Free Seven Good Reasons Not to Be Good by John Gould

He looks good, he’s lost. A few. How’s Mary?”
    “Mariko, Dad. Remember? And she’s fine. But Dad?”
    “Yes, son?”
    “There’s something I need to say to you.”
    This is
so
not the time to do this. Later in the week maybe, when they’re face to face. Or how about a few years ago, when Mariko first got after him, that would have been the time. “You have to speak your mind, Matt. You have to help him see how deeply he’s wounded you.” To be such banal pop-psych fodder, it didn’t bear thinking. It still doesn’t. She had another crack at him a couple of weeks ago. “Your dad worked with his hands,” she said, “and you admire that, right? But you don’t believe he admires the work
you
do. Not really. Which is why your Zeus energy is all blocked up.”
Zeus energy?
Fricking hell.
    “So go ahead,” says the old man.
    “Just … I wanted to thank you,” says Matt. “For that book you sent me. About crowds in movies?”
    “Oh, okay. Was it good?”
    “Yeah. But it made me … Remember back in high school, that guy, Mr. Kumar?”
    “Mister …?”
    “Kumar. He was a physicist. He was brilliant, but he’d just immigrated from India so he had to be a janitor.”
    “That happens. Nothing wrong with—”
    “No, I know that. But do you remember what I said to you about him one time?”
    “What did you say?”
    “I said I wanted to be as good at something as Mr. Kumar was at chess.”
    “I see.”
    “And do you remember what you said?”
    “Why are you. Quizzing me like this?”
    “I’m not quizzing you. I just—”
    “Have you been. Talking to your mother again?”
    Oh, Christ. “Dad, are you—”
    “That was a. Joke, son.”
    “Right.”
    “Think I’m losing my. Mind, do you?”
    “No, Dad.”
    “Crap. Sorry, tube got snagged. Up there.”
    “You okay?”
    “Yep.”
    “So anyway, what I—”
    “Yes, sorry, son.”
    “Sorry?”
    “You must have work. To do.”
    Work? “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess I better get at ‘er, Dad. Thanks for the call.”
    “But didn’t you. Call me?”
    “Right. You’re right.”
    “Okeydoke.”
    It’s often occurred to Matt that a cool way to classify people would be according to the order in which they open their emails. You’ve got messages from an old buddy, from your new babe or beau, from your boss. Where do you start? Which do you save for last, the pleasure, the pain?
    Matt perches on the end of the bed sipping his second OJ. He switches to the main menu. Down at the bottom, just below Movies (Drama, Comedy, Family, Adult), he finds Internet Access. He locates a cordless keyboard next to the Bible in the top drawer of the bedside table. A few clicks and he’s got his server up.
    Spam? Nothing too extraordinary today, just the standard catalogue of remedies for impotence, loneliness, obesity, poverty, mortality, for all the things that suck about being alive. “Iraqi Most Wanted Cards—Whole Set!!!” That’s new. Apropos of his dink-focused morning Matt starts with “Men, Add Two Inches In Ten Day!!!” By the time he’s done deleting, his busy-man inbox is down to a pitiable three messages.
    The subject line on Mariko’s message is blank, as always. “You don’t put a title on a letter, do you?” The subject line on Nagy’s message is an ominously terse “Stunt.” The subject line on the third message, unfamiliar address, is “egghead with an attitude.” Hm. This is a quotation from Matt’s most recent review, the one that got him sacked. An offended filmmaker? A media flunky? It’s the message Matt most wants to open, so he doesn’t.
    He double-clicks instead, with a sense of oddly lighthearted despair—none of this can actually be
happening,
can it?—on the one from Mariko.
    hey sweets! hope you got there ok. guess you did if you’re reading this!!!!
    Guess so!!!!
    got your message, yeah i’ll call the vet. toto says hi. she’s kneading my thigh here right now.
    With hubby out from underfoot, Mariko will likely