EVERYONE WANTS A PIECE OF BRIAN'S ASH part 1

  

   

    It's been two months and my typing fingers are twitching. The official mourning period I set for myself has ended and I can get back to stutterpussing (spellcheck says this is not a word but I disagree). 

   Paying proper tribute to Brian Murphy has been both the greatest task and the greatest gift I have ever been given. There has been an extraordinary amount of things to take care of, people to deal with, treasures of all different kinds to sort out and pass on, issues to contend with, decisions to make, and questions to answer. I am grateful to have had the chance to be the one to do it, and would have never wanted to do any less. 

     For starters, I had never been faced with finding a crematorium. Nor did I ever have to call the Coroner's Office before, or go to City Hall for a Death Certificate. But nothing compared to having to call 911 to report that I had found Brian dead. It took all the strength I had (I was scared that if I stuttered too much the police dispatcher would start to suspect I had murdered him, and so would the police when they arrived). 

    Everything involving Brian's death was a first for me, which made it all the more daunting, and all the more special. Though I might someday go through this process for someone else, it will never be either as daunting or as special again.

  There's one thing, though, that would have made all of it just a little bit easier. If Brian was so certain he was going to die at 41, why couldn't he have had a will drawn-up, or made a video of himself stating his requests instead of all the ones he made of himself jerking off. Or he could have easily dictated what he wanted done into one of his mini-recorders, or even just scribbled down instructions somewhere. He could have left a hint, a clue, a riddle, anything. But it's just as much my fault. In all the time we spent and all the conversations we had, I never pinned him down on specifics.  

   When he died, I realized I didn't know any of his last wishes. Who needed to get what, who didn't deserve anything, and who should get whatever they wanted? What should I tell, and who should I tell it to? And what stays secret? Who did I absolutely have to contact and who shouldn't be contacted at all? All I could do was speculate and try to put myself in Brian's shoes (thigh-high leather boots, in Brian's case). 

Even putting myself in Brian's thigh-high boots didn't make the decisions any easier, and I got headaches from thinking about everything (or maybe it was from the tight boots making all the blood rush to my head).

   He always trusted my judgment and relied on my fairness, so in death he just has to do the same. If Brian is not happy with the decisions I have made, I encourage him to come back and haunt me. It would give me the chance to ask him where was the new hiding place for the cash and drugs he stashed away. He changed it frequently, and had died before telling me where to look.

These two hollow books were his last hiding place I knew of, but they were already emptied.

           By now I'm sure the stash has been inadvertently discovered by someone who thought they were just getting a sentimental memento. If you are that someone and happen to be one of Brian's drug friends, congratulations. If it's one of his friends who are still in AA, call up your sponsor immediately!  

    Brian's ghost could also tell me what 15 of the thirty keys on his key-ring actually unlock, since I've only been able to figure out half of them. I know that somewhere in San Francisco there is a Moped parked in somebody's garage that I have the key for.  

   The reason why I know so little about any of this is because every time Brian and I started talking about his death, it would turn into a joke. According to Brian, I was supposed to either have him stuffed by a taxidermist and hung by suspension meat hooks in the MOMA, or have his head shrunken by a tribe in the Amazon, or, if he was cremated, mix his ashes into the sugar jar on the coffee table at the popular Sunday morning AA meeting. He also wanted to be put into the sand of the old Etch-A-Sketch he owned.

It's  impossible to draw Brian's star-tattooed 
 pierced nipples on an Etch-A-Sketch

 In addition, he insisted that some of his ashes be held aside to be put into the gas tanks of the undercover cops who tried to bust him. He liked to imagine that when his body was being consumed by flames it would explode from all the chemicals inside, or that the smoke from it gets everyone who worked in the crematorium high. 

  The only thing that I know Brian wasn't joking about was a deal we had agreed upon years ago. Bri and I had never scattered the ashes of either of our two boxers, Bronski or his son Mack, who had died in 2002 and 2005, respectively. We had promised each other that whichever of us died first, the ashes of the dead one would be mixed with the dogs' ashes.  We both assumed who that would be, and fate did follow the course that Brian had laid out.

   Anyone who knew Brian back when Bronski and Mack were alive would think this deal makes perfect sense. The dogs were originally mine and my ex Pepe, but when Brian and I became boyfriends, Bri bonded with Bronski and Mack completely and permanently. His love for them was as great as his love for Felon, who came after. Felon is only seven, but when it is his time to check out, his ashes will be added to the mix too, just like Brian would want. I better not die before Felon and screw up this whole thing.


                               ***

 "One order of Brian well-done, no boxers please."

     When it came time to start giving out the ashes, some  people weren't jumping at the chance to get the house blend of Brian mixed with dogs. There were The Purists who wanted Brian Murphy Ash alone. The problem was no one realized how many other people were asking me for his ashes too. Everyone wanted a bit of Brian, and I wanted everyone to get some. After all, it was only right that he end up in as many different hands as he did when he was alive. But I knew as soon as the calls started pouring in that I wasn't going to have enough of his ashes. I only had 50% of him. There was only a limited amount of pure uncut Brian to give out.  

 

                          BRI-IN-THE-BOX

       Brian's wonderful Aunt Susie and I split his ashes, and she brought her half in a respectable urn back to Arizona to be placed beside the ashes of his parents. My half was still temporarily in the plain, black hard cardboard box the ashes arrived in. Like goldfish bowls and wedding cakes, the ashes of a beloved are among the things in this world you want to drop least. I held the box against my stomach until I found a safe spot for it high enough that Felon could not stand on his hind legs and reach it.

    Inside was a thick plastic bag tied shut with a little gold bendable strip with a number on it. 

    I opened the bag and whispered "It's you," into the ash, brushing my finger over the top layer.

     By that point, I had cried so freely and so deeply and so often that I expected to cry at the sight of Brian converted into ashes in a box. But no tears came. I was too fascinated by the ash to be sad. 

  These ashes are much less grainy and coarse than the dogs' ashes. They are almost like powder, and they float up like dusty smoke at the slightest touch or when words are breathed out too close to them. I wished somehow that Felon could understand it was Brian, but all the smell was baked out. I put a fingertip of the ash on Felon's nose and he licked off half of them. The rest stayed on until he drank water out of his bowl. 

   I retied the gold strip around the bag and closed the box. I was committed to be custodian, guardian, and protector of these sacred remains. I envisioned handing them out in a way as meaningful and special as the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

   

   For the two weeks that followed, I tried to make   each time someone came over to get ashes a special experience. Every person got to choose one of Brian's small, antique glass bottles that he collected,

and was allowed to scoop the ashes for themselves, instead of me doing it for them. Brian's friend Kevin was particularly lucky when he scooped his share of ashes out of the bag. Better than any Toy Surprise someone might find in a Cracker Jack Box, he uncovered a twisted staple made of Titanium that withstood the cremation flames. In honor of Brian, Kevin fondly refers to it as his Crack Jack Surprise. It is truly a one-of-a-kind piece of macabre Murphy memorabilia. Something sharp, dangerous and twisted, close to how Brian himself would like to be remembered.

                             end of part 1