Something

So I stood in the Papavero Funeral calling hours hall, watching people I did not recognize file in, then realizing I recalled them from photos in the slide show my brother-in-law Rocco prepared. Friends. Rocco’s friends, my sister’s friends, and Fred’s friends.

Waves of memories from the early seventies invaded my mind. Yes, I did recall some of these men. It’s funny how the placement of a hand, the tilt of one’s head, are habits that never change. I recognized some of the past. “I remember you,” one of them said to me. “And you,” he pointed to my little sister, who has been 5' 8" for 30years, “You were this big.” He gestured to indicate that she was just larger than a doll. I suddenly remembered the way one of them looked at me when I was a kid. I think my brother told him to lay off. I remember my mother telling me I’d probably grow up and get together with one of his friends. She was right: I got together with him, as well as his other friends..I shook their hands as we said goodbye to Fred.

“His nicknames were ‘Bird’ and ‘The Boss’,” Rocco told me. “I guess ‘cause he was bossy,” he added. Process of elimination, since Fred was not a Bruce Springsteen fan, and Springsteen was the same age as Fred and not yet famous in 1968.

You know, he was a good leader, I am sure.

I knew about the ‘Bird’, having once seen it in magic marker on a cap Fred had. I thought it said ‘Beard’. Maybe I didn’t see it correctly, or perhaps someone could not spell.

My sister and Rocco went through Fred’s belongings shortly after his passing. They did not find much. They did not find the metal container with what was supposedly his book. They did find a small notebook with notes.

He kept a lot hidden. Perhaps he did not want us to know what exactly was in his book, though I would have loved to edit it and get it published posthumously. The last time I saw him, he said he had “something” to tell me and Fran. But he stopped short. Was it about his life insurance policy wherein he named his nephews? Or was it something more important, more person?

I may … nay, I WILL never know.