At your funeral.

The earliest memory I can recall is of my great-grandmother’s funeral. I actually remember it so vividly that a few years ago, when my Aunt Linda died of lung cancer, I was able to locate my great-grandmother’s grave just by looking at the trees.

I was a very little boy. I remember staring at my father’s legs and I remember believing in god. It was the fall and it was cool. There were plenty of leaves on the ground, and they were wet, but it wasn’t raining. My family formed a semi-circle around the grave, and I was near the far left of the circle, in-between my cousins and my parents.

My great-grandmother was very old, close to 100 I believe, so there weren’t many people at her funeral; just my parents, my little brother Zach, my cousins Adam and Jaime, my Uncle Morty and my Aunt Linda, my grandparents Phil and Molly, the Rabbi and maybe one or two other people. The Rabbi was pretty brief with the service. Before I even had a chance to really grasp what was going on, it was my turn to shovel some dirt into her grave. And that was it.

I wasn’t raised in an organized religion. My father is Jewish and my mother is Christian, and they decided to let me figure out what I wanted to believe in as I grew up, so long as I treated everyone the way I would want to be treated. This didn’t really have any adverse effect on me, although it did become confusing at times.

            My grandmother, Molly, died when I was in the fifth grade. That was the only time I had ever seen my grandfather ,Phil, cry. She was my father’s mother, and she was Jewish. Her funeral wasn’t all that different from my great-grandmothers. The same groups of people gathered around her grave, listened to the Rabbi speak briefly, and shovel dirt into her grave. The days that followed were spent sitting Shiva in my grandparent’s house. My family all sat in the living room and I spent my time alone in my grandparent’s bedroom, watching “Speed” and eating bread. For some reason, I didn’t take my grandmother’s death as bad as everyone else did. I was more or less indifferent.

            When I finally returned to school, my teacher Mr. Golding, had me explain to the class where I had been and why I was out from school. I was the first kid in my class to have a family member die. Shortly after I was finished explaining to my class why I was absent for a few days, I received a note. It was from Veronica. The note read:

“I’m sorry to tell you that your grandmother is going to hell for being Jewish.”

At first, I didn’t know how to handle it. This was the first time in my life that I was met with extreme prejudice. I didn’t tell anyone about the note except for my friends Matt and David. 

This world will know my name when I die.

Today is the first day that I am sitting at my desk since I have graduated college. Until now, my laptop has resided exclusively on the small, black, ottoman next my bed since May, and the chair next to my desk has held more jackets than asses.

            My desk was purchased at IKEA, and when it was first assembled, it looked very nice and complimented my room. Years later, my desk has been somewhat worn down. It is covered in scratches from Tech Decks and the paint at the end, where I rest my right arm, has peeled off little by little. Underneath an orgy of scratch marks, the name “Gina” can still be made out next to the gash I put in my desk with the knife I disposed of in the street one night when I was high and nervous about what I would do with it if I ever came across her boyfriend. There are some burn marks from where I would light tape on fire, or let some lighter fluid leak onto my desk before I would ignite it.

            My desk is littered with mementos from life, things that almost killed me, and things that have defined me. At the head of my desk is blink-182’s “Enema of the State,” the first CD I ever purchased and the reason I play Pop-Punk. Next to that is “…but I have to,” which I consider the most important music I have written so far. On the other end of the desk are the two bottles of Brooklyn Local, 1 and 2, the last thing I drank before I began a life changing diet that literally postponed my death.

            The windowsill that overlooks my elementary school bus stop holds the plastic mouthpiece I inhaled at Kasbah, and the nose of my first longboard that sent my hurling toward the pavement so many times. They sit next to the breast cancer awareness bracelet that I bought when I found out my mothers diagnosis and the “Wake Up, East Meadow” bracelet I bought to remind me of all the friends I lost to heroine and pills. And in a Hofstra shot glass is the only jewelry I own. The bracelet I wear to funerals and two necklaces, one with the words “Love Monica” engraved on the back.

            The corkboard that surrounds my window proudly displays the Calvary Show flyer that Valet Parking opened the day before my 14^th birthday. Next to that is the joker card I received at a Theatre Guild function even though I didn’t earn or deserve it. Right below that is the napkin that the stripper from Le Café wrote her number on and gave to me while she smoked cigarettes in the woman’s bathroom and told me how her boyfriend beat her. And underneath that is the New York Giants Christmas stocking that CJ gave to me that holds the Polaroid’s and the notes that Eileen has given to me. On the other side is the plate that Grambo drew my face on at Fawn’s BBQ along with this weird pin that I stole from Real Sports in Toronto. And there are my spare set of car keys, still bent and scratched from when they got caught underneath a skateboard while my friends and I were human bowling in front of Stef’s house.

I guess my desk says a lot about me.

            At the end of my last semester in college, I wrote a piece for my Narrative Voice class that explained, for the most part, why I was so quiet during my time at Hofstra. I could give a large summary, or even rewrite the entire thing, but I feel this excerpt from the conclusion pretty much sums up the entire piece nicely:

“For most people, puberty is the most awkward period of time in their life. For me, it was college. For the first time in my 22 years of existence, I found myself unwilling to invite people into my life out of fear that I was going to come off as a condescending fuck if I let anyone know that I tour the country in a band that is starting to gain recognition on and off of Long Island.”

            After I presented this piece, my professor asked me to stay after class to talk to me, and ultimately what she told me was to not be afraid to write about myself. She told me that I have a story to tell and that I shouldn’t allow the fear of being labeled a narcissist interfere with telling it.

So what did I do with that advice? I took my laptop that was surrounded by stories of my life and moved it across my room to become an exclusive gateway for virtual sex.

            Besides one instance when I wrote a long and winded message to this girl Julie about reconciling our friendship, I had pretty much abstained from writing anything of substance until the other day. Kevin Burke had posted some “article” by some clown who rambled on about how chivalry is dead. I promptly whipped up a rebuttal and posted it, and it felt good. It felt good to finally write something not just for people to read, but also for myself. For a moment I had stopped giving a shit about how people would react to what I had to say, and I just said it.

            I spent a lot of time post-graduation feeling numb. I would read articles online, posts on twitter and statues on facebook that I would completely disagree with and just keep my opinion to myself because I didn’t want to feed the fire. So I stayed silent, like I did in college, and I can say now that I have had a taste, I’m pretty much done reaming quiet.

            This post is my declaration, to myself, that I will take my English Degree and do something with it, even if that something is posting on this blog. I do have a story to tell, and it is damn interesting.

            Back in high school, in one night, I wrote out the story of my life on Live Journal. It was rushed and lacked substance. It was pretty much just a list of cool things I had done up until that point in my life. A lot of people read it, and a lot of people liked it. This is going to be my revision to that. Every week, for the next few months or so, I am going to try and post a different story from my life. I hope that if this interested you enough, you’ll come back and check them out, and I hope that you will enjoy them. But at the end of the day, and as cliché as this sounds, I am going to be writing for myself.

See you in a week.