The Serious Business of Being Silly
Or
A Christmas Miracle
By, Willa Johann
For this story, Dear Reader, there are a few things you need to know. You need to know that I am married to Tyler Quinn. That for a time, Robert and Tyler and I all lived together in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. That even when we didn’t live together, we often comprised a weird (and wonderful) little trio and each took turns being third wheel to the other two. You need to know that my mother is equal parts huge-hearted and unfiltered. And finally, you need to know that my father’s dominant quality could be described as professorial. He is a steady, contemplative, intellectual man and he is zero parts goofy (unless he is making crazy wide-eye faces to babies, but I haven’t had a chance to observe that much, so we’ll say zero parts goofy). That should be enough to get us started.
Let’s begin in September 2009, when Robert and I and the rest of Lodj Croo were dancing and prancing and Salty Dog Ragging our days away. We had neon hair and wore sparkly lycra and we were trying our damnedest to convince the incoming Dartmouth Freshmen that they were home. We were zany and silly and weird, so they could relax. They didn’t have to hide their own nerdiness, or zaniness. At Dartmouth, they could be themselves. That was the dream we believed in and that was why we danced and pranced and sang. Be you. Be youer than you. Be unapologetically yourself. (Robert, of course, was an incredible ambassador of this message).
(Very tired. Very haggard. Not our most attractive moment, all things considered.)
My parents came up to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge to visit. They’d never met Robert before, but they saw him on the road, welcoming guests, his yellow/green hair glowing, his long, lanky limbs waving this way and that, beckoning them in, pointing the way down the path and into the Lodge. They stayed for dinner, which, of course, was not just dinner, it was also a show. A turn-the-volume-up-to-11, never-stop-jumping, never-stop-shouting, dance-party musical spectacular.
Afterward, as they prepared to leave, my dad pulled me aside. “You know what is so important about this,” he said, “These kids are this country’s future lawyers, and doctors, and bankers, and presidents. But right now they are standing on benches dancing like fools.”
And he was right. That is the important part. No matter how high we climb, no matter how serious our goals, we must remember to stand on benches sometimes and dance like fools.
In the years that followed, my parents fell in love with Robert. I grew up in Montauk, NY, the last town on Long Island, and my parents are the permanent caretakers of a sprawling property there. We keep horses, goats and chickens and part of the charm of going home is that it flings me (and any guests) back into my girlhood chores: Go collect the eggs from the hen coop, hay the horses, water the goats. When Robert and Tyler lived together in Brooklyn, they often came out to visit, sometimes with me, sometimes without. “I don’t know why,” my mom said this week, “but that boy went straight to my heart.” She wasn’t talking about Tyler, my longtime boyfriend, now husband (although she adores him too). She was talking about Robert.
Tyler and I quickly learned that if we wanted to do something thoughtful for my mom, we shouldn’t pick up flowers, or a gift; we should surprise her by bringing Robert out with us. Tyler and I would get out of my tiny Honda civic and greet my parents, and then my mom would spot Robert folded up in the back. She’d yelp excitedly and say, “Oh! I was secretly hoping you’d come! I made you a brownie cake!”
Instead of feeding Tyler and me, who are always obnoxiously on some diet or another, she fed Robert. After a lifetime of rolling her eyes at picky eaters and refusing to tolerate allergies or preferences, she eagerly and loving accommodated his. She learned that he’d eat just about any type of bar cookie, and although she could tempt him with an apple cobbler, she’d shouldn’t waste her time making her specialty, lemon bars. For Robert, lemons were a No Go. Also a No Go: most non-apple fruit. Blech. Coconut was acceptable, but not preferred, so she stopped baking with it altogether when he came out. What he loved most was a brownie cake, or a cookie cake and she’d make him a whole one and cover it in foil and write Robert on the top and if anyone, including my dad or siblings tried to touch it, she’d say, “That is ROBERT’S! Leave it alone."
It was always the three of us in Montauk. Riding horses. Going to the beach. Sleeping in my childhood bedroom. Going on long nature walks with my father, the “professor”, who would pause mid-lecture about the dangerous creep of the invasive phragmite reed to hear a yellow-throated warbler call.
Rob’s last visit to Montauk was at Christmas 2014. I came home early from Portland, OR and Rob was still in NYC, so I told him to come out for as long as he wanted and help my mom with her Herculean holiday baking efforts. We painted sugar cookies and made pasta and we took the dogs for a walk on the beach.
We had a lovely visit. And then one night, Rob announced that he had brought a present out for my parents. “Actually,” he said, “it’s for you, Ed.” So with the Christmas music playing and the living room strung up with colored lights, he placed a package on my dad’s lap and watched expectantly.
My father slowly unwrapped and unwrapped and finally pulled out what was inside: an adult sized chicken suit. A chicken costume! “Wow!” my dad exclaimed. And then he leapt to his feet and rushed from the room without a word.
We hardly had time to laugh or wonder where he’d gone before we heard a clucking in the hall. Bawwwwwwk—bawk—bawk--BAWK! And then, I kid you not, my father, the steady, studious, zero parts goofy man, came back into the room as a six foot chicken. He flapped his wings, clucking and shuffling his way around the Christmas decorations, and my mother and I sat flabbergasted. Was it possible? Was my father wearing a chicken suit and doing a silly little chicken dance? It hardly seemed real.
You can see in the photos that he is really serving up some poultry realness—no one forced him to put on the suit. He did not perform an obligatory lap and then take it off. He danced and pranced and flapped around the room and none of us could quite believe it.
“Robert,” he said, “this is really spectacular. This is something I’ll treasure.”
But, Dear Reader, if I’m honest, I still think it was such a bizarre gift. Who would ever give my dad a chicken suit and expect him to enjoy it so much?
Robert. Robert would. He had a way of elevating others into silliness and it was certainly a reason I loved being around him. But I also so admire his ability to recognize who needed an extra push toward goofiness. Robert took silliness seriously, as someone said last year, but he didn’t exist in an isolated bubble of goofiness: he gave others a way into silliness, into laughter. He was able help my father, who had come to the lodge, stood at a distance and made an accurate though academic assessment of a situation, actually take part in the fun. He pushed my father up on a bench and made him dance like a fool.
And it was a tremendous success for everyone involved.
