Summertime Memories
Today was so warm that it sublimated memories of New York, 1985 and losing my brother in Central Park.
Let me back up a step. I stepped out of the building for lunch today with my colleague Fat'n'Happy, bent on getting a slice or two of pizza. As we walked through the doors of our building, I found my eyes closing and a small smile spreading on my face. The air was warm and silky as bathwater and frankly I'd been waiting for this for the last seven months or so. Thinking this I was suddenly aware of a scent that was distantly familiar to me, which I eventually identified as the smell of New York in the summertime. Not the urine drenched muggy stench of midtown, but the lightly stifling scent of the parks and the less traveled streets. Essentially the warmth of the lunchtime air had sublimated the solid stuff of my memories, releasing the sweet scent of my childhood summers and bringing up a specific memory tied to that smell.
(Wayne? Garth? Tootle-oo-to, Tootle-oo-to, Tootle-oo-to, Tootle-oo-to …)
In the summer of 1985 my father and I lost my brother in Central Park on a busy weekend. I imagine my mother giving my Dad a look earlier that morning, as if to say, "you need to get these two out of the house or I'm going to lose my mind." So around eleven we got the call to get dressed, we were going to the park. You didn't have to tell us twice! Growing up in Manhattan meant that going to the park was like going to Disneyland - and going to Central Park was a surfeit of joy that we could hardly stand it. Lickety split we dressed and presented ourselves near the door, replete with our own homemade Battle of the Planets wrist communicators (made of only the finest typing paper, crayons and sello-tape, they would take on a pivotal role later).
The park was a madhouse, full of New Yorkers who'd been cooped up in their apartments all winter long and a good part of the spring. All the playgrounds were mobbed with little kids running, shouting and generally exulting in the joy of freedom (remember that feeling?). The paths were clogged with families and impromptu roller skating parties carried on waves of loud music emanating from large boom boxes. Sheep's Meadow had been taken over by picnicking immigrants probably recalling summers in their own countries. We went there first and played frisbee until we took up with a Latino family playing soccer nearby. Soon, drenched with sweat and parched we begged Dad for sodas and made our way out to the nearest path to find a vendor. I remember being desperate for a Sunkist, my favorite drink back then - which is odd to think of now since I can't stand the flavor anymore. Soon, cold sodas in hand we walked along the path people watching.
I don't know how long we walked before Dad asked me where my brother was. I shrugged and looked around to see if he was tying his shoelaces or something, but he was gone. Now for those of you who grew up in the safe middle of America I have to explain a little more about New York in the 80's: it had just come out from under bankruptcy and was battling an epic crime wave like something out of Grand Theft Auto. The nightly news was filled with arson, murder and a rash of child abductions. It was that last one that had us really worried. It was what kept my brother and I confined most of the time, and it preyed on your mind. PSA's on television reminded you all the time not to talk to strangers, not to walk around alone, to be careful, to hold your parents' hands crossing the street. It was very real and very scary. And now my brother was cut loose in it.
Here's where my memory gets hazy. I remember running with Dad, retracing our footsteps, and frantically looking. I remember telling Dad that we needed to find a policeman, the cops told us to stay put and they'd get back to us.I remember crying and bargaining with God to bring my little brother back ("is he worth eating eggplants? What can you trade God anyway?"). It felt like forever but probably about 25 minutes later a parks service Jeep rolled up. Sitting in the front seat was my brother with a policeman's hat, an ice cream cone and a book of cliches in his lap. I can only imagine that Dad was filled with relief at the site of his second son. I on the other hand was furious; here I was crying and making deals with God while that little twerp was enjoying a cold ice cream cone and getting to ride around in a police car! He smirked at me and I could have punched him just then, but instead told him how worried we'd been and how hard we'd looked for him. He told me that he could hear his "wrist communicator" (remember that?) beeping the whole time he was alone till the cops showed up. For years I thought he was just a dumb little kid who had let himself believe that a paper band around his wrist could function as a high tech communications device if you believed enough in it. I realized just the other day that he'd said that for my benefit, to make me feel better.