MEMORIES

POP

I was born in New York City, Brooklyn to be exact, the oldest son of Micheal David and Rachel Starsky. I have one younger brother, Nicky, who is six years younger than me. We lived in a modest three-bedroom frame house where my mother still lives today.

My father was a cop and I proud of him. I can remember sitting on the front stoop waiting for him to come home when he worked the day shift and feeling a burst of pride when I saw him in his uniform. We go inside and after he had changed, he'd tell me all about his day. I realize now that there were a lot of things he didn't tell me but the things he did tell me sure sounded exciting to an impressionable five-year-old. I loved my dad and I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. I guess my becoming a cop had a lot to do with those stories I heard during my formative years. It was a way for me to honor my father's memory.

My dad was of polish descent and my mother was Italian which explains my olive complexion and blue eyes. We were also Jewish. Even though I don't consciously practice my religion today, I was raised in the Jewish faith. In a mixture of cultures, today I celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. When I was a kid, I don't remember anyone treating me any differently just because I was Jewish. That didn't happen until I was an adult. Everyone tells me that I favor Pop more than I do Ma. I've got pictures of him and there is a strong resemblance so I guess they are right.

Pop was the one who did the whipping in our house. He'd take me down the basement and take off his belt. That's when I knew that I was in for it. I didn't get punished that often but I did get into my share of trouble. When I was a kid the neighborhood I lived in wasn't all that bad, not as bad as it got as I got older. Now, Ma didn't leave all the punishment to Pop. She'd swat me on the backside with her hand if I smarted off to her. I learned not to do that too often.

Between Ma and Pop, they both came from big families, so I had a lot of aunts and uncles who had kids my age, so I had plenty of cousins to play with when I was growing up. My Pop's mother, my Nana Mary, lived about an Italian restaurant not far from our house and I used to spend a lot of time there when I was little. She always had a special treat for us to share when I came to visit. I used to go there after school everyday and stay until suppertime. She'd tell me stories about the old country and about my dad when he was my age. She spoke in a combination of broken English and Yiddish and I loved her dearly. I was heartbroken when she died just after I turned nine-years-old. I wear a silver ring on my left pinky finger that used to belong to her along with a gold ring that belonged to my Pop.

Because there was a six-year-age difference between me and Nicky, I was able to do more things with my Pop than Nicky could. I still remember Pop taking me to Coney Island, to the movies on Saturday afternoons and even to the police station with him sometimes. I used to love to go there with him. All his cop buddies would tell me what a great guy he was and tease me about looking just like him. He'd laugh and sit me on his desk with his hat on my head. It was so big that it would fall down over my eyes but I felt good knowing that Pop was proud of me.

Pop used to help me with my school work every night after supper. Now I'll be the first one to admit that I never did care much for school but Pop had a way of explaining things to me so that I could understand them better. He always told me that it didn't matter what kind of grades I got as long as I did my best, that was all he asked for. And I tried my best. I really did but school was never easy for me. I always learned things better when somebody showed me how to do it instead of expecting me to learn it by reading a book. But I loved playing sports. Football, basketball, baseball. I even ran track for a while in high school. I'd always been highly competitive and when I played, I played to win.

Ma and Pa always tried to make birthdays and holidays special days in our house. We celebrated all the traditional Jewish holidays and even though Pop didn't make a whole lot of money, he always made sure that me and Nicky had what we needed and tried to get us something really special for our birthdays. The house would be filled with delicious aromas as my Ma cooked all Pop's favorite dishes along with the more traditional Jewish dishes. It was a good life. At least until I was twelve. That's when my world as I knew it changed forever.

I'd been at Nana Mary's and was on my way home. When I turned onto my street, I saw the crowd of people and the police cars. Instantly I knew that something was drastically wrong. I started running towards my house and that's when I saw Ma standing in the middle of the street with Nicky in her arms. I could tell that she was crying. I didn't know why until I ran up beside her and saw them loading my Pop's body on a stretcher.

His face was so white and the front of his uniform was soaked with blood. The pavement at my feet was stained with his blood where he had been gunned down. I did my best not to cry but didn't have much luck. That was my Pop who was hurt. When they put him in the ambulance and drove away without turning on the siren or speeding, I knew that he was gone. My Pop was dead and I was numb.

I shut down and pushed my feelings of grief and pain deep inside of me, refusing to let anyone know how devastated I really was. Ma was just as devastated as I was, her own grief turning her inside out. Luckily, Nicky was too young to really realize what was going on so he was spared the intensity of the grief that Ma and I both felt. All I knew was that someone had gunned down my Pop right in front of our house and taken him away from us forever. It wasn't until I was older that I heard the rumors that it had been a mob hit because Pop was getting too close to busting up one of their operations. There were also rumors that Pop was on the take and that he got greedy but I knew my Pop. I knew he would never do anything like that. He had too much integrity to take the mob's blood money.

I don't remember much about the funeral. I remember all the other cops in full uniform and the twenty-one gun salute at his gravesite but I don't remember much more than that. Except my Ma crying softly the entire time. I heard her crying at night too behind the closed door to her bedroom. That was the only time I cried. When I was safely locked in my bedroom away from prying eyes. My grief was slowly being replaced by a deep rage that I didn't know how to control, rage at the men who had killed my Pop at the age of thirty-six. My Ma was so wrapped up in her own grief and pain that she didn't see what was happening with me.

It was just after Pop's murder that one of the local Mob bosses started coming by the house. He even helped pay for Pop's funeral. To me, he was Uncle Tony. A friend of the family that I had known my entire life. I didn't know at the time that he was connected with the mob. It wouldn't be until I was an adult that I learned his side of the story when it came to his involvement with my family, especially after Pop's murder. They never did find out who was responsible for my Pop's murder and it remains unsolved to this day.

Losing Pop the way I did at such a young age, set in motion a chain of events that would change my life forever. And although it didn't feel like it at the time, it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.

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