David (Matt Shorts, v.6)

We were in New York, and Matt was there to meet Datou. I had already met him, and when I did, the second thought that popped into my mind was “Matt’s going to be really happy when he sees this kid.” He was. Mike handed Datou off to Matt, and Matt baby-talked to him all the way around the house, rocking him back and forth in the way infants like. Except, after a short while, Datou began to wail. Matt then endeavored to get Datou to stop, patting him on the back, lifting him up above his head, resting him on his shoulder. Nothing really worked. Finally, I said, “Matt, you know you can just give him back to Mike, right?” Matt grinned sheepishly and Mike took over. We all laughed, and even Matt knew that we were laughing with him, and in appreciation of the fact that this was our nephew, grandson, and son. Matt was an experienced father, but a rookie uncle.

Logic (Matt Shorts, v.5)

Matt was home from college. It was a Sunday afternoon and the traffic on Old Route 22 was heavy and heading south to NYC. Matt and I were running at a pace that allowed Matt to talk the entire time. That is to say, I was completely out of breath. A group of late model foreign sedans whizzed by us, going faster than the speed limit. What was worse was that none of them moved over to give us any space. Matt took offense to this, and launched a wad of spit in the cars’ general direction. It was with neither good luck nor bad luck, but purely with Matt’s luck, that the spit landed squarely on the windshield of the only domestic car in the bunch, a gleaming white Corvette. “I think you got the windshield of that Corvette” I said. We kept running. A half-mile later, as we passed my Grandmother’s house, the Corvette pulled up alongside us, window down, arm hanging out, pointing at us. The arm was attached to an irate bearded man who had a lot to say about his now-soiled ride. As we ran, Matt disputed the man’s version of the events, using the impeccable logic that if the guy had been driving slower, none of this would’ve happened. They continued their discourse for another 30 yards, then the guy sped up the road. It has always been a matter of debate as to what happened next: was there a gesture from our party in the receding car’s direction? Did George Washington really chop down the cherry tree? Who can say? Regardless, about 50 yards from us, the Corvette slammed on its brakes, nearly sliding into a ditch, and a six-four version of rage personified jumped out. “Run” was all Matt said. We high-tailed it the other direction and cut up into the woods. I’m not sure our pride was still intact, but we were.

Ruth (Matt Shorts, v.4)

Matt called me at work. “Well, you’re an uncle,” he said. Her name was Bridget and she was “perfect.” In the hospital he was all happiness, and if anyone expressed happiness to him, he reflected it back one-hundred-fold. When she was brought to New York for the first time, the flight attendants cooed over her, and when we exited the plane, one, who happened to be Irish, slipped a bottle of champagne into the diaper bag, “for the little one.” Matt beamed in that way that made you happy but also made you want to crack him across the head. At home, we brought Grandma Meade over for dinner to meet the baby. She was frail in body but not in mind and spirit. Matt couldn’t contain himself, and we had barely situated Grandma on the couch before Matt plopped Bridget on her lap. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said in her way, but then she held her and Matt put his arm around them both and though Grandma couldn’t really see, her eyes looked out over the room and they were a little misty.

Rust (Matt Shorts, v.3)

Matt called me at work. “Well, you’re an uncle,” he said. I drove up to the hospital in San Francisco when work got out, working my way through Internet-boom rush-hour traffic. Much later, the car I drove that night would be towed by the city from the front of Matt’s house, after we had tried and failed to fix the fuel pump (we got it to start but not run) and then left it for dead in plain view. We didn’t put it in neutral and let it glide down the hill into the Pacific because growing up in Wassaic instilled us with the belief that broken-down cars, prominently displayed and given time, sublimate to their highest and best use. Towing laws are looser back home, and besides, Saabs don’t die so much as rest. Matt attributed the car's breakdown and subsequent towing to the fact that I had just installed a new radio. He believed in a weird car karma, like the time when I arrived late for a dinner in San Francisco with him and his in-laws, and he greeted me at the door, relief plain on his face, saying “I was thinking you had maybe gotten into an accident because you had washed your car.”

Bamboo (Matt Shorts, v.2)

We were installing a bamboo floor for Dwell Magazine’s offices in North Beach. The floor was quite large and it took at least a day longer than anticipated to finish the installation. We listened to NPR and Nirvana CD’s on Matt’s little boombox as we worked. I would turn it to a local radio station on occasion, for variety, but Matt was the Mamet of flooring and needed to hear, and say, words – lots of them. “Always be nailing” was what he would say, when he wasn’t saying something else that made me strain to understand. A six-hour day was just about right for us. Matt tended to rush things late in the day. He said that on a job site I was good at anticipating what was needed next, but I could never stop him from making these mistakes. I tried. He was quite skilled at this point, much more so than me, but he was also like a fast-moving train with no brakes. Bamboo is a hard and splintery floor material and pulling up a piece of it you just nailed down requires a quick, loud, intense physical effort that makes you rue the mistake you just made. You could fix almost any mistake, it just hurt a little more each time you had to. We made mistakes then went out for coffee, probably our third coffee break of the day. As we passed one of the many strip clubs on Columbus, the hawker tried to lure us in. I asked if they give foot massages. He and Matt chuckled. We were cash-poor, our feet hurt, and not his target audience.

Matt Shorts, v.1

He was my oldest brother. The Christmas before he died, he was sick with a neck ailment, and was in constant pain from an operation. As we hugged goodbye that time, I impulsively, reflexively, held his head in my hands and pressed his forehead to mine and told him he’d get through it, that we’d get through it and that I loved him. I had been annoyed with him not five minutes before. It was like that. He was my oldest brother and I adored him.