"Give you a nine point five, Dad, your personal best — too bad the VCR's busted, we could've taped it."
"I'm workin' on it."
She looked at him evenly. "We really need a new one."
"All I need's the money, Trooper, I can't even keep enough groceries in this place."
"Oh, no. I know what that means. Fat talk! What am I supposed to do? Isn't me that's leaving all these cakes and pies and stuff layin' around, candy bars in the freezer, Nestle's Quik instead of sugar, eeoo! What chance have I got?"
"Hey, all's I was talkin' about was money, kid. Who's been makin' you crazy with fat talk?"
The girl's head on its long smooth neck and vertebrae gave a small precision turn and tilt, as if slipping into an adjustment that would allow her to talk with her father. "Oh . . . maybe one or two remarks lately from the Big I."
"Oh great, yes, the well-known punker diet expert — named himself after what again, some robot?"
"After Isaiah Two Four, a verse in the Bible," shaking her head I-give-up slowly, "which your friends his hippie-freak parents laid on him in 1967, about converting from war to peace, beating spears into pruning hooks, other idiot peacenik stuff?"
"Well both of you just better watch 'at shit, 'd it ever occur to you maybe oP R2D2's just cheap, and doesn't want to buy you any more food than he has to? What's he doing? What does he let you eat?"
"Love is strange, Dad, maybe you forgot that."
"I know love is strange, known it since 1956, including all those guitar breaks. You're in love with this individual, well, maybe you forget, I already know him, I can remember all you guys trick or treatin' not so long ago and let me tell you, any kid who shows up at the door as 'Jason' from Friday the 13th [1980], please, take it from an old mental case, he's in some trouble."
Prairie sighed. "Everybody was Jason that year. He's a classic now, like a Frankenstein, and so what, I don't see how you could have any kind of a problem with that. Isaiah has always admired you, you know."
"What?"
"For jumping through all those windows. He's studied every inch of all your videotapes. Says you were nearly speared a couple of times."
"Nearly, ah. . . ."
"Glass falls straight down out of the window frame," she explained, "in these big sharp spears? heavy enough to go right through ya? Isaiah says all his friends have remarked on how awesomely cool you always look, how unaware of the danger."
White and nauseated, he was still able to peer dubiously out of one eye. No point telling her about the fake window today, she looked so sincere, even, unnaturally, admiring, good time to just dummy up. But was it true, was it possible, had he been that close to death or major surgery each previous fun-filled time? How, then, unless he could count on sugar windows from here on in, could he expect to bring in any more revenue this way? Heck — he should have been working for a Joey Chitwood-type thrill show all this time and making some real money.
". . . and I think you and Isaiah could even do some Business," Prairie had evidently been saying, " 'cause I know he'd be willing, and all you'd have to do's keep an open mind."
Zoyd didn't know what she was talking about, but forced himself to think chirpy. "Long as he don't open it for me," having then to dodge the athletic shoe, luckily without her foot in it, that came whizzing past his ear.
"You are judging him by his haircut, his haircut alone," shaking her finger, trying for something between neighborhood scold and soap-opera Chief of Psychiatric. "You've turned into exactly the same kind of father that used to hassle you, back when you were a teen hippie freak."
"Sure I was at least as heavy duty of a menace to the public as your boyfriend is today, but never did any of us in my generation show up late at night at somebody's door in no hockey mask, carryin' around all these lethal blades, even somethin' looked like a pruning hook? and you're telling me we can do business? What Business, summer-camp renovation?" He started throwing Chee-tos at her, scattering vividly orange crumbs all over.
"I'm workin' on it."
She looked at him evenly. "We really need a new one."
"All I need's the money, Trooper, I can't even keep enough groceries in this place."
"Oh, no. I know what that means. Fat talk! What am I supposed to do? Isn't me that's leaving all these cakes and pies and stuff layin' around, candy bars in the freezer, Nestle's Quik instead of sugar, eeoo! What chance have I got?"
"Hey, all's I was talkin' about was money, kid. Who's been makin' you crazy with fat talk?"
The girl's head on its long smooth neck and vertebrae gave a small precision turn and tilt, as if slipping into an adjustment that would allow her to talk with her father. "Oh . . . maybe one or two remarks lately from the Big I."
"Oh great, yes, the well-known punker diet expert — named himself after what again, some robot?"
"After Isaiah Two Four, a verse in the Bible," shaking her head I-give-up slowly, "which your friends his hippie-freak parents laid on him in 1967, about converting from war to peace, beating spears into pruning hooks, other idiot peacenik stuff?"
"Well both of you just better watch 'at shit, 'd it ever occur to you maybe oP R2D2's just cheap, and doesn't want to buy you any more food than he has to? What's he doing? What does he let you eat?"
"Love is strange, Dad, maybe you forgot that."
"I know love is strange, known it since 1956, including all those guitar breaks. You're in love with this individual, well, maybe you forget, I already know him, I can remember all you guys trick or treatin' not so long ago and let me tell you, any kid who shows up at the door as 'Jason' from Friday the 13th [1980], please, take it from an old mental case, he's in some trouble."
Prairie sighed. "Everybody was Jason that year. He's a classic now, like a Frankenstein, and so what, I don't see how you could have any kind of a problem with that. Isaiah has always admired you, you know."
"What?"
"For jumping through all those windows. He's studied every inch of all your videotapes. Says you were nearly speared a couple of times."
"Nearly, ah. . . ."
"Glass falls straight down out of the window frame," she explained, "in these big sharp spears? heavy enough to go right through ya? Isaiah says all his friends have remarked on how awesomely cool you always look, how unaware of the danger."
White and nauseated, he was still able to peer dubiously out of one eye. No point telling her about the fake window today, she looked so sincere, even, unnaturally, admiring, good time to just dummy up. But was it true, was it possible, had he been that close to death or major surgery each previous fun-filled time? How, then, unless he could count on sugar windows from here on in, could he expect to bring in any more revenue this way? Heck — he should have been working for a Joey Chitwood-type thrill show all this time and making some real money.
". . . and I think you and Isaiah could even do some Business," Prairie had evidently been saying, " 'cause I know he'd be willing, and all you'd have to do's keep an open mind."
Zoyd didn't know what she was talking about, but forced himself to think chirpy. "Long as he don't open it for me," having then to dodge the athletic shoe, luckily without her foot in it, that came whizzing past his ear.
"You are judging him by his haircut, his haircut alone," shaking her finger, trying for something between neighborhood scold and soap-opera Chief of Psychiatric. "You've turned into exactly the same kind of father that used to hassle you, back when you were a teen hippie freak."
"Sure I was at least as heavy duty of a menace to the public as your boyfriend is today, but never did any of us in my generation show up late at night at somebody's door in no hockey mask, carryin' around all these lethal blades, even somethin' looked like a pruning hook? and you're telling me we can do business? What Business, summer-camp renovation?" He started throwing Chee-tos at her, scattering vividly orange crumbs all over.