It’s ten pm and I’m eating guacamole for dinner, because my mom made it for me with avocados from my Aunt Carolyn’s avocado tree, and because I can. It’s an easy dinner, and I don’t want to create more dishes. I drop half a chip on the floor for Somewhere, who is begging on my right, and a few small pieces for Sparky the cat, who is sitting on my left. Sparky was on the computer desk, all twenty plus pounds of him, but I shoved him down. He was invading my space.
Somewhere inevitably finishes her chip first, and circles the back of my chair to take Sparky’s chips. “He’s going to kill you in your sleep for that,” I tell her as she crunches the small pieces, though we both know it isn’t true. Not that I don’t think Sparky has it in him, because he does. His nickname is The Big Gray Asshole. But Somewhere sleeps in a kennel, and he can’t get in there. Sparky is in the corner now with his gold eyes glowing, reminding me of the cat from Pet Cemetery. I’m talking to my animals like people. I should get out more.
“It’s a beautiful night for fishing. I’m just saying,” I text to my cousin Joey, but we all mostly call him Choey these days. He doesn’t answer me for a while, so long that I figure he’s gone to sleep.
“Yup. I’m goin fishin,” Joey texts me. I tape a note to the computer for my already sleeping children that says “Fishing with Uncle Choey. xo Mom,” and I high tail it out of my house.
I don’t actually fish, I just go along, help carry stuff, hold the light. They bring me a chair. I just like being out by the water and my cousin Joey makes me laugh way more than most people do. We just sort of get each other. Joey says that I’m the female version of him.
We sit and watch the moonlight play in flickers on the water. I think that they look like laser lights, but Joey says that out past his bobber, the lights look like showers of sparks hitting the lake. Its cool out, I have the hood of my sweatshirt up, but it’s nice. There aren’t going to be that many nights left to sit out comfortably and enjoy the night sky.
We talk about what we would let people do to us for a million dollars. I don’t know why we start playing this game, we simply jump around from story to story until we find things that makes us laugh until we cry. Being with Joey always makes me feel like I’m twelve years old. The sensibility from that time in our lives has carried over, and when we’re together, it’s as if we just never outgrew it.
Joey says someone could shit in his mouth for a million dollars. I cover my mouth, which is open out of both laughter and disgust, and I lean away from him in my chair. To make his point, he tilts his head back and opens his mouth to the night sky. As we laugh until we cry, Joey says “I can brush my teeth in Jamaica, on my new damn boat.”
Choey has created a language. I’m not exactly sure what it is, some combination of Russian and Indian accents, with the occasional dip into Yooper. I’m envious of his ability to speak it and wish I could imitate him saying “Shut hole in face now.” When I try, Choey tells me “Zis can’t be taught. Zis just comes, it comes one day. Wait, not try so hard, Chelly…”
I don’t have a first memory of my cousin Joey. His father and my father were brothers, and we spent so many weekends at their house while I was growing up that my memories of Joey and his eight siblings fall into the category of always having been there.
Joey is the youngest of nine, and the closest in age to me out of all of my cousins in that family. At just over four years older than me, Joey was close enough in age to play with but old enough to be cool. He would baby-sit us when our parents went out to dinner. I remember watching Saturday Night Live for the first time with him, swearing for the first time with him. I remember that we did a lot of laughing.
Joey’s mother, my Aunt Patsy, passed away in the fall of 1994. I had the hardest time going into the church for her funeral, and when I finally did, I felt hot, ill, and dizzy. I leaned my head down and closed my eyes, and the image of blue herons flying around the loft of the old church appeared in my mind. I love blue herons, with their shy nature and knowing eyes. They calmed me down, made me able to sit in that church.
After the services, everyone gathered at my Aunt and Uncles apartment on Burleigh in Milwaukee. Joey and I took the bikes and headed for the park, where the Milwaukee River runs through at merely the size of a stream. We rode our bikes the short distance from the traffic and strip malls and world, and tucked into some trees along the river bank. I didn’t know what to say, so we didn’t say anything for a long time. We just picked at the grass and listened to the river. Then I told him about the blue herons I saw in the church, that they made me feel better, like she was somewhere safe.
“I’ve never seen a blue heron,” Joey said, casting his eyes down at his fingers playing with the grass. He looked like a little boy, I thought, but he’s a man. A man who just lost his mother.
Out of nowhere, a blue heron flew in through the trees, and landed in front of us in the river. We didn’t move, or talk. We just sat by the stream in the middle of Milwaukee and looked at the blue heron that suddenly floated in. It stayed for a few minutes, watching us, and then flew off again from wherever it came from.
“That was a blue heron,” Joey said to me.
“That was a blue heron.”
Somewhere inevitably finishes her chip first, and circles the back of my chair to take Sparky’s chips. “He’s going to kill you in your sleep for that,” I tell her as she crunches the small pieces, though we both know it isn’t true. Not that I don’t think Sparky has it in him, because he does. His nickname is The Big Gray Asshole. But Somewhere sleeps in a kennel, and he can’t get in there. Sparky is in the corner now with his gold eyes glowing, reminding me of the cat from Pet Cemetery. I’m talking to my animals like people. I should get out more.
“It’s a beautiful night for fishing. I’m just saying,” I text to my cousin Joey, but we all mostly call him Choey these days. He doesn’t answer me for a while, so long that I figure he’s gone to sleep.
“Yup. I’m goin fishin,” Joey texts me. I tape a note to the computer for my already sleeping children that says “Fishing with Uncle Choey. xo Mom,” and I high tail it out of my house.
I don’t actually fish, I just go along, help carry stuff, hold the light. They bring me a chair. I just like being out by the water and my cousin Joey makes me laugh way more than most people do. We just sort of get each other. Joey says that I’m the female version of him.
We sit and watch the moonlight play in flickers on the water. I think that they look like laser lights, but Joey says that out past his bobber, the lights look like showers of sparks hitting the lake. Its cool out, I have the hood of my sweatshirt up, but it’s nice. There aren’t going to be that many nights left to sit out comfortably and enjoy the night sky.
We talk about what we would let people do to us for a million dollars. I don’t know why we start playing this game, we simply jump around from story to story until we find things that makes us laugh until we cry. Being with Joey always makes me feel like I’m twelve years old. The sensibility from that time in our lives has carried over, and when we’re together, it’s as if we just never outgrew it.
Joey says someone could shit in his mouth for a million dollars. I cover my mouth, which is open out of both laughter and disgust, and I lean away from him in my chair. To make his point, he tilts his head back and opens his mouth to the night sky. As we laugh until we cry, Joey says “I can brush my teeth in Jamaica, on my new damn boat.”
Choey has created a language. I’m not exactly sure what it is, some combination of Russian and Indian accents, with the occasional dip into Yooper. I’m envious of his ability to speak it and wish I could imitate him saying “Shut hole in face now.” When I try, Choey tells me “Zis can’t be taught. Zis just comes, it comes one day. Wait, not try so hard, Chelly…”
I don’t have a first memory of my cousin Joey. His father and my father were brothers, and we spent so many weekends at their house while I was growing up that my memories of Joey and his eight siblings fall into the category of always having been there.
Joey is the youngest of nine, and the closest in age to me out of all of my cousins in that family. At just over four years older than me, Joey was close enough in age to play with but old enough to be cool. He would baby-sit us when our parents went out to dinner. I remember watching Saturday Night Live for the first time with him, swearing for the first time with him. I remember that we did a lot of laughing.
Joey’s mother, my Aunt Patsy, passed away in the fall of 1994. I had the hardest time going into the church for her funeral, and when I finally did, I felt hot, ill, and dizzy. I leaned my head down and closed my eyes, and the image of blue herons flying around the loft of the old church appeared in my mind. I love blue herons, with their shy nature and knowing eyes. They calmed me down, made me able to sit in that church.
After the services, everyone gathered at my Aunt and Uncles apartment on Burleigh in Milwaukee. Joey and I took the bikes and headed for the park, where the Milwaukee River runs through at merely the size of a stream. We rode our bikes the short distance from the traffic and strip malls and world, and tucked into some trees along the river bank. I didn’t know what to say, so we didn’t say anything for a long time. We just picked at the grass and listened to the river. Then I told him about the blue herons I saw in the church, that they made me feel better, like she was somewhere safe.
“I’ve never seen a blue heron,” Joey said, casting his eyes down at his fingers playing with the grass. He looked like a little boy, I thought, but he’s a man. A man who just lost his mother.
Out of nowhere, a blue heron flew in through the trees, and landed in front of us in the river. We didn’t move, or talk. We just sat by the stream in the middle of Milwaukee and looked at the blue heron that suddenly floated in. It stayed for a few minutes, watching us, and then flew off again from wherever it came from.
“That was a blue heron,” Joey said to me.
“That was a blue heron.”
Joey and I have been close our whole lives, and then when I moved to Beaver Dam to be with my family on a daily basis, Joey and I drifted. I’m not sure what happened, he seemed to back away and I let him, figuring that not everything has to do with me, and that things have a way of coming back around. We were friendly and still had fun together, but we didn’t go out of our way to hang out like we always had. It stayed that way until this summer, when I struggled with a lot of different big life stuff. The storms of my summer left me ultimately happier and better off, but in certain respects, heartbroken. Joey saw this, watched it all build up and unravel. Suddenly whatever space Joey and I had standing between us was gone, and he was back. Just like he always had been, making me laugh and forget about life.
I didn’t get what I thought I wanted, instead I got what I was meant to have: My cousin Joey and I, bobbling in our little twelve year old universe together.
Last Sunday night, Joey and I are fishing at Edgewater Park, on the far pier. I love this park, and I’m a firm believer that it holds some special powers over the cosmos. I’m fairly certain that it didn’t let the summer come this year. I was watching the Packer game at home when Joey asked me to meet him for fishing. I was already recording the game, so I went. I walk down the small pier and sit on the bench seat next to Joey.
“Here,” he says to me, shoving something at me. I fumble around in the dark trying to find whatever it is. It’s a small foam piece, on a wire.
“It’s the Packer game!” I echo out onto the lake as I put it in my ear. Joey and I sit side by side and listen, doing our own commentary. We take the earpieces out for commercials. With 2:35 left in the game, the Packers are down by two. Joey says that this is the shit that Favre took care of and the kid better step up and make it happen. I grunt in agreement.
Joey leans forward for his soda and pulls the earpiece out of my ear. I gasp aloud, as if someone just threw a baby in the lake. Joey thinks my reaction is the funniest thing he’s seen all day, so he dangles the wire in front of me as I shriek “Joey, it’s the end of the game! Jesus, do you know me at all?”
The kid pulls it off, and the Packers take the lead, but the Bears come back fighting. When we hear Lambeau is on its feet, we stand too. The pier is wobbly and I stand there next to Joey, so close we’re nearly touching, listening to the Packer game from one of my favorite places on earth. I am certain that there is no place else I’d rather be.
Last Sunday night, Joey and I are fishing at Edgewater Park, on the far pier. I love this park, and I’m a firm believer that it holds some special powers over the cosmos. I’m fairly certain that it didn’t let the summer come this year. I was watching the Packer game at home when Joey asked me to meet him for fishing. I was already recording the game, so I went. I walk down the small pier and sit on the bench seat next to Joey.
“Here,” he says to me, shoving something at me. I fumble around in the dark trying to find whatever it is. It’s a small foam piece, on a wire.
“It’s the Packer game!” I echo out onto the lake as I put it in my ear. Joey and I sit side by side and listen, doing our own commentary. We take the earpieces out for commercials. With 2:35 left in the game, the Packers are down by two. Joey says that this is the shit that Favre took care of and the kid better step up and make it happen. I grunt in agreement.
Joey leans forward for his soda and pulls the earpiece out of my ear. I gasp aloud, as if someone just threw a baby in the lake. Joey thinks my reaction is the funniest thing he’s seen all day, so he dangles the wire in front of me as I shriek “Joey, it’s the end of the game! Jesus, do you know me at all?”
The kid pulls it off, and the Packers take the lead, but the Bears come back fighting. When we hear Lambeau is on its feet, we stand too. The pier is wobbly and I stand there next to Joey, so close we’re nearly touching, listening to the Packer game from one of my favorite places on earth. I am certain that there is no place else I’d rather be.
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