RAW MATERIAL

“Go feed Daddy,” I said to my daughter Janice.

Needing something special from him, I had prepared a tray of cheeseburgers and french fries for his lunch.

Janice whined as usual—you know what nine-year-olds are like—but I said (again) that if she didn’t take her responsibilities seriously then what kind of adult would she grow into?

“You have two choices,” I told her, “you can either feed Daddy or you can spend the rest of your life being gnawed at by the horrible guilt which will be your due and from which there is no escape.”

She fed Daddy, grumbling, mind you, but grumbling I can stand as long as they make the right decision. You can never let up with children; you must always be rigidly predictable in your responses to them. Some day I will write a book about this; child rearing is so obvious it hurts.

Janice reported back that Daddy liked his lunch but had smeared it all over his face again and that when she didn’t laugh at his joke he got upset and started spitting at her.

Not for the first time did it occur to me that much of child rearing is like dog obedience: rules and expectations must be ruthlessly repeated, a monotonous chore to be sure, but so necessary in the proper handling of nine-year-olds, who are strange creatures at best—as Janice is, mostly teeth and argument and entirely without style: baseball hat, party dress, gumboots.

“Your father-daughter relationship will suffer needlessly if you fail to laugh at Daddy’s jokes,” I told her (again), “which means that you’re going to have to clean him up or we’ll never get any work done this afternoon and I’m beginning to feel desperate for a fresh idea.”

We headed off towards the study at the other end of the rancher; already we could hear Daddy’s shouting as he banged at his cage.

Janice kept up her toneless chatter all the while needing eye contact and “uh-huh” from me at regular intervals. She was saying something about not having adequate peer relationships because of all the time she had to spend assisting with Daddy and what kind of learning experience was it anyway if all she ever got to do was clean his cage or run the video equipment?

“I can see how you might feel,” I told her. (You’ve got to give them some expression or they will turn into teenage time bombs.)

“However,” I added, “you will soon be entering pre-adolescence and that is the time when you must start to emancipate your ego from the solipsistic concerns that now absorb you and begin to consider the welfare of the world at large. In your case, this will take the form of service to Art.

Janice replied snottily with something about my stage of life being an impossible one and that when she has children of her own she will never make them serve Art no matter how creatively important it is.

Fortunately her nattering stopped when we reached Daddy and his cage.

“Oh dear,” I said when I saw him.

He was in his usual place, all right, bouncing on the recliner rocker that sits in the centre of the cage but he had smeared ketchup and mustard all over his handsome face and several bread-and-butter pickles sat atop his head.

Janice smirked nastily, a gesture that seemed to be directed at me.

“Laugh now,” I said, “but where was your laughter when it was needed?” There are times when I forget that I love Janice.

She got the pail and washcloth and I unlocked the cage door. It isn’t a lot of work for her, the washing of Daddy’s face and tidying his cage, but enough to warrant her two-dollar-a-week allowance. Children must learn the value of money and this is why I insist that Janice save at least half of her weekly allowance for something worthwhile. I believe she’s saving up for an elephant.

Daddy doesn’t mind having Janice in his cage. In fact, there are times when it seems he prefers playing Crazy Eights with her to having his weekly conjugal visit from me. He reassures me, though, that his card playing with Janice is important to him, a welcome respite from the vigorous demands that my creativity places upon him. All told, we three are a happy family and this is not often the case with families who serve Art.

But it was time for me to be stern with Daddy: this food on the face routine had been hilarious six weeks back but he had been doing it every day since and it was becoming downright stale. What’s the point, I reasoned, of caging up your inspiration if all it yielded was stuck records? His original action, certainly, had resulted in quite a lively story, an apt metaphor for our materialistic times, and I had been screamingly pleased with Daddy then for suggesting it but now it was time for some fresh material.

Janice, I noticed, had now changed into her visor and she and Daddy were facing each other sitting cross-legged on the cage floor in preparation for a game of cards. Janice was dealing.

“Daddy,” I whispered through the bars, “you’re going to have to come up with something new. I need a new line, something unexpected. A brand new angle. I’m running out of raw material.”

Daddy put down his cards and, sighing, pushed at the stacks of post-modern fiction that littered the cage. I was beginning to wonder if he ever read the stuff.

“Is there anything left over from your days at the steel mill that I haven’t used?” I prompted. “Some funny little thing you used to do? Some quirky little thought you used to have?”

He shook his head morosely, picked up a copy of the New York Times Review of Books and softly tore at its pages. I could see that he was feeling his failure.

I motioned for Janice to absent herself from the cage. Nine-year-olds do not understand nuance: you have to spell out everything for them.

“Did you look at that piece on popular culture?” I asked. “Or that new theory of Disengagement that was highlighted in Scientific American?

Daddy grunted.

“Nothing?”

Daddy grunted again.

“What about vanishing grizzly bears? The nuclear threat?” I cried, exasperation setting in. “Have you not had any dreams? Is there nothing left for me to use?”

What if my inspiration is drying up, I thought with alarm. What if Daddy never yields another gem and our family business has to shut down? No more making of important fiction? Bankrupt Art? What if I have to change careers in mid-story?

Janice, meanwhile, had climbed out the study window.

Let her go, I thought. As a parent you should never take out your personal frustrations on your child; who knows what abnormal psychology they might indulge in, later on, if you do.

I had, of course, seen it coming. Daddy’s off-the-wall comments, his bizarre antics (all those videos!) had become less and less frequent this past while. I had produced three volumes of short fiction based upon the inspiration I received from Daddy, but perhaps now he had nothing new to give me.

Janice climbed back in the window, pulling the garden hose behind her.

“What on earth?” I started to say just as she activated the nozzle.

A terrific gush, a quelling protester sort of gush, sprayed Daddy, the cage, the books, papers, myself.

Janice of the crazed eye manoeuvred behind the hose, all teeth and elbows, laughing maniacally.

“God is deader than thou!” she screamed.

Daddy and I, amidst the hosing, exchanged glances. “God is deader than thou!” Say it again, Janice. “God is deader than thou!”

An interesting indictment. Existential possibilities. (Juices flowing.) Children’s literature? An epic poem?

But that’s the joy of child rearing, I reflected, as Daddy and I wrestled the hose from Janice and locked her in the cage: you never know what they will come up with next. Fresh ideas! New angles! So important not to stifle their creative urges, to keep their little minds ticking over with wonder, excitement, awe. (Is there something to be done with elephants?)

Children have a crucial role to play in the service of Art. I’ve often said it’s the handling that counts, it all comes down to providing them with a proper home environment: nourishing food, clear guidelines and a healthy respect for their place in the untoward scheme of things.