Only the Good Die Young

Billy, I try to be good. You know that.

I also try to teach Hughie how to be good. I work on him with his pleases and thank yous, his sharing, his playing with others, and generally try to teach him to be considerate and sensitive to the world around him.

However, I have occasionally failed.

When the seasons changed and it became cool in New York, Hughie and I started to wear our light jackets around the city. I’m not sure how it developed, but we developed a recurring joke. The joke would start when Hughie would cover his hand with his sleeve, while I mirrored him, and then one of us would ask to hold the other’s hand.

The same events always happened after this settup: “Hey, Hughie let me hold you ha-AAAAAH!!!!!!!! Where is your hand?! Oh, no! Where’s MY hand?! AAH!” We would then flail are arms about until our hands, inevitably, came out of our sleeves. Our choreography that followed the rediscovery of our hands took synchronized precisions: we would look down at our hands for two beats, look up at each other for one, and then say, “Oh…Oops.”

Hughie found this little scene to be hysterical every time we did it. If ever he was starting to get cranky all I would have to do was put my hand up my sleeve, turn to Hughie I’d see the little smile growing on his face, and I’d know we were golden. Goodbye grumps!

Well, one day we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were sitting in the statue garden and trying to reenact all of the expressions and poses we were seeing. The museum was fairly empty that day so we had some room to do this. I was intently staring at one of the statues when Hughie suddenly grabbed the bottom of my shirt and started tugging. “LOOK TOLLY! We should ask him to hold our hand!”

I turned around, not understanding at all what Hughie could possibly be talking about.

Sure enough, Hughie was jumping up and down in excitement while pointing to a real amputee.

Joel, I was so horrified that I decided that I would need to pray extra hard to you that night. To repent for my sins I even actually listened to some of your classical music.

You know how much that must have pained me.

I knew I was Running on Ice and, you would think, one such horrible mistake would teach me the error of my ways forever. Unfortunately Billy, I am not an Innocent Man...

Last week Hughie and I ate at a new café in the East Village. When we were leaving the café to go to his friend’s apartment for a play date, Hughie noticed a couch the establishment had placed under its awning on the sidewalk. I could have explained to Hughie that this was probably an ironic hipster observation of white trash culture, but that’s a lot of concepts for a four year old to get his head around. Instead I said, “Oh man, isn’t that silly!”

He snickered at the silliness. “Yeah,” he exclaimed, “they must sit OUTSIDE on their couch.”

Something about the way he said this struck me as funny. “Do you think they sit on that couch and watch their TV outside?”

“YEAH!”

“Do you think they also have their washing machine and dishwasher outside?”

“YEAH!”

At this point Hughie was practically doubled over laughing at the thought of it all.

“Do you think they keep their bed outside?”

“YES!”

Hughie then decided to get involved with the game and he one-upped me, “AND their trundle bed!”

“Yes, yes, of course their trundle bed. I bet they also keep their desk out there too!”

The game was stopped suddenly when I looked ahead of us down the street. There I spotted the mattress lying on the sidewalk of Avenue B that would stop our good natured fun dead in its tracks.

“Look! He’s sleeping on the trundle bed!” Hughie said while he jumped up and down and pointed at the homeless man. This sight earned 10x the enthusiasm from Hughie as the man with a missing hand.

Billy, normally I would take this time to blame you for these two instances. There is, after all, a noticeable lack of good child-rearing advice available through your music. Or, for that matter, good advice for young listeners to take to heart in general (I mean really Billy, do all the Catholic girls start much too late? Really? You drove a motorcycle in the rain when the girl asked you not to, crashed said girl’s party, and you’re a lunatic but she should still get with you?).

That being said, I realize that it is me, and only me, that is at fault for young Hughie’s actions.

It’s just common sense to stop the joke about outside furniture with a dishwasher.