berlinconfidential asked: Character Meme: please tell us about Christoph Doctorow
Since you didn’t give me any numbers, I am going to pick whatever I feel is interesting. I hope you’ll like my answers :3
8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging
Doctorow does not indulge. In anything. Ever.
20. Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?
W hen Doctorow was maybe 9 or 10, he got scarlet fever. He knew his mother had to work and take care of his siblings (he is the oldest, his father was a worthless drunk) so he didn’t let anyone know he was sick; no one noticed. He took care of himself, and while his mother was working he helped out his younger siblings, making food for them with a handkerchief tied around his face so that he wouldn’t get germs in whatever he was cooking. This went on for several days. There was one terrifying night during which he laid in the bed he shared with his siblings with a 104 degree fever, hallucinating and alternately sweating and shivering, but keeping still so as to not wake anyone. He dreamed that his father was a demon with black eyes and red skin, brandishing a broken bottle like a pitchfork, breathing fire and threatening his siblings. In the morning his fever broke. Nobody else in his family got sick.
30. Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (e.g. close family member suddenly dies)
The day after the Halloween massacre, Doctorow went through the day as usual, and in the evening he took Dog for a walk. The walk lasted a long time. He walked all the way across the city, and when Dog got tired he picked its little warm body up and carried it, not turning back to his apartment yet, still wandering through the night, and rolled cigarettes without letting go of Dog, just curling his arm around its body. It watched him with black eyes that shone when the streetlights reflected off of them. When they got back to his apartment, he knelt to carefully place Dog on the ground. Dog got up on its hind legs, leaning its stubby front paws on his leg, and enthusiastically licked his face. He let it.
