What I Do and Do Not Remember

I remember sleepovers at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I remember being given warm milk just prior to bed, because New York City was an ugly place back in the 80’s, and the chemicals in warm milk help a child sleep through the crack-heads blasting boom boxes and the gunshots splitting the night air. Indeed, I have no recollection of such things. I distinctly remember the big, white bathtub in my Aunt’s bathroom. I remember the low frequency buzz I encountered when I filled it to the top and plunged my head under water. What was that noise? And why could I only hear it when under water? I imagined that as the lights of this vast metropolis were ignited, their tiny filaments would vibrate and give off, in addition to the light, a practically inaudible sound. The massive network of copper pipes in the city’s sewer system, then, would harness all of the little tiny sounds and would, for some unknown reason, conduct them up to this eighth floor apartment, where, with the aid of my water-and-cast-iron-bathtub-receiver, I could go under and listen to my city burn. And glow.

I also remember being happy for the smell of hotdogs in the morning, back before I knew what hotdogs were made of, or cared, back when I would cover everything on my plate in ketchup.

I remember those pink strawberry frosted donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts as belonging to my childhood.

I remember walking upside down on my hands at recess and that one time I fell off the monkey bars and bumped my head. I had heard sports announcers talking about concussions, and I wondered if I had one. Because they never described what one feels like, I couldn’t be sure.

I remember when it was my turn to go up to the second floor kitchen with my nursery school teacher to help make the Kool-Aid. I remember how seriously I took the whole endeavor, how I believed all my fellow students were counting on me to mix it just right, and I remember my teacher lauding my industriousness. I’ve never again felt so self-important. I remember a little Asian girl asking me to marry her, but I can’t remember if I did.

I remember my kindergarten teacher telling us that she had just recovered from several months of blindness after a child hit her in the eye with a block. I remember her shoulder length blonde hair and the way she walked.

I remember my mother’s earnest attempt to teach me how to read 48 hours before my first day of school, so that everyone wouldn’t think I was dumb. I remember that I was then left back in first grade, if only for a day, after receiving straight F’s, at least until the school fixed its clerical error. My mother’s disgrace was only temporary compared to some other mother, who was told that her son’s A’s were actually F’s. And think of the boy, too, his unbridled joy, seeing all of those A’s on his report card, like some miracle brought to life. A Christmas in June.

I remember a Japanese friend named Mitoki in first grade. I remember that his mom made me take off my shoes when I went over to his house. I also remember that he had the neatest house you’ll ever see, which we promptly demolished during an indoor Easter Egg hunt. And I remember the perverse pleasure it gave me, at least to the extent that an eight year old can feel such a thing.

I remember that up to a certain point in elementary school, girls were just these relatively tall people that couldn’t throw a ball very well. I remember the girl in 4th grade that changed that. And I remember when, in sixth grade, I developed my first real crush on a girl, who, interestingly enough, could throw quite well, and who would teach me what it felt like to be reduced to a babbling mess, to be wholly uninteresting in another person’s eyes, and for that not to make one difference.

I remember the blue ring around my god-father’s dark brown irises. When he touched my head, they gave me his name, and told me that I would come to bare his character. I remember how they spoke of him like some hero out of a children’s book, and I wondered how I could live up to that. I still do.

I remember my mom’s eldest brother, how he was tall and sinewy, how he taught me the art of catching butterflies, fireflies, and dragonflies, all kinds of flies really, and how he taught me to swim, if only well enough not to die. We knew, I suspect, that he, for his part, would die soon, but I remember how it crushed my mother. It may have crushed her more than when her own parents, in turn, passed away. Perhaps because his death was first. Or perhaps because it was too early. Or perhaps because she knew that they would have to bury him and that there are few greater injustices in this world than for a parent to bury a child. For my part, I was relatively unaffected by the death of my grandparents, because I did not know them very well. My greatest sadness in the matter was when my mother told me that my dad, ever the stoic, upon receiving news of his mother’s passing, himself wept. Lessons of loss, to this point, I suppose, have been learned vicariously.

I remember the green grass at Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows. I remember how I’d wear my mitt for all nine innings, hoping to catch a fly ball. This, despite the fact that we were so far up in the upper deck that even Casey himself could not reach us, not even with the benefit of two swings of his Mighty bat. I remember my mom, bless her heart, becoming a Met fan to connect with her son. And I remember penciling in the box score to show her when she returned from work. When I went off to college, she predictably stopped following baseball altogether, but every once in awhile, an old neuron will shake off the dust and fire, and she’ll ask me; “So, how are the Mets doing?” And just like that, it’s 1988 again. And one of these days, I suppose, they’ll win it all. And I’ll call my mom and tell her that we finally did it. The New York Metropolitans. My mother and I. World Champions.

I remember the hot July sun and how sometimes, as if for no reason at all, and without a single cloud in the sky, the rains would mysteriously begin to fall and just as suddenly stop. It was as if someone had nodded off at the control center, if only for a minute.

I remember the smell of snow in the New York air on the afternoon the trade towers were first bombed. My junior high school principle allowed us to go home early.

I remember that beautiful spring afternoon in college, when my favorite philosophy professor announced to the class that a kid in our class, the night previous, had taken his own life. I always wondered if things would have gone differently if, a week prior, when I had seen him at the gas station he worked at, I had told him that of all the kids in that class, he was the only one that I thought ‘got it’ better than I did, that I valued the contributions he made to class, and that one day I hope to be as well-read as him. I remember really feeling that way about him. And I remember, after receiving the news of his passing, wondering the implications of those facts. I cannot remember the kid's name, but I distinctly remember the way he pronounced the name Jean-Paul Sartre.

I remember my small victories on the athletic field much more so than my larger victories in academic arenas. I remember my one and only time on the all-star team in little league. I didn’t have a hit, but I did make a sparkling diving catch to my left from shortstop. It almost made me feel like I belonged there. I remember being on the mound and striking out the last batter in our junior high school championship game. And I remember throwing my mitt skyward, like I had seen on TV, which is the way that I perhaps even rehearsed it in my head, as though I had been waiting for such a moment all my young life, the way a caterpillar might daydream of what it must feel like to fly.

I remember getting a pencil tip stuck in my knee. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, because most American pencil manufacturers, by that time, had made the switch from dangerous lead cores to innocuous graphite cores, which would have been all these was to tell, except that we purchased these pencils from an airport in Munich. As a result, there was some concern over whether or not I would make it. My mom, who was then a nurse, and my brother, who would grow up to be a doctor of some renown, performed their first surgery together and extracted the lead tip without having to amputate my leg. They would perform their second surgery together a few weeks later when a black ant somehow managed to bury his head in that same knee. I survived; the ant did not.

I remember family trips to Niagra Falls, Hershey Park, Boston, and Disney World. I remember wanting to go over the Falls in a barrel. I remember eating so much chocolate I became sick. I remember getting caught in a blizzard so bad that we could not see but a foot in front of the windshield. Suddenly, on an otherwise unassuming winter afternoon in New England, our automobile seemed thrust into the perpetual battle between the iridescent and the monochromatic, itself an allegory for Good and Evil, and surely we were doomed, until Spring arrived, as it always does, just in time, to save us. But Spring, herself appearing to have a flair for the dramatic, waits patiently, or doesn't it seem, just long enough for the audience to begin to doubt whether or not She'll make it this time, to question whether or not this Winter will be the one that lasts forever. But I remember that snowy afternoon, before things got better, and how brilliant the inside of the 1988 Toyota Camry looked in a world that had become an overexposed negative. I remember eating dinner in a Princess’ Castle. I remember the weight and immensity of that over-sized wooden goblet, which my seven year old arms steadily tried to touch to my lips.

I do not remember having gotten old. Still, somehow, I can remember an entire lifetime. But this is enough. For now.