The Deep Pocketed Uncle Andy

In the poker hand of life, no role rules supreme: kings stew under the weight of state while paupers idle peacefully. But some hands (connected healthy professional) tend, in a statistical sense, to beat others (pock marked pig rustling pariah.) Fatherhood is one of the Great Hands: if it shows up in your cards, the smart money says double down. But beware, for it can be trumped: what you really want is Unclehood.

Understand: I like being a father. The role fits me, a dotty, potterring figure with graying temples, slow humor, and steady presence. But I have long understood too that the day I come into my alterego is the day my siblings have kids. That's when the fangs will grow, the fur thicken, and the nose turn nobby and moist, when I will at long last howl loud and free beneath my fool's moon of prank and eccentricity. Until then, all I can do is watch my younger brother, listen for the telltale cackle, lay traps, take notes; hope that he doesn't use up all the Uncle tricks before he begets me a nephew.

How does he do it? He is a presence: cock-sure, wise-cracking, a crazy cackling jackle-man in ripped jeans and lace. He never arrives, he materializes, suddenly, amid smoke and flames, the sound of shrill laughter preceding the first dull padding of paws, the thud of the Giftbag hitting the chimney, the "hey ho merry oh" rattling the house like a natural calamity. He's got merry eyes, a quick smile, shiny teeth, more battle scars than skin and more ailments than function. He has been places, done things, places and things of which you and I only dream, or dread, or know from books: off the roadway, on the sauce, behind the bar, inside the body. He's got more stories than a haremful of Scheherazades.

I have a vision: Christmas day, 2015. Young Benny Toews sits stewing in his own juices next to an evil smelling stove in a gnarled cabin on the crest of a mountain, curled up on a sofa with Ma and Pa. The stove is no match for the bitter cold; everyone wears multiple beanies, three sweaters, wools socks, hand-knit mittens. They are playing the traditional Toews Christmas Game, Reading With the Family: Pa looks looks up from his math book to contemplate the ceiling, Ma mutters verses, Benny plods through the sordid but predictable misadventures of the Hardy boys. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door, and before anyone can get up to answer, the door flies open and there is Uncle A., covered head to toe in snow, snowshoes in hand, gift sack already open, roaring hellos and scattering snow as he bounds towards the bench, kisses the missus, bearhugs the bro, and spins wide-eyed Benny in wild circles around the room, winding down like a crazy top until he sputters to a stop by the stove, setting the boy gently on the mantle, dizzy and delighted and precarious, the Magic and Splendor of Christmas restored.

This is just a vision; it may or may not come to pass. But in some ways, something similar has already come to pass, on numerous occassions and in multiple forms: Andrew arrives, and our lives lighten. Smiles that haven't been seen in years find their way to our faces; toasts that have lain dormant find themselves paired with shots; capers long overdue find themselves being drafted, armed, and set in motion. Example: Francisco ribbed Andrew and Juana that one of their responsabilities as godparents would be to send a monthly check to the Benjamin Fund, a liquid reserve for Moral Betterment and Cultural Enhancement. Andrew's first check arrived a couple of weeks ago, $61 dollars, to be drawn from a real account in a real bank, with the memo "cash this fucker quick, I run a tight bottom line." Puts me in a quandry, of course: how the hell can I justify cashing my broke-ass brother's charity check, when he lives in one of the most expensive cities in America and makes sustenence-level wages? So I stalled, and now Uncle A. is riding my back, saying "I did NOT ask you to examine your damn conscience, I asked you to cash the damn check: get that bastard in the bank." So I will, of course, and we will dedicate the money to supplying invigorating Spirits at the next Powow on Benjamin's Moral Betterment, which will be a marvelous time for everyone except Benjamin, of course, who won't be able to sleep through the blasting of the mariachis and the clanking of glasses and the sound of bodies hitting the floor.

Andrew is a wonderful Uncle. And he's got a blog which is a lot better than this one: check it out, http://angrydrew.blogspot.com/.