All or Nothing (3 page)

We weren't allowed to eat fish in the house because my mom didn't want the house to smell, but I was allowed to have tuna as long as I drained the can in the sink, cleaned out the can with soap and water, and then immediately took the trash out and cleaned the sink with bleach. We had one wooden bowl that was specifically designated for making tuna salad. My mom had strict rules about that kind of stuff, but my dad just did what he wanted.

One morning he grabbed the wooden bowl at random, put eggs, milk, and pancake mix in there, and handed it to me to start whisking. My mom came into the room and gasped in horror. “Jesse! What are you doing?” she cried. “Not that bowl!” My parents started bickering, which made me feel uneasy, but my dad just laughed it off. “Calm down, Randi,” he said, which never succeeded in calming her down. He got out the big stovetop griddle and plugged it in. I turned it up to high and poured a capful of oil onto the surface, full of anticipation as I watched it sizzle. My dad poured some batter onto the griddle, and I was so excited that I flipped the first pancake too soon. Batter splattered everywhere. “Jesse!” My mother started yelling at me again, furious that I was making a mess.

But strangely, as angry as she got, she never made me clean up after myself. Sure, my mom asked me to do routine chores. I can still hear her voice saying, “Clean your room,” or “Take out the garbage,” but I learned from an early age how to get out of it. I became a master manipulator, at least when it came to my parents. Just when it was time to clear the dinner table, I'd disappear into the bathroom for an hour and leave my sister to deal with the mess. Or I'd come up with one excuse or another for why I couldn't do it.

At some point my parents must have just given up, because they simply stopped asking. My entire childhood passed without me ever having to set the dinner table, take out the trash, vacuum a carpet, or clean a bathroom, and I learned that it was possible to get away with just about anything. My parents never attached consequences to my behavior. They never set rules, and when they did they didn't enforce them. My parents loved Joee and me. They wanted us to be happy. So they smoothed everything over, doing everything they could to avoid conflict and constantly trying to placate us.

If my mother had had her way, we kids would have been disciplined more. My parents were never on the same page when it came to laying down the law. It was like a cat-and-mouse game between the two of them, and I quickly learned how to play this game to my full advantage. My mother would tell us to pick up our toys, do our homework, or call our grandparents, and behind her back my dad would tell me, “Don't worry about what she says. Just do what she wants and make her happy.” So I forced out some crocodile tears or said “yes” to my mother if it would help me avoid confrontation or get me what I wanted. But I never adjusted my behavior because I knew at the end of the day there would be no repercussions.

Both of my parents cared a lot about image, especially my mom. She used to show up to my soccer games decked out in designer clothes and high heels, while all the other mothers would come in sweats and T-shirts. My mom stood out, and I already felt like an outsider. The other kids teased me. “Dude, your mom's hot,” they would say. I hated hearing that. I just wished she'd put on some fucking mom jeans or something. But she always wanted to look her best. It wasn't just her looks that made my mom stand out. She was always the first to volunteer to be on the board of a charity or run a fund-raiser. Now I can appreciate how giving she is of her time, but as a kid who just wanted to fit in, my mom's conspicuousness bothered me.

Joee and I absorbed the message that looks were important, and over time we learned how to stuff everything down and act like we had no problems. For a kid as full of angst as me, this was a dangerous combination. I never learned how to deal with my feelings. For the time being, cooking was a productive outlet, but the restlessness simmered and would eventually find another way out.

As soon as I started school I was breaking the rules. I was the class clown for sure, bored, restless, and looking for a distraction to break the monotony. I whispered lewd jokes to my friends and ignored the teacher when she called my name just to see what she would do. I was only in the first grade when I was suspended for mooning the bus driver. But I was never punished at home. I apologized, pled my case, and managed to manipulate my way out of a punishment every time. And then I went ahead and did something equally disruptive again. I had zero fear of authority. If anything, I liked the attention that came with acting out.

Some of this behavior was intentional, but there were times when I couldn't control it. When I was still in the first grade, I went to get a haircut and was moving around in the seat so much that the hairdresser cut himself and had to get stitches. My mother was furious, but it wasn't like I did it on purpose. I just couldn't sit still.

Sometimes my dad's parents, Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Laz, picked up Joee and me from school and brought us back to their apartment. Then I could leave the class clown act behind at school and focus on having fun in the kitchen. Grandma Rosie picked up where Nana Mae had left off teaching me to cook. She was always making something interesting and was eager for me to hang out in the kitchen with her and help.

The day before Passover, Grandma Rosie made split pea soup with flanken bones, the Jewish version of short ribs. She had a little stool for me that she pulled up to her stove, which was an old electric coil one. Then, as she worked, I slid the stool across the tile floor to go fetch her ingredients. I climbed up and used all my might to pull open the freezer door and grab the frozen peas. But the best part was when I pushed the stool over to the stainless steel sink, rolled up my sleeves, and rinsed the peas, thawing them in the colander. I still remember the feeling of the peas between my fingers.

I sat down on my stool and cut the carrots, feeling the warmth at my back as Grandma Rosie stirred a large pot. She bent down to grab the vegetables from me, pausing to touch my face. “I love spending this time with you, Jesse,” she said lovingly. These weren't words I heard often. Finally the moment came when I stood on my stool to dump the colander of peas into the pot. The steam hit my face as the peas joined the onions and carrots. I took the wooden spoon, and with Rosie's hand wrapped around mine, we stirred and stirred and stirred the soup, adding the flanken bones one by one.

Grandpa Laz had a La-Z-Boy that he sat in to watch the news with a newspaper in one hand and a Dewar's in the other, and while the peas cooked I'd climb up and sit on his lap. After hours of cooking, the peas stewed down with the flanken bones, transforming into a rich, delicious soup. But it was always better the next day, when we brought it to my parents' house. The whole extended family ate the soup, and when they said how much they loved it, I felt truly proud of myself for the first time.

My parents were always looking for opportunities for
Joee and me to experience something new and broaden our horizons. When I was nine years old we went on a trip to Israel with our synagogue. It was amazing to see a place that was so completely different from where we lived. Joee was a cool preteen by then, and I looked up to her. When she went out with her friends in Tel Aviv I begged her to let me tag along, but I was the annoying little brother and she never wanted to hang out with me.

In addition to our regular family trips, for every summer for as long as I can remember, my parents sent Joee and me on a trip of our own. First we visited their friends Arthur and Joanie in Copake Lake in the Berkshires. We loved it there. Arthur and my dad grew up together in Brooklyn. He and Joanie were like my parents, but they weren't my parents. They were fun-loving and open.

From Copake Lake, Joee and I made our way down to New Paltz, a small town in the Hudson Valley, to stay with my uncle Bruce and aunt Stacey and my cousins Bonnie, Jonah, Sean, and Keith. Their house at 35 Gatehouse Road was our home for the month of June. For Joee and me, it wasn't just a house but a magic fucking castle. The house had an amazing wraparound deck, and out back were massive, fingerprint-stained double-glass doors that led into a playroom filled with every conceivable piece of shit kids love: miniature pianos, tennis rackets, baseball gloves, hockey sticks, action figures, board games, and an eight-track player. On a far brick wall, collecting dust, was an unused woodstove. The floor was covered with a furry gray carpet that had cushioned countless amateur wrestling matches and impromptu martial arts exhibitions.

The backyard was a wild, unkempt country wonderland with a pond, a big white rock, a sprawling rosebush, and a gnarled old birch tree that presided like a standing sentry. We spent a lot of time in that wild backyard hunting frogs, catching crayfish, getting dirty, skipping stones, and wreaking havoc.

My oldest cousin, Bonnie, had already moved out, so every June there were five kids living at 35 Gatehouse Road, all of us boys except for Joee. I was the youngest, and I loved being around my cousins, who were all kick-ass high school wrestlers. They were like the older brothers I never had.

Sean, the oldest, was a musician; he sent me my first mix tape and heavily influenced my taste in music as I was growing up. Jonah, the middle child, was the family survivalist. You could drop him in the middle of a zombie apocalypse with just a Bowie knife and he'd pull through, no problem. His specialty was climbing the Gunks, a twelve-mile-long, 300-foot-high escarpment that towered over open fields and farmlands. He was like a billy goat, and I marveled at his effortless movement over the steep rocks. Camped out a couple of hundred feet high on a ledge overlooking a vast expanse of the Hudson Valley, we spent hours just staring up at the sky. Like me, Jonah had boundless energy, which he was able to channel into creative projects. And he was funny. He knew intuitively how to snap me out of a bad mood with a joke, and he still does. It didn't hurt that he had a hot girlfriend who followed him everywhere like a lost puppy.

But I was closest to Keith, the youngest, who is four years older than me. Like his brothers, Keith was a badass, three-time New York State high school wrestling champ. His room was covered in overlapping posters of '90s grunge rock gods like Layne Staley, Eddie Vedder, and Chris Cornell. I remember falling asleep on his floor listening to Alice in Chains' iconic album
Jar of Flies
and Faith No More's classic song “Epic.”

“We're going to be in a band. You play the drums, I'll play guitar,” Keith told me again and again. Keith and I were close, more like brothers than cousins. We were always together. He brought me along to hang out with his friends, and before long his group became my group. Keith changed my life.

I idolized my aunt and uncle. Uncle Bruce could do anything with a card deck—deal from the bottom of the pack or cut the deck with a fake thumb. He was magical and embodied all of the qualities I admired. I went fishing with him in the Wallkill River because I wanted to, not because he pushed me to. I remember watching him, hunched over a table as he put the finishing touches on his handmade lures. On a good day we could reel in fifteen to twenty fish. He nurtured through exposure. Uncle Bruce was my dad without the baggage of actually being my dad. I guess that's exactly what uncles are supposed to be.

Aunt Stacey was hip. She was tall with flowing red hair and a hint of freckles on her skin. She always wore cool beaded jewelry and dressed in flowery skirts. And she loved to garden. There were rock piles in front of the house that she turned into beautiful flowerbeds. Aunt Stacey cultivated the earth, intuitively understood its potential, and worked in harmony with it. I understood this. I felt the same way anytime I stepped into a kitchen. Gardening and cooking were our spiritual activities. Aunt Stacey reminded me of the Oracle in the
Matrix
movies—a calm, sort of mysterious woman, but also a powerful figure who seemed perfectly content raising a family. I was able to really open up to Aunt Stacey, who was engaged, present, patient, and emotionally available. In New Paltz we also loved spending time with my uncle Sam, my dad's younger brother, and my aunt Janet. They were more like friends than parental figures and were always cool to hang out with.

Despite how laid-back my aunt and uncle were (or maybe because of it), 35 Gatehouse Road was a circus. It was messy and disorganized—a 180-degree shift from our house in Parkland. Keith described it as “organized chaos,” which was spot-on. But somehow it all worked. My aunt Stacey cooked more than my mother, making simple, hearty dishes like a giant pot of chicken soup or a meatloaf that we kids could feel free to attack whenever we felt like it.

In contrast to the organized chaos of the house was the quiet outside. New Paltz is really fucking quiet. Sometimes at night I just paused and listened to the wind rustling the leaves of some old, wobbly-looking trees, crickets chirping—the typical sounds of country living. On warm summer evenings local residents were out and about, walking along the town's cobblestone sidewalks or navigating the maze of Revolutionary-era carriage roads. But mostly I remember New Paltz for its pristine forests, rolling fields, rushing creeks, nature trails thick with stinging insects, and the loss of innocence.