Girls with Insurance

This is a fact: there are no more places on the Earth's surface left to explore. For the last 100 years or so, every inch of the planet has been discovered and combed over by people or satellites. Our sights are now on the nearby planets, perhaps someday the stars - provided, of course, that we can start to get our damn spaceships off the ground without significant problems.

Mel's dad, on the other hand, has always had other ideas.

Every Friday night, for only God knows how many years, he went into his easy chair in the basement of his house to strap on a pair of completely opaque goggles to his head. For the remainder of the evening and the next two days, he would sit utterly still and quiet, as though he were watching the most fascinating, edge-of-your-seat play of the Super Bowl in slow-motion. He barely ever got up, if only to eat and go to the bathroom every once and again. Mel, my girlfriend, had warned me about this strange behavior before I'd met him. As she'd explained it, he simply felt the only places anyone could truly explore were the places within. As far as she knew, he'd always been this way since her mother had died.

Back then, I actually thought there had to be another reason for this behaviour, and since Mel's mom was long gone and out of the picture, I figured that perhaps talking to him would cough it up. I figured I could even maybe cure him, and thus help stabilize the rather rocky relationship Mel and I were having. (What can I say? I was naïve.) Anyhow, I asked him about it one weekday evening when I got some alone time away from Mel. His answer to me at the time was a little less than direct - my question was simply "answered" by the following question of his own:

"You know what was great about the 1500s, 1600s?" he said, fumbling around on a shelf full of paperweights and useless knick-knacks that looked as though they came from someone's garage sale.

"No idea," I said with a useless shrug.

"Anyone could be an explorer," he said, running a finger along the dusty armchair where he'd sit every weekend. "There was no fucking government with a monopoly on exploration. All you had to do was have a ship, a bit of balls, and off you go."

"I thought European royalty financed a lot of those expeditions," I countered.

"Eh?"

"We learned that in, like, Grade 9. You know, either the King was paying your way, or you had to have friends who were rich or in high - ."

I never got a chance to finish my sentence because, as usual, Mel's dad countered with a comment of his own before I got the chance.

"So what are you and Mel doing this weekend?"

"Same as we always do," I said, with a bit of a sigh and a shrug. "Maybe go rent a movie. Maybe even take over the world, if we're lucky."

The last bit was a joke, but Mel's dad seemed to either not "get it" or not care, as evident by the vacant look on his face.

"Well, if my expeditions weren't so goddamn important, I'm not sure I'd leave the two of you young rabbits together," he said. "God only knows what both you do when you're alone, eh?"

I sighed, and supposed for a second that I could consider telling him the truth. I could have told him that a teenager can only go so far without fucking the person they were dating without losing complete and utter interest, since Mel and I hadn't gone much further than second base. I guess she had her reasons for not wanting to go beyond that, despite the fact that I'd almost practically moved into her house and had staked my claim to the territory within. I'd always figured staking a claim to her physically seemed to be the next logical step. (Yes, I guess I was an asshole back then, too.)

In any event, I kept my mouth shut, which was probably the best thing to do in retrospect. Who the hell knew what a man who sat for hours on end in his basement doing absolutely nothing was ultimately capable of when it came to the protection and preservation of his daughter's virginity? 

Anyway, Mel's dad started laughing as I stood there stammering for the most appropriate answer. His laughter was like a stupid little pneumonic cough. I always hated that laugh.

"Ha! I'm kidding, see," he said, getting up from his chair to poke a stubby finger rather painfully into my arm. "I think you're good for Mel. Anyway, I finally remember what I wanted to show ya."

He then walked over to a nearby shelf, and pulled something that looked like a small piece of paper. He held it out on his hand to me, motioning that I should take it.

"I found that on my last expedition," he said, as I took the object between my fingers. "Boy, was that a doozy. I found a land with a purple sky and a giant light bulb for a sun. It was really hot."

"I bet," I mumbled.

"Yeah, you should have seen it!" he said excitedly, missing any trace of sarcasm in my voice. "Anyhow, you should take a look at this."

Mel's dad now pointed at the little sheet of paper I was now holding onto. I nearly shook my head in disbelief when I grabbed the sheet by its edges and finally took a look at what was so "important." On the paper was a rather crude drawing of a cowboy with his back turned, hovering over a little chamber pot. There was a cut out square where the cowboy's ass should have been.

Suddenly, Mel's dad stuck the crook of his bent thumb into the square, and it now looked like the cowboy had his butt sticking out.

Neat trick, I thought sarcastically, trying to resist the urge to roll my eyes ceiling-ward.

"This is money in the new world I discovered," he said, grabbing the piece of paper from me. "Over there, it's a ten dollar bill if the cowboy isn't taking a shit, a twenty dollar bill if he is. What do you think of that, eh? Eh?"

"That's ... um ... great," I said, now struggling to come up with something decent to say that didn't sound like an automatic insult.

"Yeah, isn't it?" he said, gazing at the paper as though it might be actually worth something. He then placed it back on the shelf, clapped his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

"There some weird lands to discover, I tell ya. Who knows? If I collect enough of this stuff, show it to the museum in town, maybe someday I'll be rich and famous like that Champaign guy."

"You mean Samuel de Champ - ," I tried to correct.

"You're a good kid," he said, once again talking over my words.

I sighed and tried not to flinch too much as he clapped a hand on my shoulder, as though I might somehow be his son and he had just done something he'd been proud of. Me, I just counted up all the times Mel and I hadn't fucked like rabbits and wondered if maybe Mel's dad was onto something. Maybe the only places worth exploring were indeed somewhere inside ourselves. So in the seconds between him putting his hand on my arm and him smiling a shit-crazy grin, I took a little trip. When I came back, I only had one thing I could say, one little souvenir I could offer up or give to either Mel or her dad. It was just 10 little words, words I'd write down on a little slip of paper and give to Mel that very evening:

Sorry, but I think it's over. This is a fact.

Zachary Houle is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of a writing arts grant from the City of Ottawa. His work has been published on the old Girls With Insurance site as well as in Pindeldyboz, Thieves Jargon, Kiss Machine, Broken Pencil, Midnight Mind, Word Riot and countless others. He reviews books for PopMatters.com.

"Souvenirs" appeared previously on the original Girls with Insurance site on September 9, 2005.