"The Guncle"

Steven Rowley's show-biz references is only one aspect (but an important one) that I enjoyed about this book.

• John, Eduardo, and Dwayne would pop their grinning faces over the wall that divided their properties with friendly (but barbed) taunts, like a Snap, Crackle, and Pop who fucked.
• “You don’t have to, GUP,” Maisie said. “The car has a camera.” She pointed at the screen on the dash.
  GUP. There was that name again. GUP, GUP, GUP. They’d been calling him that all morning. “I know it has a camera, Maisie. But cameras lie.”
  “No they don’t. Cameras can’t speak!”
• Sara was very much there, in Maisie’s expressions, or Grant’s stoicism. He’d never had any interest in children himself but suddenly recognized some small appeal; Sara had found a way to live beyond death. “She’s half of you and you’re half of her.” He looked at them both, hoping this made sense, hoping that it would sink in. He saw Sara’s eyes staring back at him. “So . . . yeah. Just like brunch. Half breakfast. Half lunch.” He smiled;
• Clara continued. “You have this vision, Patrick, of playing some role. Of stepping in like you’re some glamorous Uncle Mame.” She chuckled. “Uncle Ma’am.”
• “You’re not fooling me. You’re not that good of an actor.”
  Greg emerged from the crowd, slumped, like he was experiencing a heavier gravitational pull. Patrick put his arm around his brother’s shoulders as Clara looked away. The problem with three is that it’s always two against one.
  “I’m going to do it. What you asked.”
• “I have to pee.”
  Patrick looked down at his nephew, who was holding his crotch. Of course. This whole midnight powwow was precipitated by something.
  “Step right up, boy!” he said, summoning his best carnival barker, a sort of Pee Pee Barnum.
• “Canada is harmless and the prime minister is a total snack, so we can do Paw Patrol. But another time, because we have to move beyond brunch and start planning our day. What are you guys thinking, do you have anything on your calendars?”
  “We don’t have calendars, either,” Maisie said, annoyed.
• And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.”
  When he finished, Maisie looked at him like he had two heads.
  “That’s Little Edie’s speech from Grey Gardens. You don’t know that, either? It’s on YouTube, you know. Joe and I used to perform that over and over for each other.” Patrick bit his lip, lost in the memory. They would put on the most ridiculous things and march through the house waving small flags.
• He liked Aperol; he’d read a flavor profile once that described it as approachably bitter (as opposed to say Campari, which was—like himself—inaccessibly acerbic)
• “I’m not gay professionally, Cassie. I maintain my amateur status to compete in the Gay Olympics.”
• For better or worse, they were part of a self-documenting generation at ease in front of a camera. .. Maybe they needed the camera between them as a barrier, a neutral arbiter who wouldn’t judge or ask questions or try to define their feelings or shape the way they expressed them. It would simply record their feelings for posterity. Perhaps it was the perfect therapist.
• He summoned his inner Marlon to yell, “STELLLLA!” at Malina Kuhn, as she had once reenacted in horrific detail her disastrous college production of A Streetcar Named Desire in which Blanche DuBois had a lisp (I have alwayth depended on the kindneth of thtrangers—he would have to get Grant to say that later).
• “To bring along my harmonica.” He could never pass up the opportunity to quote Eleanor Parker’s character from The Sound of Music to anyone named Max; in another life Patrick would have made a perfect Baroness.
• Daisy Morales and Jennifer Skeen stumbled into Patrick’s sight line with wide-eyed curiosity, like they had just stepped off the bus from whatever small town still sent their most attractive ingenues to Hollywood via public transport.
• “Pat-riiiiick,” they whined, stomping their feet. He studied their faces; they looked both older and younger, copies of their former selves plumped with Botox and fillers (although by a very skilled hand).
• As Charlie undid his shirt, each snap made a sonic boom in Patrick’s ears; he peeled it off and leaned back in his chair in a white Hanes T-shirt, looking like some sort of peewee prototype, a pint-sized Tab Hunter or Marlboro Man.
• “You think I’m selfish. You think everything’s about me. Me, me, me. Always have. But you know what? Self-love for gay people can be an act of survival.
• “What do you think gay people do? Have done for generations? We adopt a safe version of ourselves for the public, for protection, and then as adults we excavate our true selves from the parts we’ve invented to protect us. It’s the most important work of queer lives.”
• I was a ghost for four days and then I wasn’t. That’s how I think of it now.
  He was struck by how little his handwriting had changed in the intervening years. How could he be a fundamentally different person, but something as basic as penmanship, the way he formed words, remain the same? His scar, the other lines on his face. The salt in his beard.
• They shared memories of Joe, but they could only speak a few key words out loud... Jim jinlet, the way he would try to pronounce gin gimlet after consuming two or three. Full stories were painful and unnecessary. The memories were fresh, the history recent. They played out like little movies on a screen inside their brains. Fleshed-out memories would come later, when the edges started to soften in the fog of memory, when the details needed to be spoken to be recalled.
• “Oh, so then—you know. It feels sometimes like Joe, whom I loved very much, is being erased. He’s just a smudge now on a chalkboard, smeared in an effort to get rid of him to make way for something new. And I hate that. So there are times I wished it hurt more, because it would mean the details of him would still be sharp. And then there are other days out here in the desert—especially if you go way out, to Joshua Tree or beyond—when you can see the Milky Way. A whole smudge of stars across the sky. And you think, there’s still so much in that smudge. So many gleaming, beautiful things that you could never erase them all.”
• For Patrick, these were uncharted waters. Did Mary Poppins have a bedroom that we ever saw? Did she ever invite a dirty chimney sweep to spend the night and . . . sweep her chimney clean? Maria the governess had private quarters we were allowed a peek inside.
• “Trying to say how much your mom loved you is like trying to describe the size of the universe. It can’t be quantified. Can’t be done. I’ll bet she finds a million ways to say hello. Your eyes just have to be open to seeing them.”
  For a fleeting moment, Sara had punched a hole in the sky. Or perhaps it was Sara and Joe both—maybe it took two spirits, and that’s why it was so bright.
• They charged across the slippery grass, the sprinklers finding new ways to twist and spit. Grant pulled a croquet wicket out with his foot from a game they had played the day before as Marlene shot through his legs.
  “It’th like the toilet!” Grant squealed with unyielding delight.
  “IT’S A WASHLET!” Patrick protested.
• Dolly warbled, “I’ll be fiiiiine and dandy,” her voice plaintive yet hopeful. It matched his mood closely enough.
• Did he have chemistry with the kids? Is that what it boiled down to? Not connection, but chemistry? Not love, but science?
• The excitement around the table melted something deep inside him. He was picking up steam, hitting a stride. He was the Tin Man with freshly oiled joints after a long time rusting in the rain. A lion finding the courage to go on a journey. A scarecrow confessing he wasn’t all that scary. After a few minutes of his routine, Patrick was standing in front of the open arms of Scott LaBerge, the wizard, asking for a brand-new heart.
• Grief orbits the heart. Some days the circle is greater. Those are the good days. You have room to move and dance and breathe. Some days the circle is tighter. Those are the hard ones.