Jr's Birthday

Jr’s Birthday

My brother resides in Glen Abbey. Glen Abbey peacefully sits upon a majestic hill in Chula Vista, California. From the prominence it gazes its immortal eyes upon the rolling hills of the surrounding area, which golf courses and running trails ironically dot like thumbtacks on a blackboard. The sky never colors anything other than baby blue, and reminds one of a larger than life Monet. When occasion calls, the sky festoons itself with clouds like a burlesque girl, but the backdrop always stays the same: beautiful. I suppose that if Jr had to stay in one place until the return of Christ, our family did not err in placing him here.

I drove four hundred miles to see him, and arrived just that morning. My legs still twitched and ached with resignation for my having placed them in the awkwardness of my little Mazda RX7, little larger than a sardine can, for those five plus hours after a long shift of bar-tending at Joe’s Crabshack. I did not sleep the night before the trip, an odd sensation for a man so intimate with the luxury. But who needed sleep in the presence of such a special occasion? Jr turned 22, at least he could have turned 22 if not for the accident, and I came to celebrate.

I admit that I did not know the true nature of a cemetery before my brother passed on. A product of too many thriller movies, I half-expected cult-types to wander about the gravestones, dressed all in black, creating mischief and madness. I smirked at the thoughts of Michael Jackson-type zombies coming up from the ground to break into renditions from Thriller. But no. Glenn Abbey does not allow gravestones, as they carry too much negative connotation and mar the absolutely magnificent landscape. No cult-types, no Michael, just a few rogue cigarette butts from friends who came earlier to visit Jr and smoke. “The dead and the dying,” I called them, but nobody thought that funny. The wind blew whispers into my ears, and carried past me the scent of fresh daisies and roses. So kind and peaceful. Jr’s plot lay upon a hill overlooking the Chapel of the Roses, where finely dressed people entered and exited. We held my brother’s services in that chapel, known for its internal rose garden. Though a year passed since Jr’s accident, I still vividly remembered the odd sensations of beauty that I felt in the Chapel: chirping birds, bouquets of summer flowers, bubbling brooks, and frankincense from the priest’s various vessels made the morbidity of the whole affair momentarily drift into the background. Glenn Abbey claimed the Chapel served multiple purposes, but I knew it for only one. Glen Abbey existed as a strange marriage between beauty and death.

The large pine caddy-corner to Jr’s plot dropped needles like a vintage bombardier, and instantly won my attention as its payload struck the top of my head and my neck. I looked up as if in warning, and then down toward the gray marble of my brother’s marker. Little needles covered the greystone (that’s what they named the material) and crunched and poked as I wiped them this way and that. I touched the cold of the marker, and traced my fingers along the words of the epitaph and the images of mechanic's tools and car that marked my brother's vocation.

I took out a cumbersome, still icy to the touch, brown-bagged Steel Reserve and cracked the top reverently. I never could understand why my brother had such horrible taste in booze, but he received whatever he wanted on his birthday, and I knew that he liked his Steely. I raised the beer to the sky like sacrament, paused for a second, and then closing my eyes, drank. My eyes twitched and my face heaved as liquid nastiness ran sprinter-style down the corners of my mouth. Carbonation banged and popped in my sinuses as my eyes watered to put out the fire of confusion. I hate Steele Reserve beer.

I poured the rest of the beer onto the grass near Jr’s marker and it fizzled and bubbled white like some acidic substance. Surely he chose this as his beer of choice because he did not want to deal with me stealing. If so, then he chose wisely.

I then pulled a pack of Marlboro reds out of my jacket pocket, and firmly tapped them twice against my palm. I did not really know the proper technique since I do not smoke, but I faked it pretty well. I drew out a cancer-stick and raised it to my lips and lit. Jr did it in cool manners, like James Dean. My farce reminded me more of Jr High kids trying to smoke behind the gym. I even tried the cigarette and instantly regretted my decision as hot mint filled my mouth and choked my chest, almost instantly expelled in a coughing, convulsing mess. I placed the still lit cigarette in a little ashtray that one of Jr’s friends left behind, and laid the rest of the pack nearby. Jr could have them all.

The sun started to make its westerly departure across the sky while I sat there, next to Jr’s marker. I sniffled as the wind blew cold, and watered as dirt ran into my eyes, and bawled outright when I ran out of excuses. I hated it: the tears, the jerking, the hysterical hiccuping. No John Wayne-fearing man enjoys the act, and those who succumb to it only do so when all other preventitive measures have failed. I feared this moment from the moment I stepped into the car five hours earlier, and may never have stopped crying if it weren't for the god-send that emanated from the chapel.

My aquaducts ceased their flooding as a sound that can only be discribed as a sucker-punched cow assaulted my ears. No, the cow suffered multiple hits as it changed the pitch of its screams from high to low and medium. The sound drifted between notes, never on the notes, in a painful melody. I raised my eyes in the direction of the Chapel of the Roses and caught sight of a plaid-skirted man fighting the curious fingers of the wind, which threatened to reveal his nature, the whole while desperately pumping his elbow like a chicken. He sounded horrible and the looks on the bride and groom as they exited the chapel echoed my sentiment. Undeterred, the red-faced gentleman stoutly marched his way toward the awaiting limo, goose-bumped skin crawling beneath the dancing kilt. Somewhere off in the distance a dog voiced his opinion, calling for an end to the misery. The piper stopped as the bride and groom thankfully entered the limo and sped away. At first I could only sit there and stare, puffy eyed, at the comedy ensuing before me. After a second I smiled, and then laughed. I laughed all the way down the hill and to my car, and laughed all the way to my awaiting mother, who apprehensively hugged her red-eyed, giggling, oldest son.

I remember that moment because the wretched sound that could scarcely be called music, teamed with the comedy of the piper’s out-of-control kilt provided me with the one thing that I am sure my brother wanted more than anything else on his birthday: for me to smile.