I grew up in a large, dysfunctional family. The oldest of five kids was our brother Rupert. We all called him Rupe though it was Poopert or Poop when we were being obnoxious little shits.
The main source of our dysfunction was our dad. He had serious narcissistic tendencies and unreachable expectations. My brother caught the worst of it being the only son.
When I was a kid my brother seemed larger than life. He grew into a tall, blonde guy with a deep bass voice. He had a gentle presence that was a contradiction to his big, scruffy appearance. In rare moments, I caught glimpses in his eyes of the pain, overwhelm, and confusion when life dished out some harshness.
When our parents divorced my mom moved to a snobby town where none of us belonged. Because the house she bought didn’t have enough bedrooms Rupe lived in the attic and the finished basement section. It didn’t seem to faze him too much because he was an amenable kind of guy.
He had a close-knit group of friends. All of them were goofy, sweet misfits. Chris DeMonte was his best friend and a complete bonehead. I remember when Chris busted his two front teeth out popping a wheelie on his motorcycle trying to impress some chick. He also crashed it into the U.S. mailbox on the corner of our lot in the middle of a snowstorm and my mom rescued him before the cops showed up. Another pal was Bill Berg, a big doufus with a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon. He loved hanging out at our house. Our mom welcomed them all as adopted sons. So many close friends, so many shenanigans. I envied my brother’s ability to make and maintain such close friendships.
Rupe started smoking weed as a teen and dabbled in selling dime bags to his buddies while partaking in his product. Those high times produced inebriated, inspirational moments of questionable genius… like taking a parachute out into a hurricane and trying to skateboard in the park. He almost broke both legs when he hit a park bench at god knows what speed. One time he put our big, black Newfoundland dog Charcoal on skis and sent her down a snowy slope. Charcoal was part of his basement gang. He and his buddies would get high down there and do stupid shit like put peas in her nose and try to get her to shoot them out.
I remember when he brought home a big station wagon. He pulled it into the driveway with all his buddies in tow. I came outside just as he grabbed a sledgehammer from the garage and with one swing took out the passenger window. “What are you doing?!”, I yelled. “Prepping for a smash-up derby!”, he replied. “Wanna take a swing?” I took the sledgehammer and swung at the windshield. It boomed as cracks spidered across it like chain lightning. After that one swing, I understood their excitement. They knocked out all the windows and spray-painted the entire car in skulls and stripes.
He drove that behemoth in reverse in the smash-up derby until it looked like a Gremlin. I thanked God he didn’t die in that stupid derby… because it was almost a guarantee that he was high when he drove it.
Rupe had an old beat-up Ford Scout that he drove around town. One day he decided he wanted a convertible. Buy one? Hell no! He and his friends took a chainsaw and sawed off the roof of the Scout. Voila! A convertible!
Their antics were endless. Most of it was ridiculous fun. A lot was sheer idiocy… and yet, at its core, the innocence of emotionally stunted young men.
As time passed Rupe changed. He switched from weed to alcohol. Bouts of depression broke through the now thin layer of humor. I began to privately refer to him as the pregnant giraffe because he had a big beer belly to go with his height. He was slowly drowning.
I didn’t see most of his decline because I had escaped and rarely came home. I called one day and he answered the phone. Though he was the oldest of us all he was still living at home after one, short-lived failed attempt at leaving.
I told him I was moving to New York City. As we were talking he told me he wished he could be like me and find a way out. Hearing that broke my heart because I could not save him. The only pathway he could tread was oblivion and alcohol was his vehicle. He tried to get sober and joined AA after I moved away.
My brother died of a heroin overdose at the age of 33. In his efforts to stay on the wagon and not drink, he had found another way to numb his pain.
Bastille has a song called Oblivion. The writer, Dan Smith, says it’s about inebriated escape. One person is passed out and the other cannot follow them into oblivion no matter how much they might want to.
One of the chorus lines in is, “Are you going to age with grace?” Whenever I hear it I think, “No Rupe, you’re not going to age with me.” I know the line isn’t about me… it’s just what I hear. I can only share my brother through the narrow and sometimes self-absorbed lens of my experience of him. I hear it and I miss him terribly.
My brother was a man filled with empathy. We only found out just how much after his death when his friends gathered to share stories. They told of how he brought ice cream to some elderly guy every week simply because the guy couldn’t drive. Or the time he was crawfishing with a buddy and since they passed their limit Rupe didn’t want to ruin his friend’s jubilation at their success so he kept sneak-tossing them overboard so his friend could keep fishing.
My brother’s short life was filled with countless acts of kindness and generosity that he never spoke of. He was unstinting in his love for his friends and those in need. Despite his inability to survive his inner demons, Rupe Getzen was able to tap into a limitless reservoir of love for those whose lives he touched.
No, he didn’t age… but he did live with grace.
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This post was previously published on Grace Getzen – Connection Creatrix.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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