tattoo waiting to happen.
That was me, Adam — in your book and nineteen years ago. You’re not going to deny that it was me, right? I notice, for all your whining, you still haven’t denied it.
And here’s the gravy: Danger Man? Oh yeah. His mom died, by the way.
It’s not enough, is what I’m saying. Insult to injury is what I’m saying, Adam.
Anyway, on to Gord. Poor old Gord who didn’t even merit as brief a cameo as Sylvie-the-corpse in your magnum opus.
Picture redneck wed to goddess. Finally Dad finds himself in charge of something, in a domestically ordained managerial position all his own, and he makes his authority felt. No, Adam, he doesn’t hit. Gord is not a hitter of ladies, he is at heart a courtly little bugger, as I’ve already said. But he sneers. Croft had the smirk, Gord had the sneer, every bit as infuriating to the observer. He berates. He insults.
If I give you specific details then I have to give you Sylvie, which I am still not willing to do. But I’ll give you this much.
Picture a sort of spark. A flicker of light — there’s a flaw in the film. The glare of the projector comes blazing in. It’s startling, but after a while you get used to it, the way you can get used to a fuzzy TV channel if there’s nothing else to watch. Picture a sort of stationary glimmering — a small, steady radiance of sweetness and light. Oh, Gordie, the glimmer murmured to me one day after I’d finished kicking a hole in her bottom cupboard. Such cheap materials, in the house that Gord built.
Gord himself had just finished calling the glimmer “goddamn useless” before sashaying off in the truck to Home Hardware to buy a couple of lamps for the living room which, he’d suddenly decided, was poorly lit and which Sylvie, if she’d been any kind of worthwhile human being, would have fixed before poor, busy, put-upon small-businessman Gord had to have his consciousness affronted by the experience of an inadequately lit room.
“Useless idiot,” added Gord as he pulled on his boots. He wasn’t screaming anymore, but often with Gord, as in this instance, the post-screaming moments could be the worst. Just as Sylvie was likely starting to let herself feel relief that the screaming had finally come to an end, that she no longer had to hunker in the trenches as verbal machine-gun fire tore up the air around her, and just as she poked her head above ground hoping for the all-clear, Gord would lop it off with some quiet remark along the lines of useless idiot. And then go cheerfully on his way.
“Fucking . . . assho— . . . fuck!” I was saying as I removed my foot from the cupboard once he was gone.
Oh Gordie, the glimmer murmured then, wanting to make me feel better. Because that was what the glimmer was put on earth to do. Even in the daily exhaustion of dodging Gord’s machine-gun fire, she never gave any indication that anyone might deserve or require comfort other than her baby boy.
It’s okay, the glimmer assured me. He really never talks to me like that . . . Dear, you made such a hole.
“He always talks to you like that!” I sputtered — talking to the hole and not the glimmer. I often couldn’t look directly at the glimmer, she shone so pure and bright.
No, no, the glimmer assured me in her voice that was like no other mother’s. Other mothers, it always seemed to me, either barked or shrieked. Their voices were either shrill and silly — a strained, desperate pitch deliberately tuned to convey: “I’m just a nice lady! Don’t concern yourself with me!” Or else sharp and harsh, a sort of debased version of the previous that announced: “I am so sick of trying to pull off this nice lady shit, now pick up your socks.”
Not the glimmer. Her voice was always low and soothing, like the coo and flutter of overhead doves.
No, no, she cooed and fluttered at me, wafting over to close the cupboard door as if that would hide the hole. He doesn’t. He really doesn’t.
“When?” I yelled. This was the worst part — now I was yelling at the glimmer. I was yelling at her for having been yelled at. “When doesn’t he talk to you like that? He always talks to you like that!”
No, no, the glimmer cooed. He’s nice to me,