I just want to know why.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Everything.

Like...

What we were just talking about.

Television?

No. Yes, I suppose--that too. The way you spoke about it. I want to know why you speak the way you do.

I don't understand.

Your little speech this afternoon.

Roper versus Furley?

Yes. Yes.

It's simple:

Don Knotts had the more outlandish wardrobe, but was he really stretching himself in that role? Methinks he was just playing Barney Fife in a leisure suit. Very amusing, but ultimately insubstantial. In contrast, Norman Fell brought a perverted charm to his landlord. After Mr. Roper made fun of his wife, the camera would zoom up to his face, and Roper would have the most wicked grin. You can't help but wonder what's going on up in this man's head. The smile reveals a million different characters-- tired middle--aged man dissatisfied with his marriage, a potential child-molester, a card-carrying communist. For all we know, Mr. Roper, who was never interested in sex with his orange muumuu-wearing wife, was an in-the-closet homosexual. Note the plethora of gay jokes made by Mr. Roper at Jack's expense.

Mr. Roper's gay?

No, not at all. I mean, I don't know. That's the beauty of it. Mr. Roper, in that one gesture, shows us the power of the imagination, of art. Mr. Roper's smile doesn't answer any questions, it asks them. His smile questions what the world would have us believe. His smile refuses to take the world seriously.

What about love?

What does that have to do with Mr. Roper?

Exactly. When we were talking this afternoon, we were talking about love.

Love reminds me of--

You don't understand it.

water-skiing.

Look at that picture.

Yes? What of it?

Doesn't that remind you of love?

It's a picture of two baby angels.

A boy angel and a girl angel.

The boy is kissing the girl.

It's wonderful, isn't it?

Would you like a kleenex?

Thank you. It's beautiful and touching. They're so young, they don't know how imperfect love is, how scarce it can be, especially when you want it the most. Children just make assumptions about love.

My mother gave me that picture as a Christmas present two years before she died.

And now it's hanging in the washroom.

It's truly the most appropriate place. I spend a lot of time looking at it. You wouldn't believe how much time I spend.

If you understood love, you wouldn't mistreat such a wonderful gift from your mother. If you think about it, mother is the most beautiful word in the English language.

Margaret Atwood's favourite word is "diaphanous." Iggy Pop likes "skanky."

Andrew and I have been trying to have a baby for years.

I find it interesting that people would want to have children.

Oh?

Especially if they're an ugly couple. I suppose they believe the burden of ugliness to be somehow lessened if passed on to their children.

You actually have such thoughts?

While I was at school, I read a lot of Czech novels.

Isn't that precious?

I'm sorry, I can be a little tangential. Sylvia is annoyed by it. It's one of those unresolved issues in our marriage. Please go on. You've been trying to have a baby...

Andrew and I have been trying to have a child for the last three years. Sometimes I feel very alone; I feel as though I have no one to talk to. Andrew doesn't talk to me anymore. We have arguments in which I end up curled up on the ground crying. We argue often. Even more so since the doctor--the third doctor--told me that I was unable to have children.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I have to ask myself what to do. Those things that should come immediately to you in the morning aren't to me. I have to think about what you do after you've stopped sleeping. It's as though I have to tell myself to breathe and to swallow.

I want someone I can talk to. If I had a baby, I'd talk to it all day long. And if it were around me all the time and if I talked enough, then maybe it would start to understand.

How long have they been having their affair?

Months.

Really?

No, I like to joke about these things. Of course it's true. At your house, our house. At Andrew's office. Didn't you know?

I suppose I suspected something was happening. I mean, I guess I should have figured out...

They laugh at us. At least they do at me. It's gotten to the point that they ignore me. They feel it's safe to do as they please in front of me because they don't even think I can see. They think I'm stupid and that I can't see, or hear, or feel. But I can. I saw them at the jazz club. After I had come out of the washroom.

That was the night I left early.

They were fondling one another. I was just out of the washroom when I saw this.

You're always in the washroom.

Is it my fault I have a weak bladder?

It's more humiliating that they don't even try to hide it from me. You would think they would give me that.

I suspected this.

I want revenge. I want to hurt them. I want Andrew impaled on a ten-foot dildo.

She had been angrier with me after I lost my job.

Something involving genital mutilation.

She saw me as a failure. Your husband runs a car dealership. He drives a Volkswagen Jetta.

I'm almost positive they did it in his car.

I love Jettas.

Do you still love her?

I guess so.

Then how can you be so indifferent? How can you talk about television when we are supposed to be talking about love?

Jettas are so--

How can you talk about cars

so Wagnerian.

Stop it. Stop it.

I'm sorry.

I'm tired of listening to you.

That's exactly what Sylvia says.

It's no wonder. There is so much doubt in your voice. You sound as though you don't believe in anything--as though you're always Iying. You sound so insincere. It's no wonder she tells you that.

I deserved that. I deserve everything.

No, no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out that way. It's just that it's so hard to make sense out of what you say. Please don't be upset. Please. It's not your fault. It's just that it's getting hard to understand what anyone says these days.

I understand.

No.

Really.

I want to believe you. I do...

Do you want to know what love reminds me of?

What?

Water-skiing. In the summers, our family would go up to the lake. Every day, my mother used to drive a motorboat so my three older brothers and I could water-ski. Over the course of twenty years, my mother lost most of her hearing because of that loud motor. Growing up, I remember it was very hard speaking to her. She would yell at you just so she could hear herself. I was so afraid of embarrassment, as I guess we all are, that I resented my mother for being the way she was. I hated having her around when my friends were over. But it was because of my brothers and me that she lost her hearing. I found out about this after she had died; I was ashamed--everything I had said, all the cruel things I said to her were wrong. I guess that's why I speak the way I do. My mother spoke in capital-letters. I guess I speak in italics.