It's Not Easy Being Green

The following is an excerpt from my memoir:

I noted the date, a full month before Halloween. I approached Mom to ask for help in securing the makeup needed for my costume. With my voice softened to pathetic and in my best wounded tone I asked, “Mum will you help me be the Hulk this year?”
A reading lamp bathed half of her in light. She was stretched out with a drink in her hand. “Sure baby, how can I help?” she asked.
“He’s green.” I said, holding out the comic to her.
She grabbed it as if it were the daily news. I fought the urge to snatch it back and explain the damaging effects of oils and dirt in her skin, but refrained. “Aww honey, of course I’ll help.”
“I need green makeup. Can we go downtown after school tomorrow and buy some at the costume store?” It was a move tantamount to check in chess. She was not mated, but certainly cornered. I was asking for more than white sheets to fashion into ghosts, or endless toilet paper for makeshift mummies.
“I’ll do you one better. Go get me one of your brother’s old shirts,” referring to ones he had outgrown, yet I was five years and three thousand burgers away from fitting into.
My dash almost left a wake of flames on the hardwood. I fished out a plain light blue button down like the one David Brenner wore before a Gamma Ray attack rendered it a pile of tattered rags hanging by threads off the Hulk’s massive shoulders.
I handed it to her gingerly. Times like these were few and far between and volatile, like getting a woodland creature to eat from your hand. I remained still, calm and collected, careful not to make any sudden moves.
She took the shirt and freed it, tossing the hanger aside. Pulling shears from the bedside table, she set the shirt down and smoothed it out over the sheets. She turned to a picture of the Hulk in the comic, one that spanned two pages to emphasize his enormity. My tongue desperately wanted to warn about the dangers of scissors on the waterbed, but I held back, afraid it would shut her down.
She cut lengthwise, jagged, to match the natural tears of the transformation, and stopped just before the seams under the collar so it would still fit snugly. Then she fished out a pair of old jeans from her closet with Jordache embroidered into the back pockets.
I still needed the green face paint but was too scared to remind her. Nagging ignited her already short fuse and the threat of the paddle loomed over every impulse. I thought of asking Dad. Maybe we could just swing by the store Friday before he dropped us off at Grandma’s. I hated asking him for things because there was never cocktail hour where his senses would be dulled.
On Halloween morning I rose for school. My costume hung in the closet, set apart from the other clothes that were pushed aside to make room. I almost thought the colors were more vibrant, the stitching particularly taut, as if the Halloween gnomes set to work on it during the wee hours.
I dressed for school after setting a steaming cup of coffee with extra sugar by my mother’s bed, just the way she liked. Maybe the caffeine would jog her memory. At school I paid less attention than normal.
On the walk home I hurled rocks at the weather station the city put in the woods that year. It was a little bigger than a phone booth with instrumentation mounted atop girders that stretched skyward. I tried to take them down but my aim was skewed by anger. When I reached the house I saw that Mom’s car had moved.
I ran through the yard and up the back stairs, then flung open the back door to reveal Mom and her drinking pal Jeannie sitting at the kitchen table. I scanned for a bag or any evidence that the trip to get booze was supplemented with a quick stop at the costume shop. Nothing. I didn’t say a word. I went to my room, crawled into the closet, and read comics, reminded by both the pangs in my heart, and the oncoming dusk, of her abandonment.
That night I stood in front of the mirror clad in the Hulk costume. Without the makeup I looked like a document pushed through a shredder. I shuffled heavy feet to her room where she and Jeannie were smoking pot. I pushed open the door and gave them a second to drink me in.
“Aww sweetie you look wonderful, we did such a good job on that costume. Jeannie doesn’t he look menacing?” she said while exhaling a puff of the joint Jeannie was stuffing under her gigantic ass.
My look shot daggers at her. “I can’t go.”
“Can’t go? But you’re all dressed. It’s Halloween, of course you can go,” she said.
“I know I can go. But my costume is stupid, it doesn’t make any sense.” My tone stayed even.
“But we worked so hard on it, sweetie. It looks so good on you, doesn’t it, Jeannie?” She cast a glance at Jeannie, who was trying hard not to launch from her seat.
“No, it’s stupid because I’m not green. The Hulk is green.” I added extra inflection to each syllable.
I saw it dawn on her, the mistake, the neglect, depending on who you asked. “Oh sweetie I forgot.” She stood and came to me with open arms. I stopped her cold with a calculated hissy fit. I ran in place while tuning in circles. Tears flew freely. She gathered me up. I tried to wiggle free but finally succumbed. I let my body go limp as she hugged me. Eventually I hugged her back. She lifted me and carried me to the kitchen and set me down on the chair. A look of intent flashed across her face. “I can fix this,” she whispered while giving me a wink.
Jeannie followed along, holding her ass before sitting across from me. Mom tore apart the cabinets, finding what she needed among the baking ingredients and the poisonous cleaners under the sink. She took a bowl and plunked it down on the table along with the items from the cabinets--white shoe polish, green food coloring.
Mom wasted no time combining the two. She squeezed the shoe polish bottle, saturating the sponge tipped applicator until polish dripped into the bowl. She squeezed harder. Polish squirted in four directions. She tossed the crumpled container aside and grabbed the tiny bottle of coloring. A drop plummeted into the soupy polish, disappeared for a fraction of a second, then mushroomed outward.
“Voila.” Mom said in a terrible French accent.
Jeannie spoke the sum of all my fears, “Are you sure you can put that on his skin?”
“Why not?” Mom shrugged, frowning at Jeannie’s audacity.
Mom grabbed the polish container from the floor and read the label. “May be harmful if swallowed. If swallowed do not induce vomiting. Dilute with milk or water. Consult a physician if vomiting or fever persists.” Satisfied, she turned toward me while dipping the applicator into the mixture.
It hit me all at once, the smell and the burning. My eyes watered. Where I thought I had her, she trumped my hissy with a solution, any complaints and I would lose her.
After covering all the exposed skin she set to work on messing my hair. She used her metal pick, the one she used like a pitchfork to get her hair to beehive. I had to blink to make sure no tears smeared the polish on my face. She sent me off, stinking, possibly flammable, with no regard to the possible long term effects of trans-dermal shoe polish exposure.
I walked the streets. Onlookers snickered, a few took pictures. At the school Halloween party I entered the costume contest. There was another Hulk but his makeup was splotchy and caked. I was so nervous when they paraded us onstage beads of sweat gathered, but the polish didn’t run. I glanced over at the other Hulk. He looked like he was melting. When they announced me the winner, the showman in me shined. I posed, flexed, and snarled. For the briefest of moments, I was The Incredible Hulk.
It took weeks to scrub it from my skin. I spent long hours soaking in the tub. I used the splotches to my advantage. They got me out of gym class for three weeks straight. I spent time between baths enjoying the enormous haul of candy I collected that year, truth be told the costume was a hit. Mom pulled it off.

Attitude of Gratitude

There are only a few things that I’ve done for longer than a quarter century. Two come instantly to mind. One of them is inappropriate to mention here. The other is exercise, and lately, I have no desire to do so. There have been countless times that I didn’t feel like working out, but this is different. All the other times I didn’t feel like it I still did it and often got the best workout of my life, but now my lack of desire has been followed up by a lack of execution. Other than my total body class, I haven’t worked out in two weeks.

Rara wants to buy us bikes. Yeah, I’m aware it’s almost November, and so is she. If you’ve been paying attention and thank you if you have, you know Rara not only finds the best deals, she finds the best time of year to buy.

I’m encouraged. But I still feel burnt out on exercise.

And then I picked up Dad who had a total knee replacement. He recovered at a place that doubles as a nursing home. I walked through the front door and passed a man in a wheelchair sleeping, unsupervised, in the lobby. After a short elevator ride the doors opened to reveal two elderly women, one talking to the wall, the other singing to her counterpart’s back, Sinatra I think. Then I passed room after room after room of forgotten souls, some mobile, others bed-bound, all of them looked at me like I was Death, passing through, touching no one, granting no peace.

My grandmother begs my father not to commit her to one. I’m going to side with her on that one.

I’m afraid of dying.

Terrified of facing what it will be like to cease to exist.

It’s a common fear.

What trumps it is living long into my nineties, decomposing in some human warehouse.
Dear youngins, if in fifty years you’re working in one of these places and you come across me; you have my permission to smother me with a pillow.

I need to be more grateful for today, look at the trees changing, delight in the laughter of a newborn, and make sure those that matter know how much I care.

I worked out tonight, cardio and my class, and hope to do so tomorrow.

Twenty six years and counting.

Any Leway on That 15 Minutes?

Memoirs are considered narrative nonfiction, so I had to write a proposal. Chapter Outline, Bio, Marketing Plan, Competing Titles, all of it has to stick out among the other fifty proposals a publisher may have seen that day.

My agent looked at it for the fourth time last week and suggested more changes. She wants all the newspaper articles written about the jewelry robberies. I have them on my hard drive, but she wants the originals. So I hopped on the T, right down the street since we moved to Cambridge, alone mind you, without Rara, to visit The Boston Public Library and their extensive microfilm department.

It was easy since Rara took me there a week prior and held my hand through the ordeal. I'm no slouch. I can find my way around. But on my solo mission, proud after finding the articles I sought, I entered the greenline T stop and noticed out of the corner of my eye, that it was outbound only.

Outbound only?

Well, where the hell is inbound?

More to the point, where the hell is Rara to lead the way?

Last time we were here we took the outbound because we headed into Allston for Korean soup.

It was like I lost all my senses at once. I walked aimlessly, trying to think like a civil engineer, "If I were a geek, where the F would I put the inbound train?"

Five blocks later, I realized that the inbound was probably across the street from the outbound.

I was right.

Good thing because I'd probably still be walking aimlessly around town.

When I got home I re-read the articles written at the time of Dad's arrest. I couldn't find the one about me or my brother because Dad got most of the press. My two favorite headlines:

Man Held in Jewel Thefts

Nashua Suspect Accused in Robberies Netting $2.5 Million

and

Mastermind of father-son jewel heist team jailed

Warhol wrote that we all experience 15 minutes of fame during our lifetime. I hope mine wasn't wasted on jewelry robberies. Maybe I can squeak out five or ten more on the NY Times Best Seller List.

Prodigal Son

My brother and I don’t talk anymore.


After decades of conflict, we found a way to co-exist.


But when he demanded the three grand I owed him, even threatened to take me to court, everything collapsed. He was entitled, but I had just broken up with my girlfriend, things were tight. I asked him to be patient, I could barely afford food. In the following months I had to rely on credit to stay afloat. I just finished paying off those shylocks, ten years later.


My brother is the one I hated most growing up. One third of the memoir I wrote is attributed describing his cruelty. I absolved him long ago, intellectualizing his behavior; family dysfunction has a way of warping things. I’ve never come to an understanding of why I’m the only one of the three of us that has had any measure of success, however limited. I came out of it with a strong belief in therapy. My brother thinks it’s a bunch of crap.


Type I Diabetes is his crutch. He hobbles around on it like it’s a battle scar. Low sugars make him prone to violent outbursts that leave doctors, and Dad, shrugging. I’m not fooled. If my therapist is correct, anger is a non-optional response to pain. Pushing it down is like trying to keep a beach ball submerged; inevitably, it pops up elsewhere. His low blood sugars are the psychological manifesting itself in the physical.


I can only imagine that Dad feels some measure of guilt for my brother’s inability to rejoin the collective after eight years of being locked up. My brother tried, went back to school, made it onto the honor roll. His probation officer violated him after his first dirty urine, the judge’s reluctance to send an A student back behind the wall waned after the second one.


Dad called me last night at work and asked to speak to me. I need to see you, eight-thirty in the usual spot? Most sons never worry that meeting their Dad for a pizza at Regina's might be the call to rob again. It’s the first thing that pops into my mind. He told me a sentencing glitch and recalculation means my brother will be released on Friday. With Dad’s knee surgery scheduled for Thursday, there’s no one to pick my brother up.


I wouldn't ask if I weren't having my knee replaced. I know you have your differences. I was hoping you two could set them aside. Maybe get along again.


Dad doesn’t understand that it’s never been about money. My own brother threatened to take me to court. He forgot that when I got out I had to take care of Mom, alone, while cancer ate her alive. He forgot that the reason he has his inheritance is because of me.


Our relationship dissolved over a paltry three grand, the going rate for brotherhood.


So what do you think? Should I do it?

Dirt, Cheap?

I clean.


Big deal, right?


Maybe you don't understand.


I CLEAN.


It wasn't always an obsession, a war, if you will, against dirt. At one time, I really didn't care about the matter, or more precisely, I ignored it because everyone else in my family was so obsessed with it. Ignoring it was my of telling them to F off.


It's not like you have to go out of your way to be messy. Just don't do anything, and watch dirt slowly, but surely, take over. Dust wisps in, coating every surface. Grime permeates shower tiles so subtly you hardly notice the build-up. Floors, once smooth and slick on your bare feet, become course and grimy.


My room growing up was deplorable. Mold grew freely, green patches formed like lily pads on all my wooden furniture. Discarded food crusted, molded, then crumbled to dust before ever being acknowledged. One of our eight cats frequently pissed under my desk, he wasn't neutered.


There were two spots that I kept clean, or at least free of clutter, my bed, and my porn collection, which was stored high lest the cat desire some reading material to shit on. In drunken stupors, I'd lie in filth, face down, careless.


Given the fact that she screamed about it constantly, I can only surmise that Mom saw Satan in dirt. She hunted it like a marksman, paling in comparison to her mother, who'd move all the furniture just to give the room a rim job.


But then...something happened. Dirt bothered me. I noticed it. Everywhere. The first time I cleaned a hardwood floor I stood over it, unconvinced the mop picked up all the dirt. I knelt with towel in hand, and wiped up my arch enemy, glaring at my mop the same way one looks upon a traitor.


Once I moved into my own place, things went from bad to worse. I worked long hours to make it on my own. Sunday I scoured. Monday I relaxed. Tuesday, dirt's assault began, showing up in the corners, random dustbunnies scampered across the floor. Wednesday, I'd clean. Friday. Sunday. Random spot checks on non-essential cleaning days. God forbid someone invited me out. I'd have declined, knowing full well dirt loves an empty house.


My therapist calls the behavior a neurotic loyalty to Mom. He must live in filth. Dirt and I have reached an understanding. It accumulates. Sometimes I let it, others I don't. It's hard to keep up an obsession, especially when you live with people who don't seem as offended by dirt's existence. It's not that Rachel is a slob, she just has better things to do. It's ironic how I've spent a good deal of my life trying to combat the very thing I'll be buried in when I pass.


Unless I'm cremated and mixed into a vat of 409.


Get my lawyer on the phone. Time to change my will.

White is Right

It's a good god damn thing we keep those niggers behind fences!


She declared. It surprised us the same way a blown tire might have if it was blown by a laser from an alien ship. My brother and I looked around at first. I checked the radio to make sure we weren't tuned to WKKK while my brother rolled up the window, either because he thought it came from outside, or to keep the flagrant racism in.


Grandma sat in the back, purse clutched to her chest, wig secured by enough bobby pins to set off a metal detector. We were driving by a low income housing development just after gorging on Thanksgiving dinner.


Her rascism was usually more subtle. The tightening of her grip as we walked by anyone of color, the forbidden line that dissected the neighborhood, white from black, the generalizations spoken under her breath to friends, They all steal, you know.


When we were caught robbing jewelry stores and plastered all over the 6 o'clock news, she was devastated. I can't imagine the embarrassment, humiliation, and shame. Her peers would look down on her as a failed Mother.


She blamed it on a woman, Some girl did this to your father, brainwashed him into stealing, he'd never do it on his own. My therapist says she's right, it was a woman that brainwashed him, her.



I don't talk to her was her response when Rachel asked if she ever saw my sister. She ruined the family's good name by having a baby with a black man.



The family's good name? I thought. Didn't Dad single-handedly drive a wrecking ball into that long before my sister gave birth to the anti-Christ?



Classic Grandma.



John McCain will receive a vote from her not because he stands for what she believes in, but because he's the 'right' color. I fear others, black and white, are going to the polls this November to pick a color, not a candidate.



Maybe we should keep them behind fences.

Just Curious

Who is this?

Wow! I found your blog last month and read all the entries that same night! I came back tonight to re-read the one that mentions my name, although, it's mispelled (no "ce" just a "z")I'm glad you're ok and I think you are a great writer... hopefully, you have some better memories of me...

My brain is sprained trying to figure it out.