Gargoyles

by Bill Gaston

Or at least “What about that ass on Sheila.” Even that.

  Right.

  Or even better, “Let’s go down to 7-11 and check out that ass on Sheila.” You know, engage in some non-screen activity.

  Thing is, I think girls are in on the chat lots of the time. They’re actually talking to girls, or at least typing with girls, so they can’t very well, you know . . .

  See their actual ass.

  No, I mean talk about their actual — Anyway, look, so you stuck your moustache in front of Richard?

  I did.

  And.

  And Richard actually stopped everything. It was actually very dramatic. He saw my face. He stopped typing. He pulled his hands away. Though his elbows were still cocked. He looked at me for quite a long time, and then his face blossomed with a giant sneer.

  Strike two. So Carol was strike three.

  Well, Richard said something to me. It’s made me think.

  What.

  I didn’t think about it right when he said it, I thought about it after. Quite a bit, actually.

  Okay, let me go top up my coffee. I’m just going to put my phone down. Five seconds.

  What he said was, “What are you making?” That’s what he said. I realize that probably I have to —

  I’m back. What?

  I have to explain a little bit.

  I’m sort of waiting for you to do that, Rich.

  No, about Richard and what he said to me.

  Sure. All right.

  See, the thing is, about a month ago I believe I really scared him. He probably would never admit it, but I really scared him.

  What did you do?

  What I did was this. I told him I was going to tell him the most valuable thing he could ever possibly hear during this life on planet Earth, and then I went ahead and told him.

  Excellent. Well done.

  Actually, I’m serious.

  You going to tell me too, or is it secret?

  Well, it’s what they call self-secret, it’s —

  What who calls?

  You know, wise men. Self-secret means it’s there for everybody but nobody hears it because of the nature of the secret. The utter size of the secret.

  Okay. Hit me.

  What I told him is, “Richard, I’m going to tell you the best thing and the worst thing you’re ever going to hear.” We were actually into a formal father-and-son talk. I had called him away from the computer and outside onto the lawn. He was so impatient he could hardly bear it. He could not look me in the eye. But I had to get him away from that influence.

  I could never do anything remotely like that with Robbie.

  Well, I admit it was a little bit forced, but it was time. And I told him. I figured that, at the very least, even if he didn’t act on it, I’d know he was exposed to the truth and I’d done my duty.

  So you told him what?

  I said to him: The best thing you’ll ever be told is this. That every moment, every second you are alive, you can make your self.

  Okay, sure.

  You know the concept.

  Sure. It’s not all that —

  Fairly standard, I know, but wait. What I said next, and the part that pissed him off and scared him and made him say what he said to me about my Hitler moustache, was this: I also said to him: The worst thing you’ll ever hear on this planet, is that, every moment, every second you are alive, you are making your self.

  Okay.

  You know? You can’t not make yourself?

  I guess, sure.

  No, it’s heavy. It’s the big damnation thing in its essence, it really is. It says that every second you’re being lazy or even just spacing out, you are making yourself into that. Every —

  But it’s not like it isn’t reversib —

  Every second you are either bettering yourself or damning yourself. That’s what I told him and that’s what he understood. It’s been eating at him for a month, I think. Or, same thing, he’s been trying to forget what he heard. He’s been at the computer non-stop. Or sleeping. He won’t even look at me. Or he’s bolting out the door to the Sev for a slurpee, or eating way too much and too fast, or flicking through the TV like he’s running from something, it’s really, he’s extremely scared by this notion —

  Rich? I think possibly you’re reading into this a little bit, maybe.

  Maybe, but anyway, this is what he says to me, while he’s sneering. He sees the moustache, and me all smiley, and he says: “What are you making?”

  What did you say?

  I said, “Touché.” That’s all. I didn’t really think about it much till later. He said it more like, “Whatta you makin’?” Like Joey, in Friends. It pisses me off. Richard has a hefty IQ on him and he talks like that. They all do.

  Is that your problem, that you think you’re making yourself into something bad?

  No, that’s not what I’m talking about here. It was mostly Carol.

  Right. Carol’s turn.

  I go to show Carol next, she’s in the kitchen, on the phone. Sitting on that stool by the counter? You know that stool?

  Yup.

  Facing the doorway. So I stand there, framed in the doorway. Just sort of doing nothing. She glances up, nothing registers, goes back into gossip mode. It’s her mother. They could talk for an hour choosing a shower curtain. So I do a little pose to get her to look again. She doesn’t. So I go, “Ahem,” and she looks at me, right into my eyes, and I rub my chin — you know, that, “I’ve just shaved and it was a nice, close shave” thing on my chin. You see up at the beach I didn’t shave for two weeks so —

  So it made sense to do that.

  I stand there doing the chin rub, really exaggerated, and smiling, and she’s looking right at me, maybe eight feet away and — guess what?

  She hated it. She shot you a look of hate.

  No.

  I don’t know. Her jaw dropped? She got scared?

  No.

  So what did she do?

  Nothing.

  What do you mean?

  She didn’t even notice it. Didn’t even see it.

  Really?

  I have pretty dark hair, right?

  Sure.

  I mean, almost black.

  Yes, Rich, it’s still pretty much dark.

  And my skin is pretty white, right?

  Our people have been long away from the sun of the holy land and would not easily be taken for Semites, no.

  Touché. But even after two weeks at the beach. I have this pale skin, and black hair, which means any Hitler moustache I decide to grow on my face is going to be an extremely noticeable, let me say successful, Hitler moustache.

  You’d think.

  It was. It was glaring. But she just stared at me, right at me, right at my face, and didn’t see it.

  Funny.

  No. Let me put it another way: she saw me with a Hitler moustache, and she didn’t see anything different about me.

  Ah, right. I getcha.

  Get it?

  I get how in the wee hours you could get a bit symbolic with that and see it as a problem.

  That’s not the problem.

  That’s still not the problem?

  It’s maybe a problem with me and Carol, and it’s maybe a problem for me to deal with, but it’s not why I called you.

  Look, Rich, my phone here is beeping.

  That what that is?

  The battery’s going to cut out in a minute, less than a minute. Here’s a choice: I’ll call you back in five hours, all rested and cheerful. Or I go downstairs to my regular phone and we continue this. You want to continue this?

  Go to the other phone.

  Okay. I’m walking.

  Because I have a favour to ask.

  Okay. . .

  Good. Thanks.

  No, I mean I’m on my way down the stairs.

  Thanks.

  No, honey, it’s Rich, it’s okay.

  What?

  That was Leslie. We woke her up. Oka
y, I’m here. Here. Can you hear me?

  Yes.

  Okay, I’ll hang up this one. Can you still hear me?

  You know my garden, right?

  I know your garden.

  It’s where I went after Carol didn’t notice.

  You doing all those tomatoes again this year?

  And lots of other stuff. Trying fennel. That fish soup you really liked?

  It was okay.

  No you loved it. It’s that almost-licorice taste in it. Fennel. The bulbs in the grocery store cost almost five bucks each to buy. So I’m growing fennel. And tons of lavender. It’s Carol’s, actually, she wants to do these silk pillows, these miniature silk pillows filled with dried lavender, it’s supposed to help you sleep, you put it near your nose in bed. It’s a what’s-her-name, the insider-trading trouble-lady —

  Martha Stewart.

  —it’s a Martha Stewart thing, Carol wants to give one to everybody for Christmas presents this year. You guys are getting one.

  For Hanukkah?

  Right. Anyway there’s a field of lavender this year, and it’s me who waters it. It’s what I like to do, water my garden.

  I’ve seen you stand there.

  Always handheld. Whenever I’m really angry or need space or hungover, I just —

  You’re off the wagon, Rich?

  It’s not a problem. Once in a while.

  You sure?

  I’d tell you if it was.

  The first step is telling yourself.

  My only addiction these days is I water my garden. Carol has to call me in for dinner. Sometimes I overwater. I told her it feels like nurturing, like I can feel the plants just drinking it up, and being sort of thankful, it’s a bounteous feeling I get. Once I told Carol it was my only opportunity to feel as nurturing as a woman and she asked if I pictured the water coming out my breasts.

  I like Carol.

  She’s good, sometimes she’s good. Anyway, I take my little failed-moustache problem with me out to the garden and water it. I’m standing there watering the lavender, and then I’m in the tomatoes, nurturing away, and then I switch hoses and move to the flowers, and next I’m at the fence surrounded by beans. Right?

  I’m picturing you with this weird smile and water coming out your breasts and it’s too early in the morning for this.

  Fine.

  I’m going to be blunt and ask you to get to the point, and then I will do whatever it is you ask me to, Rich.

  Fine. Here it is. I’m watering the beans. I’m watering the beans for a long time. Thing is, I’ve long stopped thinking about the beach, and shaving, and “Eeeuuu” and what I might be “making of myself,” and being invisible to Carol. I’m just watering beans and feeling pretty much okay now, because the beans are soaking it up and thanking me. And along come Heather and Tom Lavoie, next-door neighbours, out for their walk.

  Okay. Yeah?

  Get it?

  Get what.

  We talked.

  Yeah?

  I’m watering my garden. We talk over the fence. But things feel very weird. Guess why.

  Oh. Jesus.

  See?

  You talked with your neighbours with your Hitler moustache on?

  Even I forgot I had a Hitler moustache. In the end even I didn’t notice.

  Holy.

  Yes. I’m watering. We chat but not long. Suspiciously not long. They said they were tired or something from their walk but in retrospect I saw that they basically ran from me.

  Must have been quite something for them.

  Indeed. The Beast out watering his garden of a summer’s evening.

  They didn’t say anything directly?

  Nope.

  But for sure they saw it?

  Yup.

  But Carol didn’t.

  No, they saw it. They ran. And then you can bet they talked about it all night.

  You’d think they’d make a joke. You know, to acknowledge yours. You’d think friends would say something.

  Well they aren’t friends, they’re neighbours. The other thing is, they didn’t see it as a joke.

  How do you know?

  They ran away from me.

  Right.

  It gets worse. It wasn’t just them. I kept watering. I didn’t get it yet. A few others crawled by in cars and we waved. The MacCarthys came by with their dog and we talked. One car contained a man name of Wolf Heisl. Wolf Heisl — what the hell did he think? But then, the grand fucking finale, Richard’s drama teacher with two bags of groceries. I mean, he was ten feet away. We only ever say hi — we said hi. But you should have seen the look on his face. It was this look that, that, finally made me remember. What was on my face, out there in public.

  Man.

  Do you know what Richard’s drama teacher’s name is?

  No.

  Joel Greenberg.

  Oooo.

  Greenberg.

  Ouch.

  I’ve been up all night.

  I guess I can see why.

  Do you?

  Neighbours, teachers, it’s embarrassing.

  It’s more than that, man. It’s more than that.

  Ouch. So what did you want me to do?

  A man can be a nut in our neighbourhood, and nobody says a thing.

  It’s polite times.

  A man could be on fire, and people would just say hi.

  Right.

  Hitler could be living on our street, and nobody would say a thing.

  You’re pretty much right.

  Our politicians are conducting evil — evil — and everyone knows it, deep down, but no one says anything.

  Well, maybe, but you need some sleep, brother.

  No one laughed. Ergo, they thought I was serious. They thought I thought I was Adolf Hitler. And nobody said a thing. As far as they are concerned, Hitler lives on their street and nobody’s saying anything. A man named Greenberg didn’t scream at me, didn’t try to get at me and rip my face off.

  I see your point but you might be getting a bit extreme with —

  Well, I’ve been up all night.

  Things won’t seem so bad after you sleep a bit. They really won’t. You might even see some hu —

  But they are saying something. All I can picture are my neighbours calling each other, maybe even organizing a meeting, all of them talking about me, about me wanting to be Hitler and what are they going to do about it, all my kids’ teachers and Carol’s yoga friends and checkout girls and —

  You have to calm down a bit, man.

  —calling the police, and my work, calling my partners, can you imagine that? Can you picture that? I mean I’m not the only Jew in our firm, right? It’s really quite something this time, I really can’t —

  Rich?

  —see a way out of this one. I mean I’m just waiting for the eggs to start hitting the house, the people with fucking torches outside, painting, you know, a pink star or something on our door.

  Rich?

  Yeah.

  Hitler’s door didn’t get painted. He did the painting.

  Well, there’s my first point. Hitler’s alive and in the neigh-bourhood and nobody’s doing anything about it.

  Well, why don’t you organize a mob and go get him.

  Okay, sure, touché, mock me here.

  You really need some sleep. Then you need to make a couple of calls.

  Calls.

  Call up the people who saw you and explain to them. No harm done. But get some sleep first. You’re a maniac right now and you’ll scare them.

  What the hell do I say to them?

  Just explain what happened. Tell them what you told me.

  Yeah, right.

  Why not?

  I tell them I had a Hitler moustache on purpose?

  Well, that much they already know, Rich. You’re just clarifying for them that you had no, you know, evil intent. You were playing a joke.

  I tell a man named Greenberg I was playing a joke? Having a little, what, Hitler-fest?


  Isn’t that what you were doing?

  It was a private, family thing.

  Okay Rich, whatever. It’s an idea. Telling the truth is an idea. I didn’t want to say this, but being straight with people isn’t your forte, never has been, and maybe it’ll hurt to work at it, but there might be no other way this time. Either that or, yes, chances are people will talk a bit. Not like what you’re imagining, but for sure people are going to, you know, marvel over it. Who wouldn’t?

  You’re right but . . . I had another idea. A favour.

  Okay, shoot. I love you, but my ear is getting sore. And I need to go for a walk. Then start work.

  You still write at home?

  Always.

  You working on that, what, that historical novel still?

  That and a play.

  Stories?

  Not lately.

  Well, that’s my idea. My favour to ask you.

  Yeah?

  You’ve always been the creative one, right?

  Okay, sure.