Abby-Cuss, Wake Me Up When September Ends, 2020
Hope all is well in this time of reflection, grief, all the
things… I won’t reflect too hard on the obvious. Most people send sympathy
cards. Even as a Thanatologist, it has never been my bag to subscribe to
typical means for grieving and lending sympathies to the affected. Instead,
I’ll tell you a stupid story and connect empathy through nontraditional means.
You know, meaningless anecdotes and penis picture exchanges…
You probably don’t know this, but my parents named me Sami back when finding out the gender of
your unborn child was not as accessible as the pee-on-this-sand-and-if-it-turns-blue-it’s-a-boy drug store sorcery
we have now. Mom was hoping for a girl, dad wanted a boy- like how every story
from the 1950’s starts and ends with cigars and dads buying a gun if it’s a
girl and a kegger for the boy- or something like that- it was 1980, so I reckon
things were not quite as 50’s as we had hoped for. (I got my ideals for
normalcy and health from Nick at Night re-runs, so I was set up for
disappointment from the start). Either way, the Jews name their offspring after dead grandparents to honor them and to hopefully get some sort of monetary
investment for their spawn’s future by appeasing the surviving grandparent who
actually ever even knew the deceased and could even fucking care about their
legacy surviving through a name of some disappointed kid who will probably take
over the family business or truly disappoint them and be a fucking social
worker, who would have rather had a goyisheh name like Jessica or Crystal and
would rather have had a family who would give lunchables and gummy snacks and
sugary Capri Sun’s instead of leftover dinner-meatloaf sandwiches and a thermos
of fridge water and other non-tradeable lunch items, but I digress…..
Being a girl, as it turned out, I hated “Sami.” My entire
life was jabs about “Sammy the Seal” or “Sammy Davis, Jr.” and everyone spelled
it S-A-M-M-Y or S-A-M-M-I-E and thought they were being clever by calling me by
my “real name” as “Samantha” – which
it is not and never was. Being born
with a nickname was cute to the Boomers, but made me feel androgynous before
that was cool. When I got older, I tried to make my nickname-name a bit cooler
and would attempt to introduce myself as “Sam” but people around me would make
fun of it and mock “Saaaammmm?”
because I was clearly “Sami" from their initial introduction. (Cue: Mean Girls
“Stop trying to make fetch Sam a thing.”) I still periodically
ask people to call me that and I beat myself up for not telling more people
that I’m “Sam” because now I think it’s sort of cool to be the androgynous
“Sam” – cause’ it sounds sexier than “Sami” ……andeveryonemisspellsitandthinksitsshortforSamanthaandputs“Y’s”and“IE’s”attheendanditdrivesmenuts…
I spent a few years in a theater camp and one of the asshole
moms of an asshole kid was pregnant with the biggest asshole yet to come. I
remember the day she asked my name and did a double take. Well, guess what?
Yeah, she named her daughter “Sami” (although thank Christ- it was short for
Samantha) but she even spelled her nickname the way I do. Samantha Klitzman
became “Sami Gayle” and got to be on Broadway and star in some shitty CBS show
and is basically living the life the real Sami (moi) was meant to live. Years
after her birth, I ended up being a nanny for a year and turns out Sami spawn
lived down the street with her asshole family and my employer was her uncle.
Small world. Years later, I’d go to former employer’s mom’s funeral and she
would be there, freshly off a set, flown in from New York or California or
something assholish like that and when I offered my condolences, I swear to
Christ, she almost pulled out a pen, because she was certain I was approaching
for an autograph. I didn’t stop to tell her that she was named after ME and
that she should suck a dick before I threw her ass in the damn death hole her
grandma was swimming in. Note: *All Samantha’s are assholes. Sam’s are cool AF.
I later birthed some kids and followed suit and named them
after dead people they’d never know or who’s memory they’d ever truly connect
to. As they lamented about the names they wish they had been given, I started
to realize that I recently started to dig my own name. Sam, Sami… both of them.
When I hear it, I smile. When I meet other Sam’s, there’s something sort of
cool about it (Sami Gayle is a hand-walking queer and does not count. She is
straight-up an imposter Samantha, fuck her). But Sam’s… Like, in that shitty
movie where Demi Moore gets boner-butted while making clay pots with Patrick
Swayze? He was a Sam. Samuel L. Jackson, he can cuss like a muthafucker and no
one gives that guy shit. Sammy Hagar, Sammy Sosa… (that’s a sport thing,
right?)- their bitches probably “Sam’d”
them when they’re at home and they need to beckon the trash to be taken out.
Sam Rockwell, Sam Elliot, Sam Kinison, Sam Adams (the beer,
not the politician), Sam Shepard, Sam Smith, Sam Mendes… All notable Sam’s… I
guess that’s why they made a Sam’s Club…which basically a store where other
Sam’s and their companions can buy their favorite things in bulk… because most
Sam’s are larger than life and you always need a little more.
Sam Cooke… Samuel Johnson… Sam Merlotte in True Blood (JFC
that man was hot), Yosemite Sam, Sam the Eagle, Samwise from that stupid LOTR
series…
Then, there was Samuel Grunow: “Sam” to those who loved him
and weren’t registering him to vote or formally sign him up for car insurance
or something…. Son, brother, boyfriend, friend. Some surfer dude in his 20’s
who had a man o’liscious body and the spirit of a little boy who could fuck
like a soldier and still get excited by a toy gun. The progeny of a favorite
teacher taken too soon 20 years -this year- who won the hearts of the local
star who sings like Joni with hair like Lady Godiva and a mouth as salty as a
sailor who makes men wither to wanting and gets girls to go between green-eyed
jealousies to contemplating their preferences for penis over pussy. A love
story witnessed through social media- the fucking Crawfish Daddy of Barbie and
Ken. A real-life tiktok of two tunes of songs and sighs and feuds and farts and
funny photos and videos of a life that was noxiously normal and yet was sort of
extraordinary.
Voyeurs viewed for music and the mood made of her muse and
how she’d wow the crowds and end it with a beer and a movie with her Sam. I’d
see the familiar name pop up and I somehow knew he was good. Most Sam’s are.
When he ascended, it felt like a
sliver of my own Sam went up there, too. Us Sam’s are supposed to stick
together. It’s the first rule of Sam’s Club, ya dig?
So, I grieve for you. For the loss of a perfectly fine Sam
who no longer sticks around for the sticky stuff, so he shines through stars
and frogs and makes it 11:11 and 2:22 and 4:44 whenever you look at the clock and
leaves notes and sunglasses and laundry and lumps of hair and dents in bed
posts and feathers and scorpions and little signs that let you know he’s here
even when he’s not there.
Some may be disgusted by this prose for the newly bereft, so
here’s some cliché shit for you…
They say
it’s better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all. Well.. “They”
is a fucking ass-clown who was a spinster-shmuck, fuck faced meter-maid who
wrote generic Hallmark cards for dollar stores and died at the age of 72 with a
moldy cucumber up her twat and then her cats ate her fat, mallomarred body
beyond recognition.
Love like yours was special. A guy like Sam was rare. He was
the coolest complement of country and calm to your calamity that coaxed out
your cacophony and creatively cooled your cooter and made ya coo. He was the
safe place. He was hope. He was the future, but just not how you envisioned it.
Sam had bigger plans, as many Sam’s do; only he didn’t know what his were just
yet…so he couldn’t tell you. So he rode the wave out the way he was called to,
I guess. Who knows? Sam does. Ask him. He’ll answer you in ways you’ll feel louder than you’ll hear.
I hope there’s peace in the reflection rememories where you
shared time in the flesh. I hope you still find moments of hope and things to
look forward to while you’re busy looking
up.
Love all over you, Abbster.
Love, (who else?) …
~Sam…i
ps- your package (no, not that one, you filthy whore) arrives tomorrow. I hope it brings you a smile and an eyebrow raise.
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