“That’s not my name.”
“We’ve been through this. You need to adapt to your new life here. You and Wanda both.”
“That doesn’t mean reestablishing me or my heritage.”
“And what heritage is that? The one where your father, this Django, taught you to steal? The same heritage that was going to sell your sister?”
“You do not get to pass judgment. You do not understand. We are Rom.”
“No, you’re both adopted. The makeup of your DNA points to several things about your background, the X-factor being one of them, but having Romani blood? No.”
“It takes more than that to be bound.”
“Really? Let’s see. According to this Wanda, in a freak accident, seemed to set fire to a house causing you to be ostracized and chased out of —”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“Who else could it have been.”
“It was my fault.”
“So, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what’s going on.”
“You are too slow to understand.”
“What do you mean by that? I’m following along just fin —”
“I mean you are too slow. It is not that you are stupid or ignorant. It is that you do not move or think as fast as I do. You cannot begin to understand.”
“Help me to understand, Peter.”
“That is not my name. On top of being slow, you are making me repeat myself. These are qualities that are not endearing me to you. In fact, it’s getting you on the fast track to raising my ire.”
“Fast track, that’s funny.”
“It is not meant to be humorous. You understand I could kill you and be long gone before you would even hit the ground?”
“Yes, but that’s not the issue here. The issue is your acclimation to American in general and New York in specific. Let’s drill down to some of the troubles you’re having.”
“For starters, I’m being questioned by gadje shanglo and I really don’t want to talk about the ‘troubles’ you think I’m having adapting to your American way of life. I don’t have any ‘troubles.’ This is the water in which I learned to swim.”
“Tell me what you mean by that.”
“It is how I learned to deal with you gadje. You want answers that you do not understand.”
“Then help me.”
“There is no help for you. You are too slow.”
“What am I slow about?”
“Understanding.”
“So you do think I’m stupid.”
“No, gadje. I think that your synapses do not fire as fast as mine. I think that you experience the passing of time in what you think is a normal speed. You truly do not understand the length of an attosecond and what I can truly do with it. You move in air that is thick. It blocks you and yours.”
“Us gahdjay?”
“Gadje, and no. All of you who are not me.”
“Well, that seems to be quite a lot of people to be lumped together.”
“You all are the same. You walk and talk through the thickness around you. You wait in your miserable little lines taking too long to decide. You stand as still as sloths trying to even utter the simplest of syllables. It is maddening to wait for you.”
“Peter, you can’t —”
“Thatisnotmyname!”
“Pietro, you simply cannot expect others to keep up with you. It’s not possible. As far as we know, you’re the fastest person alive on the planet.”
“I know, gadje. I was waiting for you to catch up with me. You see, the trouble is yours.”
