“I love you more than the flowers love the rain.” It was a game my father used to play with me when I was very little. Every night, he’d find a new way to compare his love for me. I was his only son, the only child. When my first sister was born, he would have to find two different ways to compare his love for us every night, and by the third child, he gave up that game all together. I guess it became too much of a hassle, or else he didn’t want to spark jealousy amongst us. Three daughters and one boy is what my family became. I was instantly promoted to sous-manofthehouse, which meant no more games for me and Papa. It’s been like that for so long, I almost forgot those games…
He ran the family like he ran the restaurant. Nothing was slow-paced, and there was a constant queue of orders. As sous-manofthehouse, I took on the brunt of the responsibilities, while my sisters had few chores. I didn’t complain; I loved my sisters and would have done the work for them anyway, even without being told to do so, but with such a big family it was impossible not to be a little jealous.
“I love you more than wolves love the moon,” I caught him saying one day as I passed my youngest sister’s room. I hadn’t heard that phrase in well over seven years but now as the chords struck my ears, I felt a pain in my heart where once there was elation at those simply-composed verses. At first I didn’t recognize the feeling, and I sat in my room for hours after hearing it, wondering why I felt so strange the way I did before I realized what I was feeling was jealousy. I prayed to have the feeling removed; it had to be a sin of some kind, I’m sure, but still it lingered like the aroma of foul cheese and in the morning it rotted me inside out. I felt somehow hollow, and I went about my chores with a certain lackluster that caught Papa’s attention. He told me I’d be punished for skulking about…. It seemed I was getting punished for a lot of things the more I thought about it. Punished for being with friends too long, punished if my chores weren’t done fast enough, punished if my chores weren’t done un-skulkily enough. If I thought about it too long it only made the hole in my heart feel more gaping.

I came to realize that rotting sensation was the loss of my childhood. I didn’t really have one, since I was promoted to sous-MANofthehouse before I was even ten years old. The only thing that carried over from childhood were the punishments, same style and everything. Somehow, Papa found it appropriate for spankings at all ages, but not appropriate to tell your boy you love him every night. No, that was highly taboo at the age of seven…

I hated how bitter I was becoming over everything, and I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. What had happened so differently, so drastically to cause my Stepford life to come suddenly crashing down? I had become so complacent with my lifestyle at home that I was un-phased by all the things I was now seeing as severe and awkward problems… It was like I was living in my own little clam shell my whole life until suddenly everything became so real. Ronnie called those “shit gets real” moments. He says they happen all the time, and that shit had gotten apparently real for him at a very young age, and that somehow my shit should have been real that early too. I guess my shit-censors are off or something, because I didn’t really get what he meant until– …Well, until Johnny died.
I think everyone’s shits got real then. After he passed, that summer just didn’t seem the same anymore. Being Italian, my family had our traditions, but as weeks turned into months after Jay’s funeral, I saw these traditions slip. By summer time, we would be preparing for the annual drag race; my father would be making picnic food for the occasion. There didn’t seem to be a point in going now, and no one in the family seemed bothered by it either. They simply shrugged it off, and went on in their lives. How they could do that, I can’t imagine. It was a steady routine, something to look forward to, and now I just find myself sitting at home, lost in my escapist hobbies and frivolous magazines.
My sleeping schedule had changed, since our gang didn’t hang out like we used to in the summer. We had each gone our own separate ways after high school. Penny was going to med school, Leo went to work for his dad, no one saw hide nor hair of Ronnie and Flo for a long time, and Rupert settled into the lifestyle that so many high school graduates fall prey to- living comfortably at home so long as his parents allowed him to, without a responsibility in the world, or fear for the future. I could empathize; I was stuck in purgatory between high school and higher education. I didn’t want to go to cooking school. I was so ready to go out and start my own show. I had dreams. I had aspirations. I had goals, and a drive. But it all seemed so pointless when I thought about that coffin in the ground. It hit me, that he wasn’t coming back, and that, no, it wasn’t going to be okay, because next summer would be the same too. No picnic and drag race, no melting ice cream at a drive-in on a hot day, no loitering at malls until we were kicked out on suspicion of causing a scene. It would never come back, and even if we recreated the scenes, it would never be the same. We were called the Jaybirds, but we weren’t, really. Now we were adults, adults with our own problems. Adults alone in the world. We didn’t have each other, and we didn’t have him… but how I wish I did.
Nothing was constant anymore. My friends had grown up, my family was moving on without me, and even though I felt all the growing pains of adulthood, I somehow felt so left behind. I guess I was never really ready to be a sous-manofANYTHING after all. How I wish Papa would have seen that, and how I wish Johnny would have too… because boy do I miss him…. More than the darkness misses the sun.

This piece was written as two separate stories at first and later combined. The part in relation to the Jaybirds was first written after reflecting the loss of my professor who’s sudden death occurred shortly before I launched Pompfiction. Coming up on the first year anniversary, I got to thinking about that again, and got re-saddened, so I wrote a piece about that, which I later snuck into this piece. The rest of this was just inspired by a “game” I play with my bunny, Rocko whom we adopted from the SPCA. I try to compare my love for him to the grandest things I can think of, every night. XD And I thought that’d be a cute addition to Ernie’s family life.