Monday, May 25, 2026, Memorial Day. It used to be a big day growing up. There was the Saddle Brook Memorial Day parade that I marched in once or twice with the Junior Rifle Squad. We trained and rehearsed for weeks beforehand, in the streets around the Saddle Brook American Legion on the Garfield border.
We had a uniform of a cowboy hat, a blue shirt with patches on it, epaulets, and thick navy blue trousers with a yellow gold stripe along the sides. And spats for our black shoes. It was a complete waste of time and only something that was done to make the parents and adults feel good.
People like me who were pacifists but didn’t know it, went along with it or else. We had dummy rifles that we would twirl and present arms as well as throwing them to other members of the Junior Rifle Squad in a hopefully precise drill. Sometimes we caught them, sometimes we didn’t.
Before I was a member of the Junior Rifle Squad I was one of the great unwashed kids who would pick up the empty rifle shells once they cooled off following a 21 gun salute at the top of the hill on Market Street where the Gulf Station used to be. I would collect them with the other children of alcoholic veterans once they cooled off and treated them like they were precious items, not realizing a day later they would be forgotten and more than likely thrown out.
As the hours went past, the adults got more and more tipsy and the kids would be more and more rambunctious. The parade was usually on a Sunday, allowing the Monday holiday to be a day to tend to their hangovers and for the kids to count the days until the end of school.
In the present day it’s been quite a humdrum weekend, filled with rain and yesterday filled with antagonism. Bill was around and that was great. Mike was supposed to come around Saturday but begged off due to the rain. And yesterday, which should have been the replacement day, was also filled with rain.
I went to the supermarket both days alone and while annoyed with Mike who wanted to spend time with Bill, I was a bit relieved. I had the awakening that I was glad things had cooled quite a bit between us. Gone are the sexual games, settling in on friendship, and I expressed that in a text to Mike while talking to him on another social media platform.
Unfortunately, the timing was off. I was in the midst of a good chat with Mike, who spied the other platform expressing my happiness of being friends rather than something else. It derailed the good chat we were having and turned into a spiral of hurt and confusion. We went to our respective corners.
I could not talk to Bill about the situation, and Mike could not talk to his beloved about it either. So we sat by ourselves licking our wounds. Bill and I watched the Martin Short documentary, which was sweet.
Mike more than likely chatted in direct messages to his hundreds of followers, telling them how he would like to be with them doing things that I used to hope we would do to each other. Don’t ask how I know, it was a bit underhanded on my part.
So much so that it takes willpower not to do it again, which would only upset me. Mike and I did have a good long talk before bedtime for Bonzo. Apologies were made and accepted. We are a family, Bill, Mike, Me and the beloved, Wade.
A chosen family that still has the hang ups of a flesh and blood family.
whachagonnado?
A Google Gemini rewrite as a Kurt Vonnegut essay
Today is Monday, May 25, 2026. It is Memorial Day on planet Earth, a planet where the inhabitants are very fond of anniversaries and very bad at preventing mass slaughter.
When I was a boy from Lodi, New Jersey, in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, Memorial Day was a very big deal indeed. I even marched in the parade once or twice. I was a member of the Junior Rifle Squad. We rehearsed for weeks in the streets around the Saddle Brook American Legion post on the Garfield border, preparing for a war that had already happened, or perhaps for wars that hadn’t happened yet.
Our uniforms were spectacular and deeply stupid. They consisted of:
1. A cavalry hat.
2. A blue shirt with patches and epaulets.
3. Thick navy blue trousers with a gold stripe down the sides.
4. White spats over our black shoes.
It was a complete waste of human time. It was an elaborate piece of theater performed by children to make adults feel less guilty about the world they had made.
I was a pacifist back then, but I didn’t have the word for it yet. Nobody did. If you were a child, you went along with the militarism or else. We had dummy rifles made of wood. We would twirl them and present arms and throw them through the air to other children in the squad. We hoped it looked precise. Sometimes we caught them. Sometimes we didn’t.
So it goes.
Before I was old enough to twirl a fake rifle, I belonged to a lower caste of local youth. We were the great unwashed. We would stand at the top of the hill on Market Street, near where the Gulf Station used to be, waiting for the grown-ups to fire a twenty-one gun salute.
When the shooting stopped, we would scramble through the street to collect the empty brass shells. We had to wait for them to cool so they wouldn’t burn our fingers. Many of us were the children of alcoholic veterans. We treated those little pieces of spent metal like they were precious gems, like they were holy. By Tuesday morning, they were just garbage. We threw them out.
As the sun went down on those old Memorial Days, the adults got drunker and drunker, and the children got wilder and wilder. The parade was usually on a Sunday, you see. That was a very clever design. It allowed the Monday holiday to be used for its true American purpose: tending to hangovers and counting the miserable days left until school let out for the summer.
—
Now it is the present. The year, as I mentioned, is 2026.
It has been a humdrum weekend, filled with rain. Yesterday was also filled with antagonism, which is a kind of psychological bad weather.
My great love Bill was around, which was nice. Another fellow named Mike was supposed to come over on Saturday, but he blamed the rain and stayed home. Sunday was supposed to be the makeup day, but God kept the water valves open.
I went to the supermarket both days all by myself. At first, I was annoyed with Mike. I knew that he wanted to spend time with Bill instead of me. Mike loves Bill’s stories and Bill loves telling them. But then, standing among the breakfast cereals and the frozen peas, I had an epiphany. I realized I was actually relieved.
The fire had gone out between Mike and me. The sexual games were over, and we had settled into the quiet, unremarkable territory of friendship. I was happy about this. So, being a modern human being with a smartphone, I sent him a text message saying so.
At that exact moment, Mike and I were already having a perfectly lovely conversation on a completely different social media platform. This is how people communicate now: two different conversations on two different glowing rectangles at the exact same time.
The timing was tragic. Mike was enjoying our chat, but then he looked at the other platform and saw my text about how glad I was that we weren’t lovers anymore.
It derailed everything. The lovely chat collapsed into a black hole of hurt feelings and profound confusion. We both retreated to our respective corners of the ring to suffer in private.
I couldn’t talk to Bill about it. Mike couldn’t talk to his beloved about it either. So we just sat there, millions of miles apart, licking our wounds. Bill and I watched a documentary about Martin Short on the television. It was very sweet. Martin Short is a funny man.
Mike, meanwhile, was almost certainly on the internet, sending direct messages to his hundreds of followers. He was likely telling them how much he wanted to do things with them—things that I used to hope he would do with me.
Do not ask me how I know this. It required a certain amount of underhanded digital espionage on my part. I am not proud of it. In fact, it takes a tremendous amount of willpower not to do it again right now, because looking only makes me miserable.
Humans are terrible at being alone, but we are also terrible at being together.
Before bedtime, Mike and I finally had a long talk. We used our voices. Apologies were made, and apologies were accepted.
We are a family now—Bill, Mike, myself, and his beloved, Wade. We are a chosen family. But it turns out that when you choose your family, you don’t get to escape the hangovers, the hangups, or the petty friction of a biological one.
Whachagonnado?
Peace.