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To r. c. cooper's previous piece

Duet

1.

I think she’s trying to kill me. In fact I’m certain of it. Oh sure, she goes on and on and on about my health and welfare, beats the subject to death, nags me about taking my RDAs and eating my five to nine helpings of vegetables and fruits and laying off the candies and cookies and cake, which are my main pleasures in life--but all the while she’s pumping me full of cholesterol in the form of avocado and eggs and cheeses and red meat. You think I don’t know what she’s up to? It’s as obvious as the fat black mole on her chin. Caretaking my health? Hah!

More like coveting my wealth.

I can see the pictures in her mind, the complete made-for-TV scene. I clutch my chest…stagger backward…fight for air…keel over…breathe my last facedown on the parquet floor…unseeing eyes wide open. Oh she’ll call 911 (maybe not right away) and go through the motions of CPR. She’ll do all the “right” things. “Poor dear, she did everything she could….” But of course without result. Her heroic efforts will fail to save me. I’ll be gone. Dead. Extinguished. What a pity!--that she’ll have to wait a seemly interval before calling the lawyer and having him push my estate into probate. Damn the delay! While waiting for the Letter of Administration she’ll wear a groove in the floor, grind her teeth into grit while silently screaming, “I want my money!”

It’ll never happen, Barbara.

I won’t stand for it.

First of all I’ve marked up my will and next trip to town I’ll drop it off at the lawyer’s office. Second I’m booting you out of my house. Out on your ass. This is hardly unreasonable, dear girl. After all, how many able-bodied forty-three-year-olds are still hanging out at daddy’s? Especially after all those years of four percent unemployment? After those years of unprecedented prosperity when to make a bundle all you had to do was earn a few bucks and throw them into an index fund? Those years when anyone could get rich. Money was everywhere, the walls were plastered with it, it was all over the lawns, it was blowing in the wind. It was like a Brink’s truck had overturned and spilled its contents in the street, and the company invited everybody to help themselves.

It was legal theft, that’s what it was.

But did you take advantage of all that prosperity? Not a chance.

Unfortunately some people (I won’t mention any names) still want to earn their money the old-fashioned way: by killing their father with cholesterol.

2.

Sometimes I get mad at my Daddy but really he’s such a sweetheart he never accuses me of being just like Mother he’s so patient so tolerant it’s almost superhuman or maybe Christlike is better he’s patient like Jesus it’s like he’s seen something the rest of us haven’t the big picture the power and glory or something and all these little daily details are so trivial he can’t take an interest in them no that’s not right he just chuckles over them and puts them down to the follies and foibles of the little people it’s like he’s a Zen Buddhist or something and has experienced that whatdoyoucallit? samsung or whatever that word is for enlightenment where you see everything for what it is and don’t worry about the small stuff—Suzuki, that’s the word!--and remain serene and peaceful and happy just to be alive while the rest of the world can’t stand peace and quiet and goodness but loves to make trouble to create problems where there aren’t any just to have something to do with themselves because they have no clue what life is all about or anything so anyway I’m happy I can at least contribute to Daddy’s world by feeding the poor man who without a little assistance in that department would probably die of some silly thing like SaraLeeitis or Snickereema or Famous Amososis. Just kidding.

3.

She encourages me to exercise then keeps me from it. Isn’t that a sign of murderous intent? Another nail in my coffin? You see, Barbara’s a lark while I’m an owl. Owl? Try vampire. She loves the day, I love the night. She’s up at the crow of dawn, I sleep till noon. What does this have to do with the price of General Motors? This: I love to do my exercising, my trampolining, my healthy sweating in the middle of the night but my dear daughter the lark, by this time long abed, sleeps REMy-light so according to her my lusty tramping jerks her awake and wrecks her dulcet dreams and she invariably screams at me to “STOP IT!—FOR GOD’S SAKE, DADDY, I’M TRYING TO SLEEP!”—as though the little do-nothing has any reason to sleep at all!--and if I don’t stop tramping there’s hell to pay the next day in the form of baggy eyes and disheveled hair and sour looks and grumpy comments and double—maybe triple--the daily dose of cholesterol. Maybe quadruple! So en route to demising the father himself she offs his sole mode of exercise, shrinks his blood vessels preparatory to plugging them up with great gooey gobs of plaque. You think I don’t know what’s happening, Barbara? Think again!

Out of my will!

Out of my house!

OUT!

4.

You feeling all right, Daddy?

Never better.

Seems like something is bothering you.

Not a thing.

Are you sure? Whenever you get those lines between your brows it means something is bothering you.

You and your body language.

Well it’s true, Daddy. Whenever you get those lines—

You said that, Barb.

Well it’s true.

There’s no dictionary for body language.

Well whenever you get those lines—

You said that.

I know, but—

You’re wrong.

No need to get sharp about it, Daddy. I was just inquiring after your well-being.

Thank you but I’m fine. A-okay.

Are you sure nothing is bothering you?

Not a thing.

Do you swear on a stack of Bibles?

Barbara!

Well I was just inquiring—

5.

I don’t know why I can’t seem to leave the nest. I really don’t. I know some people think I’m a slacker and don’t want to work or have a career or anything that I’m scared of the big world out there and in a way it’s true and in way it’s not true I know some people wonder why I don’t have my own family and to tell the truth I wonder about it myself throughout my thirties I worried and fretted about it drove myself to distraction over wanting to have a man and babies and everything and desiring to lead a so-called normal life I tried to get hooked up I really did (but did I really?) but it seemed like none of my prospects wanted to commit it seems like there’s a whole generation of commitmentphobes out there and the bioclock was ticking ticking ticking and driving me crazy and by the end of my thirties I was in such a panic that I almost had a nervous breakdown I really and truly did a real-deal nervous breakdown where if I didn’t have an understanding parent I might have ended up on a mental ward all perforated with needles and maybe shrink-wrapped in one of those scary straitjackets but the day I turned forty actually the minute I turned forty everything changed the panic stopped the bioclock quit ticking I relaxed I started smiling again and after that I hardly ever gave another thought to husband and kids especially kids and I was almost happy for the first time in ten years maybe for the first time in my adult life or maybe I didn’t really become an adult till I turned forty and gave up my childish illusions which had become all-out attacking demons maybe at that crucial instant I experienced my own form of enlightenment my own little suzuki so maybe I’m more like Daddy than either of us would care to admit.

6.

Some people when they retire look for stimulation. They fly to Europe or Malaysia or buy a bus to explore the USA or go hunting in Alaska or kayaking in Arkansas. Others, after a lifetime of hassle, hanker after pure peace and quiet, they want to sit home on their lazy-boy and watch the trees grow. That’s me—a lazy-boy guy. And for years, especially after Martha suddenly passed, I thought that I would find the serenity to make my later years not only happy but, as Einstein I believe put it, “delicious.” I deluded myself. But why? Because my fantasy was based on the assumption that at long last, after her mother died, my dear daughter would see fit to leave the nest and take flight into a life of her own—fly into genuine adulthood, even personhood. Fat chance! Miss Peace-Destroyer had—has—no intention of leaving the nest. None. And as long as she’s around it’s talk talk talk yap yap yap blah blah blah glub glub glub—every waking minute, every waking second. (Thank God—thank God—I’m a vampire and have the late night to myself.) It’s yak yak yak without letup. About absolutely nothing. Zero content. If bones were the substance of conversation an x-ray of her chatter would leave the screen blank. In her Dead-Sea-of-words you couldn’t find an idea with an electron microscope. For the weary father there’s no rest. No escape. No exit. It’s progressed from a question of if to a question of which. Meaning that originally it was a question of if she was trying to kill me but now it’s only a question of which she will kill me with first—cholesterol, lack of exercise, or verborrhea.

Out!

7.

It wasn’t Daddy’s fault. It really wasn’t. It was an accident. I mean if he really wanted to do something he would have copied one of those serial killers who buries the body a hundred miles away or maybe even cuts it up into little pieces and grinds them up in the disposal he certainly wouldn’t have done it right in our own house leaving her at the bottom of the stairs for all the world to see it was so obvious she slipped and what if they did have arguments everybody does have you ever heard of a married couple that didn’t argue even violently at times so that doesn’t prove anything it’s so obvious it was an accident I was furious with the police for all their pesty questions their vicious insinuations because they don’t know Daddy they don’t know he’s the nicest gentlest sweetest man in the world he never even accuses me of being like Mother he would never hurt anybody much less actually murder them the idea is crazy Daddy would have to be provoked something terrible before he would lift a finger against anybody sometimes I think he’s too gentle almost meek I always thought Mother got away with too much badgering and hen-pecking I think Daddy should have stood up to her but he’s so easy-going it didn’t seem to bother him but it did bother me it bothered me quite a bit and to tell the truth my mother was not a very nice person not a very nice person at all not at all. Not at all.

8.

Eat your broccoli, Daddy.

You know I don’t like broccoli.

Eat it anyway. It’s good for you.

I know, I know. Full of anti-oxidants. Eight hundred and ninety ORACs, just behind brussel sprouts and kale.

It’s good for you.

And tastes even more bitter. Ugh!

You’d eat your broccoli if Betty asked you to.

Who was it who hated broccoli so much? Was it Reagan or Bush?

You’d do anything for Betty.

How did Betty get in here? Did you leave the door open?

I know you would.

Bush, I think. Bush number one.

You always ate anything Betty asked you to.

Bush the father.

Always.

Well it’s academic, Barbara.

You did.

I don’t want to talk about it.

You’d eat your broccoli for her, I know you would.

You said that.

I know you would.

Not another word, Barbara.

Well you would.

I mean it!

Well you—

Barbara!

Well—

Barbara!

9.

I’m going to stop at the lawyer’s on the way to the recycling place.

Speaking of recycling, I said to Barbara, “Look, when it comes to town I’ll gladly participate, but meanwhile we’ll keep using the landfill like everybody else.” “But Daddy,” she whined, “you’re showing no respect for the environment.” “On the contrary,” I said, “a recent study showed that recycling uses more energy than it saves.” “That study was deeply flawed, Daddy. Shown to be totally biased and wrong.” “The whole recycling thing is just another game,” I said, “to allow goody-two-shoes to break their arms patting themselves on the back. It’s nonsense.” “No it’s not, Daddy, it’s the opposite of nonsense, it’s very important to our future here on Mother Earth.” “Mother Earth? Mother Earth? Is this woman related in some way to goofy Gaia?” “Human beings have no right to despoil the planet, Daddy. No right!”

With her nagging and whining there was no way I would win that argument in the long run, so I soon found myself separating the trash and on a weekly mission hauling my three bins to the recycling place, a set of ramshackle sheds thirty miles away in Preston. Congratulations, Barbara! You have discovered still another method of murder: bump off your dear father by overloading him with so many petty maintenance tasks that his life is no longer worth living. Come to think of it, how brilliant! You’re cleverly disguising a homicide as just another run-of-the-mill angst suicide.

Ready or not, Lawyer Moore, here I come!

10.

Daddy was so upset when Betty passed away. I never saw him so distraught. He always loved her more than me. A lot more. The way his face lit up when she walked into a room! When I entered he paid no attention. If anything he got those lines between his brow. What did I ever do to make him hate me? I was just a little girl who wanted some attention from her daddy. Am I to blame for that? Instead Betty got all his attention. For awhile I did naughty things so he’d notice me but it just brought on more frowns so I gave it up. Mother paid some attention to me but she was not a very nice person. She was so bossy! So pushy! So crazy! And she talked all the time without ever saying anything. It was Daddy’s attention I wanted. When Betty passed away I thought that I would finally get what I wanted and to some extent I did after Daddy recovered from his grief but it wasn’t the same as the attention Betty got. Daddy’s face never lit up when I walked into the room never once. It’s not the same.

11.

I can tell you this: if you haven’t lost a child you don’t know what pain is. You can’t imagine. When Betty died I almost died with her—that sounds like exaggeration but it’s true, it really is. Never to see those shining blue eyes again, that happy smile, never to hold her in my arms again, hear a giggle or a squeal. She was the most spirited person I ever knew. She was a gift from the gods. For a gift like that to be taken away… it’s like in wartime where the most courageous, the best spirits are the first to perish while the cowards and the hangbacks who least deserve to live are most likely to. Another jagged flaw in the Grand Design. So it was with Betty: she went, Martha and Barbara remained. It was like Cinderella dying and the mean stepmother and one of the nasty sisters living on to continue their evil ways. Almost more than I could bear. I really did think about ending it but—this I hate to admit—I didn’t have the courage to do myself in. I visualized it, I toyed with the .45, I aimed the barrel at my temple not once but many times, I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger. The life force is so strong—overpowering! And the irony of Detective Merck hinting at foul play. Foul play! My own daughter, the love of my life! Insult to injury! I never knew who Merck suspected most, me or Barbara. The questioning, the grillings. The third degree. Absurd cop antics! There’s no way Barbara could have done it, not because she’s so nice or so warm-hearted or so unhateful but because she’s gutless. She doesn’t even have the courage to stop sucking her thumb and move out of the parental house. She’s basically a grey house-mouse hiding in a cupboard. With cholesterol, with lack of exercise, with flapping-lip disease she can kill her father--but outright murder? No chance. She lacks the intestinal fortitude. If I really believed she had anything to do with Betty’s death, which I most emphatically do not, I’m not sure what I might do. I might go berzerk. I might run amok. I definitely wouldn’t be accountable for my actions.

12.

You look haggard, Barb.

I didn’t get much sleep last night.

Bad dreams?

I know you need your exercise, Daddy.

So true.

Exercise is very important.

True again.

It’s essential to your health and well-being.

Again true.

It would be nice if you could do your trampolining in the basement.

Not enough head-room down there, Barb. As you know.

I know how important it is.

Also too cold.

You’re too cold?

In the basement.

I know exercise is vital.

Especially at my advanced age.

I didn’t say that.

You thought it.

I only wonder….

What?

Oh nothing.

Wonder what?

Nothing.

Okay, drop it.

I only wonder…. I only wonder if you’d exercise all night if Betty was here.

Betty again.

I’m only wondering.

Right.

Suppose Betty was here and complained that your midnight exercises were keeping her awake.

Suppose.

Would you stop right away?

It’s academic, Barbara.

Of course you probably wouldn’t do it in the first place, if Betty was here.

Drop it, Barbara.

I was only wondering.

Well keep it to yourself.

Since when is it against the law to wonder?

Drop it!

You said yourself that man’s capacity for wonder is the most—

Barbara!

13.

Mother and Daddy did argue that night. But that’s not so strange because they were always arguing sometimes I think all they ever did was argue usually about Betty and me / Daddy said stop nagging them / Mother said they need discipline you let them get away with murder / Daddy said get off their back or they’ll end up hating your guts / Mother said its better to be hated but respected for doing the right thing than to be a lax noodle like you who would let them run wild and end up in jail / Daddy said as usual you’re being hysterical and exaggerating / Mother said well I’m not exaggerating about the lax noodle part / Daddy said if you acted like a woman instead of a drill sergeant things might be different / Mother said you never could get it up like other men. And then the argument started to get really lowdown and dirty. Later they got back to us as a topic Betty and me and Daddy naturally taking Betty’s side and Mother taking my side not because she loved me more than Betty but just to be contrary / Daddy said get off Betty’s back she’s popular at school she’s going to make homecoming queen and in college she’ll land a great husband a to-be doctor or lawyer / Mother said then she better boost her grades especially in science and look how much better Barbara does in science not so much physics but biology and chemistry / Daddy said grades aren’t everything Martha in spite of women’s liberation or maybe because of it young women these days are more terrified than ever of not catching a good man but Betty will have zero problem on that score whereas Barbara will have a peck of trouble bagging a good man because of her unpleasant disposition which is much like yours / Mother said well you married that disposition of your own free will / Daddy said don’t remind me for God’s sake don’t remind me. Then it got really ugly and I ran downstairs I could hear them yelling and hollering upstairs for half an hour at least and then there was this little scream more like a yelp actually and I heard this bumping on the stairs and when I rushed into the foyer there she was all crumpled up on the parquet and after that everything slowed way down it was totally unreal like one of those slow motion scenes in a murder movie it reminded me of that Stephen King movie what was it called I can’t remember.

14.

On the Discovery channel’s New Detectives show they said that whereas most men kill with guns and knives most women, hating violence and especially the sight of blood, murder their victims with poison. Poison! For an instant Barbara’s face flashed before my eyes wearing the martyr look with a hint of malevolence in her pointy pupils; then I saw her striding, more exultant with every step, around what was now her house and then standing over the cherrywood table smiling down at the financial statement that proclaimed her newly-inherited wealth; saw her driving, with an unmousy pride, her gold Lexus, its CD player deepening the rich silence as she swept down admiring suburban streets. Poison, Barbara? Arsenic or antifreeze or potassium cyanide or even the ketamine that took Betty’s life? No, my dear daughter--you don’t have the guts. Cholesterol, the coward’s slow chemical, is more your speed. A slow poison somewhat accelerated, however, by lack of exercise. And aided and abetted by a grinding-down with yak yak yak glub glub glub and a macerating with the mean maintenance tasks known to every uxorious husband as honey-dos. Until eventually, after months or years, I suddenly clutch my chest…stagger backward…fight for air…keel over…breathe my last facedown on the parquet floor…unseeing eyes wide open.

Let me assure you, Barbara, it will never happen.

I won’t stand for it.

15.

I don’t think Daddy would ever hurt me. Even if Mother falling down the stairs wasn’t an accident which it was I’m sure as sure can be even if it wasn’t and even if Daddy did love Betty more than me I don’t think he would hurt me because I am his child after all and daddys do cherish their daughters and my Daddy is a kind and gentle man he’s such a sweetheart he’s so patient so tolerant he’s almost superhuman or Christlike it’s like he’s seen something the rest of us haven’t the big picture and all these little daily details are so trivial he can’t take them seriously he just chuckles over them it’s like he’s a Zen Master or something and has experienced suzuki where you see everything for what it is and don’t worry about the small stuff and remain serene and peaceful and happy just to be alive so I know he won’t hurt me there’s no way no way no way at all he would hurt me is there?

16.

Broccoli again.

It’s good for you, Daddy.

Broccoli.

Eat up, Daddy.

Not only broccoli but odd-tasting broccoli.

It will help you live to a hundred. I read in Parade magazine that the natural life span of human beings is a hundred-and-twenty years. For those who have good heredity and take care of themselves.

Does it say anything about quality of life?

That French lady who was the oldest person in the world was still feeling fine at whatever her age was when she died, I think it was one-nineteen or something.

I don’t want to live to a hundred-and-twenty, Barbara. God forbid! Not to a hundred. Maybe not even ninety.

Don’t be silly, Daddy. What would I do without you?

Enjoy yourself immensely.

Daddy!

Take a vacation, cruise the town in my Lexus, sashay around the house like a homeowning queen.

Daddy!

The truth, Barbara, the truth.

That’s not the truth! I wouldn’t do any of that! That’s what Betty would do! What I would do is mope around and be so sad and lonely I could hardly stand it. That’s the truth.

Right.

You’re not being fair. You’re accusing me of doing what Betty would do.

Red herring.

Betty was the queen, not me.

Red herring.

Betty’s the one who wore a gold tiara, not me.

Enough about Betty.

Betty’s the one who sashayed around the house, not me.

Enough!

Betty’s the one who paraded—

Shut up!

17.

Quite a coincidence, I’d say. What are the odds of a mother and daughter breaking their neck falling down the same stairs?

A tragic coincidence, Detective Merck. Tragic.

One in a billion, I’d say. And the other daughter, also dying. Betty, wasn’t it?

Betty. Yes. That really hurt.

I bet it did.

Mind if I sit? I’m not feeling too well.

I see you’re sweating, Mr. Payne. I’m sure I’d be sweating too, after losing a wife and a daughter down the same stairs. Quite a coincidence. Want to talk about it?

I told you everything I know, Detective Merck. I heard a squeal, I heard a thump thump thump, I raced to the hallway and she was lying there on the parquet, and when I spoke to her she didn’t answer. I’m feeling a little dizzy. Mind if I lie down a minute on the sofa?

You look white as a sheet, Mr. Payne. I’m sure I’d look like a sheet, too, after my wife and daughter both fell down the same stairs.

Mind if I close my eyes? Just for a minute.

One chance in a billion, I’d say.

I’m feeling really ill. Rotten. I’ve been throwing up.

I’m sure you have. I’m sure I’d be throwing up, too…. Mr. Payne, tell me again what was going on when your daughter fell down the stairs. I’d like to doublecheck my notes: can’t be too careful in these matters, especially when there’s so much coincidence. Tell me again, nice and slow…. Mr. Payne? Tell me again exactly where you were and what you were doing when your daughter fell down the stairs…. Mr. Payne? Mr. Payne?

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