A piece of creative nonfiction. Word count = 1,893

Keep in mind: this is a rough draft. And the ending needs work. Thanks, and happy reading!


I

I might have been 9. My cousins and I were playing Life on the kitchen table with our Uncle Mike. To the patrons of La Chateau where he ended every transaction with a playful “enjoy the rest of your day in sunny Philadelphia,” to them my uncle was gayer than a 3-dollar bill. To our still malleable pre-teen minds, he was just our uncle who took us on rides at Fantasy Island when we were too short to go alone. My dad couldn’t stomach all the circular rides, and the hours spent in the park’s unhygienic bathroom stalls on one particular summer afternoon were evidence of that. Uncle Mike had no prejudices when it came to rides – he loved them all equally. We spun along the track of the tilt-a-whirl, Uncle Mike’s shrieks rising above our own.

II

I like games with spinners. Round and Round and Round until the rainbow is going so fast you can’t even see its separate colors anymore. Just one indefinable smudge. I also like games with colorful money. It makes the bills easier to identify, easier to define at a glance.

III

“Mikey’s in the doghouse again!” My mother (who was not yet anyone’s mother) held up a paper cut-out of a Dalmatian attached with scotch tape to a cardboard cut-out of a doghouse.
“But I didn’t do anything! They just put me in there to get me in trouble! It’s not fair!” Michael let the tears come because he was 5 and not yet ashamed of most things.
“You liar! He was bad, wasn’t he Donna?”
”Yeah. What are you going to do, Mom?”
“Ok – you two stop bullying your brother, or you’re all going in the doghouse!” Grandpa (who was still just Dad and not yet Grandpa) stuck up for his only son. His unashamed son who was crying.
“But we’re not!”
“That’s enough!” Grandpa’s voice was not an adventurous one, but it knew how to make itself heard.

IV

The game of Life is determined largely by chance: a few lucky spins and you’ve successfully landed a Victorian home in New England, you’ve discovered the cure for cancer. Yet there still remained an element of choice.
“Ya wanna go to college or start a career first?”
”God, you kids chew your gum like a bunch of cows.” My uncle preferred to suck on cherry lozenges.
“Uncle Mike, college or what?”
“No thanks.”

V

When his rusted Chevy coughed its last gasp halfway across the wide expanse of the Canadian countryside, my uncle phoned his oldest sister for cash.
“I knew you’d understand,” he said.
“Where the hell are you, Mike?”
“No idea. Wait – somewhere between Winnipeg and what’s-it-called. Lemme see – Nick has a map here somewhere.”
“Jesus, Mike. I told you that car was shit.”
“C’mon Linda, relax. The mountains out here are unbelievable. I gotta plan a ski trip out here.”
“Sure, just tell me where you are so I can get you a train ticket home.”

VI

With the game of Life, pink bills represented victory. A modest stack of those puppies and you’re on the road to the Great American Dream that sparkled in all of our eager, impressionable eyes. They were the ticket to a breezy future filled with summers at the lake house and glamorous exhibitions at New York City art galleries. Amazing that the happiness of your life could essentially boil down to a few flimsy slips of pink paper.

VII

The tips paid rent, he knew that. He also knew there were certain things that a respectable, independent young man simply could not stand for. Which is why he could not help himself when an insufferable customer decided that he wasn’t receiving the service guaranteed by La Chateau’s exuberant advertisements.
“Waiter! Waiter!” The man waved his arms to match the mounting fury in his voice. “Waiter! Are you listening! Waiter! I need another glass of red here!”
My uncle was not one to stand for such disrespect. He mimicked the man’s raised arm and pointed fingers.
”Patron! Patron! Excuse me, Patron!”
That was one tip he could bear to live without.

VIII

Blue and pink pegs lay scattered in a cardboard box. Uncle Mike spins a seven.
“Uncle Mike, you have to get married now.”
“Alright, I’ll just take one of these, then.” Uncle Mike reached for a blue peg, but my little sister protested.
“Uncle Mike! You have to have a girl because you’re a boy!”
My oldest cousin laughed and offered my uncle the correct peg.
“Ohhhh…Sorry, Theresa. You’re Uncle Mike just gets confused sometimes. Thanks for helping me out.”
“You’re welcome.”
The rest of the blue and pink pegs remain in the confused pile.

IX

“Why are you doing this to me?” My grandmother (who has recently earned that title) with globby tears in her eyes and on her pale face, looked up at her full-grown son. He had long hair and high corduroy pants.
“I’m not doing anything to anyone.” My uncle’s face was exactly like the little boy’s whose dog was put in the doghouse 15 years earlier.
“George, say something.” A poor woman, seeing that her lot in life was not at all what she had bargained for, looked to her silent husband for help.
“What the hell do you want me to say?”
“Something, anything.” But he can’t come up with the words, so she has to continue.
“But Mikey, are you sure? Maybe you just haven’t met the right girl yet.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m gay. It seems like shit now, but it’s just the way God made me, I guess.”
“God does not make people that way. How could you do this to me,” my grandmother sobs.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, mom. I’m moving to Philadelphia.”

X

With this game, we are left with the satisfying illusion of choice: pick one career out of these three arbitrarily selected cards. Pick one Life Tile out of this jumbled pile. Draw one house at random from this overturned deck. Pick this, choose that. When nothing in this game is ever really up to us.

XI

“Yes! You owe me 10 bucks!” My older cousin pointed at my uncle’s colorful, yet dwindling, row of cash.
“What?”
“You spun a 10.”
“So?”
“So, I’m the Police Officer and spinning a 10 means you’re speeding, which is against the law, which means you better pay up,” by cousin explained.
“That sounds like a load of crap,” my uncle said.
“It’s true,” I said. “Here – look in the rules if you wanna check.”
“Ok, Ok. But it’s still load of crap. I can’t help it if I spin a 10.”
“But it’s the rules,” I said.
“Then the rules are crap,” he said.

XII

It was 1971 – things kept on a-changin’, and the Great Books department at Canisius College followed suit. Before ditching college to hit the road, my uncle was assigned Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange for class. His professor, a handsome priest with long sideburns, praised the work as a successful experiment in linguistics and an invaluable probe into the fractures of the human condition.
“It just cuts through the bullshit, you know – gets right to the gritty stuff of the human psyche,” he said.
The assignment probably stemmed entirely from Father Dan’s personal fondness of Kubrick and the fact that his film version of the book was released that year. So as part of their academic edification, the class attended a matinee screening at the North Park Theatre. Father Dan passed around a hefty bottle of generic whisky to the boys crammed in the backseat of his brown Sedan.
“It will help you understand the film’s underlying subtexts,” he told them.
When the alcohol began to heat up his body, my uncle felt comfortable enough to procure a Ziploc bag from his back pocket, which he proceeded to dangle in front of the other boys’ eyes. Father Dan caught sight of it in the rearview mirror.
“Whatcha got there, son?”
“Just something to help us understand the movie better,” my uncle said.
An anticipatory buzz filled the car, and Father Dan smiled. But he shook his head. He was down with counterculture, but he wasn’t that down.
“Sorry boys. Save it for another time. Can’t risk being caught by the fuzz. Think of the rap the Jesuits would get for that one.”

XIII

“Red Spaces. There are several of these spaces: JOB SEARCH, GET MARRIED, and BUY A HOUSE. Whenever you reach a red space, stop – even if you have moves left.”

In the game of Life, one’s forward movement is repeatedly brought to a standstill. STOP: you have graduated. Now you must select a career. STOP: you have a job with a paying salary, it is time to get married. STOP: you must buy a home. Quick, before the children start coming. This is what people do, and it does not matter what you want. You’re playing a game of pre-determined landmarks, and if you deter from the path your life will not make any sense. Your choices will be irrelevant. You will be taken off the map. Divided from the grid.

XIV

My mother tried on several fronts to convince my grandmother that her son never chose to be gay. It was not a matter of choice, just the way his DNA was arranged in the womb or something. It’s scientific anyways, she said. I don’t know if my grandma ever saw things that way. As far as she was concerned, people made choices. Good ones and bad ones. Ones that change our view of history and ones that change our road to the future.
Michael chose to drop out of school. He chose to move to Philadelphia. He chose to be a waiter at a ritzy French cuisine where the size of his tip was often proportionate to his ability to kiss ass. Michael chose marijuana, he chose the opera, he chose Stevie Nicks. He chose friends, he chose lovers. He chose to take us on the Tilt-a-Whirl at Fantasy Island. But there was one thing he did not choose: my uncle never chose AIDS.

XV

When someone contracts a life-threatening illness in the game of Life, you just dole out some dollars to the doctor and all is mended. A “Mu-Shu Flu Attack” is assuaged and forgotten with just one green and one white bill. Ski Accident? Pay 30,000 dollars and it never happened. No symptoms reveal themselves on our healthy, vigorous faces. Just spin the spinner, and we all move forwards, one by one by one.

XVI

“I had this dream last night,” my uncle said.
“Uh-huh. What happened?” my aunt pulled a blanket over her brother’s exposed shoulder.
“I was dead and I was in Heaven. And it was snowing like a freakin’ banshee.”
My aunt perched herself on the edge on the bed, smoothing out the blankets.
“I was so happy, Donna, because it was snowing. Which meant I could ski. It’s good to know I’ll be able to ski in Heaven.”

XVII

At the end of the game you get one last choice: your place of retirement. Basing your decision on the way your life panned out, you choose one of two options – Countryside Acres or Millionaire Estates.

Either way, it sounds like you’ll be happy wherever you end up.