Sir Trevaricus

It was around the time that I bought him the Lord of The Rings Trilogy on Blu Ray that he started dressing up. At first I was just curious, because he was going through two or three boxes of cornflakes a day and it was costing us a fortune in cereal and milk. I then noticed that he was hoarding the boxes, and spending all of his wages from his shifts in McDonalds on metallic paint and other stupid arts and crafts type stuff instead of the usual kind of nerdy junk he splashes his cash on.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind him doing something creative, better than him sitting staring at that computer playing Wars of Worldcraft or whatever the hell it is, but this was creeping us out a bit. I walked into his room one time late at night, after hearing strange noises coming from it. I expected to find him with his trousers around his ankles, furiously performing a bit of downtown Charlie Brown to pictures of elves from one of his stupid games (believe me, it’d happened before) but what I found was probably even worse.

He was wearing a makeshift suit of ‘armour’ made from folded, crumpled, and half painted boxes of cornflakes and was prancing round the room using a roll of tin foil as a sword, swinging it over his head, sweat pouring down his skinny pizza face, while Lord of The Rings played on his TV. I stood at the door, flabbergasted, my jaw threatening to drop off and plop onto the floor, watching this abhorrent and frankly embarrassing sight unfold in front of me.

I stood there for maybe 10 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. He didn’t notice me the entire time; he just kept prancing about, grunting and whispering along to the lines in the film underneath his breath. I backed slowly out of the room, closed the door, and walked quietly down the stairs and lifted the bottle of Jack Daniels from the liquor cabinet. I debated mixing it with coke, but then just decided to swig straight from the bottle because Jesus Christ he was dressed up as a Lord of The Rings character.

My son was an embarrassment to me, and I had failed spectacularly as a parent. Maybe I should start focusing my efforts on his little sister, because I’m pretty sure that fucking Trevor Smith, the legendary knight of Geekdor, prancing about up there was a lost cause.

Over the next few weeks he kept working on his costume, and I kept hearing him at night prancing about. My wife had no idea, she heard it but didn’t want to go and check because again, she had caught him choking the chicken like a madman before as well. One time I asked him why he needed all the boxes,
“Hey Trevor, what’re all the boxes for?”
“Nothing, Dad.” At least he had the good grace to be ashamed of his secret.
“Why do you need a load of boxes for nothing?”
“None of your business.”
Fantastic, good to see the lines of communication between father and son remain so strong, good to see that our bonds have not been broken by puberty, acne, and the battle of Helm’s Deep. If he wasn’t my son I would call him an asshole.

To be fair, his costume eventually got pretty amazing looking, and he replaced the cornflake boxes with real metal, fabric and leather. I actually saw him crouched over a sewing machine he must have picked up somewhere one night, sewing together parts of the costume with the those hairy footed midgets dancing about on the television in the background. I began to worry about his skills with tailoring and fashion, as well as his obsession with all this stupid fantasy crap. I didn’t want a gay hobbit for a child.

My wife began to worry about him, as we began to see less and less of him than usual, and I began to worry about us because he seemed to have managed to get a real sword from somewhere and was swinging it around with reckless abandon. He had still never noticed that I stood there and watched these pathetic displays every few nights. He must be in the zone, lost in his character or something. I began to wish more than ever than he was born a girl or at least born more normal.

He came to me one night when I was sitting in the living room after a hard day of work, watching Eastenders and thinking about how much Phil Mitchell looked like an angry potato with a bad case of the blight.
“Dad, do you have a blow torch in the shed?” I did not like where this was going. Not at all.
“I probably have one somewhere, for when I kidnap torture homeless people, why?”
“Can I borrow it?” Did I dare ask why? I had to, didn’t I? Just in case he planned to use it to actually kidnap and torture the homeless.
“Oh Jesus… why?”

He seemed to straighten up, his mouth pulled into a grimace of strong determination, and his face showed some sort of bizarre sense of pride.
“I’ve been given an important quest.”
“If your mum asked you to do the dishes, I don’t see how you can call it a quest.”
“It’s not that, father…” His voice had taken on some sort of epic lilt, did he believe he was one of these characters or something?
“Though I could see why you need the blowtorch, I don’t know if anything else will lift that casserole that burned to the arse of the pot…”

“Father please, hear me out, I need your assistance in an important matter.”
“Oh God., Alright Trevor, out with it. What do you need it for?”
He seemed to bristle with annoyance and balloon with arrogance, don’t know what either of those statements are supposed to mean.
“My name is not Trevor, I am Sir Trevaricus of McDonald, loyal knight of the Assistant Manager, Lord Mervyn.” He said with an air of gravitas that made me wish I didn’t have to move past him to get to the Jack Daniels.
“And father, I need your blowtorch to festoon a blade made of the finest steel to present to the queen ahead of tomorrows battle, to win her blessing and favour, and potentially her hand in marriage.”

Thank God he wants the hand of marriage of a queen and not a king. I always thought that he was a queen himself.
“Okay fine, but make sure you put it back where you found it.”
“Of course, father.”
“And for God’s sake, hurry up and make a codpiece for that costume, or at least put some underwear on. Your eye of Sauron is winking at me.”