I hesitate.
“Come on, Brian. Now.”
As I’m walking away, I can hear the crowd roar and the announcer, Jerry Remy, shouting something about the greatest play he’s ever seen.
“Brian, seriously, c’mon! We need to get to bed.”
And chores. My God, the chores. They started first thing in the morning with a dog walk that was boring because I didn’t have the city as my backdrop anymore. The trash needed emptying twice a day. Shrubs needed watering. Litter had to be picked up. Porches needed to be swept. And whatever I did, Pam had to do three times as much, what with laundry, school lunches, snacks, dinners, animals that needed to be fed, the litter box that waited to be emptied. And the dishwasher. That new life, maybe the suburbs in general, was a full-time job.
And still there was bird shit everywhere, baking in the sun or freezing in the cold. Always the rooster lurked. Walter panted nervously at my feet every single place I went. The kids were selectively happy to see me, always on their terms, never on mine. Everywhere I wanted to go, I needed to get into the car, and to get to Boston, I needed to drive a few minutes past forever. Leaving work in the early evening or the gym after work, always in a rush because there was never enough time, I’d look at the lights of the city skyline in my rearview mirror and feel lonely—lonely that I was leaving them, lonely that I was going home to a full house. It made no sense, but it was what I had. It was my new life.
Which is what I mean when I say that Buddy’s attitude toward me was representative of a much larger issue: I was the visitor, the interloper. Basically, I was being treated exactly as I felt. Pam and her kids knew the house, they knew the town, they were native to suburbia. They knew that Sundays are the new Saturdays at the supermarket, that you bargain with the guy at the fireplace shop, that you have to accept that everyone is overscheduled and always in a rush. I was just an anonymous presence in a world in which everyone else seemed to be best pals. Hell, the people at the Starbucks, located, of course, in a strip plaza, didn’t even know my name. Meantime, Buddy was the best-known resident of my house.
Did I say that to Pam on that gray Saturday morning when the kids were off on a playdate at their friend Claire’s—any of it? Of course not. I’m a guy, proudly so, and to bring it up, any or all of it, would be to sound even more like an idiot than I already did, a chronic complainer, which I’m not. Or at least I never used to be before.
Instead, I said, “You’re right. I’m just overtired. I didn’t sleep well last night. I probably need a vacation. I think we all do.”
And I walked out of the kitchen slowly, leaving her behind. I walked into my study, where I flicked on my computer. I wasn’t really thinking, I was just kind of typing—typing “The Clarendon” into Google and vacantly staring at my screen as a website popped up with a huge photograph of a beautiful high-rise that I had watched being built next to my gym, thirty-something stories, a perfect location, views to the Charles River, the Financial District, Boston Harbor, and beyond.
The picture showed the tower all lit up at night, glowing, beckoning. Where it said “Condominiums” and “Apartments,” I clicked on the latter, and suddenly floor plans appeared on my screen—manageable spaces, big windows, clean and new. I gazed at them, not really thinking about what I was seeing or doing but really looking back into the kind of life I had left.
I imagined the calm, the quiet, the tranquillity, the harmony, which is probably ironic, sitting in the deep suburbs, looking to the city for any of that. But more than anything else, I imagined the familiarity of it all, the control, the sense of self, the blissful absence of constant and seemingly unmanageable responsibility.
As I imagined all of that, somewhere out in the yard, Buddy the rooster let forth with a long, laborious crow.
I came downstairs on New Year’s morning to a sight I didn’t expect: two girls in pajamas in our kitchen, their hands out in front of them in full begging posture, pleading “Oh, pleeeeeeeeeeease! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasssssssse!”
I looked at Pam, who was making their typical multifaceted breakfast—waffles from scratch, freshly diced fruit, crisp bacon, maybe a mushroom omelet for good measure. I used to get a choice of Quisp or Quake. Pam shrugged at me playfully, betraying nothing about what was going on.
“What’s with the begging?” I asked, amused but slightly skeptical of it all.
“Kanani,” Abigail said, speaking what sounded like a foreign language. “Kanani comes out today. We want her. Pleeeeasssse!”
“We have to have her,” Caroline chimed in with her squeaky voice. “It’s, like, not an option.”
Pam finally spoke up. “American Girl dolls. I think Kanani is the Doll of the Year, and the Doll of the Year comes out today.”
I’m sorry, but this may simply be the most brilliant marketing campaign in the history of American commerce—a toy company that times the release of a must-have doll for seven days after the Christmas rush. I wanted to call the board of directors of American Girl and tell them they are my new heroes—and then suggest that they can kindly go to hell.
The girls were both standing in front of me like two dogs before a butcher. Never mind that they had a roomful—or, more accurately, a closetful—of those dolls that they didn’t seem to particularly like or play with anymore. Never mind that this house had basically been carpet bombed with new toys, clothes, games, horse jumps, and other sundry gifts on Christmas Day, a measly week before. No, they needed that doll, and they needed it on the first day of its commercial life.
And they kind of had me, because there was virtually no gambit I was unwilling to attempt in my occasionally pathetic attempts to win the affections of Abigail and Caroline, to prove that I was more than a competitor for their mother’s attention, but a decent guy in my own right.
“Okay,” I finally said, convincing myself that it could be a good bonding experience—me and the kids shopping for dolls at the mall on New Year’s Day, hand in hand, cracking jokes, having the kind of fun we would reminisce about decades later. You look for opportunity wherever you can find it in this newfangled life. “Get your coats on, and let’s go.”
They looked at me like I was absolutely out of my mind. “No,” said Abigail somewhat sternly, her smooth brow suddenly furrowed. “We want you to go get them for us.”
What? At first I didn’t understand, the request seemed so outlandish. But then it dawned on me: I was to be the glorified errand boy for a pair of four-foot-tall blondes who seemed to share the same entitlement disorder that every other kid does in a town like theirs. I was supposed to run out, plop down a debit card already worn to within an inch of its life from Christmas, and promptly deliver a pair of overpriced dolls.
No, absolutely not. Not only did I have some modicum of pride remaining, though admittedly not a lot, but I also had made a point of never, ever attempting to outright purchase the affections of those two girls. Well, sure, there was the occasional box of their favorite cupcakes on my way out from work. And yes, okay, I all but backed a U-Haul up to their house on Christmases. But you have to know where to draw the line.
It ended up, after some consideration and reconsideration and private discussions with Pam, that the line wasn’t meant to be drawn at the new American Girl doll on that New Year’s Day. Pam, seeing I was visibly frustrated, explained to me outside of the kids’ earshot that they were a little bit sad about their school vacation ending and didn’t want to miss any precious time with their mother, which was the only reason they didn’t want to accompany me. They were also out of sorts because they were switching houses later that day, from their mother’s to their father’s. Such is the fate of the children of divorced parents, and that’s a tune I’ll fall for every time.
So flash ahead an hour, and there I was on New Year’s morning, not at some lavish brunch at a downtown Boston hotel restaurant, preparing for an afternoon of football festivities with friends, or even just sleeping off the effects of too much frivolity
the night before. No, I was, by my quick accounting, the only male among the many, many dozens of gleeful young girls who had taken the American Girl store in the Natick Mall by storm.
There was a cacophony of yelling, screaming, begging, and crying, and that was just from the high-strung mothers in designer jeans who were overseeing their daughters. Fortunately, the store seemed to have several million of the newest dolls, each available for a mere $100 or so apiece. Who knew they’d be so cheap? “You should probably get an extra outfit or two to make it really worthwhile,” Pam had advised me on my way out the door. That was another $44 a doll, or $88 in total. I was waiting to get to the register, holding two dolls and four outfits, weaving in and out of those Disney-style barriers that make the line appear shorter than it is. Mothers were snapping at their daughters. The girls were pleading for one more bonus pack, another book, a visit to the American Girl salon (?!). I was surreptitiously eyeing all the doll accessories they were buying, making sure I didn’t get the completely wrong thing.
At the register, I set my purchases down on the counter and told the middle-aged clerk, “I don’t know how you guys make a profit, these things are such a steal.” Maybe it was just that she’d never seen a man in her store before, but I’ve gotten warmer responses from politicians walking out of a grand jury room. “Will you be needing a gift receipt with your dolls?” she asked.
“No, they’re for me.”
I mean, come on, that’s funny. But no laughter, no nothing, except probably a discreet nod to the head of security to make sure they monitored my whereabouts until I was on Mother Nature’s side of the door.
When I got back home, the girls were playing in the side yard, allowing me to slip in through the garage and lay the dolls out on the kitchen counter so they would be front and center when the kids walked into the house. Pam assured me that the outfits were just right, though I wasn’t as confident. We set them up, and it was like Christmas morning all over again. Moments later the kids raced in to grab leashes for the dogs, skidded to a stop, and screamed, “You got them! You got them!”
Then: “Mom, you got them!”
No, no, Brian went and got them. Brian drove to the Natick Mall. Brian picked out the outfits. Brian looked like the idiot standing among all the little girls. Brian plopped his debit card on the counter so the stone-faced lady at the register could deplete his withering account of a few hundred more dollars.
“Thank you so much, Mommy. We love you!”
“Guys, thank Brian,” Pam said urgently. “He’s the one who did it all.” God bless her.
“Yeah, but you told him to,” Abigail replied.
Pam shot me an apologetic look. She was about to say something to them when the two girls, one after the other, in low but sincere voices, said, “Thank you, Brian.” Then one of the kids grabbed a piece of cheese out of the refrigerator and shouted to the other, “Let’s go feed Boo-Disk!”
And they were gone.
Later Pam would tell me that they really did understand and appreciate what I had done for them and that they loved their new dolls. But given the joking relationship that we have, it’s sometimes tough for them to get serious enough to express their thanks.
“I get it,” I told her. “I’m just happy they like them. That’s the point, isn’t it? When you give a gift, it’s about the recipient, not about yourself.”
It felt good to be traveling along the high road like that. My only fear, being as unfamiliar as I was with it, was the distinct possibility of getting lost.
One afternoon, Pam and I picked the kids up at one of the twenty structured activities that happen on a typical winter’s day and were, of course, driving them to another. In that case, it was from horse riding to a playdate that involved some sort of arts and crafts. Our path between the two led right past our house, but there was no time to stop. It was late afternoon, dusk, and as we drove down our street, in front of our fence, Pam quietly told me to slow down, which I did. The lawn was empty of animals, specifically the chicken, but the kids rolled down the rear windows of the car and shouted one of Buddy’s many nicknames. “Schnoodle! Schnoodle! Here, Buddy. Here!”
Buddy, I suddenly saw, was in the process of putting himself to bed. Specifically, he was inside his house, on my old Crate & Barrel chair, readying to make the final leap to his raised perch. He heard his name, heard the kids’ voices, and frantically whirled around. Without missing a beat, he flew out the double doors, skipped down the wooden ramp, and bolted across the yard toward the fence by the street, his body lilting so much from side to side in his exaggerated dinosaur run that every step made it appear he was going to wipe out. All the while he was joyfully shouting, “Ba-back! Ba-back!”
A car pulled up behind us, so I edged to the side of the somewhat narrow road. The kids were leaning out the window, asking Buddy about his day, telling him to get a good night’s sleep, advising him to stay warm inside his house. The chicken stood at the fence cawing and clucking and barking, absolutely delighted to be part of the moment, this family moment, him and his flock. If he was confused about why they were outside the fence, he didn’t betray it.
A truck now rolled up behind me and couldn’t easily get past, so I said, “Tell Buddy good-bye. We’ve got to go.”
I accelerated. The kids shouted “Bye, Schnoodle! We love you!” Buddy barked and cackled and ran along the fence until he hit the corner of the yard and was blocked from running any farther. Then he crowed to the heavens.
As the car glided down the country road, Pam looked at me in knowing silence. I looked straight ahead, knowing that I wasn’t going to ruin the best thing ever to happen in my life.
It was breezy and raw when I made my regular trek across the darkened yard later that night to shut the double doors on Buddy’s house, one of my last chores of the day. I climbed the ramp and did what I always do, which was to whisper, “Buddy? Buddy, are you there?” I pressed the power button on my cell phone, and the dim light revealed his silhouette. In the inky blackness of his shed, from his perch atop the comforters and quilts on the handcrafted shelf, he let out a low grumble of acknowledgment.
But rather than shut the doors quickly and walk away, as I typically did, I lingered for a moment. That damn bird couldn’t be any happier about his place in the world. He had his house. He had his yard. He had his family. He didn’t give a flying crow what was happening on the other side of the (expensive) fence, unless he thought it was somehow going to interfere with life within his yard. Much as I hated to admit it, Buddy basically had it all figured out.
“How do you do it?” I asked him. “How are you so content here?” Please accept that, by talking to a rooster in the wind-whipped dark of a cold winter’s night, I understood that I had completely lost my mind.
Buddy seemed surprised by the questions. He clucked back, louder than his grumble, and in the dark, I could see that he had pulled himself up onto his feet.
“You strut around the yard like it’s the only place that you could ever imagine,” I said to him softly, my voice colored by both awe and inexplicable regret. “You look at Pam and her kids like they are the only people who will ever matter to you.”
He cackled a little bit more, slowly flapped his wings, and fell silent.
“And it works for you, all of it. You love them. They love you. You love where you are, and it’s like you belong here.”
He let out his long kung fu sound, a groan more than anything else.
I listened to him. I looked at his round figure in the dark. I thought about him and then about me. My mind dialed back, not weeks or months but years, dialed back to relationships that had begun with hope and ended in pain, a pattern as deeply grooved as the lines that were forming on my aging face. Beginnings always led to endings; it was the way of life. I thought about the Saturday afternoon with my ex-wife in our apartment, those hours on the bench in the Public Garden with Harry contemplating the biggest failure I would ever know, and where I might have ended up but f
or that wonderful dog. He might have been the most vital gift of my life.
And then I thought about Pam and all her accessories. My God, there were a lot of accessories: kids and rabbits and cats and Walter and the need to live in a distant town with this sometimes comic and more often ominous creature named Buddy. The funny part about Pam, the thing that made it different from any other relationship I’d ever had, was that I could never contemplate the ending, could never picture her as an ex-anything, could never imagine running into her on some Boston street on some distant Saturday morning and awkwardly talking about what was new and how we were before continuing on our separate ways. Yes, I had looked up Boston apartment prices. Yes, there were moments, whole evenings, maybe even entire days, when I was frustrated over or frightened about what had become of my tidy little life. But it was never about Pam. It was about me.
On that night, by the way, the sky was clear, the moon was bright, and my eyes had adjusted to the darkness inside the shed, meaning I could see Buddy more clearly now, both figuratively and literally perhaps. He was standing on his shelf, peering back at me, not girding but engaging, offering only little pips and squeaks to keep the conversation going. I pictured, for some odd reason, what Harry would have thought of it all. Actually, he would have loved most of it—living with Pam, a couple of kids, a big grassy yard. The bird he would have tolerated—barely. He would have been sixteen years old at that point, and it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to think he could still be alive, even if it felt like a lifetime ago that he’d died.
Then I thought of Buddy crowing outside my window, his beak up, his chest puffed out. I thought of him chasing me across the yard as if he was possessed, which he may well have been. I thought of him sitting around with the dogs, leaning into Pam on the front porch, trotting around with the kids as they played horse on the far reaches of the lawn. I thought of the loneliness he probably felt when there was nobody around and the joy he experienced when there was.
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