By Matthew Storey
When I was in first grade, at a school called 'Bentley' on East 71st Street that no longer exists (REALLY doesn't, all Google has is an obscure NY Magazine article from 1972), I was cast in Mrs. Sussman's class production of 'Peter Pan' - in the title role.
I'd been shuffled from Manhattan to Texas and back to Manhattan in my young life and was a gifted, troubled sort of kid - acting was a tremendous outlet for me, because I was fascinated by language and physicality and a born exhibitionist. A poor kid in a rich kid's school, shuffling on the bus from my 21st street home, while my classmates arrived in Chauffeur driven...Bentley's (!) from the West Side or walked over with staff from nearby Park Avenue luxury. My hair was shoulder length blonde and my clothes were often mismatched, as my Secretary mom was stretching every dollar to afford a 'doorman' building and a private school that made zero sense for our finances or my life prospects.
Despite the monetary situation, I was a sharp kid well ahead of my peers and the teacher connected well. Mrs. S saw that I took to the story and learned the lines and songs easily and the whole experience shines like a beacon from the dark memories of those days. Memories that included angry outbursts in 2nd Grade, expulsion from school, hospitalization on a child psych ward resulting in a Thorazine prescription (prevailing science for hyperactive kids from broken homes in 1971, but by 1977 it was called a 'chemical lobotomy' - great!), bill collectors calling the apartment day and night, alcohol at home and angry fights between Mom (who I lived with) and Dad (who I did not). Mom taught me to love learning and love myself. I never wanted for a warm bed, warm meal or knowledge of being loved. She did what single parents, who are kids themselves, do - the best they can.
But before our precarious situation unraveled and I flipped out - there was 'Peter Pan'.
I loved everything about it. Mom made me a green outfit and I pranced around, hammily singing and charming the adults and Mom soaked in the praise I got. It was a high water mark.
For sure.
I never really acted again, which was probably a mistake.
The story of 'Peter Pan' is iconic, of course. It was written by a Scottish Author named James M. Barrie, and has been performed, on stage or film in near continuous rotation since its 1904 debut. It is a story about a boy who lives in 'Neverland', a world of Fairies and Pirates, and was based on the author's brother who died at 13 and, like Peter Pan - 'never grew up'.
Living in NYC, of course, even whacked out on Psych drugs, sure as shit ain't 'Neverland'. Its R-E-A-L, and the best thing that ever happened to the actor who played Peter was getting tossed from the fantasy land of Bentley into the real world of PS 40 Grammar School. I was a healthy, active, intelligent kid who was going to grow up around all types of people from all types of circumstances - going to Public School introduced me to those kids and their lives.
Lives I could relate to.
It was down the block from my home, across the street from the playground ballpark which would be my own 'stage' for more than two decades.
At Bentley, everyone was white and wealthy.
At PS 40, everyone was not. Black kids, Puerto Rican kids, Dominican kids, Chinese kids, White kids from Stuyvesant Town who were almost suburban, White kids from the tenements who were as urban as urban gets.
Kids with two parents, who were happy families. Kids with two parents who fought, who drank, who didn't give a shit. Single parent homes. Only children (like me), kids with siblings in our school, or other schools. Poor kids, rich kids (yup, had them too), smart kids, dumb kids, violent kids, depressed kids...even kids with Gay Parents, although I didn't know what that meant nor would I have cared and didn't discover the truth of that until decades later.
To this day, whatever my problems are, and this confessional will only skim the surface, I don't have a prejudiced bone in my body and I believe that is due to Public School, which, like the Subway teaches you often and early that race, money and circumstance have nothing to do with quality. I was aggressive, and the kids at Bentley were passive around me. At PS 40, the kids didn't surrender the spotlight or stand aside for my insistence - I had to compete, and when you have to compete, you win some.
And you lose some.
Which is real life as well.
Life got easier for awhile. I excelled at school and had many friends from all walks of life, I loved reading books and playing baseball and became a Little League star and then a softball star at the park across the street.
And I made new friends, older friends, guys who I played ball with. I learned that you get respect for what you DO, not who you are or what you promise. I could play, it was obvious and I was smart too, that got respect.
But I was a kid, like Barrie's brother, and while my game could hang with the men - I was too young to make good choices about certain things.
Later in life, when I was trying to get sober (at 29), I learned in AA that emotional development freezes for alcoholics and addicts at the time when they start using. Which leads to an awful lot of adults who 'never grow up'. That isn't my story, exactly, I am in many ways a sophisticated person, intellectually, experientially and emotionally. But I was that when I was 13 as well. Sophistication and experience do not equate to mature action, lots of times the strength of making good decisions comes from being able to take direction from trusted adults and the instillation of good habits. I have some - I am a worker bee, I am a honest friend who puts others needs ahead of my own. But adult 'lifestyle' choices never really took hold with me - I like what I liked then, although generally able to manage things better...generally being a general sort of term.
I remember my first beer.
It was 1977, a late May afternoon, after the games had been played and I'd had a big day on the field. My protector and friend asked me to come hang out with the guys and we went across 20th street to the hangout area on 19th. I'd gone to school on the block for years and knew the park inside and out, but I'd never sat in with these older kids and it was thrilling to me, a man sized little boy with brains and ability but no real parenting or socializing. Guys were playing cards, teenaged girls drinking beer...my buddy from the games, Steve, offered me a 'Michelob' - he said 'if you can hit like that, you can drink one of these!'.
I had three.
I LOVED it, it made me feel something I had been looking for and I ran home with blood rushing in my head. Two weeks later, I'd go to the Feast of St. Anthony on Sullivan Street with Steve and some other older guys and drank red wine all night - returning home to my Mom with my first blackout drunk.
Two months later, I turned 14.
I'd grown up around beer. Mom would pop a Miller while doing her makeup before work, while we both listened to '70s AM radio on WMCA and WABC and then would listen to Howard Cosell 'Speaking of Sports'. She'd go off to do her thing and I'd do mine, school, dog walking, cat sitting. I took a job at the antique store later that same summer and was a kid who always had his own cash, which only helped the illusion of being older. I was the same height I am now, had cash and cred - I could, and did, buy my own.
Booze was different for me than mom, as it is for other drinkers. Everyone has their own way in life and with substances.
I had a mentor, who I looked up to then and look up to today, who was a fat 16 year old when we first met (I was 10), but had taken to being healthy and fit by the time I took to drinking. I'd learn from the guys I drank with about my friend, drinking, being a tough fighter...but what I saw was a guy always under control, who walked away from fights and taught me to do the same, who headed home when things got dicey, who could be counted on to come through and be his word. He'd take me to see his job at UPS when he started working and I could see that his co-workers had as much respect for him as the rest of us did at the ballpark.
But he wasn't a drinker anymore. So I hung out less with him and more with guys like me, who liked to drink.
I still got respect for my game, my smarts, my genuine friendly personality. But my behavior made me enemies as deep as friends, and I never really developed a keen awareness of that truth, in part because a lot of the negative stuff emanating from me happened when I was loaded, or showing off. Kid stuff.
Like I said, people respect what you DO.
And I was just getting started. I never liked to drink daily, usually because my hangovers are three day affairs and the insanity I can create often leaves me shattered for a time. But there were always flareups, and while my muscles and my knowledge continued to expand, in many ways, I was never as completely 'me' once I picked up that first drink. I'd go on to battle alcohol and its effects on my life till 29, when I was 'sick and tired' of being 'sick and tired' and checked myself into Rehab at St.Vincent's in Westchester. I was nervous having to tell my boss I needed the time and he jumped out of his chair and hugged me, telling me that was the best thing he had heard. My longtime girlfriend told me it was 'the best decision you ever made'.
I was there for three weeks, and then I was in AA for the next three years. Sober. Clean.
But not fixed.
My psychiatrist at the time was not terribly enthusiastic about my sobriety and I was perplexed, especially since my lady was a mental health professional who had recommended him (to this day she is furious with him over this).
I asked him why and he said, 'what I worry about is what you will do to yourself if you don't have the drinking', which you at least are used to dealing with. He told me that I was dealing with rage from years before booze, feelings that had never been confronted, and would likely find substitute ways to hurt myself and find 'Neverland' if I gave up hooch.
But I did give it up. First I got euphoric with my newfound health and clarity, then I made a pile of money in the Stock Market and then, five months after checking into rehab with 40K in debt, I put two carats on my lady's finger.
Of course, they told me in rehab - concentrate on sobriety and humility, don't make major life choices in the first year. Getting engaged, quitting my job and opening my investment business were all pretty major.
Taking advice was never my strength. As I have mentioned.
There were battles with gambling, with money, with cocaine...all without a drop of hooch. There was an issue, but it wasn't necessarily found in a bottle - it was the man-boy holding it who needed to be better. And, as predicted, I proved you don't get fixed while you are still broken.
I broke up with the fiance, discovering at long last that while her depth of character and maturity were naturally attractive to a wild child like me - her lifestyle dreams of suburbs, kids and catholic church were never going to match up with my own. Drunk or sober. I met another woman, not serious, played a bit, worked a lot, had some success, did a good job in AA and on surviving the loss of the only relationship I'd known since 21.
Traveled a bit and hit my stride in some ways.
Then one day I was in a fight, sober, with a drug crazed guy who thought I was a rival for a woman, I was not and it didn't matter - he was on Meth, which, thankfully, was never part of my tale. He drew a gun. Then he dropped the gun in his delirium. I reached down and picked up a piece of wood laying at a construction sight and swung at his head the way I used to swing at baseballs.
That was it for him. Self-defense. But you don't forget something like that.
Mom and her man did continue drinking, they both had more of the jones for it than I and it amazed me to see the damage, even as much as I had seen in my own life and the lives of fellow drunks.
I stopped chasing a lifestyle I neither understood or had a clue about, letting myself be about being the husband and father I dreamed of being but was woefully incapable of being.
I started to drink again in 2001 and party in other ways as well. I've made accommodations to keep myself safer - I drink wine or champagne at HOME with my long time companion, New Hampshire Girl and try to do whatever bar drinking in the late afternoon, before the crowds, the young women, the temptation to be...a kid again.
I am no kid, that's for sure, it'll be 33 years since that first drink for me next month and 47 on the planet in August.
A few weeks back, I stopped in to a local place that I like with my best friend and we met an adorable creature behind the bar. She was born when I was 23, in 1987, and while I loved the sights and sound of her, it was HER not the allure of a young woman. She's a special girl, and I am a fella who likes being in bars, likes being around special girls. We had a BLAST that visit and went back to see her on Tuesday.
It was 5:30, so she should have been on shift. But Red Sox Steve remembered she'd been switched to nights and we spent the 2 1/2 hours prior talking about health care, baseball, NYC politics, his incredible lady, our colleague and devoted friend, Mary...drinking light Pabst Beers at a leisurely pace.
The adorable one showed up for her shift at 8:00, and we were all happy to renew acquaintances, a love-fest ensued that had all the old juices flowing.
But that wasn't the only thing that flowed...I started ordering shots of Bourbon, which has always kicked my ass, whether it was Jack, Jim, Grandpa...in this case the maker left a mark on me that includes 4 broken ribs from an incident I cannot recall, lost $400 glasses, humiliation in front of a respected and appreciated new friend and a devoted member of my core.
Again.
Bad choices. Bad results. Broken ribs are no joke - let me tell you the pain trying to sleep last night was a reminder about me, bars, bourbon and young, beautiful women all in combination.
I'm no saint. I hate the pain in my side and the knowledge it will already be Summertime before I can walk around without the ache. But I am who I am, I like a bowl of plant, a sniff of egg whites, a glass of wine...I may always be desirous of smart, together, experienced women in my world and my life, I'd be an idiot and a liar if anyone thought warm eyed young beauties would lose their sway over my thoughts, or other body types...
Another tale.
Not a morality tale, this be, just a chat, between a guy who played Peter Pan 40 years ago and sits here, at home, watching 'Jeopardy' with cracked ribs, the loss of a fun new friend and a lesson renewed.
The world is filled with real folks like me, Kirstie gets fat, gets thin, gets fat. Tiger and Bubba want strange young tail, get caught and try to play the 'I'm bad, card'. But that aint it. We are all who we are, the key is trying to survive the weak areas and stress the strong ones.
For the most part, I do that. I got lost for just a few hours and my demons bit my ass, if I head down the street now and start banging back Bourbon, there will be a girl, a fight and damage.
I aint up to it. And I won't be.
At least until my ribs heal.
