“Ken Is The Greatest!”
“Kyle, I feel great!” My dad gazes out over his lawn. “You know, I’m feeling so good that I think we should go for a swim! An easy one, just to the beach and back.”
My dad begins singing one of his favourite songs to himself — “Ken is the greatest!” — while I think about how little I want to do this. The distance to the beach and back is around fifty laps.
“ — Or,” He cuts himself off and looks over as if he’s about to give me a gift. “I’d almost be willing to go on a run with you — if it’s an easy one.”
“Well,” I say slowly. “We just ate, and uncle Tim is here-“
“-He could come with us!”
“Actually,“ I say quickly. “I was thinking of working on this writing thing that Joey sent me…”
My dad stops humming his song. “Hmm…” He purses his lips thoughtfully. “Fine, well how about we start running together and you can go on ahead when I slow down.”
“Maybe.” I say, knowing full well I’m not going running. Instead I change tactics. “Hey so Joey sent me a paragraph that I’m supposed to critique — I’d love if you read it and we could maybe discuss it together.”
“Oh great!” My dad perks back up to full excitement. “What’s it about?”
“It’s a short excerpt from a story he wrote — it’s about a girl’s reaction to a movie.”
“That sounds great!” He starts pacing, eager to get started. “How do I read it?!”
I pull out my phone and hand it to him. “It’s that short paragraph there.” My dad starts reading, humming his victory song silently to himself.
The paragraph concerns a girl’s reaction to the climactic scene in “The Shining” wherein the wife discovers that her husband is losing his mind and has been writing the same ten words over and over again, for hundreds of pages, all winter. Later, the narrator sees the girl have the same reaction to something he has just done, though we aren’t told the specifics about the situation.
My dad looks up from the phone, puzzled. “So what were the ten words?”
“You haven’t seen The Shining?”
“Of course not!” My dad shakes his head as if it’s the most ridiculous suggestion he’s ever heard. “Is this girl happy? Angry? I don’t get it.”
“Well I guess in a nutshell the movie’s about someone going crazy.” We walk into the cabin where my uncle is reading an old worn bible. “Jack Nickelson and his wife Shelley Duvall are the caretakers of a closed hotel — ”
“Is this a movie?” My uncle looks up from his bible.
“That’s a great idea!” My dad says, gesturing to his brother. “Let Tim read the paragraph, I’d like to hear what he thinks about it.”
I shrug and hand my uncle the phone. He reads it and looks up.
“So what are the ten words that she reads? What is the mood of this scene?”
“Have you seen the movie?”
“No. Of course not.”
I restart my explanation of “The Shining”.
“…The scene he’s talking about is the climax where his wife discovers things are falling apart — she secretly reads the manuscript of the book he’s writing and discovers that every page of his novel is the same ten words over and over and over again; ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ After that he tries to kill them all.”
“So it’s scary.”
“Yes it’s scary.”
My uncle muses for a moment. “In this scene… the wife would be terrified and… hopeless?”
“Yup.”
“And maybe the girl would be feeling similar…”
My dad has an idea. “She’s just been proposed to!”
My uncle nods sagely. “That was my first idea too.”
They turn to me. “Is that it? Did he just propose to her?”
I look at them blankly. “I have no idea. He doesn’t say what’s going on, just her reaction to it. You read the same paragraph as me.”
My dad frowns. “Then how are you supposed to finish the story?”
I hadn’t realized we were on such different pages. “I don’t have to finish the story, just comment on it.”
“Well we should finish it.” My dad purses his lips and nods his head firmly. “He hardly tells us anything…” His eyes light up. “Oh! The girl could be watching someone be murdered!”
“That’s true.” My uncle builds on it. “Or perhaps someone is watching her watch someone else be murdered.”
My dad turns to me. “That would be much better than the story he wrote!”
My uncle and dad have changed the rules without me realizing. “I haven’t read the story he wrote. Just the paragraph about the girl watching the movie.”
A thoughtful hum comes from my uncle, who has now closed his bible. “But it isn’t really about the movie, it’s more removed than that. It’s about the narrator watching the girl who is reacting the same as she did when they went to the movie.”
“Hmm, that’s right…” My dad takes this in. “See, this is why I like Uncle Tim.” The statement dies in the air without explanation.
My uncle continues. “…And it’s also about how he met her, which adds a few more removing steps.” His hands create stairs in the air. “So really we should take the scene back even further. A photograph of a photograph sort of thing.”
“That’s a great idea!” My dad sits up straight. “She could be looking at a photograph! Of herself!”
“But why would she be terrified?” My uncle asks.
“She’s old… Or…” My dad changes tracks. “How about a baby?”
“Oh yes, a baby!” My uncle is immersed in a world of grandchildren. “She could be delivering a baby, or she’s just had one.”
“Or she’s watching a video of someone delivering a baby and she’s nine months pregnant.”
My uncle leans forward. “Perhaps she’s watching her granddaughter delivering a baby!… And it’s yeeears down the line.”
My dad jumps up. “And maybe when the baby comes out it’s a lizard alien!”
The conversation screeches to a momentary pause. My uncle leans back. “An alien Ken?”
“Well,” My dad sits down on the sofa, a bit deflated. “It’s a Bill Cosby bit. ‘Get that lizard back in there!!’” The impression, like all of his impressions, sounds like an excited asian man. “But I like the baby idea.” He turns to me. “Is that how you’ll finish the story?”
I nod noncommittally. “Actually, I was thinking of writing this conversation as a response. A meta story where we are looking at the paragraph and trying to figure out the girl’s expression.”
“That’s not bad.” My uncle settles back as if that’s the closure he needs, but my dad isn’t quite there.
“Mmm… I like the baby idea better. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening. You should ask him.”
“I don’t even know if he wrote the rest of the story.”
My dad nods thoughtfully. “Hmm, he’s probably hoping you’ll help him figure out a better ending.”
I give up. “Okay, I’ll ask him for the rest of the story and then you can read it for yourself.”
My dad purses his lips and nods again. “Okay. And I want to read your story.”
“Okay sure.” I say, and as my dad and uncle start talking about gophers I pull out my computer and begin to write it all down.
****
“It’s not bad.” My dad says after reading the first draft of our conversation. “The only thing I’d say is…” He hums a moment, as if trying to think of a nice way to say his next sentence. “Well, after all that, you still didn’t say what happened with the girl.”
“I wasn’t trying to say what happened to the girl!”
“Then it isn’t really a continuation of the story then is it?”
I sigh, accepting that I’m not going to win. “Yup, I guess you’re right.”
“You know what,” My dad says, nodding to himself. “I think I’ll go write a continuation of the story.”
My uncle half looks up from his bible. “That’s a great idea.”
“Thanks Tim.” My dad gets up and heads to the table, grabbing a sheaf of paper and a pen on the way. “See,” He calls from the kitchen as he settles in at the table. “This is why I like Uncle Tim.”
****
Forty-five minutes later my dad comes back into the living room where my uncle and I are now discussing the biblical-political tension surrounding Paul’s announcement that the gentiles don’t need to be circumcised.
“Okay I’m finished.” He slaps a bunch of papers down on the coffee-table. “I think it’s pretty good, though I changed the idea a little.”
My uncle leans forward and picks up the papers. He reads a moment and looks up. “Ken, this story appears to be about you becoming an olympic swimmer.”
“Well, yeah, I tweaked it a bit.” He shrugs. “It just felt like it would be more fun to write about.”
“But what about the girl?” I ask, a bit vindictively. “What happens to her?”
“There isn’t a girl in my story. It’s mainly about swimming.” He gains a dreamy look. “You know… if I trained every day for three months I think I could get there…” He mimes a sweeping butterfly stroke. “Swoosh! Ken, the olympic gold medal winner!” He returns from his daydream. “If you were to go to the olympics for anything what would it be?”
My uncle looks up from my dad’s story. “Undoubtedly cross-country skiing. They make it look so effortless.”
I jump in, trying to gain some sort of closure for my story. “But back to Joey’s paragraph — what would you say to him as a critique?”
My dad thinks for a moment. “That we had no idea what was happening.” He says conclusively.
My uncle nods. “I would tell him we need the rest of the story.”
“Good answer Tim.” My dad starts miming a vigorous front crawl stroke in the air.
“Thanks Ken.” My uncle goes back to my dad’s story. “You’re my biggest fan.”
I shrug and give up. “Well, I guess that’s as good an ending as any.”
“Great!” My dad starts slowly walk swimming around the room. “I have a great idea — how about to celebrate our victory we go for a swim! Tim, you can come with us — it’ll be an easy one!” He continues swooshing through the air. “You know Tim… if you trained as much as me, I think you too could be an Olympic gold medal swimmer. We would be the Champion Brothers!”
I get up and head to my room to put on my bathing suit. From the other room I can hear my dad’s excited voice.
“Swoosh! Ken, Tim and Kyle! The first family ever to win triple gold medals!!”
