Two cousins born a month apart as if in celebration of the end of WWII.
Their mothers were sisters, whose parents immigrated from Palermo, Sicily. They settled on O’Dell Avenue in the Italian dominated section of Endicott, NY. The sisters and their parents adapted well to their new country. The two sisters grew to adulthood, got married and had children. They grew to be much closer than most siblings, even having homes in Binghamton, NY, on the same street, which was an easy walk for both.
Each sister’s youngest child was a boy, a cousin, but they grew up closer than most brothers. Tony and John were rarely seen without being together. It was as if all they both needed the close brotherly friendship not usually encountered by typical cousins. It was more of a mental state of closeness perhaps because their other siblings were female.
John’s mom, Augusta, was Italian, but his father was Polish. Tony’s mom, Katherine, married an Irish immigrant from Dublin, Ireland. What brought the boys to an even closer relationship were each of their fathers who were both emotionally and physically distant, spending little time with their boys, as if their sex with their wives was not meant for the conception of another child, but to satisfy their sex drive and pleasure. Furthermore, the fathers worked during the day and the mother’s worked evenings as part-time cooks. John’s mom worked in a local Italian restaurant, while Tony’s mom worked in a pizza shop.
Most young boys might resent their absentee parents, especially their fathers, but Tony and John didn’t because it gave them more time to spend with each other building forts, picking berries, stealing corn from a neighbors garden and eating it raw, skipping stones in the nearby river, fishing, baseball, swimming and basketball at the local park. They were, though unknown to them, quickly developing a mind-set for independence which, years later, created a desire to leave their homes earlier than most children.
At night they would raid neighboring gardens to steal tomatoes and cucumbers, never taking too much from one place for it to be noticeable. Both mothers and fathers were often amazed that their son was usually not hungry for a snack when they came home in the evening, though the pale red stains with tiny seeds in them gave a clue to each mother.
Both families spent holidays together, alternating between homes and cooking duties. The sisters were pleased as well as the fathers, especially when John’s father went to the cellar and brought up a jug of homemade
dandelion wine that was more potent than commercial wine. It was more a liquor than a wine and close to being brandy. But this was a secret between the two husbands. They watched TV and got alcohol-happy, then retired to the porch where their boisterous fantasies were beyond the bat-like ears of their wives. The boys were happier than their mothers and fathers were or will be. When they could get away with it, they disappeared into John’s attic where they played or talked quietly, as if they weren’t inside the house. Otherwise they disappeared to the back yard, then ran to the dike area to play. Because of the dike, nothing could be built close to it which left a large. open area for play.
Summer vacation had come and gone along with the heat and constant sweat. They were anticipating the enjoyment of a cool fall. They both thought fall as the best time of year. The coolness of the weather was mostly the reason, but the beauty of the color changes in the leaves was also a subtle joy, not having to attend to the weeds in both gardens, no more hassle with whatever the gardens produced and needed harvesting and especially not having to pick berries. Raspberries thorns scratch marks made the backs of their hands and forearms look like contour maps drawn by kindergarten children, but that was only a mild irritation. Fall meant increased freedom for more time together as their adventurous minds were willing to risk punishment for exciting activities.
Fall passed quickly for them. Now the boys looked forward to a thick layer of snowfall before their Thanksgiving vacation. Thanksgiving came and ended with cold weather but no snow. But in mid-December their hopes for snow were rewarded with an unusually heavy and deep snowfall. Not only did they get what they wished for, they got an abundance of the angel’s dandruff. The snowfall was moist, perfect for making snowballs, plus these seven inches of snow closed the schools for a day. They built snow forts, had snowball fights with neighboring boys, recklessly sledded down the dike and shouted things they could have been punished for, but that they could get away with now. A few days later it would be Christmas vacation. Both boys were ecstatic, dancing and hopping and making weird noises as if they were Indians chanting vigorously around a campfire.
It was Christmas time, 1952 so two kitchens were busy with both mothers wearing out their shoes as they made darting movement between the refrigerator, the stove, the cupboards and the sink, not caring about the splatters of food clinging to their full-length aprons.
Frequently heard by both fathers and sons was, “Get out of my kitchen and stay out!” It was easy for the fathers to do since they were at work on weekdays, but still, they had to drive to the grocery store more frequently in the evening and on weekends. They were in charge of wrapping gifts and picking up gifts from stores like Sears, Montgomery Ward, J.J. Newberry’s and J.C. Penny’s who offered a ‘lay away plan,’ a form of delayed payment
It was John and Tony who had the time of their lives before Christmas Eve. The playtime ended on Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day when spent nearly all-day at work doing what mom and dad told them. Often there was a list that seemed never ending, even the father’s had their long ‘honey-dew’ lists. If company were coming for dinner Christmas Day morning was the time to unwrap gifts, an hour was spent on playing with gifts, but after that moment of happiness, it was all work and little play until about an hour before company was to arrive. The mothers were, of course, hyper-active, tense, irritable and impatient which was good for the boys because the men and boys were fiercely chased away. However, the boys and men had to be available for any command given by the mom. There was no hiding from this unless each boy wanted Dumbo ears from all the ear twisting that would happen to them. But all that still was a couple days away and the seven inches of snow had been added to by an additional two inches of snowfall. Those two inches were more fluffy, looking like white frosting on a cake.
The mothers had promised the boys a full day of play, the day after Christmas, if they helped with preparation, didn’t complain or argue and did what they were told to do They both agreed excitedly. I don’t know what the fathers were promised. On Christmas Eve the boys made arrangements to meet at ten o’clock at the dike that ran in the back of homes. They made a list to remind themselves to be dressed in winter clothes, bring their sleds.
The boys knew the history of the dike. It was there due to frequent the frequent flooding of the Susquehanna River that passed through Binghamton. It was a tall, gradually rising mound of dirt covered with thick weed growth to hold the soil in place. The dike itself was about twenty feet high, but since the land facing toward the houses ran downhill, the dike looked much taller than it actually was. The same could be said of the side facing the river. It was a success which prevented further flooding of the land that faced the houses. The dike was about one hundred feet from the riverbank.
At the top of the dike, looking toward the river, bare trees and bushes were visible. The boys used those trees to tell scary stories to younger kids about the river monsters whose arms poked up through the riverbank swaying back and for in the wind, but really waving to you to come closer to them. It was said that if you got too close to the river bank the branches formed fingers that bent down, grabbed you and tossed you into the darkest depths of the river, where the vicious, malformed monsters pealed your skin off and ate your muscles while you were still alive and screaming. The boys liked to scare kids in school with that story, but especially enjoyed scaring the girls.
The boys’ excitement was palpable, they could taste it, chew it and would salivate just thinking of the fun waiting for them in the snow. They made a list of all the winter clothes they’d wear so they wouldn’t forget anything. Both boys had bows and arrows. The bow strings often needed waxing with a chunk of bee’s wax. The runners of both Flexible Flyer sleds received a careful coating of that wax.
John was so excited that he forgot to pee before leaving the house. In his rush to get out of the house he arrived at the top of the dike early. In his boldness he peed while standing at the top of snow-covered dike. He tried to spell his name but with no success, especially when he slipped in the slick, thick snow and his penis was pushed into the snow. When Tony arrived and saw the yellow snow, both boys staggered with loud, carefree laughter. Dressed in heavy coats, scarfs, hats, gloves and boots, they could not move fast. They watched each other walk and accused each other of having a two-by-four board up their ass. Tony yelled, “John, I have a sliver in my ass.” To which John responded, “Don’t ask me to get it out for you.” If there had been mountains with loose snow, their piercing laughter would have caused an avalanche .
Later-on the dike would be full of neighborhood kids who also used the dike for their sledding runway. There was seldom any crowding, however, because the dike was long and offered plenty of room for separation between groups of sledders. But before lunch the dike would likely be deserted, except for the boys.
Both boys stood at the top of the dike, kings of the hill. If you were on the dike with them, but fifty feet away, looking down the dike at them, you might think it was fantasy land because the boys looked as if they were standing on a giant, cannoli, a white, frosted, favorite dessert to Sicilians.
The boys knew they wouldn’t be heard, and they wouldn’t be bothered so they freaked-out with their booming voices and absurd but comical physical gyrations. After they both slipped and fell down they laid there and made show angels. Tony got up, looked at his snow angel and told John, “Why can’t angels be boys?” Without waiting for an answer Tony drew a hot dog shape at the crotch of his snow angel. John screamed at the good idea, only he drew an impossibly large sausage shape that would have given his angel three legs, but one with no knee.
They swore. They told the dirtiest jokes they knew. They wondered about girls’ private areas and wanted to see them to solve their curiosity and some of the mysteries of sex.
John suddenly shouted, “Race you to the bottom.” They both picked up their sleds, threw themselves down on top to them and raced to the bottom. John had a slight head start but Tony was close behind him until he grabbed John’s boot, shoved it to the side and made him flip over in the snow. Tony laughed like a mad hyena. John yelled, “I’ll get you next time,” then suggested, “Let’s both start sitting on our sleds at the top of the hill. We’ll try to push each other off the track and who ever reaches the bottom of the hill and still on his sled will be the king of the mountain. The best out of five tries is the winner, OK?” Tony agreed, but neither one ever reached the bottom of the hill still seated on their sled. Neither boy cared. They were having too much fun. They tried to ride their sled down the dike standing up and holding the sled rope like it was the rein of a horse that they were riding by standing in the saddle. Neither could do it standing up, but when they kneeled they had success. They’d worn a smooth, packed path for their sleds and took advantage of it with unmitigated euphoria wrapping around their torsos as if it were soaked into their wool coats.
“Snowball fight!” screamed Tony. At the top of the dike they each jammed their sleds into the snow and used them as a fort to protect themselves from thrown snowballs. Both sleds were pocked with round white shapes where the snowballs hit, like each sled had giant, white measles. The sleds offered too much protection, so they started grabbing several snowballs in the left arms then raiding the other’s fort. When they ran out of snowballs, they got treated the same way.
When they couldn’t think of something fun and different to do next, John turned away from seeing the houses and looked at the river. It was a rule that they could not go down the dike side that faced the river. John saw a mental image of his mom’s stern face. John turned and smiled at Tony, but Tony shook his head and said, “You know the rule. We can’t go down the dike toward the river.”
John hesitated. Tony said, “Let’s sit.” They sat on their sleds at the apex of the dike, but as they talked, John’s eyes, every few seconds, would leave Tony and glance toward the river as if by a magnetic attraction. Tony saw this and tried distracted him. Tony talked about Christmas dinner, all the sweet baked desserts that both mothers would cook. Their excitement rose as they guessed at what they’d get as Christmas gifts. Neither of them cared about visiting relatives and hearing about their boring lives, nor listening to their older cousins whose boring attempts at humor were inescapable, as was their stories about boyfriends or girlfriends, parental problems, heartaches, headaches and bullshit. It was like being strapped to a chair while being splashed with slime. Luckily, they had formed a bullshit barrier to other aunts, uncles, cousins and often to their own fathers. Atypical fathers not interested in most sports, except for Friday night boxing on TV, and drinking wine or liquor which cruelly interfered with the Lone Ranger TV shows and with Roy Rogers, the Cisco Kid, Lash LaRue, Hopalong Cassidy and other westerns that dominated the TV schedules in those days.
Girls were of no interest as friends. The boys’ wanted from them was to see their privates. They liked learning new swear words, cursing, loud fooling around. When this talk got boring, they tackled each other and rolled down the hill. While on the ground, they pushed themselves, so they rolled and turned over and over, until reaching the bottom, then standing up looking like thickly frosted, monster snowmen. They each looked like a giant, vertical cannoli. They pretended the snow was frosting and ate it until ‘brain freeze’ stopped it..
Although they were the same age and the same height, it was easy to see that John would grow up more stout with a bigger frame, and thick boned, while Tony seemed destined to be rail-thin. Both would be over six feet tall, but they had no idea, nor thought about the future. ‘Now’ was the time of their lives. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow, but ‘now.’ They enjoyed being away from their parents, away from the harshly, strict penguin-like nuns at Saint Anthony’s elementary school. Religion was only something to withstand for an hour at church. These were all the dues they had to pay for their independent hours of fun. It was worth it for each of them, but they didn’t have to act like they liked it. Where was this invisible creature the nuns and priests talked about? Was religion just a game of hide-and-seek? Even at their young age, religion did not make sense to them without proof. Maybe it was something only for adults, they thought.
They had paused their top of the dike conversation. They ran out of things to say momentarily. That’s when Tony said, “We should get back home. It’s gotta be near lunch time and we’ll be expected to come home for lunch. If we don’t, our moms will worry.”
John looked down at his boots thinking about something before he said, “Don’t be a momma’s boy. If they call, we’ll go. But let’s have fun until then.”
“Better safe than sorry,” added Tony.
“Fuck that. Come on. Let’s have all the fun we can. After lunch we may have to work. Let’s be adventurers. How about I be little Davy Crocket and you be little Daniel Boone? We are lost in the snow.”
“Are the Indians after us?”
“Of course. Do you want to get scalped? They’re coming from that way.” John pointed towards the houses. “We can’t go that way to escape. We have to go this way.” John pointed down the dike toward the river which looked like white glaze blanketing a tar road. “It’s our only escape route. Hurry, Tony. Grab your sled, and let’s go.” Tony hesitated as he looked toward home, but suddenly he turned, grabbed his sled, jumped on it and found himself trailing down the dike behind John.
We’re going to fast toward the river, thought Tony as John’s sled threw snow onto his face and into his mouth as he tried to scream at John. He choked, not able to say anything. John turned his head and looked back at Tony. John was laughing as he sped down the slope on those thoroughly waxed sled runners. Looking over his shoulder and seeing Tony’s open mouth, John wondered what he was screaming about. He couldn’t hear anything, but Tony’s mouth was open and moving, trying to say something. He thought Tony looked like a terrified girl, a sissy. He turned his head back around to look forward and saw the ice-covered river go under his sled. He was sailing off the riverbank and onto the ice. He couldn’t stop the sled easily even though he dragged his feet and hands. Tony had dragged the toes of his boots deeply into the snow to stop his momentum short of the riverbank.
John’s sled finally stopped. He sat up on it. Tony thought he looked normal, but with the biggest, red-cheeked, and runny nose smile he’d ever seen. Nothing bad had happened, but he knew that John’s disobedient and dangerous ride would be a secret that he and Tony would have to keep, or they would both be grounded and not be able to sled on the dike. John lazily sat on his sled and waved happily to Tony. He grinned at his brother-like cousin and yelled, “Sissy!”
Tony yelled back. “I was too scared of the ice.” To which John answered, while he was rising from the sled, “That’s OK, but you’re right. We need to go home. I’m coming.”
At seven years of age, most kids won’t know about weight displacement. John’s weight, when displaced over the length of his sled, was enough to keep him safe on the ice, just as snowshoes keep a man on top of the snow instead of each of his small feet sinking to the depth of the snow. Weight displacement was not in their vocabulary, nor in their science lessons.
Tony got off his sled and ran to the river’s edge. Along the way he tried to scream, but there was only silence coming out of his open mouth. He knew what he wanted to say but the words were blocked by his own fear for John. He tried again to scream a warning to John for him to stay on the sled. It was a flash of memory from seeing a movie called The Call of the Wild by Jack London. In that movie a hunter used his snowshoes to keep his legs on top of the snow as he walked. Tony’s flash of instinct made him try to scream for John to remain on his sled, but he couldn’t vocalize his thoughts as if his vocal cords were frozen and not working. Nothing came out of his mouth but a terrorized, guttural groan. He felt mild vibrations in his lower throat, but no sound that John could hear. What occurred next, his brain recorded in slow-motion. He saw John trying to stand.
John stood and laughed at Tony’s expression, then took one step and was shocked to hear what sounded like a gun shot. The ice under his feet shifted, cracked loudly, then suddenly broke, letting John’s body sink suddenly as if he were on a trap door that suddenly opened. The near freezing water stunned the feelings in his lower body all the way up to his groin, then chest. Tony saw the shock and panic on John’s face, his eyes bulging in horror, his forehead lined with deep ridges of fear, the ‘O’ shape of his mouth and his incomprehensible grunt of surprise and the fear of death. Tony’s mind also took snapshots that developed, like a camera and etched themselves into a short video that his brain and would be with him forever.
Tony ran to the river’s edge. He attempted to walk on the ice to go help John, but the gossamer ice at the river’s edge was too delicate to accept any weight. Tony froze as he stared at John’s flailing arms and panicked voice as he tried to scream through a mouthful of water. John appeared to be pleading, begging to live, then with the water out of his mouth came a glass-shattering, terrorized and spectral scream to Tony. “Help! Tony, I don’t want to die!”
John slid to one side of the ice hole, one arm trapped under the ice, the other arm appeared to be waving good-bye. Then John’s head submerged, his hat floating where he went under, stuck to the ragged edge of ice. One arm rose out of the hole, his gloved hand was bent at the wrist seemingly floating there as if separate and buoyant, then suddenly it slowly submerged as if it were a war ship that was sinking after being hit below the water line by a torpedo.
John sank out of sight. It was a ‘Now you see me, now you don’t’ sight, as if performed by the world’s greatest magician. But there was no reappearance. John did not rise back up through the hole. The flowing water dragged him under the ice and out of sight.
Tony found himself up to his neck in the river. The ice had been like lace, thin and delicate allowing him to break the ice easily as he walked without realizing that he was walking out to John needing to save his brother-cousin.
When Tony realized where he was, he didn’t feel anything. He didn’t move, staring at the hole in the ice and the sled that got knocked away from the hole. Tears flowed down his chilled and reddened cheeks, then more tears froze on top of the tears that were already frozen on his cheeks, like icy worms. Tony didn’t move, stayed in the water, and wished this were a nightmare. It wasn’t. It was as real as the real nightmares that would haunt him for decades, and would also be a wound that never healed, a raw, bloody tear in the flesh of his memories.
Tony had no concept of time, he didn’t know how long he stood in the water, both dazed, stunned, nor did he care. A vital part of his life had been ripped from him; a cruel piece of a highly valued, golden puzzle had disappeared. He thought he heard sirens in the distance. He thought, Someone must have seen and reported the incident, but that thought was on a cloud that quickly drifted away from his present thoughts.
Tony had to be dragged back to the riverbank. His body was rigid, knees and waist unbending. He resisted efforts to get him out of the water. For a seven-year-old boy, one rescue man said, he was uncannily strong, probably from the constant adrenaline that poured into his blood system and energized his muscles. Even out of the river and on a cot being brought to the ambulance, he turned and faced the river, the sled, the Flexible Flyer, which was now sliding backward toward the gapping ice hole. As he was being raised into the ambulance he saw the sled tip downward, halfway into the black water.
Tony would not speak, perhaps could not speak until the next morning at the hospital. The nurses saw a faraway look in his eyes. Some said he was looking right through them and spoke in a monotone without feeling, intonation or accent. Not a child’s voice.
*******
A decade later, Tony had grown to be six-feet two-inches tall and one-hundred fifty pounds of rail-thin, skinny. Tony could picture John being six-feet four inches tall and one-hundred ninety pounds. Over the years, in his memory, Tony had John grow and mature until he had an adult likeness and mental holograph of he and John standing side by side, both smiling, both like brothers. However, Tony would never again establish a friendship like he had with John. He told his wife and kids about John and told them that they would have loved him, as he would have loved them.
Tony, in those growing-up years, on the edge of adulthood became more analytical about his actions, wishes, desires. Now he was much more careful about putting his thoughts into actions. The consequences of most actions were now the process of a thoughts or ideas, a counting to ten pause to examine a thought and its possible consequences, then a slow application of his thoughts put into action as a test, just as a race car driver, before a race, will ride around the racetrack looking for any deviation in the track from the normal that would interfere with his racing skill and his need to win the race.
John, however, was the risk-taker and dire consequences made his actions more thrilling to him. He would swear near his parents when he didn’t need to do it. He would say that the ear twisting and getting grounded were worth establishing future freedom of thought and independence. He sometimes peed with the toilet seat down so he could argue that, when the toilet seat is down he usually lifted it up, so why is it that when the toilet seat of up, why can’t it be put down? If boys can put the seat up, why can’t girls put the seat down? He was often angry at Tony for not supporting him in his thoughts and actions. Tony found it difficult to reason with him, especially at that young age when he wasn’t sure he was right. He agreed with the toilet seat argument but didn’t complicate the angry situation by taking John’s side of the argument. Actually, I thought, Is it important enough to make such a big-deal out of it? John did. I didn’t. For me, if it felt right not to do what John did then that was his decision.
John, however, was the risk-taker and dire consequences made his actions more thrilling to him. He would swear near his parents when he didn’t need to do it. He would say that the ear twisting and getting grounded were worth establishing future freedom of thought and independence. He sometimes peed with the toilet seat down so he could argue that, when the toilet seat is down he usually lifted it up, so why is it that when the toilet seat of up, why can’t it be put down? If boys can put the seat up, why can’t girls put the seat down? He was often angry at Tony for not supporting him in his thoughts and actions. Tony found it difficult to reason with him, especially at that young age when he wasn’t sure he was right. He agreed with the toilet seat argument but didn’t complicate the angry situation by taking John’s side of the argument. Actually, I thought, Is it important enough to make such a big-deal out of it? John did. I didn’t. For me, if it felt right not to do what John did then that was his decision.
John would constantly use the phrase, “He who hesitates is lost.” A platitude learned from his father. Tony would counter with, “Look before you leap,” another platitude learned from his mom. In the end, however, they would grasp each other in a hug, John, the stronger, sometimes lifting Tony off the ground and spinning him around, until they were both dizzy and fell to the ground laughing crazily, like maniacs who finally heard a joke they thought was funny.
With these memories of John I learned to see grief as linear, like a long, stretched-out whip, each inch of the whip being a reminder of the pain I felt, as if I were actually being whipped, and being whipped by my own hand, administering self-flagellation for not saving John. It’s a long whip, its linear length would measure exactly as long as my lifetime. But each year is less intense. Do we ever truly accept the death of a loved one? I think not. That’s why our memories keep them alive, at least for as long as a person remembers them. Tony hoped to reach an age when those memories were not like daggers pushed into each ear, but like hearing aids for the clear, friendly and happy memories of what once was, but not really lost.
I often wish for death but resist the impulse so John can still have a home in my mind, in my memories. I must live so that he will live. I am his God of life. But when the end comes for me, I shall sink as slowly as he did into the murky, dark, mysterious waters of death, hopefully having someone to wave to, someone to keep me alive in their memories.
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