It’s a funny thing having roots in South Euclid. So fond are we of our origins— so moist the reflections—that we just presume we hold memories intact. ‘Tain’t so.
Act I
Labor Day, 2012. Dickie B, my brother and I stood poolside, chatting. Once past the usual speak: health, children, etc., attentions turned, as they often do, to our halcyon days in Columbus. Focusing, as we did for at least an instant, on a particular night, we hit a wall.
“Remember the Association concert?” (We all did…at some level). “You took Debbie Denunzio, “ I told Dick, “And H took Shelly Kern.” Eyes rolled for a minute, and as my ego swelled to the tune of my memory, Baskin spoke:
“I don’t think so.”
Turning elsewhere, three matters struck me: 1), I was sure that was the girl’s name: Debbie Denunzio. I wouldn’t just imagine it, and 2) oddly, I couldn’t recall who I’d taken, and 3) it was, in fact, recorded in an old hand-written diary.
Act II
“This is a sure sign we’re getting old,” I said laughing, and Harold agreed. By phone we were drawing to conclusion the ping-pong of an internet dialogue.
He started it. He would say, of course, that I did.
“When were the three of you (Dad, Lomaz and you) (sic) living together?” Innocently this inquiry’d come through my email at Thursday, at 11:45 AM. He was referring—my brother was—to a recent blog
Holding my tongue, reluctant to wipe his face in so profound an error, at 11:46 I responded…softly.
“Dick Baskin.”
“Just the THREE of you?” he rejoined, that very minute. It was the intensity of his capitalization that by 11:47 had given me pause. If he was cocksure of himself…could the almighty me, with pride in my memory, be wrong? Gently, ego falling, I wondered: WHO could I have missed?
“I think so, “ I wrote back…showing weakness. “Do I remember it wrong?”
Moments later I learned. “What about moi?” he typed., stopping me in my tracks.
Could I have forgotten my brother? Was he there too? Really?
And so we spoke that day, laboring by phone recreating the past.
It was two bedrooms, the place. We pictured it well. There was Dad, and Dick…and me? But who slept where? And was H there?
We couldn’t remember. Either of us. Exactly. Oh, recalled his living there, but couldn’t picture it—couldn’t swear to it. And me? I imaged it: 20 East 14th—even the bedrooms. But I wasn’t sure. Not really.
Intellectually, we sensed, he had to be there. Why then, weren’t we sure?
So well we recalled the prefab hole in the wall separating bedrooms. I regaled, yet again—(it’s a story I love to tell)—‘bout the night I’d asked our father if he’d ever had pre-marital sex with our mother. Since the two’d been divorced, it struck me ‘twas a story that he’d somehow tell). The old man balked, (to his credit), turned red, and abstained. Dead silence for a bit—maybe more—and then…all of a sudden… from the other side of the wall Dick Baskin bellowed: “C’mon Uncle Al.”
Now, THAT I remember! But where was my brother? Could he have been at the library that night? Even in this epic of visuals, he was not to be found.
“Where’d we sleep?” we both wondered, playing ping-pong once more. “You sure there were only two bedrooms?” he asked, asserting, “I NEVER lived in a dorm!.”
It didn’t occur to us—even once—to phone a friend. Like maybe Baskin. As such, we hung up in tacit agreement. He had to be somewhere, we supposed. Probably there.
Act III
Lyndhurst, Ohio. Perturbed by struggles with Hal’s residence, puzzled (perhaps) by Dick’s protests of two weeks back, I went right to the archives: to the thick SBX spiral notebook, where all truths lay.
The news there was both good and bad.
First the good news: One entry read: “November 10, 1969: “…DB was fixed up with Linda Longert’s pal Debbie DeNunzio…” Then, in an apparent recap dated
November 14, I’d diagramed the post-concert dinner at Suburban Steakhouse. Sketched in at a table of eight, seated twixt “DB” and “AH”, was a “DD”. Case closed.
As to my brother, the news isn’t good. Scanning fall quarter I saw a myriad of names. There was Walt, Wied, Stuart, and Hal—all the usual suspects, mentioned time and again. Nowhere, though, NOWHERE, did it state where H lived. Not even a hint.
It matters not, I suppose. Not anymore. What matters is that four decades later Dick, Hal and I still stand…by a pool…talking, smiling, and usually laughing.
Oh, and one more thing. I tripped on, when re-reading my diary, the identity of the person I’D taken to that concert, all those years ago. Turns out I wound up marrying her.
(Who knew?)