I am flying over Modesto, CA on my way to San Francisco where I will be performing in a show produced by Disney. I will be singing and joking about asphalt, every inch the artist I think of myself as being.
I am playing Monopoly on my iPod. My brother Art, who is always lurking just a memory away taught me how to play this game a million years ago. As I am headed toward places he never went or saw, I am buying a railroad. The plane disappears. I am in my parent’s kitchen with Art.
The walls are a celery green, courtesy of paint left over from some remodeling job my Dad’s company did. The film of smoke and nicotine over it makes the celery appear closer to its expiration date than my parents may have intended. The round table on which we play is chipped, a reminder of the night my Dad threw it against a wall. That table will remain in the kitchen until the day after he dies, at which point I will buy my mother a new one.
I am 6, which means Art is 22, still young, still healthy. You would never imagine he’ll be gone in 15 years, but he will. We don't know that tonight or time might seem more precious.
I shake the dice and end up on Short Line.
“Greg, always buy the railroads,” says my big brother. “Once I had almost all the properties. Richard had the four railroads and won.” Richard is the Nyborg’s youngest son. They live next door. He is the best friend Art will ever have. His mother Florence is my god-mother. Art is my god-father.
Our families are very close. My Dad, my Mom, Florence, Art … Richard and I will be at all their funerals but no one is thinking of that right now. Tonight we throw dice and Art teaches me how to read them. Imagined or not I can see his eyes lighting up as I get the concepts, as I learn to count the money, as I come to understand games.
Art won’t make a lot of money in his lifetime. His fortune will always be in Monopoly money, for he loves games. When he dies he won’t even have the money for a VCR. We were going to buy him for the convalescence that never happened. I think of all this as I tell the iPod I want to buy Short Line Railroad, never having to touch the money or the dice as I play alone against a hard drive, alone in the sky.
I am playing Monopoly on my iPod. My brother Art, who is always lurking just a memory away taught me how to play this game a million years ago. As I am headed toward places he never went or saw, I am buying a railroad. The plane disappears. I am in my parent’s kitchen with Art.
The walls are a celery green, courtesy of paint left over from some remodeling job my Dad’s company did. The film of smoke and nicotine over it makes the celery appear closer to its expiration date than my parents may have intended. The round table on which we play is chipped, a reminder of the night my Dad threw it against a wall. That table will remain in the kitchen until the day after he dies, at which point I will buy my mother a new one.
I am 6, which means Art is 22, still young, still healthy. You would never imagine he’ll be gone in 15 years, but he will. We don't know that tonight or time might seem more precious.
I shake the dice and end up on Short Line.
“Greg, always buy the railroads,” says my big brother. “Once I had almost all the properties. Richard had the four railroads and won.” Richard is the Nyborg’s youngest son. They live next door. He is the best friend Art will ever have. His mother Florence is my god-mother. Art is my god-father.
Our families are very close. My Dad, my Mom, Florence, Art … Richard and I will be at all their funerals but no one is thinking of that right now. Tonight we throw dice and Art teaches me how to read them. Imagined or not I can see his eyes lighting up as I get the concepts, as I learn to count the money, as I come to understand games.
Art won’t make a lot of money in his lifetime. His fortune will always be in Monopoly money, for he loves games. When he dies he won’t even have the money for a VCR. We were going to buy him for the convalescence that never happened. I think of all this as I tell the iPod I want to buy Short Line Railroad, never having to touch the money or the dice as I play alone against a hard drive, alone in the sky.
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