The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Kid Across the Street

From time to time, I troll the obituary on-line archives of the Westchester Journal News. It's not because I'm acutely morbid. I'm just convinced that a distant relative will die and nobody will bother to tell me out here in the hinterlands of Southern California. As if it's against the law to call somebody outside of your time zone.

Well. recently, a deceased name caught my eye. Said person had passed a few years back. But, the mere mention of this family got me to access the life archives in my head and that brought to the forefront some memories. A good one or two. A couple of really horrible ones. And they lived in the dumpy apartment house pictured above. It was the building directly across the street from my house in Mount Vernon. Back then, this dwelling was no bargain. Nowadays, it's a veritable Holiday Inn for crackheads that have illegally migrated to the United States from Haiti.

In the past, I've shared some stories on my old neighborhood chums. My childhood best friend Leo has been a frequent character and remains in my life to this very day. Then, there was the despicable Monte, who constantly reminded me of my future in Hell due to my inability to convert to Catholicism.

And, then, there's today's subjects. Louis and his family.

This motley crew lived on the sixth floor of the dump you see above. Louis was my age and we became friends because we shared a common bond. On a block full of kids going to parochial schools like Mt. Carmel and Sacred Heart, Louis and I were the only ones going to public school. And we were in the same class for grades four through six at the Grimes School on 11th Avenue. So, as a result, it was natural that we would walk home from school together. Do homework as a team. And play over each other's houses. As often would happen in schools, our moms served as class mothers together and consequently became friends as well. This is how strong friendships and connections are formed, right?

Well, sort of.

To me, despite the fact that I enjoyed his company, there was always something that just wasn't right about Louis. And, frankly, the same could be said for the whole family. Louis' cousins (on his mom's side) also lived around the corner and it was one of those families that had bizarre tentacles. You know what I mean. There are three kids in the house and they all have different fathers. Maybe because of the polluted gene pool, none of Louis' cousins were right in the head. One of them, some neanderthal named Vinny, would herald his arrival on our block each day by taking a metal pipe and banging it incessantly on the street lamp.

Louis' immediate family wasn't that insane, but, over the period of a few years, similar warts slowly began to appear. The first warning sign for me should have been Louis' manic competitive streak.

We were in the same class for all our studies and both of us were pretty bright with excellent grades. But, Louis seemed to delight in those days where his quiz or test or essay was viewed as just a little bit better than mine.

"I got an A plus and you only got an A."

Great scores either way. But, Louis made me feel as if I had completely underachieved.

This weird trait began to manifest itself in other areas as well. Now, Louis had a slight speech impediment and, back when, that required you to spend an hour a week in a speech therapy class. I think that, as a result, you had to skip a gym class or a library study period. One week, I was pulled out of my homeroom and told to report to the speech therapist on duty. What was this about? Well, apparently, it had been reported to some of the school higher-ups that I was badly in need of some speech therapy myself. Louis had nicely told them that I had a horrible stutter.

One five minute talk with the therapist upended Louis' fervent desire to have me keep him company in his speech class. After all, as I explained the situation to the guy, I hadn't stuttered once. When I questioned Louis why he would suggest that I had a stutter, he simply answered that he was trying to help.

Uh huh.

This eerie one-upmanship soon migrated to our friendships with other kids. Another school pal of mine was Russell and we would play together. On our walk home from school one day, Louis gleefully announced that Russell was coming over to his house to play on a Saturday. I thought that was cool. Damon and Pythias could morph into the Three Musketeers. That seemed obvious to me. Less so to Louis.

"But you can't come over because he's coming to play with me, not you. You can stay home by yourself."

Uh huh.

At some point, I mentioned this all to my mother, who then shared with me some information that parents usually keep to themselves.

"There's some problems over there."

No shit.

And, to put a cherry on a sundae, Mom also came clean with the news that all the adults in the neighborhood were abuzz about Louis' dad. The resident Peeping Tom who had already been caught by the cops once.

Oh.

Still, there were good times and days with Louis. When he came down with one of those kid diseases and was out of school for two weeks, I dutifully brought him his homework every day. One afternoon, he was the only one home and was lying across his living room couch in his underwear. I started to explain to him the next day's assignment for algebra.

"I found a pubic hair on me. Wanna see?"

Er, no.

Louis quickly pulled down his underwear to show me.

"You got any yet?"

This game was now going way too far. History will record that no arithmetic homework was explained any faster than what I shared with Louis that day.

That exchange I did not share with Mom.

Yep, there were definitely issues in that household and things got a lot worse one Memorial Day weekend.

A bunch of us were playing punchball in the street when we suddenly heard the piercing sound of brake screeches on the main thoroughfare of First Street. Uh-oh, Louis had just sent his kid sister, Toni Ann, to go buy our afternoon snack from Luigi's Italian Ices.

She bought the ices but didn't complete the return trip. Instead, she was lying in a pool of blood and lemon ice in the middle of the road. Her body had an ill-timed rendezvous with a pair of radial tires.

There is something incredibly unsettling when you hear the burgeoning sound of an ambulance siren when you know that it is coming to deal with somebody you know.

I don't remember the specifics, but I know she was in a coma with brain damage for several weeks. And the kid was never the same. Last I recall, she was destined for a life in a wheelchair. Naturally, the rest of Louis' family was devastated by this life-altering development. But, oddly, it made the so-called competition with me even more pronounced. And it exploded with ferocity at the end of our year in the fifth grade.

That school year was the first one where we were instructed with a foreign language. And our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Ian, was French-centric. So, all throughout the fifth grade, we were immersed with "je, il, elle, nous, vous, ils, and elles." Both Louis and I took to the lingo like native Parisiens. We were the best in the whole class. At the end of the school year, there would be one commendation card awarded for the best performance in each subject. This would be bestowed in a huge school-wide ceremony with everybody in attendance.

I got the commendation card for French.

And Louis refused to speak to me afterwards.

It gets worse.

For some reason my mom was not able to attend the ceremony that day. So, I was open prey for Louis' mother who was waiting for me outside of school. With guns blazing. And words I remember to this day.

"You think you're so smart. You didn't earn the commendation card. Your mother bought it for you. She's always kissing Mrs. Ian's ass. You're not that smart. You're a little shit. And your mother's a cunt."

I didn't even know what the last word meant. But, after taking this venomous verbal flogging from my friend's mother, I shared it all verbatim with my mom later that day. And, just like on December 7, 1941, we attacked right back.

Except this time my mother was not the pilot.

It was my father who flew the mission.

I have no idea what happened after that. I know I was told to avoid Louis at all costs. But, that became pretty easy within the space of a few months.

His family moved to the other side of town.

I never saw Louis again. Or even gave him another thought.

Until, a few weeks ago on my obituary phishing trip, I ran across his name.

As part of an obituary from a few years back. As one of the survivors of his just-deceased mother.

His dad, the renowned Peeping Tom, was still alive. So, too, almost miraculously, was his kid sister, who had been relegated to an existence as a Brussel Sprout. According to the details, Louis was married to a woman named Sue and he had several kids.

Since we all pretty much inherit both the pros and cons of our parents' personalities, I certainly hope his children are okay. And they're not anguishing over whether or not the kid across the street got a higher grade in French class.

Dinner last night: Sausage and peppers at Peppone's.