Col. Mustard in the Library with a Hammer

Recently I moved back with TheFrenchMan to his boyhood house somewhere in formerly Nazi occupied France. His father was a writer and book collector who died over 20 years ago. TheFrenchMan's brother has lived here alone since. No girlfriend, no boyfriend, no friends: a lone for over 20 years.
And here we come, straight outta Compton or rather Hollywood, bringing lots of 21st c tech noise and a large German Shepherd. I tried to be nice, so help me Buddha, oh how I tried.
To be fair, ever since I have known TFM he's warned me about his brother: He'z za fuckeeng freak, you've never met someone like zees.
Oh sure, I thought, how freaky can he be? Surely he's exaggerating. I'm sure I'll like him. I'm sure we'll get along just fine. (Yeah, like a house on fi-ah.)
Two exchanges with my Frere-in-Loi:

Act One:
Setting: Kitchen after dinner. 11pm or so. Just me and FiL sitting at the table having coffee after a long dinner and a couple of glasses of wine.
Me (trying to make conversation in very shitty French): What have you been reading lately? Anything interesting?
FiL: Why should you care? (Although in French it’s more like: why should this interest you? But still it’s rude as hell.)
Me: I don’t really care. I’m just trying to make conversation because you’re sitting there.
Still I press on.
Me: Did you see the photos of Marguerite Duras in Le Monde?
FiL: I don’t look at images.
Me: Sure you do, you read Le Monde, there’s images all over the paper.
FiL: Yes, but I don’t look at them.
Me (thinking): O.K. motherfucker, two can play at this game. Oh, I think you’ll find, yes, I think you’ll find…
Act Two:
Setting: Another day, morning, me, minding my own business, sitting in the living room where TFM’s computer is set up. Trying to move some words around into some order. The right words. Not bothering anyone, mind you.
Enter: FiL with broom in hand. He starts reaching toward the ceiling with the broom but it’s about 6 inches too shy.
Me: What are you trying to do?
FiL: I’m trying to get rid of the spider webs.
Me: I did this room yesterday with the vacuum cleaner (aspirateur). It’s better to use the vacuum because it contains the spiders.
FiL: There are No Spiders.
Me (thinking): Oh my fucking God, I am in hell, truly there is No Exit.
The vacuum is in a room where MyOldestDaughter is sleeping.
FiL: Is it o.k. if I go in there to get the aspirateur? Will it bother her?
(He has this false politeness which bugs the shit out of me. It’s a correctness that stands on protocol only; there is no human concern whatsoever backing it up. Furthermore it’s meant to show me, the crass American, just how inconsiderate I am. He’s just come into a room where I’m writing, wanting to brush spider webs all over me and my technology and now he’s asking if getting the vacuum cleaner will bother my daughter.)
Me: No, go ahead, it won’t bother her. (Thinking: no more than the Concorde aspirateur, you asshole.)
He gets the vacuum, spends 15 minutes huffing and puffing right outside the door to where I’m working trying to find the right plug adapter. I can do it but I’ll be damned if I’ll help him. The implication is that I should somehow be doing this being the fairer sex and all.
So he continues to vacuum the whole house. This vacuum is Loud but still doesn’t drown the sound of his discontent. I am unable to write. I plot nasty things. I wonder why I’m so mean. I worry about the finances. I watch a bird in the garden.
FiL (from upstairs): MERDE!
Comes stomping downstairs vacuum cleaner bag in hand. Now understand that this is the only bag for this machine as we borrowed it from a friend (more about this later) and only the day before we spent 20 minutes trying to see if any of the other 50 different bags in the house fit this machine and they didn’t. You know how it is.
FiL: This bag is broken. Are there any other bags that fit?
Me: I assure you there aren’t. We tried them all yesterday.
FiL goes right outside the front door and proceeds to start to empty the bag on the front walk which my daughter had just swept clean.
Me: Let me get you a poubelle to dump that in so the spiders don’t come back into the house. (Not to mention the fucking mess you’re making you stupid fuck.)
FiL: There are No Spiders. Look this bag is broken!
There is a small tear approximately an 1/8th of an inch long. In eBay parlance one would say: Does not affect the integrity of the piece. The only problem with this bag is that it is full.
He extracts a small 5p coin. The smallest coin in the whole United Kingdom.
FiL: This is the problem. Look, this coin. It was on Your floor. This has caused the tear in the bag. It can’t be used. (C’est insupportable!)
I go and get the trashcan, dustpan and brush, and some tape. I empty the bag, sweep up the mess and tape the bag. I offer him the tape to keep for later.
FiL: But you took that from TFM’s stuff. You better put it back. (Looks at me like I’ve just offered him the use of an El Camino with spinning rims stolen from an 18th St. gangmember.)
I go to the KungFu place in my head and try and receive guidance from that blind guy.

Comments

[Stu]

What does the FiL have in common with the vacuum cleaner?

They both suck, right?

[RageBoy]

have not laughed so hard since the pig ate the baby!

[meg]

For our sake I hope FiL keeps it up.

[michael]

…or was it Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the rope? On Friday the Republican-

[worried, in the south]

If this is true - about this person who's been living alone for twenty years - then you should leave that house, soon. Certainly, you should not allow your children to sleep there. In my experience - which, unfortunately, is considerable - people who live as you suggest he has lived usually have very good reason(s), albeit buried in the past.

Perhaps a priest was involved, or a distant relative. Perhaps it had something to do with a spider. Who knows? Not even his own brother, as is often the case.

You seem to enjoy books, so, for this situation I recommend something by Freud, or, if you prefer your intel daisy painted, try (or retry) Heart of Darkness. The Russian and Kurtz are, in my opinion, the same person.

This is all rather dramatic on my part, but I found myself worrying about you in the middle of the night! Last night. Worrying about You, whom I've never met!
You were, hopefully, sound asleep, in your formerly nazi occupied France, and I was worrying about you, down in here in old Vichy France. Isn't that silly?

But without the internet, this would never have happened.

[Gary]

Good to see you're having oh so much fun. Send me an email. L, -GeekFrere