WET ANNIVERSARY  

Why did he kiss her? What a strange thing to do. Not a particularly important anniversary and yet, without warning, put his arm around his wife and pulled her close. Did that thing to her cheek. Made the big noise. Everyone watching from the kitchen table.

Andrea gasped when she saw what he’d done. Couldn’t unsee it and she had seen some things in her life. Had worked her whole life in a hospital. Just that week had a patient who’d been given the wrong medication and all her skin fell off. Just like damp toilet paper. 

It was called sloughing. 

Left behind a bright pink slug of a woman gently bleeding through her bedsheets. 

And yet the sight of her father standing in the kitchen with his cheeks aglow, laughing as his wife used the sleeves of her sweater to scrub her horrified face clean, got Andrea shrieking in horror. 

“It was so wet. Eeeek! What the hell is happening in this house?” 

Her father offering no explanation.  

Happy Anniversary, Norma.  

From your ever smiling husband, Dave. 

INTERNATIONAL REFRIGERATOR OF MYSTERY 

Dave. International Man of Mystery.   

Every morning he would put on a suit after eating his breakfast, but no one thought much of where he went in it. Something to do with refrigerators. Maybe microwaves. It didn’t seem to matter. Instead everyone was mostly concerned with the fingerprints he’d left in the butter dish. Back when he was still in his pajamas and there was still butter clinging to his thumb and he would have looked ludicrous carrying a briefcase with him anywhere. Before he got dressed. Before he drove off to go be somebody’s boss. Off to a job every morning where any details beyond his secretary telling him what a nice head of hair were hard to come by. Completely unknowable.   

Not like anyone was asking.   

THE DRAFT: PART 2

Now that Dave is retired, he is also watching lots of television. Usually downstairs, seated in front of the biggest screen they’ve got, but also moving methodically throughout the house with great regularity to see what everyone else has put on all the other televisions without his approval.  

The fools. 

They must not have known channel 6 has golf?  

Or that in ten minutes Sherlock Holmes is on 31?  

Maybe they’d forgotten where they can find the non stop local weather forecast? He heard it might be getting cold later this week and they could find that on 23 if they were as concerned as he was about it.  

“You’re not watching that are you?” 

Dave knew all the numbers worth remembering and would offer whoever he had come to stand next to his help in finding any one of them. Would reach his hand out towards them like he was expecting alms. Fingers snapping for the thing he called the clicker. 

“Would you get lost!” 

“Give it to me. I’ll find it for you” 

“Go back to whatever TV you came from, would you” 

But Dave was not going anywhere. Instead he was now breathing loudly through his nose. Making all sorts of standing still noises. Potato chips crackling into the sweater he cradled them against with one hand, while the other was still being held out for the remote. Silently reaching until it would get control of this TV as well. Get whoever had been here before him storming from the room, calling him a selfish prick as he settled himself down into the warmth they’d left behind for him in the couch cushions. 

“Sherlock in ten minutes”, he called after them. “You couldn't possibly want to miss Sherlock” 

And yet Dave would once again find himself all alone. He might as well have not even tried to help any of them. No one seeming to care at all if tonight Moriarty’s plans would finally be foiled.  

So, there could be no doubt about it now; they were all going to feel the draft.  

Boy, would they ever. 

But first he would check the forecast one last time. Just to be sure. 

HANDICAPPING FRANKENSTEIN 

Sometimes I tell the other kids in class my grandfather is Frankenstein. You can get away with this sort of thing when you’ve already got them believing you keep a coffin in your basement. Might have also mentioned something about the problem we’ve got with a mad gorilla running loose all over the place. Crashing up and down the stairs all day long, clanking with the shattered chains of most his recent escape, punching holes in the wall.  I can even do an imitation of him—“Awwwwhoooo-hhoooo-hooooo-garrrrraggaaaahhhh"—scratching and beating my chest with all the great enthusiasm I was going to need if I was ever to convince them of this one. It was pretty far-fetched, I admit. They probably never would have believed it no matter what I did, no matter how much I really did sound like the maddest gorilla of all. 

But you’ve still got to try. You never can tell what you’re going to get away with. Not with the kids around here. They'll believe anything. And at least my grandfather did sort of look like Frankenstein with his big block head and short dark hair. How he carried a heavy smell of Brill Cream about him, just like Boris Karloff probably also had soaked into his equally square skull.  

But most Frankenstein of all about my grandfather were his giant black shoes always looking scary at the front door, sitting there waiting for his monstrous feet to get into them and lumber around the house all weekend long. Something to stomp about in as he went hunted for the racing form his wife had hidden from him.  Demanding all the television controls be handed over to him so he could check his races. Pillaging whatever Halloween chocolates he could find in my room as he clomped from one floor to the next, chewing the last of my caramel squares, asking if anyone was looking for a hot tip on today’s horses. 

“No, honestly, it’s true. If you ever see him, you can tell immediately that he’s Frankenstein”, I assure all the kids looking at me. All of them listening, but giving a look like they aren't quite sure if they believe what I’m telling them yet. “He’s not green of course. But if you watch him long enough, it’s obvious if you know what you’re looking for” 

I almost believed the story myself. It’s even how I think of my grandfather all these years later when I try to recall what he looked like. Before it all ended for him.

My grandfather, almost Frankenstein. Sitting in a comfy sweater. Forever on the softest end of the couch. Bolts sticking out of his neck. 

I remember him.   

DAVE HEARTS UGLY SPORTSMEN  

First basemen with dents in their head. Right-wingers with horrible pimply faces. Sure made it easy for Bruce to come up with mean names to call his father’s favorite players. But mostly he would settle on screaming Fuck Olerud or Fuck Leeman whenever he rushed downstairs from the television he’d just watched their latest embarassment on, and burst into the room where his father couldn't possibly pretend not to have seen what they’d just done. Watching the same game as he was, but always greeting him with that gentle smile of his, no matter how much Bruce screamed and screamed and screamed. Sometimes screaming nothing but a simple Fuck You, You Stupid Old Man when he was quick enough to realize it didn’t matter what he said. His father wasn’t going to listen no matter how clearly it was explained that it was yet again one of his useless, ugly boyfriends that was responsible for tonight's loss. 

Just smiling at the end of the couch as playoff hopes were dashed for all of them.   

The old man still coasting on the high of that batting championship from last year.  

Still gloating over that 50 goal season from a few years before that.  

His boys could do no wrong even as Bruce insisted the big leagues weren’t any place for players whose skulls would dissolve without the protection of their batting helmets, no matter what their on base percentage said. Or how half of those 50 goals bounced in of that prick’s pimply ass and shouldn’t have even counted. Or how his father must have been gay to keep on unconditionally loving these useless bastards who were destroying their teams from within. 

But the old man just continued to smile because what else did he have to prove?  

Told his son he didn’t know much about sports, did he?  

Started laughing.

Which just got Bruce screaming and screaming all over again. 

crumbsroom wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

“Standing still noises” 🤣

One of those phrases that I didn't think made any sense, but that I let stand after the drunken state that produced it because I know I should never trust my opinion on what does or doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense! 😂

CABIN OF ESPIONAGE 

I had read a couple of pages of a John La Carre book the other day, and as we drove towards the little cabin in the woods we’d rented for that weekend, I told Sarah I guess I should have listened to my grandfather after all. Turns out he knew what he was talking about. The guy was good. Really knew his way around a sentence. Definitely had style and I probably shouldn’t have laughed at the old man when this would be the only suggestion he ever had for me whenever he found me down on the carpet, hunting through one of the many bookcases that filled my childhood home. Forever looking for more Dickens or something else by Charles Jackson or, if I just wanted to absent mindedly flip through something before going on to do something else, maybe some kind of encyclopedia about all the horrible things people do to one another. Something that alphabetized serial killers. But definitely nothing about espionage, no matter what my grandfather kept insisting. 

“If you want to read some good writing, you should try John La Carre”, he would assure me, always saying the man’s name with a great flourish. Always standing above where I was crouching at the foot of the bookcase, trying to decipher what was written on the cracked spines of all these old books. The old man somehow always within reach of at least one copy of The Little Drummer Girl to pull out for me to consider. The same one he had been given this past Christmas. And maybe the Christmas before that one too. Not to mention the copy he had bought for himself. “Not his best, but anything where he's fighting the Russians is worth reading” 

I had never listened to anything my grandfather said about such matters though. His dedication to real  literature was clearly not very strong, a fact he made abundantly clear when he nearly stopped reading entirely soon after the Cold War ended. When the world tried to convince him there were other bad guys out there worth writing books about.  

“Nothing was the same once you took the Russkie’s out of it” 

He said the magic was gone. Couldn’t help but admit that even John Le Carre eventually lost it. And so whenever he spoke of him, he made sure I understood to read only the early stuff, which is exactly what I had found laying around our house the other day. Found myself picking it up, if only just to prove him wrong once again, all these years after he died. Read the first couple of pages sitting out on our front porch. 

“I honestly don’t know if I wanted to like it or hate it, but I gotta say, it was really good”, I told Sarah as we unpacked the back of our car and started filling the cabin with our stuff. “I probably would never have admitted it to him if I’d read any of his stupid spy shit when he was still alive, but now that’s he’s not around I guess I can come clean. John Le Carre is a pretty great writer. My grandfather actually knew what he was talking about. It’s shocking, really” 

Shortly after we had unpacked our car, I settled on the couch with a drink and Sarah went upstairs to our bedroom to put our clothes away. It wasn’t long before she came back down with a book in her hand to show me. 

“Look what I found. Is this the guy you were talking about?” 

She showed me something she discovered in the bookshelf next to the bed. Handed it to me to confirm that, yes, this was my grandfather’s favorite author, and she quickly claimed that this is what she would be reading this weekend. In fact, she was going to go upstairs to start reading it in bed right now. 

“I’ve got to see what all the fuss is about” 

A couple of pages later, she returned with a verdict. 

“I don’t know about this one. I don’t think I like it very much. He could use better words. The words he chooses aren’t very good. I'm sure there are better ones. Thumbs down from Sarah” 

I asked her if I could look at this book she had already begun to hold less and less enthusiastically, as if it had become a heavy and unpleasant weight. Made sure to immediately flip to the back cover and check the date of publication. Unsurprised to learn it had been written many years after the Cold War had ended. The bad years. Made sure it was understood that this was one of the books my grandfather had warned me about.  

“Like my grandfather said, it doesn't count if there are no Russkie’s in it”. I stated this with great authority. Tried to remember how he used to pronounce the name John Le Carre, but no longer able to. “It’s only the early one’s that are the good ones, you know. And if it's good words you’re looking for, I’m sure that’s where you’ll find them” 

I did fully agree with her that the words an author chooses are definitely very important, though. A good vocabulary is necessary when you are fighting the Commies for the fate of the world, after all, You've got to have style, or all is lost. Without it, you just might as well let them take over. What's even left to protect without it?

I believe the world needs good writers, and they are getting harder and harder for me to find these days. 

“John La Carre”, I said one last time. Put a little flourish on it. Made it mine. 

So much better than I had ever expected. 

TELEPATHIC BITCH PORTALS  

It was almost as if there were places in our house where she thought he would hear her if she just stood in them long enough, complaining. Like her most haunted spot of all in front of the kitchen sink, washing the same dishes over and over again, calling him a selfish, lazy bastard in that squealing baby voice she sometimes would speak in. A horrible noise she would endlessly squeeze out through her nose whenever he wasn’t even there anymore, when he’d left her behind long ago and gone to the races without her. Her imitation of how he sounded to her, all day long in front of the sink, tormenting us through the floorboards. 

“I’ll just sleep all day, sleep a little over here, then I'll sleep a little over there, and not do anything until I’m called to eat and aren’t I so wonderful, aren’t I the greatest, everyone loves me even though I don’t so much as get off of my ass, just sit around and wait to be called for my food and eat more than anyone else because I’m a greedy stupid son of a bitch, but aren’t I wonderful, don’t I have the most perfect haircut you’ve ever seen, aren’t I wonderful for being such a stupid, selfish old man who nobody likes” 

My poor grandmother washing all those dishes for no reason and making noises like a baby and waiting for her husband’s return only to say more of the same to him. How he was a lazy son of a bitch. How he thought he was wonderful even though he wasn’t. Sometimes still talking in that weird voice just in case he hadn’t heard it the first time, after all. If it turned out she’d been yelling at no one all day long. That there was nothing special at all about her spot alone in front of the sink and so now having to get angry at her husband all over again as he left the room to find somewhere quiet to lay down. Trying to get away from this noise that now followed him all through the house. 

“And sleep and sleep and wait to be called for food and aren’t I wonderful, aren’t I the greatest”. 

This noise that was what he sounded like to her, but was also what she now sounded like to everyone who had been stuck at home with her all day long. All of us huddled upstairs, listening to her talking like this since early that morning until we could no longer remember what her voice used to be. Before he found where she had hidden his racing form from him and then went to the track without her anyways. Before she was forced to hate him all over once again, and stand at the sink, and talk to herself like he could somehow hear her, off in his own universe, miles away from this bullshit. 

TATTLE GHOSTS 

The stairs might creak for everyone but would sound particularly haunted whenever Dave was the one creeping down them.  A spooky sound to let Norma know he was coming for snacks. His big clumsy feet, desperate to move quietly down the steps, but always betrayed by this place he called home. Never seeming to realize this house had turned against him long ago. Now in collusion with his wife, the only one who took care of it, and so every loose nail reporting back to her whenever he was coming. Hoping to make things as difficult for him as possible as he returned to his hunt of any already opened bags of potato chips, or cellophane wrapped deserts left vulnerable on the counter. Anything that would similarly reveal their alliance with Norma, as soon as he got his big clumsy fingers on them. Making enough noise so she would know exactly what he was trying to get away with in there. Exactly what it was he was so poorly stealing. 

“Hey! Get out of the cookies! Enough. Enough” 

But it was already too late, according to what the stairs were now telling her. She could hear him making his way back up to Sherlock, before he missed anything. Back to his bedroom with cookies undoubtedly piled high against his sweater and crackers in his pocket and now every tattling ghost of the whole house making sure she knew how she had failed to do anything to stop him. One loose nail at a time, announcing her failure. That somehow that stupid old man had won yet again. 

AND JEREMY BRETT AS SHERLOCK HOLMES 

Doorways were for grand announcements. To stand in and be ignored and wait for everyone on the couch to finally stop talking so he could say his thing of great importance. But always needing to wait. Waiting and waiting and smiling and smiling and no one wanting to give him the chance to say anything. Sticking to their conversations about things they all knew he had nothing to say about. Music or feelings or things of interest that someone may have seen that day. A conversation they had with a neighbour he would never have said anything more than hello to. And all this time Dave waiting in the doorway as long as it took. Waiting for them to run out of things he was sure they only were pretending to be interested in. Not really even knowing what he wanted to say, but needing to say it quick when he finally got his chance. Maybe the thing he had come here to say. Or maybe whatever words just came out of him. 

Like that one time he came out.  

“I’m gaaaaay”, he said proudly and for as long as he could hold the word. Until everyone was looking only at him. Finally not pretending to be interested in anything else. 

“What did he say?” 

“Did he say he was gay?” 

“I think that’s what he said” 

“Dad, are you gay?” 

But Dave wasn’t telling. He was already back upstairs with some more cookies. Already back to his show and closing his bedroom door behind him. Possibly thinking about cocks, but not necessarily. 



LEADERBOARD BEAST 

Me and my father could play video games together for a long time. The room would get so smokey as I destroyed him in one game after another. Karate kicking him in the face. Booby-trapping rooms quicker than he could booby-trap back. Seemingly able to score at will in ice hockey. Only sometimes losing when I was dumb enough to let him get ahead by too much and couldn’t mount my comeback in time. Only then would I smash the joy stick against the wall and tell him he only won because I let him. Then punch him in the centre of the chest if he dared stand up to stop me from smashing it once more to make sure I had broken it into pieces. Hitting him as hard as I could and getting him to spit up whatever beer was still in his mouth. Watch him crumple to the ground, wheezing about how much he hated my boney little fists. 

“They hurt, goddamit. How can they possibly hurt...so...much” 

Mostly it was just the two of us left by ourselves all vacation long. Not even going down when we were called for dinner. But sometimes my grandfather might put his head into the room, looking silently at us for a long time before shaking it let us know we were wasting yet another summer day. How before we knew it, it would be winter and we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. 

“Just get some sun for Christ’s sake” 

But my father would refuse to go anywhere and would keep me right next to him until he proved he could win at least once without me letting him. Chainsmoking and losing over and over again until it was his turn to break his joystick with great violence. Bringing us to punches one more time and getting my grandfather to come right into the room to see what all the fuss was about. How it had been a double bogey that got my father put into a headlock on the floor this time and until now, the old man having no idea you could play golf on this thing. The kind of revelation that got him taking over one of our chairs to investigate. Begin to press buttons. My grandfather only recently retired, and already on the verge of some new kind of greatness.  

The soon-to-be Beast of the Leaderboard.  

Yet one more person for my father to lose to before the summer ended. To replace me when I finally had to go back to school. To have someone around to continue these ass-kickings well into the new year. Giving him all the reason he needed to keep smashing joysticks into oblivion in that unbelievably smoky room of his. Not seeing anything funny about it. 

Joysticks were expensive.