by Mark McCann
And so, afraid to find out that we had been separated at birth, it was from him that I kept moving in a radius around the room and our guests. Step, pivot, step; to avoid detection I tried to make casual movements, each one designed to make my escape unnoticeable. Having so many kids there was simply the real gift for appearing busy. ‘Why are there pants here? Is there a kid somewhere not wearing pants? What the heck,’ – I hardly seemed desperate. Up the stairs at the right moment and into the washroom was a game-saver at one point, then taking drink orders for everyone, and focusing on food and cake, and then we were on the home stretch.
Once Coop caught my attention from across the room seemingly with an appeal like I should run over and talk to him. I looked back contrarily like it was simply too far. Without moving and without the intention to, I held my beer up in his direction, giving him a ‘cheers’ from afar. I smiled but was really laughing to myself. His shirt said, ‘HI with a GH’ on the front, while the front of mine said, ‘I care,’ and the back said, ‘this much.’ I wished the front had been, ‘You’re stupid,’ but it was definitely the next best thing. I was excited about having to eventually get up and walk away. Katie had bought it for me years ago and it had never been so fitting. Well, I mean, it was a shirt that fit, but what it said had never been so relevant. I had thrown it on today, and only now realized just how appropriate it was. Had I actually remembered I was wearing it before anyone arrived I would have changed into something more appropriate for guests that weren’t Coop. I was suddenly worried he wouldn’t notice. What if he didn’t read shirts? Who doesn’t read shirts? That’s why they started putting stuff on them in the first place. I’d go toward him and then away, or maybe just start walking in circles in front of him. I could get a kid to chase me. Where’d the kids go? What is that over in the corner behind me? Oh, it’s a toy amongst a bunch of other toys, weird. What, this shirt? Oh, it was a gift, yes, from me, to me, for you.
I looked down and saw Coop’s daughter standing before me, her head tilted up. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Um, you have to speak up a bit, I can’t hear you.” She continued with the same thing. I bent over, straining to hear something, but the closer my face got to her face the less I could hear. I straightened. People talking, a kid laughing, oh nice: Knuckle Butt was barking, pretty sure I could even hear a train outside; everything sounded as it should, that is, there was noise. I bent back over, “Pardon sweetheart?” Again, nothing, “Do you want something?” I asked her, “Are you speaking?” It seemed that sound actually dissolved near this little girl. “Wave if you’re saying something,” I said, as a big ball of frustration did a cannonball in the middle of my mind. “What’s wrong?” I made a face at her I intended to mean, ‘Are you okay,’ to which she had zero reaction. Her little face kept talking but not talking. “What’s wrong?” I whispered, thinking maybe that would help. “Is the quiet air around you too loud? I just…” I shook my head and looked around for help. “I don’t get it.” I looked back down at her; she was still talking, but she hadn’t said one audible thing. I smiled at her and I patted her on the head. I pointed towards Coop. “There’s your dad,” I said and gently applied some pressure to the back of her head to start her off in that direction, away from me.
My cell beeped; a missed call from my dad; it had likely rang when I was bent over trying to hear anything in that vacuum of space that surrounded that silent girl’s head. But the head had returned, and stood in my line of sight, under my phone. When I lifted my head, Coop was standing behind her.
“We have to head out, man,” he said, “I have to take her back to her mom today.”
“Oh, okay, cool, yeah, well, thanks a lot for coming, I… is that… where’s Steven?” I turned my back to him, “I thought he was right here, have you seen him?” With that statement I turned around in front of him three times. I was about to go around again when Katie stepped up, thanked him, and gave me a sharp nudge in my side.
I was pretty sure it had been a long day, especially judging by the look on Ding Dings face and the fact that Knuckle Butt had fallen asleep on the floor in the middle of the room like he’d been shot and had fallen there.
Most of our visitors had left, with the remaining few filing out once we’d put the kids to bed, except for Nate. He, Katie and I sat at the dining room table getting farther and farther into conversation and alcohol.
“See that video of those guys trying to staple their high five together?”
I looked at Nate. “Is this your Coop impersonation – it’s pretty good.” I shook my head, “Please tell me you’re kidding,” I said tiredly.
“I’m not, seriously, they’re screaming in agony and the guy filming it is laughing his ass off.”
“Why do you think it’s a guy filming it?” Katie asked him, “I thought it was a girl because of how she was laughing.” Apparently she had seen it.
Nate looked at her and shook his head, “No, no girl would be a part of something that…” he squinted and tilted his head to the side, hoping the right word would eventually roll along and drop through the right hole.
“Stupid,” I said for him. “A girl wouldn’t be a part of something so STUPID,” I said directing the word toward Nate. “Because if they did partake in such insane, stupid shit; one, we wouldn’t survive as a species, and, two, Nate here would have a girlfriend that would let him fill her cheeks with farts.”
Nate looked at me as though he couldn’t believe I had brought that into this. How dare I mention something dumb he had done while on the topic of dumb things people have done? I looked at him, undisturbed in the slightest by his resentment. I was quite at ease with not only my honesty but also telling the truth. I patted him on the shoulder, “It’s all good, buddy, and, hey, I hope you had the presence of mind to say, ‘Smell you later,’ when she left.” I tried not to smile, but Katie got caught in the middle of taking a drink and snorted, which made me burst out laughing. Nate stared at me and shook his head. “Sorry, man, I know, I know.” I slid my chair away from the table so I could stand, “Who needs a beer?” I could only laugh as they both droned, “Meeee.”
Chapter 34 … The Date
Katie and I had dropped the boys off with her parents for the night. We decided to it was high time we went out for coffee and uninterrupted-by-a-child conversation. We had forgotten that existed; never mind what it was like. It was something we did quite often before our kids came into the picture and obviously something we’d neglected to resume doing. We thought small doses of one on one time every so often might do us some good.
She was driving and my hand was on her leg as I stared out the window in reverie. I was myself with her. I was only ever myself with her, I felt; for even alone I had my doubts. If ever life was explaining something to me, I finally understood what it was saying when I met her.
“Dark hair really makes my eyes pop,” she said, glancing at herself in the rear-view mirror. She had just had her hair cut and coloured that afternoon.
“So do my fingers,” I said and turned to look at her. She gave me a look that became impossible to translate, and for that, I am sorry to have mentioned it. “Are you so tired you could pee your pants a little and blame it on the rain?” I asked. She gave me yet another look that was like the last, but, before where it may have been ‘murderous’, there was a ‘what is wrong with your brain’ element to this one. I knew her looks well, yet if one asked me to replicate them, I wouldn’t be able to. Yet, again, I knew I had made those same faces with Nate and probably a good number of other people. One would think I knew well how Nate had been looked at most of his life, and, still, I was oblivious. If I ever did write a book, maybe he’d be the hero. I could certainly make it up to him then.
Katie and I sat across from one another in a booth in the café. I stared at my mug on the table and then raised my head to look at her. She smiled. She was beaming; she beamed her smile at my face like a laser and I now had a tiny, charred, smoking head turn
ing to ash atop slowly falling shoulders. I’ve some strange thoughts. Katie tilted her face a touch, I smiled.
“What are you thinking,” she asked, knowing wisely, and maybe painfully, that the answer was never, nothing.
“Um… I think I was actually just imagining you shooting a laser from your face at mine,” I said slowly with a small laugh and shrug as if to say, ‘and there you have it.’
She laughed. Smiling and shaking her head she added, “I don’t even know what to say to that or if I’m even surprised. Do you have that a lot and, like, is that with the shooting sounds and everything; baby, do things go boom in your head?” she was laughing directly at me now. “I guess I always thought it to be, well, I don’t really know exactly what, but I can honestly say definitely, not that.”
“Yeah, no, just going around blowing things up in my head,” I said, almost embarrassed. “You should see what I do to people I don’t like.”
“Yes, I’m sure I don’t want to know,” she sighed.
“I’m kidding, love. The fantastical fights in my melon either have something to do with societal pains that cause me suffering for some unknown reason or my trying to counter such ugliness with memories of your body naked – and your smile, your beautiful loving smile, yup, constantly painting over profanity with images of beautiful you.” I said cheerfully.
“Uh huh, well thank you, love, I love you very much,” she said and giggled the way only she could. I smiled, nodding assuredly. “Seriously, have you started taking your medication?” she asked softly and seriously.
“Yes,” I replied, “only because I figure it can’t hurt, though the side effects probably suggest otherwise.”
“What do you mean, probably?” she asked with her eyebrows raised in a manner that were nearing an expression of concern. I liked that she was giving me the benefit of the doubt, even if only for a moment.
“If I did read the packaging I probably wouldn’t be taking them,” I countered. “I’m not even convinced I suffer from depression; it’s more, maybe, overthinking than anything, maybe.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said back, “that’s a lot of maybes. You don’t know, so let’s see if it helps. That’s why you went to the doctor; it’s better to try a solution and see that it doesn’t work than to just wonder what would. Remember the documentary we watched about Ai WeiWei? You’re not really entitled to complain about something unless you’ve gone through due process and proven it doesn’t work. Um, yeah, and you thought I wasn’t paying attention.”
She was right. I hadn’t an argument for that. I smiled and nodded. “I know, you’re right, I just, it just…” I stuttered and stretched, “I can’t find the calm or I find the calm but I can’t stay in it. I keep trying, I know it’s there, I get there, I have it, I bask in it, and then my ego says, awesome, and the dominos fall and I scramble but the mess is made and the very effort to clean it up just messes it up more. Do you know what I mean?” I leaned forward with a hopeful face.
“No, no one can know what you mean,” she answered honestly, “but only because it’s in your head. You’ll get there; maybe you’re just too… smart for your own good.”
I smiled back at her kindness, “And you’re just too sweet for your own butt.”
“Aw, thanks love.”
“No, thank you. So,” I announced softly, “now I know the clock is ticking on eating the chicken in the fridge, but maybe we should finish our coffee and go somewhere for a nice dinner instead of eating at home? Hell, with my looks and your wallet, I’ll even buy.”
She laughed, “Sure, let’s do that. See, I told you: you are just too darn smart.”
Chapter 35 … The Drinkiest Drunk
While Katie and I were entering the restaurant, I told her that a couple I worked with, who I’d always called ‘on again’ and ‘off again’ to their faces and behind their backs, were now planning on getting married. She replied sincerely, “Oh good, now you’ll have to learn their real names.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I almost agreed, “but I’m more disappointed than anything because now when something goes wrong I can’t just yell at someone, ‘Can you get me off again?’
Right after I’d said that, in the middle of our laugh, I was startled by a loud booming, “Hey!” It was my dad. He smiled, and I smiled and then I stopped and he kept smiling. “You guys getting a bite to eat?” he asked enthusiastically.
“No,” I said and was nudged by Katie for doing so. “I mean, yes, Kate’s parents are watching the boys for the night.” I quickly tried in vain to continue the excited pace he’d set.
“Hold on a sec,” he said, turning and looking behind him, before being swallowed by a group of people leaving the restaurant.
“You seem pretty excited,” Katie said to me.
“I am,” I said, “I’m just glad to see my dad’s alone.”
“You do realize that sounds horrible; don’t you?” She looked at me as though I had just wished loneliness upon him.
“Come on,” I said, “you know I don’t mean it like that, I’m just not ready to deal with both of them yet … ever. And he’s probably not alone; he usually comes here with Mr. Smith, um… Duncan’s dad,” I said, clarifying for her who exactly I meant with a triumphant smile that faded so fast it may as well exploded to reveal the true, defeated mouth beneath.
I raised my hand, finger pointing at my dad, but then retracted it, and placed the fist in front of my mouth, which was now shut tight. Some would often say ‘pursed’ in this instance, but I lose the appropriate image there; having seen more open purses in my lifetime than closed ones, and, as a result, with that word I always envision a mouth kind of gaping open with makeup and keys falling from it or the person gargling and choking from the million needless things stuffed in their face. And, yes, something almost had fallen out of my mouth, namely one big, fiery red, ‘Fuck me.’
“We’ll sit together,” he boomed in a way only he could, in a way that seemed to dissuade the slightest chance of disagreement, something I’d known all my life. Then, in a tiny moment, Candy was at his side. I remained where I was. I was thinking frantically, which only proved to be counterproductive. There was nothing at all linear or helpful in my head. Leave, how, go; stop, everyone, fire, help. I looked at Katie, who couldn’t have looked more delighted to see them there. Why was she so cool with everything? I wanted to shake her. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a big, ‘WHAT THE—’ face, and then throw her at them to make my escape. I wanted to head-butt the tray a nearby waiter was carrying. Or, I thought, I could maybe kick it into the air, shower everyone in close proximity and then dive out the door.
We were seated. They were talking and giggling to themselves. Katie was glowing with excitement; dinner, family, she thought it was perfect. I wanted to barf. The word was being spelled out in the front of my mind: B-A-R-F. I wanted to announce it, and then do it. I am going to barf because of you and you, and what the hell, you two over in the back there, why not, BLAH! Then they both got up, and I perked up with a smile.
“We’re just going to go to the bar and get us all some drinks,” my dad said like there was a drink buffet table I had missed.
“Dad, we just ordered drinks; our waitress is going to bring them, I’m sure probably any second now,” I was annoyed with his lack of reason now that we were committed to the problem. I didn’t want to drag it out. We’re going to tease you a little bit – oh, okay, I’ll wait here.
“Yeah, I know,” he said with a quick smile, “we’ll drink those too,”
“Of course,” I muttered as I looked to Katie for further explanation. “You’re a big drunk,” I blurted out loudly to his back, knowing it was likely lost to the din of the noisy room.
“Hey, that’s your father,” Katie reminded me while giving my leg a squeeze.
“Oh, yeah, and you know what else I remember?” I said as fast as I could, “My father is a big drunk.”
“Shush,” she … shushed me.
“Um, what the F, don’t shush, don’t hush, just sshhh, you are neither a librarian nor ninety. I’ve got enough shit to deal with, okay? Stay with me on this,” I was tired and wanted to be done with the night immediately. Katie looked at me without approval, and I thought she may as well go to the bar too. Hell, why weren’t we all there having some drinks before our drinks came? It was starting to make sense; why be sober for this?
I wanted to pout, to flip the table, to do something that made more sense than anything that was going on. I wanted to be a kid again, back on my paper route; now there was a routine I could cycle through daily.
“Come on, it’s been good. Lighten up and be happy your dad’s laughing, I mean it.”
“You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t mean it. Don’t add unnecessary crap,”