MORECROFT!”
Applause fi lled the common room. A chorus of cajoling eventually convinced the longest-serving teacher at Carsmair State High School to make his way toward the presentation area. He accepted his certifi cate. Jenna pinned the ‘LIFER’
badge to his chest and pressed the prison number sticker over the pocket of his Target business shirt.
“Okay, thanks. Yeah,” said Morecroft. “I thought havin’ an eighteen year-old daughter hook up with a thirty-two year-
24
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground old bloke on the internet, fl y half way round the world to meet him, and return home with a ring on her fi nger wasn’t much chop. But this,” he patted the badge, “this makes it all worthwhile.”
A second ovation commenced. Callum Morecroft returned to his seat using the certifi cate as a napkin for a piece of garlic bread.
“Brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?” remarked Boyd.
“Several,” replied Adam.
“Do you know if he applied for the fi fty grand?”
“The ‘Different Employment’ Scheme? No, he didn’t. I overheard him talking to George.”
“You’re kidding.” Boyd stabbed a piece of lettuce with his plastic fork. “I thought he’d be fi rst in line for any scheme that’d get you out of the game.”
“Maybe deep down he doesn’t mind being a ‘LIFER’.”
“Ten-to-one on we fi nd that badge in the potato salad.”
At the rear of the staff room, corks began popping. Plastic cups were held out and half-fi lled with Seaview Grand Cuvee.
A splurge! thought Adam. Perhaps someone had died and bequeathed their topped-up super to the staff social club?
More likely the bottle-o had run out of Spumante.
“A toast!” cried Jenna. “To all the inmates! And, in light of our new superannuation expertise, may Carsmair become a maximum security facility!”
The dull ‘thok’ of plastic cup striking plastic cup punctuated the murmured salutations and polite sips.
Adam noted Callum Morecroft’s single gulp and subsequent sounding out of potential teetotalers.
“You reckon doing this job was ever Cal’s dream?”
Boyd smacked his lips and shrugged. “Maybe. Back in the Stone Ages. You’d have to think it never was though. He probably settled for the consolation prize at some point.”
“Around the time his daughter came into the world?”
“Who knows? The only thing for certain is he’s not getting fi fty grand from the Ed Department to pay for her wedding.”
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A plate fi lled with rice crackers, sun-dried tomatoes and feta swept into the space between the two men. Adam and Boyd looked up to fi nd the broad, fl uoride-rich, always available grin of Dilip Shastrani illuminating the offer.
“Eat up to build your energy, fellows,” he said, “for you have just witnessed our futures.”
Boyd took a cracker and modelled it against his chest.
“When I get my badge, I’ll wear it with honour.” Adam plucked it away from his grasp and ate it.
Dilip put the plate on the table and stood before his colleagues, bowed, hands joined, smile momentarily short-circuited.
“Friends, please, you misunderstand. I’m referring to Cal’s baby girl. Our days of teenager-inspired dismay are coming!”
“Probably not for a little while,” contended Boyd. “Seeing as Adam and I don’t even have kids yet.”
“Ha-ha! There is a saying in India: ‘The blink of an eye is the passing of an age’!”
“And you’re assuming we want kids.”
“Of course. They are the greatest gifts anyone can receive.”
“Yeah. Just ask Cal.” Boyd stretched his arms above his head and mumbled some forecasts. “I reckon family might make the priority list in about fi ve to seven years. By then I’ll be in administration, we’ll have most of the house paid off, the investment property will have doubled in value and we’ll have done all the travelling we want to do.” He looked toward Adam. “What about you, O’Doherty? You’ve been married a long time. When are you going to have a kid?”
“Who’s going to have a kid?” inquired Jenna, blustering into the conversation, MC duties now complete.
“No one,” assured Adam.
“Dilip was just teeing us up to be parents, Jay.”
Jenna extracted a seashell from the Guylian box, paused, pinched a seahorse as well. “I’m not sure children are such a good idea.”
26
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground Adam almost choked on his disbelief. “Didn’t you pay for your entire pastoral class to get into Dreamworld?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you regard last year’s senior formal as a ‘hoot’?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you say Sonny Burnside and his grade ten band were ‘destined for greatness’ when clearly he had a voice worse than a swarm of seagulls fi ghting over a discarded chip?”
“I did tell him greatness might take a while.”
Adam clapped Boyd on the shoulder. “Never mind the fi ve to seven years, mate. You’ve already got kids. About six hundred of them!”
Jenna sniffed and sucked the chocolate off her fi ngers.
“Responsibility for my students is easy. Responsibility for my own child…I’m not sure I want that. Particularly given the way the world is right now.”
“You’ve been listening to The Sarge too long.”
“And anyway there’s things I still want to do.” She closed in to within an inch or two of Adam’s face, eyes wide and slightly magnifi ed behind the lenses of her bright red Jag frames. “I want to be a writer!”
“Good for you.”
“Did you notice my metaphor up there? The whole prison thing. ‘Inmates’. ‘Maximum security’.”
“I think that was more like pathos.”
“Really? Well I think you’re totally pathos, chum!” Jenna walked over to the whiteboard and pointed to the blank space between Arnold Parkthorn’s purchase of a campervan and Deirdre Mengel’s bowling a two hundred game. “Where’d the ‘rocket ship’ and the ‘whole new planet’ go?”
“I had to rub it out,” confessed Adam. “It was being misinterpreted. People were thinking it was clever. They were getting all keyed up and dancing around and yelling out at marble statues in the driveway. Acting like total yobs they were. Couldn’t have that sort of behaviour on the fi rst day back.”
27
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“Tell the truth, O’Doherty,” said Boyd, presenting his friend and colleague of seven years with a rice cracker. “You were afraid you might win.”
“Or come second,” added Dilip.
Adam looked over toward Callum Morecroft, now seated at his desk. Several empty cups were scattered amongst the papers. A breeze fi ltered through the open window and ruffl ed the greyed temples of his otherwise dyed head of hair. He appeared to sway.
The ‘LIFER’ badge was gone.
*
Adam opened the driver-side door of the Rav 4 and stepped onto the grass bordering the 150 James Street driveway. He looked in the direction of the mailbox. Visions of the past came to him; brisk approaches fi lled with anticipation, rummaging hands, publisher’s contract fantasies, pizza voucher realities. The warped wooden cylinder had once been the site of Hope’s eternal wellspring. These days it was dry. The phone, e-mail—they were the new oases. Sometime soon, one or both would offer up news of everlasting change and all-conquering achievement. Adam turned on his heel and took the front stairs two at a time. It felt mighty good to be moving up in the world.
Inside the house, Maddy was lying on the couch, half-buried by a hoard of very long, very thin strips of white wax paper.
“Mintie wrappers,” she revealed. “I had one of those ‘It’s moments like these… ’ moments this morning.”
“Just the one?”
“It was the mother of all moments.”
“Uh-huh. Good thing we had that jumbo bag left over from New Year’s.” Adam shooed a small tumbleweed off the adjacent dining chair and sat down. “And you wanted to shred the evidence?”
Maddy yawned and stretched her arms above her head.
“You remember that contest back when we were kids? The
28
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground one where you had to tear a Mintie wrapper into one long continuous strip?”
“They’re running it again, are they?”
“I don’t think so. No, I just felt it would be a more productive use of my time than self-harming. Here! Have a look at this one!” Maddy held up a stringy, straggly effort that measured a metre and a half plus. “Impressive, hey?”
“It is actually.”
“I want Kiddo to see that one. Evidence of my dedication to the cause.”
Adam nodded, took it from her and hung it over the CD
tower. He then noted the bare coffee table. “Didn’t live up to the hype I gather.”
“Not quite.”
“Is there anything in the house you haven’t read yet?”
“Uh-huh. The user guides and warranties.”
“I’ll pick up some Super Fun Happy Interesting books from the library tomorrow.”
“Thank you, gorgeous handsome man.”
Adam began clumping the remaining, expendable Mintie wrapper strands into a bin-friendly ball. “Any calls today?”
“I rang home. Mum said it was snowing in Vancouver.”
“Did you mention anything about…us?”
“No. Did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well that’s good then.” Maddy scratched her cheek, averted her eyes.
Maybe she feels guilty about this morning, thought Adam. Ashamed she didn’t trust me, that she said ‘Don’t tell!’ enough times for all the secrets of the world to remain safe. He recalled the sentence he’d scribbled in his diary. At some point in the evening, he would remove the offending page and tear it up like so much lolly wrapper.
“Your Mum rang, too,” continued Maddy. “The birthday barbecue for Reg is Sunday week.”
“Do you know what he told Shelley he wanted for a present?”
29
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“No.”
“A grandchild.”
Maddy pressed the volume button on the TV remote.
“We’ll buy him some Guinness.”
Adam gathered a soccer ball-sized nest of paper up into his arms and, following his wife’s suggestion, dumped it in the spew bucket. Stray strands hung on the rim and over the sides.
“You can manage without this for two minutes?” he asked.
“If I get desperate, I’ll use your briefcase.”
Tendrils trailing behind, Adam entered the kitchen. He stamped the pedal bin. As the lid fl ew up, revealing a sorry clutch of Fantale debris, Maddy called out from the lounge:
“Oh, Tristan rang, too.”
Adam emptied the bucket, brought the teetering mound to heel with a single stomp from his Colorado boot, and tied the handles of the garbage bag. His spine tingled. His heart bounced around his ribcage. His head swam with all manner of triumphant scenarios. He exited the kitchen with the bucket held against his right hip.
“He left a message. It’s number three.”
Adam deposited the bucket on the coffee table and headed for the blinking answer machine. He pressed ‘Play’
then skipped over Maddy’s three year-old niece sharing the news that she’d gone to the toilet to ‘drop some friends off at the pool’ and Kelly Clark belting out a rendition of The Proclaimers’ ‘500 Miles’ that sounded more Pakistani than Scottish. The husky American residing in the machine announced the time and date for message three. Adam noted the minutiae of the scene around him. The small wicker basket fi lled with twenty and fi fty cent pieces. The grass-caked sandshoes used for mowing the lawn. The wooden doorstop, chewed by the Ridgeback of a house-minding friend. Details for when Rove asked him about that phone call.“Adam, hello. Hello to Mandy, too. It’s Tristan here. Just
30
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground wanted to make sure you were busy, busy, beavering away on the next story. I was thinking when The Ordinary Man’s Enemy lands a deal, we might be able to negotiate an advance on the new masterpiece. That’d be out-standing, wouldn’t it? One way or the other, it’s all good. Let me know at some stage what you’re working on. Busy, busy! Okay…Ciao.”
Adam pressed ‘Stop’ and leaned against the wall. Maddy was standing at the entrance to the corridor.
“Bad news?”
He shook his head.
“Not the news you were hoping for though.”
He shrugged. “When it lands a deal, negotiating an advance on a new novel…it’s all good. Apart from the fact there is no new novel. Not even an idea.”
Maddy took her husband’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For being…high maintenance.”
“You’re not high maintenance.” Adam sat down on a nearby chair and manoeuvred Maddy onto his knee. “You’re not stopping me doing stuff. I just don’t…want to write anything at the moment.”
“How come?”
Adam laughed. “It probably sounds a bit dumb but I feel like I need permission. I feel like I can’t really justify starting something else until the breakthrough has happened. Until I’ve proven my worth. Does that sound dumb?”
“Yes. It does. If you’d started out that way, you never would’ve written anything.”
Adam began chewing the fi ngernail of his right pinkie.
Maddy gently extracted the digit from his mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’m focusing too much on stuff I can’t control.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Maybe I’m a control freak.”
“King Control Freak.”
“I thought I was Sir Fix-A-Lot, alias Lord Bugger-Up?”
“You’re moving up in the world.”
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*
Adam was sitting in the recliner, revising lessons for the fi rst school day of the year, wondering if the grade ten Citizenship Education students might take to a session on the virtues of salary sacrifi ce, when Maddy tugged on his sleeve:
“Come with me.”
“Babe, you really shouldn’t be getting up again.”
“This is important.”
Maddy led him into the spare room. She urged him to sit at the computer then placed an open book on the desk in front.
Adam turned it over. The cover read: Fathering the Foetus—
How to Be a Great Dad for Your Unborn Child! The author was Professor Emmett G. Bragg. The cover photo displayed a mawkish mid-fi fties man, no doubt the good Prof, offering a high-fi ve to an anonymous pregnant woman’s bulge.
“When did you get this?”
“Last Friday. Read the passage I’ve marked.”
“How did you get this?”
“I ordered it through the net. Read the passage.”
“Why did you get this?”
“Read the passage or I’ll send you out to buy more Minties.”
Adam rubbed his forehead, fl ipped the book open and read the highlighted paragraph aloud:
“‘It is often in the eighth week of the pregnancy that the reality of impending fatherhood begins to hit home and it is at this stage that fathers feel disempowered. A common technique for Dads-to-be to self-validate is to write a letter, a message, perhaps even an e-mail to their unborn child. The act of writing provides a sense of control and often reveals thoughts and feelings men do not generally air. Such honesty with yourself will set you on the path to embracing and self-actualising the personifi cation of your fatherhood role.’ I’m assuming you didn’t show me t
his for its entertainment value.”
Maddy clicked the mouse and pulled the keyboard out.
“This is something you can control. You said last night you
32
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground wanted communication with our child? Here’s your chance, Your Majesty. Say all the things you want to say. Ask all the things you want to know. Put it all out there. You’ll feel better for it.”
‘So let’s tell everyone we’re pregnant then.’ Adam felt these words take shape in his mouth, but swallowed before they could be aired. Instead he asked: “What do I do with it when it’s written?”
“Whatever you like. Delete it. Save it. It doesn’t matter.
It’s the act of doing it that’s important. You could print it and stick it in an envelope.”
“Mail it? You might want to have a few drinks before I try that.”
Maddy slapped the back of his skull. “The other good thing about it is that you’d be writing. It’s not a new story, but it is creative. And it could be good fun.”
Adam smoothed the hair roughed up by Maddy’s blow and looked again at the book cover. What would Emmett G.
Bragg have written to his child? ‘In the interests of personifying and self-actualising my fatherhood, I just had to slap some skin with you, Junior! Sorry about the brain damage!’
“What about the washing,” he said. “Didn’t you say you’d run out of undies?”
“This takes precedence.”
“Precedence over undies?”
“Precedence over housework. The undie situation-”
she pulled down the belt line of her cargo three-quarters, revealing the Carbon and Boron elements of Adam’s Periodic Table boxer shorts, “is under control.”
Adam handed Fathering the Foetus back and rolled the mouse around on the Ouija board pad. For the second time today, a white screen was in his face. A more subtle inquisitor this one. With his wife’s weight thrown behind it, impossible to resist. He edged his chair forward and fl icked the miniature dreamcatcher hanging off the top right corner of the monitor. He then laid his hands on the keyboard.
Maddy squeezed his shoulder, kissed the crown of his head and exited the room.
33
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*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
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