Written in response to the one-word prompt "Nevermind"
"Pay him no nevermind! He ain't worth it!"
It was an archaic turn of phrase - that sewing together of two quite separate words to make one whole new one. In thirty years of listening to people speaking I can't really remember anyone else ever saying it, though. In my mind's ear I can hear my grandmother screech at my mother from her chair in the living room of our old house on East 95th Street in Canarsie. Whatever it was that had gotten the old woman so riled, I couldn't imagine. But then, I think I was only about six or seven years old at the time.
I've been skinny dipping in the shallow waters of my earliest memories recently, searching for clues on the bottom of the ocean, like a clam diver eking out pearls on a single lung-full of breath. Yes, that's how hard it is for me to do. Some of the stuff my brother said before he died has been preoccupying me a lot. I've also been sorting through the pathetic cardboard box of his things - what was once called Evidence and which is now simply Personal Effects. It's taking me forever.
I mean, what do I DO with this shit?
There isn't a lot here. Frank's death was like his life - pretty empty. It was mainly filled up with his own egocentricity. In spite of myself I can so easily imagine his last few minutes on this planet. The final unexpected turn of events, him wide-eyed in amazement, as if to say "You're kidding! This can't be happening to me. I'm the Golden Boy, the Chosen One!"
He'd said as much to me, hadn't he, the last time we spoke. I'm not going to think about that now, thanks. It's actually easier to consider his death than it is for me to think about the last time I saw him alive.
My father was a second generation Armenian Jew, the son of a book-keeper. I think. I'm a little hazy on that. My mother was a good little Italian girl till she met my dad, and that was fundamentally where everything started to go wrong.
My mother changed her name to Frances, from the more obviously Italian-sounding Francesca, when she got married. All to try and fit in, somewhere. It didn't really work. Her family more or less disowned her most of the time (that is, until her mother became too sick to look after herself) and because she wasn't Jewish, neither were Frank and me. So, we never really fit in with either of the two communities there in Canarsie. In the 40s and 50s it wasn't very racially diverse. There were a lot of Jews there, and an equal number of Italians. What they didn't share in religion or culture they more than made up for in shared family values, and in that respect we didn't fit in either - we felt awkward and unusual to be without a father for long stretches of time. And then, of course, came the time when we were often without a mother, too.
Without the benefits of a normal extended family, Frank and I were often left to fend for ourselves. Frank claimed that he looked after me but I find that really hard to believe. I can remember looking after myself, and my mother, from about the age of 8 or 9. That's where my childhood memories really begin in earnest.
We were brought up as Catholics, mostly. At least, for as long as I believed in any of it. Frank claimed to have rediscovered God before he died but you know what I think? I think he re-discovered the gullibility and credulousness of the genuinely God-fearing. He saw that if they were capable of believing in stuff like transubstantiation, virgin birth and reincarnation, then convincing them that he had repented his sins, kicked the crack, and was begun walking the straight line back towards Salvation again was simple.
It was easy for a man like Frank to dupe them. He'd had lessons from the knee of the Great Master - his dad - and he knew each set piece perfectly. While I was busy trying to learn the Gettysburg Address off by heart, Frank was well on the way to developing an Address of his own, and it had less to do with one nation under God and more to do with the 'pursuit of happiness'.
It comforts me, knowing that my brother did not suffer as he died, because I know his thoughts as he passed would have been exactly the same as they were when he was alive - that he was the special one. Utter disbelief would have completely taken away any fear or pain that he might otherwise have experienced.
The reason I was just now thinking about my senile grandmother yelling at my mother through the beaded curtain (ha! I'd forgotten that curtain!) over the kitchen door was simple. In amongst Frank's stuff - his greasy crack pipe, his Zippo lighter, some tattered photographs - I've come across a few CDs. Some in their cases, some not. One catches my eye. It's a pirated copy of "Nevermind" by Nirvana. It smells of stale tobacco smoke. Impulsively I push it into the little slot on the side of my laptop and listen to the tinny, grinding sound of the guitars. This kind of music is one piece of recent popular culture that I admit had passed me by. But I like it. It's a breath of fresh air.
I feel like my mind has been gasping. The salt water sea of memories has been closing over me.
I really like this music. I listen all the way to the end of the album, then click play all over again and go to get myself a beer from the fridge. It'll be the first of several. The music suits my mood perfectly. Quiet one moment, really really pissed the next. Because that's what I am. I'm peaceful most of the time, but then I feel really, really angry - mad at my mom, mad at my dad, mad at my brother, mad at my boss, mad at my partner, mad at my therapist, mad at myself.
I go online and order Nirvana's entire back catalogue all in one go. Can't afford it. Don't care.
I just keep clicking play over and over again. I wonder who my grandmother was yelling about. (What would she have thought of this music?) I guess it could have been any of the men who featured in and blighted my early years. My father (yeah, but which one?), my older brother, me.
No, not me, surely. I'm the golden boy. The chosen one.