Love Hate. A Solution
"And anyway, I don't...... I mean WHY don't they just go ahead and shoot them NOW. I mean WHAT are the Cops waiting FOR." The boss makes Christmas Cards to sell at the Christmas fair on the rug in front of the window. Has been for weeks, a happy engagement, turning out improbably good things. The Boy and I catch up on recorded episodes of Love Hate. A revelation to her, who does not watch the show by inclination. "Of course they can't just....they have to..... prove it! build a case! set them up! It's called SURVEILLANCE" the boy replies roundly. It's called Television, I amend. And also um Due Process. Which I go about explaining at the end. She gets it. She's quick. She's not impressed. "What does it matter actually" she says, "Better dead before they do any more harm..... for us".
The thin end of the Wedge. Again
I remind of her of the movie Animal Kingdom. She kept a weather eye on that on Monday as I watched, declaring that she was not really watching. Only making cards, didn't want to work alone in her room. The boss likes company, in a houses of instinctive solitaries. We were both numbly riveted by the body count, the casual dispatching on both sides. The instant disposals on the part of the Cops. "The thin end of the wedge", I tell her, "after the criminals, go the rest of us, instant disposal, sooner or later". We all stare, stunned, now at King Nidges bloody runners.
More Accidental Television
On Thursday she accidentally watches the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene with me. Christmas cards done and on her way to bed, she gets involved, as do I, until realizing she is there beside me as the credits roll. "Over!! It CAN'T be over! Not yet... until we know....until they... I thought she was imaging...what will they do to them??? OH. Now that was actually frightening" she says. I agree, more than Love Hate, more than any tough hardcore horror, that was actually disturbing. Lingering in the mind, haunting quietly, puzzling.
Killing the Boy
On Friday the boy announces harshly that he has lost his glasses. Yeah he brought them with him to a concert in the O2, the first one with a tiny girl and not his sheparding family, and came back again without them. I cannot take this equably. I do not try. His phone has gone the same way a week ago. The glasses, the eye test took time and money. I berate him roundly. I am harsh as he. Each of us capable of a bruising anger. I keep going until this... "Don't you think I know?? Don't you think.... I'll pay you back. I KNOW I'm loosing everything, I don't KNOW why?? I don't KNOW whats wrong with me. Don't you think I've said all this to myself". His voice a grating wobble and the kitchen is silent at last.
Killing the Dog.
I go out to the garden to regroup. Apply myself to cleaning up the dog turds there. Bad idea. The boy's words, his tone of voice harrow me, the dog barks on a loop, his large stomach-churning turds refusing to slid smoothly onto to the plastic spade I keep for this purpose. The dog amuses himself habitualy with Demon Dog Barking at any thing that move within a very large radius, despite sanction, so that I suspect the neighbours have taken to creeping about the back, to avoid the sheer discordance when he is on a roll. His dog turds are as large and labile as his personality.
"Re-homing!" I tell the boss. A large place out the country for him. Somebody (else) would love him*. "But..." the boss struggles here " he is our, he is part tof our.... You cannot...he is FAMILY. You CANNOT... You didn't mean? " I tell her that of course I didn't mean.. I resort to muttering that maybe in my own case someone would take me, as she turns away in a sorrowful blue study.
In the kitchen where I go to make a cup of hot strong tea I am brought up short at the sight of the boy, all six foot one of him accordioned in around the dog in a silent embrace. He strokes his head gently. His eyes are closed. The dog's huge black eyes gleam in the shadows of the early winter evening.
"Yeah, I was not even slightly serious" I tell the boss, sipping tea, thinking of the awful raw dysfuncionality of teenage boys, the mysterious, the invisible wires of connection in family. "Re-homing! It's the thin end of the wedge too. After the dog, we all go. Nah"
Christmas Came
And then it's Christmas again. Officially started at the Boss's christmas concert, where she stands on the podium with the others, singing with her entire being, a young woman now where last year she was a child. I drive through the dark, the road works, icy cloudbursts, from Dublin, stressing about not getting there on time, listening to the endless gnawing discussion on the car radio about the Prime Time programme the night before, the treatment of disabled women by their female carers in Bungalow Three, Arus Attracta, Swinford, Co Mayo.
Killing the Disabled
The Childlike People, degraded, kicked, slapped, by the carers, secretly filmed for the programme. The brutal tones of the women linger in the mind, as though it was not only what they said, but how they said it that was the killer, the degradation. " Hang down your head! Hang down your head and look at that wall! At that wall! Back! Get back, Get back in that chair" the carers chorus. For three hours, five hours, eleven hours get back in that chair. "Get back in that FUCKING chair And Hang down your Head and Look at that wall. At that wall!". Don't look at ME. Don't.. ever... look at ME.
The devil spoke the Angels sang.
The faces in the choir are raised to heaven now, singing in transport of ecstasy, as one. The Devil he spoke in Mayo, over and over and over. The Angels sing in the School, year after year after year. Ding dong merrily a Child is Born Santa Claus is coming in a Winter Wonderland, on the Twelve Days of Christmas Hark the herald.....Oh Rudolph Rudolph in the Bleak Midwinter.
"And anyway, I don't...... I mean WHY don't they just go ahead and shoot them NOW. I mean WHAT are the Cops waiting FOR." The boss makes Christmas Cards to sell at the Christmas fair on the rug in front of the window. Has been for weeks, a happy engagement, turning out improbably good things. The Boy and I catch up on recorded episodes of Love Hate. A revelation to her, who does not watch the show by inclination. "Of course they can't just....they have to..... prove it! build a case! set them up! It's called SURVEILLANCE" the boy replies roundly. It's called Television, I amend. And also um Due Process. Which I go about explaining at the end. She gets it. She's quick. She's not impressed. "What does it matter actually" she says, "Better dead before they do any more harm..... for us".
The thin end of the Wedge. Again
I remind of her of the movie Animal Kingdom. She kept a weather eye on that on Monday as I watched, declaring that she was not really watching. Only making cards, didn't want to work alone in her room. The boss likes company, in a houses of instinctive solitaries. We were both numbly riveted by the body count, the casual dispatching on both sides. The instant disposals on the part of the Cops. "The thin end of the wedge", I tell her, "after the criminals, go the rest of us, instant disposal, sooner or later". We all stare, stunned, now at King Nidges bloody runners.
More Accidental Television
On Thursday she accidentally watches the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene with me. Christmas cards done and on her way to bed, she gets involved, as do I, until realizing she is there beside me as the credits roll. "Over!! It CAN'T be over! Not yet... until we know....until they... I thought she was imaging...what will they do to them??? OH. Now that was actually frightening" she says. I agree, more than Love Hate, more than any tough hardcore horror, that was actually disturbing. Lingering in the mind, haunting quietly, puzzling.
Killing the Boy
On Friday the boy announces harshly that he has lost his glasses. Yeah he brought them with him to a concert in the O2, the first one with a tiny girl and not his sheparding family, and came back again without them. I cannot take this equably. I do not try. His phone has gone the same way a week ago. The glasses, the eye test took time and money. I berate him roundly. I am harsh as he. Each of us capable of a bruising anger. I keep going until this... "Don't you think I know?? Don't you think.... I'll pay you back. I KNOW I'm loosing everything, I don't KNOW why?? I don't KNOW whats wrong with me. Don't you think I've said all this to myself". His voice a grating wobble and the kitchen is silent at last.
Killing the Dog.
I go out to the garden to regroup. Apply myself to cleaning up the dog turds there. Bad idea. The boy's words, his tone of voice harrow me, the dog barks on a loop, his large stomach-churning turds refusing to slid smoothly onto to the plastic spade I keep for this purpose. The dog amuses himself habitualy with Demon Dog Barking at any thing that move within a very large radius, despite sanction, so that I suspect the neighbours have taken to creeping about the back, to avoid the sheer discordance when he is on a roll. His dog turds are as large and labile as his personality.
"Re-homing!" I tell the boss. A large place out the country for him. Somebody (else) would love him*. "But..." the boss struggles here " he is our, he is part tof our.... You cannot...he is FAMILY. You CANNOT... You didn't mean? " I tell her that of course I didn't mean.. I resort to muttering that maybe in my own case someone would take me, as she turns away in a sorrowful blue study.
In the kitchen where I go to make a cup of hot strong tea I am brought up short at the sight of the boy, all six foot one of him accordioned in around the dog in a silent embrace. He strokes his head gently. His eyes are closed. The dog's huge black eyes gleam in the shadows of the early winter evening.
"Yeah, I was not even slightly serious" I tell the boss, sipping tea, thinking of the awful raw dysfuncionality of teenage boys, the mysterious, the invisible wires of connection in family. "Re-homing! It's the thin end of the wedge too. After the dog, we all go. Nah"
Christmas Came
And then it's Christmas again. Officially started at the Boss's christmas concert, where she stands on the podium with the others, singing with her entire being, a young woman now where last year she was a child. I drive through the dark, the road works, icy cloudbursts, from Dublin, stressing about not getting there on time, listening to the endless gnawing discussion on the car radio about the Prime Time programme the night before, the treatment of disabled women by their female carers in Bungalow Three, Arus Attracta, Swinford, Co Mayo.
Killing the Disabled
The Childlike People, degraded, kicked, slapped, by the carers, secretly filmed for the programme. The brutal tones of the women linger in the mind, as though it was not only what they said, but how they said it that was the killer, the degradation. " Hang down your head! Hang down your head and look at that wall! At that wall! Back! Get back, Get back in that chair" the carers chorus. For three hours, five hours, eleven hours get back in that chair. "Get back in that FUCKING chair And Hang down your Head and Look at that wall. At that wall!". Don't look at ME. Don't.. ever... look at ME.
The devil spoke the Angels sang.
The faces in the choir are raised to heaven now, singing in transport of ecstasy, as one. The Devil he spoke in Mayo, over and over and over. The Angels sing in the School, year after year after year. Ding dong merrily a Child is Born Santa Claus is coming in a Winter Wonderland, on the Twelve Days of Christmas Hark the herald.....Oh Rudolph Rudolph in the Bleak Midwinter.
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