“There is. There are.”
Holy. Shit.
Blondie barked.
I started to run though the house, pointing out room after room. This was the kitchen. There was the second kitchen. That was the biggest stove I had ever seen. Did you know there were four dishwashers in this house? And seven bedrooms? Did you know the primary suite had a walk-in closet bigger than three of the bedrooms? Did you know this house was originally built by an emancipated teenager who inherited a ton of money from his Italian grandparents, which is why it had the Tuscan design and so many secret rooms? Wait! The garage!
We walked into the garage, and there they were: three of the most beautiful cars I had ever loved—a convertible 1956 Corvette, a convertible 1965 Mustang, and a 1983 Ferrari 328 GTS. Apparently, it was okay for cars to have crazily named colors. Just not wall paint. The Corvette wasn’t just white; it was Polo White. Baby blue didn’t do justice in describing the Mustang, it was Arcadian Blue. And the Ferrari wasn’t red; it was Rosso Corsa Red. These three cars were red, white, and blue, and they perfectly represented the dreams of a young, all-American boy. They took my breath away.
Sometimes, I enjoyed watching parked cars too.
My excitement was short-lived. When I stood in this garage more than forty years ago, I had huge dreams. I was going to be a writer or find my way onto the cast of Saturday Night Live. I was going to be famous. Those are the dreams of youth, as I didn’t know to dream for something simpler. I didn’t know to dream for happiness and authenticity. For permission. Or not needing permission. I didn’t know my best dream would have been to simply dream of being myself and living my life. I didn’t think to hope and dream for something as obvious as the ability to wrap myself in compassion, to love myself, and for a life free of demons.
Instead, I dreamed of cars. I dreamed of fame. And of money. I dreamed of owning a house like this one. I dreamed of making my parents as proud of me as they were of my sister. As I stood in that garage all those decades ago, I had no idea I would spend so much time struggling to find light. I had no idea I would battle doubt, judgment, self-loathing, and all their demon cousins for most of my life. I had no idea that I would go years, pretending to be someone I wasn’t because I was afraid of who I was. I would spend my life crafting a perfect set of masks, always picking just the right one to put on before I stepped out of my house. When masks were no longer enough of a disguise, I invented entire costumes. I was dressed head-to-toe in whatever most hid my doubts and fears. Standing in this garage just made me feel like I had fucked it all up. Nice. Self-loathing. Even in God’s house.
Ira took notice. That’s why Ira was Ira. That’s why I wanted to sit with him in the middle of a park and just hit the record button. “Come on, Erik. I want you to meet some friends of mine.” He put his hand on my back, and we left the garage. I tried to hide the tears. I think maybe that was the point when I realized that my life was over. Really over. I suspect this moment of final reckoning happens to everyone who dies. There must be a moment when all who have passed feel this heaviness.
“Ira, when did you first realize that you were dead? Did you feel like I do?” I asked without any need to explain how I was feeling. He knew.
Ira was Ira. “Erik, for a long time I was dead when I was alive. That’s why I quit being a stockbroker. I feel like being here is just a huge gift. And I mean being here, right here, with you. We only have moments. How we choose to live them or experience them is up to you and me. There’s a laundry list of experiences to choose from. We can experience our moments in gratitude, in fear, in love, in opportunity, in happiness, and so on. I always felt it was up to me to decide. I learned that I controlled my life.”
I listened in silence. I listened in sadness. I listened with the weight and dread of regret. I said to him, “I can’t believe I stopped talking to you simply because I had a falling out with some other dude.”
I thought to myself, Fuck, Ira, where have you been all my life? Great. Something else to beat myself up about.
After leaving the garage, we walked silently back through the house, up the stairs, through the master suite, and out onto the massive deck. I stopped looking at the details of the house as we moved through it. I hadn’t felt like this since before meeting Jess. I was lost. Numb.
I didn’t have much time to mope. A cry of “Ricky!” echoed across the massive marble entryway.
Oh. My. God.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Twin boys, separated at birth, raised apart, and unaware of one another for most of their lives, discover that they were both named James by their new families. Not only that, they both became police officers, married women named Linda, and had the same kind of dog.5
“Ricky! Ricky! Ricky!”
Among all the nicknames I had in my life, from Skippy to Bernie to Bernsie and even Shirl, only one person ever called me Ricky. I stood there perfectly still. In awe. Paralyzed by shock. Speechless. He was here.
When I was a kid, Jond was my best friend. Long before Bennifer, Brangelina, and other celebrity couples started doing the joint name thing, we were Jondrik. We walked to school together every day. We played ball in the streets for hours. We wrote songs. We created movies. We found his older cousin’s Playboy and discovered naked women. We were inseparable.
When we were six, we pinky-swore that we would go to the same college, marry sisters, and live next door to each other forever. Even as mere babies, he was the only person who knew that the perfect external facade of my life only hid my mess on the inside. We were true brothers. Not bound by blood, but deeper—by souls. Jond was the only person I spoke to about that one fight my parents had. I’ll just say that even at six, we knew we’d be connected forever.
When we were eight, we caused a neighborhood scandal by escaping from our rooms during a parent-mandated “rest time.” After climbing out of our bedroom windows, we hid under the huge eucalyptus tree across the street. From our vantage point in the ivy under the tree, we could see everything that was happening in front of our houses, but nobody could see us.
We watched some dogs walk their people. We watched teenagers on dates. We saw lots of people driving too fast. We saw the neighbors on the other side of my house having one of their big fights. And as we loaded up on the Hershey’s kisses stolen from my mom’s not-so-secret hiding place in the kitchen, we could see all four of our parents running up and down the streets calling for us. They would come outside and call us for a few minutes and then go back inside. A few minutes later, they’d be outside again before giving up. Then, out they came once more. This went on for at least an hour, and we struggled to muffle our collective delight. We thought it was incredibly funny. At least until the police arrived. Two cars. Four officers. Lots of lights flashing. We were apparently missing. That was far less funny.
For years, my mom never missed an opportunity to remind me how Jond and I made the situation worse by changing our clothes before we snuck out. Leaving our old clothes in a heap on the floor meant that our parents couldn’t tell the officers what we were wearing. I’m not sure what was worse: the fact that not knowing what we were wearing made it harder to find us or the embarrassment my mom presumably felt in front of the officers. When the cops asked, “What do you mean you don’t know what your kid was wearing?” all my mom probably heard was, What kind of parent are you?
As soon as the officers left and our parents went back into their houses, Jond and I slowly emerged from our secret spot and snuck back into our rooms. Our plan was to pretend like we were never gone and to play dumb. After exactly seven minutes and back in our original clothes, we would calmly walk out of our rooms and ask what was for dinner. What? Gone? Snuck out? Changed clothes? Us? We’ve been here the whole time.
Our parents obviously didn’t fall for it. We tried to reason with them. We tried to tell them that we just went out for a walk. None of it worked. Grounded was just the start of the punishment. We had to do extra homework. Extra chores around the house. Our parents sentenced us to months of “community service,” which meant mowing our neighbors’ lawns for free and picking up trash at our school. We had to go to the police station and apologize to all four officers. We didn’t know when it would end. My sister milked it for all it was worth and purposely left dirty dishes all over the house. As did Jond’s four sisters!
Still, when it was finally over, we agreed that it was worth it. What our parents didn’t realize was that despite the extra chores, early bedtimes, and lost TV privileges, they had basically sentenced us to spend more time together. And that was no punishment at all.
Jond was born Jon. At seven, he decided he wanted a different name. He had started watching a lot of tennis and was enamored by names like Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase. He wanted a name that sounded “more European.” So, he changed his name to Jond and wanted it pronounced “Yond.” He let his teachers know that he was to now be called “Yond. With a ‘J’ and a ‘D.’” It was as legal as a seven-year-old could make it. And if he were changing his name, I would have to change mine. He settled on Ricky, which was spelled “rik-E.” I was still Erik to my teachers.
One summer morning when we were twelve, like any summer morning when we were twelve, I went to his house to start the day. The door was locked, which was weird but not unheard of. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. No answer. I rang the bell. No answer. I went around the back. It, too, was locked, which was completely unheard of. No answer. Seven people and three cats lived in that house. There was always an answer.
I ran home to get my basketball and ask my mom where Jond’s family was. Before I could get the “Mom, where’s Jond?” out of my mouth, I saw her tears. They were different from the tears I had seen prior to this. They felt, I don’t know, genuine. The pain in them was real, not blackmail. I don’t know why, but I immediately knew exactly what those tears meant, and I collapsed onto the rug in our entryway. I could barely breathe. Hours later, when I finally got off the floor, I went to my room, closed the door, and didn’t come out for a week. My mom tried to console me as best she could, but I wouldn’t have it. There wasn’t anything anyone could have said.
She talked to me through the door and told me that Jond had a massive seizure during the night and had died. Apparently, it was a genetic thing that had gone undetected. The words from the other side of the door didn’t make any sense. Like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Just gibberish. Meaningless sounds. Jond was gone. So was Jondrik. I never gathered the strength to ask any questions about it. Not then. Not ever. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to his funeral. I did manage to ask my mom if his mom called him “Jond,” which she refused to do before. My mom told me that his mom, for the first time, did, in fact, call him “Jond.” He would have liked that. It made me smile. Even for just a split second.
Jond was running toward me to give me the biggest hug I had ever received. He pressed his bleach-blond hair, still shaped in a bowl around his face, against my chest. For the first time, I was taller than he was. He was still twelve, after all, and I was close to fifty. He was wearing the same Los Angeles Lakers T-shirt that he wore the day we sat under that eucalyptus tree. It was huge on him then. More like a dress. It fit him now. Regardless of our age and size differences, somehow, in this instant, we were once again Jondrik. Blondie went nuts. She always loved Jond, and she knocked him on his ass and smothered him in kisses. I turned to tell Ira about Jond, but he was nowhere to be found. I was sure he knew the whole story anyway.
We sat on a couch outside on the deck. Oblivious to the other people milling about, I could finally ask, “Dude, what happened? I went to your house; you weren’t there and . . .” my voice trailed off. I was Tom Hanks in the movie Big. Older but a child. Jond was the friend, stuck at the same age with a better perspective.
“I don’t know. I went to sleep there, and I woke up here.” And then, forever wise beyond his years, “I’m sorry I had to leave you. I know I could have helped you.” We both carried guilt.
He was probably right. He protected me. He did it in a subtle way that hid his intentions, but that’s exactly what he always did. Immediately following our bedroom escape, he took a much bigger bullet. He told our parents that it was his idea. His parents were far stricter than mine, which meant his punishment included his dad’s belt, or worse—his mom’s. But he never let on. We were of the last generation that was routinely spanked (his mom called them “whippings”), and his parents took full advantage. He kept most of that from me, and, though the youngest of five, he also protected his four older sisters. Wise. Way beyond his years. Strong. Way beyond his size. If I were to ever be described as an old soul, he was an ancient elder. Was he God?
“Listen, Ricky,” he said, sensing the sadness that started when I was in the garage. Man, I miss being called Ricky. He put his arm around me in the same protective way he did when we were kids. Even with our age differences now, it felt familiar and right. “There’s absolutely no point in trying to figure out the whys, hows, and whats of this. It won’t make sense. Not even here.”
I thought of all the time I spent caught up in “what ifs” when I was alive.
Sensing that I was slipping, Jond tried to break up the tension. “Remember when my mom bought you the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer album because she wouldn’t buy you that ‘demon music’ from the Scorpions?” We laughed. Subtle, but there he was, again protecting me.
I tried to play too, and slipped into my twelve-year-old self.
