The suburban loser has a few friends his sons call uncles. He’s known them since high school, and they are the closest men he has in his life, closer than his own brother. Some uncles have children and the kids all play Nintendo together while the men smoke cigars and play cards in the other room, every now and then calling the boys in to give sips of Budweiser and laugh at the sour looks that come across their faces, wiping their tears away before telling the suburban loser's sons that their father is really a great guy, always calling him a different nickname as the smell of greasy tuna melts creeps out their mouths and gold crucifixes swing through the brambles of their chest hairs beneath unbuttoned bowling shirts on hot summer nights in a cramped wood paneled room before they grip the boys’ shoulders in a fraternal squeeze and send them away so they can finish the card game and the suburban loser gives a little nod to let them know it is okay to listen to the strange man who is their uncle. When they get older, the suburban loser tells his sons things they never realized when they were little, like how Uncle Chris still lives in a trailer park and is waiting for his father to die so he can use the inheritance as a down payment which is why he still works for minimum wage at a health food store, or the time they go to the sand dunes on vacation with Uncle John and the suburban loser pays for both jet ski rentals but Uncle John still makes a joke about the lifejacket weight limit. At one of their scheduled lunch dates, Uncle Kevin tells the suburban loser he can’t be a republican if he smokes weed and hates cops. But whenever it is time to say goodbye to the uncles, the suburban loser pulls them close and tells them he loves them. They call each other great guys, and make promises to take care of each other. After the suburban loser died, all the uncles showed up in force to his celebration of life in the backyard, including a few the suburban loser's sons had only seen once or twice in their life. Every single one gave a speech about how much the suburban loser made them laugh, how he was always there for them when times got tough or sometimes when they just needed a stiff drink goddamnit. The suburban loser could be pretty tough himself sometimes, it was true, but that's just how he was, and everyone would laugh thinking about the times the suburban loser got defensive when an off color joke didn't land well, or when they would screw up his takeout order, or how dark waves of fury would come across his face if you spilled a fountain soda on his leather car seats, but the speeches quickly moved on to how loud and happy the suburban loser's voice sounded whenever he noticed you walk into a room, or how he told stories that made your own life feel bigger than it was, like the one about the time him and Uncle Duffy were mugged at gunpoint walking into O'Sullivans after a Tigers game so the bartender let them drink all night for free and they each knocked back a full bottle of the good stuff on the house, or the time a big group of them went snowmobiling up north and the suburban loser made everyone wake up at 3am so they could hear howling wolves that turned out to be tree branches. Everyone who sat on the foldable chairs underneath the large tent had something to say. The old man he met at a golf league only a year before. Various business partners who wore Rolexes. The handyman the suburban loser hired for odd jobs he couldn't do himself, like patching drywall in the basement after he gave up on turning it into a home gym. A young man the suburban loser hired to put up his Christmas lights one year stood up quickly and only said the suburban loser contributed something to the person he was before sitting down. The suburban loser's wife sat in a corner, flanked by her eldest and youngest son, and drank up these reflections, her face rapidly shifting from smiling to crying like the pale underside of dark green leaves that flip upward in a windstorm. Notably absent from the celebration of life was her side of the family. Years before the suburban loser even got sick, he had everyone over on New Year's Eve. He made Irish Coffees using the real recipe from Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco the suburban loser had taped to the liquor cabinet. Celebrating a win during a game of charades, the suburban loser's sister-in-law sent him tumbling over an ottoman. He rubbed his weak ankle and used words like negligible and responsibility. One thing led to another, and they hadn't spoken since. Also absent were various neighbors in the subdivision who mostly knew the suburban loser from his short tenure as president of the home owners association. One only knew him as the man who slipped on the ice and fell on his ass in front of their house one winter. Missing too was the investment broker who took advantage of the suburban loser's ignorance reading contracts. One of his old bosses from the jewelry store in the mall wasn't there, the one that took him to a strip club for the first time and showed him a collection of swizzle sticks he kept in his glovebox. Neither was the older kid in high school who pretended to be the suburban loser's friend when he found out his dad kept beer in the garage. Same goes for the owner of the small dog the suburban loser once found running loose in a parking lot and spent an entire day getting it home, or his eldest son's ex-girlfriend who once needed an emergency root canal that the suburban loser paid for and even took her to a coffee shop after. His favorite attendant at the car wash wasn't there, and neither was a single member of city council. His father-in-law who called him son when he was in a good mood but died before the suburban loser did. The lady who lived by the old Tiger stadium and let him park on her lawn for five bucks on game day. The vet who apparently read every single Yelp review and didn’t need his business. When nearly every beer and seltzer in the cooler was empty, Uncle Kevin stood up for his second speech. It was going to be about the time the suburban loser accidentally signed them up for the wrong bowling league, but he had hardly begun his story when the suburban loser's youngest son told him to hurry it the fuck up with a slurred voice and angry face.