Sacred Monster

Flashback 15

The bedroom was small and square, with off-white walls and blond wood floor and very prominent electric outlets, prominent because the room was not yet furnished. The only objects in it were two white wooden kitchen chairs without arms, facing each other. On one stood a portable TV set, its black wire reaching back to a cable outlet low on the wall. To one side, plate-glass doors showed a broad gray wood deck in blinding sunlight, with the broad gray Pacific heaving like chicken soup beyond.

The room’s interior door — flush, painted white — opened and Jack entered, smiling, sweating, awkward, trying to please, ushering in his mom and dad. Mom was short and buxom, round-faced, jolly; she wore an old print dress and a gray cardigan. Her hands were full of snapshots. Dad, short and skinny and dry, wore white shirt and black pants and shoes, all too big for him. His face had a collapsed look around the mouth.

“And this is your room!” Jack exclaimed, pumping up his enthusiasm, giving one of the very few poor performances of his acting career. Gesturing madly at the bare walls, the white chairs, the ocean outside, he said, “Furniture’s going to be delivered by noon! All brand new!”

Mom had been waiting impatiently for Jack to shut up or at least pause for a breath. When he finally did so, she shuffled toward him, holding up snapshots, saying, “Here’s cousin Rosie with the twins. And here’s the twins with Blair’s dog. And this is the Flynns’ new car.”

“TV,” Dad said.

As Jack smiled and nodded and stared glaze-eyed at Mom’s photographs, Buddy entered, smiling, hands clasped in front of him, nodding like the co-host he was, and Dad crossed the room to switch on the television set and seat himself expectantly on the edge of the other chair.

“Great reception here, Dad,” Jack told him.

The picture blossomed on the screen. Dad leaned forward to start switching channels.

Mom held up more snapshots. “Here’s the laurel tree out behind Margaret’s house. Look how it’s grown! Can you see, Jack?”

Jack tore his eyes away from the back of Dad’s head. As Dad went on switching among the channels, Jack looked at the picture of the laurel tree out behind Margaret’s house. “Yeah, gosh,” he said. “Sure has grown.”

“You look, too, Buddy,” Mom said.

“Okay, Mom Pine.” Buddy obediently leaned forward, gazing with pleased interest at the picture of the laurel tree out behind Margaret’s house.

Dad, his voice testy, his manner testy, even his shoulder blades testy, said, “Where’s the sports?”

Grinning spastically, like a lion tamer who’s just heard a low growl from behind him, Jack said, “There might not be any sports right now, Dad.”

Dad stopped switching channels, sat back with an air of triumph, and pointed at the set. “Wrong again, Sonny. Tennis.”

“That’s nice,” Jack said.

“There, now,” Mom said, “just leave your father to his sports. We’ll all go sit on the sofa and look at pictures.”

“Okay, Mom Pine,” Buddy said.

Jack flashed a dozen smiles toward his father’s impervious profile. “See you later, Dad.”

Dad ignored him. Mom hustled the two younger men out of the room and firmly shut the door. Sunshine bleached the world beyond the glass doors. Dad watched tennis.

Sunshine bleaches the world. I sit beneath it, the white light making haloes and auras and ghosts and spirits in my vision. “I introduced Mom and Dad to all my industry friends,” I tell my interviewer, “and they fit right in.”