by Brody Elkins
Tell him you love him.
Get hungry when he’s not home. Open the freezer with the spoon in your mouth. Down what’s left of his banana chocolate swirl.The lid will read not yours in aggressive black Sharpie.
Leave the pint one-bite full.
Get angry at him because he never buys toilet paper. Hide the last roll in the third drawer of your desk. He’ll never look in the third drawer. Hear him yell for you from downstairs. Out of shit-sheets! Toss me a roll!
Slide a single sheet under the space between the door and the tile and ask him how he’s doing.
Help him apply to jobs on a Saturday in January. Tell him not to use Helvetica and that saying “utilized” instead of “used” sounds much smarter.
Find your pint of Belgian chocolate sitting empty and proud on top of the recycling bin.
Celebrate his new job at that bar with the great Christmas decorations. Talk him up to a girl wearing leather pants. Watch the leather curves strut away like it was a favor. Slug happy hour pitcher. Tell your reflection it’s time to go home. Prance past the girl he’s sitting with and whisper “dude, she smells” so she can hear it. Vomit on a telephone pole with a help-wanted ad stapled to it and walk home.
Go with him to the hospital when his mom is sick and dying. Put your arm around his shoulder and dry his tears. Dad will be there too. His arms will be big enough to wrap around the both of you.
Put a pint of caramel pecan crunch in the freezer.
Give his ass a little pat while he gives his vows to Smelly at an altar in the Japanese Gardens in the boring part of California where she grew up. Dance with her after. He won’t have to ask you to.
Move to Colorado and meet your wife in town at a Salvation Army looking for a nightstand with enough drawers. Call him every week on Wednesdays at nine, his time, because that’s when he says Angsty gets out of soccer. Compare awkward family photos on your Christmas cards each year.
Call Smelly and ask her how he’s doing. Pick up Snotty from school and say yes when she asks to go out for ice-cream before dinner.
Fly to New York City to watch him die with a soft smile in a hospital bed with sheets that remind you of toilet paper. Hold Smelly in your arms. Let her tears run through the hair on your forearm. You won’t mind.
Then tell him you’ll miss him.
Brody Elkins is a junior studying Sports Management at the SPS Tisch Institute for Global Sport. His first story was written in the 3rd grade about Barbie in an arduous quest to discover her last name. Thanks to Professor Julia Strayer, he has rediscovered a passion for storytelling at NYU. He hopes to harness his imaginative thinking in creative advertising and branding—areas he’s fallen in love with thanks to the Sports Management program.