Category Archives: Nonsense

cougars and rabbits

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“Yesterday, I tell you, Noah, it’s like they were fifteen thousand and we were only us, just us, eleven you know.”

“What?”

Noah stands up so that he can make his point more emphatically to his schoolfriend, Malcolm. The two are sitting on a stoop at the corner where we wait for the school bus.

“That’s so not possible.”

“Well maybe not fifteen thousand. But they were really a lot and we were just our team, you know, on the uhm, uhm, on the field, you know. And the refs, too they were against us, man. Foul, they were always calling fouls on just us. I mean, you know?”

“But Malcolm, that’s not possible. The refs like they’re there to be fair and uh, yeah,  and sometimes they really suck. But all the fouls against, uhm, one team? I don’t think so.”

“Well maybe not all…”

Noah slicks down the innumerable cow licks that sprouted during the night. He’s been doing that compulsively since yesterday’s haircut, courtesy of Melina, his adored 18 year old cousin. A perfectly slick, Ken doll, 8-ball look. Unfortunately, my family’s capillary DNA caught up during the night.

“You got a Bieber cut, Noah. Haha.”

“Not at all. I hate Justin BEAVER…haha. Good one huh?”

He really does hate Justin Bieber.

“Yeah, but you look like him.”

“Not at all… he’s got this cow lick just here.”

He mimics the singer’s signature front lock.

“Is it true that he’s like dating Selena Gomez?”

“Of course, geez Noah, man, they like, you know they been dating for years. You dunno dat?’

“I hate BEAVER.”

“So why’dja’ask?”

“Because Selena Gomez is hot.”

He slicks down with both hands. In vain, since the locks kick back up instantly.

“She’s old, man. I mean like she’s 21, man.”

“Yeah, but I heard she likes them young. Dad? What’s it called, a, uhm, a like, ocelot.”

“Ocelot? that’s a wild cat.”

“No, no I mean like when you say ‘she’s, uh, yeah, it’s like ‘she’s a ocelot’.”

“She’s an ocelot? I have no idea.”

“Yeah, yeah, dad, like when they say that about a girl, I mean a woman, like an older woman, you know when she likes, like the guys, you know?

“Oh, a cougar!”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it.”

He slicks down again, turns to Malcolm.

“Yeah, Malc, Selena Gomez, like she’s a cougar, so yeah…”.

He pushes his hair back down with a move worthy of the Addams family patriarch.  Malcolm looks at me as if to say, ‘who is this kid?’.

“Now, Katy Perry, now she’s really old. Right dad?”

“I have no idea.”

“Yeah, she’s like at least 27.”

If twenty something women are cougars, that makes me a Sphinx.

“Oh, Noah, Noah. Listen, man. I didn’t tell you the worse. Yesterday after da game, I took my bike and you know I got two flat tires on da way home. Two, man.”

“Yeah right.”

Noah is trying to see himself in the reflection of a dirty window.

“It’s all true, man. Why would I lie. I mean…”

“Because it’s a better story? Because one tire, that’s nothing, but two? Huhn, gotcha, huhn, oh yeah, gotcha!”

He makes a sexy move while pointing at his friend. Shit! If I was Mlacolm, I’d punch him out. Instead, Malcolm shakes his head. My kid just takes too much energy to contradict. Especially for another kid. He’s a triple threat: dances and sings and mocks.

The school bus pulls around the corner. Malcolm moves forward to the edge of the sidewalk. Noah holds back.

“Dad, dad.” He grabs my arm and whispers.

“How does my hair look?”

“You mean your Bieber cut?”

“Daaaaddddd.” He pinches me, the little turd.

“You look great.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He gives me a full-fledged rabbit smile.

“I love you dad.”

“I love you, my little big man. Have a great day.”

He waves as he disappears into the bus.

 

 

 

 

sweet dreams?

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“Dad, are you getting up already?”

The clock on the stove reads 6:35 a.m.

The reflection in the hallway mirror reads puffy eyes, twisted pillow face and furrowed frown.

The sun is barely up and he’s already ensconced on the futon, laptop heating up his little chicken legs and blaring video game challenges at full volume.

6:35 a.m. This conversation will not be profitable.

“No, just going for a pee.”

“Oh good! Not because I don’t like when we spend time together, you know dad, but I like having my mornings. You understand?”

“I understand.” I head for the bathroom.

I concentrate and aim for the porcelain. In this early morning fog, the quality of my day hangs in the balance. The last thing I want is to be wiping my urine off the walls. Just at the critical moment of flow, the cat sticks her head between my legs and stands there, eyes blinking with the splash of the toilet. I can’t move to chase her for fear of misdirecting what is still evacuating.

“Stupid cat, get the hell out of there.”

“What dad? I didn’t hear you,” screams Noah from the living room, over the clicking cacophony of his game.

“Was talking to the cat.” I scream back from the bathroom, over the noise of my downpour.

“What?”

Going back to bed is fading as an option.

The cat meows, wipes my pee splatter off her head by rubbing against my leg. I resist the urge to just kick her to the bejesus and back. Instead I wash my hands.

As I step out of the bathroom I run straight into Noah.

“Look, dad, look how much I blew out.”

He’s holding out two handfuls of snot filled paper towels. Ready for inspection.

“Tons of it, huh? Yeah, that’s why I feel soooo much better, it’s like I was never, it’s like I never, you know had fever. Look in my throat, you’ll see.”

He drops the snot rags on the table and hands me my cheap glasses and a flashlight.

My eyes look back at me from the mirror. Barely slits, certainly not willing to be useful.

I put on the glasses and click on the flashlight and twist Noah’s head back.

“Say aaaaaahhhhh!”

He says aaaaaaahhhhh.

I focus light and eyes and brain on the back of his throat.

Clean. Healthy. Pink. No Babylonian hanging gardens of mucus.

“All clean.”

“Told you, hunh.”

“Yeah. Good news.”

“So what are we doing today, dad?”

I slip off the glasses and try to refocus on mid range objects. There’s the bloody cat standing beside her empty dish with a ‘What the fuck are you waiting for?’ look.

“Did you feed your monsters, Noah? The noisy fat one and the silent finny one.”  We have a cat and a fish.

‘It’s too early, dad, like, then they’ll be hungry at the wrong times and like I can’t be here to feed them all the time, you know?”

I nod. How he forgets that when it involves his snacking desires.

“Dad, what’s for breakfast? I’m like sorta hungry. Because you know I’m not sick anymore.”

“Noah did you even look?”

“Where?”

“Where I always lay out your breakfast.”

He looks around as if it could be floating tantalizingly in mid air.

“I don’t see it.”

I used to think that he did it on purpose. Now I know how blind and dumb they can be. Alternating with ‘all-knowing’ and ‘all-seeing’.

“The table.”

A splendid cherry danish sits under it’s delightfully sticky icing.

“Oh!” says my wonder.

He heads for the fridge and pulls out the glass of milk that always waits to accompany the pastry. He sips while walking, threatening a spill.

I keep my peace.

He sits, almost dropping the glass as he places it by the danish.Then he remembers something.

“Dad, why don’t you go back to bed? Like, it’s really early for you.”

Yeah, why don’t I go to bed. I nod.

“Later Noah.”  I wave and head to my room. I hear Noah wishing me sweet dreams.

I drop on my bed, push the door shut with my foot. I turn this way, turn that way. I hear the cat bang its head against my door. Literally. Just in case, she meows and bangs again.

Sweet dreams. Sure. Maybe if I wake up now … The kid will be at school, the cat will be fed and some delightfully naked lady will be making pancakes with lots of maple syrup which we will feed each other before falling into sticky lovemaking.

The door cracks open.

“Are you asleep, dad?”

“Yes.”

Old joke but it always works.

“Hahaha, good one dad. It’s just like, the cat, she puked everywhere, and it’s really gross.”

Sweet dreams, he had said.

I swing my legs over the edge of my bed. If it were a ledge I would jump. But with my luck I would probably end up quadriplegic, sucking through a straw and pissing into a bag.

So I jump off my bed.

“Dad, I know what we could do today.”

“Pick up the puke?”

“After that…”

“Feed her so she can puke some more?”

“Daaaaaadddd.”

“Noooaaaaaaaaaahhhh.”

I step out of my room and straight into a furry mucky puddle of cat vomit. Noah starts laughing like the dork he is.

I dart a look at the mirror. There’s Annie Lennox.

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody’s looking for something

Sweet dreams are made of this? A challenge!

“Sorry dad, it’s just too funny.”

And I’m the punchline. Despite my best efforts, a smile cracks across my face as I go for the paper towels and spray cleaner.

 

dolls and worms…

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“So weird.”

Noah has stopped suddenly as if his feet hit quick drying cement. He’s staring at an American Apparel display window.

“Look, dad, they, uhm, have no faces and they’re like that ugly color….what’s it called?”

“Beige?”

“Yeah, beige. I mean even the word is ugly. Haha. But look they have no fingers, no face, they’re like, uhm, beige and look there’s a dad and a mom and then a kid. But the kid’s arm is all crooked and broken and she has this lame headband with a big beige flower. I mean who would think of making a beige flower. I mean you know, beige?”

I get it! I get it! The kid doesn’t like beige.

I must admit that the family featured in the window is like a runway version of the Cabbage Patch Kids. And the kid mannequin is particularly troubling in leggings, sexy body suit and lame headband. As we move away towards the park, we hear a couple stop before the store window.

“Look at the girl. That’s intense. What kid would wear that?” says the guy.

“It’s a cute outfit.” says the girl.

We cross the street and enter the park.

“Dad, dad, I agree with the guy. I mean what kid would wear that?”

“You know, sometimes it’s the parents who get off on dressing up their kids, especially girls.”

“So it’s a girl thing? Figures.”

Before I can qualify his nascent stereotyping, he breaks out in a laugh.

“Dad, dad…..”. He can’t go on as he breaks down into uncontrollable chortles.

“….Oh! so funny. Look dad, girls dress up dolls and their mom’s dress them up like dolls. It’s like, yeah, you know what I mean?”

It means I’m glad I have a boy. Though lately he’s being checking himself out in the mirror. He’s been practicing expressions of coolness, hotness, sexiness, ninjaness.

“Dad who dresses up the moms. The grandmothers? Hahaha…and who dresses the grandmothers?”

Passing on a heritage. Women to women, men to men.

Like me and Noah. He has ADHD, which I definitely gifted him, though because of the generation I was born in, I remain undiagnosed to this day. And if I think of my Father’s multiple incompetencies, decried daily with acid vehemence by my Mother, it’s pretty clear he was the same.

“Dad, dad, look.”

He’s crouching over something. I come closer. There’s a big, greasy looking earthworm twisting in a puddle of water.

“I’ve never seen a so fat and enormous worm, dad.”

“Well, it’s been really hot for days, so they grow fat, and last night there was a big rainstorm and that flushed them out. If you look around, there’ll be worms everywhere.”

‘Dad, can we slice him up, like?”

“Oh, gross.”

“Hehehe…. it’s for the sake of science, dad.” He puts a hand on his heart. That’s what happens when your kid watches too many irony-laden cartoons.

“Yeah, because you know, dad, this is how it is. If you like, uhm, cut up a worm in little pieces, well, like each piece is going to grow a whole new body.”

One of the facts that all kids, especially boys, know early. Somehow critical to their development, I guess.

“Cool, huh, dad. I mean if I was a worm….”

If I was a worm…. good first line for a story.

“…yeah I could like cut my head and grow a whole other me. This way there would be two Noah’s and if I did it again there would be four. Yeah, imagine, and then four and then eight and on and on….cool huh?”

“Uh…!?”

I’m not convinced.

“Yeah, this way I would never die. You know?”

“But you would be a worm.”

“No! If humans could be like worms.”

“Quite a few already are.”

“Dad! Seriously.”

Seriously.

This from Worm Boy.  What has my life become? A desperate, delightful nonsense?

 

 

throw a nail…

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…catch a boomerang

My bowl of caffe latte is on my lap.

Noah is pushed up against my side, traces of cereal stuck on the corner of his mouth. He’s humming some tune or other. I try to lift the bowl to my lips but Noah’s hand is in the way. He’s playing with the steam rising from the coffee.

“So hot! Look, dad, I’m taming the smoke.”

He runs his fingers like a guitar riff. The troubled steam curls this way and that.

“The steam is wafting.”

“It’s farting?”

“No….wafting. It means when it moves like that through the air, gently, beautifully.”

“What a word…wafting. Waft a waft a waft,,,sounds like a helicopter, you know waftawaftawafta…”

His hand imitates a helicopter flying off. Gives me a brief moment when I can raise the cup and sip some necessary caffeine.

“Dad, you drink it when it’s still smoking? You’ll burn yourself, get the fuzzy tongue, you know?”

“Not if I sip it.”

“Oh!”

“And I like the coffee when it’s burning hot.”

“I like iced-coffee.”

No, no, all you gasping parents… he doesn’t drink coffee, not yet.

“You’re so 21st century!”

“And you’re like so … old! Ha! Gotcha!”

He pokes me with a scrawny finger. Little bitch!

“Geez Noah, that was sharp.”

I grab his hand and examine the nails.

“Noah, look how long and how dirty your nails are. You look like a zombie that had to dig himself out of the grave.”

It’s barely an exaggeration.

Of course he jumps me in a zombie attack. I fight him off while safeguarding my coffee.

“Noah, stop, stop…go get the nail clipper.”

“Naw…I like long nails, they’re my secret weapons.”

“Come on kid, there’s just a few minutes left before the bus. Go get the clipper and cut those things.”

He huffs, but still crawls off me and heads to the bathroom. He comes back and flops on the futon with the clippers.

Click and a scimitar shaped nail goes flying by my head. I throw him a nasty look.

“Sorry dad, but I told you they were my secret weapons.”

“Yeah, well try to gather your blades into a little pile that can be thrown out.”

“It’s more fun this way.” He says it just as another one goes flying.

“What? you expect the maid to pick them up after you?”

“You do it so well, my little maid.”

I swear his rabbit teeth have grown an inch, he’s smiling so widely.

I suddenly realize I’ve been defending domestic things. Why? I hate all things domestic. If I could, I would walk the earth, naked, following the invisible songlines in the ground, like an Australian aborigine. I would be fulfilled.

A nail clipping goes flying by my nose, accompanied by the little dork’s thick, lusty laugh. If only it was a boomerang that would fly back and whack him.

Just then, almost in slow motion, I see a bit of nail fly from the clipper straight up and into Noah’s eye. His head snaps back.

“Aaaaahhhhhhhh…….my eye!”

Yaaayyyy… Youuupieee…Hurray! Justice!

“Dad, it hurts! I can’t see anymore.”

“Take your hand off your eye you’ll see better.”

His eye is teary. A small red mark on the skin an inch from his eye indicates the projectile’s place of impact.

“It missed the eye, you’ll survive.”

“Dad, you’re so nasty.”

“Yeah, us maids aren’t paid enough to be nice.”

Bam!

Don’t toy with the aborigines, especially the domestic ones.

 

 

 

mustaches, claws…

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…and boys

“Would you rather kiss the bus driver or Alana? I mean. er, a tongue kiss, you know?”

Noah sticks out his tongue and rolls it around grotesquely.

“OOuuuuhhhh, Noah that’s gross. I’m not going to kiss a guy.”

Malcolm is 11. As we wait for the school bus under the rain, he and Noah constantly challenge each other. I mostly watch in amusement. But I sometimes add grist to their absurd mill.

“Yeah, but the bus driver has a really nice mustache.”

Malcolm looks up at me with a mix of horror and surprise.

Noah chortles, a fat, mucous filled laugh. Post nasal drip has its benefits. He reaches up to quickly run his fingers on Malcolm’s upper lip,

“Nice mustache to tickle you… .” He takes his ‘nice doggie’ voice.

Malcolm jerks his head away. He’s a foot and a half taller than Noah, yet my little rooster is agile. With a natural, evil genius laugh, he persecutes his friend.

“Stop it, Noah, stop it.”

If Noah was a car he would already have been recalled for faulty brakes. You’ve got to pump the pedal like on an icy road.

I watch to see if Malcolm has greater success than I usually do. He turns this way and that as Noah hops and tortures.

“Stop. Stop.”

The glee on my kid’s face is frightening. Needling his bigger, older, more placid friend is way more motivating than respect.

Will Malcolm lose it and react aggressively? Suspense.

Hey, I get my entertainment where I can. This is cheap and easy…like me in bed.

“Noah, you’re a real pain. Stop!”

“You haven’t answered.”

“Alana. I would kiss Alana. Okay?”

Noah stops, only because he’s got a new idea.

“Whaaaa…? Alana will scratch you to death if you try to kiss her. She’s like the Claws of Death.”

“Yeah, I know, but what choice do I got.”

Claws of Death or Bristly Mustache.

Yes, Malcolm’s life has taken an odd turn. Reminds me of a woman I once knew who combined both those “qualities”. And she danced like a Valkyrie in all positions… vertical, horizontal, diagonal, head up, head down. To the point where in the semi darkness and in my semi-inebriation I became convinced she had two or more heads.

“Noah, would you prefer licking, like, the bottom of my boot or taking a garbage shower.”

“Garbage shower? Awkward!”

“So, what would you choose?”

“What’s a garbage shower? Makes no sense.”

Ah, my boy! Rather than answer, he questions the frame of the debate. This kid has been a rhetorical genius from the moment he said, “daddy” which was his first word, followed almost immediately by “No!”, exclamation mark included.

And Malcolm bites. Sweet, naive kid.

“A garbage shower, you know! Like old rotten fruit, and moldy bread and stuff like that.”

“Where would I find a shower like that. I mean how would all that stuff go through the little holes in the, uhm. uhm, what’s it called….the shower thing, you know. Yeah how would it come through.”

“Forget it.”

Bravo Malcolm. Concede defeat. My kid is in bad faith.

“Awkward!” Noah’s word of the month.

A moment of silence. The two boys stare out at the rain. I wait. Adults would have a hard time getting over this quickly.

“One thousand, one hundred, eighty-three,” says Noah.

“Where?” says Malcolm.

Noah points at one of the BIXI bikes as it wheels by. BIXI offers bikes in Montréal, that you can rental only one way and drop at various stations. Great for commuting. Noah and Malcolm have been counting them.

“I’m up to One thousand nine hundred,” says Malcolm.

“Impossible. You were only like at one thousand, not even, yesterday.”

“Yeah, but yesterday was sunny, so I saw a lot of them.”

“Yeah, right.” With a huff of disdain.

Yay! The game is on again! Boys and competition. Fun.

They keep arguing as the bus pulls up. They step in, still arguing. I wave to Franco, the bus driver, and his wonderfully bushy whiskers.

 

 

good drugs…

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…and legal for kids

“Yeah so when we got back to class they were on my desk on Sara’s desk on Ray’s desk these yellow like you know the stickies things, yeah, that’s how it was these stickie notes with seven question marks.”

“Ok… and then what?”

“Well, you know it’s like this…my friends and I we made like a club you know like in Scooby-Doo, yeah, like that, and this is like our first mystery. We really don’t know who put those notes and why they did it, you know?”

“Who’s class was this in… Mr. Aaron’s class?”

“Uhhh…yeah.”

Hah! The telltale hesitation of the fabulator.

“And Mr. Aaron saw the notes?”

“Uh….”

“Yeeeesssss !?!”

“Well, you know… it didn’t really happen, but it could have.”

“Hah…I knew it. Sure anything could happen, but it didn’t. Important distinction.”

“Yeah, but you know dad, last year, remember I told you that the same gang, except that Sara is now in the gang because she became my girlfriend, even if now she’s not anymore, I mean my girfriend…”

I hope he knows where he’s going with this, because I’m lost.

“…but she now’s part of the gang, yeah and we’ve got a theme song and a name, we’re called the Mystery Brigade, because we solve mysteries, get it? Yeah, so last year…”

Damn! He knows where he’s going with this. I was hoping he would just splutter to a stop.

“…last year, we found question marks written like you know, graffiti, yeah graffiti on the walls and the teachers saw them too and nobody ever knew who did them. And then whoosh they were gone.”

It’s called a janitor.

“So last year’s mystery was real, this year, it’s a story?”

“Yeah, but it’s a good story.”

“Sure is…but you know leading me along for a few minutes was fun, but then you’ve got to say it’s not true.”

‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’ as my father used to say… actually he never said it but he could have, and it lends authority to when I say it.

“If you don’t quickly say it’s a story,  people will believe you and then when they find out, they’ll think you were lying.”

Lying! Storytelling! Will the difference please stand up !?!

“Yeah, but you know, dad, sometimes I don’t even really like know myself.”

That’s the other danger. Becoming a Clinton, not sure whether you were really shelled in Bosnia or smoking someone’s cigar.

“There you go, that’s what happens when you conflate reality and imagination.”

“Conwhat??”

“Conflate..cool word, huh?”

“Actually, it’s pretty ugly. i don’t want to hurt your feelings, dad.”

“Wanna know what it means?”

“Sure,” he says with a shrug.

“When you bring things together and confuse them…conflating what’s real and a story, for example.”

“Ohhhh….you know dad, I, uh, conflict….”

“…conflate…”

“…yeah, that…I do that at night. Like last night I woke and went for a pee, it was like 2:35, yeah and then I go back to bed and you know what? it was like really freaky, I wake up and I need to go pee. Freeeeeaaaaakky…I was all like, “Am I awake now, or like was I awake when I went for a pee?”, but I didn’t go for a pee, because I still had to pee. Get it? Freaky.”

“Happens to everybody, Noah.”

“Yeah, but you know I’m afraid that like I’ll get stuck in like this fifth dimension where I’ll be in a dream and I don’t know it or or or, uh… I’ll think I’m in a dream but I’m not.”

At 9 years old he has a lifetime ahead of delightful delusions to sort through. He”ll believe that the woman he meets is the wonder he thinks, because he thinks it, only to have her reality explode in his life, because that’s reality.

If it sounds confusing, it’s because it is …it’s also fun, until it’s pain.

When he’ll be older we’ll discuss how fact is fiction is fantasy is fact….but for now, appease his mind, make it simple.

“That’s why, Noah, it’s important that when you’re inventing a story, you tell yourself this is not true…and tell everybody else. So what’s real and what isn’t stays separate.”

“Ok…like in Scooby-Doo, I guess, where everybody always thinks that it’s real monsters and ghosts and stuff like that, but they always prove that nah! nah! nah!, it’s all fake.”

“Exactactally.”

“Ha, exactactactactalalalally!”

Now, in this dimension, I need to solve the mystery of my perpetually emptying fridge. I fill it and whoosh it’s empty again.

 

 

 

 

 

passing parents…

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…pissed, preening or perennially pink

Standing on the usual street corner at the usual time, waiting for the school bus after a night of barely surviving Noah’s usual in-and-out-of-bed night.

Two furry little animals have somehow burrowed into my temples making any thought process impossible.

It’s -20 celsius (0 F.), so it’s not like standing still is any fun.

Noah plays a version of shootout with the other kid who waits at the stop with us. They kick a block of ice at each other and yell triumphantly whenever it gets beyond the other guy.

GGGGOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!

They sound like the Spanish soccer announcer when his team scored the winning goal of the World Cup.

My two little fuzzy temple squatters swish their tails wiping whatever reaction I might have had.

Rather than think, I watch the usual kids and parents hustling to school and work. Nobody plays on a winter school day morning

Across the street a door opens quickly.

“Hurry, we’re late.”

A minuscule boy jumps out, practically invisible in puffy winter gear, but all a-bristle with urgency. His dad, the same one as every morning, comes out, trailing a half donned coat and the usual half a bagel sticking out of his face.

I wonder if his kid will choose a girlfriend who is always late, having spent his childhood waiting for his dad. He’s hopping up and down, his dad fishes for the keys to lock the door.

“Daaaaddddd!!” The kid is exasperated.I know exactly how he feels.

A trio of chatterers approaches: a young Mother in pink trailing two daughters, maybe twins, with pink coats, toques, backpacks. I wonder how pink their house is. They talk as quickly as they walk. Every morning they swish by (snow pants do that) without a look, a smile, any acknowledgment whatsoever.

Females in training.

“Goooooaaaaaaaaallllll.” Noah whoops it up in a crazy victory dance.

A blind woman, tap tapping with her cane, crosses. She hears the same crazy antics every morning. She smiles at us.

Geez, do you gotta be blind to be aware?

A dad, older, and his daughter appear at the far end of our street. They are of assorted races, clearly a late life adoption. As they approach I hear the dad’s baritone expostulating, pontificating at break-tongue speed. His daughter jogs beside him to keep up.

“They cut their heads off but they had no choice, if they’d let them live in exile there would have been no end of revolutions and civil wars…of course they also killed the wrong people and eventually it descended into the Great Terror where all sorts of horrid crimes occurred in the name of liberty, but that’s what revolutions do, they break stuff but then….”.

They are now out of ear shot so I’ll never know what he thinks revolutions yield.

Every morning, the guy gives his girl a crash course in history on the rush to school. Last week, I heard an interpretation of the Vietnam War and a precis of the Industrial Revolution’s excesses. Always delivered at great speed, volume and passion. The man is clearly an unreformed 60′s liberal who feels that time is running out and he better tell his daughter everything he can before it’s too late.

Should I stop him…tell him it’s already too late?

8:16. The bus is late. The milk of human kindness, curdled during my sleepless night, is now freezing into an ugly shape.

A baby carriage comes hurtling towards us… the bright orange kind made by a brand specializing in modern active parents who do not want to slow down just because they “put down”.

Noah and his buddy don’t see it coming, too busy determining the Sidewalk Hockey Championships. Generally, I would warn them. Instead, I wait. Will there be a collision, will the ‘active mom’ cluck her tongue in reprobation?

Here she comes. Noah winds up for a kick. His friend crouches for the save. Whack! the chunk of ice goes flying, but is blocked by Noah’s adversary who yells in delight, inadvertently saving the orange carriage.

The mom turns to me and smiles. A wild, pleasurable smile. Her baby sitting in the orange tent, also smiles and, and…..waves at me.

They zip by. The bus finally pulls up.

Noah blows me a kiss.

Shit! No matter how I try, I can’t hate everyone this morning.

slippery slopes…

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…and zombies in the alley

Reasoning is a daytime activity. The night is a different dimension.

“Dad, if something can’t be proved it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, right?”

“What are we talking about exactly?”

This as we slip and slide through the inches of slush and snow accumulating on the sidewalks and streets of the city.

“God, devils, zombies, that kind of thing.”

For the last while, he’s been waking nights in a state of fear. Ever since we set up a loft bed in his room. After two weeks of effort, he’s finally decided that the bed freaks him too much, so I’ve pulled the mattress down and he’s sleeping at ground level. We need to wait for help to undo the bed, it takes two adults, and his old bed is at my sisters’ so his room is a little odd.

Maybe that’s why he wakes and gets afraid. Or not.

“I don’t know Noah. There’s a lot of stuff that’s mysterious and unexplained but that doesn’t mean they’re magical or supernatural. It just means we don’t understand how they work, yet.”

Daily reality is enough of a challenge without going magical.

“You know, people used to think the moon and the stars were gods and goddesses.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Science has explored space and now even kids know better. Well, I think a lot of weird explanations are just filling the blanks until we find real answers.”

“Yeah, but when I hear noises like at night when it’s dark it freaks me and I think that some monster is crawling up the house to like eat me.”

“Midnight monster snack.”

“Dad, it’s not funny.”

“No,  it’s ridiculous. In all my years I’ve never met even one devil or one vampire or anything like that. First, look for reasonable explanations. In winter wood and bricks and cement contract when it’s cold and expand when it’s warm.”

“Yeah, yeah, we learned that in Mad Science.”

“So the house creaks and groans not because it’s alive but because it’s wood and mortar.”

“Yeah, I guess. It still freaks me because I start like thinking what it could be and then I think of dragons and stuff and magic and then scary creatures going after me.”

“Just tell your head to shut up.”

“Wha…..?”

“If one of your friends starts telling zombie stories that are too scary or too gross, you can tell him to keep quiet or just walk away right?”

“Yeah, I do that all the time…there’s one kid like he has all the most sick stories and when he starts I just don’t listen.”

“Well your imagination is like that kid. It talks to you in your head, right? Great to tell stories and invent fabulous stuff, but sometimes you just have to tell it to shut up.”

“It’s hard dad, because like once I think of one thing then the next and the next and ahhhhhh….you know?”

“That’s the slippery slope of fear. One idea leads to the next and then you slip ever more quickly into fear and then you can’t control the slide anymore.”

“That’s exactly how I feel dad. How did you know.”

“Because I spent a good bit of my life afraid of a lot of stuff. Some things are still scary to me.”

“Really?”

No kidding. He thinks being a kid is frightening. Wait till you grow up and find out that the witches and goblins of your childhood have become the lovers and bosses of your life.

“Which is why as soon as your imagination says ‘monster in the alley’ you say ‘shut up, it’s just wood cracking in the cold’, and then you think of great fun stuff like the next Pokemon card release, or your girlfriend.”

***

1h25 a.m. The door to my room blasts open. Noah’s face is lined by the tracks of tears flowing down his face.

My body bolts up. My brain struggles to make the leap from pillow to upright.

“Noah, what’s wrong?”

He’s sobbing. I cradle him in my arms.

“Noah, what happened?”

“Daaaaaddd…daaaadddd.”

“Noah, talk to me.”

“Daaaadddd….there’s zombies in the alley and they’re crawling up…..”

He buries his head in my body.

“Oh come on!”

He looks at me, fear superseded by surprise.

“Shut up, Noah’s brain. Tell your scary stories some other time.”

“But dad, I’m reaaally scared. There’s these noises, they woke me and I started thinking it was someone and then it made sense that they could crawl up the wall in the alley only if they were like you know…”.

“…zombies.”

“Yeah.”

I scoop him up. Sometimes he’s no heavier than a feather. I go to his window and pull the blind aside.

The frigid winter wind blows eddies of snow in the alley. It howls and slaps against the apartment. Some piece of something on the balcony is flapping.

“You see. Tell your brain to stop imagining stuff at night.”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

“No, you gotta train your brain. Go to bed and as soon as your brain puts one neuron on the slippery slope, you tell it to change the subject and you keep telling it. You might still be afraid and maybe it’ll take a long time to fall asleep. But your brain will learn. Leave me alone at night, brain!”

“But, dad….”

“No, go to bed. You’re safe. Fight your fear. Get over it.”

My tone is unsympathetic.

He slips quietly under his covers. The cat jumps in with him. He hugs the warm beast, which looks at me with what seems to be resignation.

“Good night, Noah. I love you.”

“I love you too dad.”

I lie in bed, exhausted, listening to the noises in the house, imagining what he’s imagining. For a little while, I hear Noah rustling, whispering to the cat. I resist the urge to call him into my bed, to comfort him. Eventually, I hear him snoring.

I’m fully awake, standing at the top of a long slope. I can feel my feet slipping out from under me. My mind races forward, imaging all the horrors that could befall Noah. I suddenly see my own death.

Stop!

My hand to hand combat against fear has begun again.

 

bury…

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…the dead

“Check this out, dad. It’s like the most fun I’ll ever have, ever, of my whole life like.”

This was last Friday morning on the way to the school bus. It has been the theme of his week. The upcoming unimaginably wonderful weekend.

“First, Alissa comes tonight and I can go on the computer…”

“Only if you…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know dad, only if I behave right at school. But listen, after I go on the computer, tomorrow … ”

Now that had an impact.

“…tomorrow it’s Edgar’s birthday and we go go go go…hah, did you hear me dad?…yeah we go go go go-karting. Aaaawwwwessssome.”

I must admit go karting is pretty awesome. Small, powerful, smelly vehicles careening around an indoor track in barely controlled mayhem.

Too bad it’s with a bunch of kids who have only recently learned to control their bowel movements, let alone hurtling vehicles.

“Yeah and then, Sunday, it’s the Pokemon Pre-Release Tournament where we get like, eh, you know, sixty, yeah, sixty, imagine sixty new cards that are not even released yet, That’s why it’s called Pre-Release. You understand?”

He’s told me everyday, several times a day for the last few days, so, yeah….

“I understand, Noah.”

“Yeah and then Monday its Halloween and we go to school in costume. Dad we gotta get gray and red and black make-up.”

“On the way home, tonight.”

“We need lots.”

“Of course.”

I’ve learned that you don’t argue about taste or quantities. My feast is another man’s poverty.

“And then, it’s Trrrrrricccckkkk ‘RRRRR  Treeeaaaatttt, oh yeah, oh yeah, aaaawwwweessssooommmeeee.”

He’s still dancing and singing as he disappears into the school bus.

That’s his weekend, so, by definition, it’s my weekend.

The hell with the things undone that rot my life. The unpaid bills, the unwashed dishes, the unswept floors, the unfilmed screenplays, the  women unloved, the depths unplumbed, the heights unconquered.

Saturday, I strap on a helmet and whoop in the noxious fumes of Kartomania.

Sunday, I rah rah and fist pump my future Pokemon Master on his quest through the Univa region.

Monday, I’m the bag man as he roams the streets as the Soul Reaper, harvesting candies in such abundance that I carry two spare bags for the overflow.

Halloween weekend… celebrating the departed through derision, fun and noise.

My illusions are lying in a shallow grave, in between the tombstones of Past and Future.

I have finished mourning them all.

BOOOOO…..you don’t scare me anymore. PPPPFFFFFFFTTTT…. you don’t seduce me anymore.

Focus, dad. Relax, dad. Enjoy, dad.

Just before he disappears in the school bus, this  Halloween Monday morning, my little Soul Reaper flashes me a smile and mouths a silent ‘Aweeeeeessssommmmeee’ complete with fist pump.

I may be slow, but I’m getting the message.

 

 

 

 

signify…

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…insignify

“Dad, I’ll be sad when Ouaga dies.” Ouaga is our cat.

“Me, too.”

He’s in my bed, frozen feet warming on my belly. This morning he woke early and rushed to join me.

Happily, since I woke even earlier and was fighting a mounting sense of panicked emptiness.

“Really? But you kick her all the time.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

Strangely reassuring this tit for tat with no significance. After spending a lifetime questing for meaning, tracking signs, I now will endeavor to Insignify: to make nonsense not meaning.

Yes, its an invented word and no, I don’t care.

“She’s still young, you know, Noah. She’s nowhere close to dying. Right now she’s like a large but healthy middle-aged woman. Like your principal.”

“Noooooo…she’s nasty. Ouaga is nice. She loves me! Dad? Do you think she loves me more than you, because like… you kick her.”

“But I feed her.”

My mind reflexively casts for patterns… for… for… for MEANING!!. Oh no!

“Dad, where will we like bury her when she’s dead?”

Insignify!

“We have no land, maybe we could stuff her and keep her by your bed.”

“Oh, gross!!”

“That’s true, she would pick up too much dust.”

“Daddy, we have to respect her so that she you know, travels to somewhere that is like cat heaven.  You know? Do you believe in a cat heaven, dad?”

Metaphysics is dead, Noah! After having destroyed generations of thinkers in ceaseless, useless searches for deeper meaning outside of themselves, I declare it dead!

“Nah, I don’t.”

“Really?”

That gives him pause. He turns and kicks me in the origins of his life.

“Ouuuff.”

“Sorry dad. Are you ok?”

I grimace and play dead.

“Hah…is that what they called face contortions on TV yesterday?”

I say nothing and continue playing dead.

“Dad, stop, you’re freaking me out now.”

I’m freaking myself out, too. Too easy to imagine the moment of my death.

Insignify! Insignify!

I roll onto him and smother him. He laughs, giggles, hollers.

Its infectious.

Beats being afraid of death…or feeling that the meaning has gone out of my life because people and things and long-held beliefs are disappearing. What’s the point of decades of living if nothing remains?

Oh no!

Insignify! Insignify! Insignify!