Flaming cabbages abound!

I've got Shane on the Brain these days. It must be the general back-to-schoolness that makes me think of him. And going through photos I've noted the dirth of St. Bonaventure pictures. It's a problem. Honestly, I have more pictures of flaming cabbages in Boston than I do of any heart parties.

Just as I felt remiss in omitting my perfect niece, I have to say I felt remiss in omitting Shane. So I'll paste here some words I shared with a portion of Shane's entourage and we'll call it a thing done.



Here is my contribution to the email archive - my favorite laugh-and-cry-out-loud email from S. Tamika himself:

"Once i had a miss piggy cake for my birthday. I ate the boobs. for real."

No salutation, no signature, just telling me something he liked to tell me at regular two week intervals.

Some other random memories worth sharing... When Shane came back to school after his surgery, he had nothing but elastic waisted pants, but even those were too much for him (painful on his steroid-bloated belly). We'd go to lunch, clawing freshman for texas toast grilled cheese and fresh green peppers from the salad bar (which he ate with salt), and before we even walked out the door toward Dev he'd say, "Good LORD JoBiv I can't WAIT to take my pants off! And shoot up... we have to go to my room, take my pants off and shoot up. Whaddaya say?"

Preparing for our post lunch depanting in the morning, he would often wear his Target pj pants underneath his elastic-waisted khakis, which were made out of some stain resistant and utterly transparent material. In short, he wuddn't foolin' nobody. (And it's not like he put them on fresh from the laundry. HOT.) Those targets in the pattern stood out like a bad disease under his pants. Imagine Shane shlumping into Dr. DeLaVars' Women in Lit class with his Target-and-khaki pants and Ernie's Crab Shack shirt, where he carefully crafted his theories on pop culture imitating literature (published in The Laurel to a wide and presumably receptive audience).

Shane liked to leave notes on my door when I wasn't there at his imperial command. The first note of the day would say, "JoBiv - Where oh where are you, my sweet monkey of love? - Love Shane." The second one would have a "hell" carroted into the first "where are you" line, and the "Love" crossed out of "Love Shane." The third would be a short but effective tirade: "Johanna Mary Quintessa Princapessa North America Balboa Olivia Newton John Travolta Biviano III Esq. - I am never speaking to you again. I hate you. Love, Shane."

When I got in my door I'd see seven messages, all from Shane, all a variation on the same theme - "There is no excuse for a busy girl like you to not be in her room at MY convenience! Is that understood? Young lady?....... call me back, bye." "I forgot to say it was me on the last message. It was me. Call me back, bye." "Shane, that is. I didn't say that on the last message. The last message was Shane." "And the three before the last message. But what if someone else called you in between my messages? Then only the messages that were me would be from me... " Et cetera.

All I can think now... all I can think is - How did I live a whole year of my life without Shane on this earth with me? With us? Without his updates on his latest obsession and his latest disappointments, his constant reluctance to talk about the real dangers of his existence, the thoughtful comments, the maddening childish stubborn moments, the arms flinging, hands jazzing, lips smacking, eyes rolling caricature of himself that he pulled out for our enjoyment...

How can I not be furious that something took him away from me?

I woke up to my radio alarm on Sunday, not because I was sharing in the lets-all-pray funfest. I'm not a praying girl. Anywho, I woke up to Janis singing, "Take another little piece of my heart now babayy..." Shane's biopsy song. All that fury and sadness and hilarity overtook me, and like Uncle Chuckles, I cried. I thought of the girl who was stabbed fourteen, or was it seventeen times, to give Shane his last heart - the black girl who gave him license to refuse sunscreen. I thought of Shane's incredible mother and her penis collection, the bracelet of penis links she wore even to the award ceremonies and hospitals.

I also thought of late-night BV counseling sessions in the Laurel office with Shane sprawled on the floor, drawing pictures of "anything you want, sweet sweet JoBiv" - including an elaborate paper-towel mural and a pie. I thought of how I ran to Shane's BV office after a soul strangling english comp with Mulryan, and as soon as he saw me I started to cry... Shane hugged me and whimpered and properly trashed Mulryan and opened a bag of Skittles with a bit too much gusto, then proceeded to eat the scattered Skittles off of the floor while consoling me, spitting out carpet lint every so often. And I missed him properly and unendingly, and could see myself missing him forever, perhaps getting a little more accustomed to the spot that I swear hurts, right between my ribs, like I have my own scar there from someone cracking my ribcage open and trying to put me together again with new parts.

I just thought right now that I remember all of these things because I was always trying to remember them. I never deleted Shane's emails or threw out his toilet-paper notes to me. I wrote down some of the things he said and did because as I was knowing him, I knew he was something... rare...? I could never completely imitate him or even attempt to guess what the next thing would be - crude, sweet, yearning, rejecting... even his tropes were precious enough that I've always been learning them by rote.

You poor things. I'll end this now. This is my therapeutic addition. This is my $3.00 rose for the gravestone, and the lump in my throat that I've just vomited at your feet, but rest assured I vomit with love. HA!

MUCH love,
Johanna Mary Quintessa Princapessa North America Balboa Olivia Newton John Travolta Biviano III Esq.