I had no family to help me with my father Ellie. My brother Gary was leaving for France within the next few weeks, and he made it absolutely clear that there was no chance he was going to put any time or energy into our father. In truth, over the years, they’d almost never seen eye to eye on anything. Once, when Gary was home from college, my parents hosted a Passover dinner. In attendance were my mother’s sister, Evelyn, and her husband, Harry; my maternal grandmother, Betty; and her third husband (very risqué in those days), Jack. During a discussion over dinner about the popular culture of the day (a hot-button topic in 1964), eighty year old Jack said that the Beatles were "crap."
My brother replied, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My father stepped in and said, “Apologize to your grandfather!”
Gary replied, “He’s not my grandfather.”
Ellie jumped to his feet and bellowed, “Apologize, I say!”
As my brother stood up to walk away from the table, my father took a swing at him. Gary fended it off and started backpedaling, my father in full pursuit...
“Stop!” screamed my mother, chasing after them.
“Ellie, you’ll kill
him!” yelled my aunt Evelyn, who was running behind my mother.
Gary continued backpedaling through the house and fending off the blows.
During
this insanity, while they were backpedaling, I stepped in and tried to
stop them (I was about twelve), but my father pushed me down on the
couch. “Get out of the way,” he growled.
He was busy going after bigger game.
When
things settled down a short time later, my mother and I visited Gary in
his room. He stared blankly at the wall and said, “I’m never coming
back as long as he’s here.”
Many years later, not a whole lot had changed....
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