Boss
Yash Seyedbagheri
My older sister Nancy and I decide to watch SNL clips on YouTube after Dad’s gone to Bavo’s Bar again. I’m fourteen. Nancy’s eighteen. He’s gone to drink self-pity and listen to The Eagles. Dad’s been fired from teaching high-school European and American literature. Again. Job number who-knows-what. It’s also the second anniversary of Mom leaving and a whirl of energy hangs over our apartment living room like a beckoning thunderstorm, something electrical and yet quiet.
But we have SNL.
We adore SNL classics from the 90s and early 2000s. Adam Sandler, Darrell Hammond, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig. We love the current cast too. But they’re too grounded in the present, in Trump. We’ve decided to watch Will Ferrell skits tonight. We love his yelling. That we agree on. It’s a vestige of an era before Ferrell’s fatherhood schmaltz, as Nancy puts it.
With Will Ferrell there’s something idiotic and perfect in his delivery. You understand why his characters are fucking up, understand their goals and visions, as Nancy says. Especially in skits like Dysfunctional Family Dinner, where Ferrell screams about driving a Dodge Stratus while his wife and daughter yell over each other and him. He has a position and needs to maintain it. He starts soft and steps up the anger until it’s just insane.
Ferrell is forever. SNL is forever, even if we’ve only been watching for two years, since Nancy decided she wanted to be a comedian.
Nancy claims you can’t adhere to one style or school of comedy, but often veers into suicide and 9/11 jokes. She adores George Carlin, Larry David, and Sarah Silverman. In particular, she loves Larry David’s monologue from SNL last year, especially the line about picking up women in concentration camps. She can calm us both when we’re upset by quoting all 7 of George Carlin’s dirty words. Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.
“We have power tonight,” I say, setting up the computer on the living room coffee table, legs precariously wobbling.
We’re prepping for our night. It’s 7:05. Dad’s been at the bar for about half an hour. Outside the dusk is turning from a deep purple into a lush blue, shadows shimmering over the other apartment roofs. Dad’s been at the bar for just over half an hour.
“That we do.” Nancy smiles, a fleeting smile. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I wish I could give you something else.”
“Well, you are a budding comedian,” I say, smiling. “I can use a laugh.”
“Here’s a joke,” she says. “I can give you that. What did the depressed man say after his wife left, his kids hated him, and he died in the Twin Towers?”
“My life really bombed.”
“There’s nowhere to go but down,” Nancy says.
I laugh. There’s just a certain energy when she tells her own jokes, something young and unburdened by crap. There’s something so wonderful in her expectant grin, a little crooked, but a contrast to her usual pursed frown.
She’s gone to my parent-teacher conferences and made up excuses about Dad’s absences. She listens to every story I tell, especially about guys like Ronny Dupree, who call me nerd or retard, because I prefer Russian history to Sloppy Joes in the cafeteria. Nancy’s even taught me to fight using makeshift grocery bags labeled ASSHOLE’s HEAD or ASSHOLE’s NUTS. There’s an intensity and odd tenderness in the way she goes about that, showing me how to bend my fist and strike, guiding my hand with patience. And again. Of course, we try to avoid discussing Dad and Mom, except during an absolute crisis when we have to confer, like the time Dad punched a jukebox at this one dive bar, DiCenzo’s, and Nan had to make up a story about our grandfather dying.
“Speaking of comedy,” I say, “I think Ferrell could play you in drag.”
Nancy hits me in my right arm and laughs, a laugh that sounds like an off-key opera singer. Her flame-colored hair is done in Nan’s usual blunt bob. She smells like sweat and mint soap, a scent I love. She has the widest, roundest hazel eyes. Nan says they look like an owl, but they beat my brown almond ones, along with my long, round head, like Adam Sandler.
She’s wearing blue Levis and one of Mom’s old peasant blouses, something she left Nancy. A memento, Mom called it. There’s a kind of knowing in her eyes this evening, the weight of someone who’s known too much too soon.
“Hey, I don’t yell that much.” Nan messes my hair.
“Fine. Tina Fey?” I don a look of indignation, but Nan laughs.
“Smart boy.”
Our favorite skit, which Nancy pulls up for the first attraction, is “Evil Boss,” from 2001. It’s five minutes and fifty-four seconds, although the skit’s on the longer side by SNL standards. Pierce Brosnan plays a job applicant. Will Ferrell is the would-be boss and a “stickler,” as he puts it.
Stickler is a precise word. A word Dad’s mocked multiple times. Mom hated that word, but Dad thinks she’s somehow listening from San Francisco. She dissects movies from an Existentialist perspective in a column called Stranger Reviews By The Bay. Mom said life’s about paying attention to your own spatial and emotional dynamics. Our midsized Colorado town felt like being strangled by an octopus.
She assures Nancy and me via texts that she loves us. This is about Dad. But Mom’s got an apartment and no guest bedrooms. She claims she’d make space for a visit, but Nan says there are three things the world won’t see: Jimmy Hoffa’s body, Mom following through, and aliens. We haven’t been invited once in two years.
Back to Evil Boss. We’ve watched it hundreds of times. We could watch something else in theory. When Nancy was selecting the skit, she paused, fingers over the clip. She frowned, staring at the link. It’s as if there were something she hadn’t noticed in the skit before. But maybe she was thinking about Dad, wondering when he’d come back. Perhaps she was wondering if something would disrupt all this fun.
In the end, it’s hard to avoid this skit.
“An angry boss with a trident,” Nancy said, “makes sense. It’s random and funny as fuck.”
The skit begins. Dad’s been gone forty minutes. We huddle on the couch in front of the coffee table, blinds closed.
Pierce Brosnan is a job applicant with huge glasses. Will Ferrell offers him the position. Full benefits, paid vacations. Brosnan expresses enthusiasm.
Rachel Dratch, another employee, interrupts Will Ferrell.
Ferrell yells at Rachel Dratch for interrupting him while closing the deal. He is a professional, he roars. He gesticulates while he yells, finger pointing with wild precision. The cadence of Ferrell’s rising voice reminds me of Dad. I’ve heard it when Nan and I remind him that rent is due and he needs to consider jobs. He needs to stop ranting about principles and get a fucking paycheck, Nan told me once.
“You have to wonder if Ferrell yells at his kids like that,” Nan says. She pauses. “In real life. God, I hope not.”
“Nan, it’s a skit. Don’t worry about it.”
I notice Pierce Brosnan’s huge glasses, while Will Ferrell calls Rachel Dratch a bitch. He accentuates the word, just like Dad on his darker nights. Bitch. Bitch, a word that strikes Nancy, a word aimed at Mom across almost 1,200 miles. But there’s something hilarious in the way Ferrell says it with cheer.
“Those glasses look like a pair of Dad’s,” I say.
There’s something about Brosnan’s glasses. They connote a certain routine. Get up, go to an office, go through the motions and come home. Relax with a light beer, a glass of wine maybe, not a sea of Budweisers.
“I suppose,” Nancy says, arching an eyebrow. “A thousand assholes wear them. Although Mom wore Gloria Steinem aviators.”
“Just an observation.”
“Enjoy the fun, little brother,” Nancy says, voice quiet. “It’s showtime. Don’t worry about the bullshit.”
“Dad looked so normal.”
The words tumble from me. There was something soothing in the methodical way he adjusted and cleaned those glasses, even if Nan used to call him a nerd extraordinaire.
“I’m trying to listen, Nicky,” Nan says, leaning toward the computer.
The company’s barbeque is mentioned. Brosnan mentions his fondness for barbeque, Irish accent accentuated.
“James Bond in suburbia,” Nancy says. “Even Bond has to pay bills.”
A train horn blows, loud, obnoxious, and a little sad. Meanwhile, down at Bavo’s, Dad is drinking and thinking he can put things back together. He’s probably playing Mom’s favorite song, Hotel California, over and over. I conjure him sitting at his favorite booth looking out on the railroad tracks and the dark night, the ripped green one with the dim little light above. Maybe he can find completion, watching people play pool, watching lovers whisper by the jukebox. Maybe he knows something. But if they couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together, what about Dad?
He used to teach by the book, talking imagery, metaphors, and symbolism. After Mom left and called him “a suit without passion,” he started shaking things up. He’s been getting fired from job after job for behavior issues, drunkenness during the day, and scaring people with philosophical tirades. He once ordered students to write essays dissecting Edna Pontellier’s mothering in The Awakening. Another time, he said if he were Tolstoy he’d have thrown Anna Karenina under the train on page 1. Nan’s had to get him a few times from Bavo’s and some of the other bars as well. I never tell her I’ve seen her leaving or coming back. I never mention I’ve heard her getting calls from the bartenders whose names she can recite, a litany. Janet, Richard, Greg, Thomas, Margaret, Rufus. I think Dad’s given every bartender Nancy’s number as if Nancy would be there, period.
“Hey,” I say, “I wonder if Brosnan exists in the skit’s universe? Where this character looks like him. Maybe Brosnan doesn’t exist. Wonder what else doesn’t exist.”
“My little nerd,” Nancy says. “Given there’s a trident, you have to wonder if there’s some magical dimension. You could summon people. Make them do whatever the hell you wanted. Make them love.”
She shakes her head and shoves one of Dad’s New Yorkers off the table. She rearranges the computer so it’s now flat on the coffee table. The table still holds the acrid scent of beer, something you know is bitter but can’t really put into a box. The scent makes me want to ralph.
“No, that’s stupid,” Nancy adds. “I mean if you had magic, you’d still have Pierce Brosnan being a miserable fuck at his job. I guess reality exists in this world.”
“It’s not stupid, Nan.”
“We’re overthinking, Nicky.” Nancy moves the computer a little closer to us. “Reality. Enough.”
“Be gone reality,” I say, waving my hands like a wizard.
Truth be told, Nan’s the one who does most of the reminding. For me, it’s easier to watch SNL characters lambast others. I’ve tried yelling, “I drive a Dodge Stratus,” at bullies, but that’s only resulted in fists to my face.
Dad claims he’s trying to move us to a real home, a place we can own. A place that doesn’t have the constant smell of armpits and rot. A place that exudes colors and wide rooms, verdant greens and soothing navy-blue walls, along with a backyard. In those moments, he calls Nancy and me our childhood nicknames, Stormy and Sunny. Nancy was always so withdrawn and sarcastic. Nancy claims I was the master of the smile and energetic.
I don’t remember, even though that was only a few years ago, before high school and bullies and Mom.
On Dad’s worst nights, there’s a sharpness in the way his mustache bristles and how he arches his eyebrows. There’s also a wide-eyed sorrow. Some nights, he’ll come into my room when I’m supposedly asleep and say he wants a good life for me. He hopes I can become a teacher, whether it’s English or History, someone not fucked up. He does the same with Nancy but I don’t know what he says to her. I’ve wanted to ask, but again, Nan and I have a quota where mentioning Dad or Mom are concerned.
Will Ferrell accuses Chris Kattan of handing in crap. His works looks like he took a crap or a dump in the printer. He threatens to burn down Kattan’s friggin house. He’s this close to raping him. Office politics, Ferrell says to Pierce Brosnan, as Chris Kattan scurries off in terror.
Pierce Brosnan is all too close to breaking character, grinning visibly. I should laugh but tonight, Brosnan grinning is a reminder of the world behind the screen. We are watching a skit, performers delivering lines with well-rehearsed verisimilitude and still cracking up.
Nancy winces.
I wonder if she’s thinking about all the school’s Dad’s been fired from or even the days when Dad discussed metaphors and dialogue without a hint of a slur. Is she thinking about the apartment without guest bedrooms or the deliberation in Mom’s arrangement?
“You all right?” I ask.
“Why not?” Nan tries to smile.
“I don’t know,” I say. “You look uncomfortable. You need me to get you something?”
“Well, let’s check out the fridge.”
We pause the skit and go into the kitchen with its little wooden cupboards and sterile white walls. The white fridge is coated with the ghost of old egg yolks and dull grease, along with old offers of employment posted in the middle, a tribute to an earlier life. It smells of staleness and onions, of which three lie on the middle shelf. A half-finished bottle of Diet Pepsi lines the top shelf, along with a couple cans of Vienna sausages and half a dozen cartons of King Oscar sardines. Nancy searches the fridge and then the freezer, as if looking for some magical concoction. We’ve largely been eating TV dinners, but I guess we’re out again. Just ice and emptiness in there.
“You all right, Nan?”
“Just thinking.” She pours herself a glass of Diet Pepsi, pours me one too. “Here’s another joke for you, little brother. It’s for this open mic tryout next Friday. Where do you send a rabbi with ADD?”
“Is it Dad?”
“Concentration camp.” Nan laughs, but her laughter fades fast.
She opens and shuts the refrigerator door again, shakes her head. I don’t want to tell her that joke will be too much even for the most provocative open mic.
“I’m serious, Nan.”
Nancy sighs.
“Look, Nicky,” she says, swigging her Diet Pepsi. “I think you have too much faith. You’re a good guy, but some people are more fucking complicated than that, you know?”
“Too much faith?”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“I don’t have faith.”
“You think Dad’s going to get his act together?”
I take a long pause.
“I don’t know. I think he wants to, sometimes.”
“That’s taking a position.”
Nancy moves away from me, walks into the living room, where light spills faintly through the windows. I follow. She opens the blinds, looks out. The bluing sky is dotted with wisp clouds here and there. TV screens flicker with electrical energy across the way. Silhouettes move about through windows. Maybe they’re having a normal night or paying bills. Maybe they’re lonely. Maybe they’re just pacing because they don’t know what else to do.
“Can’t you give me a better answer? For fuck’s sake, can’t I count on you?” Nancy pulls the blinds shut.
I look away, past and present entangled, neither able to extricate itself.
Dad lectured us earlier about being unable to provide while double-fisting Budweisers. Red and white labels assaulted with shame and weariness. It was four-thirty. He’d been drunk since he got home and had gone off about his latest firing, before he left for “inspiration.” Translation: More drinking.
“I called Hemingway a hack,” Dad said, swigging one of his Budweisers. He sat at the coffee table, feet propped up. He wore stained tan Khakis and a Polo shirt, his normally slicked black hair all messed up.
“That’s all?” I said.
“They fired me for what was it? Ah yes. Bloviating? Sounds like a disease. I’ve always told my students the truth, shown them the dark underbelly of writers. Principal Edgar claims they’d been getting complaints. I didn’t stick to the curriculum. Well, talk to me. Don’t fire me like some irredeemable shit.”
He shook his head.
“Mom would have appreciated this, don’t you think?” Dad stared, waiting for an answer. He gripped the beers in his hand. “She said I was so damn meek. I should call her. Any messages? Nancy? You’re the sarcastic one. Nick, you’re the scholar. Tell me something wise.”
Nancy arched an eyebrow and smiled at me, a thin, little smile. I trust you. Do the right thing.
“Well,” he said, still gripping the beers tighter. “Shouldn’t I go get her? Don’t you want us to be together?”
“I think that’d be a mistake,” I said. Wrong choice.
“A mistake, huh?” He took another swig, long and deliberate. His voice was quiet. “Is that what you have to tell me, Nick?”
Nancy looked at me again, her eyes weary and wide, like an owl. Don’t fuck this up, little brother.
“Well?” Dad said. “Is it?”
It was a mistake. Nancy and I knew it. But this was a day that held loss, the threat of unformed futures, the possibilities of more trouble. I didn’t want to watch the weight of Dad’s words striking Nan. I hated when she tried to disguise pain, especially when it was visible in the dullness of her eyes, in the pursed lips, in her gait, usually so strident and definite. I hated to retreat, but what if retreat was victory?
“I didn’t mean that,” I said.
Nancy smiled, a smile that conveyed relief. It was worth it.
“Well,” Dad said, words softening. “We’re going to get her back. She has such a zest for the smallest details, you know? When we dated, she’d stop to admire a lawn or a streetlamp going on. Called it “a butter-colored glow.” Isn’t that special?”
Sometimes, he’s talked of going to see Mom. I can imagine him staring through Mom’s window night after night, even blasting all her favorite songs from the street. Hotel California. I Will Survive. What A Fool Believes. It would be stupid, but it would be some small thing. Nancy thinks it’s idiotic, plain and simple and I don’t want to argue with her.
7:15. Nancy asks me to start the video again, settles in next to me on the sofa.
Will Ferrell’s next target: Tina Fey. She speaks on the phone to an unseen friend. A car accident is involved and Fey asks if the person in question is all right. He should smack her in the mouth, Ferrell growls. She’s talking to her whore friends on company time. Ferrell slaps Tina Fey. While Tina Fey sobs, Will Ferrell dances back to his desk with slow-motion panache and menace all wrapped into one. He utters a low HEYYY, a marker of domination, and asks Pierce Brosnan if he wants to go out for a beer.
Dad does a similar dance when he argues or criticizes. But unlike Ferrell, that little dance kind of dissolves and he slouches across the room to his perch at the coffee table or to his room. Dance like an asshole or walk away, Nancy said once. Commit.
I think about the nature of this skit. I contemplate Pierce Brosnan’s character and what he imagines going into this job. Good benefits? Mere survival? Maybe he has a wife and children, maybe he wants to give them basic security. That’s how Dad described what he did, what kept him talking about A Farewell To Arms over and over.
I wonder how often this happens on jobs when people come in with ideals and vision, even minimal and realistic ones, only to be uncertain of how to react when things happen. I wonder if that’s why Dad’s sliding into this netherworld, why Mom took off. And I wonder if that’s what Nan thinks too.
Laughter rises from upstairs, neighbors moving around. Probably another family settling in for the night, maybe picking something to watch. I wonder where Mom is now. Writing a column. At a movie. Rearranging her futon, lining up her collection of Camus. None quite seem right. I wonder if she’s remembering the act of walking out. Has she ever imagined returning? Does she imagine Nan taking on the weight of drinks and rants? Imagine Nan going to my parent-teacher conferences? Does she imagine me, the nerd, just putting everything together?
“I’m sorry, Nan,” I say. “I was over the line.”
“Don’t worry about it, Nick.”
But she moves a few feet from me. Another few.
“Seriously. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Silence wafts over the room, all too visible and vast. The room is bathed in graying shadows. The shadows range from faint gray dancers to foreboding figures. It’s like they’re witnesses. They are capturing sterile white walls, the living room with the dying coffee table, the old copies of The New Yorker with its erudite monocle man and Dad’s stained copies of Revolutionary Road and The Stories of John Cheever. They are witnesses to visible rings on the coffee table, the ghosts of beer bottles past.
They are capturing a brother and a sister hunched together on a couch.
In spite of the darkness, pictures leap out from dark frames. A few of Dad and Mom, in restaurants, on the few camping trips we took. One of Mom’s high school pictures, wearing those Gloria Steinem aviators and a severe look. Unhappy? Just focused?. But the one that stands out most is of Dad, Mom, Nancy and me at the park, three months before she left. Nancy has an arm around my shoulder, flame-colored hair a carbon copy of Mom’s, but more unkempt in this scene. Here it hangs down like a cynical Rapunzel.
She’s wearing her maroon Big Lebowski T-shirt with Walter Sobchak’s scowling goateed face and YOU ARE ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN emblazoned in white block letters. Nancy wears a defiant smile. I think I wear a kind of blankness, though Nancy insists I’m pissed off here. She says it’s all in the eyes.
There is significant distance between Dad and Mom. Dad’s mustache is its own character, bristling like a porcupine. He wears Khakis and a blue-and-white striped Polo shirt. Mom wears jeans and that billowing peasant blouse that’s now Nan’s. Mom’s smile is pursed. In that scene I see our future, inevitable, soon to unfurl. Perhaps Mom is thinking of where she is going. Perhaps she is waiting to tell Dad that she is tired of starched routines. Maybe she’s wondering how to love us from afar. Or maybe she can’t love.
We just want angry, powerful Will Ferrell. Stickler extraordinaire. Asshole.
Nancy moves back toward me after a second, the space between us closed again.
“You all right, Nan?”
“No problem, Nicky. Baby brother.” She smiles.
I want to tell her that it’s all right, that we’re here together watching this skit, even if it is only five minutes and fifty-four seconds long.
“You can talk to me.”
“Hey, I’m the big sister. That’s my job, isn’t it? Shut the fuck up.” Nancy leans into the computer. “I’m all right. I promise.”
“If you say so.”
“Man, Pierce Brosnan’s a pussy,” Nancy says. “He asks Ferrell if this is how he treats his employees. Why doesn’t he get up and challenge Ferrell?”
“Brosnan’s character’s a nerd,” I say. “He spends his spare time doing spreadsheets and all that.”
“Well, spreadsheets don’t stop bad things, Nicky,” Nan says. “You know that.”
“Wonder if Ferrell’s character lost a job before this one?”
Wrong question. But I do wonder how he ended up in the present position, if the character was terrorized himself. Maybe Ferrell’s character fought the world, a world that took pieces of his past self, the good pieces.
Nancy’s eyes flicker with sharpness, a sharpness that I used to find funny when I’d tease her about being so sarcastic. But now there’s a danger in it.
“It’s just a character,” Nancy snaps.
“I just wonder,” I say. “He’s a monster, but man, he’s really on fire. He’s not letting anyone win.”
“Is this your hero, Nicky?” Nancy surveys me. “Do you want to celebrate people screaming and abusing each other?”
“You love it too. Come on, Nan.”
“It’s a stupid skit.” Nancy shakes her head, puts a hand on my shoulder. Inhales. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I don’t like dissecting things.”
“You’re the one who likes Ferrell’s yelling,” I say.
“Maybe yelling isn’t what it used to be,” Nancy says.
“I put up with it too.”
“Not the same way,” Nan says, eyes flickering. “Let’s keep watching. I’m not blaming you, Nicky.”
“I can turn it off.”
Nan pauses but shakes her head. Maybe she doesn’t want to watch. Maybe she doesn’t know what would happen if we turned this off. The darkness deepens, the shadows moving in on us. So it seems.
Now even Will Ferrell’s screaming is falling apart, charming absurdness deflating. Now, watching is an act, like cleaning up after Dad. I fear we can’t hold onto the earlier viewings, when we could just laugh, laugh, laugh.
I crank up the volume. I crank it up so loud, as if the funny could drown out truths.
It’s 7:22.
Will Ferrell tries to make Jerry Minor drink his piss, but not before kicking him and knocking a donut and papers out of his hands. The way Ferrell fumbles with his pants is epic, awkward, and perfectly creepy. Even Nancy can’t help but laugh, even though there’s a distant look in her eyes. It reminds me of the time Dad got shitfaced and kept calling Nancy Mom’s name. Penelope, Penelope, Penelope.
Nancy told Dad to shape up. She even called him a loser, the words harsh with truth. He’d stared at her with a dangerous silence, but also a discerning look, as if trying to add up that word and its weight and dimensions. Loser.
“You don’t know shit,” he’d said, drawing out the words. “How can you? How?”
Nancy called him a loser again. That time, he couldn’t respond.
Now Will Ferrell proclaims himself a strong man, dares anyone within the office to take a run at him. Chris Parnell challenges Ferrell, trident and net in hand. He’s been lifting weights and doing cocaine all day. Nancy’s laughing hard as if she has to. As if there’s no other choice.
“Do you want to challenge someone with a trident, little brother?” Nancy smirks, a dangerous smirk, but there’s something wobbly in it.
“I couldn’t,” I say.
Truth be told, I have to admire Parnell’s energy, his recklessness.
“Good,” Nancy says. “Look at what’s going to happen to Chris Parnell.”
“Come on, Nan,” I say. “Don’t spoil the fun of it.”
“I’m telling you.” Nan’s almost crying now. “Dad thinks playing rebel is going to make things better? It’s stupid, little brother. It’s so stupid. People fucking leave. They leave because they don’t love you. At least that’s honest.”
I pause the video. Nan pulls me in for a hug, arms open, frantic. And then she cries. Really cries. It starts lilting and uncertain and rises into a wail. It’s months and years, of wandering empty spaces and trying to keep so much together, while everything falls apart more and more.
“He’s pathetic,” I say. “Please don’t let it bug you, Nan. They’re all pathetic.”
I try to rock her, the way Mom used to, or the way I think she did. I feel as if I could drop her, but I can’t. I wrap my arms around her back, hold on with every ounce of strength. Back and forth, back and forth. Was Mom this awkward too?
“I’ve tried and I’ve tried,” Nancy says, head buried in my shoulder. “But he keeps being an ass. Over and over an there’s no end, Nick.”
Nan keeps crying. And I want to as well, but I’ll cry later. I can contain it. She’s contained things so long.
“Please don’t cry.” I keep rocking her. “Please. You’re wonderful, Nan. You don’t know how wonderful you are. I couldn’t do half the things you do.”
She keeps on crying. I don’t know how to stop it. So I tell a joke. It’s one of Nan’s, another one she’s tried out for the open mic night.
“What slogan do terrorists in Iran have on their T-shirts?”
“What?” She looks up.
“Shiite happens when you party naked.”
She keeps crying, although I see the hint of a smile. I keep repeating it over and over. Please don’t cry, please. I even try to find more jokes. But I stop. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to just be there, make it clear you’re paying attention and want to give someone the world.
I start thinking of one time Dad called Mom. It was just after the first anniversary of her departure.
“Honey,” he said, clutching the cell phone. “I know I’ve messed things up. But I’m different. I’m trying to fight. For God’s sake, can’t you see it?”
There was a pause, followed by Mom’s husky words, unintelligible yet too clear. I knew the cadences, the drawn-out words. I knew their meaning to a T. So did Nan.
“The children miss you,” he said. “I’m not going to bullshit. For fuck’s sake, visit. Please, Penelope, please stop with this odyssey bullshit. Just come. Whatever you need to say, I’ll listen. We can figure things out.”
More husky words, slow, deliberate.
He’d slammed the cell phone down with force, plastic shattering. Jagged lines filled the screen like lightning. Nan and I tried to pick them up, piece by piece. I remember trying to put the phone together again. But in that moment, the pieces Dad needed to step out of his darkness were lost to us.
More laughter rises from upstairs. Car doors bang. Footsteps thump, children laughing, unaware of what is transpiring. Nan keeps crying, the wailing diminishing, reduced to whimpers. In a way, there’s a sort of odd serenity. It’s like she’s been meaning to do this for so long. I wonder what will fill this rawness now.
“All right, Nicky,” Nan says. She pulls away from me, wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “You’ve just had the privilege of watching your big sister cry.”
“Nan,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“It’s trident time,” she says. “Start the skit again.”
It’s 7:30. Dad’s been at the bar for an hour.
Chris Parnell and Will Ferrell spar for dominion. Parnell tries to lunge at Ferrell with the trident, to no avail. Ferrell punches him over and over and seizes the trident. But I can’t help but see Dad in his sober moments here, determined, stupid, wonderful. I wonder what gave him that clarity, what impulse pushed him that he lacks now.
Ferrell seizes the trident and stabs Chris Parnell. Thirty-three stabs. Nancy counted once. Ferrell stabs with methodical coldness, but with a ferocity I envy. With each stab and each spurt of blood that consumes Chris Parnell, I hear Dad. Heave, heave, scream, scream. Then nothing, but dead Chris Parnell. His rants and pleas swirl in my mind.
Dad’s life is fragments without anything to tie them together. And watching Ferrell finish stabbing Chris Parnell and try to convince Pierce Brosnan to take the job, I wish we had a trident. The trident is the key to this skit. Without the trident, this skit would be a collection of moments.
I imagine Dad wielding a trident, conveying fear, the possibility of danger. A mental picture: Dad is carrying the trident. He is walking in slow-motion through the hallways of the last high school that fired him. People gather, freeze. They fear and love the trident with its sleekness, comment on the precision of its points.
I even imagine Dad stabbing overbearing principals with the trident.
In this mental movie, Mom returns, transfixed by the trident. She is calling me and Nancy Sunny and Stormy and asking for all the details while she was gone. Nancy and I babble instead about our growth, about the latest book on the Romanovs I’ve devoured and Nancy’s plans for stand-up comedy. Dad towers above us, trident suspended in the air. I imagine all this, laughing like a constipated goose.
Nancy asks what’s funny. She leans in, as if I’m a mental patient who needs careful observation. I laugh even harder, struggle to convey the images.
Soon Nancy’s laughing, smile unfurling with each image I present. She’s laughing, choking, coughing, laughter so rough and yet so unblocked. She’s shaking so hard, she almost knocks over the computer.
“Dad with a trident?” she says. “Does Mom get one too?”
“Why not?” I say.
“You hate us, we stab you,” Nancy says, laughing. She slaps me on the shoulder. “We’re the trident family.”
“They can hire us to stab people,” I say.
“It’s not like Dad could stab someone,” Nan says, laughing harder. “He’d probably give up. Trident stabbing requires commitment.”
“Truth is he’d call Mom,” I say, “and tell her he’s stabbing someone. She should be so proud.”
“If only we were that lucky.”
“Maybe Dad’s stabbing someone now,” I quip. “Because they won’t play Hotel California for the fiftieth time.”
“Plenty of tridents in the bar.”
Laughter rises, dances around the room. It engulfs us in this small room with the sterile white walls and the rings from Dad’s beers. The room with the photos. Down at Bavo’s, Dad is drinking a beer. Probably another Budweiser, but maybe a Fat Tire. The jukebox is playing. Perhaps he is feeling that brief hope that the world can give him something. Maybe he’s thinking of ways to become a father again, to communicate beyond slurred words. Maybe he’s thinking of activities to draw Nancy and me back into his world.
Maybe he’s trying to find tenderness among ruins, trying to ask how we feel. More likely he’s drinking himself into a more dangerous place. This is the second anniversary of his wife leaving. He’s behind on rent. He’s been fired. More likely he's drinking and trying to think that the pieces will fit into place. Mom is arranging her life in San Francisco, arranging things, rearranging, her apartment growing more and more compact, with too little space left.
We’re laughing because we’re watching a Will Ferrell clip, a brother and sister alone. We’re laughing because people wield tridents. This is the shape of things. We’re laughing because we’re idiots.
Will Ferrell has reluctantly released Pierce Brosnan, after lamenting that ordinarily he would have whipped his nuts with a car antenna. Tina Fey tries to escape. Will Ferrell chases her. The skit’s over. Cue audience applause. Nancy gives me a little look, knowing, still laughing, even though the laughing is subsiding. The shadows deepen.
We watch as the skit fades and the white loading circle begins to form. Another skit. I don’t know what skit. It doesn’t matter. We sit in the dark. Nancy tells another joke about the difference between dead dads and depressed dad. A dead dad, she jokes, at least has an excuse not to do a thing in life.
Piece by piece, the parts of the loading circle form and then stall halfway. An incomplete circle stares. We wait while the circle starts forming again, moving with the slowest pace. It’s three-quarters complete. It stalls. Moves. A little.
Yash Seyedbagheri
My older sister Nancy and I decide to watch SNL clips on YouTube after Dad’s gone to Bavo’s Bar again. I’m fourteen. Nancy’s eighteen. He’s gone to drink self-pity and listen to The Eagles. Dad’s been fired from teaching high-school European and American literature. Again. Job number who-knows-what. It’s also the second anniversary of Mom leaving and a whirl of energy hangs over our apartment living room like a beckoning thunderstorm, something electrical and yet quiet.
But we have SNL.
We adore SNL classics from the 90s and early 2000s. Adam Sandler, Darrell Hammond, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig. We love the current cast too. But they’re too grounded in the present, in Trump. We’ve decided to watch Will Ferrell skits tonight. We love his yelling. That we agree on. It’s a vestige of an era before Ferrell’s fatherhood schmaltz, as Nancy puts it.
With Will Ferrell there’s something idiotic and perfect in his delivery. You understand why his characters are fucking up, understand their goals and visions, as Nancy says. Especially in skits like Dysfunctional Family Dinner, where Ferrell screams about driving a Dodge Stratus while his wife and daughter yell over each other and him. He has a position and needs to maintain it. He starts soft and steps up the anger until it’s just insane.
Ferrell is forever. SNL is forever, even if we’ve only been watching for two years, since Nancy decided she wanted to be a comedian.
Nancy claims you can’t adhere to one style or school of comedy, but often veers into suicide and 9/11 jokes. She adores George Carlin, Larry David, and Sarah Silverman. In particular, she loves Larry David’s monologue from SNL last year, especially the line about picking up women in concentration camps. She can calm us both when we’re upset by quoting all 7 of George Carlin’s dirty words. Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.
“We have power tonight,” I say, setting up the computer on the living room coffee table, legs precariously wobbling.
We’re prepping for our night. It’s 7:05. Dad’s been at the bar for about half an hour. Outside the dusk is turning from a deep purple into a lush blue, shadows shimmering over the other apartment roofs. Dad’s been at the bar for just over half an hour.
“That we do.” Nancy smiles, a fleeting smile. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I wish I could give you something else.”
“Well, you are a budding comedian,” I say, smiling. “I can use a laugh.”
“Here’s a joke,” she says. “I can give you that. What did the depressed man say after his wife left, his kids hated him, and he died in the Twin Towers?”
“My life really bombed.”
“There’s nowhere to go but down,” Nancy says.
I laugh. There’s just a certain energy when she tells her own jokes, something young and unburdened by crap. There’s something so wonderful in her expectant grin, a little crooked, but a contrast to her usual pursed frown.
She’s gone to my parent-teacher conferences and made up excuses about Dad’s absences. She listens to every story I tell, especially about guys like Ronny Dupree, who call me nerd or retard, because I prefer Russian history to Sloppy Joes in the cafeteria. Nancy’s even taught me to fight using makeshift grocery bags labeled ASSHOLE’s HEAD or ASSHOLE’s NUTS. There’s an intensity and odd tenderness in the way she goes about that, showing me how to bend my fist and strike, guiding my hand with patience. And again. Of course, we try to avoid discussing Dad and Mom, except during an absolute crisis when we have to confer, like the time Dad punched a jukebox at this one dive bar, DiCenzo’s, and Nan had to make up a story about our grandfather dying.
“Speaking of comedy,” I say, “I think Ferrell could play you in drag.”
Nancy hits me in my right arm and laughs, a laugh that sounds like an off-key opera singer. Her flame-colored hair is done in Nan’s usual blunt bob. She smells like sweat and mint soap, a scent I love. She has the widest, roundest hazel eyes. Nan says they look like an owl, but they beat my brown almond ones, along with my long, round head, like Adam Sandler.
She’s wearing blue Levis and one of Mom’s old peasant blouses, something she left Nancy. A memento, Mom called it. There’s a kind of knowing in her eyes this evening, the weight of someone who’s known too much too soon.
“Hey, I don’t yell that much.” Nan messes my hair.
“Fine. Tina Fey?” I don a look of indignation, but Nan laughs.
“Smart boy.”
Our favorite skit, which Nancy pulls up for the first attraction, is “Evil Boss,” from 2001. It’s five minutes and fifty-four seconds, although the skit’s on the longer side by SNL standards. Pierce Brosnan plays a job applicant. Will Ferrell is the would-be boss and a “stickler,” as he puts it.
Stickler is a precise word. A word Dad’s mocked multiple times. Mom hated that word, but Dad thinks she’s somehow listening from San Francisco. She dissects movies from an Existentialist perspective in a column called Stranger Reviews By The Bay. Mom said life’s about paying attention to your own spatial and emotional dynamics. Our midsized Colorado town felt like being strangled by an octopus.
She assures Nancy and me via texts that she loves us. This is about Dad. But Mom’s got an apartment and no guest bedrooms. She claims she’d make space for a visit, but Nan says there are three things the world won’t see: Jimmy Hoffa’s body, Mom following through, and aliens. We haven’t been invited once in two years.
Back to Evil Boss. We’ve watched it hundreds of times. We could watch something else in theory. When Nancy was selecting the skit, she paused, fingers over the clip. She frowned, staring at the link. It’s as if there were something she hadn’t noticed in the skit before. But maybe she was thinking about Dad, wondering when he’d come back. Perhaps she was wondering if something would disrupt all this fun.
In the end, it’s hard to avoid this skit.
“An angry boss with a trident,” Nancy said, “makes sense. It’s random and funny as fuck.”
The skit begins. Dad’s been gone forty minutes. We huddle on the couch in front of the coffee table, blinds closed.
Pierce Brosnan is a job applicant with huge glasses. Will Ferrell offers him the position. Full benefits, paid vacations. Brosnan expresses enthusiasm.
Rachel Dratch, another employee, interrupts Will Ferrell.
Ferrell yells at Rachel Dratch for interrupting him while closing the deal. He is a professional, he roars. He gesticulates while he yells, finger pointing with wild precision. The cadence of Ferrell’s rising voice reminds me of Dad. I’ve heard it when Nan and I remind him that rent is due and he needs to consider jobs. He needs to stop ranting about principles and get a fucking paycheck, Nan told me once.
“You have to wonder if Ferrell yells at his kids like that,” Nan says. She pauses. “In real life. God, I hope not.”
“Nan, it’s a skit. Don’t worry about it.”
I notice Pierce Brosnan’s huge glasses, while Will Ferrell calls Rachel Dratch a bitch. He accentuates the word, just like Dad on his darker nights. Bitch. Bitch, a word that strikes Nancy, a word aimed at Mom across almost 1,200 miles. But there’s something hilarious in the way Ferrell says it with cheer.
“Those glasses look like a pair of Dad’s,” I say.
There’s something about Brosnan’s glasses. They connote a certain routine. Get up, go to an office, go through the motions and come home. Relax with a light beer, a glass of wine maybe, not a sea of Budweisers.
“I suppose,” Nancy says, arching an eyebrow. “A thousand assholes wear them. Although Mom wore Gloria Steinem aviators.”
“Just an observation.”
“Enjoy the fun, little brother,” Nancy says, voice quiet. “It’s showtime. Don’t worry about the bullshit.”
“Dad looked so normal.”
The words tumble from me. There was something soothing in the methodical way he adjusted and cleaned those glasses, even if Nan used to call him a nerd extraordinaire.
“I’m trying to listen, Nicky,” Nan says, leaning toward the computer.
The company’s barbeque is mentioned. Brosnan mentions his fondness for barbeque, Irish accent accentuated.
“James Bond in suburbia,” Nancy says. “Even Bond has to pay bills.”
A train horn blows, loud, obnoxious, and a little sad. Meanwhile, down at Bavo’s, Dad is drinking and thinking he can put things back together. He’s probably playing Mom’s favorite song, Hotel California, over and over. I conjure him sitting at his favorite booth looking out on the railroad tracks and the dark night, the ripped green one with the dim little light above. Maybe he can find completion, watching people play pool, watching lovers whisper by the jukebox. Maybe he knows something. But if they couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together, what about Dad?
He used to teach by the book, talking imagery, metaphors, and symbolism. After Mom left and called him “a suit without passion,” he started shaking things up. He’s been getting fired from job after job for behavior issues, drunkenness during the day, and scaring people with philosophical tirades. He once ordered students to write essays dissecting Edna Pontellier’s mothering in The Awakening. Another time, he said if he were Tolstoy he’d have thrown Anna Karenina under the train on page 1. Nan’s had to get him a few times from Bavo’s and some of the other bars as well. I never tell her I’ve seen her leaving or coming back. I never mention I’ve heard her getting calls from the bartenders whose names she can recite, a litany. Janet, Richard, Greg, Thomas, Margaret, Rufus. I think Dad’s given every bartender Nancy’s number as if Nancy would be there, period.
“Hey,” I say, “I wonder if Brosnan exists in the skit’s universe? Where this character looks like him. Maybe Brosnan doesn’t exist. Wonder what else doesn’t exist.”
“My little nerd,” Nancy says. “Given there’s a trident, you have to wonder if there’s some magical dimension. You could summon people. Make them do whatever the hell you wanted. Make them love.”
She shakes her head and shoves one of Dad’s New Yorkers off the table. She rearranges the computer so it’s now flat on the coffee table. The table still holds the acrid scent of beer, something you know is bitter but can’t really put into a box. The scent makes me want to ralph.
“No, that’s stupid,” Nancy adds. “I mean if you had magic, you’d still have Pierce Brosnan being a miserable fuck at his job. I guess reality exists in this world.”
“It’s not stupid, Nan.”
“We’re overthinking, Nicky.” Nancy moves the computer a little closer to us. “Reality. Enough.”
“Be gone reality,” I say, waving my hands like a wizard.
Truth be told, Nan’s the one who does most of the reminding. For me, it’s easier to watch SNL characters lambast others. I’ve tried yelling, “I drive a Dodge Stratus,” at bullies, but that’s only resulted in fists to my face.
Dad claims he’s trying to move us to a real home, a place we can own. A place that doesn’t have the constant smell of armpits and rot. A place that exudes colors and wide rooms, verdant greens and soothing navy-blue walls, along with a backyard. In those moments, he calls Nancy and me our childhood nicknames, Stormy and Sunny. Nancy was always so withdrawn and sarcastic. Nancy claims I was the master of the smile and energetic.
I don’t remember, even though that was only a few years ago, before high school and bullies and Mom.
On Dad’s worst nights, there’s a sharpness in the way his mustache bristles and how he arches his eyebrows. There’s also a wide-eyed sorrow. Some nights, he’ll come into my room when I’m supposedly asleep and say he wants a good life for me. He hopes I can become a teacher, whether it’s English or History, someone not fucked up. He does the same with Nancy but I don’t know what he says to her. I’ve wanted to ask, but again, Nan and I have a quota where mentioning Dad or Mom are concerned.
Will Ferrell accuses Chris Kattan of handing in crap. His works looks like he took a crap or a dump in the printer. He threatens to burn down Kattan’s friggin house. He’s this close to raping him. Office politics, Ferrell says to Pierce Brosnan, as Chris Kattan scurries off in terror.
Pierce Brosnan is all too close to breaking character, grinning visibly. I should laugh but tonight, Brosnan grinning is a reminder of the world behind the screen. We are watching a skit, performers delivering lines with well-rehearsed verisimilitude and still cracking up.
Nancy winces.
I wonder if she’s thinking about all the school’s Dad’s been fired from or even the days when Dad discussed metaphors and dialogue without a hint of a slur. Is she thinking about the apartment without guest bedrooms or the deliberation in Mom’s arrangement?
“You all right?” I ask.
“Why not?” Nan tries to smile.
“I don’t know,” I say. “You look uncomfortable. You need me to get you something?”
“Well, let’s check out the fridge.”
We pause the skit and go into the kitchen with its little wooden cupboards and sterile white walls. The white fridge is coated with the ghost of old egg yolks and dull grease, along with old offers of employment posted in the middle, a tribute to an earlier life. It smells of staleness and onions, of which three lie on the middle shelf. A half-finished bottle of Diet Pepsi lines the top shelf, along with a couple cans of Vienna sausages and half a dozen cartons of King Oscar sardines. Nancy searches the fridge and then the freezer, as if looking for some magical concoction. We’ve largely been eating TV dinners, but I guess we’re out again. Just ice and emptiness in there.
“You all right, Nan?”
“Just thinking.” She pours herself a glass of Diet Pepsi, pours me one too. “Here’s another joke for you, little brother. It’s for this open mic tryout next Friday. Where do you send a rabbi with ADD?”
“Is it Dad?”
“Concentration camp.” Nan laughs, but her laughter fades fast.
She opens and shuts the refrigerator door again, shakes her head. I don’t want to tell her that joke will be too much even for the most provocative open mic.
“I’m serious, Nan.”
Nancy sighs.
“Look, Nicky,” she says, swigging her Diet Pepsi. “I think you have too much faith. You’re a good guy, but some people are more fucking complicated than that, you know?”
“Too much faith?”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“I don’t have faith.”
“You think Dad’s going to get his act together?”
I take a long pause.
“I don’t know. I think he wants to, sometimes.”
“That’s taking a position.”
Nancy moves away from me, walks into the living room, where light spills faintly through the windows. I follow. She opens the blinds, looks out. The bluing sky is dotted with wisp clouds here and there. TV screens flicker with electrical energy across the way. Silhouettes move about through windows. Maybe they’re having a normal night or paying bills. Maybe they’re lonely. Maybe they’re just pacing because they don’t know what else to do.
“Can’t you give me a better answer? For fuck’s sake, can’t I count on you?” Nancy pulls the blinds shut.
I look away, past and present entangled, neither able to extricate itself.
Dad lectured us earlier about being unable to provide while double-fisting Budweisers. Red and white labels assaulted with shame and weariness. It was four-thirty. He’d been drunk since he got home and had gone off about his latest firing, before he left for “inspiration.” Translation: More drinking.
“I called Hemingway a hack,” Dad said, swigging one of his Budweisers. He sat at the coffee table, feet propped up. He wore stained tan Khakis and a Polo shirt, his normally slicked black hair all messed up.
“That’s all?” I said.
“They fired me for what was it? Ah yes. Bloviating? Sounds like a disease. I’ve always told my students the truth, shown them the dark underbelly of writers. Principal Edgar claims they’d been getting complaints. I didn’t stick to the curriculum. Well, talk to me. Don’t fire me like some irredeemable shit.”
He shook his head.
“Mom would have appreciated this, don’t you think?” Dad stared, waiting for an answer. He gripped the beers in his hand. “She said I was so damn meek. I should call her. Any messages? Nancy? You’re the sarcastic one. Nick, you’re the scholar. Tell me something wise.”
Nancy arched an eyebrow and smiled at me, a thin, little smile. I trust you. Do the right thing.
“Well,” he said, still gripping the beers tighter. “Shouldn’t I go get her? Don’t you want us to be together?”
“I think that’d be a mistake,” I said. Wrong choice.
“A mistake, huh?” He took another swig, long and deliberate. His voice was quiet. “Is that what you have to tell me, Nick?”
Nancy looked at me again, her eyes weary and wide, like an owl. Don’t fuck this up, little brother.
“Well?” Dad said. “Is it?”
It was a mistake. Nancy and I knew it. But this was a day that held loss, the threat of unformed futures, the possibilities of more trouble. I didn’t want to watch the weight of Dad’s words striking Nan. I hated when she tried to disguise pain, especially when it was visible in the dullness of her eyes, in the pursed lips, in her gait, usually so strident and definite. I hated to retreat, but what if retreat was victory?
“I didn’t mean that,” I said.
Nancy smiled, a smile that conveyed relief. It was worth it.
“Well,” Dad said, words softening. “We’re going to get her back. She has such a zest for the smallest details, you know? When we dated, she’d stop to admire a lawn or a streetlamp going on. Called it “a butter-colored glow.” Isn’t that special?”
Sometimes, he’s talked of going to see Mom. I can imagine him staring through Mom’s window night after night, even blasting all her favorite songs from the street. Hotel California. I Will Survive. What A Fool Believes. It would be stupid, but it would be some small thing. Nancy thinks it’s idiotic, plain and simple and I don’t want to argue with her.
7:15. Nancy asks me to start the video again, settles in next to me on the sofa.
Will Ferrell’s next target: Tina Fey. She speaks on the phone to an unseen friend. A car accident is involved and Fey asks if the person in question is all right. He should smack her in the mouth, Ferrell growls. She’s talking to her whore friends on company time. Ferrell slaps Tina Fey. While Tina Fey sobs, Will Ferrell dances back to his desk with slow-motion panache and menace all wrapped into one. He utters a low HEYYY, a marker of domination, and asks Pierce Brosnan if he wants to go out for a beer.
Dad does a similar dance when he argues or criticizes. But unlike Ferrell, that little dance kind of dissolves and he slouches across the room to his perch at the coffee table or to his room. Dance like an asshole or walk away, Nancy said once. Commit.
I think about the nature of this skit. I contemplate Pierce Brosnan’s character and what he imagines going into this job. Good benefits? Mere survival? Maybe he has a wife and children, maybe he wants to give them basic security. That’s how Dad described what he did, what kept him talking about A Farewell To Arms over and over.
I wonder how often this happens on jobs when people come in with ideals and vision, even minimal and realistic ones, only to be uncertain of how to react when things happen. I wonder if that’s why Dad’s sliding into this netherworld, why Mom took off. And I wonder if that’s what Nan thinks too.
Laughter rises from upstairs, neighbors moving around. Probably another family settling in for the night, maybe picking something to watch. I wonder where Mom is now. Writing a column. At a movie. Rearranging her futon, lining up her collection of Camus. None quite seem right. I wonder if she’s remembering the act of walking out. Has she ever imagined returning? Does she imagine Nan taking on the weight of drinks and rants? Imagine Nan going to my parent-teacher conferences? Does she imagine me, the nerd, just putting everything together?
“I’m sorry, Nan,” I say. “I was over the line.”
“Don’t worry about it, Nick.”
But she moves a few feet from me. Another few.
“Seriously. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
Silence wafts over the room, all too visible and vast. The room is bathed in graying shadows. The shadows range from faint gray dancers to foreboding figures. It’s like they’re witnesses. They are capturing sterile white walls, the living room with the dying coffee table, the old copies of The New Yorker with its erudite monocle man and Dad’s stained copies of Revolutionary Road and The Stories of John Cheever. They are witnesses to visible rings on the coffee table, the ghosts of beer bottles past.
They are capturing a brother and a sister hunched together on a couch.
In spite of the darkness, pictures leap out from dark frames. A few of Dad and Mom, in restaurants, on the few camping trips we took. One of Mom’s high school pictures, wearing those Gloria Steinem aviators and a severe look. Unhappy? Just focused?. But the one that stands out most is of Dad, Mom, Nancy and me at the park, three months before she left. Nancy has an arm around my shoulder, flame-colored hair a carbon copy of Mom’s, but more unkempt in this scene. Here it hangs down like a cynical Rapunzel.
She’s wearing her maroon Big Lebowski T-shirt with Walter Sobchak’s scowling goateed face and YOU ARE ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN emblazoned in white block letters. Nancy wears a defiant smile. I think I wear a kind of blankness, though Nancy insists I’m pissed off here. She says it’s all in the eyes.
There is significant distance between Dad and Mom. Dad’s mustache is its own character, bristling like a porcupine. He wears Khakis and a blue-and-white striped Polo shirt. Mom wears jeans and that billowing peasant blouse that’s now Nan’s. Mom’s smile is pursed. In that scene I see our future, inevitable, soon to unfurl. Perhaps Mom is thinking of where she is going. Perhaps she is waiting to tell Dad that she is tired of starched routines. Maybe she’s wondering how to love us from afar. Or maybe she can’t love.
We just want angry, powerful Will Ferrell. Stickler extraordinaire. Asshole.
Nancy moves back toward me after a second, the space between us closed again.
“You all right, Nan?”
“No problem, Nicky. Baby brother.” She smiles.
I want to tell her that it’s all right, that we’re here together watching this skit, even if it is only five minutes and fifty-four seconds long.
“You can talk to me.”
“Hey, I’m the big sister. That’s my job, isn’t it? Shut the fuck up.” Nancy leans into the computer. “I’m all right. I promise.”
“If you say so.”
“Man, Pierce Brosnan’s a pussy,” Nancy says. “He asks Ferrell if this is how he treats his employees. Why doesn’t he get up and challenge Ferrell?”
“Brosnan’s character’s a nerd,” I say. “He spends his spare time doing spreadsheets and all that.”
“Well, spreadsheets don’t stop bad things, Nicky,” Nan says. “You know that.”
“Wonder if Ferrell’s character lost a job before this one?”
Wrong question. But I do wonder how he ended up in the present position, if the character was terrorized himself. Maybe Ferrell’s character fought the world, a world that took pieces of his past self, the good pieces.
Nancy’s eyes flicker with sharpness, a sharpness that I used to find funny when I’d tease her about being so sarcastic. But now there’s a danger in it.
“It’s just a character,” Nancy snaps.
“I just wonder,” I say. “He’s a monster, but man, he’s really on fire. He’s not letting anyone win.”
“Is this your hero, Nicky?” Nancy surveys me. “Do you want to celebrate people screaming and abusing each other?”
“You love it too. Come on, Nan.”
“It’s a stupid skit.” Nancy shakes her head, puts a hand on my shoulder. Inhales. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I don’t like dissecting things.”
“You’re the one who likes Ferrell’s yelling,” I say.
“Maybe yelling isn’t what it used to be,” Nancy says.
“I put up with it too.”
“Not the same way,” Nan says, eyes flickering. “Let’s keep watching. I’m not blaming you, Nicky.”
“I can turn it off.”
Nan pauses but shakes her head. Maybe she doesn’t want to watch. Maybe she doesn’t know what would happen if we turned this off. The darkness deepens, the shadows moving in on us. So it seems.
Now even Will Ferrell’s screaming is falling apart, charming absurdness deflating. Now, watching is an act, like cleaning up after Dad. I fear we can’t hold onto the earlier viewings, when we could just laugh, laugh, laugh.
I crank up the volume. I crank it up so loud, as if the funny could drown out truths.
It’s 7:22.
Will Ferrell tries to make Jerry Minor drink his piss, but not before kicking him and knocking a donut and papers out of his hands. The way Ferrell fumbles with his pants is epic, awkward, and perfectly creepy. Even Nancy can’t help but laugh, even though there’s a distant look in her eyes. It reminds me of the time Dad got shitfaced and kept calling Nancy Mom’s name. Penelope, Penelope, Penelope.
Nancy told Dad to shape up. She even called him a loser, the words harsh with truth. He’d stared at her with a dangerous silence, but also a discerning look, as if trying to add up that word and its weight and dimensions. Loser.
“You don’t know shit,” he’d said, drawing out the words. “How can you? How?”
Nancy called him a loser again. That time, he couldn’t respond.
Now Will Ferrell proclaims himself a strong man, dares anyone within the office to take a run at him. Chris Parnell challenges Ferrell, trident and net in hand. He’s been lifting weights and doing cocaine all day. Nancy’s laughing hard as if she has to. As if there’s no other choice.
“Do you want to challenge someone with a trident, little brother?” Nancy smirks, a dangerous smirk, but there’s something wobbly in it.
“I couldn’t,” I say.
Truth be told, I have to admire Parnell’s energy, his recklessness.
“Good,” Nancy says. “Look at what’s going to happen to Chris Parnell.”
“Come on, Nan,” I say. “Don’t spoil the fun of it.”
“I’m telling you.” Nan’s almost crying now. “Dad thinks playing rebel is going to make things better? It’s stupid, little brother. It’s so stupid. People fucking leave. They leave because they don’t love you. At least that’s honest.”
I pause the video. Nan pulls me in for a hug, arms open, frantic. And then she cries. Really cries. It starts lilting and uncertain and rises into a wail. It’s months and years, of wandering empty spaces and trying to keep so much together, while everything falls apart more and more.
“He’s pathetic,” I say. “Please don’t let it bug you, Nan. They’re all pathetic.”
I try to rock her, the way Mom used to, or the way I think she did. I feel as if I could drop her, but I can’t. I wrap my arms around her back, hold on with every ounce of strength. Back and forth, back and forth. Was Mom this awkward too?
“I’ve tried and I’ve tried,” Nancy says, head buried in my shoulder. “But he keeps being an ass. Over and over an there’s no end, Nick.”
Nan keeps crying. And I want to as well, but I’ll cry later. I can contain it. She’s contained things so long.
“Please don’t cry.” I keep rocking her. “Please. You’re wonderful, Nan. You don’t know how wonderful you are. I couldn’t do half the things you do.”
She keeps on crying. I don’t know how to stop it. So I tell a joke. It’s one of Nan’s, another one she’s tried out for the open mic night.
“What slogan do terrorists in Iran have on their T-shirts?”
“What?” She looks up.
“Shiite happens when you party naked.”
She keeps crying, although I see the hint of a smile. I keep repeating it over and over. Please don’t cry, please. I even try to find more jokes. But I stop. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to just be there, make it clear you’re paying attention and want to give someone the world.
I start thinking of one time Dad called Mom. It was just after the first anniversary of her departure.
“Honey,” he said, clutching the cell phone. “I know I’ve messed things up. But I’m different. I’m trying to fight. For God’s sake, can’t you see it?”
There was a pause, followed by Mom’s husky words, unintelligible yet too clear. I knew the cadences, the drawn-out words. I knew their meaning to a T. So did Nan.
“The children miss you,” he said. “I’m not going to bullshit. For fuck’s sake, visit. Please, Penelope, please stop with this odyssey bullshit. Just come. Whatever you need to say, I’ll listen. We can figure things out.”
More husky words, slow, deliberate.
He’d slammed the cell phone down with force, plastic shattering. Jagged lines filled the screen like lightning. Nan and I tried to pick them up, piece by piece. I remember trying to put the phone together again. But in that moment, the pieces Dad needed to step out of his darkness were lost to us.
More laughter rises from upstairs. Car doors bang. Footsteps thump, children laughing, unaware of what is transpiring. Nan keeps crying, the wailing diminishing, reduced to whimpers. In a way, there’s a sort of odd serenity. It’s like she’s been meaning to do this for so long. I wonder what will fill this rawness now.
“All right, Nicky,” Nan says. She pulls away from me, wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “You’ve just had the privilege of watching your big sister cry.”
“Nan,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“It’s trident time,” she says. “Start the skit again.”
It’s 7:30. Dad’s been at the bar for an hour.
Chris Parnell and Will Ferrell spar for dominion. Parnell tries to lunge at Ferrell with the trident, to no avail. Ferrell punches him over and over and seizes the trident. But I can’t help but see Dad in his sober moments here, determined, stupid, wonderful. I wonder what gave him that clarity, what impulse pushed him that he lacks now.
Ferrell seizes the trident and stabs Chris Parnell. Thirty-three stabs. Nancy counted once. Ferrell stabs with methodical coldness, but with a ferocity I envy. With each stab and each spurt of blood that consumes Chris Parnell, I hear Dad. Heave, heave, scream, scream. Then nothing, but dead Chris Parnell. His rants and pleas swirl in my mind.
Dad’s life is fragments without anything to tie them together. And watching Ferrell finish stabbing Chris Parnell and try to convince Pierce Brosnan to take the job, I wish we had a trident. The trident is the key to this skit. Without the trident, this skit would be a collection of moments.
I imagine Dad wielding a trident, conveying fear, the possibility of danger. A mental picture: Dad is carrying the trident. He is walking in slow-motion through the hallways of the last high school that fired him. People gather, freeze. They fear and love the trident with its sleekness, comment on the precision of its points.
I even imagine Dad stabbing overbearing principals with the trident.
In this mental movie, Mom returns, transfixed by the trident. She is calling me and Nancy Sunny and Stormy and asking for all the details while she was gone. Nancy and I babble instead about our growth, about the latest book on the Romanovs I’ve devoured and Nancy’s plans for stand-up comedy. Dad towers above us, trident suspended in the air. I imagine all this, laughing like a constipated goose.
Nancy asks what’s funny. She leans in, as if I’m a mental patient who needs careful observation. I laugh even harder, struggle to convey the images.
Soon Nancy’s laughing, smile unfurling with each image I present. She’s laughing, choking, coughing, laughter so rough and yet so unblocked. She’s shaking so hard, she almost knocks over the computer.
“Dad with a trident?” she says. “Does Mom get one too?”
“Why not?” I say.
“You hate us, we stab you,” Nancy says, laughing. She slaps me on the shoulder. “We’re the trident family.”
“They can hire us to stab people,” I say.
“It’s not like Dad could stab someone,” Nan says, laughing harder. “He’d probably give up. Trident stabbing requires commitment.”
“Truth is he’d call Mom,” I say, “and tell her he’s stabbing someone. She should be so proud.”
“If only we were that lucky.”
“Maybe Dad’s stabbing someone now,” I quip. “Because they won’t play Hotel California for the fiftieth time.”
“Plenty of tridents in the bar.”
Laughter rises, dances around the room. It engulfs us in this small room with the sterile white walls and the rings from Dad’s beers. The room with the photos. Down at Bavo’s, Dad is drinking a beer. Probably another Budweiser, but maybe a Fat Tire. The jukebox is playing. Perhaps he is feeling that brief hope that the world can give him something. Maybe he’s thinking of ways to become a father again, to communicate beyond slurred words. Maybe he’s thinking of activities to draw Nancy and me back into his world.
Maybe he’s trying to find tenderness among ruins, trying to ask how we feel. More likely he’s drinking himself into a more dangerous place. This is the second anniversary of his wife leaving. He’s behind on rent. He’s been fired. More likely he's drinking and trying to think that the pieces will fit into place. Mom is arranging her life in San Francisco, arranging things, rearranging, her apartment growing more and more compact, with too little space left.
We’re laughing because we’re watching a Will Ferrell clip, a brother and sister alone. We’re laughing because people wield tridents. This is the shape of things. We’re laughing because we’re idiots.
Will Ferrell has reluctantly released Pierce Brosnan, after lamenting that ordinarily he would have whipped his nuts with a car antenna. Tina Fey tries to escape. Will Ferrell chases her. The skit’s over. Cue audience applause. Nancy gives me a little look, knowing, still laughing, even though the laughing is subsiding. The shadows deepen.
We watch as the skit fades and the white loading circle begins to form. Another skit. I don’t know what skit. It doesn’t matter. We sit in the dark. Nancy tells another joke about the difference between dead dads and depressed dad. A dead dad, she jokes, at least has an excuse not to do a thing in life.
Piece by piece, the parts of the loading circle form and then stall halfway. An incomplete circle stares. We wait while the circle starts forming again, moving with the slowest pace. It’s three-quarters complete. It stalls. Moves. A little.
