What it Takes

It had been quite the weekend in Las Vegas. Alan had told his wife he was going for a work colleague’s bachelor party, which was only partially a lie. He had attended a bachelor party, as well as several other lucrative private appointments, but they weren’t with colleagues from work. Alan didn’t like lying to Julie, but he knew she just wouldn’t understand. Coming home with over twenty thousand dollars stowed in a manilla envelope somewhat lessened the guilt. It would pay for their next family vacation, help get Julie’s online business up and running and maybe even afford a few new glitzy outfits, with plenty left over to put towards Billy’s college fund.

“Can you believe it?” he asked her, opening the envelope so she could peek in at the wad of cash inside. “I hit a streak at the Black Jack table. Beginner’s luck, I guess.” He had practiced the line in his head so many times that he worried it might sound rehearsed. The way Julie smiled at him with her crescent-moon eyes put his mind at rest. He tucked the envelope back into his carry-on satchel.

“Billy’s playing in his room upstairs,” she said, “He’s missed you. Why don’t you go up and say hello and I’ll put your clothes on to wash?” She reached to take the handle of the luggage case from him.

“That’s ok,” he said, pulling back, making for the stairs. “I can sort this out. There are a few things I didn’t wear so I can put them straight back in the wardrobe. Besides, you’ve had your hands full with him all weekend. I can’t come home and expect you to run around after me as well.”

At the top of the stairs, Billy could be heard vocalising the sound of machine-gun fire and explosions from his bedroom. Alan often wondered how his six-year-old son had become so obsessed with war and violence. He and Julie had always avoided arguing in font of Billy; they had made sure to restrict his screen-time to educational and developmentally rich programming, and they had always shepherded Billy towards the more gender-neutral toys. Other parents had warned them it would prove futile and maybe they were right, but Alan sometimes asked himself if maybe they had taken the wrong child home from the hospital.

“Hey, little guy. How are you doing? Daddy missed you so much.”

With an orthopaedic eye-patch emblazoned with an Angry Bird covering one eye, Billy glanced up at his dad in the doorway, took hold of his Nerf gun and began shooting foam bullets at him.

“Ok, well, I’m going to go put my things away and freshen up in the bathroom and then maybe we can try a proper hello. Sound good?”

Billy pulled the pin on an imaginary grenade and thew it at Alan.

“Love you too, kiddo,” he said, retreating back into the hallway.

In the master bedroom, Alan threw off his satchel and left the wheelie suitcase at the bottom of the bed. It would be safe there for a minute, he thought, rushing into the bathroom. He hadn’t peed since Vegas.

Before leaving the bathroom, he retrieved the screwdriver from the cupboard under the sink. He would need it to remove the panel to the plumber’s access hatch at the back of the wardrobe where he kept his costumes.

Back in the bedroom, Alan felt as though he had stumbled into a crime scene. He struggled to comprehend what he saw; he had only been in the bathroom a moment. The luggage case was splayed open on the bed like a murder victim, spilling red lace lingerie and rhinestone studded stockings. His black notebook sat atop the clothes, open to a list of clients, hotels, room numbers and four-digit prices. Laid out next to the case was his signature red velvet dress. Roxy Midnight’s signature red velvet dress. There might as well have been a white chalk outline around it.

He had hardly processed it all when the chair at Julie’s dressing table swivelled around swiftly to face him. Billy sat with his legs hanging, one of Roxy’s red stilettos dangling from each foot; he stroked Roxy’s voluminous blonde wig which lay in his lap almost purring.

“Hello, Daddy,” he said.

“You found the presents I got for Mommy,” said Alan, suddenly feeling the temperature rising. “We’ve got to keep it a secret though or it will ruin the surprise.” He grinned hopefully at Billy. Billy grinned back. It was clear Billy wasn’t buying it.

“So, you won’t tell, will you? You don’t want to ruin the surprise?” Alan pleaded.

Billy shrugged and stuck a finger up his nose, digging around with reckless abandon.

“Come on now, Billy. What have we said about picking your nose?” Billy continued the excavation, his eye gleefully locked on Alan’s. “Look, how about we make a deal. If you agree not to tell Mommy, you can pick your nose whenever you want.”

The finger came out evidently having hooked a crusty globule of booger, trailing an elastic string of snot. Alan watched, helpless as his son first carefully inspected the artefact and then proceeded to rub it off his fingertips onto the peroxide fibres of Roxy’s five-hundred-dollar wig.

Like a Bomb Disposal Expert approaching a live device, Alan edged slowly forward with his palms outstretched.

“Why don’t you let me take that silly hairy thing for you?” He reasoned, but it was no good. At the sign of an approaching threat, Billy sprang off the chair, pulled the wig onto his head and began marching back and forth, stomping his little feet in the over-sized stilettos across the carpet. He sang tunelessly at the top of his voice.

“La la la,” he taunted mercilessly. “La la la.”

To give him credit, Alan had seen worse performances from professional drag acts. It was a shame that Billy hadn’t embraced the gender-neutral toys; he might have made a fine performer. Quickly dismissing the thought, Alan launched himself at his son.

“Is everything alright up there?” called Julie from downstairs.

“All good, honey,” Alan shouted back. “We’re just… playing”

The two of them were now on the floor, Alan struggling to keep a hold of his son whilst reaching for the wig still swamping the boy’s head, whilst Billy thrashed and kicked, landing Roxy’s four-inch heels hard several times in his father’s stomach.

“Mo…” Alan clasped a hand over Billy’s mouth just in time to muffle the scream and held the boy tight until the kicking and elbowing finally stopped.

“It’s okay,” he assured the boy. “We don’t need Mom. We can talk about this like grown-ups. Agreed?”

Billy nodded.

“If I let go, you’ll be quiet?”

Billy nodded again. Alan loosened his grip over Billy’s mouth, but the child’s teeth clamped down on his hand. While Alan reeled in pain on the floor, Billy squirmed free and was on his feet, kicking off the stilettos at the injured party like projectiles.

“What’s it going to take?” Alan finally cried out, shielding himself from the incoming footwear, but as he asked the question his eyes fell on the few hundred-dollar bills which had fallen out of the manilla envelope on the floor on which his son was now standing.

He knew what it was going to take.

Looking at the dark circles around his eyes in the bathroom mirror the next morning made Alan wish he could wear Roxy’s make-up every day. He felt as though he hadn’t slept at all, but he must have because an image from a dream rattled around his head: a tiny version of Roxy Midnight, complete with blonde wig and red dress loading the chamber of a Civil War era musket and firing it directly at him.

As he reached for his tooth-brush he spotted the screwdriver on the ledge of the sink. He always made sure to put the screwdriver away again after hiding Roxy’s costumes. Had his mind been so occupied that he had forgotten?

“Here you go, Hun,” Julie stood offering him a cup of coffee. He hadn’t heard her come in. “You look like you could use it. How did you sleep?”

“Thanks,” he said. “I didn’t.”

“Do you mind having a word with Billy? He won’t get out of bed. I told him he’d be late for school, but he said that you said it was okay if he had the day off.”

“I did?” He remembered the agreement. “I did. Yeah, I… I thought he might be running a temperature.”

When Billy did eventually join them in the kitchen for breakfast, Julie was folding a basketful of laundry and Alan was sat in his usual seat at the dining table, hovering over his second cup of coffee.

“That’s my place,” demanded Billy.

“But this is where I always sit,” Alan protested. Billy just repeated himself.

“That’s. My. Place.”

Alan sighed, got to his feet and held the chair out, like a waiter at a fancy restaurant, whilst Billy climbed into the seat. He went to pull out the next chair along, but felt the look of a single-eye and an Angry Bird burning into him. He turned to look at Billy. Billy shook his head. Alan gestured at the chair opposite. Billy shook his head again. So, he stood.

Julie had been pouring a bowl of Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut-Butter Crunch for Billy and hadn’t noticed the show of dominance. She added a spoon, put the bowl in front of Billy and went back to the laundry.

“Did you tell Billy about your big win in Las Vegas?” she encouraged. “Maybe we can finally go on that vacation now.”

It had been so long since they had been away that it had become a frequent topic of conversation. Julie had always wanted to see Canada, whilst Alan had heard great things about San Francisco. He had promised her that as soon as they could afford it, they would definitely all get away together, somewhere.

“You know I was thinking about that,” he said. “I was thinking how nice it would be for us all to go and see the Alamo.”

“The Alamo, the Alamo,” cried Billy, between slurps and crunches.

“The Alamo?” Julie exclaimed pulling a pair of blue jeans from the basket.

“Yes. The Alamo. In Texas.” Alan feigned excitement, but he honestly couldn’t imagine a worse destination. He had tried to talk Billy into Hamilton again, or even Disneyland, but Billy wasn’t having any of it: it was either the Alamo in Texas, or the Imperial War Museum in London. The Alamo it was.

“I know where the Alamo is,” said Julie, throwing the half-folded jeans onto a pile and digging into the basket for another garment. “Why would we vacation there? We’re Democrats.”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be educational. Apparently, they do re-enactments.” Billy had told him all about that.

Julie retrieved her hand from the basket, trailing a large red-velvet dress. She held it out like a sailcloth in front of her and smiled at Alan with her crescent-moon eyes.

“We’re going to Canada,” she said.