My Brother, Eddie

To change the shade of gray, one simply alters the ratio of black to white. My childhood was similar because it too was a mixture…of good and bad, with a little too much bad. Oh sure, I performed a few good deeds, but for some reason they simply aren’t as memorable as my screw-ups are. That is where Eddie comes in.

Actually, Eddie was not my brother, but he should have been. In many ways we were closer than most real brothers. When we first met, I was nine and my life-long pal was seven and a half (when you’re a kid, a half-year seems significant, you know) Ike was President at the time and life was simpler then, but mischievous boys have no problem finding ways to keep their lives interesting, even in simpler times.

I thank God I met Eddie. He was an island of sanity amid a sea of madness. His sister, Donna Mae and my new step-sister, Sarah, were best of friends for years before my mom and step-dad merged their two families together. There were no other boys in either of the families…just girls. GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS!!!

It was inevitable that they introduced Eddie and me. Predictably, we hit it off right away.

Eddie was totally unique. To this day, I have never met a youngster like him. For one thing, he started smoking when he was just four years old. Most adults smoked at the time and some of them thought it was cute to have Eddie light their cigarettes. He was happy to oblige.

As you would imagine, Eddie and I were always trying to get away from all our sisters. It was a survival strategy. This mutual need to escape would spawn a few adventures that would rival those of Sinbad.

Several nights a week, Eddie and I walked arm-in arm, via a secret route, to the local shopping center, just to hang out. Young lads can gain lots of wisdom cutting through yards, strolling down alleyways and passing by government housing. We learned a lot more by cruising the dark underbelly of the city than we did playing hide and seek in the well-lighted streets with our sisters. Sometimes our new wisdom was gathered by unseemly means.

For instance, there were all those pissing contests. Were they really a good idea? It sure seemed perfectly natural to us. We had powerful bladders and constantly sought opportunities to discover who could out-wiz the other. We particularly liked peeing over viaducts on cars as they passed underneath. But we didn’t really need moving targets. Sometimes we just drew a line in the dirt and had a spontaneous contest to see who could pee the farthest, the longest or the fastest. I imagined that I peed outdoors at least twice a day during those years. Yes sir, two young boys can learn lots in the alleys, like how much fun you can have just going to the bathroom

Perhaps my most vivid memories from the alleys have to do with Eddie’s dog, Nichols. Nichols was always getting into trouble. A long-haired 60 pound black and white mutt, Nichols knew it was his job to watch out for us. In fact he saved us from attacks by other dogs several times.

Dog fights are super-exciting when you’re a kid. I don’t remember Nick ever losing a fight, although it was very close one time. The day he met his match, he nearly lost his ear in a thrilling blood-fest with a huge German Sheppard. The incredible brawl must have lasted 5 minutes.

The Sheppard outweighed Nick by at least 15 pounds. Although Nick was out-classed, he made up for it with experience and spirit. Eddie’s dog fought with the tenacity of a crazed pit-bull. Each canine snarled and took a stance, half-cocked and ready to spring into the flesh of the other. Within an instant they were standing on their hind legs, face to face, growling, twisting and dancing, biting and cutting each other over and over, willing to fight to the death. The vicious battle persisted until there was blood everywhere. Each fighter took turns ripping into the other, seeking the ultimate victory, which could only be secured by gaining a split-second access to his rival’s throat.

Eventually, they just wore out and the contest ended. Any impartial observer would declare it a draw. Both animals were winners although it looked as if they were each losers. What a thriller. Eddie beamed with pride as his shaggy-haired mutt, his right ear half-hanging from his blood-soaked and saliva-drenched head, limped up the alley with us. Nichols truly performed like a gallant gladiator that day, protecting us from the threat of a much more powerful animal. Nichols was tough. He was a great protector and a fabulous fighter. Nichols was cool.

Sometimes Eddie and I did our bonding outside the alley, like the time his father passed away. Eddie was nine years old. Harold was the first person I knew who died. He was a cross-country truck driver so Eddie didn’t get to be with him much, but like most young boys, Eddie idolized his dad.
After the death, Eddie’s mom, Francis, was forced to go to work to support Donna Mae, Eddie and herself. It was not easy. Women didn’t have very many options then. Francis had to work in an assembly line for a meager salary. It is amazing that she was able to provide for them at all. I guess adversity draws the best out of some people…like Francis. At any rate, after the loss of Eddie’s father, everything got harder for all of them.

When Plato said, “Necessity is the mother of invention” he must have been anticipating Eddie’s new-found financial hardship. We were too young to get jobs and most of our neighbors were too poor to pay us to do chores, so when we wanted money, we had to tax our active imaginations.

Any financial advisor would tell you, if you can invest your money and enjoy an instant ten-fold return, you have stumbled upon a gold mine, and we did just that. Eddie figured out that if he used the coarse cement of the sidewalk as sandpaper, we could rub off the rim of a penny and the resulting coin would be very close to the same size and weight of a dime. That new copper-dime worked perfectly in the vending machines of the era. I bet we bought two-hundred cokes that way.

One of our other money-making enterprises was much bolder and way more successful. I hope God subscribes to the philosophy. “Boys will be boys” because we really need him to forgive us for this one.

There was a Mormon church within walking distance of our home. It had a great gymnasium and most nights there were basketball games played there. There were no lockers in the locker room, but there were hooks provided on which players hung their street clothes while they were busy playing their games. What a bonanza.

On selected nights, usually busy weekends, we took our basketball down to the gym, but not to play basketball. The ball was merely a tool for our scheme.
Once the players were preoccupied by the contest, I would serve as lookout outside the locker room bouncing the ball. Meanwhile Eddie would inspect the wallets in the pants hanging on the hooks. A quick inventory of our victim’s resources would tell us if he was poor like us, in which case we left his money alone: but, if he had a sufficient wad, we would accept “donations” of five or ten bucks.

If anyone approached, I simply bounced the basketball up against the locker room door and Eddie knew to cool it. It was a simple but brilliant plan that worked over and over again. Some nights we tapped several wallets and “found” twenty dollars or more to spend at the shopping center. Naturally, now I realize this entire money-generating scheme was sleazy, but at the time, we felt like Robinhood – stealing from the rich and giving to the poor – us.

The Fire Department had their hands full dealing with our misdeeds too. One time, the drought-like conditions of the summer made the field near Eddie’s home especially vulnerable to our not-so-harmless pranks. We took turns shooting lit matches at each other. After the target person dodged the little flying flame, naturally it would hit the ground. Then we allowed the weeds to catch fire and let the fire grow as big as we dared then put the fire out by any means necessary.

As you undoubtedly already know, one time we went too far and a raging weed fire ensued. Several fire trucks and about 20 firemen were called in. Several neighbors suspected we were to blame, but we never did get caught.

There are many other stories I could tell you about my brother Eddie and me, each one as mischievous as the ones I have mentioned here, but a quick overview of some of the ones that took place before we were old enough to drive should suffice to make the point. Some of them include drag racing a GTO; discovering our first girl friends; stealing coins from the fountains in downtown Denver; getting drunk; selling cigarettes door to door; sneaking out at night; street fights; girly magazines in the crawl space beneath his home; sneaking on the ski-train to Winter Park and into movie theaters; a Saturday that we walked to Red Rocks Park and hitchhiked home; stealing beer; spying on nudists; trampoline wars and many more.

So the logical question after all of this is, “What ever happened to Eddie?” Where did those trips down the alley eventually take him? Perhaps you supposed that he ended up in prison; or, maybe you thought he became a dog catcher or a fireman. But he is none of those things. He has devoted his entire adult life to providing for the neediest people in our society.

Eddie serves developmentally disabled people who lack the means to take care of themselves. He refers to his disabled friends as “clients.” He coordinates the maintenance and repair of their homes and an entire fleet of vehicles just to get them through their challenges with as much comfort and dignity as possible. Eddie has genuine compassion for these people because he can relate to them. Like them, he has overcome plenty of adversity. As far as I am concerned, his devotion to these people more than compensates for a few childhood pranks.

Even though there is a lot of dark gray in our past, neither Eddie nor I would trade our childhoods with anybody else. We learned some priceless lessons about life from those days. We learned a lot about each other; but more importantly we learned about true friendship.

My life-long friend goes by “Ed” these days, but I still think of him as Eddie. I don’t really care what I call him, just so long as he remains a big part of my life. In fact, I think I’ll go call him right now to see if he’d like to walk to the old shopping center via our special route. Perhaps we can even pee in the alley for old time’s sake. If so, I couldn’t have better company because as far as I am concerned, Eddie is my brother.

UPDATE: Eddie died in 1999 from lung cancer, and I still miss him.