Chapter 2: Attributes
My neighborhood was painfully ordinary. Imagine the blandest, suburban cookie-cutter street. That’s exotic compared to mine. My house was newer, built in ’84, and looked like it was designed by what someone in the ’70s thought the ’80s should look like. I pulled into the drive. Both my parents’ cars were here. Made sense; Mom didn’t work, and Dad didn’t take calls on Friday afternoon, perks of running your own business. He replaced his work van a few years ago and toyed with the idea of giving me the old one. I doth protest too much. I’d rather have taken the bus than drive a windowless plumbing van to school. Mom had a ’91 Buick Le Sabre, maroon. Dad made sure she had a car she could be proud of.
Dad’s work shirt and boots were on the back porch. By the smell, it was apparent he’d dealt with a sewage backup. I could hear Jeopardy! blaring in the living room before I opened the door.
God, they loved Jeopardy! My dad was surprisingly good at it, and we had a bit of a rivalry when we watched together. Not that we did that much anymore. Watching TV with your parents is as cool as driving a plumbing van. I entered the kitchen, noting the goose theme.
Every mom had some kind of kitchen theme. Mostly farm animals of the avian persuasion; sometimes you’d get pineapples, or if they were eccentric, Coca-Cola. Mom went with the geese and blue-and-white checkered wallpaper. Ceramic ducks littered the kitchen. What they had to do with eating was lost on me. I don’t think people eat geese, and they are mean as hell. Might be some subtext I was missing.
I moved to the living room to deploy my deception. Dad sat in his recliner. I swear he didn’t sleep in his bed. I’d always find him in the recliner whenever he was home. He had on his wife-beater and boxers. Mom probably threw his pants right in the wash. He was yelling the answers to the TV that didn’t care. “What is collateral damage?” he yelled, answering before the contestant. He took a deep drag from his cigarette, the ash getting dangerously long. The contestant was a goony-eyed man with thick glasses and a receding hairline. He was at –500 points. How did he get on Jeopardy!?
“Détente,” Goony Eyes answered. Both my father and Trebek had a disgusted look on their faces, as if the wrong answer physically sickened them.
“I’m sorry, not only are you wrong, but you didn’t answer in the form of a question. The answer we were looking for was ‘What is collateral damage? Collateral damage.’ Which is what we can expect from you racking up the negative points,” Alex said on the screen. Mr. Trebek had an uncanny way of nonchalantly informing a contestant they were wrong while simultaneously adding an understood “you piece of shit” to his remark. I loved him. Dad was more vocal.
“You moron,” Dad scolded Goony Eyes. Mom, Fran, was sitting on the couch, knitting. She was a good-looking woman. Most people thought she was much younger than my dad. She was a year older. My dad had higher mileage. He aged prematurely, partially due to manual labor and his constant smoking. People often spoke of them like I did Kristen and Jill. Frank and Fran. It helped that the names were so similar. It evoked a Norman Lear sitcom couple. They were not. They worked well together; I never saw them fight. They were good parents. Sometimes they could overreact. Mom was not as good as he and I at Jeopardy! She was a great cheerleader.
“Good job, honey,” she encouraged. I don’t know how she knew I was in the room. The TV was blaring, and she hadn’t looked up from her needlework. “Eric,” she said. My parents named me Eric, with an “E.” Bland. I hated my name. That was until “X-O Manowar #1” hit the stands. X-O was my favorite comic character. He was basically Iron Man, except he was literally a barbarian from the past. Conan with power armor. Plus, his name was Aric of Dacia. Ever since then, I spelled my name with an “A.” My parents thought it was dumb. I could literally hear the “E” in my name anytime they spoke it. “There’s stew in the crock pot if you are hungry,” Mom informed me.
My mom was not the greatest cook. Her two worst recipes were minute steak with an unknown red sauce and stew. Her crock pot stew was bland and melded into an incoherent mess of deep brown. That kid who asked for more gruel in the old movie would have passed on seconds of that stew.
“What is Neolithic?” Dad answered correctly. Alex and company didn’t hear him, as they were on the TV and this was taped months ago. That didn’t stop Dad from participating. Goony Eyes didn’t have a chance to respond before another contestant, a frumpy librarian-type lady—not the sexy kind, the smells-of-mothballs, hushing-you kind of librarian—answered along with Dad. There was a break from questions as Trebek interrogated the players. Dad hated that part. Figured that was my time to engage.
“ConCon starts today,” I said meekly.
“Oh my God, son, aren’t you a little old for… what is a boil?” Dad said. He took after his namesake, Frank, a little hard sometimes.
“Your dad is right, who is Edgar Rice Burroughs?” Mom chimed in. She was right. About the question on Jeopardy!, not the con. I was proud of her. Not a lot of moms knew Barsoom.
“Mom,” I pleaded in that whiny voice kids have. I hated it coming out that way. It was a natural response and irritated me almost as much as my parents. I was too deep now to stop. “This is the only thing I look forward to in my miserable existence. It’s the only time I’m around people like me, other than Noah. It’s important,” I pleaded.
“What is sad?” Dad snarked. He could cut with a few words.
“Droll,” I responded. I could wound, too. “I have to go. We haven’t missed in six years.”
“Hush, Final Jeopardy,” Dad instructed. Final Jeopardy indeed. Trebek read the clue in his distinct monotone. The category was Star Wars Villains. “Star Wars Villains,” my dad scoffed. “I hate these stupid pop culture questions. That’s not knowledge.” Trebek did not notice my dad’s disdain and read the question dutifully.
“Five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, this tactician, a Grand Admiral, nearly toppled the New Republic in Timothy Zahn’s bestselling trilogy?” he asked. The contestants dutifully wrote their answers while the oddly calming Final Jeopardy music played. I, of course, knew the answer; I was reading the books.
“Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn?” I extolled triumphantly. Dad turned off the TV with a huff. He leaned over from his recliner and patted the couch.
“Sit down, boy,” he said. His tone wasn’t angry; it was a mix of disappointment and concern. I sat down, and my exasperated father continued. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re smart, a good kid. At least, I thought you were before that dumb stunt you pulled in English.” I looked down, not ashamed. I didn’t want him to see me crack a smile. See Spot Run—hilarious. Dad caught it. “You think it’s funny my son wastes his brainpower on stupid kid stuff like Star Wars instead of real things. Christ, you could be a rocket scientist, a doctor, not a broken-down plumber.”
“I would have beaten you at Jeopardy! today,” I smiled.
“Bully for you,” he replied. “I’m not half as smart as you. When I was your age, I was as lazy. Now I have a bad back and live paycheck to paycheck. If you applied yourself in the slightest, you’d have a much easier life.”
“Oh, so your life with Mom sucks?” I knew I pushed too far as the words tumbled out of my mouth. Being clever has its drawbacks.
“Eric!” my mom fumed. “That was uncalled for. You will not be going to any convention tonight.” Crap. That blew up in my face. “Go to your room. I’m too mad to look at you right now.” I complied, cursing myself as I walked to my cell. I lay on the bed for twenty minutes or so. All I had to do was keep my smart mouth shut. I was at the finish line. It was kind of Trebek’s fault, if you thought about it. Who the hell does Final Jeopardy on a Star Wars book? That wasn’t fair. I don’t think Alex wrote the questions. Did he? Was he some super trivia genius? Surely not, and don’t call me Shirley.
Noah would be getting his stuff together for the hotel. ConCon nightlife—after-parties, late-night movie marathons, a hotel room that played every episode of Doctor Who and Red Dwarf all night—and Noah would be there. Blair would be, too. He’d miss out on his date.
It struck like thunder. I had a plan. Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table, eating the stuff Mom called stew. “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry. I was being a jerk,” I said sincerely. I was being a jerk, but sincerity was also a good trick.
“It’s OK,” Mom said. “It’s been a long week.”
“That it has, that it has,” I mused. “Anyway, Noah and I were talking. You think I could go to the movies tonight?”
“Eric,” Dad said, not looking up. “Do you think we are idiots? If you leave this house, you are going right down to the coliseum for that little convention.”
“Nuh-uh, me and Noah are going to see I Love Trouble, with Julia Roberts. Not with her, but she’s in it. So’s Nick Nolte. Directed by the guy who did Irreconcilable Differences.”
“Julia Roberts? Irreconcilable Differences? You and another boy?” Dad clutched his heart. Suddenly I was in Sanford and Son. “Oh God, no, no, I suspected. I always suspected. You played with those Star Trek dolls. You’re coming out. Is that what the gays call it? Or is it a debut or revue, a cotillion or something,” Dad rambled, wheeling to look at my mother. I really thought he couldn’t breathe. If he dropped dead, I might sneak away in the chaos. Not ideal. The Elf Girl was worth it.
“No, no, no. I’m not gay,” I assured him. “What do you mean you always suspected? We have dates. With girls. Jill and Kristen. They asked us. Call their parents, it’s legit.”
“I don’t believe,” Mom said.
“Hold on, Fran, don’t be so rash. He did say girls were going,” Dad replied and breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s possible keeping me from women might start me down the yellow brick road,” I said.
“Not helping,” Dad retorted. “Just call one of their moms to confirm,” he suggested to Mom. Flawless victory. Parents manipulated. Wait, they wouldn’t really call, would they? “I thought that movie came out over the summer,” Dad noted.
“It’s at the dollar theater; you think money grows on trees?” I said. It was a joke in our house that if you needed something you’d have to pick money off the money tree first.