Gargoyles (10 page)

Well, touché, sure. Though I don't agree.

Not “touché,” I'm not trying to win anything here. I'm just saying what I think. It's not a competition.

Okay. You're right. But —

Just a sec, my water's whistling.

—calling someone for help at seven in the morning, I don't know how much more “straightforward” you can get. I've never
been more direct. What could
be
more direct. So whatever you say . . . Anyway even though it started this mess, it's been fun lately, the Jewish thing. I've been using words like “mensch” and “schlong” around the kids and stuff like that and —

I'm back. Coffee.

—I talk in a loud Jewish accent sometimes, like: “YOU CALL THIS A BAD STEAK? IT'S GOOD.
GOOD.”

Sounds like a loud New York accent.

Well, whatever. They were good steaks.

Rich.

What.

What did you do?

Okay, we're just back from the beach, right?

Okay.

Qualicum, right? Where we go? We were there two weeks, and, the thing is, I didn't shave the whole time. The whole time.

Jesus, Rich —

It's part of the deal here, it's the, it's the heart of the story.

Okay.

Okay, well, yesterday I shaved. I had quite a beard going, really thick, it surprised me. I had to go out and buy a razor and foam. The gel. Haven't done that in years. But my electric couldn't hack through it.

Rich. What did you do?

I shaved, but in the middle of shaving I did this little joke, this little thing where I left a Hitler moustache on, right?

You have a Hitler moustache?

For a while I did, yes. I had a Hitler moustache and I walked around the house, you know, pretending nothing was different, just walking around — Carol's in there cooking dinner and on the phone, and Richard's there on the computer, and Jennifer's down watching the tube — right?

Okay.

So I just wandered around kind of leaning my head into their, you know, various activities, let them catch on to my joke at random and be delighted and outraged, etcetera, by “Well, here's Dad with a Hitler moustache.”

Did they think it was funny?

Do you think it's funny?

I thought it was funny when John Cleese did it.

Touché.

Actually he just had his finger curled there, his knuckle. It was mostly his goose step that was great.

I'm the first to admit I force things. Which was exactly the case. But, you know, I'm playful. You'd think that seeing their lawyer vice-president father fooling around with a Hitler moustache, their
Jewish
vice-president father, you'd figure they'd, you know, I don't know . . . “laugh.”

You can't predict these things.

You
really
can't.

So, Rich?

Yeah.

That's not your problem, is it? That they didn't laugh?

Not exactly.

It's really not a six-in-the-morning problem.

It gets bigger.

Good. I mean —

No, that's fine. And here it comes. But them not reacting to my little moustache caused the whole thing, right? It was the catalyst. It was why —

They didn't laugh at all? It's actually pretty funny that you'd do that. I like it that your little things are getting weirder. I would have laughed. I'm laughing now.

Well, how funny it was is now moot.

What'd they do? Just stare?

They all had their different thing. Carol's, I think, was the worst one, was the one that made me go and — But she came last. First, Jennifer just said, “Eeeeeuuu.” That's it. And turned back to her TV show. I basically had to stick my face in the way of her TV show so she'd see it at all. But that was it: “Eeeeuuu.” Then back to
Canadian Idol
. Entranced. White people from Richmond Hill singing scat. Jennifer is enraptured, like it's her own future, her own stardom, tied up in this show. I think she thinks she can sing.

Well, she
can
sing. Have you ever —

She's not even blinking at these showy creeps, and for me it's: “Eeeeuuu.” Also, I don't know, I actually think it's . . .

What.

I think it's the only thing Jennifer has said to me in a week or two, but that's a different issue altogether.

She's fifteen now right?

Fifteen.

There you go. It's really not you.

I suppose not.

So Carol made you do something?

Well, first there was Richard.

Right. Richard's at the computer.

At the computer, where he always is. Playing his six-things-at-once: you know, some on-line blasting game, plus talking to his friends a mile a minute, plus downloading songs, probably some porn going on in there somewhere, it just boggles me why —

Robbie's pretty much the same way, I know the deal.

Exactly. And how they type so fast, faster than secretaries, it's ten fingers at once, it sounds like “
scrabble
,” and when you read it you see there's no spelling, no capitals, no punctuation, hardly even words. I mean it's initials, acronyms, it's meaningless.

Well, to us.

No it's meaningless. What are they talking about? “Hey Ray, it's Richard, what are you doing?” When obviously Ray is sitting on his ass typing like secretaries, just like Richard.
“Whacha doin' later, Ray?” When what they're doing later is what they're doing now. It pisses me off, it really does. Everything either rocks or it sucks and it's all infinitesimal
crap
, I'm sorry.

You want them to be discussing world politics. Well, me too.

Or at least “What about that ass on Sheila.” Even that.

Right.

Or even better, “Let's go down to 7-11 and check
out
that ass on Sheila.” You know, engage in some non-screen activity.

Thing is, I think girls are in on the chat lots of the time. They're actually talking to girls, or at least typing with girls, so they can't very well, you know . . .

See their actual ass.

No, I mean
talk
about their actual — Anyway, look, so you stuck your moustache in front of Richard?

I did.

And.

And Richard actually stopped everything. It was actually very dramatic. He saw my face. He stopped typing. He pulled his hands away. Though his elbows were still cocked. He looked at me for quite a long time, and then his face blossomed with a giant sneer.

Strike two. So Carol was strike three.

Well, Richard said something to me. It's made me think.

What.

I didn't think about it right when he said it, I thought about it after. Quite a bit, actually.

Okay, let me go top up my coffee. I'm just going to put my phone down. Five seconds.

What he said was, “What are
you
making?” That's what he said. I realize that probably I have to —

I'm back. What?

I have to explain a little bit.

I'm sort of waiting for you to do that, Rich.

No, about Richard and what he said to me.

Sure. All right.

See, the thing is, about a month ago I believe I really scared him. He probably would never admit it, but I really scared him.

What did you do?

What I did was this. I told him I was going to tell him the most valuable thing he could ever possibly hear during this life on planet Earth, and then I went ahead and told him.

Excellent. Well done.

Actually, I'm serious.

You going to tell me too, or is it secret?

Well, it's what they call self-secret, it's —

What who calls?

You know, wise men. Self-secret means it's there for everybody but nobody hears it because of the
nature
of the secret. The utter
size
of the secret.

Okay. Hit me.

What I told him is, “Richard, I'm going to tell you the best thing and the worst thing you're ever going to hear.” We were actually into a formal father-and-son talk. I had called him away from the computer and outside onto the lawn. He was so impatient he could hardly bear it. He could not look me in the eye. But I had to get him away from that influence.

I could never do anything remotely like that with Robbie.

Well, I admit it was a little bit forced, but it was time. And I told him. I figured that, at the very least, even if he didn't
act on it, I'd know he was exposed to the truth and I'd done my duty.

So you told him what?

I said to him: The best thing you'll ever be told is this. That every moment, every second you are alive,
you can make your self
.

Okay, sure.

You know the concept.

Sure. It's not all that —

Fairly standard, I know, but wait. What I said next, and the part that pissed him off and scared him and made him say what he said to me about my Hitler moustache, was this: I also said to him: The
worst
thing you'll ever hear on this planet, is that, every moment, every second you are alive, you
are
making your self.

Okay.

You know? You can't
not
make yourself?

I guess, sure.

No, it's heavy. It's the big damnation thing in its essence, it really is. It says that every second you're being lazy or even just spacing out, you are
making
yourself into that. Every —

But it's not like it isn't reversib —

Every second
you are either bettering yourself or damning yourself. That's what I told him and that's what he understood. It's been eating at him for a month, I think. Or, same thing, he's been trying to forget what he heard. He's been at the computer non-stop. Or sleeping. He won't even look at me. Or he's bolting out the door to the Sev for a slurpee, or eating way too much and too fast, or flicking through the TV like he's running from something, it's really, he's extremely scared by this notion —

Rich? I think possibly you're reading into this a little bit, maybe.

Maybe, but anyway, this is what he says to me, while he's sneering. He sees the moustache, and me all smiley, and he says: “What are
you
making?”

What did you say?

I said, “Touché.” That's all. I didn't really think about it much till later. He said it more like, “Whatta
you
makin'?” Like Joey, in
Friends
. It pisses me off. Richard has a hefty IQ on him and he talks like that. They all do.

Is that your problem, that you think you're making yourself into something bad?

No, that's not what I'm talking about here. It was mostly Carol.

Right. Carol's turn.

I go to show Carol next, she's in the kitchen, on the phone. Sitting on that stool by the counter? You know that stool?

Yup.

Facing the doorway. So I stand there, framed in the doorway. Just sort of doing nothing. She glances up, nothing registers, goes back into gossip mode. It's her mother. They could talk for an hour choosing a shower curtain. So I do a little pose to get her to look again. She doesn't. So I go, “Ahem,” and she looks at me, right into my eyes, and I rub my chin — you know, that, “I've just shaved and it was a nice, close shave” thing on my chin. You see up at the beach I didn't shave for two weeks so —

So it made sense to do that.

I stand there doing the chin rub, really exaggerated, and smiling, and she's looking right at me, maybe eight feet away and — guess what?

She hated it. She shot you a look of hate.

No.

I don't know. Her jaw dropped? She got scared?

No.

So what did she do?

Nothing.

What do you mean?

She didn't even notice it. Didn't even see it.

Really?

I have pretty dark hair, right?

Sure.

I mean, almost black.

Yes, Rich, it's still pretty much dark.

And my skin is pretty white, right?

Our people have been long away from the sun of the holy land and would not easily be taken for Semites, no.

Touché. But even after two weeks at the beach. I have this pale skin, and black hair, which means any Hitler moustache I decide to grow on my face is going to be an extremely noticeable, let me say
successful,
Hitler moustache.

You'd think.

It was. It was
glaring
. But she just stared at me, right at me, right at my face, and didn't see it.

Funny.

No. Let me put it another way: she saw me with a Hitler moustache, and
she didn't see anything different about me
.

Ah, right. I getcha.

Get it?

I get how in the wee hours you could get a bit symbolic with that and see it as a problem.

That's not the problem.

That's still not the problem?

It's maybe a problem with me and Carol, and it's maybe a problem for me to deal with, but it's not why I called you.

Look, Rich, my phone here is beeping.

That what that is?

The battery's going to cut out in a minute, less than a minute. Here's a choice: I'll call you back in five hours, all rested and cheerful. Or I go downstairs to my regular phone and we continue this. You want to continue this?

Go to the other phone.

Okay. I'm walking.

Because I have a favour to ask.

Okay. . .

Good. Thanks.

No, I mean I'm on my way down the stairs.

Thanks.

No, honey, it's Rich, it's okay.

What?

That was Leslie. We woke her up. Okay, I'm here. Here. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, I'll hang up this one. Can you still hear me?

You know my garden, right?

I know your garden.

It's where I went after Carol didn't notice.

You doing all those tomatoes again this year?

And lots of other stuff. Trying fennel. That fish soup you really liked?