Chapter Fourteen

Lonnie looked up from his plastic glass - vodka and tonic – which was wrapped in a ghastly perma-cold thingy that he had come to consider to be one of man’s great inventions. He looked blankly at his son. The artificial grass beneath his feet made him feel itchy. Selwyn was sitting in the middle of a plastic swimming pool. The water was only a few inches deep. The temperature of the water must be unbearable by now, Lonnie thought. A faint drone from a television set could be heard from where he was sitting, in his mother’s backyard.

Lonnie felt ridiculous in the Hawaiian shirt and shorts he was wearing; his sun burnt skin shining behind his blond body hair. He was wearing a bush hat that an uncle had offered him and that had freakishly survived the fire.

Lonnie wondered if he was ever going to shag anyone whilst he was in Las Vegas. The women he had managed to talk to since he had arrived had all been tourists (convention people or gamblers). No hint or suggestion of a sexual encounter had emerged from these conversations.

“Dad, what would happen if Superman managed to penetrate the Matrix?” Selwyn asked.

Lonnie’s brain took some time to absorb the question. He came to the conclusion for the umpteenth time that he never could understand the boy. It had been disturbing when Alma had been around, but now it was downright scary.

“Superman doesn’t exist, love”.

Selwyn didn’t seem to acknowledge his father’s reply.

The magical aspect of the perma-cold thingy was that he did not have to keep adding ice to his drink. This would have watered it down. And with this kind of heat it wasn’t an issue of drinking faster. He wondered if the company that sold them had a patent.

“Trrrrrring, Trrrrrring”.

Lonnie was always surprised when he heard the telephone ring. His mother’s idea of a good joke was buying a hi-tech phone and choosing a fake classic analog ring tone. He pressed the green “yes” button. It was Alma.

“Hello, Lonnie, is that you? oh my God, I have so many things to tell, but I just couldn’t make sense of it in one go, I’ve been all over the Continent, chased by crazy dangerous people, and now I’ve been arrested, oh I know I’m babbling, but I haven’t slept in ages and fuck, I can’t believe I am talking to you, I miss Selwyn soooooo much and I imagine you hate me, but it just has been absolute lunacy and I don’t know what is going to happen, and they said I could make one phone call and I just wanted so much to hear Selwyn’s voice and talk to him, and then I understood that when they said…”

“FUCK OFF!”

“What did you say, Daddy?”

Lonnie mumbled something about telemarketers.

At this point Marineide, the Brazilian maid that helped his mother two mornings a week, came out through the kitchen back door, letting the crappy mosquito net and wood door slam shut behind her. She walked towards the plastic deck chair Lonnie was sitting on and replaced the empty bowl that sat next to him on the grass with a new bowl of mixed salty nuts. As usual, she did not say a word.

Lonnie thought she was vaguely repulsive: dark, short, thick thighs, obscenely large mouth. Not at all the type of woman he normally considered to be attractive. However, as she walked away back to the house, he could not keep from staring at her arse. He wondered if it qualified as a “bubble butt”. This concept fascinated Lonnie. He had only recently become aware of their existence. Exposure to American Internet porn was having a profound effect on Lonnie. He had always thought that a large arse was just that: a large arse. It had never occurred to him that a specific type of large arse – the bubble butt – could be a revered and idolized subset within the category of large arses.

“Dad, do you think that Gandalf is more powerful than Dumbledore?”

Selwyn stared at the shriveled skin on his fingers. He felt hot; the water was hot and the air around him was hot, even though he sat beneath the shade of an oversized sun umbrella.

“Dad?”

As Lonnie did not respond, Selwyn turned round. His father seemed to have fallen asleep. His drink was on the grass, as if it had been dropped.

Selwyn stood up, stepped out of the swimming pool and walked towards the house, dripping wet.


By Ashitaka