Homage to Julius

On my mother's side I had a first cousin named Julius. Due to the long delays in the arrivals in this life first of my mother and later of myself, he had already long been an adult when I was born. After the early death of my own father, Julius was the closest thing I had to a father, and through the years I often journeyed to Harlem and later to Queens to see him and his wife Gertrude, and his three children, who were like other siblings for me and my sister. These nearly annual visits from D.C. to New York City -- for other reasons as well -- started in the mid-1930's, when it was still necessary to cross the Hudson River on a ferry, and lasted till nearly the 1980's, though Julius died in 1967.

Julius was a real character, and I thought he was totally great. A highly devoted family man, he worked for the IRS and liked to give the impression that he was a crook. In truth, largely due -- on our maternal side -- to our Scotch-Irish grandfather down in Louisiana, mixed with the African ancestry of our grandmother and who knows what other ethnic contributions on his father's side, Julius could easily have passed for one of those swarthy New York Mafia bosses that you see in the movies, except not as grotesque. I have often wondered if he fantasized about being one. Maybe he would have enjoyed "The Sopranos."

He told me that he was investigated under suspicion of taking a bribe or something, and he was called in for a hearing. They opened by asking, "Now, Mr. B., would you please raise your right hand and--" And he promptly popped to his feet and roared, "I DON'T KNOW WHO TOLD YOU THAT BUT IT'S A DAMN LIE!"

In 1963 I bought my first car, a black VW Bug, for the princely sum of $1,800. After the boat brought it over freshly assembled from the factory in Germany, the car sat in front of my house unused for nearly two weeks. This was because, although already 32, I had neglected to learn how to drive. That hadn't been necessary, with all the D.C. public transportation, plus my willingness to walk for long distances. Due to nervousness I failed the driving test twice before finally passing -- an intense private embarrassment because they were the first and still the only tests that I have ever failed. Nevertheless as soon as I got on the road I drove northward through all that East Coast congestion 200 miles to Jamaica in Queens to show Julius this great new development in my life. I thought I'd take him by surprise, but there he was, sitting on his front porch waiting, as if he knew I would be tooling up just at that moment in my shiny, brand new, great-smelling set of wheels.

One day a common city occurrence finally befell Julius. He was burglarized, I think for the first time. They took a bunch of stuff, including his big, beloved TV. Yet, when he told me about it, I was struck by how he seemed actually pleased. He didn't seem to have any of that usual feeling of having been violated.

"That's all right about the TV," he said, grinning and chuckling with great satisfaction while he shook another length of cigarette ash off into a tray. "I just went out and bought another one!"

Following the events of September 11, 2001, I thought it was too bad that Julius wasn't still in his old haunts and imbuing his fellow New Yorkers and beyond them his countrymen with that same attitude. It was my very unpopular opinion that, for all the many deaths and the enormous desolation, they would have been better off taking the time to think things through and not drinking so deeply from the cup of revenge.