Big
Smile
Guy
That's what I called him. I wasn't even pretending to talk to a toddler when I named him that.
I find his face comforting in a way, like a warm blanket...in the way a foam punkin with a friendly face could be a blanket. Yeah whatever...it's my fn blog, dare to deal a bit with my eccentricities.
You know what I love? Questions like that...because I immediately know that what follows my response is likely to be equal, or even far exceeding, the amount of absolute rubbish and bullshit that could fit in the back of a Roadway tractor trailer semi. My neighbor across the street, Father of two of my cousins, was a driver for Roadway. Big guy...good looking, gruff voice, but smooth talking and with a great smile. Irv, the only one I've ever known. His son, who I hadn't seen in forever prior to this...took me aside at my brothers funeral and told me to reach out to him if my Mom needed anything. I was so taken aback by this gesture of kindness that I barely knew how to respond. We had fallen out, or just moved on...back when we were kids, just grew apart. Nevertheless, on a terrible day...when I was trying to find my emotional senses; more on that later I suppose, here he was making that leap, that gesture of support. I wasn't prepared and I wasn't ready to be have someone I hadn't even remotely expected to count on be so gracious and so kind. Not long after that he lost one of his daughters; this girl...beautiful, vibrant, smart and brimming with potential, I can't fathom the strength to get through such a loss. Life is funny in that you become jaded into thinking that no one can surprise you, inspire you...certainly not some silly cousin you haven't spoken to in a million Earth years, but then you experience abrupt and brutal loss and the person that grabs you by both shoulders, shakes you and tells you he's got ya, it's that cousin. The reality is that he's neither silly, nor anything resembling such...and the powerful strength he conveyed in dealing with his own unimaginable tragedy, I mean...damn, makes you want to believe in the goodness of humanity all over again, like when another Shawn defended you from a school bully in 6th grade gym class.
Back when we were kids the same cousin and I walked a block down to see my God-Mother's dog, Tequila...a very large black lab. I had been told never to approach Tekie when no one was home and I told my cousin we shouldn't go through the unlocked gate because of that very thing. He didn't listen, was attacked and his face was nearly bitten off. I heard the growling from the sidewalk where I had lingered, saw the neighbor, Mr. B, run out and yell at the dog as he tore him off my cousin...which I'll never forget...the yelled at me to get my cousins parents. I looked back only once...saw my cousin running, blood soaking his shirt and I ran towards home. At some point I made the decision not to cross the street and instead to run to my cousins home instead, burst into their kitchen through the garage and yell to his parents that Shawn had been bitten and was bleeding bad. Irv jumped from a bed in their living room, he was recovering from back surgery, grabbed me and shook me asking, "WHERE!?"..., his blue eyes like giant, wild pools...I looked behind me into the basement opening he was unknowingly pushing me towards and I pointed to the front door.
It took me some time to go and see him again. My neighbor, a state police detective, came over one night and gave me a very real looking metal badge. Told me I was very brave, that Shawn was lucky I was there...I didn't believe him. My parents told me I needed to go over, but the street seemed to be a hundred miles wide. I was afraid, of what he might look like, of my failure to keep him from going back there when I knew he shouldn't. I was afraid that he would never forgive me, that my parents friends wouldn't either, Tequila had been put down in the aftermath and my cousin would never be the same, all because I had failed. In the weeks that followed I finally did see my cousin and the jagged wounds across the side of his face, now expertly sewn shut, but frightening to me nonetheless. His parents, my God-Parents...everyone told me I had been brave and even called me a hero. Their words were kind and supportive, but behind their eyes lay sadness. They were being nice. My cousin would forever be traumatized and Tequila was gone. The truth was I had fucked up...I had tried to keep him safe, but failed. Years later, as men...he was there for me, for us, in our time of grief. An act I feebly tried to reciprocate when his daughter tragically passed. Someday I hope to sit down with him and let him know how sorry I am for having failed him twice, the shame I feel and the weight I carry with that shame. Undoubtedly I will fuck it up and it will be me pontificating about how hard it is to be me...dealing with the grief of having effed up, oh pity poor Jeffrey. WTF.....?
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