Marcus was at the gym doing what he had to do. Burning of his frustration. He had tried a date with Lisa the night before. Went out, had dinner, laughed and everything seemed to go well—until they got back to the house. Arumand was sitting reading a book. He was always doing something like that, reading, drawing, watching the oddest things on television. And gaming. Now that Marcus didn’t find too weird.
Marcus said hi to the sitter, a mutual friend from back in the day, as he left the house. Arumand didn’t take any notice of Marcus, which was just fine by him. The boy had taken to verbally insulting him. His language was colourful for a boy of seven. It had been months. Marcy was looking ready to drop and totally unconcerned about his lack of concern to be a dad. Besides, she didn’t even know if it was his and he was in no hurry to find out. The New Year had just gone by, and Lisa was warming up some water for hot chocolate. She preferred to add cream instead of making it with milk. It was a welcome idea in this steadily growing cold weather.
“I had a good time.”
“So did I,” Lisa responded and smiled. Maybe he was finally making progress. That was when Arumand did come into the room. At first, it was okay. He spoke to Marcus, but Marcus gave his usual dismissive response. That’s when it got weird. Lisa seemed to immediately be disappointed about something, and then Arumand went into a verbal tirade. Marcus got so angry he started fighting with the boy like the child was on his level.
The argument soon hit a point where Marcus just stormed out of the house, slept it off and now, early Saturday morning, was burning of his frustrations in the gym. In the middle of his workout, he saw a father and son come in. They were fighting something awful. The mother came in later, took one look at them and bolted towards the bikes. She was always on a mission he noticed. Took her fitness seriously. Is this what family life was, arguing and blatant avoidance? How did they even survive the first fourteen years or so in this boy’s life?
This visual only fueled his idea that, if he was ever successful at getting Lisa, Arumand was getting shipped off to boarding school. In the shower, he somehow managed to take so much time people who got to the gym after him were gone once he finally walked out.
He went to his favourite pizza place and there sitting in a booth was the family. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who thought pizza for lunch was good after-gym eating. The mother dutifully had a salad in front of her. And she was glowing, as was the boy. He had that embarrassed stop being so clingy kind of look on his face as she made obvious points about him filling out. His dad didn’t seem to notice all this. He took a different approach, commenting on his son’s new bench press weight and so on.
It was an interesting dynamic, one parent pointing out visual progress and the other strength progress but ultimately amounting to the same thing. This family did not look like the hot mess he’d seen in the gym just over an hour ago. And then a girl walked by, and the boy was obviously smitten. The parents wasted no time in embarrassing him. Marcus had a flashback to his childhood and smiled to himself.
It was in that moment of reminiscence that an idea, an elusive truth, just hit him like a ton of bricks. Lisa was so his.
No comments:
Post a Comment