It’s lonely sometimes cohabitating with someone whose favorite music is mostly depraved old murder ballads and whimsical Celtic folk that sounds like an Irish Spring commercial. This afternoon, as Crankenstein restlessly roamed the kitchen in search of sustenance, I yanked a box from the freezer and asked “Want to try Aunt Patti’s mac ‘n cheese?” Neither of us felt like cooking, so pulling up the recipe and DIY-ing it was out, and we’re avoiding restaurants until the norovirus surge — which has conspired with concurrent Covid and flu outbreaks to clog area hospitals these past few weeks — is over, which shouldn’t be too long from now.
I’d bought the frozen carbfest as a novelty after cracking some sweet potato pie jokes over the holidays, knowing that Trader Joe’s Reduced-Guilt Mac & Cheese got Crankenstein through medical school (that is, when she ate). After reading the cooking instructions, I glanced at the box again and said “I’d feel more confident about this if it was credited to Nona Hendryx.” Had she recognized the name, Crankenstein would’ve laughed, but instead there were crickets and I wanted to pause like Jeb Bush and beseech her to clap.
Hours later, during a Super Bowl ad with David Beckham and Matt Damon, I squinted at the screen and asked “Is that Teri Garr?” But I think Crankenstein, who delighted in Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss, might’ve been immersed in memes by then, and I’m not sure she would’ve recognized an elderly Garr anyway. It was already one of those days where it was hard not to think of Joe, who would’ve had a lot to say about this matchup and all those interceptions. He would’ve known whether it was Garr in the commercial and been pleased if she’d surprised us one last time, which made me feel sadder.
There’s nothing I can say about it that Lucinda Williams didn’t say better (which is a rule of life in general and especially about topics like this), but whatever relief I felt once January was over was short-lived. I’m still not sure what to do with this void and, sadly, Patti LaBelle’s frozen mac ‘n cheese didn’t help. Whatever I see, whatever I hear, whatever happens in the world, there are constant reminders of Joe — and, more poignantly, of his absence. While searching my inbox and its archives today for something unrelated, I had to weed through a list of our exchanges that contained a particular phrase.
This happens virtually any time I search my email since our correspondence was so voluminous, and it seldom fails to make me smile at silly memories (who can forget “Andy Murray’s Ass Shingles: The Emotional Farewell”?) that sometimes also conjure tears. “Boy Wonder Indeed! My Night with Burt Ward’s Penis — A Fond Remembrance,” which spanned 210 emails over 12 or so days, was what made me laugh today. I knew it was one of his subject lines but couldn’t recall what spurred it; unsurprisingly, my investigation implicated Felix, who Joe regarded rather more tenderly than he did the rest of my family.
“Any time I see a message notification that mentions Burt Ward’s penis, I know it’s from my brother,” I’d previously shared, and for whatever reason that stuck with him and he later made a joke of it. Our subject lines weren’t always puerile; they frequently quoted screwball comedies (and Preston Sturges most of all). The content of our missives ranged from frivolity to righteous anger to the deeply personal, sometimes within the span of an hour. At some point, I don’t remember when — I might’ve still been a teenager — we started using postscripts the way I often use footnotes in these posts.
No matter how many PPPPPPPPPSes there were (sometimes we lost count of the ‘P’s and would write something like ‘PPPPPQRXYZ’), the final one from our first email of each day was “Hi!” Much as his fond remembrance of Burt Ward’s penis was what made me laugh earlier, it was a random “Hi!” from early 2023 that made me want to cry. It was preceded by complaints about his sleep, and later that morning he jokingly compared his insomnia to Ex’s and his sleep thrashing to Crankenstein’s; he had a running bit in which he imagined himself as one of my wives.*
Ultimately, he wasn’t that far off the mark; he was the closest thing I’ve had to a lifelong companion and knew me better than anyone. We spent the rest of that day discussing Philip Roth, briefly straying to complain about Updike and Cheever; Burt Ward’s penis never came up.**
* There was also the time he tried to imagine himself married to Crankenstein and concluded their mental health struggles were too similar for it to work. “Someone would have to call the county on us within the month,” he quipped.
** Apologies to Burt Ward and his penis for this post.