(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll
call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his
legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )
(below: Tom was 14 years old in this picture - I think he looks a bit like Lou Reed here)
FRIENDSHIP
I knew of a few friends he’d had, starting with
childhood. Douglas (Doug)
Schneyman was a kid from a few blocks away who also went to Saint Anastasia’s
school. Doug was also a smart kid,
tall, skinny, bespectacled. In the
modern parlance, you’d call him “nerdy,” as was my brother Tommy, I
suppose.
Something about Doug was very likable; he seemed to
understand that Tom was very different, but still liked him and tolerated a lot
of little odd things about him.
I’d look at his face when they were together, and a patient, bemused look seemed to play on Doug’s face when he was around Tommy. I know this because Doug’s sister,
Judy, was my best friend at the time, and we spent time together playing in the
same house (usually the Schneyman’s house, a large Tudor/mock castle on Alameda
Avenue, a cold and formal place that invariably smelled like scrambled eggs and
ketchup).
Let’s face it, except for my younger sister & brother,
Carrie & Mark, our family was half made up of eccentrics: mom, Tom, &
me -- you could definitely see there wasn’t a screw loose but we were
“different.” Mom and I were what I
call functional eccentrics (“efficient eccentrics” -- we get the job at hand
done, come what may). On the other
hand, Dad, Carrie, and Mark were smart, people-savvy, “popular” types. They carried a mirthful side, a quiet
confidence. You could tell they
liked being around others, and other people enjoyed their company. They acted almost conspiratorial in
those delicate situations, winking at the thief and smiling at the dame to
quote William Blake. . . when young, I’d run for the hills and tune out when
similarly exposed. I guess I’m
better with people now. . . I know how to be “lighter,” though the intensity
hasn’t gone.
So, there was
Doug Schneyman, Tommy’s first good friend. Then, as a teenager, Tom had a shy, cute friend with long,
shaggy hair named David DuBrule, with whom I flirted shamelessly and had a
fling. I couldn’t help myself,
being an excitable teenage girl. . .
I don’t know about friends in between, but the last good
friend Tom had was named Frank, and he was a parishioner of Tom’s Church, Saint
Thomas the Apostle, and the editor of the church newsletter. A fellow poet and devout Catholic like
Tom, Frank was a mysterious man, a name only to Carrie & me (Tom talked a
bit about people in his life when we occasionally saw him, and I didn’t know
what to think about this “Frank” character).
True to his nature, Tom would crave friendship and love, go
out and seek it: at church, at his group home recreational functions, even in
the Village. Tom liked to hang out
in Greenwich Village, between 6th Avenue and LaGuardia Place, West 4th
Street and Houston. Interesting
that he never visited me (I lived a half block away, on Thompson Street between
Houston and Prince), but that’s beside the point. Perhaps he “haunted” these places more than would hang out.
. . Carrie and I heard Tommy say he liked to go to Washington Square Park, and
to the Back Fence and some other hangouts in the Village (the touristy, NYU
village), and he’d make friends there.
I’d scoff to myself -- never to him, not to hurt his feelings --
“friends”! I’ll bet they let him
buy them drinks and talk a blue streak, not making sense necessarily, laughing
privately to himself, not able to drink because of the massive doses of
antipsychotic medications, Stelazine etc.
Being diabetic, too, made Tom only able to drink diet sodas and the
like.
Anyway. Tom
would cultivate friendships for a few weeks or months -- then tear them
apart. He’d go in cycles. Same with his relationship with his
family: we’d be in, then we’d be out.
After a while, I didn’t want to take part in the paranoid “one week in,
one week out” game he always played.
So I stopped talking to him for months, years at a
time. When mom died, Carrie was
named co-trustee to a small nestegg of a trust that mom left Tom. Carrie became his friend, confidante,
and bitter enemy when he was on the outs with the universe. Carrie became my hero, doing something
I never thought I could do: love him unconditionally and weather his raging
storms. She is still my hero.
At the funeral home, our sister, Carrie, cried the hardest
and longest over him just before they moved the coffin out to go to the funeral
service.
