Fiesta
readtime ~6min
1:00 pm
Dr. Brigg’s Office
Today is my niece’s birthday. Right now is the party. They rented a bounce house again. My brother told me this year they’re getting a magician, and maybe even hiring one of those people who show up to the party and prance around in a funny costume. I don’t know. I won’t be there. I guess that’s why I’m here, it being the kid’s birthday and all.
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No. Well, yes. Technically, I was invited. But it was one of those obligatory invitations where you’re invited just because whoever invited you would feel bad if they didn’t. We’re still family after all. No one expected me to respond; it was a courtesy really.
I still make time to see my niece when I can, when her mother is out of town of course. I can’t say I blame her. Hell, I’d be upset with me too. Not that I think it’s my fault. I don’t. Full disclosure, I think if you’d cut the blame into a pie she’d have the bigger slice. Not that I’d ever say that out loud. Outside of here, I mean.
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I don’t want to talk about it.
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What did I just say? I don’t want to talk it about it. It’s as embarrassing as it is tragic. I’d prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, thank you very much.
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Alright fine. I surrender. I’ll talk. This is me applauding you. Happy?
Jesus Christ.
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It’s like this. My brother, Anthony, he’s a great dad, but he’s a sucker for his little girl. And, Becca, she’s a good kid and all but she’s a princess because of it. It’s the kid’s birthday, and she’s turning five years old. She’s in kindergarten at this point, so it’s what you’d call a “big deal.” My brother Anthony goes all out like he does every year, except this time it’s more than usual. We’re talking about a bounce house, balloon animals, face painting, cotton candy. You name it. The spoiled kind of works. Anthony gets this girl two cakes. Two. Just in case one of these rugrats doesn’t like chocolate. Who doesn’t like chocolate cake? And don’t get me started about how many kids my brother invited.
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It’s not that I don’t like kids. I mean, I don’t, but it was the amount of them there that got to me. It was like the goddamn children of the corn. It was just what you’d probably call over-stimulation. That’s the word...
So anyway, we cut the cake, well, both cakes I should say, and then Anthony decides it’s time to bring out the piñata. This thing looks like a Disney princess with a skin condition the way the paper is fraying off the cardboard. I don’t know which exact princess it was, I don’t have kids, but these children go nuts over it. I’ve never seen anything like it. You would have thought they were on the brink of a riot the way these kids were acting. Just berserk.
Becca’s the birthday girl, so she’s the first up at bat. They blindfold her, and my brother gives her a Louisville Slugger that’s almost as big as she is to break open the pinata with. And remember, Becca just turned five. There’s no way she can break this thing open with her eyes, let alone do it blindfolded. She can hardly lift the bat. So she tries and she fails, and the next kid comes up and he fails, and on and on it goes. Kids dragging the bat toward the pinata hanging above them, and rarely making contact. They didn’t even bother blindfolding them by the end.
Of course, eventually these kids just want the candy. Nobody cares who brains the princess, so they decide to elect a champion.
Now, I’ll admit, I had a couple of drinks in me at this point, so I more or less volunteered myself for the job as opposed to a more democratic form of selection.
‘Get it over with,’ Anthony tells me, ‘Do it without the blindfold,’ he says. And I think, “no.” Because if there’s one thing I hate it’s being told what to do.
So now I’m blindfolded, and I asked, well more like demanded to be spun around in circles. I make a big display of it. I put on a show. After I’m good and spun they gave me a shove towards the piñata and I took my first swing.
CRACK!
Direct hit. The bat vibrated in my hands. I knew I put a dent in this thing, so I swung again.
CRACK!
This time the crowd goes wild. I hear bits of candy skitter across the ground, and I think this is it. Right? My hero moment. I am going to break this motherfucker wide open. I planted my feet, I cocked this bat back like I was Babe Ruth about to knock one out of Fenway park.
My sister-in-laws mother, for only god knows why, chooses this precise moment to venture across the yard for another glass of wine. You following this?
And I can only assume that she wasn’t paying attention, because she as she’s saying something about the lovely weather we’re having today she walks right in front of the princess.
CRACK!
The rest is history. Paramedics said there wasn’t anything anybody could have done differently. Pretend you’re me. Now what do you do in a situation like that? I mean, it’s not like you can just take off.
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Well, I found a corner, pulled up a chair, and nursed a beer. Couldn’t think of a better option at the time. Couldn’t tell you a better alternative looking back.
It’s funny; I feel all of the things you would expect me to feel. Guilt, remorse, self-hatred, pity, the list goes on, and I feel all of that everyday. But you know what really gets me? When I think about what it must have been like to be her. It keeps me awake at night. I think of what it would be like to be her in those last moments; watching this drunken fool embarrassing himself in front of a bunch of children. I imagine her sipping a glass of wine until it’s gone, watching her kid and her kid’s kid, lives that she helped construct. I imagine her being proud. Happy. And maybe she thinks to herself “if this isn’t great, I just don’t know what is.” And maybe as all of this is happening she realizes that her glass is empty, and, without giving it much thought at all, she decides to help herself to a refill. I imagine her head being full of thoughts I’ll never know, orbiting her brain like a satellite in an infinite stream of thoughts, just as complex as the ones I have in my own, and then all at once, nothing at all.