Jason Frisbie and the Terrible Twos

I've been a subtle critic of Jason for years, and I know that I can get away with saying certain things about him that other people cannot. Not that Jason has a thin skin, but I have seen him rub a handful of people out, once with the eraser of a pencil simply for the physical pun. I can only guess that having lived with him I somehow proved my worth as a mild confidant and occasional advisor. This is a position of respect akin to being the hairstylist of a dictator, bringing mild influence with great risk. However, I can say with certainty that Jason Frisbie is not good with small children.

Don't be confused. Some people are awkward around kids, or curse and drink in front of kids, or fall asleep with an open bottle of Vicodin within reach of tiny, grubby child hands. When I say that Jason is bad with kids, I mean it is bad to leave your kids with Jason, unless they are protected by what he creepily refers to as “blood love.” Only one child in the world garners his blood love, and that was not the kid he was left with last Christmas.

If I haven't made it clear before, Jason is two-faced for our protection. He is outwardly a little nerdy and generally pleasant. This gives people the wrong impression, because it's not that he doesn't get mad or have “issues,” it's that he takes these issues to his secret life and forges them into seedy deals and this focused rage that, like Liam Neison in “Taken,” will not stop until his daughter is returned/Jason is arbitrarily satisfied.

As I said, Jason is not good with kids because small children are not people in his eyes. They are small and delicate tools, able to be trained to do questionable tasks without morals getting in the way. I present the case of Rudy and Katherine, a young couple who were mutual friends of ours. They had two-year old twins, they had a Christmas party, and they had a small family emergency. With a different cast this could be the next hit Vince Vaughn holiday comedy, but Frisbie is no Fred Claus.

I was there for the beginning of the party, but had left to check out some other events and decided to return a few hours later. The beginning was fun if uneventful. Apparently Rudy's brother Mitch had fairly serious car problems, and the small gathering dispersed except for Jason, who was asked to watch the twins for a moment while the couple went to their friend's rescue. When I returned to the party it was clear that most everyone had left, but I could hear Jason's voice speaking in measured tones about the importance of secrecy and dead drops under lawn gnomes. Sitting in the middle of the living room floor was Frisbie and the twins, Jason facing me and the twins' attention focused on the swinging motion of his pocket watch.

“Why must you take the greed candy from people?” Jason asked the twins. “To make them better people,” they replied in unison and without inflection. “And what will you do if someone catches you taking their greed candy?” asked Jason. “Cry and tell them Jesus made me do it.” If you've ever seen “The Shining” then you can imagine the sound of these twins' voices. Each sentence was perfectly enunciated, distant and throughly distrubing. After their answer, Jason stopped his pendulum and snapped his fingers, bringing the children out of their trances and turning them at once into their normal, noisy two-year-old selves.

Jason left the twins to play with each other and walked over to me. “First of all, you don't get to ask questions about this, but I will answer some for you. Mitch had car problems, Rudy and Katherine went to help and everyone else suddenly had other places to be for the moment. Greed candy is jewelry and money. Two-year olds are impressionable and twins can run better cons. This is an investment and you should take pains to see it my way. Hypnosis is easy compared to finding the right person's brake lines to cut that would give me the optimal amount of time alone with them. Egg nog?” He was offering me a glass and had made a total conversion from the calculating criminal that I have the dubious pleasure of knowing back to the lovable individual that is trusted to be alone with toddlers.

I fell out of touch with Rudy and Katherine after the party. I knew too much and in my experience it's better to just distance oneself from questionable activities involving children. Since that unsettling evening, I did notice that Jason always seemed to be in possession of a little more spending money and was more generous with it towards myself and other close friends. I try not to think of it as kickbacks from sleeper cell pickpockets, but I do advise anyone who has left Frisbie alone with their children to be extra vigilant against budding criminal behavior.