Uncle Jimmy

I thought the crazy uncle was only a literary device to add color to a story. Growing up, none of my uncles were crazy and I didn’t know anyone else with a crazy uncle.

That all changed when I had kids of my own. It turns out that crazy uncles are a real thing and my brother is one of them.

Looking back, Jimmy was sort of the odd man out when we were kids. He wasn’t a bad kid, but he was on the fringes in a way that isn’t as noticeable when you are only a boy. The lack of decision-making power as a child has a way of tempering outcomes.

As a grown man, in charge of your own life, cause and effect become much more apparent. The many ways that manifested itself in Jimmy’s life were alternately the source of much amusement and considerable sorrow.

Having Jimmy around my kids was always like rolling the dice. You never knew what was going to come up. The fact that he had raised two kids of his own had, somewhat amazingly, not done much for Jimmy in the wisdom department. He had managed to make an art out of winging it, though that didn’t always end well for him.

The first time my daughter ever heard the f-bomb was from Uncle Jimmy at her third birthday party. Then there was the time my kids got to see him twerking at their cousin’s wedding.

Uncle Jimmy drunk was just as familiar to them as Uncle Jimmy sober. The former was responsible for more antics than the latter, but only by a slim margin.

When my son turned five, the finances were a bit lean in our house. I’d been laid off from my job and getting back on track had taken a while.

We weren’t in dire straits, but the gifts for little Seth’s birthday weren’t going to be extravagant. Since he was the oldest, there weren’t any precedents to be followed, anyway, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Then Uncle Jimmy showed up.

Instead of knocking, Jimmy let himself in, fumbling his way past the storm door with an oversized box in his hands. His daughter followed behind with an armful of smaller packages.

“Did we miss opening presents?”

“We’re in middle of that now,” I said.

“Awesome”, said Jimmy. “Wait until you see what I got you, Seth.”

When Seth saw the giant package Jimmy was carrying, he lost interest in the Legos and coloring books he’d gotten from us.

“What is it, Uncle Jimmy? Can I open it now?”

Of course, he could. Uncle Jimmy wasn’t the kind of guy to stand between someone and immediate gratification. In fact, Jimmy tore most of the wrapping paper off himself.

Once Jimmy and Seth had finished their carnage, there wasn’t much left of the box, but there in the middle of the living room was a life-like Tyrannosaurus Rex that stood every bit as tall as Seth.

I don’t know who was more excited, Jimmy or Seth, but for the sake of argument, we’ll say it was Seth.

“Wow, Jimmy,” I said. “You outdid yourself this time.”

“I know, right?”

Sweeping the other toys out of the way, Seth and Uncle Jimmy put the robotic dinosaur through the works. It could walk, roar, and turn its head toward sounds. It was like having Jurassic Park in our living room.

My wife and I stared blankly at each other for a moment.

“Hey, little bro,” Jimmy called from down on the floor. “You got any beer?”