Your Kids' Friends

           Your friend's nose isn't the only thing in life that you can't pick.  When your kids are big enough to make their own friends and your opinion on who is a suitable companion for them doesn’t count any more, you realize that from here on in you’re going to have to be a more tolerant and accepting person than you ever had plans to be.  Or at least that you're going to have to fake being tolerant and then gripe and whinge about it in a blog like I’m doing.

            Actually, for the most part I’ve been lucky.  Although my kids have at times taken a shine to someone with poor manners or compromised personal hygiene it has generally been  a flow of good-hearted little people through our door.  Same with the mothers.  There has been the odd one that I suspected of being a closet psychopath and another who never once looked me in the eye during the entire year our kids went to each others’ houses. But I’ve also made some really good friends this way. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

            Yesterday I lost.

            Dude hadn’t exactly invited the boy to our house.  The boy, whom I shall call Geraldo because really, that name just doesn’t get used enough, has not been Dude’s friend for long.  In fact, I’d never heard Dude mention his name until last week and then it was in reference to World of Warcraft, the online game Dude is addicted to.  Apparently Geraldo plays it too, and, critically, is allowed to play it for as many hours as he wishes. 

            Dude had accepted two invitations during the week to go to Geraldo’s house and so when Geraldo phoned again yesterday morning I told Dude he ought to insist Geraldo came to our house this time, out of courtesy.  

            Dude insisted, Geraldo acquiesced, and the appointment was set. When Dude hung up the phone he said, “Well, he’s coming but I don’t know what he’s going to do while he’s here.”

            “What do you mean?” I said. “You spent seven hours at his house the other day.  What did you guys do all that time?”

            Dude shuffled. “We played video games.”

            “The entire time?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Didn’t his mom tell you to stop at some point?”

            “No.  Geraldo gets to play as much as he wants.  His parents don’t put a limit on his gaming time,” he added wistfully.

            I nodded grimly.  I was beginning to understand why Dude, with his restricted computer hours, had been keen to go to Geraldo’s house.

            “He also gets to stay home whenever we have school field trips,” Dude said.  “And while we’re out on our field trip he plays video games all day long.  He’s a bit fat.”

           

            I’d met Geraldo’s mom briefly at the school during curriculum night when I’d been startled out of a peaceful reverie in a darkened classroom while waiting for the teacher to come and give her talk.  Geraldo’s mom burst into the room in full cry, stepping on the heels of the teacher as she entreated her to take special care with Geraldo who was “capable of excelling but only if given adequate direction”. 

            What is it with parents who regard general information sessions like curriculum night as appropriate times to get in some one-on-one dialogue with the teacher about their own kid?

             I dread school meetings for this reason.  Our school principal, an excellent speaker and most likeable fellow, always precedes the evening’s information session with the polite suggestion that people hold their questions till the end of the talk.  But some people just can’t wait till the end.  And even though there are three hundred other parents sitting in the auditorium and tonight’s topic is the International Baccalaureate, it’s okay to stick up your hand and ask the principal why the school doesn’t offer violin as a band instrument because your darling Fou Fou is showing a natural gift for the violin and it’s just a shame a real shame that her budding talent is to wither on the vine. 

            While the auditorium full of parents sits silently listening to this not one of us stands up and says, “It’s a heartbreaking story, lady, but did you notice that there are three hundred other parents in this room, all of us needing to get home to make supper or grade papers and that there might be a more appropriate time for you to ask the principal about violin lessons for your daughter?  And by the way, did you know that in addition to violin the school also neglects to offer Mandarin, quilting and animal husbandry?  It can’t offer everything.  Spring for some private lessons, man.”

            It wasn’t that Geraldo’s mother seemed in any way unkind, and her loud voice and cattle-dogging of the teacher were not meant to offend anyone.  Moreover, she wasn’t snobby and in Beirut that is worth something.

            I had to give Geraldo’s mom directions to our building.  You’ll recall from previous blogs how much I enjoy giving directions here in Lebanon.  It’s not just that there are few known street names. Lebanese people are deeply opposed to any orientation lexicon other than ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘behind’ and ‘in front of’.  They will not use a phrase such as ‘on the north side’ and won’t understand you if you do.  Nor can you say, “It’ll be on your left if you’re going towards the sea.”  When you say that, they think you’re telling them to drive all the way to the seafront.  It’s a very tiring procedure.

            Geraldo’s mom made it worse by shouting at her kids while on the phone with me.  Several times she shouted at them, without warning, while I was in mid-sentence. From the nonstop background voices I guessed she had about six children in the car with her.  Luckily she was a quick study and found our place without much trouble.

            Geraldo turned out to be more or less a chip off the maternal block, although in this case the chip was bigger than the block.  We could hear his voice before he came in the front door.  Dude had gone down in the elevator to meet him when he was dropped off and through our steel-cored front door we could hear a loud, tuneless voice and I knew right away it had to be Geraldo.

            He strolled through the doorway as if he owned the place, giving me a thumbs up as he did so.  He wasn’t exactly rude, just afflicted with what I’d call misguided confidence. 

            He was a large boy, as Dude had mentioned, and he carried all the extra weight on his thighs and belly. This is just not a good look for a male of any age or species.  But, I told myself, who was I to judge?

            The boys closed themselves up in the bedroom to get down to the video gaming marathon they had planned.  I could hear Geraldo’s voice all the way through the house.  Noonie and I exchanged a look and I said, “Oh, I don't know about this guy.” 

         “Yeah, I know.”

          “But no, I mustn't think like this.  We live in Lebanon now.  We have to make new friends and sure, they’re going to be different than our old friends.  We have to adapt and not keep comparing.”

            Brave words, I thought, as I heard Geraldo exclaiming loudly in language that hadn’t been heard in our house since the time I’d brought home a 50 Cent CD in a misguided effort to get M some music for his car.

             Dude had warned me that Geraldo swore and in fact I’d overheard him telling Geraldo on the phone that he wasn’t to swear at our house.  Sure enough, Dude’s much lower, gentler voice followed the outburst in a tone of diplomatic reproof.

            When I called the boys for lunch Geraldo sat down to the take-out barbequed chicken with good will.  He said no thanks to my offer of Pepsi because, he explained loudly, he had become overweight from drinking too much of it.  

            He asked me for a glass of water and then turned enthusiastically to the chicken.  When Dude got up to get himself one of the apple flavoured fizzy drinks he likes from the fridge Geraldo bade him grab one for him, too.

            “What about the diet?” Dude said.

            “These only have half the sugar of Pepsi,” Geraldo boomed, grabbing the bottle and wrenching off the cap.

            M, now over on the couch, asked Geraldo if he knew how to speak Arabic.  As Geraldo’s mother and father are both Lebanese we knew he must be able to speak it even if he didn’t do so at school.

            “I go to the American school, what do you think?” Geraldo said without turning around, his back towards M.

            M looked at me and I looked back at him.  I thought M was going to give the kid a piece of his mind but he didn’t.  Like me, he must have sensed that there was no intention to be rude.  But still.

            “Well, that was a good first course but now I’m ready for the main course,” proclaimed Geraldo.

            “There is no other course,” said Dude. “Aren’t you full?”

            “Yeah, I am, I was just kidding,” said Geraldo.

            M leaned towards me and whispered, “I don't think he was.”

 

            After lunch M went in to the bedroom to take a nap and Noonie and I stayed in the family room.  The boys went back to Dude’s bedroom to continue the video games. 

            A half hour later there was a tremendous banging of doors and locking and unlocking sounds and I peered through the glass hall door to see the bathroom light on and Dude going into his room.  From this I deduced that Geraldo was in the bathroom and that his short journey from Dude’s room to the toilet had produced the series of loud sounds we’d just heard.

            “What’s going on in there?” Noonie asked.  “Baba’s going to be mad if they wake him up.”

            “I think it was Geraldo going into the bathroom,” I said.

            “Sheesh.  Can’t that kid do anything quietly?”

            The phone rang.  I saw that it was M’s number which meant that he was calling from the bedroom.  “Oh no, it’s Baba, they’ve woken him up.”

            “Tell those boys,” said M crisply, “If they don’t quiet down there’s going to be trouble.”

            “Well, it’s not Dude being noisy, you know,” I began, but M had already hung up.

            I went through to Dude’s room and poked my head in.  “Baba got woken up by all that  racket and he’s not happy.  Can you tell Geraldo to try to be a little quieter?”

            “I’ll try,” he said.

            On my way back past the bathroom I had the extreme misfortune to overhear sounds from within that put me in mind of a pail of chowder being dumped into a pond, with an accompanying horn quartet.

            I hastened past the bathroom and through the hall door which I shut quickly behind me. 

            “What’s going on?” said Noonie.

            “Well, either Geraldo’s colon just exploded or a full-grown cow somehow got into the bathroom and is making use of the toilet.”

            “Oh no.”

            “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

            I fell into gloomy silence, planning how I would sterilize the bathroom as soon as Geraldo went home.

            After a while the sounds ceased and the loud clicking of the lock and door handle recommenced.  I heard Geraldo going back down the hall to Dude’s room.

            “You know,” Noonie said, “I never actually heard the toilet flush while he was in there.”

            “What!” I squeaked. “Are you sure?”

            “Well, I wasn’t exactly listening for it but yeah, I’m pretty sure he didn’t flush.”

            “Oh dear heaven.” I clutched the edge of the couch.  “Well, there’s nothing else for it.  I’ve got to go in there.  And the sooner the better.”

            I stood up and paused. “You know, I don’t hear the fan, either.

            Noonie cocked her head to listen.  “No, the fan is definitely not on.”

            “I’m going in,” I said. “If I don’t come back in ten minutes call an ambulance.”

            I pulled my t-shirt up over my nose and mouth, opened the hall door and went through to the bathroom.  Very slowly I pushed open the door and poked my head in.

            The lights had been left on inside. The bathmat, normally found in front of the shower, had been dragged over to the base of the toilet and scrunched up all around it, as if applied in haste for the purpose of blotting up spilled liquid.

            The toilet, I found to my inexpressible relief, had not been left entirely unflushed.  It needed a second flushing to make it presentable but considering what I might have had to face it was very reasonable.  I gave it an extra flush for good luck, switched on the fan and got out of there.

           

            The boys stayed in the bedroom for a long time after that.  I was sitting at the computer when Geraldo burst into the family room.  I watched in surprise as he pulled his shoes noisily out of the shoe closet, opened the front door and stepped out onto the landing.  Dude, coming behind, was saying, “Okay, I'll see you later.”

            “Yeah, see you,” said Geraldo.

            “He’s going home?” I asked.

            “Yeah, he called his mom a little while ago and his driver is in front of the building now.”

            It was strange to say the least.  I was sitting right there, I mean, literally a couple of yards away from the front door and Geraldo hadn’t even looked at me on his way out. 

            Lebanese people are so gracious and well mannered in these situations --greetings and partings and so on -- that I could hardly believe what had just happened.  I didn’t expect him to say, “Thank you very much for having me over, Mrs. Lovely,” but how about a nod on the way out?

            “Bye Geraldo, thanks for coming,” I called.

            I could see him through the partly open door, waiting for the elevator.  He made no reply.

           

            In the evening I went in to Dude’s room and found his desk chair lying on its side amongst a sprinkling of wood splinters.  One leg was broken right off.

            “What the --?” I cried, falling to my knees and grabbing up the broken end of the chair leg. 

            It was a solid wood chair of sturdy construction.  The leg had been fixed to the seat by a long bolt and reinforced with two wooden pins at the seat level and another where it joined the other leg.  The bolt had been torn right through the wood.

            “Dude,” I called.

            He appeared in the doorway. “Yeah?”

            “‘Yeah?’ What do you mean, ‘yeah?’” I said. “What happened here? Were you guys jumping on this chair?”

            “No,” Dude said, “Geraldo was just sitting on it and it broke.”

            “Just sitting on it?  I don’t think so.  It couldn’t have broken in this way by someone just sitting on it.  Look at this, how the bolt has been torn through the wood. It needed some serious lateral stress to achieve that.”

            “Well, maybe he was leaning to the side a little,” said Dude.  “But I’m telling you he wasn’t jumping or anything, just sitting.”

            I looked at him.  “You sit on that chair every day and manage not to break it.  I use that chair to stand on when I get stuff out of high closets.  It’s a very strong chair. Or, rather, it was.”

            Dude nodded glumly. 

            I looked at him and thought, why am I making him feel bad?  It’s not his fault Geraldo broke the chair.  And even if Geraldo didn’t ooze charm from every pore he was still a friend.

            “Hey,” I said. “Why don’t you bring me the wood glue and we'll see if we can't fix this chair.”