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My brother Billy passed on July 15th, 8:10 PM, at the VA Med Center in Northport, Long Island. He was only 75 years old, but those were some hard-lived years. I can picture him with a Marlboro in one hand, an inhaler in the other, huffing & puffing to the bitter end.
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Billy was one-of-a-kind, an Irish charmer, a weekend millionaire who might be late with the rent, a benign & glorious fuckup, and a sweet & loving soul. A handsome devil, as my mother would say. He never met a job he couldn’t quit.
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Bill, seated, Neal beside him; our sister Jean in the background. The early 70s?
Eleven years older than me, I especially remember him being very gentle & patient with me when I was a little boy. I’d enter his room and marvel at his milk bottle filled with nickels, his red-and-white box of old 45s, “Whiskey Man” and “Ringo” and “Love Potion #9.” He liked science fiction books, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” “The Illustrated Man.” For a while there, he drove a Charles Chips truck, delivering pretzels & potato chips door to door. Imagine that. He worked at Bohack and Citgo gas station. Drove ridiculously cool & unreliable cars: a corvette, a mustang.
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I remember when he went off to Vietnam & remember, like it was yesterday, leaping into his arms when he returned. He came back a pot smoker w/ a deadly long-range jumper on the basketball court. Billy was warm and funny. A good time guy. He told the same stories, over and over again. Girls liked him.
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Xmas & the ever-present cigarette. Barbara, seated. He loved that Clockwork Orange soundtrack.
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For a long stretch, he was my favorite big brother, the way a five-year-old kid idolizes a big brother. I guess that’s the version of Billy I’ll remember & miss most. I am 100% sure that he saved his best love, his truest & most steadfast heart, for his only son, Kevin. As it should be. I grew up with four older brothers and I’ve now watched three of them get up & go: Neal, John, Bill. Big sigh.
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Billy pedaling, his brother Neal hitching a ride, maybe 1951 in America, Wantagh, Long Island. All the world at their feet. Neal passed in 1993. And ever since, like a ship with the ballast unbalanced, not quite sitting right in the water, our family has never been as sea-worthy. The end comes for us all.
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