Butch

25 years ago, death slapped me right in the face.

I don’t know how else to describe the life-changing moment when I learned that a dear friend of my family, the father of one of my best friends, had suddenly died.

His name was Thomas Guthy, but my parents and I knew him simply as Butch.

His passing was a profoundly disturbing moment in my young life. Until that time, I had only experienced the passing of people whose time had come. While their losses certainly caused great sadness, in many cases it was expected. They had lived long, full lives that had reached their natural end.

Butch was cheated. At 44 years old, he had so much more ahead of him. He had so much love to give his wife, so much more to teach his son and so much laughter to give his friends. We were all cheated.

I was nearly 14 when Butch died, and his loss affected me more than anything else up to that point. I became acutely aware of my own mortality and, more importantly, that of my parents. I was crippled by the notion that my father or mother could die, and when two more fathers died within the next two years, one as young as Butch, I was literally terrified it would happen to mine.

I can’t believe it’s been 25 years since we lost him, and now I find myself not quite as old as he was when he passed, but I can see it on the horizon. I find myself thinking about him a lot more now, and I felt it was important, especially in this year, to take a moment to remember this good man, and not just that intensely sad moment when we lost him.

Who was Butch? He was a husband and a father, a son, a brother and an uncle. He got his nickname from his trade, one he worked very hard at, one that sometimes betrayed him despite his excellence with it. To my family, for the decade that we had the pleasure to know him, he was a dear and loyal friend.

What do I remember about Butch after so much time without him? He was short and stocky, with a slight Fu Manchu style mustache, and in the years I first knew him, I was a little intimidated. While he could be soft spoken, he was not a man to be trifled with. I glimpsed him in moments of anger, like when he was mad at his son, and always knew it was time to go home when he bellowed Eddie’s name (“Ed-WARD!!!”) But in all reality, he was a pussycat to those he loved.

Butch worked hard to support his family, and wanted his son to have nothing but the best. I remember how hard he worked to please Eddie, to make his life easy, and give him the things that all young boys want.

It is true Butch intimidated me at first. One afternoon that all ended and he became the coolest Dad ever. I was watching television with Eddie (a common custom) and Butch joined us. I got a little tense, maybe thinking I didn’t belong, that I was infringing on his relaxation time. He asked me what was wrong, and told me he wasn’t going to bite. That was it. We were cool. Nobody else’s Dad assumed that level of familiarity with me, joked around with me, or made me feel as welcome.

When my parents and I moved to Mineola, the Guthys were already there. We had no friends, and there were very few young couples for my parents to associate with. When Eddie and I started school, our mothers met (how exactly I couldn’t say). They became fast friends and soon introduced our fathers, and again an instant connection was made. The Guthys were like the pied pipers of fun, and they welcomed my parents with open arms.

What do I remember most about those days? Laughter. Raucous, hysterical laughter. When our parents got together, either as a foursome, or in larger groups, that’s all I heard. When you consider they didn’t know each other all that long, it amazes me how quickly they bonded. They got along so well that we vacationed together two years in a row, and of all the trips we took with other families, those were the best.

The Guthys insisted I call them by their first names. They welcomed me into their home as frequently as I was able. They cooked meals for me, allowed me to sleep over, encouraged my friendship with their son in every way possible.

My relationship with Eddie was not as immediately wonderful as that of our parents. We were like oil and water, and while we had our good moments, in those early days, we had more bad ones. We argued. We brawled. We had two completely different sets of friends, but we had enough common interests to link us together and keep the friendship going as we matured.

As grammar school was coming to an end, Ed and I started becoming closer and seeing past our petty differences. There was something inexplicable to our relationship, but we fed off that. Our differences made us stronger. We still argued fairly frequently, but that did not define us. We were bonding over a love of just talking about anything and everything. That would carry us through the tragedy ahead.

One late June afternoon, I was watching television as my mother went about her chores. School was out, and I was learning how to use my cool new VCR that I had gotten as a graduation present. The bell rang and, after a moment, my mother emerged from the foyer, crying inconsolably. I immediately asked what was wrong.

Butch was gone. He died suddenly that morning after a massive heart attack. A dear friend of the Guthys had come to tell us the awful news. She left after a few moments, leaving my mother and me in stunned silence. It was about noon. I asked if she would call my father and she opted to wait for him to come home.

As we waited, I realized that every preconception I had about life was shattered. Some people did not live to old age. Life was not fair. In fact, it really sucked. How would I face my friend? I was 14 years old. I could barely process this information, much less be supportive of him. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. I only saw Butch a day or two before, washing his tricked out 80s van that we rode together in to Washington D.C. How could he be gone?

When my father arrived, he knew something was wrong immediately. The fact that I was downstairs with my mother and not in my room playing video games was an immediate clue. We were somber, and my mother could barely compose herself as she told him the bad news.

My father’s instant reaction was anger. All he could say was, “That is terrible,” over and over again in the tone of voice usually reserved for chastising his students. It was almost as though he was chastising God for doing something as stupid as a teen-ager would do without thinking.

We went to see the Guthys later that day. It was a surreal moment to be in a house so often filled with laughter now so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. By the time I saw my friend, he was tired of all the endless phone calls and visits from people expressing their sympathy.

The days that followed were equally surreal and equally difficult. I will never forget the principal of our grammar school, who despised Ed, trying to offer clichéd words of consolation to him at Butch’s wake. We both broke out laughing when she walked away, and it broke some of the tension.

The day after the funeral my mother asked me when she thought I would hear from Eddie. I figured maybe a month. He called the next day, and I went over, not really knowing what to expect. His mother, despite all the hell she had been through that week, put on a brave front as she slogged through paperwork and other nonsense, and appeared just as happy to see me. At the wake, she said to me, “He needs you.” I took that very seriously. In that moment, maybe I started to grow up a little.

Over the next three years, our friendship intensified to a level that I could never have envisioned. It’s not as though we talked about Butch constantly. He came up from time to time. He was a presence in that house and I never had to be shy about saying his name. Ed and I were always with each other, and while our lives were already starting to follow wildly different paths, we still had that bond of communicating about everything as mundane and superficial as movies and music, to something as profound as what the future held for both of us.

In 1987, Ed moved to Florida with his Mom and grandparents, and it was devastating for me, partially because I was losing someone so important, but also because I had so much invested in him that I had ignored other areas of my life. In the end, it had some positive value because I needed to start living my own life, instead of living vicariously through his. I started growing up when Butch passed, and I grew up even more when his son left.

Over the years we visited. Ed moved back to New York and then back to Florida. Like his father, he faced challenges and hardships in his own life, and like his father, he battled, and never gave up when it came to supporting his family. Ed grew up without a father, and lost Butch when he needed him most, but he became a son his father could be proud of, and more importantly, he became a father his father could be proud of.

If I had my way, Butch would have lived to see his grandchildren, and somehow his son would still have met and married the same girl (who he only met because he moved to Florida), and that we would have become just as close, without having Butch’s passing be the defining moment of our friendship.

Who was Butch? Butch was the guy who told my Dad he was “knocked off the throne” when a local garden center exploded in the middle of the night (they both met to see what happened at two in the morning). He was the guy who could make my mother hysterical just by looking at her. He was the Cub Scout leader and baseball coach. He was the Dad with all the cool toys. He was the guy who drove Eddie and me to a comic store ten miles away when we asked on a moment’s notice, who took us to Toys R Us and movies all the time.

Some people reading this might think it’s a bit strange for me to be writing about Butch. He wasn’t my Dad. He wasn’t my uncle. We weren’t related. All I can say is, that when you grow up the way I did, without much extended family, friends take on an entirely new meaning. The Guthys saw that and brought us, especially me, into their family.

Butch wasn’t just my friend’s Dad. He was my family’s dear friend.

I loved him, and I still miss him.

Ghosts of Christmases Past

I love Christmas and always have, but over the years it’s been for different reasons. It’s always been my favorite holiday. In fact, I love the entire season. I’m so eager for Thanksgiving to be done and bummed when New Year’s passes, and it’s all over. I love the movies. I love the decorations. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved the presents (maybe a little too much!)

I have many happy memories that emanate from the Christmas season, some that elicit laughter and tears, some that are bittersweet and poignant. It’s funny, but those memories surrounding Christmas are so potent, even the ones embedded deeply in my childhood.

In a way though, at this moment in time, I feel like Scrooge being taken on a tour of his life by the Ghost of Christmas Past. I’ve always felt a certain affinity with the old miser, and I have a tendency to project certain aspects of his personality on to my own. He hated Christmas, so it’s not like we’re identical in every way, but I have, over the years, lost a great deal of innocence, naiveté and that sense of wonder that comes with youth and every new experience.

It helps especially at this season to recall those times, both happy and sad. In those moments of reverie, I envision myself as Scrooge escorted by the Ghost, being reminded of the many blessings he enjoyed over the years, as well as the moments that caused him to turn his back on humanity, all long since forgotten. I haven’t forgotten, but as time goes on, they “recede from the view.”

I have my parents to thank for making Christmas so magical for me in the early years. I never knew at the time how much they sacrificed to make sure each holiday was special, and that anything I asked for, Santa provided.

In those early years, I would write Santa a letter and hang it on the tree on Christmas Eve. When I came downstairs the following morning, he had written me back, in red ink no less, telling me that I was a good boy and to keep up the good work. One year, he even called the house. When my mother told me who it was, I started to cry and could barely speak.

My parents never let me down on Christmas, no matter how challenging my lists were. Invariably, there would be some hard to find toy or video game that would elude them the entire season, but somehow working in concert, they managed to snag each and every one before zero hour.

Christmas Eve was always the “special time” in my household. When I was really young, it was the time Mom and Dad would give me their gifts. Christmas Day was reserved for Santa. As the years went on, and the truth behind Santa was revealed, Christmas Eve retained its importance, in favor of the next morning.

Christmas took on an entirely new significance in my late teens. My first real relationship took shape around the Christmas holidays, and in some ways, gave me an excuse to push the agenda. I remember giving my first girlfriend a card that, while explicitly saying nothing, sent a winking message that I liked her.

My favorite memory of that entire relationship occurred in front of a Christmas tree. On the day after I asked her out (an embarrassing moment I recently recounted here) she invited me to a Christmas party. Of course I agreed!

I knew no one at the party, and brought a few of my friends as back-up in case she got too preoccupied with catching up with her friends. They were an extremely friendly bunch and were very welcoming. However, as the night wore on, I felt kind of forgotten, and found myself sitting behind the tree, wondering what the hell I was doing there. I was feeling a bit paranoid too, wondering if she was really on board with this whole thing.

She came and found me, sat down next to me, and I related to her that I thought I didn’t belong there. Maybe I’m over dramatizing this moment, and maybe I’m looking at it through the gauzy haze of an idealized past, but what she did next made me simply melt. She looked at me, not with a smile, but a very thoughtful glance, and held my hand. How long we sat there not speaking I can’t say, but it was a watershed moment for me, one that spoke volumes without uttering a sound.

The scene changed though, and I found myself, Ebenezer like, viewing the next Christmas with her. She presented me with an album that recounted the entire last year’s milestones and again, I melt. As quickly as that fades, I find myself in the exact same spot the following year, essentially telling her I can no longer be a part of her life. In the space of three Christmases, I felt as though I lived a lifetime.

Christmas didn’t play a major role in my next relationship, although it lasted four years. I did get the boot though, right before Christmas, and I spent the holidays that year in a miserable fog, and could barely muster the strength to pretend I was enjoying the proceedings. I have to credit my parents for holding me up during that time, and their gentle patience with my morose state.

My future wife and I got engaged before our first Christmas, and that certainly took the heat off what to get her as a gift - she already had a ring! It was a wonderful experience bringing her around to friends and family that year as my fiancée.

Our first Christmas as a married couple brought with it the simple joys of preparing our first holiday together. She pulled out all the stops, decorating our modest apartment beautifully. I’ll also never forget the sight of our cat tangled up in a mass of lights and garland, screeching for dear life.

Much to her chagrin, my wife started a tradition that year with buying me ornaments particular to my tastes, like Star Trek, superheroes and the like. We got a little “Charlie Brown” tree for me to put them on, as they were not allowed on the main tree (of course!) Over the last decade, the Charlie Brown tree has grown to a six-footer, entirely populated by the heroes of my youth!

For a time, we had two trees, but eventually my wife tired of the experience, and gave hers up, in favor of keeping me happy with mine, and it remains the family tree.

The holidays consistently stir up all these memories for me. I’ve held one personal tradition for at least the last ten years or so, and that’s watching Alastair Sim’s version of “A Chistmas Carol,” precisely around the time Jacob Marley visits him. I see it as a cautionary tale, not to let myself be overcome by my general lack of faith in humanity, and recall in my own mind, all the happy and sad moments that informed who I have become, and be grateful for all of them.

On a larger scale, I’ve been on a sentimental journey this entire year. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I’m grateful I’ve had the opportunity to make peace with all these disparate memories using this blog as a tool. Merry Christmas!

Terminally Shy

When he was courting his beloved Adrian, my hero Rocky told her she suffered from “the disease of being shy.” So did Rocky, which made their love story that much more endearing. Here were two lost souls, battered by their lives, and their inability to connect with other people, finding each other after they had lost all hope. “Rocky” is my favorite film of all time for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the love story, which always warms my terminally cranky heart.

I suppose I relate so well to that aspect of the story because I suffered from “terminal shyness,” and it was never more apparent than in my early dealings with the opposite sex. I’m so far removed from that time in my life it’s easy to dispense advice to others in the same boat. I empathize with them, but sometimes have to struggle to remember how crippling it was for me those many years ago.

I’m told that I was a wild, rambunctious baby, a kid who had no qualms about introducing myself to adults, showing up at neighbor’s houses looking to be entertained, or calling them by their first names! I was an only child and when I was three, my parents moved to a block filled with retirees. In essence, they became my playmates.

I endeared myself to one family in particular, a sixty-ish couple and their adult son. The father and his son raced stock cars and were always in their driveway tinkering with their rides. I would just zoom on over on my Big Wheel and hang out. My mother was mortified, but they let me stay, and it blossomed into a great friendship with both men. I doubt in today’s suspicious climate such a relationship would ever be forged.

In any case, my ease with adults did not translate into a comfortable rapport with my peers. I’ve written before how I loved being an only child, and I stand by that. However, this is one instance where I think it hindered my development in some respects, and affected me for the rest of my life.

When I entered Pre-K and Kindergarten I was completely terrified. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, how to act. I over thought everything, even as a five-year old. When I started grade school, I did manage to connect with other kids of like persuasions, but my nature would guarantee that I would never be one of the cool kids. I was hardly a social misfit – I was simply paralyzed with fear.

Here’s an often repeated story from those days that has since become legend. During the first week of grammar school, I sat in the schoolyard by myself, on my Marvel Super Heroes lunchbox, just watching the other kids playfully run around like lunatics. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a boy with the same lunchbox. For days I observed him, and thought we might have something in common. Of course, I wasn’t about to talk to him!

After maybe a week, he introduced himself and I was probably not that forthcoming. Knowing me, I was probably downright mute. Still, he took a step I could not, and to make a long story short, we’ve been friends for 32 years. He was best man at my wedding and I’m godfather to one of his daughters.

As the joys of puberty unfolded, I was keenly aware of how devastating my shyness would be when it came to matters of the heart. When it came time to pick a high school, I went with an all-boys school to completely avoid the issue, knowing full well it would likely retard my development in that arena, but such was my mania.

Shortly before high school ended, at the behest of my friends, I took a job at a local public library. I should mention that one of my closest friends, someone who was my polar opposite, had recently moved away. He had no problems dealing with the opposite sex. He was a little too good with the ladies, and it eventually caught up to him.

Anyway, I was thrust into a truly co-ed world for the first time in four years, and as predicted, completely ill-equipped to handle what lay before me. When I recall that first year and all the embarrassing missteps I made, I cringe, not the least of which was asking out my first girlfriend.

Prior to meeting her, I’d blundered around with two other girls, but neither situation truly meant anything to me. I was just determined to kick start my social life, despite the shyness gene hindering me at every step.

Prior to my realizing how much I liked this girl I had an easy rapport with her, filled with sarcastic banter and teasing. When it hit me that I actually felt something for her, I instantly became paralyzed.

It’s impossible to convey to someone who doesn’t feel this way just how crippling shyness and insecurity can be. You’re almost willing to let something potentially wonderful go by the boards for fear of humiliating yourself, especially if you’re colleagues of some kind, or part of the same social circle.

If you meet someone on a blind date or through Match or one of those websites, it’s much easier to laugh off a bad experience, but when you fall for someone who’s already part of your life in some form or fashion, how much more difficult is it then to summon the courage to push it to the next level? The thought of still interacting with them following a rejection is horrible.

I concocted a bizarre and in retrospect, humiliating (both for me and for her) plan for asking this girl out. I asked my good friend Mr. Lunchbox to “feel her out” on the topic of going out with me. Even writing the words is embarrassing 20 years after the fact!

He did, and it almost completely backfired because she took this to mean it was someone else’s idea and that I was being goaded into it. When he reported back to me, I felt like a gargantuan jackass, and knew I had to immediately say something to repair the damage. The next day I did, and it was perhaps the most embarrassing, awkward, tongue-tied moment of my life to that point.

Somehow, I convinced her that the notion of going out was my idea and not his. God only knows what was going through her mind – I can’t imagine she envisioned this as the ideal start to a relationship. Very quickly, I think she had the sense that I was simply terrified. Maybe that was endearing to some small degree. Without overplaying her hand, she let me know she was on the same page and it made those first two weeks much easier.

Shyness and insecurity aren’t just crippling at the beginning of a relationship! That was just the first hurdle I had to clear. As the relationship intensified it became more problematic. If at any moment I put myself out there on an “emotional limb” so to speak, and was met with a less than enthusiastic response, I was like a turtle going back into my shell for months at a time. If she didn’t say something after that, then nothing would be said.

It’s not fun being this way. It can give a partner a completely false impression of what is going on. If you’re fortunate enough to be with someone you care about, you become so afraid of ruining a good thing that you’re afraid to take risks, of pushing the envelope, of saying something that might upset them. It’s terrible.

For example, if my girlfriend was upset for some reason, I immediately assumed it was my fault. It could’ve been a fight with her mother, a bad day at school, whatever. To my mind, it was my fault. So I tread very lightly for fear that I might be on the chopping block. More often than not, it wasn’t my fault.

Over time I got better at reading her, but I still never pushed the envelope. It had to be frustrating to deal with someone who just refused to open up. I was a great talker and would talk about anything under the sun, except myself and how I felt. When the relationship was in its end stages, and she wanted to discuss her vision for the future, I completely clammed up.

I figured anything I said would hasten the end, and selfishly wanted to squeeze in as much “good time” with her as possible. It was far from a healthy situation. I was happy when she was preoccupied with other matters and needed my counsel, but as soon as she turned her eye towards us, I utterly refused to deal with it. Shyness translates to insecurity and insecurity begets silence.

The relationship ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, with my spending the last six months of it completely closed off to her. What was the point of sharing my feelings of anger, bitterness, jealousy and resentment over the situation? I could’ve at least been honest.

She confronted me at my job and like a cornered animal I unloaded it all on her, knowing I had nothing to lose. But how sad is it that I felt like I could only be totally truthful at a moment like that? It would have made no difference in the ultimate outcome, but she was always honest with me.

Now here’s the moment where I learn my lesson, right? Where all the mistakes of the prior relationship inform my behavior for the next one and I grow as a human being, right? Nope, back to square one.

As one relationship ended, another was beginning. This girl was a hundred times more obvious about how she felt. Yet I managed to completely convince myself she was just really nice. All the while, my friends wanted to smack me. When it finally came time to ask her out, I concocted another face saving plan, not quite as embarrassing as the first, but still pathetic.

I decided I would ask her out with a big group of us to see if she’d say yes to that. This girl literally followed me around and yet I still had doubts! When I asked her, she seemed taken aback, and wasn’t nearly as happy since it was a “group thing.” It turned out she had legitimate plans and couldn’t come. That was all I needed to give up.

To her credit, she pursued the question and stressed she’d be happy to come another time. The following week, I clumsily asked again, and she made a subtle point of asking if it would just be us, and I responded in the affirmative. I caught a very subtle smile from her as she walked away.

Now this relationship was nothing like the first, except for the fact I was still me. Was I still insecure? Sure. I was dealing with a much younger girl in her first relationship, and I walked on eggshells at every turn, to the extent that she probably wondered if I was truly interested. I was terrified I would damage her in some way that I would get too emotional too quickly, as I did the first time.

Turns out, she was waiting impatiently for all that to start, and despite being incredibly shy too, she took the bull by the horns. For a long time after that, everything was cool. The truly sad part is this person was crippled by her insecurities in the beginning, and made a concerted effort to overcome them. Eventually, she surpassed me in her ability to communicate, and I knew I was done.

As before, I refused to deal with the problems we faced, and the vast chasm between our desires for the future, just figuring maybe they would go away or work themselves out. I acted so shocked when I finally got the boot.

After six years of this stuff, I came to a realization about myself. The shyness and the insecurity are intertwined in a complex web that has its roots in my early life, and those roots run deep. I have a great facility for communicating and that attracts people to me, but when it’s about me and the least bit threatening, I don’t want to discuss it, ever, with anyone.

(And yet you write about it!! I never said I made sense.)

Funnily enough, when I met my future wife, I was completely at ease with the situation because (and I hate the way this sounds) I simply didn’t care. Prior to meeting her, I experienced a less than stellar blind date, so I put no stock in the notion I would meet anyone of any significance when I was hoodwinked into it a second time. So, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t hampered by my shyness. Being so completely at ease with things was a new feeling for me and I suppose things progressed rapidly as a result.

Now comes the part where I proudly explain how this lifetime of self-awareness has gelled into not only a greater understanding of who I am, spawning all sorts of positive new behaviors. Nope.

I’m sorry to report I haven’t changed in the least bit. In reality, I don’t think any of us have the capacity for true change. There’s room for compromise, but intrinsically we are who we are. I look at my parents, who I love dearly, and they are no different than who they were 30 years ago, not in the slightest. My dearest friends, who have been with me for decades, are who they always were, only older and more set in their ways.

I know exactly how it feels when people tell me they wish others would take the first step because I remember how torturous it was for me (and this really crosses gender lines – guys and girls experience it in equal measure). It really pisses me off when people tell others to just do it. I try to be encouraging, yet will always acknowledge the difficulty involved.

When you’re removed from a situation and have no emotional stake in it, it’s so much easier to see what’s going on. That’s the position I find myself in now, and I smile when things go well for those who are like me because they possess none of the hubris or arrogance that comes with overconfidence and their appreciation for it is magnified exponentially.

As for me, I’m at peace with it. Hopefully, it won’t bite me in the ass again. But with my luck…