work, to his parents to repair his father’s car. This way he never had the chance to buy his dream, and he became envious of his friends, since they had such great adventures in which he could not take part. And this was the origin of his hatred of the bikers.

– Why are negative memories more likely to stay in the mind? – he thought. He became delighted and felt different. He went out to the garage and realised, just then, that his son had bought him his dream from the far past: a Pannonia MT63 motorbike.

– How could that have happened? I never told him about this ever! He became super excited and sat on the bike. It had a comfortable seat, a light suspension, and a lifted exhaust.

– What are you waiting for, dad? – asked Shaun, who  had just arrived back. – Take it for a ride!

Mr. Able hesitated a bit, but decided that now was the time to make up for the past. He stood up and kicked the kickstarter. The engine revved up on that characteristic two-stroke sound. He felt super nostalgic, pulled the clutch, put the transmission into first gear, and drove away towards the horizon full of joy.

This even changed his life through his new attitude toward riders. He still did not like the loud motorcycles, but he made new friends due to his new hobby and rode his bike almost every day, sometimes with his friends, whose relationship waved goodbye to the lonely days. All of this was made possible by his son, and he couldn’t thank him enough. He felt a bit guilty that he had become a rider, like the one who had caused his wife to die, but he thought that if Mrs. Able could be with him, she would be proud of her handsome husband for having a nice hobby at his age. And with these delightful thoughts he rode his bike and commuted with it everywhere, visited his son regularly, and rode for many years and more, always thinking: how an “unintended” present can change a life.

Áron Antal

One sunny afternoon, my mother told me to go to my grandparents’ to ask them for some meat to bring home. They lived on the outskirts of the city, and I went with my scooter. When I arrived, my grandma opened the gate for me, and I parked in the garden. My grandpa had just stepped out of the house and started to speak to me. My grandparents’ garden was huge, and they grew crops and fruits in it for the family.

– Aaron, how are you?

– Fine grandpa, fine.

– Ya see my garden? See the potatoes? Look at them! Last year, you remember how big they grew? We could barely pull them out, they were so huge.

– Yeh grandpa, they were quite huge, but….

– Now, look at the tomatoes, how beautiful they are! They were so delicious! See how many beans I grew. There will be like a hundred kilos of them. And the apples, well, they’re the best in town, aren’t they?

– Yes, yes. – I said – and how are you?

– Fine, Aaron, time passes so fast, look at you how much you have grown.

– I don’t think I grew so much in one week, but if you say….

– Ya know, you always remind me of the times when I was young, I looked much like you back then. Me and my friends went to Moscow when we were in fourth grade in secondary school. We went there by train and it took almost a week to go there and back. I enjoyed it so much. The underground metros, they were so huge; the ceiling was like fifteen meters high, you could fit a town into there, and those majestic statues… But the place where we stayed… That was a bit nasty.

– I know, grandpa, you told me these stories like a hundred times and….

– You see, the apartment was full of roaches, literally full. They were everywhere. One night we stayed up and slapped them with our slippers. We killed a few hundred, but the next day they were back, hehe…

– I came for meat, grandpa….

– When I was young, like your little sister, me and my family used to live on a farm. But when the Cooperative took our land, my father decided to become a deliverer. We bought a wagon, because the Soviets gave us two of their horses in exchange for some food and alcohol, and we started the business. I helped my dad so much that I could barely stay awake at the end of the day.

– But weren’t you at school at the….

– We delivered almost everything: crops, coal, firewood etc. There were days when we went to twenty different places to deliver something. Once when my father drank too much, I was driving the wagon when I saw a piece of money on the pavement: it was a fifty-forint note! At the time when a scoop of ice cream was 1 forint. It was big money. But an old man on the other side saw it as well, so I fastened the wagon, jumped off of it, grabbed the note and jumped back in a mere second. The old man didn’t even know what had just happened! Ya know, school was much harder to get to then it is now. You see, when it was winter, sometimes the snow was a meter high and the temperature was freezing cold. My mother boiled potatoes when I was about to leave, and we put it in my pocket, so my hands stayed warm. Glove and snack for the trip. Very practical.

– It is, but I….

– Also we had cows and my mother made dairy products of them. But we had more than we needed, much much more, so we went to the local market to sell them. Sometimes me and my mother went to the Szolnok market by train to sell these products. It was astonishing for me back then. The streets were full of beautiful automobiles, there were huge crowds. At the market I saw ladies whose nails were painted and lips covered in lipstick. At the time it was a big deal, and I hadn’t seen anyone in our village do the same, mainly because it was very expensive to buy those things back then. And the smell, perfume everywhere! Of course that was even more unaffordable for the average person.

– I really don’t want to interrupt you grandpa, but I really have to go now, ’cause you know, I am err…. going to have a err… digitaal lesson. But I really enjoyed listening to your stories as always.

– You’re such a good listener, Aaron, a very good one indeed. Anyway, here is the meat.

I put it onto my scooter, waved goodbye, and drove away.

– It is always good to hear these stories – I thought – even though I think a lot of them are a bit tall, but there’s nobody to prove that. And maybe the honest “lying” makes them all the more enjoyable.

Áron Antal

On a cold winter day, me and my father started a conversation; we started talking about the old days, when my grandpa and his family lived in socialist Hungary: how they lived, what they did for amusement, how my grandpa earned money. My father began to tell a story about grandpa and what he did for a living:

– He worked hard in the TSZ, until he made his way up the ladder and became a leader, but when he was blamed by the government for things he never did, he had to leave and find a new way to provide for his family. So he thought it would be a good idea to buy bees and start producing honey. It turned out so well that in two years he had 200 families of bees, and could maintain his family, and had enough profit to buy a motorbike, with which he could visit the bees regularly. But when the 90s came and he could buy land for himself, he stopped working with the bees and concentrated on agricultural activities.

– And what happened to his motorbike? – I asked.

– He put it in our first storage warehouse.

– And is it there now?

– I think so.

– Can we bring it home for me? Please.

– Okay.

The next morning, we went out to the very outskirts of town, to my father’s yard, entered the warehouse, and really found it. It was overwhelming to hold my grandfather’s heritage in my hand. And on that very day, I got “infected” with an incurable disease: mechanic mania. It is a strange illness mixed with a bit of addiction. The patient renovates a motor, but while doing so, he buys another. Then he buys and sells, takes some apart, and feels splendid while doing so; he thinks: what a hobby! But after a couple of years, he becomes obsessed and spends every free minute with his business, which grows and grows until the point of no return. At least that was the situation with me.

Since the recovery of my grandfather’s old bike, almost four years had passed. I was feeling very proud of what I had achieved, fabulous in fact. But I realised that my hobby, which I really like, had become my job about a year ago. I started feeling ambivalent about my hobby, since I spent so much time with it. Around that time, I started wondering about the day when I would meet that special one. At that point I realised what I had done. I had almost cheated on someone; my hobby. I then realised that it was my life, my partner. It horrified me, and made me think about giving up this damn thing, and I settled.

A year ago, when my “addiction” reached a peak, there were days when I spent fourteen hours tweaking up bikes, couldn’t sleep, because of the thoughts about my projects. And now I see that I left the border far behind with this hobby. How could I have been so blind?

Since then, my life has taken a turn. I do much less work with my bikes, and concentrate on the real life going around me. Now I only ride my bikes, and do one, maybe two hours of work a day. My perspective has totally changed, and I am very close to curing my “addiction,” which has mostly faded away by now, along with my obsession, thanks to the encouragement and help of my family and my own consciousness. Now I have much more time for maintaining relationships with my family and friends. Now I see that my life is starting to change, getting back on the track of a positive future for myself and the ones I love, with me having a fun, part-time hobby, not an addiction.