Read Online The Full Ridiculous by Mark Lamprell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mark Lamprell
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and grow. Those were the days when they attended school without monitoring, when they went where they said they were going, when they returned at the time they said they would.
Somewhere, somehow, things have gone awry. A critical shift has occurred: what was once spirited, courageous behaviour—climbing to the highest branch of the tree, swimming out past the breakers—has become unstable and dangerous. And you didn’t notice until Rosie was spewing alco-pops in the back of the Volvo and Declan was wriggling through the doggie-door at 3am with pupils dilated to the size of saucers. On your watch. And you didn’t notice until it was too late.
Is it too late?
At the bottom of Declan’s cupboard, you find a shoe-box of memorabilia: frayed blue ribbons from primary school athletics, pale green plastic rosary beads, letters and notes, and a couple of poems penned in Declan’s more adult hand.
You read the poems. They are about death and the pointlessness of life. Does he really feel like this? Or are these usual expressions of adolescent angst? Your mouth goes dry and you feel slightly nauseous. You set them aside for Wendy to read later because she is more finely tuned to such subtextual subtleties. A strange collision of dread and pain fells you, and you roll onto Declan’s bed.
As you lie there staring at his desk, something odd strikes you about the pencil case sitting on the desktop. The zippered pillow of tartan fabric has a line of clear plastic sleeves across its side. Each sleeve holds a black letter printed on a gold card. The letters spell out a name. But they don’t spell DECLAN; they spell JAMES B.
James Brentwood is a schoolmate of Declan’s and while there’s nothing outlandish about the appearance of his pencil case on your son’s desk, you can’t help wondering why it’s there. So you sit up and unzip the case.
It’s filled with plastic zip-lock bags, each containing a dozen or so small white pills. You have no idea what kind of drugs these are but you have no doubt they’re illegal. And clearly they’re not just for personal consumption. You are confronted with unequivocal evidence that your son is a drug dealer. You beat off panic and rage with the stick of a desperate belief: it’s not Declan, it’s James B.
You are vaguely aware that James B has already had some altercation with the police—something about joyriding in a neighbour’s sports car—and so you decide to analyse the evidence before you.
Exhibit A: James B has a history of illegal behaviour and is therefore more likely to be a criminal.
Exhibit B: The pencil case containing the drugs has James’s name on it; therefore the drugs most likely belong to him.
Exhibit C: There is no cash in Declan’s room and he is always asking to borrow money. If he were a drug dealer, he’d be cashed up.
Exhibit D: It can’t be your little bubba boy, the one who still gives you hugs and sometimes calls you Pa with such affection that you can feel your heart expanding.
You decide to embrace the best-case scenario that Declan is, for some idiotic reason, minding the drugs for James.
And then a red mist descends . Well fuck him. Fuck the both of them. How dare he? How dare they? This is your house and you’re not having this shit in your house one second longer. You do not give a rat’s about the consequences, you’re getting rid of them right now.
But how? Flush them down the toilet? If you empty all those little plastic bags, you can dispose of the pills but you still have to deal with the bags. Bury them? Yeah, brilliant idea. Plant hard evidence of drug dealing in your own garden. Moron.
And then you remember it’s garbage night. In a few short hours, a municipal council truck will extend its mechanical arm and embrace your grey wheelie-bin from the kerb. Emptying the incriminating contents into its vast belly, the truck will speed off, eventually spewing an anonymous jumble of household refuse into a giant dump far, far
Somewhere, somehow, things have gone awry. A critical shift has occurred: what was once spirited, courageous behaviour—climbing to the highest branch of the tree, swimming out past the breakers—has become unstable and dangerous. And you didn’t notice until Rosie was spewing alco-pops in the back of the Volvo and Declan was wriggling through the doggie-door at 3am with pupils dilated to the size of saucers. On your watch. And you didn’t notice until it was too late.
Is it too late?
At the bottom of Declan’s cupboard, you find a shoe-box of memorabilia: frayed blue ribbons from primary school athletics, pale green plastic rosary beads, letters and notes, and a couple of poems penned in Declan’s more adult hand.
You read the poems. They are about death and the pointlessness of life. Does he really feel like this? Or are these usual expressions of adolescent angst? Your mouth goes dry and you feel slightly nauseous. You set them aside for Wendy to read later because she is more finely tuned to such subtextual subtleties. A strange collision of dread and pain fells you, and you roll onto Declan’s bed.
As you lie there staring at his desk, something odd strikes you about the pencil case sitting on the desktop. The zippered pillow of tartan fabric has a line of clear plastic sleeves across its side. Each sleeve holds a black letter printed on a gold card. The letters spell out a name. But they don’t spell DECLAN; they spell JAMES B.
James Brentwood is a schoolmate of Declan’s and while there’s nothing outlandish about the appearance of his pencil case on your son’s desk, you can’t help wondering why it’s there. So you sit up and unzip the case.
It’s filled with plastic zip-lock bags, each containing a dozen or so small white pills. You have no idea what kind of drugs these are but you have no doubt they’re illegal. And clearly they’re not just for personal consumption. You are confronted with unequivocal evidence that your son is a drug dealer. You beat off panic and rage with the stick of a desperate belief: it’s not Declan, it’s James B.
You are vaguely aware that James B has already had some altercation with the police—something about joyriding in a neighbour’s sports car—and so you decide to analyse the evidence before you.
Exhibit A: James B has a history of illegal behaviour and is therefore more likely to be a criminal.
Exhibit B: The pencil case containing the drugs has James’s name on it; therefore the drugs most likely belong to him.
Exhibit C: There is no cash in Declan’s room and he is always asking to borrow money. If he were a drug dealer, he’d be cashed up.
Exhibit D: It can’t be your little bubba boy, the one who still gives you hugs and sometimes calls you Pa with such affection that you can feel your heart expanding.
You decide to embrace the best-case scenario that Declan is, for some idiotic reason, minding the drugs for James.
And then a red mist descends . Well fuck him. Fuck the both of them. How dare he? How dare they? This is your house and you’re not having this shit in your house one second longer. You do not give a rat’s about the consequences, you’re getting rid of them right now.
But how? Flush them down the toilet? If you empty all those little plastic bags, you can dispose of the pills but you still have to deal with the bags. Bury them? Yeah, brilliant idea. Plant hard evidence of drug dealing in your own garden. Moron.
And then you remember it’s garbage night. In a few short hours, a municipal council truck will extend its mechanical arm and embrace your grey wheelie-bin from the kerb. Emptying the incriminating contents into its vast belly, the truck will speed off, eventually spewing an anonymous jumble of household refuse into a giant dump far, far
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