Inspiration: I have a beanie-type rabbit on top of my monitor. I looked up and realized I need to start buying my Easter supplies. My 25-year old daughter said she doesn’t want any candy; she says her butt is big enough. We, myself, my daughter Allison, Emily our roomie, and Teresa will dye eggs. Allison will dye the cat; last year Jane was pink! And, Teresa will experience Easter like Brian did with Justin and the family. Well, except for the intimate moments between Brian and Justin. ~~~~~ Yes. Another holiday approaches. Easter. As Theodore says, Woo Hoo. Make that very small letters. I’m just so thrilled I could just puke. We, Justin, Gus and I, go to the mall and all the kids are running around like lunatics. Well, except Gus. He’s riding on my shoulders getting a bird-eye view of the lunacy. He wants down, but I don’t think so. I’m not chasing him all over creation and the mall. Not going to start that. “Jusin” Gus whispers. “Jusin, want down.” “Gus, I don’t think your daddy wants you to get lost in this crowd.” Justin is good at this parenting thing. I don’t know what I’d do without him on these outings. Anyway, we head over to the Rabbit House to see the big guy. I liken this to the Santa pilgrimage. Lindsay told me that Gus was to have his picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Yeah. Sure. ~~~~~ I don’t remember this kind of shit when I was a kid. But then again, we’re talking Kinney holiday memories. Lent. The forty days before Easter. We were required to go to Mass on Ash Wednesday. Come out of church with ash on your forehead. All the kids knew where you’d been. Well, all the ones who didn’t have to go through this ritual. Mostly Protestants. Not that that’s a bad thing. If I didn’t have to go, I certainly wouldn’t. But that would come later. Another requirement was to give something up for Lent. And, you’d better make it a GOOD sacrifice. Claire always gave up chocolate. Mother never did let on what she gave up. Probably sex. What to give up? Always a puzzler. How about I give up the daily dose of reality Pop would dish out. Yeah. That’s good, but that would never fly. I hated fish. I’ll give up fish. Well, fish sticks. Not that we really had a fish that actually saw water in the not too distant past. Processed fish sticks. I shudder to even think about them. And always served with macaroni and cheese, from a box. Didn’t my mother know how to make anything from scratch? Noooooo. That would take money from the collection plate and time spent on her knees at said church. I’d rather have a peanut butter sandwich or a grilled cheese. At least I knew what I put on the bread. O.K. Forty days of this stuff. When I was in Catholic school, daily Mass and mandatory confession. I sure shocked the priest in the confessional. I liked to make up stuff that would almost make him choke. Then back out to say my penance. The good sisters made sure of that. I wonder if the priests were in cahoots with the nuns. I guess not because the nuns would have turned thirty shades of red if they knew what I was confessing. Mom dragged us to church with her every chance she had. Holy Thursday services. Good Friday Services with the Stations of the Cross, twice just for good measure. Mass again on Saturday. EARLY Easter Sunday service. Then home for a dried out ham dinner. Woo Hoo. Again with the smallest font you can find. No Easter Bunny. No Easter Basket. No Chocolate rabbit or eggs. Nothing compared with what my few friends would rave about at school. Ah, the Easter Basket. Chocolate rabbits, jellybeans, colored eggs. New clothes. NOT. Pop would grumble enough for school clothes. But, a new suit. Yelling and screaming and then he’d take his frustrations out on me. Like clockwork. If I was lucky, my pants weren’t above my ankles and the jacket sleeves weren’t three inches too short. If I were unlucky, or maybe lucky, I’d have to serve at Mass. At least the get-up I had to wear as an altar boy hid most of the inadequacy of last year’s suit. And, I was behind the communion rail so that hid the short pants. Especially during my “growing” years. I couldn’t wait until I could escape this annual bullshit. And escape I did. Then we moved and I met Mikey. I’ve got to admit that our meeting was Heaven-sent. When Pop took his daily reality check on me, I’d run to Mikey’s. I would get patched up and fed and a motherly hug from Deb. I certainly didn’t get hugs from the Warden. ~~~~~ Easter at Deb’s. WOW. What a difference in religious interpretation. On Saturday afternoon we would dye Easter eggs. This was a novelty for me. We’d take the wax crayon and scribble on the eggs and then let them soak in the color and vinegar infused water. Whenever I smell vinegar now, I always think about Easter eggs. Deb and Mikey went to Mass but what I remember the most was the Easter dinner. A moist ham decorated with pineapple slices and cherries, baked sweet potatoes some with marshmallows and without for me. We also had assorted veggies and lasagna. It just wouldn’t be an Italian table without some kind of pasta dish. Desert. Cannoli stuffed with rich ricotta and chocolate chip filling. Divine. Of course, that was before I decided to forego the sweets in favor of a more calorie conscious manner of eating. ~~~~~ OK, enough of the reminiscing and back to the mall. Justin suddenly wanders off for about for about 10 minutes and returns with a medium-sized bag and a big-assed grin on his angelic face. “I had a little shopping to do, “ he tells me. We finally make our way to the Rabbit. I can barely keep Gus on my shoulders and trying to contain his enthusiasm. My son begs to be put down on the floor, but as I do so I tell him he has to stand quietly or we’ll leave. Picture or not. Yeah, and Lindsay will have my balls. We’re next, or should I say Gus is next. He scrambles up on the Bunny’s lap and then starts hollering that he wants us to join him in the photograph. Of course Justin thinks that this is a marvelous idea. What have I let myself in for? I roll my eyes and shake my head at the powers that be. “Brian, let’s do it. We can have one picture taken for Linds and Mel and then one of the three of us. Besides, Gus will always remember that his Daddy and his Jusin took him to see the Easter Bunny.” You know me, I’d do anything for Justin. So, we walk up to the Rabbit’s big chair and crouch beside the rabbit with a giggling Gus on his lap. Gus is thrilled to pieces about the second picture. And then we have to get extras for the family. I’ve spent a fortune on pictures with the fucking Easter Bunny. Woo Hoo. Small letters again. Thank you Theodore. Gratefully, we leave the mall and head back to Muncher Villa. We walk in the door to the aroma of vinegar. I know what that means: time to dye the eggs. I haven’t done this since high school with Mikey. Of course Justin has to help Gus dye the eggs. And then I wander over to the table and proceed to scribble with the waxy crayon and drop the egg in the blue dye to sit for a while and absorb the color until I determine the correct shade. Of Justin’s eyes. We leave the munchers just after Gus is put down for his nap and head back to the loft for our own nap. (Wiggle the eyebrows on that one.) But before I can even climb up the few steps to the bed I hear Justin say, “Brian, it’s time to color our own Easter eggs.” “What! Haven’t we done enough of this shit?” “Brian, I thought that you said that there’s never enough.” “Justin, I was referring to SEX when I said that. Not dying fucking Easter eggs.” He pouts his lips a little and I’m a gonner. I walk back down the steps and over to the kitchen counter. “When did you find the time to cook the eggs, Justin?” “This morning, while you were at the gym with the guys.” This boy is going to make me a dyke yet. Ok, we color the eggs. I do my stuff with the blue egg and slip it out of Justin’s site for later. Then, we slip up to the bed for our long awaited nap. We lay there and kiss and kiss and kiss. Dueling our tongues in each other’s mouth. Cuddle up. Yes, Brian Kinney likes to cuddle. I’m going to become a lesbian yet. Well, I guess I fall asleep and sleep longer than I thought. I awake to find Justin puttering around in the kitchen. “Whatcha doin’ Sunshine?” I call out to him. “Just putting the kitchen in order after our egg dying.” I hear some cellophane rustling quietly in the background, but I put it out of my mind. Justin comes back up to bed and proceeds to remove our clothes for the “nap” we didn’t take earlier. What a “nap” it was, and was, and was. You get the picture. Easter morning dawns, well about four hours ago, and we finally have enough energy to get up and find our way into the shower. We have our usual suck and fuck in the shower; get our high-protein breakfast. We get out and towel each other off and mosey into the bedroom to dress. I look at the clock and realize we were supposed to be at Deb’s 30 minutes ago for Easter brunch/dinner. Oh shit. My balls, not to mention Justin’s, are going to be hanging on the clothesline out back. We make our entrance. Deb yells, “Late as usual. Couldn’t you get here on time for once? Everyone’s waiting.” “And hungry,” says Mikey and Hunter. We both hang our heads with pretend shame and have a sly smile for each other. We sit in our regular places around Debbie’s kitchen table. Justin on one side of me, with Gus on the other and Lindsay next to Gus. The dishes are passed around. Healthy portions of food are placed on plates, well, except mine, and everyone is talking at once. I look at the table. A beautiful ham with slices of pineapple with a cherry in the center. Baked sweet potatoes, with and without marshmallows, green beans, glazed carrots, fresh rolls, and lasagna with garlic bread. And off to the side I see a group of Easter baskets. Debbie and Vic have made everyone a basket with a chocolate rabbit, jellybeans and dyed eggs. Everyone eats to their hearts content. Some with their stomach’s content. You know who I mean. Debbie packs up bags for everyone to take some leftovers home. Some people would call it a “doggie bag” but we refer to ours as our “Justin bag.” We finally head home as the sky starts to darken. We had a wonderful time with our “family” and now it’s some time for ourselves. There on the coffee table sits a cellophane-wrapped Easter basket, and no it’s not the one Deb made. It has a tag on the handle that says: “Happy Easter, Brian.” Inside sits a chocolate rabbit, jellybeans, and the blue egg I made to match Justin’s eyes. How does he do it? He just brings out the little kid in me. And gives me sweet memories to replace the unpleasant ones of my childhood. “Do you want to play “butt the egg?” he asks. “Sure.” I say. And we play and crack all the ends of the eggs. He wins the game, or did I let him. I just sit on the sofa relaxing and he tells me he’ll be right back. I hear him in the bathroom – the toilet flushes and water running. Then I hear him softly pad back out to the living room wearing nothing but a blue ribbon tied around his neck and a ridiculous pair of rabbit ears on this head. My own personal white chocolate bunny smiles at me. He then turns and wiggles his ass at me and says lovingly, “Happy Easter, Brian.” “Happy Easter, Justin.” I think I’m having an attack of the allergies. Then I chase him up the steps to the bed.