BARNEY, THE BIG SLOUCHY SWEATER
By, Tyler Quinn
I found Barney in a Goodwill in Bellingham, Washington. I was with my mom and she was in the mood to buy me things - a mood that reliably strikes her in thrift stores. Thus the “acceptability threshold” for Barney was low. But I liked the sweater. I liked it well enough that I might even have bought if for myself.
Barney was big. Big enough to make me, someone undeniably big, feel small. And that’s what first attracted me. Maybe this big purple sweater, with its chunky knit and three-button henley style collar was the answer. Maybe swathed in its sizable indigo embrace my bigness would be less noticeable, for a while. I didn’t mind being big all the time, but an occasional break would be nice. And maybe Barney was it. Maybe I, Tyler Quinn, could pull off a big slouchy sweater (BSS).
How I thought I looked in Barney:
This dream didn’t make it far.
One weekend in early January, I pulled Barney out of my still packed suitcase. I was back in Brooklyn, in the apartment I shared with Willa and Rob. I donned the BSS in the privacy of my bedroom, before confidently stepping into our common space.
“HA!”
The laugh escaped from Robert like a crow cawing. Unbridled. Undeniable. It filled our little apartment, shaking the walls and my generally unshakeable confidence. My face and my spirits fell.
“What?” I asked, tugging at Barney. “Not good?”
“Um…”
Rob didn’t say anything else. He knew this was a fragile but important moment. His barked laugh and the ensuing silence had said plenty. In a flash I saw both Barney and myself through Rob’s eyes. I was not pulling off the BSS.
How I probably looked in Barney:
Was I happy to have this new perspective, Dear Reader? No, I was not. In this moment, did I appreciate Rob’s candor, his one-of-a-kind ability to keep me humble? Not. One. Bit.
So many of you have shared memories of Robert in which he was quietly kind, seriously silly, or a shining example of friendship and loyalty. That wasn’t always my Robert. Sure, my Robert was kind and silly and loyal. But he also had a few hard edges. A bit of snark. A side of sass.
My friendship with this kind, silly, loyal, snarky, sassy Rob grew slowly, and often at my insistence. My big blonde emotional availability flew in direct opposition to his dark, sinewy skittishness.
***Side note: Robert hated cats, but was he a cat? And was I a dog? Maybe not, but imagine a golden retriever trying to befriend a house cat and you’ll sort of get the picture. Also, I know that wherever Rob is, he’s very mad I just called him a cat.***
At Dartmouth, our interests and activities placed us in closer and closer proximity and brought to light some of our overlapping weirdness. We discovered a mutual love for bad movies, obscure pop culture, and Whoopi Goldberg. The friendship that formed was one-of-a-kind. It was special and specific and belonged to just him and me.
(Before you stop me, Dear Reader, I know I wasn’t the only person with whom Robert had a one-of-a-kind friendship. If his passing and the community that’s formed in the year since have taught me anything, it’s that one of Robert’s greatest strengths was his ability to create those magical, one-of-a-kind relationships with so many of us.)
But a very real part of the unique friendship we shared was that Robert could (and very often would) tell me things I didn’t want to hear. He took it upon himself to bring me back to reality. One of his favorite things to say to me was, “Get off your higgghhhhhhh horse.” True, this dynamic was just a small part of our one-of-a-kind friendship. But, in the last year, I have realized that this element of our relationship was the rarest part. It’s what I’ve missed the most.
A year without Rob and I wonder, How many Barneys have there been? How many times would Robert’s candor, his momentarily painful but always helpful advice, have saved me? What will happen to my unruly self esteem without Robert to intermittently knock it down a peg?
After The LaughTM, I returned to my room, pulled off Barney, and stuffed it into the file cabinet I was keeping my clothes in at the time (Hi Brooklyn!). I picked up a sweater that actually fit me and quickly pulled it on.
There wasn’t time to dwell on the failure of the BSS.
Rob and I had a movie to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment