The Full Ridiculous by Mark Lamprell

Author:Mark Lamprell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781770894556
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc.
Published: 2014-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

Shelley Mainwaring surprises you by looking exactly as you pictured her. She’s a short, slim woman with close-cropped brown hair and buoyant breasts that make you wonder whether they’ve been surgically enhanced. She’s wearing a mushroom-coloured outfit with a pencil skirt that ends just below her knees. You have no idea whether this is fashionable or not but it suits her, in an I’m-smart-and-bossy-but-haven’t-given-up-on-sexy kind of way.

You can see that Wendy likes and trusts this woman so you decide to trust your wife’s impeccable taste and trust her too. Shelley explains that Constable Johnstone is no doubt trying to justify his overreaction on the day of the gun incident by making things appear more serious than they are. She says that your biggest mistake was nominating yourself as the responsible adult. Constable Johnstone has decided you are responsible for everything that happened, whether it happened with your knowledge or not.

Shelley says the best thing to do is supply the police with a signed statement so they can see you were just a concerned dad helping your son with a school project. She asks you to tell her what happened on the day of filming prior to the arrival of the police. She starts to guide you with a few simple questions. You try to answer but you’re so rattled that you leap through the story to what you believe is the salient bit: you neither own nor supplied the firearm! Declan borrowed the gun from his old primary school mate, Dan. Dan’s dad purchased the gun as a gift in Hong Kong. Dan’s dad didn’t declare it to Customs because he thought it was a toy. When Declan came home with the gun the night before the shoot, you gave it little more than a cursory glance because it was a toy.

As you offer this information, you find yourself stammering for the first time in your life. Your tongue catches on words like t-t-toy. You talk so fast that phrases crash into one another in little collisions: ‘Dansdad purshasedthegun asag-g-gift.’

Wendy gives you a what’s-going-on look. You take a deep breath and try to slow down. Your hands are shaking. You try to stop them but you can’t. You tell yourself it’s only the slightest tremor; no one will notice. But you see that Shelley has noticed.

And then she does the worst thing she could possibly do: she’s kind to you. She asks gently if you’d like to take a short break. You feel tears spring to your eyes and once again you curse your emotional incontinence. You ask for the toilets and make your escape.

In the toilets, you fight those unmanly tears with great gasps of angry air. Eventually you can breathe normally and are able to return.

During your absence, Wendy has told Shelley about your accident. Shelley says she can see that you are stressed and that this is perfectly understandable but wonders whether your reaction has been exacerbated by the recent trauma of your car accident. She asks if you’ve heard of post-traumatic stress disorder.

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