boys & flowers

lily of the valley (sweetness)

Sunday the 26th. I had nothing but another year tacked on to my life.

The year before, for my birthday, Bebe and I drove out to an aquarium where we could reach into cold water and stroke 50-year old sturgeons from Lake Superior. To this day I can still feel the slimy ridges of their backs on my fingertips. I remember how purple Bebe's hand was when she finally drew it from the water. I held that hand for the rest of the day.

She texted warm wishes, I gave a warm reply. Then there was nothing more.

Birthdays have always been strange to me. Being forced to digest yourself when you don't know who you have filled me with small, overlapping screams of dread. When I think of how much of my life has passed, violin strings break in my ears. I grind my teeth.

Not that I'm afraid of dying. I've seen someone die before, and I've come close myself.

I believe when we die, all that happens is we go back to the place we were before being born. No lake of fire and no pearly gates. I take comfort in that.

I'm just saying. You know how I feel about time.

I wanted to get through my birthday with minimal social interaction, but what is planned and what takes place never coexist.

May is a great time in Colorado to plant peppers and squash. Cartman likes to fry zucchini pancakes, so come July when the squash is ready, he gets really excited. And I love spicy foods, so the peppers are a centerpiece for me. So, I slathered on sunscreen (more freckles already developed on my nose) and worked until 11 am.

With everything planted and watered, I wiped my forehead with my arm, went back inside, walked upstairs to find Kenny and Cartman lounging in their pajamas, balls deep in the wake and bake process in the kitchen. A singular, chocolate cupcake with coconut shavings on it, a small box, and a card were waiting for me in the breakfast nook. When I saw the thick frosting of the cupcake, my first thought was: Oh, Craig would be all over that.

They made me a birthday card filled with crude doodles (I know too many ways of how to fuck a cake now), and this tee-shirt with cats photoshopped into burritos, flying through space, shooting laser beams from their eyes. Kenny picked it out.

...

I remembered I promised to bring flowers for South Perk's outside seating area, a begrudgingly accepted that my day wasn't over yet. I could have put it off for another afternoon, but it would be a quick job and I wanted to get it over with.

I gathered up extra marigold and columbine, packed them into long planters, grabbed zip-tyes, put them in a red wagon, and set off. I would have asked to be driven, but after 40 hours a week of sitting down, I was feeling soft around the core and knew I needed to walk. Kenny and Cartman were too stoned off their asses anyway.

That day was gorgeous. Blue skies with scattered cumulus clouds, a big swelling sun. Dandelions sprouted everywhere, kids played in lawn sprinklers, stopping now and then to open their arms and embrace the mountainous breeze from the Rockies. For the first time in a long time, I felt I belonged there. I was the clouds, the sun, the bright dandelions, a child. Maybe I would be alright.

An old man in khaki shorts and a sun hat called out to me, "hey, flower boy!" (better than what Cartman calls me, which is Farmer Gay). I stopped. He hobbled over to me, held on to the top of his wire fence with both sun-spotted hands and kept me cocooned in an hour-long story beginning with a local flea market, and ending with how his wife used to plant sunflowers in their backyard this time of year. I glanced over their fence and saw no sunflowers. "Used to."

He ended the conversation by giving me sunflowers. I refused at first, but he insisted. It's difficult for me to take anything from anyone because I feel like no matter what it is, I don't deserve it. Another reason to dislike my birthday.