Life Affected

Life Affected

Steven Rosenberg

Copyright © 2011 Steven Rosenberg

Smashwords Edition

DEDICATION

To Julie

Thank you for believing

Contents

PROLOGUE

MOVING

A NEW SCHOOL, A NEW BROTHER, AND A NEW FRIEND

A MONTVALE CHRISTMAS

THE MONTVALE MOB

LESSON LEARNED

NO DAY AT THE BEACH

CONTINUING EDUCATION

A PUBLIC DISPLAY OF ERECTION

LOOSING THE PER

GARRET’S RIGHT SHOE

FIREWORKS AND A FUNERAL

WELLINGTON TO MONTVALE AND BACK AGAIN

A FAMILIAR MOAN

DISCOVERY

LET’S PLAY A GAME

THE AFTERMATH

ENTER THE SPIRAL

A NEW FAMILY

RUNNING MATE

HIGHS AND LOWS

A SECOND CHANCE?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To those who encouraged the dream; whose words, possibly unknowingly, pushed me through tough times. Your names are too numerous to mention, but there will always be a special place for you in my life far beyond these written words.

PROLOGUE

After the fall the boy slowly picked himself up from the dirt floor, instantly noticing the tenderness in his ankle. He tilted his head back and looked up at the front door; although it was about six feet above his head, it might as well have been a mile. Jumping, stretching his arms upward, he only managed to loosen a clod of dirt from the wall a couple feet below the rim of the trench. The dirt clod fell with a mild thump, quickly disintegrating and assimilating with the rest of the dirt on the ground. Not wanting his brother or his brother’s friend to hear him, the boy began to walk gingerly—his ankle tightening with each step—around the trench that circled the house, looking for a spot that might be a couple of feet or so lower. Had the owners opted for a basement whose door opened to the outside, the young boy would have found lower ground in the rear, but instead they decided on a skylight for the master bedroom—they were on a strict budget and choices had to be made. He continued to orbit the foundation, looking for a rock or any sort of construction detritus to boost his jump; or an abnormality in the smooth dirt wall that would serve as a step.

Above ground, the two older boys had doused their two-by-fours with gasoline and were conducting a fiery duel. The gasoline that managed to miss the boys’ wood swords meandered slowly, but purposefully, across the home’s ground floor, beginning to permeate the floorboards beneath the boys.

The boy, now back in the front of the foundation, stood the fallen plank—which should have still bridged the gap to the house—upright in the trench, hoping to climb its splintery surface. He tried, and tried, but only accomplished badly scraping his hands. He thought about yelling out to his brother. Hey! I’m stuck. Please help me out of here. No, the boy thought, he would kill me if he knew I followed him here. Instead, he ran back around to the rear of the house, his ankle beginning to feel spry again (or maybe it was as sudden burst of adrenaline that masked the pain). He remembered seeing two square cutouts in the concrete foundation. The future basement window wells were about six feet from the bottom of the trench; their future use was inconsequential to the young boy, he just knew he could reach the ledge. He jumped with all the spring his sneakers would give him, and reached the top three quarters of his fingers over the ledge.

As he began to pull himself up to the cutout, the two older boys had almost exhausted the length of their blazing swords. The brother’s friend’s sword singed the tips of his fingers, and purely in an action of self-preservation he tossed the remaining piece of smoldering wood aside. The two boys could have been anywhere really; the kitchen, the living room, the library, one of the two downstairs bathrooms, or even the dining room. Had the stairs been installed, they may have even been in one of the upstairs rooms. But they were in the foyer, and as soon as the remnants of the boy’s fiery two-by-four hit the foyer floor, a loud whoosh engulfed the quiet dark night. The friend covered his eyes. The other boy simultaneously dropped his stick and began to run, starting a second whoosh of fire in the foyer. The fire crackled and howled as it moved across the floor and began to spread up the hall to the dry studs.

The younger boy heard both whooshes, but thought little of their origin until he looked up and noticed a brightness above him that could not be credited to the moon. He leapt from his perch on the window cut-out, reaching out for the top of the trench. He managed to get both hands above the ledge of the trench, but within seconds the dry dirt crumbled and fell with the boy to the bottom of the gully. After another unsuccessful try, the young boy remembered the plank and rushed around the house to retrieve it.

Above ground, the two older boys, thoroughly enamored with the blazing frame, but knowing that they no longer controlled their fiery companion, charged for the front door of the partially built house. They both leapt across the trench; the friend first, then the younger boy’s brother.

Meanwhile, the younger boy clutched the plank with both hands, ready to drag it around to the back of the house. Looking upward, he saw the two older boys vault his ever enclosing purgatory. He shouted for his brother, but his small frantic voice was drowned out by yelps of pain and pleas of mercy from the flaming house. The boy removed his baseball cap and tossed it upwards hoping either of the other boys would see it rise from the trench. They did not.

Instead of seeing the boy below them, the two older boys saw lights on in the neighboring house and a heavyset man ambling towards the burning inferno. Not quite sure if the neighbor saw them, and unwilling to stick around to find out, both boys headed for the nearby empty lot and the confines of the overgrown weeds.

The heavyset man, partially blinded by the fire and seeing two black silhouettes dart into the brush yelled, Hey, what the hell is going on here!? Come back over here. I see you two. The neighbor turned his amble into a jog, which is all his big three hundred pound frame could handle before a lack of oxygen and the intense heat stopped him cold.

The younger boy realized that his brother was not coming back for him and reverted to his original plan of lugging the plank around back and propping it up against the foundation near the window. Above the boy’s head, bits of smoldering wood were shooting like fireflies through the air. One stung the back of his neck, and he cried out, but still his seven year old voice was drowned out by the howling and hooting of the hysteric fire dancing above ground.

The fire now totally engulfed the frame and little by little the upstairs became the downstairs, and the downstairs, the basement. Crouched in the brush, the two older boys watched in awe as their creation raged out of control. More neighbors gathered around the burly man to watch what had become an unstoppable bonfire.

The boy, from his perch on the cinderblock windowsill, managed to lift one side of the wooden plank up. Resting the plank on the windowsill, the boy caught himself before falling backwards into the basement pyre. He then leveled the plank between the windowsill and the slightly higher gully bank. He took a deep breath. Stepping onto the plank caused it to wobble, and the boy quickly realized walking would be too difficult even with his child’s low center of gravity.

He went down on his hands and knees and began crawling across the plank as burning embers and pieces of fire-engulfed-wood rained down all around him. If he had the time and inclination to notice, the boy would have been quite impressed with the display of fireworks that night. Then, as he was nearly halfway across his wooden escape route, one large raindrop landed square on the plank and split it in two. The boy and the plank tumbled to the ground, one half of the plank glancing off his left temple and the burning piece of the former upstairs pinning his right leg against the relatively cool cement of the foundation. He struggled to remove the burning wood from his leg, but succeeded mostly in helping the fire spread to his polo shirt. He flailed his arms and yelled at the top of his lungs. Finally freeing himself from the burning wood, the boy rolled in the dirt all around him attempting to douse the flames.

All of a sudden it was hot, and very foggy—bright lights shot through the air above. What a strange night for fireworks, he thought, the Fourth of July was still a few days away. I wonder where everyone else is. I can’t believe they are missing this. It’s so beautiful. The red, the orange, the blue. Just as the grand finale started, the boy heard sirens, many sirens, and yelling, lots of yelling. That would be the last thing the boy heard.

MOVING

When I was five, I roared down a hill and around a corner, sliding and falling off my new tri-colored banana-seat bicycle, bloodying my right knee.

When I was six going on seven, I jumped awkwardly off a swing in a park and broke both bones in my right wrist.

When I was ten, my parents decided to move the family from the suburbs to the country.

Is it odd that all the childhood events that I remember most vividly each involve pain of some sort?

I still have two chip-toothed size dark pebbles embedded in my right knee.

I can still feel my mother's talon-like clutch on my broken right arm during the ambulance ride.

I still harbor a little animosity towards my parents for taking me from my friends. Do not get me wrong; I love my parents—then, and now—but the move was a harbinger, and harbingers are rarely good.

Where's Polly? I asked, as we all crammed into our 1979 Chevy wood paneled station wagon—green no less—for the final trip from our old home to our new home in Montvale, Maryland. It was a status symbol—the station wagon was—back then. At least that is what my parents said. I thought, and still think, it was a tremendous eye sore.

Who cares you little shit? My sister said, It's just a stupid bird!

It's not stupid, and it's a parakeet!

It's a firdy!! My younger brother chimed in.

Watch your tongue Sarah Anne, my mother said. Polly is in the back, Douglas. Douglas, Douglas Hobart, that's me. Lovely name, don’t you think?

My sister Sarah (Sarah Anne to my mom when being scorned), whose learning of the seven dirty words coincided neatly with the age of rebellion—that is, teenage—sat next to me in the back seat. Sarah was thirteen when we moved, but to me, at any age, Sarah was always the most grown up person around. On my other side sat Chipper. Even though his given name was Charles, he had been called Chipper almost since birth, when according to my father, Chipper had a habit of making noises that sounded exactly like a wood chipper. I have no recollection of those noises, so to me, Chipper was my stupid little brother, or at least that is how Sarah and I thought of him at that time. I am sure that my opinion was mostly formed due to his lisp, plus the fact that he was like a living toy for Sarah and me. As a child, Chipper was so eager to be liked that he would do anything that Sarah or I told him to do. I can recall many times when he ate live earthworms because Sarah told him they would improve his speech—not just one live earthworm, but multiple earthworms because, of course, one earthworm by itself would not improve Chipper’s speech. It was not until Chipper fell ill with some sort of stomach bacteria that Sarah and I were forced to stop feeding him earthworms (at least for that summer). Gullible, impressionable, and eager to please—a sometimes unfortunate mix—that was Chipper.

Although, that only covers half of my family. My mother and father sat in the front of the car, with my father driving (as he always did). Elizabeth and Henry Hobart Jr. were stoic people—as a child I heard them described that way on many occasions, and looking back to my early years, I wholly concur. Throughout my childhood, my parents never showed much emotion towards each other or anybody else for that matter. Although, it seemed at times Mom would build up a healthy reservoir of emotion and open the floodgates for Sarah, and Sarah only. Growing up, the lack of emotion was entirely normal; thinking back, it just was not right. I also have one more brother, but at that time he still had three more months to bake, as my father liked to say. He had an odd but strangely endearing sense of humor.

There'th thomething cooking in Mommy? Chipper would always ask.

Mommy is making you a little brother… or sister, Dad would offer.

Well what thid you order? Chipper’s eyes fixed on the back of my father's head.

My father's eyes fixed on the road and he seemed not to understand the question. Order? What was that Chipper?

What thid you tell Mommy to make for uth?

Jesus, Chipper, you can't order a kid, Sarah closed her book and turned towards Chipper in frustration and said. "Mom and Dad screwed! That's why mom is pregnant—not cooking! You are so retarded."

Sarah, that will be enough.

Thewed? Thewed what?

Screwed you idiot! It's screwed. With an Sssss, Sarah elongated the consonant that Chipper had such difficulty pronouncing while theatrically flailing her arms and falling deeper into annoyance. We were halfway through the drive to the new house.

Sarah Anne! I've heard enough. You know Chipper has difficulty with that sound. Apologize to your brother right now. The water was straining the walls of the dam, but they would hold.

I'm thorry, Sarah mocked with arms folded across her chest.

A quick laugh escaped from my gut through my mouth and nose, and for my trouble I received a sharp left elbow in my ribs. I think Sarah enjoyed pummeling me from time to time (at least she did it often enough for it to seem that way) and in an odd way I enjoyed it too. The punches, slaps, elbows, pokes and all let me know she was cognizant of my existence. I am not by any means describing Sarah as a brute—even at thirteen, she exuded more femininity than anyone I had met remotely close to her age. Sarah simply did not like to be told what to do; then again, what child does. However, Sarah was different. She was the first of my exposures to a truly free spirit—at least that is how she described herself then (and that is how she continues to describe herself). However for me, the ability to do what I wanted to whenever I wanted to do it, escaped me for most of my life.

Sarah was constantly enlightening me and educating me, usually to my dismay. Sometimes it is hard to believe we developed from the same genes. When Sarah was twelve and I was nine, and she began to menstruate, she said, You'll understand when you are my age. It was not until I was fourteen that I was finally convinced that I would not menstruate. When Sarah was eleven and I was eight, and she wore her first bra, she said, You'll understand when you are my age. I, like many men, still have not totally grasped that whole bra thing (front clasps, back clasps, under wire, padding—far too many variables to worry about in my opinion). When Sarah was thirteen and I was ten, and she had her first kiss, she said—well, you know. Naturally at that time I was disgusted—I would much rather search for frogs and play catch after school than touch a girl’s lips with my own. And when Sarah was almost seventeen and I was fourteen, and Sarah had sex for the first time, she said, Douglas, you'll never understand. Guys never understand. And she walked away in a huff. At the time I had no idea what I would not understand, but I wanted to know. This whole topic of sex that Sarah always talked so freely about—and Mom constantly hushed—sounded great, and I could not wait to enter a girl as Sarah called it once. Even though I was not sure where I entered and what I entered with. I was basically a clueless clumsy kid when it came to the opposite sex, but I am jumping ahead too far.

After being forced to apologize to Chipper, Sarah went back to writing in her book—for as long as I can remember, Sarah had a habit of writing in every possible free margin of the novel she was currently reading. She would never write in the margin of a page that she had not yet read, and very rarely had she read more than a few pages ahead of where she had written. Even though Sarah was careful never to write over the typing, the sight of Sarah feverishly writing in her books irked our mother—she thought that Sarah’s writing vandalized the books.

That day on the ride to the new house, the book in question was the Judy Blume young adult novel Deenie and Sarah had filled every inch of white space through page fifty-nine. At that time, I could only guess what Sarah wrote in her books, but surely she was writing something about her confrontation with our mother. Of course I was curious to see what Sarah was actually writing, but I learned at an early age never to try and see what Sarah wrote. To sneak a peek was taking your life, or at least the health of your stomach, in your own hands.

As hard as she appeared to concentrate on what she was writing, Sarah always seemed to be aware if someone was watching her. Once, she yelled at an old man who sat next to her on a bench at the boardwalk, and whose eyes apparently wandered a little too close to the book Sarah was writing in. The old man looked predictably shocked that a nine year old would call him a cocksucker—so shocked that he chose not to lecture Sarah on her language, instead choosing to leave his perch on the bench all together. Some years later I would finally see much of what Sarah wrote so furiously in the margins of her books; a punch in the stomach may have been preferred.

Here we are kids! Mom announced as we pulled up the driveway to our new home.

The house was as beautiful as it was unappreciated by us kids. Five bedrooms—one for each of us (including my soon-to-be-born sibling). At least now I would not have to share a room with Chipper any longer. He even talked in his sleep with a lisp! Mom and Dad purchased brand new bedroom furniture, except for my mattress, which I demanded we keep, as it was thoroughly broken in as a trampoline. A huge kitchen with an island in the middle—another of Mother’s status symbols (at least it was not green)—and a dining room that we were not allowed to use except on special occasions. The family room was enormous with a double height ceiling that was almost too high up to be real; we could buy the most incredible Christmas tree this year, I thought. Though, the best room in my opinion was the basement, still unfinished, and the last bastion of unexplored territory in the house. Although, time was limited; my father threatened to finish the basement himself shortly after we moved in. It was a splendid house; only the timing was less than impeccable.

Chipper strained to see over the back of the front seat. Sarah feigned indifference by shooting a stream of air upward, ruffling her brown bangs. With an attempt to gain Sarah’s approval, I immediately frowned and crossed my arms over my chest. Obviously it was not the first time we had been there, but it was the first time we would not return back to our old house. We visited the house almost every weekend while it was being built, and the construction site was a child's dream. There were huge dirt mounds that were great for king of the mountain games; a dug out foundation and a skeleton of a house that made excellent grounds for hide and seek; frogs and snakes living in the small gatherings of water runoff; and we even found, amongst the construction workers’ trash, a girlie magazine as my best friend Robby Thomas used to call it. At nine years of age, Robby and I did not appreciate the importance of this discovery, but when we showed it to Sarah, she explained it in typical Sarah fashion.

Guys whack off to these, Sarah said matter-of-factly as she flipped through the magazine.

Whack off? Robby inquired.

Yeah, pull their pud.

It was my turn to be the ignorant one. Pull their pud?

Don't you guys know anything? They jerk off. Sarah made the proper motion with her right hand. They masturbate you dumb shits. You'll understand when you are my age.

As if that made all the difference, we both nodded in agreement and went back to our exploration, Robby rolling and stuffing the magazine in his back pocket.

But the dirt mounds and playgrounds had now disappeared—the house was finished, and what would soon be the lawn was covered with grass seed and straw. It was no longer a place to visit and play; it was now our home, permanently. The house was big—much bigger than our old house. Over time it would become a great house with many memories. It was not that I was upset that I would be living in our new home; I was upset that never again would we live in our old house—at that time, the house I had lived my entire life in; the house where I carved my name under my father’s basement workbench; and the house where I buried my dead GI Joes in the backyard. I remained obsessed for quite some time about who was now living in our house; who was carving their name in the workbench; who was burying (or digging up) GI Joes in the backyard—in my eyes, the house would always belong to my family.

We robotically unpacked the station wagon and tried to settle into our new home. I found Polly the parakeet, set his cage up on the kitchen table, and removed the towel that covered it for the ride to Montvale. Looking at my bird, I thought how sad it was that he had no choice; he never had a choice. He did not have the ability to choose who purchased him from the pet store; he did not select his name; he did not have the freedom to live where he wanted to live; and he did not have a say in our move. Polly had no way of voicing his opinion about such matters—at least not in a way that we understood or responded to. I silently apologized to Polly and let him out of his cage so he could fly around like he did in our old home. He immediately flew smack into the sliding glass door, tumbling pathetically to the ground; he recovered in a few seconds and flew around and around the kitchen, trying to determine his new dimensions. Once again, he flew with a thud into the sliding glass door. Polly sat on the floor, a touch bewildered and stretching his tiny blue and white wings. I sadly picked him up and placed him back in his cage. He hopped up on his lower perch and looked in his mirror. To this day, I swear that I saw a distraught look reflected in that mirror. I am not certain that birds have looks—or even have the capability to feel distraught—but I saw it then on Polly's little parakeet face. A look eerily similar to the look Sarah gave just a few minutes earlier in the car.

The movers had brought the larger furniture and boxes into the house prior to our arrival. The upstairs bedrooms were mostly empty with the exception of boxes and the mattress in my room. While my parents continued to unpack the station wagon, I walked the perimeter of my room. The room was larger than my old room, and the lack of furniture made it appear more spacious in my young eyes. I walked into the empty closet, marveling at how much space there was; I stared out of each of my three windows; and I bounced wildly up and down on my mattress until Sarah came into my doorway.

This place sucks, she said.

Right.

Polly died exactly one week later. I vividly remember coming downstairs that morning, removing the towel from atop his cage, and seeing Polly lying on his little blue side, feet outstretched on the waste stained bottom paper. Horrified at the sight, I ran for my mother, who was brave enough to lift Polly out of the cage and into a shoebox. I regained my composure just long enough to bury Polly (in the shoebox) in the backyard next to what would become my mother’s vegetable garden—I like to give Polly credit for that first crop of quite large zucchini.

For two solid weeks, each night I had nightmares about the moment I lifted the towel from the cage. Sometimes when I uncovered the cage, Polly would instantly rise from the bottom, spring up at me, and peck at my eyes; sometimes I would uncover the cage and it would be completely empty; but most of the time I saw a miniature me in the cage pacing back and forth on the floor stopping only to look in the tiny mirror. Polly was the first and only pet that I lost as a child, but I felt solace in the belief that Polly’s death was his first and only choice. Even now it seems impossible to me that I felt trapped at age ten, but unlike my free-spirited older sister that is how I felt.

Our family did not have another pet while we lived in Montvale. My father always said he had enough to deal with in four kids, and I really can’t argue with him there. The closest I came to having my own pet was our next-door neighbors’ dog. The Phillips’ dog, Samson, ran free throughout the neighborhood each day, only returning home each night (Mr. Phillips could be heard many a night calling for Samson to come home). Samson was big and fluffy—some sort of Samoyed and Akita mix—or at least he seemed big at my age, and he loved to play catch with old tennis balls, Frisbees and basically anything that could be thrown and retrieved in his mouth. I treated Samson as if he were my own dog, not because Mr. and Mrs. Phillips neglected Samson—to the contrary, they showered Samson with more love than any child deserved. In fact Samson was a child to the Phillips’ as they had no children of their own, and according to my mom they had no plans for children either. Mr. Phillips was the stereotypical over-the-top dog owner who insisted on attempting to transform Samson into a person by dressing the poor canine in clothes fit for any human, but that more closely portrayed the ridiculousness that was Mr. Phillips’ obsession. Samson, for his part, tolerated the outlandish garments, but never seemed quite content wearing them. I think part of the reason my relationship with Samson flourished as it did, had a lot to do with me not forcing a sweater and a baseball cap upon his un-human body, instead choosing more dog friendly activities like fetch and rolling through piles of leaves. Whatever the reason, I did not spend a lot of time contemplating it; I simply enjoyed Samson’s silent companionship, although I wish it could have been for longer.

We did not vacation at the ocean the summer of the move. Every summer for as long as I could remember, my family traveled to the shore for a week. That summer we did not make the journey for two reasons. The move—it consumed and exhausted (physically, mentally, and monetarily) my parents to the point of no vacation. The baby—Mom thought it would be best not to visit the ocean while she had something baking. The latter excuse sufficiently satisfied Chipper, but not Sarah and me. We were thoroughly disappointed, as the ocean was the one time we enjoyed going anywhere with our parents. Although I really did not mind accompanying my parents very much, Sarah hated to be seen with them and I thought it would be wise to think like Sarah.

At eleven, Sarah had started distancing herself from our parents, especially from our mother. And by twelve, the distancing had evolved into full blown mortification at the very thought of being seen with my parents. She began to refuse to go shopping at the mall with our mother and even disliked walking around the neighborhood within ten feet of her. To be seen in public with the parents was bordering on sacrilege for Sarah. Unfortunately though for Sarah, after we moved to Montvale—and unlike our old neighborhood—in order for Sarah to see any of her old friends, one of