▸ Column · Modern Gotham — Two-Face holding court as the city's duality-obsessed crime boss, fielding a letter from a smothered in-law
TWO-FACE replies.
Replied to by Two-Face, with a rebuttal from The Penguin.
The letter
Every December 26th my mother-in-law Bernadette marshals nineteen of us into matching outfits for a "spontaneous" portrait that eats four hours and demands a vow of silence. This year she's gone further: hooded flannel onesies, each with an embroidered tail and our names stitched in, theme declared "Cozy Forest Family," ironed and non-negotiable — no mercy for my brother-in-law's arm cast or the cousin who breaks out at the sight of the cocoa prop. I'm thirty-eight. Last week I was ordered, by group text, to rehearse my "surprised but delighted" face. My wife says bowing out would shatter Bernadette and ruin the stairway wall, where an empty frame already waits with my name on the mat. How do I get out of the antler hood without being cropped out of the family forever?
Two-Face replies
Counselor, let me read the charge back to you, because you've buried the verdict under the wardrobe. Bernadette isn't asking for a photo. She's asking for proof that the family is one thing, one happy face, no seams. I knew an institution like that once. The DA's office told me we were all on the same righteous side, right up until the side I trusted dissolved the other half of my face. Families wear robes too. Some of them embroider your name on the mat before they've earned your obedience.
So we have two honest answers, and only two. Heads: you put on the antlers, smile, and let one harmless ritual buy you a year of peace — because love that costs a tail is still love. Tails: you refuse, you tell Bernadette plainly that thirty-eight-year-old men don't rehearse faces, and you let the frame stay empty. Both are true. Neither is wrong. Stop pretending more agonizing produces a third.
Reduce it. Heads, you wear it. Tails, you walk. Now flip — and watch yourself in the air. If you're already praying it lands tails, you stopped being trapped a week ago. The coin won't decide for you. It'll catch you lying.
— Two-Face
The Penguin weighs in
Waugh-waugh. Leave it to the coin-flipping lunatic to turn a Christmas card into a hung jury. Escape? My dear correspondent, never flee a kingdom — annex it. Bernadette holds the wall, the frames, the theme; power, in other words, and you've been begging chance to free you from a woman you could simply buy. Underwrite next year's portrait. Engage the photographer yourself. Suggest the venue, fund the onesies, become the gentleman of business the whole roost depends upon — and watch "non-negotiable" become "whatever you think best, dear." The man who controls the umbrella decides who stays dry. Tails, indeed. Pfeh.
— The Penguin
▸ Read next