Firecrackers

This story is about my sister's boyfriend Bryan. For this story, to protect the innocent, I will refer to him as Brian. Brian lost the use of his hands when he was in high school but that didn't stop him from building huge stone bridges or using Roman candles to light refuse piles on fire. 

I would call him T. Rex behind his back, because his arms had atrophied long ago and it made him look like a tyrannosaurus. He kept jars of bouncy balls on his dusty window sill. He liked to show them off, but it was always awkward because he couldn't catch the balls once they were bounced. He had a beautiful didgeridoo that he kept perched atop a red couch in the living room. I would blow on it and make humming noises until I felt nauseous. 

One Thanksgiving I drove 3000 miles from California to New York with an awesome crossbow to kill a turkey and cook it for my family. There were turkeys all over his property…but he was like NO KILLING TURKEYS on my property. I listened to him. Later on in the early hours of the morning, I went out back to pee in the snow because I like to do that. I realized mid-pee that I was actually peeing on his skill saw. I didn't move an inch. Whatever. His decision resulted in me having to go to a WalMart to buy a turkey! 

I would sometimes search for antique bottles and trilobite fossils with him. He claimed to know where some flowers were that I really wanted to see. Some little yellow lady slippers. He was never able to produce them. Once on a long hike we came across an old cabin where the garden had escaped itself. There were daffodils everywhere, little yellow flowers protruding from the undergrowth. If he thought that those daffodils were going to make up for the mythical lady slippers, he was wrong.   

Last week Brian died and I find myself remembering him fondly. It is an interesting trait in people that we remember the good qualities of the deceased. Brian is lucky in that sense. There were things that even I loved about him. I would never have admitted that while he was alive, but it's true.

Rest in peace, Bryan.