Seven Good Reasons Not to Be Good

by John Gould

  “No, The Sound of Music. The movie?”

  “Julie Andrews?” says Kate. “It was Julie Andrews who made you realize how humongous and amazing the world really is?” She settles into an armchair, her face still blacked out by the light behind her. If she were on TV this would be a show about infidelity or addiction or some such, and her voice would be distorted, mechanized.

  “I loved that movie.” Matt folds an arm behind his head, bestows his gaze upon the ceiling. “It was a family outing, that made it a big deal. We never went anywhere. My sister was crazy to see it but I was going to hate it, it was going to be so wimpy.” He chuckles—he always chuckles at this point in the tale. “They had to carry me out of the damn place. I swear to God, my dad had to sling me over his shoulder and lug me to the car.”

  “You were crying?”

  “Crying? I was …” What’s the word he always uses? It won’t come to him. “Yeah, you could say I was crying. How could it be over, that world? How could such a thing just end?”

  “How old were you?”

  “Six. Seven. Part of it was that I was in love with Liesl. Going on seventeen? She looked a bit like Inga, our babysitter.” He makes a be-still-my-heart sort of gesture. “The only way they could get me to sleep that night was to promise to buy me the LP.” He accepts a phantom guitar from Fräulein Maria, begins plucking out “Edelweiss.”

  “What a suck,” says Kate, before he can actually burst into song.

  “You said it. So then I’m at film school and one of our profs reads us a review of it, of The Sound of Music. He meant it to be an example of something, I can’t remember what. That review was vicious, God, it was vicious. Pauline Kael. And I think to myself, hey, I’m going to do that too.”

  Kate gets up, fishes a Perrier out of her mini-fridge. What does he taste like, anyway? She waves it at him, sharesies?

  “Sure, thanks.”

  It wasn’t quite as neat as all that. Still, something really did happen to Matt that day, under the spell of Kael’s caustic words. A shiver of rightness, of recognition—the way Mr. Kumar must have felt when he first set eyes on the chessboard, the way Erin must have felt when she first slipped into the pool. This was a worthy task, almost a holy task: to spot the hokum, to name it. Which would leave Matt free, presumably, to set about making the real thing, a film purified by his critical vision.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” Matt accepts his glass of fizzy water, cranks his head up just enough to sip from it. “Funny story,” he says, settling back down. He’s getting pleasantly groggy now, ready for his post-coital snooze. “Zane? He went to a singalong Sound of Music once. As a cream-coloured pony.”

  “As a what?”

  “A cream-coloured pony. One of Maria’s favourite things? His wife went as a man on the road with a load to tote.”

  “His wife? But Zane’s gay, you said.”

  “So’s she.”

  Matt started a Sound of Music review of his own once, but he’s never been able to finish it. He worked his way in through the music, two versions of “My Favorite Things,” the film version by Julie Andrews—so trite and phony—and the later version by squonky jazz guy John Coltrane, to which Matt applied words like coruscating and incandescent. A reversal of time, then, of cause and effect, the faint copy preceding the fearsome original. From there Matt segued awkwardly to the claim that nothing else about the movie was authentic either. “The children are the kind of children adults fantasize about. The adults are the kind of adults children fantasize about. Hell, even the Nazis are the kind of Nazis non-Nazis fantasize about …” It was a good angle, but not good enough.

  Worse, Matt’s never quite nailed his review of the other classic from his childhood, The Wizard of Oz. For the opposite reason, of course. No solvent he can apply to Sound will be keen enough to cut through the film’s fraudulence, and no light he can shine on Wizard will adequately reveal its truth. Sound and Wizard, these are the twin poles of Matt’s aesthetic. Maria and Dorothy, these are his two witches, his bad and his good …

  Matt sighs, snuggles down. If he were to sprinkle enough Juniper Breeze into his bath, might Dorothy someday come to him in a bubble? If he could whip up a strong enough wind might he be able to raise the shack, sp-sp-spin it around a few times and drop it—

  Da-da-dum, da-da-dum, da-da-dum-dum-dum. Oops, must have dozed off there—the William Tell startles him awake. He’s instantly sinking again, Kate’s hush-hush voice drifting in from the bathroom, rising now and then to bear him a few words. “… which is really none of your … but you know we aren’t … I can’t believe …”

  There’s a red light high in one corner of Matt’s room, a winking red eye. Not regular and not random, it’s actually attuned to his presence, flashes whenever he moves. Some kind of motion-sensitive surveillance system, presumably. As he emerges from the washroom tonight, flossed and brushed and boxered, it acknowledges his presence with a cordial flicker. He reaches out to touch Erin’s box—what do you do with your sister’s bones once you’ve got them?—and receives another wink. Spooky, but maybe better than being alone? After so many years spent watching people onscreen it’s hard not to feel watched anyhow, hard not to feel like the focus of some phantom crew. Grip, gaffer, boom operator, best boy, the whole gang’s here all the time, ready to roll.

  And Matt, what’s that like for you? Are you aware of the crew as you do a scene?

  Well, that’s an interesting question, John or Jill or Bill or Beth. I think, as time goes by, you learn how to sink more and more deeply into the part, and into the moment. Almost a Zen thing. Mind you, sex scenes present a whole other challenge.

  Yes, ha ha, I just bet they do! Poor guy, we feel for ya! Say, Matt, of all the women you’ve done love scenes with, Uma and Andie and Jennifer and Reese and Gwyneth and Kim and Cate and Demi and Angelina and Charlize—whoosh, who can keep track!—which of them would you say was the most…

  Fuck. This can’t really be happening. Can this really be happening?

  When Matt woke up again, after his little nap there in Kate’s room, it was to Kate shaking him, telling him he had to go. This was seriously discombobulating, since he was still stuck in his dream, and in his dream he was still stuck at home in the Lair and Mariko was shaking him, telling him he had to go …

  “Why?” Matt blinked—Kate was whirlwinding about the room switching on lights.

  “You just do.”

  This should have been enough. Matt should have gathered himself up, got himself out the door, gone back to his life, whatever’s left of it. “Yeah but why?”

  “River’s here,” said Kate. “My boyfriend’s here. I mean ex.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  Kate stamped her foot, a mum losing it at bedtime. “Just because, okay?”

  “Kate, I really—”

  “If I tell you, you’ll leave, right? You’ll clear out?”

  “Sure.”

  So Kate arranged herself on the edge of the bed, and she took a deep breath, and she told him.

  After a while Matt said, “So let me get this straight.” He’d managed to zip himself up, wriggle into a sitting position. Shred of dignity. “River’s a doctoral student at … River?”

  “His parents were hippies. But Matt, you really have to—”

  “At Dalhousie, and he’s into the whole universe business. He’s a student, but he’s not a student of yours.”

  “That’s right. The world as one thing.”

  “What?”

  “That’s his thesis topic, I got that from him. See, I didn’t want to drag you into this so I started making stuff up, and … and then I just kept on making stuff up. I guess I kind of got hooked on the story, I’m sorry about that, but it actually, I don’t know why, it actually made me feel closer to you. Can you believe that, please?”

  Matt had a go at restraining his hair, clumped and scruffy from his snooze. “Okay, so River’s not a student of yours. You don’t teach this subject, y
ou’re not an astronomer at all.”

  “No. To tell you the truth I hated Mr. Barclay, skulking around in his lab coat with—”

  “Right, okay, so you’re not an astronomer. You’re a psychiatrist, you said?”

  “Psychologist.”

  “You’re a psychologist, and you work at a group home for loonies.”

  “Not a term we use, but yes. Schizophrenics mostly. One of my clients is River’s sister, Morning? That’s how we met. I studied up on his stuff, River’s stuff, when I was trying to, you know.”

  “Get into his pants.”

  Kate shrugged—sorry about all this. “I told you I go overboard. Used to go overboard. Look how sensible I’m being with you!” She tried on a good-girl grin.

  “Right.”

  “Anyway, I had all these night shifts for a while, plenty of time to read, so I crammed on the universe stuff. Plus I use it, the same way you’re going to use it on Zane. Something so big …” She checked her wrist, popped up and started poking around for her watch. The digital clock on the bedside table was blinking on 12:OO—her room appeared to have suffered a blackout. “River was calling from the airport, he was about to grab a cab.”

  “Jatinder’ll slow him down,” said Matt.

  “Jatinder?”

  “So you’re not here for an astronomy conference, obviously.”

  “No. I—I’m an idiot. But you know what, can we possibly talk about this later? River can get kind of—”

  “And you’re not here for a psychology conference either?”

  “No.” With a last fretful look about the room Kate abandoned the watch hunt, settled back onto the edge of the bed. “Okay, so this is the thing.” Her eyes had never looked bigger, buggier—she seemed to be flabbergasting herself here too. “I’m actually … I’m here to get pregnant, Matt.”

  If this scene appeared in a silent movie—such is Matt’s thought as he stares at the blank screen of the ceiling in his room—that’d be the caption. That’s the line they’d pull out of all the lip-reading chatter, flash on the screen overtop the melodramatic brass: “I’m actually … I’m here to get pregnant, Matt!!!” Then back to the couple’s mute gesticulations.

  “It’s crazy,” Kate went on. “It’s crazy, but it’s right. I really believe that. I mean, I was nuts about River, but we weren’t going to be a family, not a chance. I was just … I was just so sick of the whole thing. And then all of a sudden … That’s what happened on the ocean, the day I told you about?”

  “So that part,” said Matt, “the abortion and everything. That wasn’t bullshit?”

  Kate stood up, sat back down. “No, Matt,” she said. “That wasn’t bullshit.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  “Burying her at sea, that wasn’t bullshit either. I was … I was stuck, and then I was unstuck. I was grieving, and then it turned into something else. And here I am.”

  It’s about the fertility clinic, apparently. It’s a good one and it’s away, away from River, away from work. Here in Toronto some guy had been induced to wank off into a jar. His sperm had been frozen, screened for various diseases and prepped for putting up her, once today, once tomorrow.

  “But how did River …?”

  “He wormed it out of my mum. She doesn’t approve.”

  “Weird.”

  Kate grimaced, let that one go. “But my friends do, the ones I’ve told. Thank goodness for friends.”

  Matt managed a nod at that one. “And now River wants to be part of it, is that what’s going on?”

  “So he says.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “No. I mean yes, he wants to, or he thinks he does. Men always think they should want to have a baby, women too. Which made me want not to want to, rebel me. But I did, I wanted to. I want to.”

  “But you should have told me, Kate.” There’s anger here, sure, but something else too. Exhilaration? “A person deserves to know.”

  “Yes of course, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just … The other thing’s just so impersonal. Intimacy narrative, that’s what I’d say if I were a client, I was missing the intimacy narrative. There was no tender story I could tell myself? So that’s why I treated myself to this ridiculous place, to make it kind of a special occasion. Like a honeymoon. And then you.”

  “But what gives you the right? This is my life, Kate. I get to choose to be a father. Or not.”

  “Oh,” said Kate. “I’m sorry, did …?” She laid a hand on his arm. “That’s not what I meant. I have a diaphragm, I just … it was just about companionship. I all of a sudden couldn’t be alone.” She paused. “And actually, wouldn’t you kind of say you did choose? Those first couple of times with no condom? I was there, and it felt an awful lot like a choice to me.”

  He got out fast. He got out just fast enough. Striding down the hall he had to stutter-step his way past a young guy (late twenties?) not quite his own height but way beefier, with black hair spiked up like some heartthrob from a boy band. Matt heard the knock behind him but kept going.

  In the elevator he thought, comedy, tragedy? How’s a guy supposed to know? A soundtrack would help. Noodling clarinets and bassoons and it’s going to be funny. You can laugh at the poor bastard, even if the poor bastard is you. But strings moaning in some minor key? Maybe not so much.

  And he thought, hey, things can actually happen. Who knew?

  “What if movies really are dreams? What if movies work the same way for us collectively, fulfill that same role? Which is what?” Starlight pen, Starlight paper. A real readership, lordy. “Dream scenes in movies, dreams within dreams. Start with Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. The projectionist falls asleep and dreams himself onto the screen …”

  Zilch on the tube, so Matt decides to check his email before he calls it a night. Here he brings into play another of his patented spiritual practices—to wait patiently for his messages. Load the browser, log on, the whole thing must take thirty, maybe even forty seconds. During this period Matt resists, or tries to resist, or tries to try to resist all torment and vexation. “Time is made of thought,” says Mariko. “Stop your thoughts and time stops too.” So he sits, and he strives to think nothing. Even if the connection’s a little slow and it takes a full fricking minute, as it does tonight, he just sits there. Submission as the highest form of something-or-other.

  Wow, this is new. Matt’s got a whole whack of messages, and only about half of them have to do with the inadequacy of his penis or his pension fund. The rest are actually addressed to him, and make some mention, in their subject lines, of things kritikal. A quick survey suggests about fifty-fifty favourable and un, impressed and PO’d with Matt’s creative nonsense. How completely bizarre to be getting, all of a sudden, the torrent of email DennyD imagined he’d been getting from the start. Is this the point? Is this what Matt’s been angling for all along, is to be doused in attention?

  What it’s doing for him so far is it’s giving him this achy feeling in his chest. He could sure use a tuck-in right about now, a serious snuggle with Toto. He makes do with a self-plumped pillow, slots himself in between the sheets and begins plaintively to sing. Liesl, Gretl, Brigitta, Kurt, he’s all the little von Trapps in their goodnight scene, falsetto-ing his farewells, his adieus. The watcher in the corner winks back at each theatrical wave.

  No, the McKays weren’t big on movies. Before Sound of Music there was what? Mary Poppins. And after it Born Free, Jungle Book, maybe a couple of animations. One big popcorn and a Fanta for each kid. Things picked up a touch once movies became a favoured birthday option, head-to-head with bowling. The year Matt and Zane turned nine, Matt’s party went to Planet of the Apes, Zane’s to Yellow Submarine. Statue of Liberty, Blue Meanies. The next year both parties went to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, peow-peow-peow. To this day some of Matt’s favourite movies are from that era—Nagy’s forever griping about his paradise lost–type attachment to those days. Matt’s favourite title, too, is from the sixties, or anyway
subtitle: Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Slim Pickens plunging earthward on his bucking beauty of a missile, his “taut chubby of sun” (Matt’s Reprise blurb), whooping and giddy-upping with his cowboy hat. Strange love.

  The McKays were stingy with home movies too. Once a winter, though, they’d dig out the clackety projector, hang a sheet over the drapes in the den. Most of the footage was of birthdays and Christmases, but the choicest stuff was of one June they spent at Uncle Lenny’s place up on Georgian Bay. Or: How Erin Learned to Stop Eating and Love the Water. Not that she actually started stopping right then, but some ascetic impulse did begin to assert itself and to get all tangled up with her sudden addiction to swimming. What was it that sucked her in? The way the water resisted and then gave way before the force of her will, maybe that. The amniotic wholeness of the moment, the mounting ecstasy of fatigue in her limbs. The way her father felt about it too, the thrill he clearly got when he saw that this kind of struggle might thrill her.

  Matt’s back in the den tonight, on the floor with Erin at his folks’ feet. No sound but the rolled r of the projector and the murmur of the elder McKays, one to another. “We must have been out of our minds, letting those kids …” First Erin and then Matt, geronimo-ing off the high rocks, dropping through the grainy air into the shattered glare of the water. Which leads to the show’s annual climax—the old man freezes the film and throws it into reverse. The bay draws in its frothy crown of waves, collects up its load of spit and ptui, fires the little McKays back up onto the rock. First Matt then Erin, the two of them dry and twitchy up there on the precipice. Matt wants to go first, you can see that, but you can see he’s afraid. Erin’s tender nudgings aren’t enough so in the end she jumps for him, shows him how it’s done. Yep, there she goes again …

  Déjà vu. In and out, time falling forward and springing back, spending itself and gathering itself up over and over again. Comic, tragic. Funny, unfathomable. Finally the old man lets ‘er roll and thwacka-thwacka-thwack, the little tail of film spins on the reel. What’s left onscreen is pure light.