I always thought his name was "Calvin". My mom or dad had told me his name, years ago. I've never been great at remembering people's names, and since I usually only visited them once a year I'm sure I asked and was told his name multiple times. He may have even told me, himself. When Mom told me that he had died recently, I was asking her for details and that's when I found out that he spelled it, "Kelvin". But I'm pretty sure it's pronounced the same way.
Anyway, Kelvin died and I'm sure that everyone who has ever known him is really going to miss him. Family, friends, neighbors, coworkers. Everyone. Casual acquaintances at places he shopped for groceries or gas, postal workers, visitors (Kelvin was the security guard at the front gate of my parents' condo), vendors...even people that only met him once are really gonna miss that guy.
Kelvin was kind. Optimistic. One of those people that makes your day a little better than it was before you encountered him. Always a smile. A genuine glad-to-be-talking-to-you-right-now kind of smile. He seemed genuinely happy to see everyone he greeted at that gate. Our encounters were always brief, just me pulling my car up to the guard shack for my yearly visit. He'd recognize me right away on account of me looking a lot like my father.
After enduring a long flight from LA to Fort Lauderdale, schlepping through baggage claim, picking up my rental car and driving amongst the psychos on I-95, I'd pull up and Kelvin would be all, "Mr. Kublin! Great to see you again?" and I'd forget all the travel hassles and any other negative thought bouncing around my head. And, at the worst of times, like when my dad died, Kelvin somehow made the unbearable a little more bearable. He changed the very atmosphere for the better. Like being near the ocean does. I never heard him once complain and it is hard for me to even imagine. That's why so few people knew that he was sick until his last couple of months with us. He focused on the positive. He was young. In his 30's. Sad. But the sadness is quickly displaced by the echo of the joy he brought to all who knew him. In a world that sometimes seems lacking in empathy and compassion, Kelvin personified both and it was contagious. My mom summed it up. She is not given to hyperbole. Ever. And she described Kelvin as "Irreplaceable". I'd have to agree.
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Monday, July 17, 2017
THEO
Finding street parking near my apartment can be challenging. Particularly Sunday and Monday nights cuz, street cleaning. And don't even get me started with Film LA who clearly don't look at Street cleaning schedules when issuing permits.
I can deal with "rush hour" traffic anywhere in Los Angeles and I am perfectly calm, listening to the radio watching other people lose their shit, shouting, "Where the fuck are all these people going!" As they sit on the on-ramp connecting the 405 South to the 105 East (If you haven't been on this particular ramp at 5 PM on a weekday, You really have to experience it. I recommend Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon for your journey). I just chill in LA traffic because I accept it. My road rage is reserved for the deserted, midnight streets surrounding my hood while I search for that elusive parking space. "Who The fuck are all these people!"
I actually do often find convenient parking on most days, usually on Toluca, just steps from the alley behind my building. There's a soccer field right near there so people are often leaving around the time I arrive, late at night. My second choice is Douglas which runs in front of my building. There are fewer spots but sometimes I get lucky there. When I first moved in, a few years ago, I avoided parking on Douglas because I didn't want to deal with the last remnants of Echo Park's once-infamous gangs. "Neighborhood improvement" and the accompanying gang injunctions led to evictions and arrests leaving behind only a few tough-acting teens who would occasionally talk shit or cast menacing glances when I passed them. They're just kids trying to look hard but underestimate them your own peril. They are young and impulsive. Any disrespect, real or imagined, can escalate quickly. Prison is full of people who didn't think shit through.
All those guys are gone now, pushed out on the same wave of gentrification that brought in all the fucking people whose cars are now clogging the streets. I sometimes wonder whether I am a victim of gentrification or part of it. I am white and grew up in a home that would cost a million dollars, today. But now I live month-to-month and can only afford my apartment because of rent control and getting a $70 street cleaning parking ticket would be felt. That's what I was thinking on a Monday night a couple of months ago after I had struck out on Toluca and Douglas.
My last best bet was under the bridge. Beverly Boulevard crosses over Glendale just below the intersection of Toluca and Douglas. Underneath, is a triangle-shaped area surrounded by partially mangled, metal guard rails. You can fit about 16 cars under there. Maybe more if they are parked well, which they really are. It's just across from that creepy marionette theater.
Anyway, I used to always be able to get a spot beneath that overpass but recently I started to notice noticed it was often full, with one or two cars sitting on a jack with one wheel removed or a raised hood indicating an ongoing repair job. It seemed odd. But just figured a couple people who lived nearby had been working on their cars.
I pulled in through the narrow entrance, waving to Larry, an older homeless guy who always offers a smile and occasionally buys some weed off me (I've offered as a gift but he insists on paying. I charge him five dollars) and I look around. I don't see any spaces. What I do see are a couple of guys, leaning against a truck, who look like they just finished work. As mechanics. Mystery solved.
I introduced myself and one of the guys tells me his name is Theo. Theo fixes cars. I guess business is good because Theo has an assistant (his name escapes me). I was friendly but with my shitty Spanish was able to gripe about the parking situation. No hay muchos espacios, especialmente Domingo y Lunes porque, street-cleaning. Theo spoke to his man who quickly moved one of the cars to make a space for me. At that point my attitude was, as long as I get a space I'm cool. I know that sounds kind of dickish but I wasn't going to jam up Theo who's just trying to make a living because somebody else didn't get a parking space.
A couple weeks later, however, I find myself, once again, circling the block in vain. I checked under the bridge and there are like four cars in various states of repair. I got love for Theo but this is some bullshit. I found parking really far from my apartment and had to walk several blocks with a bottle of Kahlúa a bottle of vodka and a pint of Haagen Dazs. What a pain in the ass. I was pretty annoyed at that point and I wasn't sure what to do.
A few nights ago, it happened again and I started seriously considering making a call to the city. I don't want to get anyone in trouble and I know he could get cited and his customers cars might get towed but I live in this neighborhood; I'm entitled to, at least, a fair shot at a parking space, no? I was definitely leaning toward ruining Theo's day.
Yesterday, I got up early and walked to the lake. I'm taking my meds and I have a therapist and I'm trying to get better at all...this. I met with her Saturday and we came up with a plan to help me better organize my life, and jumping out of bed early and walking to the lake before I do anything else is a part of that plan. So that's why I was walking to the lake yesterday morning.
I like to cut through the neighborhoods rather than walk straight up Glendale. It's more interesting and I have to walk up and down some pretty steep hills which is great for my glutes.
So I'm walking up a side street and who do I see working on a minivan by the side of the road? Theo, with his kind smile underneath his Mario mustache. He's happy to see me and I'm happy to see him. We wave to each other and exchange "Holas!"
In that moment, nothing had changed and everything had changed.
In that moment, nothing had changed and everything had changed.
I consider myself a pretty solid progressive. Anytime I hear someone spouting some bullshit about "illegals" being a drain on our economy, I am the first want to point out that the vast majority of people coming to America legally and illegally are coming for work. To feed their families. And no, they are not "taking our jobs". They contribute to our economy and they often cannot collect the Social Security after paying into the program for years. I am a great defender of the working class.
Until the moment I am inconvenienced.
Until the moment I am inconvenienced.
Here I am. Mr. progressive. Planning on depriving a working man of his livelihood (at least temporarily) so that I don't have to walk in extra block or two to get to my rent- controlled apartment in a neighborhood that, until recently, was mostly populated by similarly situated working men and women who can no longer afford the rising rents. I was a little bit stunned at this self-realization. Now I understand how it happens. I understand how good people, intelligent people, kind people can become that which they abhor. It is insidious. For a moment I didn't see Theo as a man. I saw him as a problem. I was ready to dehumanize him over a fucking parking space and I didn't even know I was doing it. Another mystery solved; I am a beneficiary of gentrification, not a victim of it. I can't do much about that but what I can do is walk a few blocks from my car to my apartment every Sunday and Monday night if it helps another human being feed their family.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
SOMERSET 1969
When I was six or seven, I used to get earaches a lot. Excruciating. I would lie in the dark and whimper. My mom or dad would put in drops. It took a while but usually, after a bit, the pain would subside.
My parents played bridge back in those days, with The Paynes. Bob and Heidi. They had a mess of kids ranging in age from six to twenty-six. Our families would get together and we’d all go camping. Massasoit. Martha’s Vineyard. Miles Standish State Park. Great times. Lots of laughs.
My parents had a pop-up trailer in which they usually slept and Mr. Payne, (he was a professor at the local community college) provided tents; canvas tents that were big enough to stand in and sleep five or six. I slept in those with my brothers and the two Payne boys who were around my brothers' age. When we unwrapped the tents at the beginning of summer, you could smell the previous summer’s last breath. Invariably, a bunch of earwigs (creepiest insect ever) would scurry out. I’d remember the Twilight Zone episode of the same name wherein an earwig eats through a man’s head and he somehow survives (spoiler alert: it came out the other ear). Stuff of nightmares for me for years. Thanks Steve (my eldest brother who let me watch that shit)!
Anyway. We hung out with them a lot. They lived only a couple of miles from us and, like I said, my parents played bridge with them on the reg. While they did that, I played with Lori (a year younger than me) and, sometimes, her niece, Didi, who was only a couple of years younger than her. We mostly played "Family". Lori and I would be the parents and Didi was our little baby. Once in awhile I’d play with Kenny who would have been maybe twelve at this time. Kenny would involve me in mischief which would be somewhere between adventurous and criminal. He was slick. We never got caught. A couple close calls, but the Somerset Police Department is not exactly Scotland Yard. They had a great house and I loved everything about it. It was around two hundred years old, built in colonial times. The wall switches were pushbutton. You’d push the top button in which turned the lights on and made the bottom button pop out. The stairs creaked a little but it was solid. Safe. I felt as at home there as if I were in my own home. That house had a lot of love. I’m sure there were problems. But love was the air I breathed when I was there. I felt there were ghosts but they seemed happy too.
One night, while Heidi and Bob played bridge with my parents, I had the worst earache I have ever had, before or since. I couldn't play. I couldn't even be near people. I was miserable, lying alone on a couch the family room with the lights off. I had a fairly low tolerance for pain, but when pain was going to park for awhile, I sucked it up. They tried everything. A warm compress seemed to provide a bit of relief, but not much. I remember wondering if I should ask to go to the hospital. But I remembered that even in the Twilight Zone episode, the doctor said all they could do was wait. So I lied as still and as quietly as I could and I waited.
Mr. Payne was a great big man with a booming voice and a barrel chest. When he yelled at one of his children (which wasn’t often) he could be heard down the street. And when he laughed (which he often did) the old house rumbled. He has long since passed, but I'm sure that house still stands and on a quiet enough night, the echo of his laughter can still be heard. That night, Mr. Payne was my caretaker. A true gentle giant. I was this little boy and he put one of his great big hands on my forehead to feel for fever. I was hot. I clearly remember, at one point, he heated some baby oil in a teaspoon over the flame atop the kitchen's gas stove. He came in to the living room and touched the spoon to be sure it wasn't too hot. Then, ever so carefully, he poured some warm baby oil from the teaspoon into my ear. I remember a little ran down my cheek and he caught it with a soft washcloth. I don’t know to this day if that is what you are supposed to do for an earache or not. But it felt good going in. It felt like he was pouring love and kindness into my ear. Warm and soothing. I closed my eyes and slept more deeply than I think I ever have, before or since.
Monday, March 28, 2016
COLLEEN
I keep thinking I know you.
And I do.
And I don't.
I keep discovering more.
How is it that you are so pretty?
How is it that you are so smart?
How is it that you are so fucking resilient?
What doesn't kill you makes you more...
Beautiful.
Every injury,
Every hurt,
Done to you,
By those you love,
And those you do not,
Are transformed,
Into pure love,
By a heart,
So absolutely overflowing,
With a kindness I have never seen before.
Through pain and hurt and tears and sorrow and drunkenness and fatigue,
With just a fraction of your magic,
Your hand reaches across the miles while I sleep,
And reaches into my chest as I breathe what I used to wish was my last breath,
And wraps tender fingers around my broken heart,
Crisp mountain air fills my lungs as I,
Am revived.
I open my eyes and see you hovering above me and all I can think is...
How is it that you are so pretty?
And I do.
And I don't.
I keep discovering more.
How is it that you are so pretty?
How is it that you are so smart?
How is it that you are so fucking resilient?
What doesn't kill you makes you more...
Beautiful.
Every injury,
Every hurt,
Done to you,
By those you love,
And those you do not,
Are transformed,
Into pure love,
By a heart,
So absolutely overflowing,
With a kindness I have never seen before.
Through pain and hurt and tears and sorrow and drunkenness and fatigue,
With just a fraction of your magic,
Your hand reaches across the miles while I sleep,
And reaches into my chest as I breathe what I used to wish was my last breath,
And wraps tender fingers around my broken heart,
Crisp mountain air fills my lungs as I,
Am revived.
I open my eyes and see you hovering above me and all I can think is...
How is it that you are so pretty?
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
1979
1979
When I was a junior at Austin Prep, a kid transferred mid-year from some other school. He was a little dude, always impeccably dressed (which was not cool at Austin Prep). There was a dress code at Austin, but it was pretty lax. I know when you hear "Prep School" you picture the evil, murdering rich-kids from a Law And Order Episode, dressed in royal blue blazers emblazoned with the school's crest, all smiles and pats on the back when they get acquitted (spoiler alert!) by a jury who buys their "afluenza" defense, but Austin Prep was nothing like that. Our dress code was simple. No sneakers. No jeans. Either a collared shirt with a tie or a turtleneck (a favorite of those who eschewed ties and did not know what the word "eschew" meant). And hair above the collar. This was a boundary I always pushed. Steve Servita, brother of my longtime bff, Judy Blem was a hairstylist who has cut the hair of everyone in both our families on many occasions. My mom asked him to cut my hair and he wanted to leave the length in the back. When I told him the school didn't allow hair to reach the collar, Steve was outraged. He explained that my hairline extended below my collar so my hair was meant to grow at least that long. He wrote me a note, but the dean was not moved. A note about ties: Most kids had few ties. A lot wore clip-ons, while others (like myself) wore one tie for the entire year. I only tied my tie once, in September. I'd keep the knot intact and just loosen it enough to pull over my head and hang it on a hook in my locker. Point is, the bare minimum was the norm and if your mom made you look good before leaving the house, you most definitely tried to fuck your shit up on the bus so you came to school looking like you had slept in those clothes. But we were talking about the new kid. Edmund. Edmund always looked like a little Lord. He did wear blazers with a crest on them. And it was Edmund, Not "Ed," or "Edd," or "Eddy." But that's not his full name. If his full name were just "Edmund O'Rourke," I wouldn't be telling the story...
So, a name like "Edmund," while definitely qualifying you for fairly regular taunts and the occasional beating, is not going to draw the kind of negative attention required to raise you from the level of Standard Bully-Fodder up to the level of Victim Number One (a place held by Edmund while he attended Austin Prep). For that, you need a special name. Not just a name that none of your classmate's share, but a name that none of your classmates will ever come across no matter how many people they meet even if they all live to be a hundred.
He was G. Edmund O'Rourke III and nearly everyone called him "Geor" ( His initials, pronounced "Geeyore" - the "G" is hard). Edmund (I never called him Geor), was so different from us all. There were kids at AP whose parents were rich. Some parents owned car dealerships or restaurants or were in real estate. A couple were mobbed up. But Edmund clearly came from old money and he was clowned mercilessly for being a rich kid. I'm not sure who started pelting him with pennies, but that became a thing and teachers did little to stop it. Edmund thought he would turn the tables on his tormentors by picking up the pennies and stuffing them in his pockets, but this tactic backfired and only drew in more penny-pitchers until it wasn't just bullies in on the act. At some point, more than half the student body had thrown pennies at Edmund. Most of my friends did not participate. We were peaceniks, class clowns who followed one of the cardinal rules of put-down comedy: Never punch down. Though Edmund may have been rich, he was not a douchey snob. He just wanted to make friends and had no idea how.
One day, I was sitting in the cafeteria and Edmund asked if he could sit next to me. I was perfectly happy to have him join me. He had just survived a gauntlet of taunting jocks and wanted to eat his lunch in peace. Even though Edmund had to deal with this literally every day (his safe haven was the chess club, btw), he never seemed to get overly sad or angry. He never flipped out like that kid Jeremy in that Pearl Jam song. He would often smile and try to take things in stride. At worst he would be puzzled. He and I sat in silence eating our lunch. As I dug into my Salisbury Steak, Edmund used a knife and fork to cut himself a triangle of cake. Anyone who has eaten in a school cafeteria knows the cake I mean. Chocolate cake made on huge cookie sheets, topped with white frosting and cut into tasty rectangles which we all gleefully stuffed into our mouths. Edmund paused and thought for a moment before asking me, "Hey, Ron, why does everybody always pick on me." I thought about this for a moment, then responded, "I don't know, Edmund. Maybe its because you eat your cake with a fork."
When I was a junior at Austin Prep, a kid transferred mid-year from some other school. He was a little dude, always impeccably dressed (which was not cool at Austin Prep). There was a dress code at Austin, but it was pretty lax. I know when you hear "Prep School" you picture the evil, murdering rich-kids from a Law And Order Episode, dressed in royal blue blazers emblazoned with the school's crest, all smiles and pats on the back when they get acquitted (spoiler alert!) by a jury who buys their "afluenza" defense, but Austin Prep was nothing like that. Our dress code was simple. No sneakers. No jeans. Either a collared shirt with a tie or a turtleneck (a favorite of those who eschewed ties and did not know what the word "eschew" meant). And hair above the collar. This was a boundary I always pushed. Steve Servita, brother of my longtime bff, Judy Blem was a hairstylist who has cut the hair of everyone in both our families on many occasions. My mom asked him to cut my hair and he wanted to leave the length in the back. When I told him the school didn't allow hair to reach the collar, Steve was outraged. He explained that my hairline extended below my collar so my hair was meant to grow at least that long. He wrote me a note, but the dean was not moved. A note about ties: Most kids had few ties. A lot wore clip-ons, while others (like myself) wore one tie for the entire year. I only tied my tie once, in September. I'd keep the knot intact and just loosen it enough to pull over my head and hang it on a hook in my locker. Point is, the bare minimum was the norm and if your mom made you look good before leaving the house, you most definitely tried to fuck your shit up on the bus so you came to school looking like you had slept in those clothes. But we were talking about the new kid. Edmund. Edmund always looked like a little Lord. He did wear blazers with a crest on them. And it was Edmund, Not "Ed," or "Edd," or "Eddy." But that's not his full name. If his full name were just "Edmund O'Rourke," I wouldn't be telling the story...
So, a name like "Edmund," while definitely qualifying you for fairly regular taunts and the occasional beating, is not going to draw the kind of negative attention required to raise you from the level of Standard Bully-Fodder up to the level of Victim Number One (a place held by Edmund while he attended Austin Prep). For that, you need a special name. Not just a name that none of your classmate's share, but a name that none of your classmates will ever come across no matter how many people they meet even if they all live to be a hundred.
He was G. Edmund O'Rourke III and nearly everyone called him "Geor" ( His initials, pronounced "Geeyore" - the "G" is hard). Edmund (I never called him Geor), was so different from us all. There were kids at AP whose parents were rich. Some parents owned car dealerships or restaurants or were in real estate. A couple were mobbed up. But Edmund clearly came from old money and he was clowned mercilessly for being a rich kid. I'm not sure who started pelting him with pennies, but that became a thing and teachers did little to stop it. Edmund thought he would turn the tables on his tormentors by picking up the pennies and stuffing them in his pockets, but this tactic backfired and only drew in more penny-pitchers until it wasn't just bullies in on the act. At some point, more than half the student body had thrown pennies at Edmund. Most of my friends did not participate. We were peaceniks, class clowns who followed one of the cardinal rules of put-down comedy: Never punch down. Though Edmund may have been rich, he was not a douchey snob. He just wanted to make friends and had no idea how.
One day, I was sitting in the cafeteria and Edmund asked if he could sit next to me. I was perfectly happy to have him join me. He had just survived a gauntlet of taunting jocks and wanted to eat his lunch in peace. Even though Edmund had to deal with this literally every day (his safe haven was the chess club, btw), he never seemed to get overly sad or angry. He never flipped out like that kid Jeremy in that Pearl Jam song. He would often smile and try to take things in stride. At worst he would be puzzled. He and I sat in silence eating our lunch. As I dug into my Salisbury Steak, Edmund used a knife and fork to cut himself a triangle of cake. Anyone who has eaten in a school cafeteria knows the cake I mean. Chocolate cake made on huge cookie sheets, topped with white frosting and cut into tasty rectangles which we all gleefully stuffed into our mouths. Edmund paused and thought for a moment before asking me, "Hey, Ron, why does everybody always pick on me." I thought about this for a moment, then responded, "I don't know, Edmund. Maybe its because you eat your cake with a fork."
Thursday, November 26, 2015
NOVEMBER
"It's Steven. Someone hurt him."
On March 9th of 2006, my son Blake was born. Eight months later, to the day, Allison and I were lying in bed with Blake in between us when the call came. Allison had told me all about "Attachment Parenting," which she had researched extensively before Blake came into the world. I was skeptical, at first, but I cannot imagine having raised him any other way. Waking up to him was like experiencing Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday every single morning. I cannot tell you how much I miss it. It was 7:30am. The call woke me, but I was still fuzzy, so I let it go to voicemail. I was concerned. Allison and I were both lifelong night owls and everyone we knew was aware of that fact. She and I had met at Hollywood Late Nite, a midnight AA meeting above the Lava Lounge at the corner of Sunset and La Brea. Blake is the same way as us. We all stay up past midnight and sleep 'til noon more often than not. Our phones rarely ring before ten. 7:30am. That was going to be important news and probably not good. A moment later, I looked at the caller ID and saw the call came from my mother. A sense of dread overtook me as I called her back. I suspected the call was about Steve.
Steven had been living on the streets since he was in his late 20's. Trying to explain my homeless brother to people was a challenge. They'd get this look of pity in their eyes. I used to teach in international schools, mostly middle and high schoolers. I taught in a different city (or country) every week and the kids were always curious about my family and whenever the story of Steve came up, they would always ask, "Why don't you help him?" The short answer was, "He doesn't want or need help." Contrary to what many people think, and what I sometimes catch myself still thinking, there is no such thing as your "typical homeless person." They are on a continuum just like the rest of us, from the psychotic, to the chronic alcoholic to the guy that lost his job and lives in his car to the mom who works and has kids that go to school, but cannot afford the basic necessities of life. Steven's situation goes something like this. He's an odd duck, but not crazy. He was diagnosed many years ago as manic depressive (what they used to call bipolar disorder). He responded well to medication, but did not like the way it made him feel. He was not adept at being a "productive member of society" in the mind-numbing, soul-crushing way modern life demands. He was a poet. He was an artist. He spent time with like-minded people as he travelled the country, often hitch-hiking from one place to the next. He liked to drink, but I never thought of him as a drunk. He liked to smoke pot and take hallucinogens, but who doesn't, right? He didn't hear voices or talk to himself. He was a genius and his mind worked differently than most. Not always logically, which led to some very humorous stories which were often described as, "pulling a Steve." Like the time when our family all lived in Andover and we went out to dinner at The Cedar Crest Restaurant in Lawrence. We went out to dinner once a week or so, me, my mom and dad, Joe and Steve. Joe and Steve were in their late teens and I was maybe ten. As a family, there were lots of laughs. Sarcasm and trashtalk and the occasional practical joke. I always ordered the same thing at The Cedar Crest, veal parm and spaghetti. It was one of their specialties. I'm pretty sure they substituted pork for veal, but it was still awesome. It came with soup or salad and dessert and we always left with a doggy bag. Anyway, Italian restaurant. So, on the table, in addition to salt and pepper, they had a crock of grated parmesan cheese which makes sense. Steve HATED parmesan cheese. But he LOVED coconut. Now, granted, the two look similar, but one has to consider context and most people would. But Steve was not most people, so he lit up when he saw it and asked my mom, "Is that coconut?" None of us said a word when Mom told him, "Yes!" Steve stuck a soup spoon into the parmesan cheese and popped it into his mouth. Oh my fucking head, you should have seen the look on his face. We were all in tears we were laughing so hard. Another time, Steven had just graduated from Umass at Lowell with a degree in drafting. His plan to find a job afterward consisted of him painting the words, "Draftsman For Hire" in huge block letters on the sides of his lime green Datsun B-210 along with our home phone number. He didn't get any work, but we got lots of calls. I seem to remember the police calling on at least one occasion, some traffic violation or whatever. You get the idea. Steve thought outside the box, but what he came up with was often bizarre. As a result, holding down a "normal" job, was not in the cards for him. On the streets, he sold his poems or his drawings or his jewelry. He panhandled. He "dumpster-dived". I loved him, but was sometimes embarrassed, but if anyone talked shit about him, there was gonna be a fight. He was my big brother, so shut the fuck up.
I expected the call would come one day....Steven is in jail for vagrancy or public drunkenness or some minor drug charge, or Steven is in the hospital with hepatitis, or the worst, Steven was camping in the winter and froze to death. But nothing prepared me for the call we got on a Wednesday in mid-November in 2006.
I called my mom back. Her voice was weak and shaky. She said just five words.
"It's Steven. Someone hurt him."
The world came out from under me. I knew. But I had to confirm.
"Mom. Was Steven...murdered?"
"Yes."
I do not remember much after that. I do not recall how I found out the details, wether it was from my mom or my dad, but to the best of my recollection, this is how they received the news. A detective from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation called my parents and after some initial confusion, he determined that he was speaking to the parents of Steven Kublin. A cyclist had discovered my brother's remains in a landfill located in Montrose on Colorado's western slope, a mostly remote area except for ski resorts like Telluride which is not that far from where he was found. His body had been wrapped in his sleeping bag and set on fire. Whoever killed him had hoped to make identification impossible, but somehow Steven's fingerprints survived and, as is the case with many homeless people, Steven had been arrested before and within a few days, police were able to make a positive identification. Steven had listed my folks' phone number as a contact at the time of that previous arrest and that's how they found my parents.
Shock is a strange phenomenon. I remember not knowing how to respond. Allison's Mother, Beth and her late Stepfather, Ron Gottesman, are two of the kindest and supportive people I have ever had the privilege to know. I was so out of it, that I did not know if I should go to my parents' home in Florida. Ron Bought me a ticket that day. I remember none of the flight or going to the airport or landing in Florida. I was shrouded in fog.
When I got to my mom and dad's, it was chaos and tears. A constant procession of family and friends paid condolences and brought food. At one point, my mother looked around the room and saw all these people in her house and was bewildered by their presence. "What are all these people doing here, Ben?" She asked my father. He had to tell her the whole story again and she had to re-hear and relive the horrible discovery of her son's violent death. Dad took Mom to the doctor, just to be on the safe side. They ran tests and found nothing wrong with her. Her psyche just became overwhelmed by the news. I guess it's not uncommon.
We had two impromptu memorials, the one at my parents' house and another in Andover where my other brother, Joe and his wife, Sara, still lived as did many of Steven's friends.
While I was in Florida, I saw my father talking on the phone with the detective in Colorado while my mother looked on and was later filled in on what police had said. My parents had aged well. They were both active, played golf and still did all the things they always did. But this. This was just too much for them. They seemed overwhelmed and confused. I have always been kind of a fuckup. I too had a hard time working a "regular job," and could never seem to get my shit together. I had flunked out of college, got demoted while in the Marine Corps, was married and divorced twice and on my way to my third. I crashed motorcycles and spent money as soon as I made it. I was not the good son. No one in my family would have looked to me in a crisis, but crisis is where I feel comfortable. I watched a lot of Law and Order and had been arrested so many times, that I had become very familiar with police procedure. I told my parents that I would be dealing with the police until my brother's killer was apprehended and then I would deal with the District Attorney. It was a survival mechanism for me. I was in my comfort zone and I was able to feel detached from the horror of what had happened to our Steven as I dealt with the long, mundane, winding road that is a police investigation and in doing so, would spare my parents additional pain. They were happy to let me take the lead on this. And so I became the liaison between my parents and the investigators.
My first concern was that because my brother had been homeless, his case would slip through the cracks. This is not the fault of the detectives investigating cases. Their bosses are pressured to solve cases which are more easily solved or are high-profile. This doesn't happen because they don't care, it happens because resources are limited, so finding out who sold heroin to a city councilman's daughter who overdosed gets more attention than a whodunit with no leads involving a fifty year old homeless guy. My brother's case got bounced around from one detective to another, but they were always vigilant and always kind. They chased down a number of leads sometimes based on information provided by someone claiming to have knowledge of the crime in an effort to get out from under a charge themselves. All of these leads led nowhere. Nearly a year and a half later, police knew only what they knew at the time my brother's body was discovered. Steven had been working on an organic farm called the White Buffalo Ranch (my parents and I visited the ranch and the wonderful people who ran it. they were crushed when they heard the news.). He and some like-minded souls had been picking whatever was in season at the time. Their work was done and Steven was on his way to a gathering of "The Rainbow Family," a group of hippies who wander but are not lost. I believe his destination was somewhere in Texas. He was last seen by multiple witnesses the day before he was killed -in the parking lot of a convenience store - hitchhiking by a freeway on-ramp. And that was it. I would get updates, but there was no new information. Just dead-ends.
After the memorials for Steven in Florida and Andover, I returned to Los Angeles and tried to get on with life, which I assume I did. I was going to AA back then and I will be forever grateful for those people. Bart. Carrie. Mark. Everyone at Late Nite. I would go to the 7:30am meeting at the Log Cabin on Robertson. I said nothing. I just sat. No one there knew me and I liked the anonymity. After the meeting, I would sit outside in a little cutout in the wall of a building across the street and feel the rising winter sun warming my face on a chilly December morning. During the day, I usually felt numb. I was not the class clown I had always been. He was a guy I remembered as someone else. Bedtime was the worst. Crying myself to sleep. Waking up already crying. Making myself shower and crying in the shower 'til I was dry or until the water went cold, whichever came first. Almost a year later, I got a job. Selling ads in the Yellow Pages. A dystopian corporate environment which was so far out of my comfort zone, I would find myself crying in my car about something other than the loss of my brother. I hated it, but there was health insurance for my family and they paid me WAY too much money. My boss was Laura Volberding and she is one of the angels who got me through some very difficult times. My life was returning to something resembling normal and I thought I was "getting over" the loss of my brother. Then November came. I was in training for the new job which was actually pretty fun. The company put me up in a nearby hotel (I love staying in hotels) along with the other trainees. I was drinking the company koolaid and was under no pressure to sell anything yet, as this was training. On the weekend we partied. It was cool. I enjoyed it. Then one morning, I woke up in tears and didn't know why. I had experienced depression on and off in my life, but this was like a rogue wave that appeared out of nowhere and took me down. I showered and got dressed for training which was just a few blocks from the hotel. I tried to shake it off, but my head was spinning. I thought I was maybe losing my mind. I had on my business casual attire and looked in the mirror before leaving my room and saw a very sad man looking back at me. No. I saw a devastated man looking back at me. That's when I realized - November. Ugh. Is this going to happen every year? (Yes. And I almost always am blindsided by it.) I tried to suck it up. I had some coffee and drove to headquarters. I did not want to miss a training day. I had just gotten hired and didn't want to fuck this up. But I could not go into that multi-purpose room or whateverthefuck. I went to Laura's office and tried to man up while I told her about my brother and before I could even get out my apology for not being able to deal, she looked at me with undiluted compassion and insisted that I take the day off. It was to be our secret and she covered for me. It was not the last time she would do that and she is a cherished friend to this day, one of the many gifts that I received as a result of this tragedy.
I am not an angry person. I abhor violence (all Kublins do). But during this time, the numbness sometimes gave way to rage. Rage at a world where a peaceful soul like Steven spends his last moments in fear and pain. Rage at his killer for thinking no one would miss him. Rage with no name at all. I do not own a gun, but I have some experience with firearms. I began regularly going to the range. Sometimes, I imagined the silhouette targets were Steven's killer, but mostly I just wanted to blow off steam. Thanks to my friend, Louie, who understood when I said, "I'm really depressed and need to borrow your Glock. I promise I won't kill myself with it."
After that first year, I started to resign myself to the possibility that Steven's killer might never be caught. I found a support group for family members of unsolved homicides. I never met with them though, because they caught the guy.
After that first year passed, I started thinking. People suck at keeping secrets. This is why most conspiracy theories are bullshit. Most people just cannot keep their mouths shut. They brag. They get fucked up and say some shit they didn't mean to let slip. I got it in my head that in all likelihood, someone besides the killer knows what happened that night in November. The Detectives even suspected someone might have helped move the body. I had seen this movie, Bully, about a group of high school students who conspired to murder a classmate who, while he was a dick, didn't deserve to be killed. It was based on a true story and in the days following the murder, no one talked. People in general, and adolescents in particular, don't always have their priorities straight. People don't want to "rat out" their friend, but they are not looking at the big picture. After some time went by, these kids cracked one by one. I thought the same thing might happen with my brother's case. I talked to the detectives who was working the case at the time and told him that I wanted to speak with a local reporter about doing a follow-up story. They had no leads and thought it might help and couldn't hurt. Shortly after the story was published, someone came forward. A father called police and said he thought his daughter's ex-boyfriend might have been involved in the crime. The man he was referring to would become violent when drunk and at one time threatened to harm his daughter and intimated that he would do to her what he had done to my brother. Maybe he was just talking shit, but it was the closest thing to a lead they had seen in a long time. The guy had moved out of state, but they were able to locate him. He was arrested without incident and still had some of my brother's belongings and, I believe, the murder weapon.
I go back and forth on whether or not there is such a thing as closure. This thing does not end, but the outcome made it more bearable for me. If that's closure, then so be it.
Negotiations between the DA and the defense attorney moved fairly quickly. The DA welcomes the families input and tries to respect their wishes but ultimately does what they think is best. After discussing the matter with my parents, I spoke with the DA and made clear what was important to us.
First of all, we wanted the death penalty off the table. We did not even want it used as leverage to secure a guilty plea. Steven was a man of peace. All of us are peaceful and loving people and we do not want anyone executed in any of our names. Secondly, I wanted to avoid a trial. My parents were healthy and had many good years still ahead and I did not want to see them suffer through that shit. Also, I did not want to hear some defense attorney make up some shit about my brother, dragging his name through the mud so that one ignorant juror can hang the jury or worse, have there be an acquittal. Third, this guy doesn't see the light of day while my parents are alive. There would have to be a lengthy sentence. Finally, any plea deal was to be contingent on allocution. If you haven't seen Law and Order, that's the part where the defendant gives the details of the crime. The how, when, where and why. They can lie, but if what they say doesn't match the physical evidence, the deal is null and void. We wanted to know what happened.
*note* If you do not want to read these details, skip the next paragraph*
In October of 2009, nearly three years after my brother's murder, his killer who was facing first-degree murder charges, plead guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 2034 or thereabouts. He had picked Steven up hitchhiking and offered him a place to stay for the night. He brought him back to his house, let him shower, fed him and the two smoked some weed and drank some beer. He claimed he had "helped out" homeless guys before (there are some inconsistencies to that part of his story, but they have no bearing on this case). He showed my brother to a bedroom where Steven went to sleep. Later, while my brother was sleeping, he entered the room with a large knife, grabbed him by the hair, waking him up and stabbed him in the neck.
When he was asked why he did this, he claimed to be in a psychotic and violent state when drunk although was adamant that he was not in a blackout and clearly remembers the events. My parents read a tearful statement. I read a statement in which I forgave him for killing my brother. His mother was in the courtroom and she was a total wreck. My mother hugged his mother and the two women cried in each other's arms.
This is why I forgave my brother's killer. It is not because I am evolved and enlightened. I am neither. It is because he either experiences empathy or he does not. If he does, I can not make him feel worse than he already feels. If he does not, then he does not and my hatred will have no more impact on him than would a breeze. I do not want him in prison for retribution. I want him in prison so that he does not do this to someone else's family. I forgave him because I often find life to be difficult anyway and carrying the weight of hatred would only make it more so. I have a son to raise and love. I have parents to care for. I have another brother and friends and a dog to love. I have so many stories to tell. I don't get a lot of things right. But this was something I couldn't fuck up. And it wasn't hard. All I had to do was let go.
Steven never got to meet Blake. That is on me. Two days after Blake was born, Steve showed up on our doorstep. Allison was sleeping with Blake and we had been advised by the staff at the hospital to limit Blake's interaction with others for the first couple of weeks. I made a judgement call. I loved my brother, but he slept on the street and would scavenge in garbage and it was late and I did not want to deal. I asked him if he had a place to stay for the night and he told me he did. I gave him $20 and told him to come back in the morning. He knew the routine. Over the years, Steven had attended all the weddings and bar-mitzvahs celebrated by our large, extended family. Happy, hour-long showers would be followed by haircut and beard-trim negotiations. He'd get some weird looks, but anyone who knew him loved him and he and Blake would have hit it off. But he didn't come back the next morning. Not sure what happened there, but I expected they would meet someday soon and I'm sad that they did not. I see a bit of Steve in Blake. The poet. The artist. The lover of life. Blake also thinks outside the box, but with nearly Vulcan-like logic. I could never convince him that parmesan cheese was coconut, although he happens to like both.
On March 9th of 2006, my son Blake was born. Eight months later, to the day, Allison and I were lying in bed with Blake in between us when the call came. Allison had told me all about "Attachment Parenting," which she had researched extensively before Blake came into the world. I was skeptical, at first, but I cannot imagine having raised him any other way. Waking up to him was like experiencing Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday every single morning. I cannot tell you how much I miss it. It was 7:30am. The call woke me, but I was still fuzzy, so I let it go to voicemail. I was concerned. Allison and I were both lifelong night owls and everyone we knew was aware of that fact. She and I had met at Hollywood Late Nite, a midnight AA meeting above the Lava Lounge at the corner of Sunset and La Brea. Blake is the same way as us. We all stay up past midnight and sleep 'til noon more often than not. Our phones rarely ring before ten. 7:30am. That was going to be important news and probably not good. A moment later, I looked at the caller ID and saw the call came from my mother. A sense of dread overtook me as I called her back. I suspected the call was about Steve.
Steven had been living on the streets since he was in his late 20's. Trying to explain my homeless brother to people was a challenge. They'd get this look of pity in their eyes. I used to teach in international schools, mostly middle and high schoolers. I taught in a different city (or country) every week and the kids were always curious about my family and whenever the story of Steve came up, they would always ask, "Why don't you help him?" The short answer was, "He doesn't want or need help." Contrary to what many people think, and what I sometimes catch myself still thinking, there is no such thing as your "typical homeless person." They are on a continuum just like the rest of us, from the psychotic, to the chronic alcoholic to the guy that lost his job and lives in his car to the mom who works and has kids that go to school, but cannot afford the basic necessities of life. Steven's situation goes something like this. He's an odd duck, but not crazy. He was diagnosed many years ago as manic depressive (what they used to call bipolar disorder). He responded well to medication, but did not like the way it made him feel. He was not adept at being a "productive member of society" in the mind-numbing, soul-crushing way modern life demands. He was a poet. He was an artist. He spent time with like-minded people as he travelled the country, often hitch-hiking from one place to the next. He liked to drink, but I never thought of him as a drunk. He liked to smoke pot and take hallucinogens, but who doesn't, right? He didn't hear voices or talk to himself. He was a genius and his mind worked differently than most. Not always logically, which led to some very humorous stories which were often described as, "pulling a Steve." Like the time when our family all lived in Andover and we went out to dinner at The Cedar Crest Restaurant in Lawrence. We went out to dinner once a week or so, me, my mom and dad, Joe and Steve. Joe and Steve were in their late teens and I was maybe ten. As a family, there were lots of laughs. Sarcasm and trashtalk and the occasional practical joke. I always ordered the same thing at The Cedar Crest, veal parm and spaghetti. It was one of their specialties. I'm pretty sure they substituted pork for veal, but it was still awesome. It came with soup or salad and dessert and we always left with a doggy bag. Anyway, Italian restaurant. So, on the table, in addition to salt and pepper, they had a crock of grated parmesan cheese which makes sense. Steve HATED parmesan cheese. But he LOVED coconut. Now, granted, the two look similar, but one has to consider context and most people would. But Steve was not most people, so he lit up when he saw it and asked my mom, "Is that coconut?" None of us said a word when Mom told him, "Yes!" Steve stuck a soup spoon into the parmesan cheese and popped it into his mouth. Oh my fucking head, you should have seen the look on his face. We were all in tears we were laughing so hard. Another time, Steven had just graduated from Umass at Lowell with a degree in drafting. His plan to find a job afterward consisted of him painting the words, "Draftsman For Hire" in huge block letters on the sides of his lime green Datsun B-210 along with our home phone number. He didn't get any work, but we got lots of calls. I seem to remember the police calling on at least one occasion, some traffic violation or whatever. You get the idea. Steve thought outside the box, but what he came up with was often bizarre. As a result, holding down a "normal" job, was not in the cards for him. On the streets, he sold his poems or his drawings or his jewelry. He panhandled. He "dumpster-dived". I loved him, but was sometimes embarrassed, but if anyone talked shit about him, there was gonna be a fight. He was my big brother, so shut the fuck up.
I expected the call would come one day....Steven is in jail for vagrancy or public drunkenness or some minor drug charge, or Steven is in the hospital with hepatitis, or the worst, Steven was camping in the winter and froze to death. But nothing prepared me for the call we got on a Wednesday in mid-November in 2006.
I called my mom back. Her voice was weak and shaky. She said just five words.
"It's Steven. Someone hurt him."
The world came out from under me. I knew. But I had to confirm.
"Mom. Was Steven...murdered?"
"Yes."
I do not remember much after that. I do not recall how I found out the details, wether it was from my mom or my dad, but to the best of my recollection, this is how they received the news. A detective from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation called my parents and after some initial confusion, he determined that he was speaking to the parents of Steven Kublin. A cyclist had discovered my brother's remains in a landfill located in Montrose on Colorado's western slope, a mostly remote area except for ski resorts like Telluride which is not that far from where he was found. His body had been wrapped in his sleeping bag and set on fire. Whoever killed him had hoped to make identification impossible, but somehow Steven's fingerprints survived and, as is the case with many homeless people, Steven had been arrested before and within a few days, police were able to make a positive identification. Steven had listed my folks' phone number as a contact at the time of that previous arrest and that's how they found my parents.
Shock is a strange phenomenon. I remember not knowing how to respond. Allison's Mother, Beth and her late Stepfather, Ron Gottesman, are two of the kindest and supportive people I have ever had the privilege to know. I was so out of it, that I did not know if I should go to my parents' home in Florida. Ron Bought me a ticket that day. I remember none of the flight or going to the airport or landing in Florida. I was shrouded in fog.
When I got to my mom and dad's, it was chaos and tears. A constant procession of family and friends paid condolences and brought food. At one point, my mother looked around the room and saw all these people in her house and was bewildered by their presence. "What are all these people doing here, Ben?" She asked my father. He had to tell her the whole story again and she had to re-hear and relive the horrible discovery of her son's violent death. Dad took Mom to the doctor, just to be on the safe side. They ran tests and found nothing wrong with her. Her psyche just became overwhelmed by the news. I guess it's not uncommon.
We had two impromptu memorials, the one at my parents' house and another in Andover where my other brother, Joe and his wife, Sara, still lived as did many of Steven's friends.
While I was in Florida, I saw my father talking on the phone with the detective in Colorado while my mother looked on and was later filled in on what police had said. My parents had aged well. They were both active, played golf and still did all the things they always did. But this. This was just too much for them. They seemed overwhelmed and confused. I have always been kind of a fuckup. I too had a hard time working a "regular job," and could never seem to get my shit together. I had flunked out of college, got demoted while in the Marine Corps, was married and divorced twice and on my way to my third. I crashed motorcycles and spent money as soon as I made it. I was not the good son. No one in my family would have looked to me in a crisis, but crisis is where I feel comfortable. I watched a lot of Law and Order and had been arrested so many times, that I had become very familiar with police procedure. I told my parents that I would be dealing with the police until my brother's killer was apprehended and then I would deal with the District Attorney. It was a survival mechanism for me. I was in my comfort zone and I was able to feel detached from the horror of what had happened to our Steven as I dealt with the long, mundane, winding road that is a police investigation and in doing so, would spare my parents additional pain. They were happy to let me take the lead on this. And so I became the liaison between my parents and the investigators.
My first concern was that because my brother had been homeless, his case would slip through the cracks. This is not the fault of the detectives investigating cases. Their bosses are pressured to solve cases which are more easily solved or are high-profile. This doesn't happen because they don't care, it happens because resources are limited, so finding out who sold heroin to a city councilman's daughter who overdosed gets more attention than a whodunit with no leads involving a fifty year old homeless guy. My brother's case got bounced around from one detective to another, but they were always vigilant and always kind. They chased down a number of leads sometimes based on information provided by someone claiming to have knowledge of the crime in an effort to get out from under a charge themselves. All of these leads led nowhere. Nearly a year and a half later, police knew only what they knew at the time my brother's body was discovered. Steven had been working on an organic farm called the White Buffalo Ranch (my parents and I visited the ranch and the wonderful people who ran it. they were crushed when they heard the news.). He and some like-minded souls had been picking whatever was in season at the time. Their work was done and Steven was on his way to a gathering of "The Rainbow Family," a group of hippies who wander but are not lost. I believe his destination was somewhere in Texas. He was last seen by multiple witnesses the day before he was killed -in the parking lot of a convenience store - hitchhiking by a freeway on-ramp. And that was it. I would get updates, but there was no new information. Just dead-ends.
After the memorials for Steven in Florida and Andover, I returned to Los Angeles and tried to get on with life, which I assume I did. I was going to AA back then and I will be forever grateful for those people. Bart. Carrie. Mark. Everyone at Late Nite. I would go to the 7:30am meeting at the Log Cabin on Robertson. I said nothing. I just sat. No one there knew me and I liked the anonymity. After the meeting, I would sit outside in a little cutout in the wall of a building across the street and feel the rising winter sun warming my face on a chilly December morning. During the day, I usually felt numb. I was not the class clown I had always been. He was a guy I remembered as someone else. Bedtime was the worst. Crying myself to sleep. Waking up already crying. Making myself shower and crying in the shower 'til I was dry or until the water went cold, whichever came first. Almost a year later, I got a job. Selling ads in the Yellow Pages. A dystopian corporate environment which was so far out of my comfort zone, I would find myself crying in my car about something other than the loss of my brother. I hated it, but there was health insurance for my family and they paid me WAY too much money. My boss was Laura Volberding and she is one of the angels who got me through some very difficult times. My life was returning to something resembling normal and I thought I was "getting over" the loss of my brother. Then November came. I was in training for the new job which was actually pretty fun. The company put me up in a nearby hotel (I love staying in hotels) along with the other trainees. I was drinking the company koolaid and was under no pressure to sell anything yet, as this was training. On the weekend we partied. It was cool. I enjoyed it. Then one morning, I woke up in tears and didn't know why. I had experienced depression on and off in my life, but this was like a rogue wave that appeared out of nowhere and took me down. I showered and got dressed for training which was just a few blocks from the hotel. I tried to shake it off, but my head was spinning. I thought I was maybe losing my mind. I had on my business casual attire and looked in the mirror before leaving my room and saw a very sad man looking back at me. No. I saw a devastated man looking back at me. That's when I realized - November. Ugh. Is this going to happen every year? (Yes. And I almost always am blindsided by it.) I tried to suck it up. I had some coffee and drove to headquarters. I did not want to miss a training day. I had just gotten hired and didn't want to fuck this up. But I could not go into that multi-purpose room or whateverthefuck. I went to Laura's office and tried to man up while I told her about my brother and before I could even get out my apology for not being able to deal, she looked at me with undiluted compassion and insisted that I take the day off. It was to be our secret and she covered for me. It was not the last time she would do that and she is a cherished friend to this day, one of the many gifts that I received as a result of this tragedy.
I am not an angry person. I abhor violence (all Kublins do). But during this time, the numbness sometimes gave way to rage. Rage at a world where a peaceful soul like Steven spends his last moments in fear and pain. Rage at his killer for thinking no one would miss him. Rage with no name at all. I do not own a gun, but I have some experience with firearms. I began regularly going to the range. Sometimes, I imagined the silhouette targets were Steven's killer, but mostly I just wanted to blow off steam. Thanks to my friend, Louie, who understood when I said, "I'm really depressed and need to borrow your Glock. I promise I won't kill myself with it."
After that first year, I started to resign myself to the possibility that Steven's killer might never be caught. I found a support group for family members of unsolved homicides. I never met with them though, because they caught the guy.
After that first year passed, I started thinking. People suck at keeping secrets. This is why most conspiracy theories are bullshit. Most people just cannot keep their mouths shut. They brag. They get fucked up and say some shit they didn't mean to let slip. I got it in my head that in all likelihood, someone besides the killer knows what happened that night in November. The Detectives even suspected someone might have helped move the body. I had seen this movie, Bully, about a group of high school students who conspired to murder a classmate who, while he was a dick, didn't deserve to be killed. It was based on a true story and in the days following the murder, no one talked. People in general, and adolescents in particular, don't always have their priorities straight. People don't want to "rat out" their friend, but they are not looking at the big picture. After some time went by, these kids cracked one by one. I thought the same thing might happen with my brother's case. I talked to the detectives who was working the case at the time and told him that I wanted to speak with a local reporter about doing a follow-up story. They had no leads and thought it might help and couldn't hurt. Shortly after the story was published, someone came forward. A father called police and said he thought his daughter's ex-boyfriend might have been involved in the crime. The man he was referring to would become violent when drunk and at one time threatened to harm his daughter and intimated that he would do to her what he had done to my brother. Maybe he was just talking shit, but it was the closest thing to a lead they had seen in a long time. The guy had moved out of state, but they were able to locate him. He was arrested without incident and still had some of my brother's belongings and, I believe, the murder weapon.
I go back and forth on whether or not there is such a thing as closure. This thing does not end, but the outcome made it more bearable for me. If that's closure, then so be it.
Negotiations between the DA and the defense attorney moved fairly quickly. The DA welcomes the families input and tries to respect their wishes but ultimately does what they think is best. After discussing the matter with my parents, I spoke with the DA and made clear what was important to us.
First of all, we wanted the death penalty off the table. We did not even want it used as leverage to secure a guilty plea. Steven was a man of peace. All of us are peaceful and loving people and we do not want anyone executed in any of our names. Secondly, I wanted to avoid a trial. My parents were healthy and had many good years still ahead and I did not want to see them suffer through that shit. Also, I did not want to hear some defense attorney make up some shit about my brother, dragging his name through the mud so that one ignorant juror can hang the jury or worse, have there be an acquittal. Third, this guy doesn't see the light of day while my parents are alive. There would have to be a lengthy sentence. Finally, any plea deal was to be contingent on allocution. If you haven't seen Law and Order, that's the part where the defendant gives the details of the crime. The how, when, where and why. They can lie, but if what they say doesn't match the physical evidence, the deal is null and void. We wanted to know what happened.
*note* If you do not want to read these details, skip the next paragraph*
In October of 2009, nearly three years after my brother's murder, his killer who was facing first-degree murder charges, plead guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in 2034 or thereabouts. He had picked Steven up hitchhiking and offered him a place to stay for the night. He brought him back to his house, let him shower, fed him and the two smoked some weed and drank some beer. He claimed he had "helped out" homeless guys before (there are some inconsistencies to that part of his story, but they have no bearing on this case). He showed my brother to a bedroom where Steven went to sleep. Later, while my brother was sleeping, he entered the room with a large knife, grabbed him by the hair, waking him up and stabbed him in the neck.
When he was asked why he did this, he claimed to be in a psychotic and violent state when drunk although was adamant that he was not in a blackout and clearly remembers the events. My parents read a tearful statement. I read a statement in which I forgave him for killing my brother. His mother was in the courtroom and she was a total wreck. My mother hugged his mother and the two women cried in each other's arms.
This is why I forgave my brother's killer. It is not because I am evolved and enlightened. I am neither. It is because he either experiences empathy or he does not. If he does, I can not make him feel worse than he already feels. If he does not, then he does not and my hatred will have no more impact on him than would a breeze. I do not want him in prison for retribution. I want him in prison so that he does not do this to someone else's family. I forgave him because I often find life to be difficult anyway and carrying the weight of hatred would only make it more so. I have a son to raise and love. I have parents to care for. I have another brother and friends and a dog to love. I have so many stories to tell. I don't get a lot of things right. But this was something I couldn't fuck up. And it wasn't hard. All I had to do was let go.
Steven never got to meet Blake. That is on me. Two days after Blake was born, Steve showed up on our doorstep. Allison was sleeping with Blake and we had been advised by the staff at the hospital to limit Blake's interaction with others for the first couple of weeks. I made a judgement call. I loved my brother, but he slept on the street and would scavenge in garbage and it was late and I did not want to deal. I asked him if he had a place to stay for the night and he told me he did. I gave him $20 and told him to come back in the morning. He knew the routine. Over the years, Steven had attended all the weddings and bar-mitzvahs celebrated by our large, extended family. Happy, hour-long showers would be followed by haircut and beard-trim negotiations. He'd get some weird looks, but anyone who knew him loved him and he and Blake would have hit it off. But he didn't come back the next morning. Not sure what happened there, but I expected they would meet someday soon and I'm sad that they did not. I see a bit of Steve in Blake. The poet. The artist. The lover of life. Blake also thinks outside the box, but with nearly Vulcan-like logic. I could never convince him that parmesan cheese was coconut, although he happens to like both.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
"Thumb!"
I used to hitchhike a lot. From the time I was fifteen 'til I turned twenty-one, I figure I covered over 3,000 miles. Day trips from my parent's house in Andover to Salisbury Beach in Summer; Adventures with one of my all-time favorite girlfriends, Robyn Parker, or just home because I was too cheap to spring for a cab after a night out. When I was nineteen, I hitchhiked to Florida from Massachusetts with $20 in my pocket. I usually had access to a car after I turned 16, but if I didn't, I'd thumb. The first time I ever hitchhiked was when I was nine years old.
Now, I know lots of people talk shit about how young they were the first time they got laid, "I fucked my babysitter when I was six then sent her out to get me pizza and a juice box." or when they joined fucking Mensa or when they robbed their first liquor store. Memory is a funny thing and remembering precisely when shit happened, especially from childhood, is not an exact science. But here's the thing: My family moved from Somerset to Andover when I was nine. And this shit went down in Somerset. Case closed.
When we arrived, I was very excited. I don't know about you, but for me as a kid, playing in and around water rushing over rocks was a blast. And I was hanging out with my big brothers and we were going to catch a bunch of fish!
I'm not sure how much time had passed since my mom dropped us off or how long it was going to be until she came for us but I'm pretty sure I lost interest within that first hour. Steve and Joe were having a blast (they had pretty much ignored me the entire time) and were not interested in hearing me whine/complain or interacting with me at all, for that matter. With lower-lip pooched out and pretty close to tears, I let out a pitiful, "I wanna go home."
Nothing. The two of them were fishing and talking and laughing. I was a ghost.
"I wanna go hoooooooome!"
Crickets.
"I WANT TO GO HOME!" I wailed.
"Thumb!"
I'm not sure which one of the geniuses said it, but the smart money is on Steve.
Thumb. Ridiculous. Aside from the fact that everything I knew about hitchhiking I learned from cartoons, it was hella-far. I'd been walking to and from school since second grade, but that was less than a mile each way. I didn't know how many miles home it was from Swan Finishing, but I knew it was WAY farther than from Chace Street School, which we had driven passed on the way.
"I will!" I threatened.
"OK," they responded, half listening.
Could I? Would they really let me? The impossible seemed possible all of a sudden, albeit unlikely. I remember the thought of hitchhiking gradually moving from the part of my brain reserved for notions like: If I concentrate hard enough, I can levitate to the part of my brain where ideas like: I bet I can eat an entire apple, core and all, in three bites reside.
"I'm serious, you guys!"
"Bye!"
I started to walk away.
"I'm leaving, now!"
Nothing. They had been acting like I left since we first arrived. I'll show them. And so I walked to the road and began my journey home.
I wasn't really planning on hitchhiking; again, I wasn't sure exactly how. My plan was just to walk. I had walked with my brothers to the penny-candy store on County Street many times, but I knew it was farther than that. A lot farther. Once, when our dog, Diamond, had run away I walked to the A&W where she used to bum fries off people eating in their cars (Me and my dad once saw her in action, with her front paws up against the side of a car and the driver feeding her. It was her hustle. I still think of her whenever someone hits me up for change at 7-11.). I'd walked lots of places by myself, but this was by far the longest distance attempted, to date, and I had underestimated just how far it was. I was already feeling worn out and my school was still a long way off. So, I kept walking and stuck out my thumb.
Cartoons are not a reliable source of information. Of course I knew this. I wasn't going to stand by the side of the road, wearing a gigantic prosthetic thumb while holding a sign that read, "257 Connecticut Ave or bust!" I had a vague notion that you could continue walking while hitchhiking, but I didn't know you were supposed to walk backwards- Whaaaaaaaat?
I'm pretty sure I was still on Stevens Rd (nothing to do with my brother, Steven), walking forward with my arm extended and my thumb pointing behind me, when a teenaged hippie chic yelled at me from a second story window, "Stupid kid! You don't even know how to thumb!" She offered no instruction beyond that and I could feel the color rush into my cheeks. Being embarrassed is a million times worse in front of a girl! Now I felt foolish as well as tired. And a little anxious. I'm doing it wrong; that's why no one has stopped! I walked awhile without thumbing. Eventually, fatigue trumped embarrassment and, again, I stuck out my thumb. I noticed that if I walked backwards, my thumb was pointing in the direction I wanted to go. Could this be right? I wondered. How the hell am I supposed to know where I'm going?! At first I kept looking over my shoulder but I soon found it surprisingly easy to stay on course by looking at the road behind (in front of) me. This did feel right. I was sure I had stumbled on the correct way to hitchhike. I wished that girl in the upstairs window could see me now. I remember thinking even though I was just a kid that she would like me and maybe even want to be my girlfriend. I wanted to go back and stand on her lawn and sing to her as she smiled down on me from her window. And so I sang as I hitchhiked: I've got a pair of brand new roller skates, you got a brand new key....
A man picked me up shortly after that and drove me most of the way home. When I walked into my house, Estelle was surprised, to say the least. "How did you get home? Where are Steve and Joe?"
It told her the whole story including the part where it was their idea that I hitchhike home. I thought I was gonna get it. She was really mad. Her lips were pursed so tightly, she looked like she'd just eaten ten lemons, but most of her anger was directed toward my brothers who had signed off (kinda) on this little adventure. She hustled me into the car and we picked the two of them up. They were not at all surprised. They had been bluffing and assumed I would turn around and come back pretty quick. By the time they realized this was not the case, their only logical course of action was to keep fishing until Mom came for them, which they knew wasn't going to be very long. They were laughing when we got there. They were not once they got in the car. Dufuses.
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