Neurotic Monsters Need Love Too

So here we are, my dog and I, sitting on the front porch, sipping beer and talking about October.

“You know, October might be our finest month,” I tell the dog. “The crops are in, the hearth is warm. Everywhere you look, there’s some kind of ballgame. Yep, I think October is our finest month.”

The dog looks at me. To him, it’s just another day on our California cul-de-sac. He doesn’t see any crops. He doesn’t see any hearth. All he sees is some middle-aged guy with a beer and a bad haircut.

“Oh, all right,” I say.

I pour a few drops in his bowl. He quickly slurps it up, then sneezes, as if it’s the first beer he’s ever had.

“Bless you,” I say.

Usually we have ice cream together, but tonight it’s beer, a few fizzy sips to salute this fine autumn night. We sit here on the porch like this almost every evening, until those people we live with finally realize that we’re back from our walk.

“Hi, Dad.”

Sure enough, the front door opens and out walk the kids.

They watch the dog finish his beer, then look at the October moon, hanging high in the sky like one of those big movie moons, way larger than it should be.

“Hey Dad, how about a ghost story?” the boy says.

It is a good night for a ghost story, crisp and clear. Earlier, someone up the street lighted a pumpkin. And now the candle has burned down low and is scorching the base of the pumpkin, giving off that scorched-pumpkin smell. Wax and pumpkin, mingling in the night air.

“Yeah, Dad,” says the little red-haired girl. “Tell us a ghost story.”

I pause to let the anticipation build, the way good storytellers do. “You sure you want a ghost story?”

They nod their little heads and squeeze in close, ready for a really good scare.

“Then let me tell you about a telltale heart.”

Before I say the word “heart,” the little red-haired girl bolts for the door. Apparently, she’s heard enough ghost story for one night. The door slams behind her like a gunshot.

“Way to go, Dad,” says my lovely and patient oldest daughter.

“What’d I say?”

“Keep going, Dad,” the boy says.

So I continue my story of the telltale heart, the one that wouldn’t stop beating no matter what. It is one of the few Edgar Allan Poe stories I can remember.

“That’s not scary,” the boy says. “Tell us something scary.”

So I tell them another one, the classic about two teenagers who run out of gas, and how just as the boy is about to walk for help, they hear a radio report about an insane schoolteacher who just escaped from the Home for Insane Schoolteachers, And that everyone should be on the lookout because the escapee has a hook for an arm and breath that smells like cafeteria food. And sometimes he sneaks up behind people and. . . .

“Please, Dad,” says my lovely and patient oldest daughter. “We’ve heard that story, like, 3 million times.”

“Yeah, Dad,” says the boy. “How about something from this century?”

Tough crowd, this crowd. Even the dog is yawning. And the other two have started studying their arm hair. You can always tell you’ve lost an audience when they start studying their arm hair.

“Well,” I say, “I don’t suppose you want to hear about the Malibu Monster.”

“The Malibu Monster?” the boy asks.

So I begin again. This time I speak extra slowly, as if revealing a stock tip, looking right, then left, to make sure no one else is around.

“The Malibu Monster was different from other monsters,” I say. “Better looking. Better dressed. Always had a tan.”

“Even in the winter?” my daughter asks.

“Even in the winter,” I say solemnly.

I tell them how, despite great looks and a great tan, the monster was still an outcast. Because even if you dress well--even if you buy all the right clothes and wear all the right makeup--a monster is still a monster. Especially in Malibu.

“That’s so sad,” my daughter says.

I explain that the monster was constantly having problems with relationships. Hated men. Loved men. Couldn’t live without men.

“Dad, are you sure this is a ghost story?” the boy asks.

“Shhhhh,” his sister says.

She likes this ghost story. It has fashion. It has heartbreak. It has everything a great ghost story should.

“Keep going, Dad,” she says.

So I continue, explaining how one day, just when the Malibu Monster thought her life couldn’t get any worse, it happened.

“What?”

“The doctors took away her fen-phen,” I say.

“Her what?” the boy asks.

“Her fen-phen,” his sister says.

It meant the Malibu Monster had to get up extra early and work out really hard just to shed a few lousy pounds, so that she could look good in a little black cocktail dress and go on meeting men, then losing men, then meeting other men, but never the right man. Because, for the Malibu Monster, the right man was always 5 pounds away.

“And there were other things,” I say.

“What?”

“The Malibu Monster had really bad math anxiety,” I tell them. “And she had Monster Attention Disorder. To top it off, she was completely maxed out on her credit cards.”

“Completely?” my daughter asks.

“Completely.” I say.

They sit there silently, taking this all in, wondering how a modern-day monster could get so messed up so quickly. Wondering if it could happen to them.

“Then what?” the boy asks.

“Then she married her therapist, and they lived happily ever after,” I say.

This puzzles the boy. He doesn’t think monsters should live happily ever after. He doesn’t think monsters should have tans or marry their therapists.

“That’s it?” he asks.

“That’s it,” I say.

“That’s not a ghost story,” he says.

I shrug. My lovely and patient oldest daughter sits there quietly.

“Did they have kids?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I say.

She seems satisfied with this story. It is a story she can believe.

“I’m going to go watch TV,” the boy says.

“Me too,” says my lovely and patient oldest daughter.

The door slams like a gunshot. I look at the dog. The dog looks at me. We are alone again.

“More beer?”

He nods.

“Oh, all right.”