Swearing: A Bedtime Story

By John Grolchalski

I was putting the kid to bed. The eight-year-old. He was my Brother's kid. We were in his bedroom and the floor was covered with Legos and Star Wars shit. The TV was on and Junior was on the bed, his pajamas half on, and his eyes glued to the video game screen. I hated video games. They rotted brains. But what did I really know? I was a no good drunk living with his relatives. I suppose everyone has a vice. In truth, I liked mine. I actually wanted to get back to my beer as soon as I cleaned the room and got that kid into bed. If only he'd go to bed.

"You care to help?" I asked, looking down at the carnage of toys. The kid had too many toys.

No answer.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

"I know."

"Then answer me. Don't your parents teach you any manners?"

Junior sighed. "I just want to finish this level, Uncle Ray."

"Fine," I answered. I gave up. I let the little bastard play his video game while I cleaned the room. When it was spotless I went back down to the living room and had some beer.

"I'm ready for bed now!" Junior shouted.

I took a long pull on my beer. "Good. Then go to sleep."

"I need a story and a tuck-in!"

"A what?"

"Uncle Ray, you know mommy and daddy read me a story every night, and then they tuck me in."

"Do they make you clean up your own room, too?" I asked.

"Come on."

"I'm coming." So I took a last pull on my beer, draining the whole bottle, and climbed wearily back up the stairs.

Junior was in his bed but the overhead light was on, and so was the TV. I shut the light off and made the kid put on his lamp. I shut the idiot box off, too. I should've thrown it out the window. What eight-year-old has a TV in their room? My brother was a goddamned pushover and his kid was an albatross. I had a so-so relationship with both. Mostly I thought my brother was a money-grubbing shell of a man who worked for the government and his kid was a functioning illiterate who pounded his head into walls to stave off boredom and the demons trying to contact him from beyond. The kid would probably grow up to kill someone. What a family! They were the picture of suburban, consumerist gloom. I didn't like my brother's wife either.

"Okay," I said looking around at the job I did on the room. "What are we reading?"

Junior pulled a picture book out from under his sheet and handed it to me.

"Jerkov and the Six Hoodlums," I said. "Never heard of it."

"Medusa wrote it," Junior said. "She's this singer my mom likes."

"I know who Medusa is."

"Do you like Medusa?" Junior asked.

"No."

"Oh."

"Anyway, do I have to read this? I mean, don't you have any other books?" I went over to the bookshelf next to Junior's bed. It was filled with tons of picture books and a few intermediary books like Harry Potter, shit the kid would probably never read once the video games took his mind completely. I put the Medusa book back and pulled out another. It was written by an actor from a famous sitcom. I put it back and tried again. The next book was worse. A comedian past his prime had written it. A talk show host wrote the one after that and the book after that was written by a jock. "Shit, kid. Your books are terrible. Don't you have anything good? Where's the Frances? Where are Harold and his purple goddamned crayon?"

Junior's eyes bugged out of his head. "You owe me two quarters!"

"Fifty cents?" I gave up and put the last book back and sat down on Junior's bed, defeated. "What do I owe you two quarters for?"

"You said two swear words. You said the S-word, and then you took the Lord's name in vain."

I thought for a second. "I guess I did. But I'm not giving you a dime let alone fifty cents." Junior frowned. "Go ahead and be pissy. That sort of extortion might work on your folks, but I'm a real adult and I don't let little kids take money from me. Plus it's my right to swear now that I'm grown. You'll learn as an adult you don't have many more rights than you did when you were a kid. You gotta grab what you can. Besides kid, I need my money. We can't all be like your daddy and have big homes and government jobs."

"What's a government job?" The kid asked.

"Never mind," I said. "We got bigger issues at hand. We got no story to read. I didn't bring anything with me and I can't read any of your books."

"Why?"

"I have standards and discretion."

"What're those?"

I looked at Junior's bookshelf. "Two things your mommy and daddy might need if they're going to continue to buy you things. If you were my kid your shelves would be filled with all the greats. You'd have Dahl and C.S. Lewis. I'd buy you Charlotte's Web. And then I'd have Hamsun and Hemingway just waiting in the wings for when you got older. I'd even read you Huck Finn."

"I already saw the Huckleberry Finn Disney movie," Junior said.

"I figured you did."

The kid frowned. "Mommy doesn't like the book because it says bad things about black people in it."

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Swearing: A Bedtime Story

By John Grolchalski