41. FACE THE MUSIC AND DANCE

Drone of engine, squeal of brakes, It’s Dad – his life in his foot’s hands. The Moody Blues replacing the motor for the briefest moment, the slamming of a door followed by heels clicking on driveway getting louder, drawing closer.
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Oh, is that the time?
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Let’s face the music
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Front door opens- if only the ‘music’ would prove to be as brief as that snatch of Moody Blues song - and closes.
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Dad’s home. My left hand makes the sign of the cross before I even know its moved. Gird loins. Cross fingers. Chant inga inga inga inwardly.
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and dance
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If Dad doesn’t kill me first, I will return to tell all…
.
later
Dialogue so brain-bending I don’t really care to remember keeps echoing in the canyons of my mind. I need to get it out of there before head cracks like an egg and leaks grey matter like broken yolk.
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I was pretending to watch TV when Dad strode with great purpose into the room.
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‘I want to talk to you,’ he informed me in a matter-of-fact tone. He plucked the remote control from my hand and killed the TV with a single shot.
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Uh oh, I shivered, suddenly feeling a little on the bad side of sick. These 6 words were even scarier than the 6 Mom used to say.
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I wanted to say, I’m not ready, but only managed to swallow hard and dry.
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‘So, Leo. What have you been up to today?’
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‘Oh, you know. Just hanging out. Studied for a while…’
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‘Is that so? Learn anything interesting, did you?’
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‘Um, no. Not particularly. Just revision really. So how did your meeting go?’
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‘Fine, and thanks for asking. Tell me, did you go into my bedroom when I was out?’
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‘Yes.’ It was true. ‘Listen, dad, I wanted to ask you about moving – ’
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‘What did you go in there for?’
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So much for diversion tactics .
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‘To answer the phone.’ True, too.’
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‘You went into my room to do that?’
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‘Yes.’
.

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‘Why didn’t you pick up downstairs?’
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‘Well, yeah, I was going to, but I was in a hurry… I mean the phone had been ringing for a while and I didn’t want to miss it so I was running to get it when I heard the ringing from your room… 8 times by then, and I’ve been waiting for this call, see, and, well, I was a lot nearer your room than the living-room. I didn’t mean to go in. I mean it wasn’t like I said to myself, oh, Dad told me not to go into his room so hey! that’s just what I’m going to do. It wasn’t like that. I was just answering the phone.’ Long-winded, but true.
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‘So what are you saying? Were you or were you not aware that you were breaking the first rule?’
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‘I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I am now.’ Very true.
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‘Mm-hm. And what else did you do when you were in there, besides answering the phone?’
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‘What else did I do?’
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‘Yes, when you were on the phone sitting at my desk, what else did you do?’
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‘Let me think. I… I might have rummaged around in a couple of drawers, you know, absentmindedly, while I was talking...’
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‘Ah. And when you were ‘rummaging’, were you aware that you were breaking the second rule – the one about NOT going near my desk?’
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‘No. Not at the time.’
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‘It simply didn’t cross your mind?’
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‘I guess not. I forgot.’
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‘You guess? You forgot? Aren’t you sure?’
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‘Yes. I’m sure. I forgot. It didn’t cross my mind.’
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‘I see. I think I’m starting to get the picture. But I’m really curious about what you were looking for when you were ‘rummaging’?
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‘I wrote a letter to Uncle Brian. I was looking for an envelope.’ Not true. A bare-faced lie.
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‘Mm-hm. An envelope. Did you find one?’
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‘Nosir.’ Technically, this was true, I hadn’t found an envelope.
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‘And tell me, Leo, where exactly did you look for this envelope?’
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‘I said. Maybe a couple of cubbyholes, a few drawers.’
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‘Anywhere else?’
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‘Emmm…’
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‘Did you look in the cabinet on the left hand side?’
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‘The left hand side?’
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‘Correct. The left.’
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‘Oh yeah. I looked in… yeah, I looked in there.’
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‘And did you find an envelope?’
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‘No. I didn’t find an envelope.’
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‘So, what did you find?’
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‘Nothing really.’
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‘Really? Are you sure?’
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‘I… think…’
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‘So, you didn’t come across anything at all?’
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‘Not that I remember in particular.’


‘You don’t remember seeing a large can of Drum? Think about it. You could hardly miss it.’

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‘Drum? Oh, the big can? Yeah, I saw that.’

.

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‘Did you open it?’
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‘Yes.’
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‘And did you look inside?’
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I shrugged.
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‘What did you find?’
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‘A plastic bag.’
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‘What was in the bag?’
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‘Tobacco… I guess.’
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‘You mean you’re not sure?’
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‘I don’t know.’
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‘So you saw a bag you thought was full of tobacco, right?’
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‘Right.’
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‘Then what did you do?’
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‘How do you mean?’
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‘I mean, what did you do – did you take the bag out of the can?’
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‘Yes, I did.’
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‘You did! And why did you do that?’
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I shrugged my shoulders again, shook my bowed head. ‘I’m not sure.’ Not quite true.
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I cast my mind back. I honestly still don’t know why I opened that can of Drum in the first place, and I don’t know why I went right on ahead and pulled out the ZipLock bag within. I noticed the strange green color of the ‘tobacco’ and didn’t have to look twice to know what it was. Whacky-backy. I’d seen enough of it recently, mostly thanks to Mikey, who likes to slip me a doobidge from time to time. Not only did I take the bag out of the can, I opened it. I had no intention of taking any, I simply succumbed to a sudden inexplicable urge to smell it, wondering if it was Sensimilla or skunk or Hawaiin or what-not, considering myself some kind of MaryJane-connoisseur having smoked various types of weed, maybe all of 2 or 3 times a week for a couple of months.
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‘Let me get this straight, Leo. I mean, I want to understand exactly what you’re telling me. Are you saying you took the bag out of the can?’
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‘Yessir.’
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‘I see. And did you find an envelope in there?’
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‘Nosir.’ Totally true.
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‘Oh. That’s a surprise. What did you find?’
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‘I don’t know.’ Blatant lie.
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I was like a demented one-legged bear with the one leg caught in the metal jaws of a hunter’s trap. I could give up, roll over and die, or I could gnaw my foot off in a gruesome attempt to escape. On 2nd thoughts, perhaps not: legless, I’d be unable to make my exit. Stick to the truth, ‘fess up, face the music, come clean – yadda yadda yadda… But what else was there for it? He had me sussed. I was caught, bang-to-rights, as they say in England, or something like that. Caught red-handed, single-footed. Dad, like an old-pro chess player, had forced me into position, manoeuvred me into a state of check.
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‘What did I find? In the bag, you mean?’ I resisted the compulsion to act hysterically – laughing, crying, I wasn’t sure which. Willing nothing less than a miracle, I answered him as straight as I could. ‘Some kind of tobacco.’ True. ‘But it was a funny color, I suppose, not brown, but green. Green tobacco, I thought. I was curious to get a look at it, ‘cuz, I mean, I’d never seen green tobacco before.’
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Liar, liar, pants on fire!
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‘Did you open the bag?’
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‘What?’
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I’d heard him all right, but it suddenly struck me as kind of funny that he was asking me this. Of course I’d opened the bag: he knew it, I knew it, and both of us knew that the other knew it. Sarcastically, I thought, what makes you think that? I must have said it aloud, though, because he answered.
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‘What makes me think that?’
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Is it me, or is there an echo in here?
.‘Yeah…’
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‘Don’t you know?’
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‘Know? No.’
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‘Sure you do, Leo. Think hard.’
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‘ – ‘
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‘You remember now, right?’
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‘Yes. I remember now. I did open the bag.’
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‘That’s good. Why do you think I knew you’d opened the bag?’
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Chrissakes! I was growing almost as bored as I was confused. He seemed to be, on the one hand, putting words in my mouth, yet, at the same time, with the other hand, it was as if his goal was to get me to confess all on my own. I still had enough presence of mind to know that resistance was futile. It’d be easier to go with the flow.
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‘I think you knew because of the tear?’
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‘You know, come to think of it, I did.’
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That damned tear – that’s what torn it. If I hadn’t stupidly ripped a hole in his blessed bag when my fingers fumbled to pull apart the zip-lock none of this would’ve happened.
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‘Okay. All right. Do you know what the green-tobacco is called?’
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‘Umm-‘
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Now, that’s a tough one. If I told him I didn’t, he’d think I was lying and get really pissed. If I told him that I did know, God knows what he might say or do. Unable to choose, I fell between two stools, so to speak, and cloaked my answer in the form of a question.
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‘I think… is it called… Mary-Jane?’ Now that Dad was 100% certain that I knew that it was weed, a troubled look crossed his crestfallen features. No doubt he had realized that I’d found him out, that I was 100% certain that he partook in a toke – and was taken aback by how the proverbial shoe was suddenly on the other foot. His son had explained himself and it was Dad’s turn to do some explaining. That’s what he must have been thinking. I, on the other hand, would have been perfectly happy for this long, drawn out dialogue to have stopped a few pages ago, sooner even, preferably. The last thing I wanted was to hear him try to explain and justify himself to me. And wouldn’t you know? That’s just what he did.
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Seemed like it went on and on…
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kept right on going for the rest of my life…
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following me into my grave…
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droning down the corridors of eternity…
.

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In an attempt to save time and tediousness (and my aching fingers) I will synopsise it here – cut it into sound-bites for your reading convenience (and my sanity – what’s left of it).
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Dad: Listen, Leo, let’s get things straight here. I don’t really smoke it that often. Maybe once or twice a week… mostly on weekends. And never when I’m operating any kind of machinery.
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Me: That’s okay, Dad, you don’t have to-
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Dad: I don’t use it to get stoned or out of my tree or to party. My use is strictly medicinal. For one thing, it helps relax the stress of a long week. It’s also a good pain reliever.
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Me: You in pain, Dad?
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Dad: Well, yes, sometimes. My back. All the driving and sitting. I think I’m going to see a Chiropractor if it keeps up. I might have a disc or two out of whack.
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Me: Ouch. Sounds excruciating. Sorry to hear that.
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Dad: Yes, well, anyway. The thing is this: I’m a 37 year old man and you’re only 16.
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Me: Ahem. 17, actually. 18 very soon.
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Dad: Whatever. What I’m saying is: When you eventually move into your own place you can do anything you like. But when you’re living under my roof, you will not smoke. Anything. Is that clear?
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Me: (-)
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Dad: What?
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Me: Nothing. I thought it was a rhetorical question. Crystal.
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Dad: Okay then. I think we’re finished. Only thing left is your punishment.
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Me: Man, I thought the last 10 minutes were punishment enough!
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Dad: Don’t get smart.
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Me: What? Isn’t that why you send me to school?
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Dad: I’m warning you. Go get the bucket and sponge and wash the car. Clean it inside and out. That includes vacuuming too.
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Me: (Wow. I’m getting off pretty light here, I mean under the circumstances and all.)
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Dad (grinning): And when you’re finished that, come back to me. I’ll have another job for you then. Get it?
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Me: Got it.
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Dad: Good.
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There was nothing good about it.



Ah – Dad! Punishment: he can take it, but sure can’t give it.

40. WHISTLING IN THE DARK

2:33 and all’s not well. More strange dreams. Afraid to go back to sleep. Can’t anyway – the snoring from Dad’s room is so loud. He’s never snored like this before, not this heavily. Had it been this bad when Mom was alive, he’d be dead now because she’d surely have killed him. Divorced him. Sent him to sleep on the couch at the very least.
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And what was that? Is that whistling I hear? The feeling in the pit of my stomach, fear or excitement? Out there in the dark, is it Judy? Am I really hearing it or is it just my imagination? Could it be her, down the end of the hall, waiting for me, just beyond her bedroom door? Part of me says, Of course not.

.

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Got to go in there sometime. Got to face the music sooner or later. It’s not over until the Fat Lady sings.
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Nine days to go, but who’s counting? Have to get hold of some condoms. Plenty of time yet, and it shouldn’t be difficult - they’re available in the restrooms of practically every bar or nightclub downtown. Not that either of us has much chance of giving an STD to the other (being virgins and all as we are), but condoms as a method of birth-control? Not ready for miniature versions of myself getting caught up under my feet. Not just yet.
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Che sera.

39. NEAR HYSTERIA IN THE CAFETERIA

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Pacing back and forth across the impossibly shiny floor, aware I’m diminishing, shrinking in height and stature while Time is bending. I’m fading, blending into the scenery, trying to lose my thinking-self to the-feeling me. Shuffling beneath
                                        sicklybuzzingphosphourescenttubelighting.
Numbing elevator muzak pouring down like acid rain, melting me. I see a fan turn its head towards me. Pink strips of paper tied to the fans grill stream and wiggle like pointing tongues screaming silently. I look the other way and see Dad sneaking a cigarette, half hidden by the phone booth in the corner.
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My body seems to have dropped away. Only eyes and ears are here. Now. In this part. I hear violins. I see a nurse, appears out of nowhere, unreal in the bluey-whiteness of her uniform, angelic-like and spooky in a glow-in-the-dark sort of way. Floating towards Dad.
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She is beside him, whispering in his ear. I see her lips move but can’t make out words.
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Dad doesn’t know I smoke (or maybe I don’t know he does), but I’m wondering what the chances are of him giving me a cigarette. A smoke would be just the thing in this part. So I go in search of my body (where is it? gotta be around here somewhere), find it hiding under a table, re-enter it, and ask him. He doesn’t dignify the request with a verbal answer, just an effectively unsettling are-you-out-of-your-mind look. Instead, he presses a bill into my hand, tells me to get a Coke or something, he’ll be back in a few minutes.
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Dad drifting down the hall, going towards the light, the Heavenly fluorescent glow trailing behind Florence Nightingale.
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Coke? I’m not thirsty. This doesn’t seem like a ‘caffeine’ moment anyhow. Valium? Yes. Prozac? Maybe. Caffeine? Are you kidding? I’m as wired and useless as an empty hanger.
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The atmospherics in here are all jacked up. Gravity, palpable and fuzzy as fog, pushes me down by the shoulders, causing my knees to bend (so, like the trees, they won’t be broken) until my buttocks kiss the moulded plastic seat - in front of a plastic table: a plastic bottle of flavored water stands in the middle half empty. It used to be half full. The non-stop nightmarish-music colors thoughts black. Paralyzed by Panic, I try to drown out the darkness by making up a prayer: Dear God, if you’re listening, I have a favor to ask. Please let Judy be all right. Please, God, let her make it through… this part… her darkest hour. My darkest hour. Please, oh Jesus, free her from fear and deliver her from the shadow of Evil to skip and run and jump and dance and sing again in the Light. I beg you. I will never ask you for anything again. Just this one thing, okay? Let her be okay so she can come home and play her radio and watch movies with me and make more of her tapes, so she can tease me again and call me ‘little brother’ and tousle my hair.
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Remembering the rubber-band around my wrist, I snap it: delicate tendrils of pain shooting up arm wringing tears from eyes.
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Why is there a rubber-band around your wrist anyhow?
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I put it there a few days ago if memory serves, to remind me of… something. Can’t now for the life of me remember what it was. Like a string around your finger, only it doesn’t look as stupid. Snapping it helps me from falling deeper into the Dark Place. A kind of diversion therapy tactic or something. Works for me.
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Mother. The thought of her…
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no longer alive…
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this idea (just a half hour old) not yet taken root –
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impossible to deal with such a notion –
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and that my one and only beautiful baby sister might be dead, too…
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totally unacceptable.
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Abandoning body again, unplugging from thought, let eyes wander, observing other late night cafeteria dwellers. If I can get some kind of insight into their stories, it occurs to me, maybe I’ll see that their troubles are worse than mine, and that their Hell is hotter. And that, perhaps, will make me feel better. Hell, it might even make me feel like THANKING GOD FOR MY BLESSINGS. I want to scream but refrain, afraid it might shock somebody to death. That old dude over there, for instance, currently dissolving under unnatural light melting into his wheelchair.
.

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I sense that there’s something else, here with us, among us, hovering in the sickly fish coloured hue washing over the half dozen patients and visitors, seeping as insiduously as the Muzak, lighting up the wax-like faces of someone’s father or mother (or sister). I see it hear it touch it and now fancy I can smell it. It’s everywhere.
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I know what it is. And who.
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Death.
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Here with us now, slinking along the disinfected tiles, filling my nose with the cloying stink of musty clothes and mothballs, dust and urine. Old dusty newspapers.
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You know she’s not going to make it, don’t you?
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The part of me that doesn’t yet know she won’t make it returns to pleading for Judy’s life. Another part of me knows she won’t. In the back of my mind a looped message repeats the news over and over: Your Mother is Dead. Your Mother is Dead. Your Mother is Dead.
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I look at my watch. Mickey’s small hand is near the 9, big hand points at the 3 -
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Time turns to trickery.
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Only an hour ago we were at home, an ordinary family on a Saturday evening, enjoying the football and anticipating a ‘mighty’ dinner. That’s what Dad called Mom’s dinners – mighty. An hour ago we were all together, not stopping for a moment to suspect how good it everything was, right there right then. And how it would never get better than that. That moment. Not even an hour: 55 minutes to be exact. How can so much happen so fast? Huge, far reaching changes in a finger snap?
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I don't get it.
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Two square words:
.

Mo  de

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ms  ad

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Don’t fit round holes in head.

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Pull rubber band tight. Snap.

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Snap snap.

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The driver of the truck that ploughed into them is dead, too. I’m glad. Don’t know why exactly, just seems easier somehow. Seems fair this way. Why should he get to live when they didn’t and it was his fault? He was to blame.

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Dad returns. I’ve been waiting only 4-minutes, but it’s felt like a cold slice of forever. His wan face comes into focus. He’s pushing a cup of coffee under my hanging head, saying my name.

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Through tears I search his bloodshot eyes, and fancying I see a glimmer of hope in them, my heart grows light with the hint that everything’s turned out okay in the end. Happilyeverafter. Just like a children’s story. There really is a God, and He has answered my prayers. Judy will live to dance and sing and laugh like a loon again! In my rejoicing heart, I dance and sing and laugh like a loon too. I want this moment to go on and on, like a loop of film.

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,

The jittery motion of Dad’s hands arrests my attention. Coffee’s close to overflowing even though he’s doing his damnedest to keep the cup steady.

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‘She’s going to be okay, Dad, right?’

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The shaking of his hands intensifies sending hot liquid spilling over the edge scalding skin. Not feeling it, or simply ignoring it, he places the cup on the table, wipes his hand on his jacket, produces a cigarette from his pocket with the other and lights it awkwardly, forgetting he’s not allowed, or more likely, not giving a damn.

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I’m thinking: When Dad’s holding a poker in his hand, his face always betrays him. Now, cigarette dangling from pursed lips, he’s wearing the most enigmatic poker face I’ve ever seen. It’s his unsteady hand that gives him away.

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A finger snap: daydream is over.

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Laid balled up at the head of Judy’s bed for indeterminable time that night. Left later in a daze stumbling into my own bed entreating good dreams (or no dreams at all) to visit me in the dark.

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If I’ve learned anything from that episode with Dad, it’s this: Close you’re eyes when you’re crying because tears distort your vision.

38. Died At A Party

Must record our outing last Friday night now while I have the chance, while it’s still fresh in mind, before memory distorts it, and before I go completely insane. Then again, it’s really something I’d like to forget.
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Ha ha ha. And the chances of that?
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We met at Maggie’s and rolled the die. To my great relief, Dad did not put in an appearance. Pete won again for the 4th (or is it 5th?) time, and we ended up at a party in Coconut Grove - where all the Beautiful People hang - or should be hung! Pete said the place would be crawling with babes and Troy added that getting laid was a sure thing. What else would they say?
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I don’t know about babes, but sure enough, the place was crawling. Mostly a blur to me still… I suffered like a martyr for about 20-minutes before succumbing to the call of the bathroom where I kneeled for over an hour, head bowed over the Giant Telephone. I spoke to Ralph and Hughie. And in the end, I had a word with God. First time in a long time.

.

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I’ve thrown up more in the past week than the whole rest of my life. Funny, eh?
.
And Time does turn to trickery.
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Standing alone in a darkened room beside a palm tree, watching smoke swirling around bodies in all states of undress, surging with all kinds of chemicals: writhing, wriggling and riding the pulsating music, the whites of their eyes and the skin of their teeth and pieces of clothing all lit up like fairy-lights under stroboscopic UV.

.

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The Halitosis Dude’s name eludes me now, but I remember that, as he spoke, I tried to discern whether he was actually for real, or just some surreal figment of my imagination, which kind of gives you an insight into my state of mind at the time.
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He asked me all kinds of weird and wonderful shit, like riddles, or conundrums or what have you, and all the while I thought about UB. Who the hell is this asshole? Has someone spiked his drink? Has someone spiked mine?
.
Somewhere in his droning monologue he mentions he’s writing a novel, and not just a novel, mind you, but a novel that would undoubtedly be turned into a movie. Guess who was going to write the screenplay? Why is it that this kind of person always has a novel brewing on the back-burner, never quite ready, but bubbling away nicely?
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‘Really,’ I say. ‘Amazing.’
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Besides the riddle that got me a free ride home, I can only remember one other. It goes like this: You’re standing beside a man who is looking at a portrait of a man hanging on the wall. You ask him who he’s looking at. He – for some reason left unexplained – chooses to answer you in rhyme. ‘Brothers and sisters I have none’, he says, ‘but that man’s father is my father’s son.’ Who is the man he is looking at? If I knew the answer then, I cannot remember now. I’ll have to think about it. So, I’ll use UB’s excellent advice about solving riddles. Knowing I already have the answer, just toss it in to the inky depths of my unconscious mind and let it sort it out. Okay. Splash. You deal with it, Unconscious, and let me get on with my story. Let me know when you have the answer. Take your time. No rush.
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And whatever the other riddles were, I don’t believe I managed to answer any correctly… except the last one. I blamed the beer – or maybe it was that laughing cigarette Mikey had passed me sometime earlier. But they were not what I thought of as real riddles, they were more like jokes. For example: What’s the difference between a duck? Answer: One of its legs are both the same.
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And so on.
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Almost barf on him at one point, I kid you not, but miraculously tightened my throat in time. I tuned out the noise the bad-breathed dope standing in front of me churned out. Tuned into the music blaring from countless speakers surrounding us. John Lennon as I recall, singing seductively:

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Newspaper taxis appear on the shore
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waiting to take you away
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climb in the back
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with your head in the clouds
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and you’re gone

!

! !

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That’s what I need, a taxi, only I have no money. Could ask one of the guys, but none are to be seen and the thought of searching fills me with dread, like UB’s dude standing between the doors of Heaven and Hell – except I’m already in Hell and want out.

.

My eyes find themselves settling upon a fat person across the room, sitting. Can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. The T-Shirt s/he wears is so tight that the letters running across the front look like they’re about to pop! In the region of the fat person’s extra-large gut was the motto: When you’re going through hell…

and below that a picture of a stick-man running through orange-red flames, and two words below that

don’t stop!

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‘Here’s one you’ll never get!’

 .

Oh God, not the Halitosis Dude again. Leaning into me, eyes flashing with misguided intelligence, he hits me with another riddle, sinking my hopes that - if I just ignore him - he and his breath will blow away.

.

The riddle strikes me strange. Because I recognise it? Stunned. It was the very same riddle UB posed not so very long ago! Who’d ever have thought it’d come in real handy some point down the road. And here it was. What a stroke of luck! Talk about coincidences – this was, as skeptics like to say, too good to be true. I feel myself smiling inside, deciding to turn the tables on this joker. I mean, he’s really asking for it and all.

.

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‘Before I even consider the question, let me wager you this: I’ll give you a riddle too, and whoever gives the right answer first pays for the other guys ride home. Deal?’ I wasn't fucking about.

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‘Where you going?’ he asks.

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I tell him not to worry, that I only live about 10-miles away. He shrugs dopily showing a smile that sends a chill up my neck and out through every hair on my head. A front tooth missing: inside mouth wetblackred.

.

‘Then shoot,’ he says.

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So I throw one at him I know he’ll never get. ‘If it takes a chicken and a half a day and a half to lay an egg and a half, how long does it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick the seeds out of a dill pickle?’ Man, you should’ve seen his face.

.

.

Needless to say, I win. To his riddle, I give him the same answer I’d given UB. When he gets over the shock, he tells me that the answer to mine had better be good. And so, with a straight face I give it to him. ‘Not long at all because there are no bones in ice cream.’

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Unsure of whether I’m genuine or he’s being had, he laughs nervously.

.

‘Okay. You win, man. Hey. That’s really good. How much you need?’

.

And that’s when I lighten him twenty bucks, make like a bread truck and haul buns. It’s on my way out that I visit the bathroom for an amount of time I’m still unsure of.

.

The bowl and I become one.

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‘At least he can’t get in here,’ I kept telling myself between chucks, hoping I’d remembered to lock the door.

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Also, needless to say, I don’t get laid.

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That’s the way the die rolls sometimes.

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Just about to fall asleep and the answer, out of the ether, pops into my head.

.

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The man speaking in rhyme is looking at himself.

20. Searching For The Question

Thinking about when UB was last here and the night the three of us sat up real late talking around the coffee table with a bottle of wine and a candle in the middle.

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UB says he wants to riddle-me-ree or some nonsense like that, and poses a conundrum that stumps me good.

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‘The thing is,’ he says, as if giving road directions to a lost driver, ‘each brother guards a door, one to Heaven and one to Hell. You’re allowed to ask one question to one of the brothers in order to gain your freedom. All you know is that one of the brothers always speaks the truth, while the other brother always lies. Got it?’

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Can’t understand a word he’s saying. I wonder: Could this be Gaelic?

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‘So, to sum up,’ he goes on by way of a big hint. ‘You want the door that leads to Heaven. You don’t know which door is which. Nor do you know which brother is which. You have one question. What do you ask?’

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The first answer that springs to mind is: I think I’ll blow my brains out. But I keep it to myself. I know he’s not going to let me off that easily. I think hard, taking on the look of a person who’s just bitten into a lemon: pursed lips, scrunched eyebrows, face tight and taut.

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‘So,’ I consider aloud, tugging at my bottom lip, ‘the answer to this riddle is a question?’

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‘You’ve got it,’ UB nods.

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Thinking deeply has been something I’ve been avoiding with great success for some time now. Thinking deeply has never come easily, so avoiding it’s been a walk in the park. Since everything turned Inside-Out, I’ve been fairly content to paddle around in ‘the shallow end of the thinking pool’, as some might say (a philosophical pool guy, perhaps). I can’t tell what it was exactly, but I’m beginning to wonder if UB didn’t give me some sort of mental kick-start that night.

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‘Come on, Leo,’ he challenges me. ‘What’s the answer?’

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‘The question, you mean,’ Jack pipes in.

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I can see UB really wants me to figure it out on my own, and that he believes I can. In a way I won’t attempt to explain, the experience of figuring out (and for that I take no credit) the seemingly impossible dilemma UB has posed is a revelation in itself. Dare I say a magical, even mystical, experience? Or is that, like, too wow?

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At first, likening my mechanical thought process to driving a car, I kept jamming the gears. UB pulled painful faces as though he could hear the grinding of mental metal.

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‘No, no, no,’ he says firmly, shaking his big round head. ‘Forcing it won’t work.’

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‘I’m just thinking. Nothing that’s forced can ever be right. If it doesn’t come naturally, leave it,’ I say, whipping a little Al Stewart on him.

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‘That’s it: don’t think too hard. Don’t force it. Before you head off in search of the answer you must believe that it exists, that it’s already there. You don’t have to think it up, you just have to find it.’

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Experiencing turbulence trying to keep up.

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‘Stop focusing on the question, simply clarify it once and for all, then toss it into the vast depths of your mind. Fishing for the answer starts with throwing in your line.’

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'The question, you mean,’ Jack corrects again.

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‘The answer,’ UB explains, ‘comes in the form of a question. But it’s still the answer. Okay?’

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‘So,’ Dad presses on, pretending to want to understand. ‘The answer is in the question… the question is in the answer…’

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‘Yeah, something like that.’ UB sighs in exasperation at the workings of his younger brother’s mind.

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Maybe it’s the wine, the timbre of his voice, the candle… I don’t know - but I lean back, get comfortable, and throw the question into the vast depths of my mind. I like the sound of that.

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A confidence falls over me, and the thought, the answer will come, comes into focus and serenely floats by.

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Incredibly, seconds later, the answer comes. Out of nowhere it seems, like a little bubble at the bottom of a glass of champagne, breaking free from all the others, springing to the surface triumphantly. I just opened my mouth and out it popped.

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‘The question would be: If you were your brother, and I asked you which was the door to Heaven, which door would you tell me to go out?’

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Jack gives UB a look that says, he’s got it wrong, go easy.

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UB ignores him. ‘Which brother would you ask?’

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I say it doesn’t make any difference, either brother’s fine, mentally blowing on my fingernails, brushing them against an imaginary lapel.

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‘Don’t be silly,’ Jack cries. ‘Of course it matters.’

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‘No,’ UB tells him, ‘it doesn’t.’

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Jack frowns, slumping back in his chair.

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UB looks at me. ‘But what would you do when you got your answer?’

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‘Whichever door he told me to go out, I’d go out the other one.’

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Jack’s now holding head in hands as if nursing a bad headache. ‘That can’t be right. Can it?’

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‘Absolutely correct.’ UB beams a big grin. ‘I knew you could do it, Leo. Remember,’ he taps at his temple with a fat finger, ‘the greatest problem solving machine in the world is right up here. Use it or lose it.’

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Jack complains that his problem solving machine’s aching like a bastard, and no matter how much we try to explain it to him, he can’t grasp it.

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‘My head,’ he repeats whiningly ‘it’s going to explode.’ He leaves us to search for aspirin, and goes to bed without saying goodnight.