My Brother Before I Really Appreciated Him

My brother, Larry, wasn’t such a great student, but what he lacked in academic endeavors didn’t extend into his social life. He had girls by the carload. One day I ran across a little file box that had at least a hundred cards in it, each with a girl’s name, address, nickname, how far she would go, when she went that far, and with which one of his friends she had gone. He and his friend, Danny Cohen, seemed to outdistance their other two pals, Lenny Weinberg and Leon Klarman and Carl Eisenberg in this regard. Danny’s father was an accountant, and he wanted to be an English teacher. Lenny’s parents owned a candy store, much like ours, on the next blocks and Leon’s father had one on Broadway (four avenues away). They were quite a wild crew or so it seemed to a rather naive twelve year old.

They were definitely, for Jewish kids, a crazy bunch of guys. Lenny wasn’t all that bright and was affectionately nicknamed “The Dope.” One night, all four of them were out in Danny’s car and were pulled over by the cops when Larry leaned out the window to grab some girl. The cop, a big Irish bruiser, stormed up to the car and asked Danny, who was driving, what they had in the car. These were not the days of drugs so I guess he was looking for beer or hard liquor. Danny, smartass that he was, pointed in the back seat to Lenny, and told the cop that the “Dope” was in the back. They all wound up spread-eagled against the wall while the cops ripped the car apart looking for heroin (in those days, nobody but the ghetto kids and artistic types used marijuana or other drugs.) The guys all told this tale as though they had robbed a bank or something. I thought it was funny, but I wouldn’t realize just how funny it was until a few years later.

But as fate would have it, Larry did poorly in high school, and, pressured by our parents to continue in college, he managed to do poorly in college as well. I do remember him, however, camping by the mailbox for days when the college marks were due and substituting postcards with Bs on them for the Ds and Fs which he was really getting. This was only helpful in the short run because how was he supposed to explain to Mom and Dad why he was drummed out of school with such great marks? Shortly after his college debacle, Larry decided that the only way to get out of the house was to join the Air Force. He was successful in that regard and wound up in basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas or Florida We were only semi-close before he left and afterwards, for many years, it seemed like we were from different planets.