Attention Babysitters:
Need to flatten a
bump in the night?
Problems pacifying
your prepubescent youths because of purported bedtime boogeymen?
Nocturnal nasties
keeping kids awake and active?
For a fee, we fight
fanged fiends, banish bedroom beasts, and topple troublesome terrors.
Call us to calm your
churlish charges.
MARCUS AND MARLIN MARDIS:
MASTER MONSTER MURDERERS
(demons by appointment)
Tuesday, June 25, 1996
The First Flyer of the Rest of Our Lives
or
Birth of a Salesman
“Why not
Marlin and Marcus?”
“Because,” I told Marlin as she studied the poorly scrawled writing, “it’s alphabetical and it rolls off the tongue better. And,” I emphasized the last bit by snatching the piece of paper away from her, “I wrote it.” There was a mess of words crossed out, rewritten, circled. It looked like it was done by a serial killer, a fact not helped by the words killers, hunters, massacre-ers, fighters, worriers, and mashers had been lined through.
She reached
for it, only to give up mid-grab to slap my arm, “A: I helped, and 2: I was
born first. It should be Marlin and
Marcus.”
“You
cut off my finger,” I told her in a mockingly haughty sneer, “I’m keeping it as
Marcus and Marlin.”
Marlin
let out an exaggerated sigh, “Are you going to hold that over me our entire
lives?”
“Just
this one time.”
We
shook hands. “Deal.”
Neither
of us moved as deep thought took hold.
Conceptually, it was easy enough: take our talent for performative
babysitting on the road, only instead of babysitting, we only stay long enough
to make sure the baby being sat is secure enough in their boogeyman situation
to not cause the sitter of sat baby any problems. Cater directly to the teenage babysitter that
is just like so over trying to get a child to bed, and would give
anything[1] to have a quiet night of
watching TV, eating free food, and probably inviting a boyfriend or girlfriend
over to a mostly empty house. We could
then, in theory, get a handful of houses a night, not have any kind of real
responsibility for a human being, and plant the seeds of engineered
obsolescence by suggesting the monsters may come back so we avoid running
ourselves out of business on our first visit.
As a niche market, it did not get any more niche.
Hopefully,
that would be the pitch given to mom and dad.
Mom, being mom, we were not worried about in the slightest. Really it fell on dad to buy into it,
literally, as we needed some investment capital on the front side to get
everything started.
No plan
survives contact with the enemy, and of course our father, being our father,
got the drop on us. We came down early
to find he and mom sitting on the couch together in the remains of The Fort,
now just the living room. Cleaning and
dismantling everything had taken an effort of will, but was surprisingly pain
and drowsiness free; everyone expected the healing processes of my missing
finger to be an ordeal and not the minor inconvenience it was,[2] though I was not about to
disabuse anyone of their expectation.
“Good
morning, trouble children,” he greeted us without even turning around. Overhead he held two envelopes in our
direction, “I got you something.”
Mom
giggled, “Tell your father thank you.”
“Thank
you?” we told-asked him. “What is it?”
He
patted the couch for us to join them with a deranged smile on his usually jolly
face. “An itemized bill! Covers everything from the damaged items in
the shop to the deductible I had to pay for your hospitalization. Thank Christ for insurance. You are, as of this moment essentially
indentured servants until,” he made a show of checking his watch, “you die, we
die, you win the lottery, you turn 18 and leave the house, or you pay us
back. Or any combination thereof. The cost is split down the middle because
you’re equally at fault.”
“So,
ha,” I started, “funny story about that.”
“Oh, a
funny story? Please do entertain
me. I could so very much use a laugh
right now.” Dad’s joviality was
obviously forced, but it was forced in a way that made it equal parts sarcastic
and genuine and not being able to read him in that moment was extremely off
putting.
I continued
uncertainly, “We actually, kind of, maybe have an idea about that.”
“The
paying you back thing,” Marlin added.
“Before
we die or turn 18 at least,” I also added.
“But,”
Marlin also also added.
“But?”
asked dad.
“But,”
Marlin took a deep breath and spoke at speed without pause, “the thing is, that
we were talking about, is that we need money, not a lot, and some supplies,
like the sword and the knife, and some stuff for our bikes for repairs so we
can use them, but we’ll pay you back, everything we owe, plus interest, because
we think we could totally make some serious cash off this idea as long as we it
going and as a small business owner we were hoping to appeal to that side of
you and you should think of it as a small business loan and also as having
faith in your entrepreneurial children and we would stick to doing it and not
give up as long as we needed to, and we wouldn’t need any extra assistance
because we’d have the bikes, and it’d be exclusively at night and could always
take nights off to watch Soren if you needed us to but we’d be around during
the day to do chores and watch him, so really it works out for everyone.” She panted.
It was as close to the pitch as either of us could have hoped while
getting ambushed, I suppose.
“Or an
early birthday present?” I said, less than helpfully, into the ensuing shocked
silence.
“Have
the two of, mind you I’m asking as your loving father, completely lost your
fu,” mom shot him a look, “completely lost your minds? Are you actually my children? Did you somehow get replaced by parasites in
the last 36 hours? I’ll not have any
body-swappery in this household. Need I
remind you that we are,” he looked at mom for confirmation, but finding none
took a mental step back, “that I am still incredibly furious with you
two.” Whether or not he was fully committed
to that statement was up for debate, as his tone and the spark of mischief in
his eyes suggested otherwise. We were
willing, given the aforementioned events of the past 36 hours, to take him at
face value.
Before
we were able to offer any sort of contrition, the loving voice and quenching
bane of our father’s fiery temper,[3] spoke, “Just hear them
out, you big goofball. Marcus is missing
a finger and Marlin feels absolutely terrible about it.” She gave us a sly wink.
Mollified,
dad leaned over and gave mom an adoring peck on the cheek, causing her to
blush. “Are you going to use that as an
excuse for them for the rest of my life?
“Just
this once, my love.”
“Deal.”
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