Poor Michael pt. 12

So the family of a 16 year old girl goes to our doctor and wants to have the girl's illegitimate baby adopted. My father learns about it and he adopts this baby boy. No papers, just a handshake. That is before my Father went to prison. Before I was born. That baby was my brother Michael. 5 years older then me. When my father went to prison, he was about 8 years old and the family did not take care of him and he was left on his own. He lived with friends, with some priests, God knows who else.

Michael enlisted in the Korean War when he was only 17. I was twelve living in an apartment with my step mother and my baby sister Harlene. After my father died, he had nowhere to live, no one in the family offered him a room or money so he enlisted in the Marine Corps. And they took this boy, this child. He must have forged someones signature. The Marines just sucked him right up. This innocent child with no family that cared a whit for him, no where to live, no money for college, nothing. I really had no idea of the seriousness of what he was doing and there were never any conversations about the war with friends or family. In fact, we never had conversations about anything really...definitely not politics, nor books nor movies. My God, when I look back on it all I realize what an empty, vapid life I led as a teenager. This was the 'dead' fifties for sure....I had a total lack of any intellectual stimulation ..and all we thought about was ourselves......So, I did not realize I should be really concerned about my brother. There was just the TV and the news I was able to watch periodically.

He had been wounded many times and the Marines gave him a Purple Heart. He gave me some of his medals and I feel just terrible that with all the moving I had done during my youth, I lost them. He gave me a photo of himself in a bar, sitting at a table with a bunch of Marine buddies and some Korean girls, that were most probably prostitutes.

He married a couple of times and lived all over the country but he always would call, me, usually when he was drunk and always in the middle of the night. Whenever the phone rang around 2 in the morning, I knew it was Mike. He wanted to talk about our growing up in Atlantic City and his childhood. He was full of anger towards the family because they had totally abandoned him and he blamed them for our father's death. He said they stole our Dad's money and that when he got out of prison he found that he had nothing! And that's why he killed himself. I think it is because he just no longer had any power. And with no power came no money. According to the newspaper articles, he tried to borrow money but he was considered a bad risk I guess. But he was able to buy a fast food restaurant on the boardwalk. After he died my step-mother tried to run it with her sister Kate who came down from New York. I even worked in it for a summer serving hot dogs and hamburgers. At 15 I wanted to be on the beach but I had to work. Ethel was forced to sell the place by the corrupt politicians in Atlantic City who took the property under the title, "eminent domain" as if they were going to use it for the betterment of Atlantic City. It was highway robbery and everyone knew it. She got short-changed but good. But that is the way Atlantic City was run back in the day and from what I hear, it is still corrupt. One mayor after another goes to jail.

Anyway, when Mike married a woman named Nancy, I went to the wedding and the night before, he and Nancy stayed in their fifth avenue apartment which was empty of furniture. They asked me to stay with them. I remember Mike was drunk and was playing around with a gun. Nancy got hysterical and begged him to stop. She told me that he often did that kind of thing and she was very concerned. She should have called it off that very night but she didn't, so they were married the next day in a Catholic ceremony. I knew Mike and she would not work out and they didn't. She told me he had sometimes threatened suicide and drank a lot. They had a son and before little Joseph was 3, Mike took off. Nancy was not the first wife he ran out on nor would his son be the only child.

He married again to another very wealthy woman who's father had been a big deal in politics in New Mexico. They too had a son and Michael adored him. always bragged about how talented he was in sports and what a great kid he was. But something happened and once again and he split. He gave up a lot of money I understand but when Michael wanted out, that was it. He could not stop running and leaving people. But I always understood and I always knew how really disturbed he was. Who could blame him? He was tall and slim and always had women. When he would call me he would put these various women on the phone and they would tell me how much they loved him. But in time, he would leave them all. Except for the last one named Jackie, whom he met when he was in his late sixties. It was Jackie that was with me when he died in my apartment. God, I am pissed at him for doing that.

5 years ago, out of the blue, he called and said he wanted to come to NYC, with Jackie, his latest woman (they were both now 70) and visit with me. I was very excited and couldn't wait to see him. He rarely came to NYC. Only two other times if I remember correctly.

When I greeted him at the front door, I was stunned to see how ill he was. His legs were swollen because of diabetes. He was pale and could hardly walk. I asked his wife, Jackie, why she or he did not warn me as to how ill he was. She didn't seem to be too concerned and said he was ok.......but I knew he was not.

I arranged for us to take a double decker bus to take them around the city as there was no way he could sight see and walk....he was in too much pain. We also took a Circle Line boat tour around the island which he really liked. Then he asked me if I would drive them to Atlantic City so he could show Jackie where he grew up. Of course I said yes and the next morning we left. When we got two hours later, he first wanted to show Jackie the beach and where he worked as a life guard. He asked that we go to the main LifeGuard station first. I parked the car next to the boardwalk so he would have a short distance to walk and up we went to the main Lifeguard station. There was a chain across the door and a guy around 50 said I could not got any further. I told him that the man he was looking at had once won the biggest swim race in the ocean of anyone, back in the fifties and I said he was also a veteran of the Korean War. When I said his name, the guy yelled..."Mike? Mike Friedman? "...and stepped over the chain, grabbed Mikey and hugged him for all he was worth. He invited us inside and went to get something to show Mike. He came back with a huge huge black and white photo of the cutest lifeguards you have ever seen. A crowd of about 30 young boys all in their lifeguard shirts, all about 16-17 years old. And there was my big brother. Right in the center. The cutest boy you could have ever seen. He got so excited when he saw this and started to call out the names of many of the boys in the photo. The Captain said, that at that very minute, many of them were down on the beach, downtown, watching the very same race that Michael had won all those years ago. Michael asked me if we could go down there. Of course, I said yes and off we went. Privately, I asked the Captain if he would point out Michael to some of these guys as they would never recognize them all these years later as he looked very ill. Mikey was so excited that we were going to drive down to that beach.....and off we went.

When we got to the beach I helped him walk down near the ocean and suddenly about 6-7 guys came up to Michael and hugged him. They all were very happy to be there and talked about their lives and asked about his. They knew about his troubled childhood and they apparently remembered me as well. After that wonderful emotional scene on the beach with lots of bonding and memories shared, Michael wanted to show Jackie the various homes he lived in, the church that took care of him and often fed him and some of the alleys he slept in as a young boy. We even went back to 26 S. Windsor ave....the infamous red and white house where he washed the floor of his father's blood.

When it got very late we drove back to NYC and he slept in the car the entire ride back. The next morning he could not stop telling me how happy he was to be there and see all of his old sights and his old buddies. I had planned to take Mike and Jackie around NYC on another sightseeing tour but he said he was too tired and we two women should go out on our own. He wanted to just lie on the sofa bed in the living room and watch TV. As I was putting my makeup on in the bathroom I heard Jackie scream. I ran into the living room and Jackie was crying, "no Michael, no, don't do this to me." Michael was not breathing. He was dead. I called 911 and screamed for an ambulance. I called my husband who was out of town and un- reachable . I called my daughter in LA and started to cry on the phone. Jenny, Jenny, Michael is dead, my brother has died...here in the apartment "! I was in shock. I could not touch him. Just like my father. I froze completely! I went over to the bed and looked at him. He looked peaceful as if he was sleeping. But I could not do anything. Jackie was pacing up and down. The doorbell rang and in came the paramedics. They threw him on the floor and poked him with needles and tried to revive him. I kept asking them is he dead? Is he dead?.... but they would not respond. They put him on a stretcher and took him out of the apatment. Jackie said she would go with him. I said I would follow in a cab and why I did not leave with them I do not know.

The door slammed shut and I stood there alone in my apartment. It looked as if a tornado had swept through. There were syringes strewn all over the floor, living room chairs and tables overturned. Surgical gloves thrown everywhere. I looked around and could not move. I could not believe what had just happened. I said out loud to no one...." Mikey is dead!"

I was standing in my kitchen crying when the door bell rang. My daughter's best and closest friend was at the door. Jen had called her and told her to come right over and be with me. She lived right up the block. Rena walked in with a danish and a cup of coffee, hugged and kissed me, straightened out the furniture and said let's go to the hospital. When I arrived Michael was lying on a stretcher, in a room alone with Jackie standing by him. He was cold by this time and she was holding his hand. I asked the nurse at the desk for a priest. This was a Catholic hospital and I assumed one would be on site.

You see my brother was a very devout Catholic. He told me that ever since he was taken care of by the priests in a local parish that felt sorry for him when he was abandoned by our family, he felt very Catholic. And when he went to Korea is when he became even more religious. He said(to be continued)