‘I’m Not Dead Yet!’

He wasn’t dead yet. That’s what he said as he hoisted up his body, shocking the firefighters.

They were in the apartment because of a complaint by the downstairs residents. Water was pouring through their ceiling and into their kitchen. The building landlord tried to get into the upstairs apartment, which belonged to my Uncle Larry and cousin Steven, but something was blocking the door.

When a firefighter used his shoulder to push open the door, he found that the something-blocking-the-door was my Uncle Larry, a giant Irishman of peasant stock. Six-foot-four and solid.

But he was the most soft and gentle man you could know. He’d pull me aside at the bar when I was a boy, sitting me down next to him and holding my hand, as I drank my Shirley Temple and he asked about my life. He’d been a kindergarten teacher.

But here he was, on the floor in a dead pile slumped against the door. When the firefighters slid Uncle Larry out of the way, they found a burst pipe in the kitchen shooting water into the air.

They walked into a side room and saw a man lying on the bed.

“We have another dead one in here,” shouted the firefighter to his colleagues in the other room. But that was when my cousin Steven rose, like Lazarus from the grave, propping his body up onto his elbows and looking the firefighter square in the eyes.

“I am not dead yet,” he said with all the pride he could muster.

…

My Uncle Larry took Steven in after he had tried to kill himself, although my family called it an accident. My father explained it to me like this: During a thunderstorm, cousin Steven made the dumb decision of adjusting an antenna on top of his apartment building.

He slipped and fell off the building, getting himself paralyzed.

Over time, though, I’d piece together the real story: Cousin Steven’s brother, my other cousin, Marty Joe, was in prison for sticking up a liquor store. Marty Joe was a heartthrob. The girls loved him. When my aunt was in high school she’d sell pictures of him to her girlfriends who’d hang the photos on their walls. But Marty Joe was a terrible stickup man. He robbed the liquor store and hopped on the subway, using it as a getaway car of sorts. But everyone saw him get on the subway and the cops were waiting for him at the next stop.

So, Marty Joe was now in prison.

While there, he had heard his girlfriend was cheating on him. To get even, he came up with a plan. He lied, saying he had contracted AIDS. It was the 80s, and getting the virus was a certain, excruciating death sentence. He told his brother, Steven, knowing Steven would tell his girlfriend.

But, what he didn’t know was that Steven was the one fooling around with Marty Joe’s girl.

Steven returned home in a panic, certain that his brother and he were dying. He knew that he must have contracted the virus, too. In despair, Steven threw himself from his fifth-floor apartment window, crashing down and through the beehive metal cages that bubble out from the windows below until he slammed onto the sidewalk.

Miraculously, he lived. Tragically, he was paralyzed.

He’d find out later that Marty Joe was lying. Marty Joe would later die from a drug overdose. The people who were with him didn’t want the cops in their apartment, especially considering the circumstances of Marty Joe’s death; they tossed his dead body out of the apartment window. Just like his brother Steven, he landed on the city sidewalk below.

…

That’s how Steven ended up in the care of my Uncle Larry. Larry was one of those lifelong Irish bachelors. Sort of like a priest but without the ordination. Larry took Steven in and they were a hysterical pair.

I remember wheeling Steven through the streets of Woodside, Queens, so we could get a coffee for Larry from Dunkin Donuts, but Steven stopped at the bar to have a few drinks on the way. We returned home without the coffee and Steven was pretty sloshed; I was too young to drink then.

I remember another time when Uncle Larry was driving me, my older sister, and Steven back to their apartment after a wake. Uncle Larry and Steven were up front, both pretty drunk and cursing each other out over fast-food French fries. Steven wanted to stop and Uncle Larry didn’t. Steven needed some of those salty fries and Larry saw them as disgusting.

“They’ll kill you!” he shouted in his slightly drunk voice as he maneuvered his jalopy through the city streets. “And it’s too far from the apartment.”

Steven eventually won out and we all got some French fries. In the end, Uncle Larry had to admit. The fries were a perfect ending to our night.

We headed home satisfied.

…

But back in the apartment, the firefighter was jumping back at the sight of the dead man rising. Steven, being paralyzed, was stuck in the bed after my Uncle Larry died of a massive heart attack.

Steven would tell us later that Uncle Larry was trying to fix a leaky faucet. He wasn’t much of a plumber and he caused a bigger leak. Water sprayed like a fountain onto the kitchen floor. Steven could hear Larry running around the apartment in a panic, screaming.

Then, a thud and silence.

A week or so later, after Uncle Larry’s wake, we were cleaning his apartment. Packing his things into black plastic bags, while my cousin Steven maneuvered through the tiny space in his wheelchair.

As we packed, I remembered Uncle Larry’s and cousin Steven’s arguments, especially the one that resulted in the magical fries.

In Larry’s apartment, Steven pushed his wheelchair past the plastic bags as he worked his way through the narrow hallway and tiny rooms. Rummaging through a drawer by Uncle Larry’s bed, I found a tiny notebook, leather-bound, no bigger than my palm.

Inside was Uncle Larry’s perfect script, so small I could barely read the gracefully written poems and psalms. These were Larry’s prayers to God.

I spoke them aloud, reading them slowly for everyone to hear.

Steven stopped and we listened to Uncle Larry’s voice for the last time.

We could’ve cried, but we didn’t cry then.

In the coming months, Steven would follow Uncle Larry, dying of pneumonia.

I don’t know what happened to Uncle Larry’s book of prayers.

It must have been thrown away into one of the black plastic bags because we never saw it again.

I sometimes wonder if it existed at all.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***

From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

***

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.