by Ivan Terrence
I’m doing the gardening on my forty-third birthday so already I don’t feel great. Then a Tesla shows up. It’s my younger brother, apparently in his new Tesla. If the car were a gift for me it’d be okay – God knows Jimmy can afford it. But no, he gets out with this look on his face: less happy to see me than happy with himself.
‘Happy birthday,’ he says, before immediately being swarmed by my two young children, who appear to like him more than me. He’s always been the cool one: unkempt hair, leather jacket, a new girl on the go every night. Now a Tesla.
I may as well keep gardening, because he is showing my kids the car. A stupid white thing whose curved glass roof looks, literally, like the screen of a locked iPhone. They whistle out they’re going for a ride and I respond with something like ‘Yeah whatever’ before moving out back to do some hedging.
My wife is in apron and jeans and wearing some sort of gloves, telling me not to trim the hedges too short. Well it’s too late now, isn’t it – half of them already done. She has always encouraged me to tolerate Jimmy, all his stupid edges and quirks.
Her interpretation of ‘blood is thicker than water’ is, you stick together forever. My interpretation is, forever we are at war. Jimmy is richer than me. Freer than me. No kids, funnier. He even has a moustache; my face is too narrow for a moustache.
My wife is inside and the hedges are very short. Like little skeletor-trees, all bones and branches. I don’t care. The trimmer ran out of charge and I hurled it across the yard before getting out another one, with a cord.
Same night: my birthday dinner. In spite of committing to it, Jimmy still isn’t here. My girls look great: frocked up, best behaviour. A perfect little family. Entree arrives and we begin nibbling on our garlic bread.
‘Where is Uncle Jimmy?’ the girls say.
‘On his way,’ my darling wife says, onto her second drink and throwing me a glance. ‘You know Uncle Jimmy.’
I excuse myself to the toilet. There I empty my bladder, wash my hands, then check my phone. It’s been vibrating all night – unknown voicemails. I listen back to one: Frank, it’s Jimmy. Something has happened – Jimmy? – I’m at the police station. They’ve got me in custody. I hit someone in my car – the Tesla? – They couldn’t hear it coming. I drove off.
I put away my phone, look into the mirror. The day has gone from terrible to perfect in the space of a voicemail. Happy birthday, Frank! I return to my doting family and tell them, well, Uncle Jimmy won’t be coming because Uncle Jimmy has done something bad. Now he is in jail. Feel free to eat his garlic bread.
Bio:
Ivan Terrence is a high-school teacher, writes in the gaps, and reads and reads and reads.