Uncle Richard's Greatest Hits

Me, Nana and Uncle Richard - early 1980s

My uncle Richard died this past January. 

He was the uncle that was most like a kid - in the best way.  He always had the best video games - from the very beginning.  My fondest memories are of me and him playing an auto racing game on Intellivision.  I loved playing Donkey Kong on his Coleco Vision console.  He was very good at explaining the rules, but if you chose not to follow them he'd put you in his own version of time out - it was called "get out". 

He had his own way of looking at the world, which made sense because his world was absolutely silent: 

He was deaf.

He was born deaf.  My Nana said that the doctor who delivered him was drunk (this was the 1940's in Oklahoma) and used forceps to pull him out.  In an interesting twist of fate, the doctor was killed a few years later - while he was driving drunk.

To say that Uncle Richard was pissed off about being deaf was an understatement.   As I've shared before, I was raised in church and took quite seriously, the mandate that we were to share the love of Jesus with others. 

After service, we were at my grandmother's visiting - where Uncle Richard lived his whole life.  I don't remember what I said exactly, most likely I told him that God loved him and I wanted him to go to heaven.

Did I mention that Uncle Richard could also speak some words?  I should, it's important to the story.

Uncle Richard: God...no love" (with accompanying sign language) 

Me: No, no. God loves you (with accompanying sign language)

Uncle Richard: No. Devil. Devil. Burn. Fire. Burn. (yes...with accompanying sign language).

I was 12 years old.  What in the hell to do you say to a trusted adult who is assuring you that they are going to burn in hell???

Needless to say, I just decided to hope for the best in this situation and leave the proselytizing to the experts - Jehovah's Witnesses.

As it turns out, that was the right thing to do.  My family doesn't believe in the tenets of Kingdom Hall and it's followers; however, the folks that came to the house were deaf and could speak to Uncle Richard at length...until it got to be too much even for him.

Did I mention that Uncle Richard smoked?  I should, it's important to the story.

Apparently, after several visits, the Witnesses convinced Uncle Richard to pay a visit to Kingdom Hall.  He didn't really get out much, so this was quite the deal.  

That was his first and last trip to Kingdom Hall.  

As the story goes, he pulled a Winston out of his front pocket and tried to light it up.  Quickly, he was advised that smoking was not allowed. Immediately, he was ready to leave.  Their visits tapered off after that.

I believe that Fourth of July was his favorite holiday.  When I was a kid, every 4th Uncle Richard would paint his entire face black with shoe polish and light up Mexican fire crackers and M-80s in my grandmother's backyard - giving her dog a coronary.  I'm sure that the vibrations from the explosions were tantalizing to him, but it was just so fun for me to see him excited and to hear the explosions from across the street - at my house.  He was all about safety and wouldn't let us anywhere near him when he was ready to start the show.

Uncle Richard meeting my daughter for the first time.

While I was in elementary school, every day my sister and I went to my grandparent's house - waiting for my parents to get home.  Each afternoon Uncle Richard would make me and my sister peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of Tang.  It didn't exactly start out that way. At least not with the ready made sandwiches.

Did I mention that Uncle Richard was a neat freak, borderlining on OCD?  I should, it's important to the story.

Leslye, my younger sister actually started making our sandwiches.  She wasn't doing a bad job - at least I didn't think so. Until, Uncle Richard discovered that there was peanut butter in the jelly or vice-versa.  That was just too much for him.  After that, sandwiches were made - and cut down the middle - with love...and his peace of mind, knowing that we wouldn't be touching the peanut butter and jelly any more!

Uncle Richard truly believed that he could fix anything with duct tape or electrical tape.  Some of his handiwork included:

1. Garden hoses
2. Vacuum cleaners
3. Wall outlets
4. Appliances

Honestly, we weren't even sure that that stuff needed fixing...

Uncles are such an interesting presence in your life.  Stereotypically, they show you the range of humanity:  the playboy uncle, the drunk uncle, the perverted uncle, the fun uncle, the teenager uncle, the asshole uncle and the wise uncle.  I've had some interesting uncles, for sure.  I even have a favorite uncle...but none of them could top Uncle Richard.  

He was in a class by himself. 

Five Things I'm Loving Right Now

1. This show on Showtime called Ray Donovan. It's starring Liev Schreiber as Ray Donovan. He's electric. Jon Voight is Mickey Donovan, Ray's father.  Between the story line and the Boston accents, it's just irresistible.
2. Orange is The New Black. If you don't have Netflix, this show is the reason to get it. Period.
3. The Shining Girls: A Novel - by Lauren Beukes. It's about a serial killer that can travel through time, killing women in different decades, and the one victim that survives and tracks him down. 
4. Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson.  It's a peek behind the wizard's curtain - the good, the bad, the assholish, the genius.
5. Serena (P.S.) by Ron Rash. Here's the Amazon description: The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains--but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.  My comment:  Serena's a bad-ass and a cold piece.

A Little Dylan Thomas for our week...

Happy Monday!  Here's a poem to start our week:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Dylan Thomas

The Smoking Gun

The smell of cigarette smoke always made him nauseous.  It was actually a psychosomatic response, connected to a memory so painful that it manifested physical symptoms. For for him, like with everything else, his body and mind always took it 45 degrees past the range of normal, leaving his relatives befuddled and slightly alarmed.

He can pinpoint the exact date he became allergic to cigarette smoke:  January 12, 1998.  The day his mother died of lung cancer.  His reaction to the news of her death had been visceral and gut wrenching, as was expected, but he seemed to be cryogenically secured in the anger phase of those oft quoted stages of grief.

At first, the blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of God.  If God was so omniscient, didn’t he know that mothers should not die before their sons, who are only 14 and still need them very much?  If God was so omnipotent, why did He let her die?

Time passed. The anger diverted from the heavens and made its way up Main Street, a right turn on Fern Ave, a left turn into Cloud Hills Cemetery where his mother was laid to rest. She knew that smoking was bad for her.  Her choice to keep doing it in spite of the dangers was clearly a commentary on her feelings about being his mother and her will to live, right?  Wasn’t smoking considered a slow suicide?  Then he went completely over the cliff and applied his special brand of reasoning:  then why draw out the process?  If you want to kill yourself, why not get it over with? Less fanfare and suffering, he reasoned.

Science and math had always come easy to him.  Without much effort, he won several science awards and received a chemistry scholarship to a prestigious university.  His family breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe his obsession with smoking could do some good in the world.  

He decided on a double major, biochemistry and mechanical engineering.  The knowledge he relentlessly devoured courtesy of the rigorous bachelors, masters and doctorate programs only served to weaponize his quiet rage.

The idea, like most, came quite by accident.  He’d been doodling in his notebook in the wee hours of the morning, his usual anecdote to the insomnia that had steadily plagued the hours he should’ve been sleeping.  He was known in professional circles as intense and hard working, a reputation that was of use in the scientific community.  His wee hour doodles were never related to his paid profession, but rather singularly focused.

For all his talents and high minded ideals, the full implications of his plans didn’t dawn on him until he heard the first news reports of 5 deaths in Alabama.  Then there were the teenagers in Pittsburgh, at an unchaperoned party.  The images of their young faces flashed across his television screen.  He hadn’t been looking for such stories this quickly, but apparently the turnaround on product distribution in the tobacco industry was faster than he’d imagined.

He was putting the final touches on his manifesto when more reports came in from the states of Florida, New York and New Jersey.  There were some collateral deaths from those not smoking, but standing precariously close to the offenders.  The cases in which people were consuming alcohol multiplied the effect, something he considered and dismissed.

Getting into the tobacco plants was easy enough.  The weapon, a liquid version of gun powder (his own special concoction) could be concealed without a great deal of effort and any one with access to the right computer and printer could make an ID badge.

His face carried the wounds of his past in such a way that it made people want to help him, like a child lost in the supermarket, but he didn’t need any help.  He’d already hijacked the proper codes and security information from each company’s mainframe.  The execution was flawless.  At each site, he slipped in and out unnoticed.  His ability to blend in served him well.

Only a month later, every state had been affected.  No one knew who was responsible, so the collective assumed it must be al-Qaeda. 

Then the manifesto appeared.  

It was sent in an unmarked envelope to all of the major news outlets.  A single typed sheet of paper, most of which could be boiled down to four short words:  

You smoke, you die.  

In a glass-half-full kind of way, it also included statistically sound projections of the savings that the government would gain if every American who smoked would stop.  Cigarette sales had dropped by 98%.  Convenience stores were the hardest hit, not only because of the decrease in consumer demand, but also due to emergency legislation that outlawed the sale of tobacco products within a hundred yards of a gas station or any establishment selling alcohol. 

All around him, people were talking about the domestic terrorist or the “Smoking Gun” as he was labeled in the press.  The story dominated nearly every broadcast. Even mention was made of it on Bass Masters. Psychologists and psychiatrist from all over the country pontificated ad nauseam and ad infinitum about the personality profile of the type of person who would do this.  Connections to Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski were made wholesale.  One so-called expert had the temerity to suggest that the behavior was  directly attributable to the fact that he likely wasn’t breast-fed or was potty trained at gun point.  

The bottom line was he was a sociopath they said who needed to be found and caught.  The death toll by this time, hovered around 250,000.  It was genocide, they said.  Innocent people were being incinerated in broad daylight. 

That last comment made him choke on his soup.  Their innocence was simply laughable.  For all of the warnings - that were on the product packaging no less - they just weren’t getting it.  

“It’s a choice!” He yelled at the glowing screen.

Just like his manifesto explained:  “In other situations, when foolishly ignoring blatant warnings costs someone their life, we attribute it to Darwinism.  This is no different.”

He quieted himself down and remembered it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.  The general populace was sufficiently afraid of the now immediate and tragic effects of smoking.  If there was anyone left in the country still smoking, they were relegated to the sewers and far reaching places since no one would dare get close to someone that would still light up.

His mission had been accomplished inside of 60 days. Smoking in the United States was no more.  He felt very powerful, but at the same time devastatingly alone.  He couldn’t share his success with anyone.  He was an awkward and secretive partner, unable to connect.  The one person who understood him without reservation or judgement had been dead for the last 15 years.

He earnestly thought about going public.  The authorities had absolutely no idea who was behind this.  The tobacco companies, in a joint effort, offered a $20 million reward for the capture of the person(s) responsible.  He’d become a walking, breathing lottery ticket.

If he went public, he’d surely be put to death.  His actions caused the deaths of hundred of thousands of men, women and children.  He envisioned comparisons to Hitler, who apparently thought he was doing the right thing.  Actually, that wasn’t so bad.  The bottom line was he was a threat and once the threat had been exposed and eradicated people would resume their bad habits. It was human nature.  That would mean all of his hard work was in vain.  The scientist in him considered that an unacceptable result.

There was a knock at the door.  It sounded faint at first, but became steadily louder.  It felt odd because he rarely had visitors.  He’d moved thousands of miles away from his family and the last Jehovah’s Witness that dared proselytize on his doorstep a year ago left the encounter questioning his own faith and the existence of God.

He panicked.  The voice on the other side was familiar and calling his name.  He felt a jerking sensation that began at his wrists and radiated upward.  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, hoping to calm himself down.  

He opened his eyes.

Inches away was the most angelic face, round and soft with smiling eyes.  The face spoke. 

“Jim, are you going to sleep the whole day away? We have to be at the Wilson’s party in two hours. The kids are getting ready now.”

Kids?

The force of his memory surging through his brain left him with a slight headache. 

He wasn’t a mad scientist.

He was Jim Burroughs. Married to Sarah. Father of four.

He was psychiatrist, with specialty in grief management. He  had a knack for dealing with the extreme cases.

“OK, Honey. I’m getting up.”

With that, she was satisfied.  She kissed him on the cheek and went back upstairs.

He stood up and reached for his shirt pocket, pulling out a pack of menthols.  

One quick one before the festivities, he thought.

Just as he was about to head outside, he stopped.  The dream still fresh in his mind, gave him pause.  He fast forwarded to imagined crime scene photos, his entire face decimated by the blast.  At the speed of light, he was transported to his own funeral, a closed casket his wife and children standing at the edge of his grave, sobbing uncontrollably.  Most vividly, he saw the face of his 14 year old son, Seth, his features hard as stone.

It was enough.