From underneath the overhang at North Londonderry’s bus station, I watched the snow fall and used a plastic fork to pick at my tupperware of sardines, boiled potatoes, and seven-minute eggs. It wasn’t yet noon and I’d traveled many miles. Catching the 5:29 a.m. Northeast Regional out of New York, and then the 10:00 Concord Coach at South Station, and finally an 11:07 car ride from my sister, Lindsay. Poorly rested but over-stimulated, I barely had an appetite. Let alone for this concoction that had fermented in my Baggu over the last seven hours. But try as I might—waste not, want not. My sister pulled up to the station and I motioned for her to roll down the window. “This food I’m eating,” I said to her, “It smells.” Giving her the chance to wait warmly in her idling car while I ate my slop out in the snowy cold, like some kind of Dickensian tramp. I would have been all too happy to do that. But Lindsay, sweet Lindsay, oh consummate middle child, our Cancer peacemaker, insisted I get inside. We hadn’t so much as pulled out of the parking lot before Lindsay said, from the verge of upchuck, “Oh my God!”
Bringing with them a raw meatloaf on a sheet tray, our parents got to Lindsay’s house just a couple minutes after we did. We all stood around and looked at Vincent, Lindsay’s two-year-old, eating his lunch at the kitchen counter. He offered my mother—his grandmother—a piece of cantaloupe and, shaking her head no, dead serious, she said, “I’m chewing gum.” Up in New Hampshire for the week, I was visiting home.
“Alright,” said my dad. “I want you to guess how many total days I have left at work—”
“—Not counting the yearly company meeting,” my mom said, cutting my dad off, a man she insists never has anything to say.
“Okay, um—”
“And—don’t forget—he’s using up all his PTO to recover after the hip surgery,” my mom said. “Thirteen weeks. And then he’s just coming back for a little victory lap before officially retiring.”
“I’ll guess—”
“But he’ll be up and at ‘em by six weeks. The house is gonna be immaculate. All those boxes down in the cold storage, boxes up in the attic we haven’t touched since Jersey, it’s—”
“Forty-one days,” I said.
“Guess again,” my dad said.
“Okay—twenty-seven.”
“Guess again.”
“...Alright. Fifty.”
“Seven,” my dad, and mom, said.
Watching The Holdovers, my mom said, “He’d be perfect, Brian! You two are built just alike!” Dominic Sessa playing me in the movie of my life, officially approved by Kristine. If only he knew how hard-to-get said approval can be. Not five minutes later, during a scene where he’s getting a broken arm set, shirtless, she said, “Okay, no, he’s actually a lot skinnier than you.”
Sitting close to my dad on the couch one night, I showed him everything I’ve learned about us. Austin got me an Ancestry subscription for my birthday, with an accompanying message, “The resilient child is one who knows his family’s history.” In 1865, James Burns left Ireland and came to New York City. He was 25. I was 25, the year I moved here. There’s an archived picture of one of his sons, William Henry Burns. If it mattered to me, I could probably see a family resemblance. His obituary states that he was “long active in politics on the Lower East Side.” My heart sang, learning that, it really did. Even if these men, ultimately, are merely strangers to us. But pulling up my grandfather’s profile, showing my dad where his dad shows up on all these different records—no less a stranger. His mother and a baby sister appear in the 1930 census but, by the following decade, they’ve both died. At 12 years old, he lived in an apartment with his father, his father’s business partner, his father’s business partner’s wife, and an uncle and aunt. “He never talked about any of this,” my dad said. “Never.” And according to the draft card that George F. Burns, my grandfather, filled out in his own handwriting, that apartment where he grew up with all those people—it was at 16 Broome Street. Every day I go to work, I walk down Broome Street.
Emily drove over to the house and we went on a walk together. In response to one of the many winter vistas I posted that week, she said, “Are you in Gilford?” At the same time in the same place, both of us were visiting home. Emily was my first friend here, my best friend. And now, it would appear, my oldest. Christmastime airfare from Portland proved too expensive so she came home this week instead, which also gave her the chance to go down to Boston and celebrate Stephanie’s 30th birthday. I used to be so close with Stephanie. In high school, we were each obsessed with these two boys on the soccer team who were both named Andrew. Blasting “Like a G6” over and over again, we drove an hour each way one night to attend their away game in a town neither of us had ever heard of. It’s pathetic, having a crush. But with her, it never had to feel that way. Emily reminded me of the day I told Stephanie, during our last summer at home, that the school she’d chosen for herself was a “for-profit college.” Getting walloped with shame upon recalling some stupid remark I made however many years ago, that’s one thing. It’s another to have no memory of it at all. Emily and I talked about our parents, and boys, and how this hometown of ours never really changes. We’re comforted by that, and haunted.
At 11:44 in the morning, I messaged Austin, “I’m very on the verge of tears.” And then at 11:45, a picture of a falling teardrop on my cheek. It was my last day in Gilford and I was so sad to leave. Sad about my dad’s surgery, and the end of his career. Sad that I might never have my parents’ house all to myself ever again. And not least of all—for having a really nice time. It’s pretty, being up here, but it’s not always easy. This week was easy. Shoveling the driveway, watching the last 15 minutes of movies on cable television, waking up in this house, this house where I had all my firsts, and peering out the window to check that both their cars were gone before singing and dancing around the living room. Writing, writing. Walking, walking. And back home in time to hear the familiar squeak of plastic grocery bags around my mom’s wrists or my dad slapping down a heap of junk mail on the kitchen counter. My parents, active and vital and contributive, workers, home from a hard day’s eight hours, and right back at it tomorrow. To be forever young, that’s all I want. I just can’t tell if I want that for them or for me. At the bus station that night, saying goodbye, we all cried. I’ll be the first person he talks to, just as soon as he wakes up from the surgery, that’s what my dad said. And more than once, my mom told me, “You’re a good son.”
I didn’t bother unpacking my bag. Back to New York one night, I was dog sitting the next, watching Maya the Chihuahua for a couple days. She’s perfect. Winsome and soulful and hysterical. Like if she looked at me one day and started speaking in perfect English—or, I suppose, perfect español—I wouldn’t be remotely surprised. I adore her. Big dogs can survive off brawn and they rest on those laurels, charmlessly. Small dogs have to be clever. We live in the same neighborhood but I spend the night in their apartment. It’s how I’ve always done it, ever since my Boston days, though I understand having a gay stranger bathe in your shower and sleep in your sheets isn’t for everybody. Not to mention everything else I’ve been known to do in a dog owner’s apartment. I was dog sitting Maya when her owners first got engaged and then again when they got married. And that’s not the first time this has happened. Years ago, for Lincoln, my dearest dog of all, he was on my watch when the owner proposed and then again when they tied the knot. Initially, I was supposed to be there for the wedding itself. The plan was that I’d join them up to Maine so Lincoln could be a part of the ceremony—albeit in my care—where they’d feed me and I’d stay in my own little cabin on the campground. I was so excited, but they changed their minds. Nevertheless: one for the books.
In the latest variation on this theme, now I was taking care of Maya while her owners were down in Miami to celebrate their one year anniversary. They told me to have a piece of their wedding cake. Its top tier had been sitting in the freezer all this time, waiting to be enjoyed one year later. It felt too special, too precious for me to eat, like I’d be messing with their good luck, and I told her so. But she insisted. “Indulge a bit,” she said. I sliced a single sliver each night, wanting them to think, for whatever reason, that I only ever helped myself to one piece. You can feel like a ghost, sometimes, taking care of a dog.
“I lived in Boston for a while so Massachusetts lives very warmly,” I always say, “right here in my heart.” It’s my refrain, anytime I have a visitor tell me that’s where they’re from. It usually goes over well, establishing an almost tribal kind of bond between me and even the most sea-weathered of mean New England mugs. I had this one Saturday tour where half the group wound up being from Massachusetts. I might as well have cartwheeled around the room, my response was so exuberant. They just kind of nodded at each other. But during a transition, while I was leading everybody into the next apartment, I heard one of them ask the other where they live.
“Nawth Hanovah.”
“Oh. We go to church theyah.”
“Awh yeah? We’ah friends with the priest!”
“Fathah Joe?”
“Fathah Joe!”
It was Lunar New Year and I forgot my red underwear. Weixi, one of my coworkers, another Educator, she’s from China. I asked if she was doing anything to celebrate and she said, “No, no, I’m not. It’s…it’s a family holiday.” Here on a student visa, she hasn’t been home in a very long time. Since it’s the year of the Dragon, and I was born in the year of the Rooster, Weixi said my underwear wouldn’t make a difference one color or the other. Not to mention the fact that I’m not Chinese. It had just been her lunar year, as a Rabbit, and when a friend asked if she’d prepared, Weixi insisted she didn’t believe in all that. Lowering her voice and putting a hand on her heart, she said to me, “I suffered.”
We got drinks with Ashleigh. John Michael and Nick came too, as always. I chose this new bar down on Chrystie, which I think is the most hysterical street name in all of New York. Showing up a couple minutes after I did, Austin disagreed with me—to him, it’s “Onderdonk.” This was his first time meeting Ashleigh’s boyfriend. John Michael and I, we’ve realized that he knows my brother-in-law’s half-brother. “Through the Massachusetts hardcore scene,” I want to say, but I fear that’s the lamest way of putting it. My brother-in-law—of the New Hampshire straight edge scene—still laughs about the text I sent him, some ten years ago, after attending my first basement show in Allston. “I feel like I’m home!” What I actually felt was a bruising obsession over a straight boy in a band playing at said basement show. Not to mention the likely literal bruise I had from my skull bashing against the ceiling’s water pipes. Back in December, Ashleigh saw Madonna. It was her very first time. And no sooner did we start talking about the concert than from the bar’s speakers overhead, like the voice of God on high, we hear, “And you can dance…for inspiration…” As freshmen, whenever we were in a particular state of mind, Ashleigh and I would sit on her dorm room floor, hold each other’s hands, and listen to “Live to Tell.” Like some kind of seance. I hadn’t thought about that in years and years.
And then, that next night, we saw another Ashleigh. Austin’s Ashleigh. Her boyfriend Joey was hosting a launch party for a new literary magazine at this East Village wine bar that was also a cafe but also a bookstore that also had its own independent press. From a small little town in rural North Carolina, Ashleigh has an accent so lilting and topsy-turvy it sounds Scandinavian. Like the way Swedes suck up all the air from their vowels. She and her boyfriend are both writers. There were these two English professors at my college who were married to each other. Professor Elliot and Professor Pope. I loved imagining their life at home. All the bookstacks. The graded papers in leather satchels. The dust. Professor Pope always wore a pair of sunglasses on top of her head, like a headband. I’ll never forget the day she told our Advanced Prose Writing class, “I have broken up with someone over missing peanuts in a cold Cambodian peanut and chicken salad.” Ashleigh is teaching at a college right now and I asked if she had any favorite students. Of course she does. All I ever wanted was to be somebody’s favorite. Five different poets read their work throughout the night. Regarding poetry—and, while we’re at it, musical theater—sometimes I wonder if I’m the most discerning critic extant or if I’m just a philistine. I’ll let that sleeping dog lie. Edy was the last performer of the night, reading a short story from a dead writer. Austin has been friends with Edy forever but we rarely see her, let alone since she landed a role in a massively popular Freevee hoax reality show. But catching up with her was hysterical and fun and easy, like always. She was drinking this huge fountain soda from Burger King and no sooner did she walk away than Austin said, “I love that girl.”
Jarod observed my tour about the Irish family, currently studying to lead it himself. He’s been at the museum for over a year now but this was his first time seeing me in action. Walking over to the visitor center, I said a prayer for kind and curious visitors who’d make me look smart. Thank you, God. There was this Irish couple—Ireland Irish—who were just perfect. Showing everybody this 1867 political cartoon wherein Thomas Nast depicted Irish immigrant men as simian toughs, the Irish guy kept making these pithy little remarks that were very obviously jokes. Not that I understood a word of what he said. Austin knows exactly what to look for in moments like these, when I’m reacting to something that I didn’t actually comprehend—it drives him up a wall. My favorite international visitors, bar none, always come from either Ireland or Mexico. I’ve always said that. So envision my immense validation the first time I happened to watch an old clip of Salma Hayek telling Conan O’Brien, “I love Irish men, I have this thing for them…they’re very passionate…they’re almost Mexican!” There were these three Elder Lesbians on that same tour and at the end, walking beside me down the stairs, one of them said, “Man, things have changed so much for you kids. I can see you and acknowledge you as a brother, right out loud. Not very long ago, it would’ve just been a knowing look as we passed each other on the street.” I think she got a kick out of me and Jarod’s rapport. We can get a little dandyish around each other. Just before they went on their way, she said to me, “You’re sweet, you know that? You are really, really sweet.” All praise, Jarod had lovely things to say, using a heartfelt string of words to commend my tour-giving—but I already forgot them all.
“Okay, Brian, I believe in love again,” said Grace, on Valentine’s Day, telling me about a date she had earlier that week. There was still snow on the ground from yesterday’s storm but I wore my pink suede sneakers to work. Austin completed my set of first edition Carrie Fisher books, I got him a first edition copy of Gilda Radner’s memoir, and we saw When Harry Met Sally… in theaters. There was this freak sitting in the row behind us. Party of one, needless to say, this grown man talked through the whole thing. Bellowing laughter, cloying “aww”s, constant commentary. Annoying people are annoying in every way. And then—oy gevalt—Katz’s. He stayed silent during the faux-orgasm, shocking us all, but he couldn’t resist quoting the famous following line. Incorrectly and a beat premature. From a couple rows further back, another moviegoer screamed at him, “SHUT UP!”
During my daily constitutional, I talked to Shannon on the phone. “And here’s the kicker,” I told her, “He drives all of us crazy the whole time, totally ignoring the multiple people who ‘shh!’d’ him—myself included—and then what does he do? With maybe two minutes left of the movie? He picks up all his stuff and walks out of the theater!” We laughed and laughed. Shannon knows the movie well, of course. But she knows me even better. Hardly needing—let alone wanting—a recap of the ending, she indulged me anyway. Listening to me wax poetic about the resolution of a leading lady telling her leading man “I hate you,” yes—but also about that perfect back and forth regarding “Auld Lang Syne.” How Harry asks if anybody actually understands what it means. And telling Shannon that Sally says, among other things, “It’s about old friends.” There was a lull on the line. And then Shannon said, only kind of laughing, “Oh my God—I’m crying!” We talked for two hours and one minute. It’d only been three days since our last phone call.
Sarah’s dad died. I was in the middle of a tour, looking at my phone to check the time, when I read the text from Honora. It’s only by a couple months but Honora’s the oldest out of all of us. When Lindsay lost Mia, it was Jillian, our oldest sister, who told me. It’s a big responsibility—and I know we’re all so grateful for it. I called Sarah but she didn’t pick up. The next morning, after a couple texts back and forth, she sent me a voice message. Telling me she hadn’t seen her father in a couple days and how, “Yesterday, I just decided to come home while my mom and my aunt went to see him. And the funny thing about that is…he passed right when I got home. Right when I parked my car and was looking at our yard and looking at our house. I didn’t know it—but that’s when he passed. And I thought of you because you, of course, understand things like me. And I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that he waited ‘til I came home. So, that’s how I am. It’s coming in waves. But it’s a beautiful, cold, sunny day here. Very Boston. No clouds at all in the sky, just sun. Blinding from the snow. It was like this yesterday too, so that makes a big difference as well. Love you.”
My dad had to go to the hospital. The previous week’s hip replacement was a success, he went home that very same day, but since then—his leg got all swollen. My mom texted us that it was lucky they went when they did. He had blood clots, from not elevating his leg high enough. They’re below the knee, which makes all the difference. Above the knee and the clots could break off and go to his lungs. Or to his heart. “They said his clots are on Route 106, not 93, if you can figure that out,” said our mother. Forever our Jersey Girl In Exile. My sisters and I were all so mad that this wasn’t explicitly detailed in the post-op notes. But as it turns out—it was. “I can’t lay flat in bed at night, which would have helped,” my dad said. “It hurts too much.” They rented a recliner for the next month and that’s where he’ll sleep. The last time I called him on the phone, all I did was ask question after question. “Is it painful? When’s PT? No PT until May? Why’s that? Are there exercises to do at home until then? How often? Do they help?” I was concerned and I was curious but I worry that all I did, in asking him all those questions, was make him feel old. I understand the alternative, now more than ever, but still—I can’t bear him feeling old.
After several months of bargaining, and two extensions on our contract, our union reached a tentative agreement with the museum. Not everyone was satisfied. Eating my trademark five-in-the-afternoon lunch, I was cornered in the breakroom kitchen by a couple Educators who asked if I’d consider voting no. “No,” I thought to myself, while otherwise proving diplomatic. I worried about that “no” though, paranoid that my satisfaction with the contract’s terms would cast me as some traitor to all my cash poor and praxis rich colleagues. That I was bending to the will of the manager in my brain. That might all be true. But the “no”s wound up being a small contingent and our Bargaining Committee members insisted it was best we ratify. Emboldened, and relieved, I told said Bargainers that I was happy to gauge public opinion. And sway it. Into many a hushed coworker exchange, I inserted myself. Gracefully, gayly. It was thrilling, if also a little frightening, being witness to my own art of persuasion. During a press conference last summer, when SAG first went on strike, Fran Drescher said something I’ve since committed to memory, “You know what?! Eventually?! The people break down the gates of Versailles and then it’s OVAH!” Watching that, I thought to myself, all too sincerely, “I have what it takes to be a union president one day.” And yet anytime my coworkers asked if I’d considered joining our Bargaining Committee, my usual response was, “Oh, God no, I’m too much ‘my mother’s son’ for that.” In as many words—a raging bitch. But a righteous one. And Kristine, I thank you for that.
“Listen to this,” said Ruth, my beloved 70 something-year-old coworker. “Josh is in town. We went to see a play. But first: dinner. Right? Restaurant’s down on 40th, theater’s on 50th, it’s cold. I say, ‘Eh, let’s get a cab.’ We get a cab. It goes nowhere. Times Square at 7:00! Of course it goes nowhere! We make it two blocks and say, ‘Forget it, we’ll walk.’ The fare was $12! Two blocks! Twelve dollars! On a cab that got us nowhere! Only in New York!” Later that same morning, I said something that really made her laugh. Turning to the Educator sitting beside me, I said to him, “Mission accomplished.” Even later that same morning, I kicked myself for saying that, for making what should’ve been a charming little exchange into something false and put on. Though maybe I’m the last to notice this. After all, whenever I talk to Ruth, try as I might, I find myself slipping into a New York accent less authentic to Brian Burns than to Bella Abzug.
In the sidewalk shed of a tiki bar on the Upper West Side, we drank tropical cocktails out in the freezing cold. My cousins were in town for the night, Erica from Philadelphia and Kylee from across the river. A Burns girls night out. April was there too, who might as well be a Burns girl by now. She grew up down the street from Erica and came to so many of our family parties when we were little. April brought her own cousin along, a boy named Holden who she only met a couple years ago. She explained how a relative of hers adopted a relative of his but I was only half-listening. In my defense, Holden asked me, three times no less, “Wait—what’s your name again?” Kylee was the last to arrive and, upon hearing his name, said, “Our very own Holden Caulfield! My first crush. Of course.” Only 21 years old and attending City College, Holden is a jazz musician. He surprised me, proving sharper and sweeter and more thoughtful than I first expected. It also didn’t hurt that I really cracked him up a couple times. Nobody appreciates gay men better than a certain kind of straight guy. He grew up in Folsom, to which Kylee said “Folsom Prison Blues” is her go-to karaoke song. “Cause it’s mostly talking.” She can’t sing and neither can I. When we first chatted about this get together, Kylee suggested that we all eat dinner separately and meet up just for drinks. We really are family.
Renting a car from a Midtown garage, early on a Sunday morning, I drove to Massachusetts for the funeral. Ashleigh and Nick were already there, having spent the night with Honora at her mom’s house. Fitting for a slumber party, they played dress up. Honora’s mom’s bridal gown for Nick and one of the bridesmaid dresses for Ashleigh. The latter was red, redder than red, bewilderingly red, with lace and shoulder pads and a drop waist that didn’t actually drop until Ashleigh’s ankles. Out for lunch, Honora and I realized both our passports are expired right now, which makes sense for us in different but ultimately similar ways. Warning us of its terrors, Ashleigh showed us her most recent passport picture. Unsmiling, per the barked demands of the lady at CVS, Ashleigh thinks she looks scary. I think she looks like the Divine Feminine made flesh. Clutching my chest, I said to her, “You’re like something out of a Fellini!”
Asking the funeral home attendant if we should sign the guestbook as a group or as individuals, we joined the receiving line. There was a basket of Lifesavers next to the guestbook and, eventually self-conscious about our breath, Nick doubled back to grab us some. Across the room, we noticed Sarah begin to cry. Honora looked away, quickly, turning her back, and cried her own tears. Telling her I was so sorry, I hugged Sarah’s mom. And whispering things in her ear I can’t even remember, I hugged Sarah. At the very front of the room, just before we reached them, Ashleigh kneeled down before the urn for a moment, and then I did too. I clasped my hands, looking at all these framed photos of Sarah’s dad, and prayed an Our Father.
Sarah and I had a moment together, just the two of us, driving her back to the house so she could change clothes and drop off flowers. More than anything else, we laughed. Her mom’s dog is blind and deaf and, once she got a whiff of me, wouldn’t stop barking. All my tricks of the trade are verbal, I realized. I was driving back to New York that same night, bringing Ashleigh and Nick with me this time, but we wanted to stay for dinner. It was at this Italian restaurant in town. “Open bar,” said Sarah’s mom to each of us, with a wink. We sat down at a table with Sarah, of course, but also her lifelong best friend, that friend’s fiancé, and some other relative. We all played nice, keeping the conversation open and democratic but, of course, we had the most fun with each other. I noticed, at one point, that the fiancé was watching us from across the table. And he was smiling, really smiling at what he was hearing. We’ve all done it. Talking to friends a decimal louder than necessary in hopes our familial repartee will fall on some eavesdropping ear, and leave them dazzled. Albeit with a precedent of regret: mission accomplished. Because really, it’s not like it took much effort for us. Being with each other, enjoying each other—it was the easiest thing.
We said our goodbyes. Last of all to this little girl who’d been running around all day. She’s Sarah’s niece, basically. Maybe 10 years old, she looked like an Olsen twin, trendy and precocious with her otherwise blond hair tinted purple. With Honora and Nick already halfway out the door, I was the only other person around who saw this girl reach out and grab both of Ashleigh’s hands. It was so sweet, so unprompted. Staring up at Ashleigh with this eager kind of adoration, she clearly had something to tell her. I would’ve guessed she was about to call Ashleigh beautiful, or profess she wanted to be just like her when she grew up. With glinting eyes, with a big smile, and with all the singsong cruelty of childhood, she said, “One day, you’ll be in a coffin.”
Not that I want time to fly by these next 2 mos, but I can’t wait to read your next one. These are great. And I still don’t see what the big deal was with me telling Vincent I was chewing gum! Haha.
There’s so much I could say but I’ll stick to saying… evocative!!!!!! SO DEEPLY EVOCATIVE!!! And I want to meet your parents.