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I'm unassuming, introverted, and utterly passive. How can I possibly give you the
creeps?"
The realtor got up, began to walk toward a back office. "You look a hell of a lot like the
ghost I saw standing in that doorway. Now get out of here."
(V)
Melodrama, Melvin considered, driving back to his father's. He either made it all up to
induce me to write the article, or maybe his wife really did have a miscarriage up there,
and the rest was delusion. A tragedy like that? Of course the guy thought he saw a ghost.
It was in the sprawl of rolling hillsides beyond Syracuse that Melvin's father had erected
his millionaire's monument: a multi-storied masterpiece (or monstrosity, depending on
one's tastes) that could've passed for Frank Lloyd Wright with its glass walls, etched
masonry and slanted roofs. The north and south wings reached back to bracket the
Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, and gardens, as well as the complex of
garages that sheltered Dear Old Dad's dozen-plus automobiles. It should be needless to
say, then, that Melvin's father a debonaire yet hip 57-year-old by the name of Winston
Paraday was rich, via the ownership of roughly twenty car dealerships, a construction
company, and a statewide electrical contracting firm. Pigshit rich was what he might be
called, and perhaps the reader may find an intended pun there. An impressive guesthouse
sat rearwards on the property, and this is where Melvin lived. Several years after Melvin
had graduated from college, his father had resigned to him: "Melvin, you're my son and I
love you. I'll always take care of you, even if you never become able to take care of
yourself. For whatever reason your psychological makeup, your upbringing, or, shit,
maybe the baby food we fed you you're not socialized. You can't talk to people without
stammering. You can't be around more than two other human beings at the same time
without looking like you're about to have a seizure. You're too nervous to even apply for a
job. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. You're my responsibility because, after all, it
was my sperm that helped bring you into the world. Well...I'm pretty sure it was my
sperm."
Melvin started at the disturbing comment...then laughed. Of course, Dad was joking!
Melvin knew very little about his biological mother, just that she'd abandoned Dad
shortly after Melvin had been born, and had purportedly cleaned out a fortune in jewelry
and stash-cash from the safe. She'd run off with a man who'd sold Kirby vacuum cleaners.
"A silly tramp, Melvin," Dad had explained once. "It sounds like a lousy thing to say but
it's true. Your mother was a sleazy, gold-digging tramp. Great in bed, yes, and a terrific
body, but not much cooking upstairs and she was a thief. I can only blame myself for
being stupid enough to marry her."
Melvin didn't contemplate the statement too deeply. If he hadn't married her, Melvin
deduced, I would never have been born. But he doesn't mean...
Melvin stopped the thought there.
Dad slapped him on the back. "Son, your mother's legs were like a 7-Eleven. Open all
night. But don't feel bad. You obviously inherited my brains, not hers. I'm a rich man,
always have been, and I know that rich people are often deemed shallow and
materialistic...but Jesus! it really pissed me off when she ran off with that chump.
That fuckin' vacuum cleaner cost three hundred bucks...and she took that too." Melvin
had been in junior high when Dad had finally confessed this, and since that time Winston
Paraday had only dated casually, avoiding re-marriage, until three weeks ago when he'd
wed Gwyneth. The day before the ceremony, Melvin had been bold enough to ask, "Hey,
Dad. Remember a long time ago when you told me about my biological mother?"
Dad had been adjusting his tuxedo tie. "Oh, sure. Thieving, gold-digging tramp. Even
stole the vacuum cleaner I paid three hundred bucks for to the guy she was fucking
behind my back."
Melvin smirked. By now he'd long since closed his mind to the possibility that his true
father may well have been a vacuum cleaner salesman. "Do you remember what else you
said?"
"Uh...what?"
"You said you'd never get married again."
Dad paused in the mirror. "You're right, I did."
"So why are you getting married now? Gwyneth seems very nice but you haven't really
known her that long, have you? She's twenty years younger than you and you've got
nothing in common with her."
"So?" Dad chuckled. "Son, I'm 57 years old I've been playing the millionaire swinger
too long. And " Dad winked. "Gwyneth has great tits. Somebody should hang them up
in the National Gallery of Art."
"Terrific, Dad. She has great tits." For a self-made millionaire, Dad wasn't particularly
perceptive. "But what about her character? How do you know she's not just like my
mother? A gold-digger, who only wants you for your money?"
"Pre-nup, son. She agreed to a divorce settlement of zero dollars and zero cents. What a
woman, huh? And you've talked to her, you know. She's sort of a space cadet. She says
she's a Marxist."
Melvin smiled. "Well, for a Marxist she seems pretty content to drive around in your
Corvette and live in a million-dollar house."
"Million-and-a-half, Melvin. And what I should say is she's a typical hypocritical liberal
but, really, who cares? She loves me in her own way and I love her in mine...if you know
what I mean."
Melvin hadn't a clue as to what his father meant, but he didn't let on. "Well, I hope you
and Gwyneth have a great marriage, Dad."
Dad nodded, still scrutinizing himself in the mirror. "Thanks, son, and thanks for your
concern. In all honesty, I'm marrying her because she's gorgeous and she's marrying me
because she loves the house and wants to be taken care of. And that's cool. When you get
to be my age, you get realistic."
An elucidating conversation, at least.
Melvin had only actually spoken to Gwyneth a few times before the wedding. She turned
one of the upstairs rooms into a work parlor, entertaining an unusual hobby:
"I'm an ossarial mosaicist," she'd told him in a cool, spacy voice when she'd invited him
in to show him. "It's the chief element of my art."
Melvin only half-heard her at first, his attentions diverted more directly by her body. Dad
wasn't kidding when he said she's got great tits. She sat hunched over at a table, working
on something with a file. Beside her sat a plastic bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup; the
bottle had a straw sticking out of it. She drinks chcolate syrup straight out of the bottle!
Melvin thought. Gross!
All she wore was a T-shirt stretched to the limit of its cotton by a pair of stacked 36C's.
She also wore holey jeans and Birkenstocks a very hip Seattle look, sort of an Earth
Mother on a creative plane. Melvin knew full well he'd be masturbating vigorously first
chance he got, locking Gwyneth's lusty image in his head.
Finally he responded. "Ossarial? What's that?"
"Bones," she said. "I make mosaics, and I work with ossarial materials instead of more
typical resources like tile, stained glass, colored metal." She never looked at him as she
explained the details of her hobby, instead focusing on filing what appeared to be, indeed,
a piece of bone in a rubber-lipped vise. "Then I sell my work on eBay, to collectors. Take [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]