Mr. Brady
It was intentional to place my office
under the stairs, out of the way
in the design of our house. Some nights
I’d find myself in my blue robe,
flat black slippers, sitting in the office,
lights out, staring out the small window
the cameras never caught, comforted
by the silence. Perhaps it was wrong to talk
on that black rotary phone
to Dan, to plan another rendezvous
while Carol and the clan were out
for butterfly collars and bellbottoms,
getting flat iron treatments. Like Sharon Tate,
bloody on an American flag, sometimes I wanted
for all of it to be put to rest
as I clenched my teeth, giving advice.
And Mike, such an insipid nickname
for the everyman I was
in letters, embraces from those
who said, “You remind me of my father.”
It got to be too much in the blue
pants, cardigan, button downs, pajamas, loafers, too much
as the green-tighted prince
with the tight perm in “Snow White & the Seven Bradys.”
For the variety hour, I seethed, I slinked
across the stage of flashing bulbs
in a pink shirt, white leisure suit, sequined tux vest—I twirled
Florence as we sang out a disco version
of “Those Were the Days.” In the dark
or at candle-lit parties, I’d find
company. I prowled Pasadena
for surfers, never imagining those hours
spent looking down at whiskey
on the wood bar of Incognito would end
up profiled in our American ledger—
the National Enquirer—in bright
checkout lanes. I come to this point, out
of my ashes interred in Skokie. If I had just been true
renounced the sitcom
life, followed the course
of my Shakespearean ambitions,
what would I have been?
Not this man, alone on a stair, the lies
beginning to outnumber
the tropical plants beneath me, hours away
from another day under the lights.
***
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