Children's games

The children are gone. Roger’s pants are gone. So is his wallet and with it our money.

I can’t help but think there is a connection.

Roger, in his early fifties and with a “paunch,” meaning he’s considerably overweight and very out of shape, stands raging. He wears nothing but an ill-considered thong. I am reminded of the week we spent on a beach in France.

Not very convincingly, I argue that it is just youthful hi-jinks. “Mischief,” as my own mother use to say.

Roger is having none of that. He is already out the door, on the front lawn, his head jerking wildly from left to right as he scans the street in both directions bellowing into his cell phone at some poor unfortunate who fields calls for the police.

Yes, Roger is a bit of an ass. This is probably why my children dislike him so much. Why they are so determined that, contrary to Roger’s ambitions, they feel he and I should be parted as soon as possible.

But what do children know of need and loneliness? Roger … well, he’s better than bloody Celine Dion songs and Chilean red wine by yourself on a Saturday night.

Still, the kids argue that I should be stronger than this. And I can’t help but agree with them.

But being alone is … alone.

Still, Roger in a thong on the front lawn screaming into a cell phone … maybe alone is not so bad?

My kids think so. That’s why they took his pants. I can picture the looks of wicked glee on their faces as they decided to do it.

Taking the wallet? I know Angela and Dez too well (they are my children after all). That was just an added touch. A last minute, “Hey, why not …”

For Roger, of course, the wallet is the whole thing. Nice touch, Dez. (He’s the one who thought of that - I’m sure of it. But Angie, she would have been in like Flynn.)

Though Roger would be focused on the wallet, I know it was all about the pants and the thong we are all too familiar with.

Certain older men have this mistaken notion that the suggestion of exposed genitalia is sexually arousing, hence things like thongs. But really, it is just another argument for youth. You only want those suggestions when there is a reasonable expectation of … well, a degree of fitness.

But it’s funny, you know. As I see Roger, ridiculous on the lawn, thundering madly in his thong, taking impotent swings at the inexorable progress of time, I can’t help but wonder if he is any more comical than me with my sad love songs and wine.

My children, love them though I do, and as much fun and laughter as they bring into my life, don’t get this. And they won’t, not for many years.

Inarticulate though he is, uncomprehending as he may be, it is Roger who, if he doesn’t understand me, at least feels what I feel even if he can’t put it into words (and thus expresses it through ill-fitting underwear and tantrums on the lawn).

But, oh, if he could!

As it is, when Angie and Dez return (giggling, no doubt), we’ll have yet another of our family talks – with me trying my damnedest to keep a straight face.

(Originally published on Crazy Ass Planet, Sunday Octobe6 16, 2005.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories, Stories, Short stories