Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

It is then, at the moment when he is slumped in a dazed heap at the bottom of the mountain, that the true dismality of his predicament dawns on Wile E. Coyote: that, even where the laws of nature are concerned, there is one rule for him and another for the roadrunner. It is the ultimate unfairness.

I am not suggesting that what is happening to Pa breaks the laws of material physics. But it does break what I always vaguely understood to be another law of nature: the law of averages. I was always under the impression that the law of averages meant this: in the long run, probability will operate so as to effect a roughly equitable distribution of chance — you lose some, but you also win some. But what if you lose some and then, against all the odds, lose some more — and then more still? Where does that leave the law of averages? Where does that leave Pa?

This is what I was puzzling over on the bus here. My head was poised heavily on the rain-steamed window as I sat there, slowly grappling with this enormous problem. And then the penny dropped: there is no such thing as the long run. My father’s life is too short to allow probability to take effect.

The vibrations of the bus banged my head against the pane.

Now, I can see a response to this: people make their luck.

To a certain extent, this is right. You make your own bed and you lie in it. But sometimes you are forced to lie in a bed which you did not make at all. No, it is worse than that: sometimes a bed you have never seen before in your life will crash through the ceiling and flatten you before you even know what’s hit you. How much of his lot has Pa brought on himself? Merv — did Pa bring Merv on himself?

I received the telephone call at home on Friday morning. Pa asked me how I was and, before I could answer, I heard a swallowing noise — a literal, phonic gulp.

I said, ‘Pa?’

There was a pause, and then Pa said quickly in a thick voice, ‘Listen, son, do you remember Merv, Merv Rasmussen?’

Of course I remembered Merv. He was one of Pa’s best friends, his work buddy and tennis partner. I had met Merv plenty of times.

Pa said, ‘He was driving along last night, just driving along on his side of the road, minding his own business, when this car just ploughs straight into him. Head-on. Just like that.’ Pa took a swallow of wonder. ‘This guy just swings across into his lane, then …’ Here his voice crumpled. I heard it again — gulp.

I said, ‘Is he going to be all right?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pa said. ‘The hospital told me he was critical.’

Critical was the last word I would have associated with Merv. Merv was friendly, tolerant and condoning. As far as I knew, Merv had never passed an adverse judgement on anyone in his life.

Pa said softly, ‘Johnny, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to pray for him.’ He was serious. ‘Just a quick prayer, that’s all. I’m telling you, son, right now he needs all the help he can get.’

I did not want to upset my father. I said, ‘OK, Pa. I will.’

He took a long and violent drag of air, as though surfacing from a long spell under water. His anxiety made his voice clean and eager. On the telephone, Pa can sound like a young man.

He changed the subject. ‘Have you switched the locks yet? Have you spoken to Whelan?’

‘Don’t worry, Pa,’ I said. ‘It’s under control.’

‘I want double locks on that front door,’ my father stipulated. ‘And tell Whelan to fit one of those big bolts, the ones you can’t just kick down.’

‘I will, Pa,’ I said.

‘Ask him about installing an alarm,’ Pa said, his sentences beginning to accelerate. ‘I want one of those alarm systems that are hooked up to the police station. I want an entry system, too, with a special code, and a spyhole in the door so you’ll see who’s coming.’

‘OK, Pa.’

‘I want you and your sister to be safe in that flat,’ Pa said. ‘And don’t worry about the money. I’ll take care of that.’

‘OK, Pa,’ I said — this despite the fact that there is plainly no need for this kind of security at the flat I share with my sister Rosie, which has double-glazed windows which explode when punctured, an impenetrable front door and a film of burglar-proof plastic on every pane of glass. Besides, even if some crook did break in, his pickings would not be rich. Whatever else our flat might be, it is no Aladdin’s cave. But I went along with Pa because I had learned that once he is gripped by a sense of imperilment in respect of his family — which is often — he will not be deflected. This is why we Breezes are insured against every imaginable risk. Pa has taken out a comprehensive family protection package that defends the three of us against the consequences of fire, theft, death, sickness and personal injury, of litigation, lock-outs, flooding, explosions, automobile collisions and war, of aviation mishaps, professional negligence, spatial fall-out, forgery, business interruptions and acts of God. You name it, we’re indemnified against it.

My father’s precautions do not end there. In order to guard against the tax detriments of his own death, he has ploughed as much cash as he can into an accumulation and maintenance fund in his children’s names and he has transferred to me, as a nominal gift, the ownership of the flat we live in. ‘In case I die within the next seven years,’ he said. I told him he was crazy. ‘What are you talking about? Seven years? You’re never going to die in the next seven years,’ I said. I put my hand on the curve of his shoulder, rounded like a rock worn smooth by years of water. ‘A fit man like yourself? Why should you?’

‘I could go any minute,’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘Just like that.’ He gave me a look. ‘What are you looking so shocked about? That’s how it is, son, here today and gone tomorrow, and there’s no point in fighting it.’

One reason that Pa so often feels us to be threatened is that he believes that any adversity which befalls someone else is the prognostic of a Breeze adversity. This explained his present concern: having read about an unpleasant burglary in the neighbourhood (a case where the intruders had thrown acid in the face of the elderly woman who opened the door, blinding her), he was determined to take extra measures to ensure our safety.

‘Light, Johnny, light!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘Johnny, here’s what you do: you get Whelan to install floodlights around the house so that you don’t get any shadows out there. You know what they say, a shadow is a burglar’s best friend. Yes,’ Pa said, ‘floodlights. With electronic triggers. My God, when I think of your sister alone at home, and those men lurking about outside her window …’ He lost his voice.

‘Take it easy, Pa,’ I said.

Pa resumed, his voice straining, ‘Remember, Whelan’s the man you want. Ring Whelan. You can count on Whelan.’

‘Leave it with me, Pa,’ I said. I did not tell him that twice already I had rung Whelan, twice Whelan had promised to come and twice Whelan had let me down. Pa had enough to worry about without worrying about Whelan. Thinking about it, there was not a significant aspect of his life that did not have him on tenterhooks. Everything gave him cause for keen suspense: work, where his job was under review; Rosie and her boyfriend, Steve; Merv Rasmussen; and me. Yes, Pa was losing sleep over me, too, the poor bastard. For three years now I have been one of the reasons why he gets out of bed in the mornings with black rings under his eyes.

Pa’s eyes. Among the traits which I am anxious not to inherit from my father, the eyes feature prominently. I roll off the sofa, walk over to the mirror resting on the fireplace and regard myself. What I am looking for is any sign that my eyeballs are losing their alignment. Pa has a wall-eye — a lazy eye. The left eye points in the correct direction but the other eye, the lazy one, looks about a foot to the right. In this respect, Pa has been unlucky. The divergence of his gaze is sufficient to confuse the onlooker, but not quite marked enough to reveal quickly to him which eye is the focused one. To obscure this defect, Pa has taken to wearing tinted glasses, phototonic shades which darken or lighten in accordance with the air’s luminousness. The ploy has not come off for him. I am afraid that the main effect of Pa’s shades and the just-visible wall-eye beneath them is to give him an insecure, shifty air.