I went to the same therapist for years, and from time to time, he tried to get me to talk about my oldest brother--let's call him OB for short. OB dropped out of contact with the rest of the family and none of us knew why.
I didn't get why this man sitting across from me during lunch hour was coaxing me to go down that road. "What does that have to do with anything?" I thought. "I have enough to figure out without having to figure out OB, too." Besides, OB had moved into New York City for college when he was 18--and even before that, had spent many school weeknights at our grandparents' apartment in the Bronx, since he attended high school in the city. I was 9 to his 18. I hardly knew him.
Or did I? On a college break, I spent a day or two helping renovate his loft and in thanks, he and his friend took me out for a lunch of raw oysters--my first cab ride and first oysters, fast and winding, fresh and bracing. I held onto the seat. In my 20s, he had me come for a sleepover; he had rented Casablanca, calling it a classic I had to see. Before I married, we went out for Mexican food. I confided some fears about the huge step of marriage. I was the youngest of four but the first to marry. No wonder it was scary. "You have to tell me the good stuff," he said, as in, what wasn't I afraid of, what was great? He once called my now husband "an angry young man" due to his opinions, passions and a NY Times editorial he wrote. Words that have since come back to haunt me.
After I married, things fizzled out pretty quickly with OB. The last time I saw him was when our daughter ["Fig" for blog purposes] was 2 years and 4 months old. It was Christmas Day. We drove to Mulberry Street--to the same loft I'd worked on--and brought the Barbie she got for Christmas, too. The rest of our immediate family was there, except our mother, who had died 16 years earlier.
As two-year-olds will do, Fig broke a small dessert bowl that day. I don't exactly remember how, but vaguely remember a gleeful topple from the table as her chubby fist released it. It was pretty china; OB had a nice collection of vintage plates and bowls, including some yellowed, rose-strewn pieces with cracked glaze that had belonged to our Italian grandma. I apologized and picked up the pieces.
It was a nice spread. He was an excellent cook. Since he lived in Little Italy, he often served prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and a long, crunchy-crusted loaf of the best bread with butter. He roasted goose, mashed turnips and potatoes. And the gifts--exotic truffles in a beautiful box from a fancy chocolatier he knew. Sadly, I can't remember what I gave him.
He said he had plans that night, somewhere to go--I think to a friend's in the city. So we all headed out.
Now that Fig is 14, my brother is a stranger to me. He doesn't call any of us back, though he lives right in New York City. I know more about the lives of Jimmy and Pushpa, the married couple who run the stationery store here in town, than I do about OB's life. Oh, I know that he was an altarboy at Saint Mary's, that he was really smart, that he attended a Catholic high school on scholarship, got into Cooper Union. That he was studying engineering and dropped out after three years, much to our father's chagrin. That he emerged as a rising photographer whose photo for Samsung appeared on a big, brightly lit billboard in Times Square. That he had what my mother called a "fairy godmother," an older woman who believed in him, saw his talent and helped him make connections.
As his littlest sister, I also know things others might not. One day, he was lying on the painted blue wood bench at the park near our house, staring up at the sky. He must have been 18. He seemed old. I asked him what he was doing. I think the answer was philosophical, something about the meaning of life. Or war, as in Vietnam. His number was almost up, and my mother worried when the mail came.
He had a ponytail and a beard. He was a hippie. One day in our cluttered garage, the boy next door called him Jesus Christ. OB gave me a great Christmas gift--a radio of my own. I loved it, loved spinning the dial to find my music, loved having my own radio, since my sister had had her white one with flower stickers for years. Later, he presented my first albums--The Bay City Rollers, and the Go-Go's Vacation, which I loved as much for the music as for girly, frilly outfits and headgear that the band members wore as they posed on waterskis for the cover. It was almost as though OB was the first to perceive me as a young adult with thoughts of my own and even an artistic edge, like he had.
OB moved in with a woman. I went for dinner with my parents to their apartment on the Lower East Side. A pumpkin pie was cooling on the window sill. It's the only time in my life I've ever really seen a pie cooling on a window sill, except in cartoons and storybooks.
Here are some quotes from OB:
I didn't get why this man sitting across from me during lunch hour was coaxing me to go down that road. "What does that have to do with anything?" I thought. "I have enough to figure out without having to figure out OB, too." Besides, OB had moved into New York City for college when he was 18--and even before that, had spent many school weeknights at our grandparents' apartment in the Bronx, since he attended high school in the city. I was 9 to his 18. I hardly knew him.
Or did I? On a college break, I spent a day or two helping renovate his loft and in thanks, he and his friend took me out for a lunch of raw oysters--my first cab ride and first oysters, fast and winding, fresh and bracing. I held onto the seat. In my 20s, he had me come for a sleepover; he had rented Casablanca, calling it a classic I had to see. Before I married, we went out for Mexican food. I confided some fears about the huge step of marriage. I was the youngest of four but the first to marry. No wonder it was scary. "You have to tell me the good stuff," he said, as in, what wasn't I afraid of, what was great? He once called my now husband "an angry young man" due to his opinions, passions and a NY Times editorial he wrote. Words that have since come back to haunt me.
After I married, things fizzled out pretty quickly with OB. The last time I saw him was when our daughter ["Fig" for blog purposes] was 2 years and 4 months old. It was Christmas Day. We drove to Mulberry Street--to the same loft I'd worked on--and brought the Barbie she got for Christmas, too. The rest of our immediate family was there, except our mother, who had died 16 years earlier.
As two-year-olds will do, Fig broke a small dessert bowl that day. I don't exactly remember how, but vaguely remember a gleeful topple from the table as her chubby fist released it. It was pretty china; OB had a nice collection of vintage plates and bowls, including some yellowed, rose-strewn pieces with cracked glaze that had belonged to our Italian grandma. I apologized and picked up the pieces.
It was a nice spread. He was an excellent cook. Since he lived in Little Italy, he often served prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and a long, crunchy-crusted loaf of the best bread with butter. He roasted goose, mashed turnips and potatoes. And the gifts--exotic truffles in a beautiful box from a fancy chocolatier he knew. Sadly, I can't remember what I gave him.
He said he had plans that night, somewhere to go--I think to a friend's in the city. So we all headed out.
Now that Fig is 14, my brother is a stranger to me. He doesn't call any of us back, though he lives right in New York City. I know more about the lives of Jimmy and Pushpa, the married couple who run the stationery store here in town, than I do about OB's life. Oh, I know that he was an altarboy at Saint Mary's, that he was really smart, that he attended a Catholic high school on scholarship, got into Cooper Union. That he was studying engineering and dropped out after three years, much to our father's chagrin. That he emerged as a rising photographer whose photo for Samsung appeared on a big, brightly lit billboard in Times Square. That he had what my mother called a "fairy godmother," an older woman who believed in him, saw his talent and helped him make connections.
As his littlest sister, I also know things others might not. One day, he was lying on the painted blue wood bench at the park near our house, staring up at the sky. He must have been 18. He seemed old. I asked him what he was doing. I think the answer was philosophical, something about the meaning of life. Or war, as in Vietnam. His number was almost up, and my mother worried when the mail came.
He had a ponytail and a beard. He was a hippie. One day in our cluttered garage, the boy next door called him Jesus Christ. OB gave me a great Christmas gift--a radio of my own. I loved it, loved spinning the dial to find my music, loved having my own radio, since my sister had had her white one with flower stickers for years. Later, he presented my first albums--The Bay City Rollers, and the Go-Go's Vacation, which I loved as much for the music as for girly, frilly outfits and headgear that the band members wore as they posed on waterskis for the cover. It was almost as though OB was the first to perceive me as a young adult with thoughts of my own and even an artistic edge, like he had.
OB moved in with a woman. I went for dinner with my parents to their apartment on the Lower East Side. A pumpkin pie was cooling on the window sill. It's the only time in my life I've ever really seen a pie cooling on a window sill, except in cartoons and storybooks.
Here are some quotes from OB:
- "Adam and Eve on a raft--that's two eggs on toast. " [When OB was a young boy, our favorite uncle used to take him all over the place in NYC, to diners and other places we didn't go in Dumont.] Other quirky Uncle Anthony-isms that OB quoted: "Beat your turkey with the leg of a chair." and "Always boil your drinking water." Go figure.
- "I read everything--the Post, the Daily News, the New York Times. I like to see how they report the same stories."
- "It's not New York." Said about California.
- "I understand how she feels. If my assistant did that, I'd probably feel the same way." Said when I called him in tears from a payphone in the lobby of a skyscraper after my first boss, the fashion editor at a women's magazine, chewed me out for spending "her" time writing for the employee newspaper, even though I did it on my lunch hour.
- "I was afraid you'd be drying yourself with a dish towel." Said with a smile when gifting me with a big bath towel for Christmas once I got my own apartment.
- "It's strong." Said on the phone about the short story I published in Good Housekeeping. Called "The Christmas Angel," it was about a young newlywed missing her dead mother.
- "Can I call you back? I'm in the middle of something." Last words I heard last time I called.
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