Missing the Big Picture (2 page)

At our new apartment, my mother and I used to play her old records, and since my mother always loved to dance to music, I would dance with her to Bob Seger. My mother never seemed comfortable around my grandmother. For the first time, I was able to see my mother having fun in her own home. My grandmother loved to dance, too. My grandfather didn’t, though, and would often ask his friends to dance with her. Those were great stories I heard as a child, how my grandfather used to pimp out my grandmother.

However, our new independence didn’t last long. My aunt and uncle moved out only a few months after my mother and I did, and my grandfather asked my mother if we could move back in because they couldn’t afford to live in the house without renting at least one room.

This time we lived on the second floor, but we still had the same rules—washes were only done at 7:40 p.m., and nobody could use the water when the washer or dryer was running. My grandfather paid my mother back by serving as my babysitter. In fact, my grandfather was the person to whom I was closest until his death. I remember every day he would play catch with me in our backyard, after which we would eat his favorite treat: hot fudge sundaes. He would always be at the bus stop after school to walk with me down the street.

I was always a quiet kid. Once, when I was eight and riding the afternoon bus home from school, the bus driver forgot to drop me off. It wasn’t until she was almost headed back to the garage that she noticed me and took me to my stop. I didn’t say anything or complain. Another time, my grandfather forgot to pick me up at the bus stop one afternoon. I didn’t get upset; I just walked home, and he later apologized.

I was a straight-A student in elementary school, but my teachers always had concerns about me. In kindergarten, my teacher called my mother to tell her that I had written that, for Christmas, I wanted a father, brother, and sister. In third grade, my teachers thought I put too much pressure on myself to achieve, and they wanted me to see the school social worker. My mother always felt attacked because she was a single parent. During a parent-teacher conference, in front of two other school officials, the social worker asked my mother, “Do you bring men home?” My mother refused to answer the question and quickly left the meeting. That was the last of my appointments with the school social worker.

In fact, between raising me and caring for my grandmother, my mother never had any romantic interactions with men. One of the earliest photographs I’ve seen of my mother is of her and her siblings, and in it my mother is holding her sister. She was, in fact, always a caretaker—including, in my ways, for my grandmother.

As Catholics, my grandparents never thought divorce was an option. Still, there were many times when my grandfather got frustrated dealing with my grandmother’s mental illness. Starting when my mother was a teenager, he would often say, “Take care of her,” and then leave for a few days. My mother was the best cook I ever knew, and she always sewed because she had to provide for her siblings. My grandmother never did any of the cooking, cleaning, etc. My mother was only two years older than my aunt, but when my aunt joined Girl Scouts, my mother went to all the mother-daughter events and filled the role of mother for every function. My uncle was the oldest and my aunt was the baby of the family, so as the middle child, my mother took on most of the household responsibilities.

In early 1992, when I was nine, my grandfather became sick with a form of lung cancer. He died six months later, drastically affecting the lives of my grandmother, my mother, and myself. My grandmother never drove, and she didn’t even know how to write a check. Now my mother had even more responsibilities in caring for my grandmother. We would always go shopping on the weekends, for hours at a time. That left little time for my mother and me to have quality time together. My mother never did anything that would upset my grandmother.

A few months after my grandfather died, despite being extraordinarily busy, my mother started dating a man she knew from her work. Anthony was thirteen years older than my mother, but his wife had died the same month as my grandfather, and both of their losses brought them together. Anthony was now the single father of two children, Julie and Paul. Julie was only a year older than me, and Paul was three years older.

Anthony was a devout Catholic, very traditional and extremely conservative. He attended church regularly on the weekends and sent both of his children to private Catholic schools. Even though Albany, New York, would always vote for a Democrat as mayor, he was involved in politics and at one point was the chairperson of the city’s Republican Party. He did hold some different views than my mother. My mother loved watching Lifetime movies, usually featuring abused women who prevailed, and she often donated money to groups that worked to stop or prevent domestic violence. Anthony made fun of these movies, asking, “Why don’t the women just leave?” Anthony also believed that there was no such thing as mental illness and that it was only an excuse for not working or contributing to society. My mother always wanted to be a psychologist, but Anthony said that mental health practitioners were “crazier than the patients themselves.”

Even though Anthony and my mother were dating, they would rarely see each other. They would visit together only twice a week or so. My mother still had to attend to my grandmother’s needs, after all.

When I entered the sixth grade, I was able to develop a close group of friends. Prior to that, I had various friends in the neighborhood that I would see at birthday parties and other events. In my class that year was a new student named Eric. He lived only a few blocks away from me and was very funny and enjoyed entertaining others. Being a shy, quiet kid myself, we were opposites, but Eric helped me overcome my shyness.

Eric came up to me the second day of school with the “Luke, I am your father” line. He would also ask me, “So, how many times can one go into zero?” When I told him that mathematically that wasn’t possible, he would make a hole with his fingers, shove another finger through it, and say, “One can go into zero as many times as it wants.” He’d go up to our other classmates and say, “I’m really upset because my Chia Pet died.”

When I was growing up, my mother forbade me from playing sports or throwing anything in the house. When she told Eric and some of my other friends, “No balls in the house,” Eric told me, “Guys, that means that we have to leave.” I even remember Eric licking dimes and nickels that he had found to get a laugh from his friends.

Eric also got along with my grandmother. He found her quirkiness entertaining, and he never asked why she walked around the house in a bathrobe all the time. One time when Eric was over for dinner, my grandmother just shouted out in the middle of the meal, “I think a penis is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.”

In sixth grade, Eric and I teamed up with another friend for the school talent show. We pretended to be little people and danced to “Funkytown.” We originally wanted to dance to “YMCA,” but the director wouldn’t allow it. Soon Eric and I and some other friends were hanging out on an everyday basis. We would usually go to the corner store and buy candy, or go to the mall and walk around or play arcade games. Once we went to the pay phones and called and talked to one another just to get a reaction from the other mall-goers. Eric rarely censored himself and would often make comments that upset others. One time, when he saw a student in our class adjust his pants, Eric told him that toilet paper must have been on strike.

In April 1995, when my mother and I were at Anthony’s house watching
Little Giants
, to my surprise, Anthony proposed and my mother accepted. The wedding was scheduled for August. In July, my mother and I moved from the suburbs to the city of Albany into Anthony’s house, where Julie and Paul lived. We would only live there for six weeks before we moved back into my grandmother’s house.

That summer, my mother made arrangements for me to go to Holy Cross, the Catholic school that Julie and Paul attended. Julie and I grew close, and I didn’t mind moving in with her family. Every morning we would watch
American Gladiators
on television, and we would often walk to the movie theater a few streets away. The only thing blocking Anthony and my mother’s marriage was Anthony’s son, Paul. At fifteen years old, Paul was very quiet and arrogant. He had few friends and spent most of his time in his bedroom. With his father’s help, Paul bought and read
The Anarchist’s Cookbook
. He would tell me that he was planning to make a bomb from his chemistry set—a bomb that could destroy his living room. The first conflict that arose with Paul was actually the night that Anthony proposed. After my mother said yes, Paul cornered her in the kitchen and said, “Don’t think that this changes anything. This is my house.” The first time that my mother made dinner after we moved in, Paul took a bite of his food and then ran to the garbage and spit it out. Anthony let this happen.

Besides having limited social skills, Paul was very mean. He would make fun of the way I chewed my food. When Anthony complimented my mother on her beauty, Paul would remark, “Oh yeah, she’s pretty,” in a very sarcastic tone. So, six weeks later, my mother and I moved out, mainly because of Paul. Anthony had waited until he was thirty-nine to become a father. He always did what his children wanted, and since Paul didn’t like living with my mother and me, Anthony and my mother decided to separate. Julie, however, did love my mother. After we moved out, my mother received a letter from Julie saying that she would always regard her as a second mother.

Both of Anthony’s children could be very disrespectful to their father at times. They would yell and scream at him and even call him retarded. I could never talk to my mother using that tone of voice, and my mother punished me severely the one time I told her to shut up. About two months after their separation, my mother and Anthony started dating again. They decided that they were just going to date and not live together or get married. After we moved back to my grandmother’s house, my mother began working two jobs to help her get out of debt. She was a single mother and had to pay rent and help my grandmother, who was on a fixed income. My mother still spent hours shopping with my grandmother. My grandmother would usually buy a certain electronic item, and then ask multiple people what they thought of it, only to return it later. My mother would drive her all around town buying and returning these items.

Up until high school, I was very content with my life. The highlight of my sixth grade was the day that Abby, a fellow classmate, was wearing a black tank top without a bra and her nipple was showing. I was only sitting a few feet away. Soon I decided to tell all of my friends, but the more people I told, the guiltier I felt. I decided to fix the situation by writing Abby a note: “Hi, Abby. The day was June 11, 1994, the sun was shining, and somebody’s boob was showing. Abby, that was your boob, and by accident, I saw your boob.” Then at the end of the note, I apologized and told her to feel free to call me if she had any further questions. Abby was embarrassed, of course.

Besides seeing Abby’s nipple in sixth grade, another highlight of my childhood was developing a close friendship with Eric. Eric’s favorite pastime during the winter was sledding. Even if there was less than an inch of snow, Eric and I would be at the hill of Sand Creek Middle School, sledding until nightfall. One time Gary, another boy I had known for years, was going downhill with Eric while Eric’s father videotaped them. Gary made a wrong move, and the two of them landed face-first in the mud. They later tried to submit the video to
America’s Funniest Home Videos
, but it wasn’t accepted.

We enjoyed cruising the mall. Colonie Center was a moderate-size mall located about five miles from where we lived. Sometimes we would get rides from our parents, but the majority of the time we either walked or rode our bikes. Every time we frequented the mall, the two of us had a set routine. First, after all that walking or bike riding, a stop at the food court would be the main priority. Eric would gulp down a soda and then chew on the ice so loudly that it would irritate the hell out of me. Eric loved to make people laugh with his body. He was often known to fold himself into a pretzel to get attention, and he had large amounts of excess skin on his face that he would play with as if he were a baker kneading dough. No matter how much skin he manipulated, he would always generate a laugh.

Another memorable moment at Colonie Center was when Eric and I were standing at the top of the mall watching a band playing on the first floor. I tried to get Eric’s attention by gently slapping his hand, but it made him drop his soda. We watched it fall right in front of some woman on the floor below. The two of us ran out of there. Finally, none of our mall crusades were complete without at least one of us gawking over some pretty girl both of us knew we could only have in a wet dream. One time I started smiling at this very voluptuous, beautiful older woman, and the two of us made eye contact. Suddenly I read the woman’s lips saying, “My boyfriend is going to beat you up.” Once my friends and I saw the girl’s boyfriend, we ran out of the mall like bandits.

The main difference between Eric and me was that Eric could get girls easily. While I had an easy time talking to girls, initiating any physical relationship with them was considerably more difficult. When I first met Eric, he was dating this girl, though only for a couple of days. He was only eleven, but he claimed to have already had several girlfriends. Eric’s girlfriend at the time was either named Kristen or Caitlin. Eric met this girl at a private school dance, where he also met the girlfriend’s best friend, and now he didn’t know which was Kristen and which was Caitlin. Eric talked to Kristen/Caitlin for about a week until our friend Gary told her that Eric didn’t know her name. Also, Caitlin/Kristen complained that Eric never called her in the week that they’d been dating. Eric would have called her; he just didn’t know who to ask for.

I was very glad my mother did not marry Anthony, as this let me stay in Colonie and be friends with Eric. My mother and I moved back into my grandmother’s house, with just a few minor problems. We moved back in August, about a month before I entered the seventh grade. I spent the majority of that month hanging out with Eric and Gary. Gary had a large swimming pool where we spent much of our time, splashing around and having raucous chicken fights. Gary and his friend Martin were big guys, while Eric and I were scrawny. Eric would get on Martin’s shoulders and I would get on Gary’s shoulders, and Eric and I would battle each other. One could only imagine what the neighbors who could see through the fence must have thought.