October 8, 2005--Saturday Story: "Chuck's Punching Bag"
Chuck’s Punching Bag
Tomorrow, October 9th, would be Chuck’s 71st birthday. Except that he died this past February. Though he was my cousin, I lost my older brother that day.
I began life as his punching bag and wound up as one of his eulogizers. I much preferred the former role, in spite of all the bloody noses and loose teeth. Actually I began life as one of his tormentors. Basically we all lived together, the extended family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and assorted refugees from concentration camps. Not a pet was in sight—we neither had the room for any nor the money to feed them. Living together meant eating together. Actually, in shifts—those who worked at night ate during the day; those who worked during the day, eat at night. Beds were also used in shifts. The children ate all the time and as much as possible. There was a lot of competition for food—eating fast was a survival skill. It was crowded at the table but also delicious. You could smell Aunt Gussie’s ruglah from half a block away. It made getting out of school for the day even sweeter.
It was during the eating together that I first got under Chuck’s skin. He was always very, very serious about eating and it showed—he was in truth a little plump. When I arrived, I sat next to him at the children’s end of the table. And through no fault of my own would periodically spit up on him, or worse. Though I didn’t understand English at the time, or any other language for that matter, I did intuit his meaning when he would bellow, “Get that pig away from me!” Pig of course was traif, not Kosher, but it captured his feelings about me quite well.
A few years later, he did find his first in a series of uses for me. Chuck was if anything prone to obsessions. Stamp collecting, bike riding, FDR, sports statistics, school yard gambling, and boxing, especially boxing. It was an era when, trust me, there were many successful Jewish fighters—Al “Bummy” Davis, “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom, Barnie Ross, Max Baer, and “Battling” Levinson among many other colorful characters.
When Chuck developed a serious obsession about boxing, going so far as to buy two pair of boxing gloves, the family was not entirely happy—it was one thing to admire and root for Slapsie Maxie, it was quite another to have one of their own developing an interest in the Sweet Science. Aftre all, those were potential surgeon’s hands that Chuck had, and to risk them on the heavy bag, or someone’s head, was not considered to be a good thing.
That’s where I came in—my head to be specific became his first punching bag. In a manner of speaking, he sparred with me in his mother’s living room, with me standing on the sofa to equalize our heights. The sofa surface, plastic covered, was not by any means the best, most secure of surfaces so it was impossible for me to gain good footing and therefore dodge his blows, which were frequent and on target. Typically he would jab away for awhile, and then clobber me with a left hook or the newly invented bolo punch, imported from the Philippines via Kid Bolo. When one of these would connect, I would be slammed back against the wall behind the couch and typically have another hole opened in my head.
My crying and streaming blood would bring Uncle Harry scurrying. He would proceed to shave the hair away from the wound and apply a plaster patch. Chuck would watch the whole thing, continuing to bounce on his toes, circling to his left to avoid my non-existent left hook. After finishing on me, Harry would assume the role of referee and order us to resume fighting. I had no corner man or manager who could throw in the towel so we continued until my nose began to bleed. Then Uncle Harry would declare a TKO and I would slink off whimpering, in search of ruglah. (Harry of course had finished them off before he arrived with his razor and plasters.)
I did get my revenge, however, when some years later Chuck needed to have his Wisdom Teeth extracted. No one was available to drive him to the dentist and so it was left to me to get him there and back. Though I was only 14 at the time, I was a big 14 and knew how to drive. Illegally of course. But my father encouraged me to abscond with the car as yet another way to display my emerging manhood. (Trust me, though I was a big 14, that did not apply to anything below my waist except my shoe size—size 13.) And since Chuck was the most adventurous person I ever knew, then and later, he too encouraged me to take chances of this kind and saw the drive part as the highlight of the day. And how right he turned out to be.
Dr. Samson (yes, that was his real name) had an office in the Williamsburg Savings Bank, about a 20 minute drive. I got us there without incident, parked the car, and followed Chuck up to the office. I then sat in the waiting room while the excavations took place. They were just that as attested to by the sounds that permeated the walls—mostly hammer and chisel sounds. Chuck emerged about an hour later. His face swollen on both sides with rolled cotton sponges. The Doctor told me that he needed to extract all four (!) and that Chuck would therefore be “a little uncomfortable after the Novocain wore off.”
We got to the car and with Chuck slouched in the passenger seat proceeded back home down Flatbush Avenue. Traffic was heavy and we seemed to get stopped at every light. And pretty much at every corner there were police serving as crossing guards as schools were letting out for the day. I began to notice that we were being starred at by the cops and this made that 14 year-old illegal driver quite nervous. It frightened me to think that I was perhaps not passing for a legal driver. But they actually seemed to be starring at Chuck, not me. I stole a glace to my right and realized why—not only were his cheeks distorted by the packing but blood was seeping out of his mouth, down his chin, and onto his formerly white shirt and car seat (though it too thankfully was plastic covered). It was a gruesome sight. But we did manage to get back to East 54th Street without a detour to the police precinct house.
Chuck was set up in the sun room in the front of the apartment. Away from the temptations in the ice box (he was not supposed to eat for 24 hours) and far away enough from Uncle Harry who was not interested in Chuck in this condition. My father on the other hand was quiet fascinated by Chuck’s circumstances. You see, after the packing was removed, not only didn’t the swelling go down it continued to the point where his face came to be about the size of a basketball. My father was so fascinated by the fact that a face could get to be that large that he spread the word throughout the neighborhood that Chuck was a sight to behold, and that if they wanted to see it they had better come quickly before the swelling reversed itself. (Though I suspect he secretly hoped it would turn out to be a permanent condition—not out of malice but in the interest of science.)
I on the other hand did see this as payback for my years as his punching bag and also as an entrepreneurial opportunity. I too spread the word about Chuck’s basketball face. Among the other kids. And charged them a nickel to see him and it. Sort of like the sideshows in Coney Island where it cost a quarter to see the Tattooed Lady or the 500 pound man. Chuck was thus quite a bargain, and the kids didn’t even have to spend another nickel on the subway.
Still years later, after, he stopped beating on me and I ceased looking for chances to get even with him, we discovered that we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. However, he didn’t keep up his end of that bargain and so I was left with what to say about him in February. I hope he won’t mind my sharing that with you:
Among the many, many things that filled his life, Chuck was a reader—a wide and voracious reader. A little surprising to me, he recently bought a copy of the complete works of Emily Dickenson, as it turns out both his and my favorite poet. He slowly read his way through all of her poems. One of our shared favorites is “Death Has No Dominion.” For Dickenson this meant there was something beyond death which robbed death of its triumph, of its dominion.
Because he and I had a lot of Eastern European blood rushing about in our systems, we both thought often about death. It perversely was one of our favorite subjects. Thinking, I’m sure, that if we talked so casually and openly about it, death would pass us by. Well here is the evidence that we were wrong. But what about death’s dominion? I’ll return to this.
The easy part when thinking about what to remember about Chuck are THE STORIES. The literally hundreds, maybe thousands of stories he would tell about his life. But perhaps a better way to reflect on his life is not to think about the telling of stories but rather the experience of living them. His life was a series of lived narratives, each a metaphor of what he believed, what he valued, what he stubbornly insisted life should be about. I always thought he would have been a great teacher, and as I look back over more than 60 years together I realize that is exactly what he was—a teacher, my teacher, teaching through complex examples, teaching through the narratives of his life.
What did it mean that he was a Yankee fan in Brooklyn? A schoolyard bookie? A bull fight apprentice in Mexico? A laborer in a dye factory? A meatpacker? The anchor of the Columbia University crew’s Pickle Boat? The inveterate long distance swimmer in the Rose Garden pool up in the Catskills? The ping pong fanatic? The soccer fanatic? The chess fanatic? And recently the workout fanatic?
About that, who of us isn’t angry about that final workout that seemingly took him from us? If only he had taken the day off. If only he had stopped after just 40 minutes of working out. He would still be with us. There would be another brunch at the Polo Club. There would be more Chuck.
But as I am recovering from my anger about this I am realizing that if he had stayed home, if he had stopped after 40 minutes, he would not have been Chuck. He would have left us bereft in other ways. His story would be very different, incomplete. This was of course too soon, much too soon; but it was appropriate, as he might put it, even destined.
He was a living metaphor of defying the odds, living without a net. I think he felt that if he could beat the odds in Las Vegas it would translate into beating the odds in the really BIG CASIO called LIFE. But all luck runs out, right, the odds are rigged to beat us, right?
Yes and no. It depends entirely on how you keep score. It depends on the life that you live. Depending on that life your luck can endure, you might in fact even be able to beat the odds. Reflecting on Chuck’s life, or any life, how might this work?
I think you endure through the richness and depth of your life’s memories, the traces found in the tracks of your stories, the marks of life left behind. Their legacies. Can we agree then that in Chuck’s case his luck did not run out, that he may have beaten the odds and that here death has no dominion?
There is further evidence—I knew him every day of my life, everything from that schoolyard to his dreams to his, at times, thwarted aspirations. I can report with certainty that he was never happier, never more fulfilled than during his recent years.
But ultimately for death to have no dominion, no triumph it is also important to say that Chuck, very much like the rest of us, was far from perfect. Inevitably that means there are some harbored hurts here. Can some of those now begin to be over? Can some of those begin to be healed? That too would rob death of some of its sting.
Finally, for his recent 70th birthday I attempted to sum up what I cherished about him in a small poem that somehow now seems more appropriate than when I wrote it. Please allow me to read it:
You led me into lies
And fornication
Where secrets lie
And boys become men
Lost in iterations
Nearly forgotten
I will find you
And tell you
There is nothing
To fear
Not even the end
Tomorrow, October 9th, would be Chuck’s 71st birthday. Except that he died this past February. Though he was my cousin, I lost my older brother that day.
I began life as his punching bag and wound up as one of his eulogizers. I much preferred the former role, in spite of all the bloody noses and loose teeth. Actually I began life as one of his tormentors. Basically we all lived together, the extended family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and assorted refugees from concentration camps. Not a pet was in sight—we neither had the room for any nor the money to feed them. Living together meant eating together. Actually, in shifts—those who worked at night ate during the day; those who worked during the day, eat at night. Beds were also used in shifts. The children ate all the time and as much as possible. There was a lot of competition for food—eating fast was a survival skill. It was crowded at the table but also delicious. You could smell Aunt Gussie’s ruglah from half a block away. It made getting out of school for the day even sweeter.
It was during the eating together that I first got under Chuck’s skin. He was always very, very serious about eating and it showed—he was in truth a little plump. When I arrived, I sat next to him at the children’s end of the table. And through no fault of my own would periodically spit up on him, or worse. Though I didn’t understand English at the time, or any other language for that matter, I did intuit his meaning when he would bellow, “Get that pig away from me!” Pig of course was traif, not Kosher, but it captured his feelings about me quite well.
A few years later, he did find his first in a series of uses for me. Chuck was if anything prone to obsessions. Stamp collecting, bike riding, FDR, sports statistics, school yard gambling, and boxing, especially boxing. It was an era when, trust me, there were many successful Jewish fighters—Al “Bummy” Davis, “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom, Barnie Ross, Max Baer, and “Battling” Levinson among many other colorful characters.
When Chuck developed a serious obsession about boxing, going so far as to buy two pair of boxing gloves, the family was not entirely happy—it was one thing to admire and root for Slapsie Maxie, it was quite another to have one of their own developing an interest in the Sweet Science. Aftre all, those were potential surgeon’s hands that Chuck had, and to risk them on the heavy bag, or someone’s head, was not considered to be a good thing.
That’s where I came in—my head to be specific became his first punching bag. In a manner of speaking, he sparred with me in his mother’s living room, with me standing on the sofa to equalize our heights. The sofa surface, plastic covered, was not by any means the best, most secure of surfaces so it was impossible for me to gain good footing and therefore dodge his blows, which were frequent and on target. Typically he would jab away for awhile, and then clobber me with a left hook or the newly invented bolo punch, imported from the Philippines via Kid Bolo. When one of these would connect, I would be slammed back against the wall behind the couch and typically have another hole opened in my head.
My crying and streaming blood would bring Uncle Harry scurrying. He would proceed to shave the hair away from the wound and apply a plaster patch. Chuck would watch the whole thing, continuing to bounce on his toes, circling to his left to avoid my non-existent left hook. After finishing on me, Harry would assume the role of referee and order us to resume fighting. I had no corner man or manager who could throw in the towel so we continued until my nose began to bleed. Then Uncle Harry would declare a TKO and I would slink off whimpering, in search of ruglah. (Harry of course had finished them off before he arrived with his razor and plasters.)
I did get my revenge, however, when some years later Chuck needed to have his Wisdom Teeth extracted. No one was available to drive him to the dentist and so it was left to me to get him there and back. Though I was only 14 at the time, I was a big 14 and knew how to drive. Illegally of course. But my father encouraged me to abscond with the car as yet another way to display my emerging manhood. (Trust me, though I was a big 14, that did not apply to anything below my waist except my shoe size—size 13.) And since Chuck was the most adventurous person I ever knew, then and later, he too encouraged me to take chances of this kind and saw the drive part as the highlight of the day. And how right he turned out to be.
Dr. Samson (yes, that was his real name) had an office in the Williamsburg Savings Bank, about a 20 minute drive. I got us there without incident, parked the car, and followed Chuck up to the office. I then sat in the waiting room while the excavations took place. They were just that as attested to by the sounds that permeated the walls—mostly hammer and chisel sounds. Chuck emerged about an hour later. His face swollen on both sides with rolled cotton sponges. The Doctor told me that he needed to extract all four (!) and that Chuck would therefore be “a little uncomfortable after the Novocain wore off.”
We got to the car and with Chuck slouched in the passenger seat proceeded back home down Flatbush Avenue. Traffic was heavy and we seemed to get stopped at every light. And pretty much at every corner there were police serving as crossing guards as schools were letting out for the day. I began to notice that we were being starred at by the cops and this made that 14 year-old illegal driver quite nervous. It frightened me to think that I was perhaps not passing for a legal driver. But they actually seemed to be starring at Chuck, not me. I stole a glace to my right and realized why—not only were his cheeks distorted by the packing but blood was seeping out of his mouth, down his chin, and onto his formerly white shirt and car seat (though it too thankfully was plastic covered). It was a gruesome sight. But we did manage to get back to East 54th Street without a detour to the police precinct house.
Chuck was set up in the sun room in the front of the apartment. Away from the temptations in the ice box (he was not supposed to eat for 24 hours) and far away enough from Uncle Harry who was not interested in Chuck in this condition. My father on the other hand was quiet fascinated by Chuck’s circumstances. You see, after the packing was removed, not only didn’t the swelling go down it continued to the point where his face came to be about the size of a basketball. My father was so fascinated by the fact that a face could get to be that large that he spread the word throughout the neighborhood that Chuck was a sight to behold, and that if they wanted to see it they had better come quickly before the swelling reversed itself. (Though I suspect he secretly hoped it would turn out to be a permanent condition—not out of malice but in the interest of science.)
I on the other hand did see this as payback for my years as his punching bag and also as an entrepreneurial opportunity. I too spread the word about Chuck’s basketball face. Among the other kids. And charged them a nickel to see him and it. Sort of like the sideshows in Coney Island where it cost a quarter to see the Tattooed Lady or the 500 pound man. Chuck was thus quite a bargain, and the kids didn’t even have to spend another nickel on the subway.
Still years later, after, he stopped beating on me and I ceased looking for chances to get even with him, we discovered that we loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. However, he didn’t keep up his end of that bargain and so I was left with what to say about him in February. I hope he won’t mind my sharing that with you:
Among the many, many things that filled his life, Chuck was a reader—a wide and voracious reader. A little surprising to me, he recently bought a copy of the complete works of Emily Dickenson, as it turns out both his and my favorite poet. He slowly read his way through all of her poems. One of our shared favorites is “Death Has No Dominion.” For Dickenson this meant there was something beyond death which robbed death of its triumph, of its dominion.
Because he and I had a lot of Eastern European blood rushing about in our systems, we both thought often about death. It perversely was one of our favorite subjects. Thinking, I’m sure, that if we talked so casually and openly about it, death would pass us by. Well here is the evidence that we were wrong. But what about death’s dominion? I’ll return to this.
The easy part when thinking about what to remember about Chuck are THE STORIES. The literally hundreds, maybe thousands of stories he would tell about his life. But perhaps a better way to reflect on his life is not to think about the telling of stories but rather the experience of living them. His life was a series of lived narratives, each a metaphor of what he believed, what he valued, what he stubbornly insisted life should be about. I always thought he would have been a great teacher, and as I look back over more than 60 years together I realize that is exactly what he was—a teacher, my teacher, teaching through complex examples, teaching through the narratives of his life.
What did it mean that he was a Yankee fan in Brooklyn? A schoolyard bookie? A bull fight apprentice in Mexico? A laborer in a dye factory? A meatpacker? The anchor of the Columbia University crew’s Pickle Boat? The inveterate long distance swimmer in the Rose Garden pool up in the Catskills? The ping pong fanatic? The soccer fanatic? The chess fanatic? And recently the workout fanatic?
About that, who of us isn’t angry about that final workout that seemingly took him from us? If only he had taken the day off. If only he had stopped after just 40 minutes of working out. He would still be with us. There would be another brunch at the Polo Club. There would be more Chuck.
But as I am recovering from my anger about this I am realizing that if he had stayed home, if he had stopped after 40 minutes, he would not have been Chuck. He would have left us bereft in other ways. His story would be very different, incomplete. This was of course too soon, much too soon; but it was appropriate, as he might put it, even destined.
He was a living metaphor of defying the odds, living without a net. I think he felt that if he could beat the odds in Las Vegas it would translate into beating the odds in the really BIG CASIO called LIFE. But all luck runs out, right, the odds are rigged to beat us, right?
Yes and no. It depends entirely on how you keep score. It depends on the life that you live. Depending on that life your luck can endure, you might in fact even be able to beat the odds. Reflecting on Chuck’s life, or any life, how might this work?
I think you endure through the richness and depth of your life’s memories, the traces found in the tracks of your stories, the marks of life left behind. Their legacies. Can we agree then that in Chuck’s case his luck did not run out, that he may have beaten the odds and that here death has no dominion?
There is further evidence—I knew him every day of my life, everything from that schoolyard to his dreams to his, at times, thwarted aspirations. I can report with certainty that he was never happier, never more fulfilled than during his recent years.
But ultimately for death to have no dominion, no triumph it is also important to say that Chuck, very much like the rest of us, was far from perfect. Inevitably that means there are some harbored hurts here. Can some of those now begin to be over? Can some of those begin to be healed? That too would rob death of some of its sting.
Finally, for his recent 70th birthday I attempted to sum up what I cherished about him in a small poem that somehow now seems more appropriate than when I wrote it. Please allow me to read it:
You led me into lies
And fornication
Where secrets lie
And boys become men
Lost in iterations
Nearly forgotten
I will find you
And tell you
There is nothing
To fear
Not even the end
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:55 AM
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