Chapter 1

I debated and debated, finally I said, "fuck it." I started writing a "book" a couple of months back, and it hasn't gotten very far. But I've decided to post my first "chapter" on here. Good chance I'll regret this at some point.

Without further adu....

Chapter 1

I woke up early the morning of my wedding was to take place, and found my way to the pool deck to watch the sunrise. We got to Mexico a few days before the big event, and for those three days, images of my life would flash every time I blinked. It was totally random, as if someone spilled a box of photos and each photo represented a vivid and lasting image. But this morning I found myself staring out over the Caribbean and the memories of how I ended up here came rushing back, as little episodes rather than flashing images. Watching out as the waves washed ashore, and the palm tree’s swayed above me, I channel surfed through the events that shaped who I was this day, and how the woman I was to marry was perfect for me in every way.

I was in second grade the first time I grew up. Some of the details are sketchy; some are as vivid that I feel I’m watching HDTV. There were frantic phone calls to my sister’s friends, my mother’s best friend Dianne came over, and I remember my mother cutting her chin on the kitchen counter as she was bent over sobbing. My older sister Jill, had runaway. This is one instance in my life where a Bon Jovi song hit close to home. She’s a little runaway.

My mother frantically called everyone she could think of, as her best friend reassured her. And the little second grader stood, I couldn’t have been more than 3 feet tall, on the linoleum covered kitchen floor in the Long Island ranch, watching everything, trying to not be something else to worry about. I retreated to the family room to get lost in a world of cardboard pictures with the funny numbers and abbreviations on the backside.

It was late spring, the end of the school year was approaching and a new baseball season was underway. Every kid loves summer, but never as much as a second grader. Learning to ride a bike, staying up late, the ice-cream man, going to the pool, cook outs ending with ketchup stained shirts and scratched knees and elbows. Chasing fire flies and getting tucked in by mom and dad every night. That’s all I should have been thinking about with summer weeks away.

“Everything’s okay,” I thought to myself, “Jill will be home soon, and we’ll all be happy.” We’re talking about a second grader, the vocabulary wasn’t all that extensive, and having everyone home, logically, meant everyone would be happy.

Dressed in Levi’s, a rugby styled shirt and thick plastic frame glasses with stringy straight hair, as I asked my teacher, Mrs. Kirk, if I could skip recess to talk to her. From first glance, Mrs. Kirk wasn’t the teacher you’d picture a kid opening up to. With coffee stained teeth, the breath to match, a crow’s nest of long black hair and a scowl that could intimidate the toughest of New Yorkers. What second grader wants to skip recess to talk to a teacher, one that resembles a real life witch? But I had to try and make sense of this, and I couldn’t allow myself to look too affected at home, where I kept my eye’s and ears open, and my mouth shut.

My parents knew I was talking to Mrs. Kirk, and I think they were proud of me for doing so. But I didn’t say much. I gave her the facts, told her I was scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I’ve had that conversation at least six times in my life now. Jill’s gone, not sure why, and wondered if I’d ever see her again. Maybe she never came home the first time.

So when I got home that day from school, she had turned up. And there was yelling, doors were slammed, tears were shed, and more stats were read. In some ways, it was completely anti-climatic, yet it forever instilled and un-easiness in me. She just showed up again after being gone two days. And I always wondered when she would leave again, or if anyone else would.

Maybe she didn’t show up that day, it looked like her and wore her clothes. She may have even used the same can of Aquanet, just so she appeared to be Jill. But I learned later, when I was 17 or so, that she left a piece of herself somewhere in Long Island, in some run down house, owned by the lowest form of life. Maybe she’s still there, wondering why she went there and looking for a way out. She was there by choice, or at least she wasn’t dragged against her will.

It fits all the clichés we know, she was running with the wrong crowd and making bad choices. All of which she’s fully responsible for, even if she can’t accept it. But I’m pretty sure she never asked to be raped, and that’s what happened. Or so I’m told, and nothing hurts more than doubting your sister when she tells you something so horrendous. But the anger towards your brother, who was 16 at the time, and your father, for not ending this guy’s life, well that’s an anger that stays with you.

There was nothing better than growing up on Long Island. We lived on a cul-de-sac, which has some how shrunk by 80% since I was a kid. Right next door was my best friend, and we knew everyone on the block. I don’t know if it was the timing, but I can’t imagine any kids grow up like I did. Huntington had it’s own Central Park in Hecture Park, and we’d spend summer nights there at concerts, and the days watching ducks swim while avoiding the shit they left along the pathways.

The highlight was the 4th. Our 4th of July weekend consisted of a few families getting together for a softball game and cookout at Maplewood Elementary. One game nearly ended my life, when my father missed a hit ball that must have been aided by a laser guidance system for my stomach. My bellybutton was right at the center of a perfect black and blue replication of a softball. He insists we were in the outfield, but I remember being in the infield as he was pitching.

We went camping on the sound, took trips up to Vermont and stayed at The Tyler Place. It pains me to admit this, but it looked like the resort from Dirty Dancing. The kids were broken off into groups, and the adults had their afternoons together. There was a lake for swimming, sailing and fishing. And we stayed in little white cottages.

New York City was just a car ride away, and as a kid, it terrified me. So many people, so much going on, and this was before Rudy cleaned up the city. Being 6, and seeing homeless men asking for money after lifting their heads off of dirty newspapers-turned pillows, has a way of making the big city scary. But scary is also exciting. I only lived in New York for the first 8 years of my life, but I’ve taken it with me every where I’ve gone.

Maybe it was such a great childhood because it was so short. When something is cut short, we have a tendency to elevate our perception of how great it was. Every musician who dies while still putting out relevant music is automatically a legend, just as an artist worth increases upon an early death. I just know that most kids don’t grow up in the second grade. My sister did a lot to raise me, most of it came after the day she didn’t come home.

Up till the day Jill didn’t come home, we had a pretty tight relationship. She spent a lot of her time after school watching me, and I had fun terrifying her and her friends when they came over. Snapping bra’s, and trying to watch whatever movie they were watching. Good times for me, and I think for her. She wasn’t babysitting for fun though. My parents were having to spend time dealing some issues my older brother, Jay, was having.