All Families Are Psychotic

by Douglas Coupland

  Shw cut in, ‘Oh, Janet, joking like always.’ She turned to Gayle. ‘Janet is always such a caution.’

  Janet said, ‘Oh, no, Shw … Emily – don’t hide your light under a bushel.’ Janet turned to Gayle. ‘She actually said that if she could, she’d donate her womb services for free, but then she has to cover her expenses.’

  Gayle said, ‘Oh yes, you do have to cover your overhead. That much I can understand.’

  Lloyd came into the room with a prescription bottle of Tylenol 3.

  Gayle, almost squeaking with glee at the chance of a price break, burst out, ‘A toast! To my loving and generous Emily, and to the whole Drummond clan.’

  Everybody drained their flutes in one gulp. Gayle and Lloyd then bombarded Ted with NASA-related questions, which were answered with pamphlet-like accuracy. Janet, left out of this conversation, asked to use the bathroom. Down the hall, her arm was painfully yanked behind her by a furious Shw. ‘OK, what’s it going to cost to make you people shut up?’

  ‘Shw – Emily – truly ask me if I care here. Because I don’t think I do.’

  From behind, Wade clamped his hand over Shw’s mouth. ‘I think Bryan’s the one to worry about, you little witch. He’s stunned right now, but in a few minutes he’ll be in the pulpit. And good for him.’

  Shw bit him but quickly unclamped.

  ‘Ow, shit.’ Wade nearly yelped. ‘Why’d you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t break your skin, did I?’

  Wade checked. ‘No, you’re uninfected, thank you.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Shw. ‘They’ll hear us.’

  Wade looked at a steel door beside the vanity. ‘A steel door? Why would anyone have a steel door in their house?’

  Shw said, ‘I dunno. A bomb shelter, I think.’

  ‘A bomb shelter?’

  Wade opened the door; it revealed a deep, fungal-smelling staircase. ‘This is Florida. People don’t have basements here.’

  ‘NASA’s twenty miles south, bozo. This place was a primary nuclear target for forty years. It probably still is.’

  Janet followed along. Fascinating. All of this, just fascinating. They walked down the dimly lit stairway that smelled of concrete blocks. At the end there was another steel door.

  Wade said, ‘If this isn’t curious, I don’t know what is. We’re going in.’

  ‘It’s locked. I tried already,’ said Shw.

  ‘Some Nancy Drew you are.’ Wade pulled out his key-chain and used one of its keys to fiddle with the lock; in moments the door was open. He flicked on a light switch just inside the door, and the three entered. Inside was an obstetrical chair, isolated and cold, like a Mississippi prison’s lethal injection facility – it appeared to be a home delivery ward. On the wall behind the chair was an array of stainless steel medical instruments, handcuffs and leather straps. To the right, the three saw a perfect, pink and dainty bedroom for one person set behind a set of steel zoo bars.

  None of them spoke. After the most cursory of inspections they fled up to the main hallway. Gayle shouted, ‘Did you find the little girls’ room OK, Janet?’

  ‘Yes, and such a lovely home you have here. A clear sense of taste and vision. And very thorough, too. Did you or Lloyd do the interior?’

  ‘I won’t let Lloyd even go near a color chip. He’d choose school-bus yellow or mental-ward green, and then we might as well be living in a trailer park roasting Spam with pineapple rings tacked on to it with toothpicks.’

  ‘Such a colorful word picture.’

  ‘Forty-two hundred square feet of Gayle is what you see here.’ She turned to Shw. ‘Emily, come into the living room. I found your letter for me in the car’s trunk – such a thoughtful gesture. I thought we could open it now as a sort of bonding ceremony.’

  ‘A letter?’

  She’s quick. And she knows she needs us here. Janet took Shw’s arm. ‘Yes, dear, the one you were telling me about. Truly a generous gesture.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that one. Of course.’

  They walked into the living room. Janet said, ‘Ted … Bryan … Gayle is going to read us a letter from Emily.’

  ‘Letter?’ They sat bolt upright.

  Gayle prattled on. ‘Emily, you sly fox. You even inserted it between plastic sheets to keep it clean. And you labeled it “Mummy” – that’s what I used to call my own mother.’

  ‘The letter meant a lot to me,’ Shw said, whereupon a crash of cinematic proportions came from beside Ted across the room; he’d dropped a solid brass gazelle statue through a glass side table. The crash had its intended effect. Gayle dropped the letter, and Janet dove for it. Gayle stormed over to Ted, palpably on the brink of shouting a blue streak. ‘I paid retail for that table.’

  ‘Can’t be much of a table if it can’t hold a small piece of brass.’

  ‘It’s ruined.’

  Ted looked at the shards and said, ‘I think the gazelle’s leg looks bent, too,’ which sent Gayle into a further fit; Lloyd came over to comfort her, and the others were ignored.

  Wade grabbed a dummy letter from Janet’s purse and flicked it to her, but by mistake he threw two letters stuck together; she caught both.

  Janet then removed the real letter from between the sheets, used her pen to make a blue dot on its top right corner, tossed it to Wade and put a fake letter inside the plastic sheets. It was a lightning-fast procedure. The extra dummy letter she slid under the couch seat.

  Gayle clucked about with a Dustbuster, paper bags and a broom, while Bryan, caught up in this family activity, knocked over his Champagne flute to buy an extra minute or so for Janet and Wade.

  Janet said, ‘Gayle, don’t worry, it’ll be just fine.’ Things settled down, although Gayle’s initial friendliness had worn measurably thin.

  Janet said, ‘You were going to read a letter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gayle picked up the duplicate, brushed a wisp of hair from her face and turned on her smile. ‘From little Emily.’ She opened the letter with less finesse than she might have before Ted broke the table. Inside was a card saying To the Finest of Sons on the Occasion of His Bar Mitzvah. Inside the card was a coffee cup ring. ‘Emily?’

  Shw looked at her and said, ‘So, what’s with the downstairs pink dungeon, huh?’

  Gayle and Lloyd’s faces at first looked as if they might project a sort of chipper Who, me? innocence, but they quickly morphed into blank business-like stares.

  ‘Dungeon?’ asked Bryan.

  Janet said, ‘Yes, we just took a tour – obstetrical chair, handcuffs, leather straps and the cutest little pink bedroom inside a gorilla cage.’

  Wade said, ‘Hey, Lloyd, hey, Gayle – aren’t you two the sick fucks?’ Lloyd and Gayle had nothing to say.

  Janet knew that this was the point at which weapons, if they were to be used, would appear. She said, ‘Wade … Ted … Bryan … Emily … could you please capture Lloyd and Gayle. Perhaps we should lock them inside their own jail. Kimba, I believe, is in the backyard kennel.’ There was a moment of silence, then a bark, as though Janet were addressing Kimba: ‘Now!’

  … a blur … some cussing … some thrashing … some shiny broken furniture, and Lloyd and Gayle were downstairs inside the pink room, locked behind bars. Lloyd became vocal: ‘You people are fucking nuts. I’m going to have every cop between here and Atlanta carving you into fucking steak tartare before you have a chance to even blink. I don’t care if your daughter won the Nobel Prize – any child in your family has to be fucking crazy.’

  Janet, surveying the dungeon at leisure, said, ‘Watch your language, Lloyd. Oh, look – my, my, a cattle prod. Obstetrics have come a long way since my own children were born. Handcuffs, too. How smart. Who’d have thought?’

  Shw pulled a chair up to the bars and glowered at Lloyd and Gayle. ‘What was your plan, huh? When was I going to end up in your little Barbie’s First Lockup Facility?’ Bryan stood beside her, spitting at the two.

  ‘You were never going to be in here,’ Gayle said.
/>   ‘You saving the space for someone else perhaps?’

  ‘I can see how this must look …’

  Shw waved the cattle prod through the bars, causing Lloyd and Gayle to shimmy up against the wall.

  Wade said, ‘Shw, give it a rest. We have bigger fish to fry.’

  Shw spun around. ‘So what’s the deal with that letter, huh? You people probably don’t even read the Sunday comics, so what’s in a letter that’s so important to you? Huh? Huh? Huh?’

  Janet said, ‘OK. Fair enough. We’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to abort your baby or go selling it to the highest bidders.’

  Bryan’s face lit up.

  Shw asked, ‘Is there money in it for me?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Deal.’

  23

  Janet said, ‘I think it’s best we find evidence to build a solid blackmail case. Don’t you think?’ And with this, her family began sifting through drawers and cupboards ferreting out more information about Lloyd and Gayle’s baby factory cum dungeon.

  Wade was aware of the fact that his family was immersed in a world of cheese, cruddiness and illegalities from which they might never emerge. Was there any going back? Was there anything to go back to? Wade had slogged in the crud for over two decades and that was his life, his father maybe just as long. Bryan? Fifteen years. Sarah? As the past week had revealed, maybe a year or so. But Mom? So pure and crud-proof, now seemingly born to the role of navigator through the warm, farty waters of sleaze – upstairs, scooping out the potpourris and emptying vases looking for dirt. She called to Wade, down in the kitchen going through the cupboards.

  ‘Yeah, Mom?’

  ‘There’s a beautiful shirt up here, and it looks like it’d fit you perfectly.’

  ‘Mom, this isn’t Abercrombie and Fitch. I don’t need a new shirt.’

  ‘But you do, and this one is so soft, and a tattersall check, which is always so flattering.’

  ‘I don’t want Lloyd’s shirt, Mom. The karma alone …’

  ‘You wouldn’t be so Mr. Karma if you’d gone through the Depression and the war, buster. This is a good shirt. Well-made. And I only want you to try it on.’

  ‘I am not trying it.’

  ‘Then don’t, but don’t come crying to me when the soup kitchens reopen.’

  Ted, in the den, called out, ‘Take the effing shirt, ferchrissake. A good deal is a good deal.’

  ‘Dad, that’s stealing. I can’t believe you’d be so casual about swiping other people’s stuff.’

  ‘How can you of all people say that?’

  ‘What are you calling me?’ Wade charged off to the den.

  ‘I’m calling you someone who can’t spot a good deal when he sees one.’ Ted was going through a drawer full of ball bearings.

  Wade said, ‘Oh, I see – that coming from Mr. Chapter Eleven. It’s because you’re in such deep financial shit that we’re even pursuing this stupid mess further.’

  ‘Oh, like you’re not getting cash out of this? Well, if you hadn’t gone and shat away your life doing God only knows what garbage, we wouldn’t have hooked up with that lousy kraut who gets spanked by his nanny on Sundays.’

  Ted seemed to be anticipating a reply that, historically, would only escalate the situation into a brawl. But instead Wade went quiet. ‘Uh-oh.’

  ‘Uh-oh what?’

  ‘Howie.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I, uh … just that Florian probably kidnapped him.’ Wade recalled Florian’s penchant for Danish-built radar and data monitoring systems. ‘I used his phone at the Brunswicks’.’

  ‘Serves him right.’

  Wade sat down in a green leather captain’s chair, and Ted across from him on a stool. Janet came into the room. ‘Did I just hear you say that this German fellow’s kidnapped Howie?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nobody seemed overly troubled by this news. ‘You don’t think they’d hurt him, do you?’

  ‘Florian? Eventually.’

  Ted said, ‘This could solve problems for us, couldn’t it? We can simply tell Sarah he was there for the launch. She’ll be up in the shuttle, so how’s she going to know?’

  Janet seemed to mull this over.

  Wade said, ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What if launch time comes, and instead of Howie standing with us in the VIP bleachers, we only have Howie’s pancreas inside a picnic cooler?’

  Ted, with a rich lack of self-awareness, said, ‘Wade, don’t be such a bore. He’s a philandering putz.’

  Janet added, ‘I don’t even think Sarah likes Howie much.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ted, ‘Good riddance. Where’s Shw?’

  Bryan walked into the room, eating cold ravioli out of a can. ‘She’s in the garage. What’s Dad so razzed about?’

  ‘Howie and Alanna’s affair.’

  ‘Gee. Tell me something new.’

  Janet looked at Bryan’s snack. ‘Bryan, how can you eat that stuff? They put cat food inside those raviolis.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom.’ He stopped eating.

  The Drummond family sat around Lloyd’s den, posed as if modeling for a Burda knitting catalogue. The office was an oak fantasia filled with electric doodads purchased in the wacky electrical doodad shop at the mall. Ted said, ‘I say let the kraut turn him into ravioli filling.’

  Janet said, ‘We’d all like that, but I think for Sarah’s long-term happiness we’d better rescue him alive.’

  Bryan said, ‘Maybe we can let Florian torture him just a little.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Ted.

  ‘Yeah, I like that,’ added Wade.

  ‘Does Florian use physical or psychological torture?’ Janet asked Wade.

  ‘How should I know?’ If she knew, she’d freak.

  ‘Call him on the speakerphone.’

  ‘He’ll know we’re here at this phone number.’

  ‘Phone him now, Wade.’

  Mother knows best, and it does get me off the hook. Inside a minute Florian was on the line, and Wade put him on the speakerphone with Janet. She asked, ‘Is this Florian?’

  ‘It is. And who might this be?’

  ‘I’m Janet, Wade’s mother.’

  A Teutonic cackle burst from the other end. ‘Oh, this is too rich, far too rich. Wade, whoever this actress is, please spare her having to play an impossible role.’

  Wade said, ‘That’s my mother, Florian, you be nice to her.’

  ‘Oh gawd, Wade – you’re serious, aren’t you? Very well, I shall indeed mind my manners. Hello’ – Florian adopted the manner of one addressing a child’s imaginary friend – ‘Janet.’

  ‘Yes, well, we might as well do our business. How much will you pay for the letter, and how much do we pay to get’ – a freighted pause – ‘Howie back.’

  ‘Yes, your son-in-law. A charmer.’

  ‘You can imagine how thrilled we are to have to actually pay to retrieve him. You should see him at Christmas. He has to have the floor to himself to sing Christmas carols. Here’s an impersonation—’ Janet burst into a mock soprano: “‘Frawwwwwwwwsty the snnnnnnnnnnnowwwwwwwman …” And on. And on.’

  Ted burst in, ‘He’s a goddamn pain in the butt.’

  Florian was genuinely curious. ‘And who might this new speaker be?’

  ‘It’s my dad, Florian. Be nice.’

  Florian seemed insulted. ‘My manners are always good, Wade. Who else is there in the room with you?’

  ‘My brother, Bryan.’

  ‘Are you playing Scrabble? Pick-up Stix?’

  Janet said to everybody in the room, ‘Please be quiet.’ She turned to the speakerphone’s grille. ‘Florian, let’s play “garage sale”. Whatever you’re charging for Howie, we want a hundred thousand more for the letter.’

  Florian said, ‘I want a billion dollars for Howie.’

  Janet said, ‘I want a billion dollars plus a hundred grand for the letter.’

  ‘I’ve already trac
ked you down via call display, you know.’

  ‘We’ll be gone in five minutes. And then what? Big deal. We’ll shred the letter. A hundred thousand, Florian. That’s one one-hundredth of the original asking price.’

  ‘Fifty thousand.’

  Janet said breezily, ‘You know what, Florian? No. A hundred, firm. I’m an old lady dying of AIDS, my ex-husband’s an old man dying of liver cancer—’

  Wade and Bryan froze and stared at their unconcerned father. Janet continued on: ‘—and Wade’s not looking too hot, either.’

  ‘So I hear. Are you in pain?’

  ‘Yes. A bit. Mouth ulcers, but I can take medications for that. But these pills, Florian, good God, they swallow up my entire life, thinking about them. It’s making me more crazy than anything.’

  ‘My mother had breast cancer. She lived on pills, too.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing. When?’

  ‘When I was younger.’

  ‘Did it go on for long?’

  Florian sounded thoughtful: ‘With what she had to go through, a single day was too long.’

  ‘You poor lamb. How did your family take it?’

  ‘Daddy dearest was embarrassed, and you know why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because here he is, the world’s leading maker of pills, pills, pills, and he can’t find a single pill to save my mother. He took this failure as a personal disgrace, and the disgrace overshadowed my mother’s death.’

  ‘People respond to dying in unpredictable ways. That was his.’

  ‘But Janet, you must understand that after the funeral services were over, did he bother to throw money into research? No. He drank himself into the gutters of Nassau. Disgusting. Cochon. And then he got Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘My father had Alzheimer’s. Four years of hell.’

  ‘How do you deal with it?’

  ‘I don’t know if I did. Did he recognize you at the end?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mine neither. It’s so cruel. It robs you of everything. Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘My brother was killed in an avalanche in Klosters in 1974. So I’m the end of the line.’

  ‘So do you put more money into research to make up for what your dad lacked?’