i come from a long line of men just like me.

florida wasn't as awkward as i'd predicted. i actually managed to have fun, partly because not having to wake up at six in the morning for nine days straight was a pleasure. one of my uncles that lives there let me use his candy apple red convertible thunderbird remake. eight cylinders of sheer force and acceleration, the ability to stop without having to floor the brakes...it was hard to believe i was driving a ford. when the weather was nice i'd put the top down to further stress the baller status of the vehicle. it has to be in park for it to go down, though, and i felt like a real pompous asshole when i'd do it at a red light regardless of how many potentially stalled people were behind me. it was my vacation, i wanted to enjoy my midlife crisis mobile, and i did...though i hope that twenty-three is not the midpoint of my existence. i will always remember rolling up to the largest mall in south florida in that car while blasting zz top. hopefully no one who saw me will remember because it must have looked like i was over-compensating for something, or like my ethnic ass stole that whip.

it was good to see my two uncles and various cousins for the first time as an adult. sure, i'd seen them before when they came up to new york, but this was different. i flew down there with my own hard-earned money without my mother and finally felt independent in their eyes. (they didn't even heckle me about my new sleeve, or any of my tattoos for that matter.)

my uncle tony, a successful car dealer who makes almost two hundred grand a year, let me stay at his place. we had some amusing conversations about old family stories that couldn't be told when i was a kid and i saw my relatives in a new light, as people instead of superheros. it was refreshing. his only daughter, a budding young theatrical vocalist with a full academic scholarship to the university of miami (see, i'm not the only gifted one in the family), is almost done with her first year of college at age seventeen. he's very proud of her, and very relieved that he could finally leave his bloodsucking wife since his pride and joy is finally out on her own to some extent. my "aunt" had refused to work ever since my cousin was born, didn't even ever cook for the family, and had a maid come clean the house once a week. all she really did was mooch off my uncle and demand more and more. tony bit the bullet and hung in there with a shit-eating grin (what's that even mean?) for seventeen long years, but now he's living in his own bachelor pad and filing for divorce. he doesn't resent her, she was the only one who could have given him the daughter who means everything to him. hell, he's willing to give her half of his income, but she wants two-thirds of it and all kinds of other outrageous things. he's finally sticking to his guns on the issue and isn't going to succumb to her ridiculous demands. that's not the real reason i'm happy for him, though. it seems like there's a heartwarming love story in the works as well. he was married to one of my mom's good friends back in his mid-twenties, but was too wild and crazy to fully appreciate her. they'd kept in touch through my mother and never left each other's hearts. her asshole husband left her a few years ago so now they're talking every day and plan on getting together some thirty-odd years later. he says that they're the same person and do the same things for the same reasons, and that she always knew who he was trying to be and loved him for what she knew would shine through someday. it was beautiful to hear this vibrant, savvy, faithful sixty-year-old man talk about his recovered love so enthusiastically. maybe there's hope for all of us, maybe people see the inherent good that isn't so easy for even ourselves to see sometimes. but for now i'll settle for being grateful that uncle tony gets his happy ending. (not the kind you pay an extra fifty at the massage parlor for, either.)

uncle ray is essentially the opposite of uncle tony. he's messy, he's unpredictable, he's irresponsible, and he's admittedly crazy; but still a hell of a guy in his own right. whereas tony's apartment was spic and span to the point of anal retentiveness, i literally could not find a place to sit or stand at ray's. his apartment looked like a bomb went off in it. tony made fun of him for his unsightly living quarters and ray replied that it was just like his life. you have to know more about him to understand. ray was the oldest brother, the high school basketball star, the first hispanic cop in rockland county back in the sixties. he was being groomed to be the next chief by a retiring police chief who loved him more than his own son. but drugs and rage took over ray's life before it could blossom into what it should have been. he was married to my mom's best friend. it was a different time then, when even a lot of the cops did drugs. he was heavy into a gamut of psychedelics at the time. one day he came home stoned out of his mind on acid, found his young wife cheating on him, killed her with his bare hands, and turned himself in. it was a violent, horrifying experience that stunned and crippled the whole family. he wound up only doing fifteen years in prison, probably because it was considered a crime of passion and he was a cop with friends in high places. regardless, it took its toll. he didn't get to see his children grow up, he wasn't there for his family like he should've been, he suffered from manic depression. i remember going to visit him in prison with my mother and grandmother when i was three and wondering why we had to wait for those men to escort him into the room. i thought it was just the place he worked at. i distinctly remember staring at the logo on the pepsi machine in the large visiting room. funny what you remember. anyway, ray found jesus and all that jazz in prison and came out with a slightly better outlook on life. he got married and lived in the bronx and then florida with his wife for about ten years, but finally left her when she insisted on having children. she was fifteen years younger than him and he was too old to start the child-rearing process again. he sunk back into his slump and went through a series of unhealthy relationships, one of which involved some thirty-year-old south american illegal alien who is now living with another man. she got pregnant and ray found himself a father again at the age of fifty-seven. it would have been a terrible thing to happen to most people, but it gave ray a reason to live again. that girl is just as bright as uncle tony's daughter and just as radiant and outgoing. to hear him talk about her is just as exciting for me as it is to hear tony talk about his new sweetheart. his apartment may be a wreck and he may make poor decisions sometimes and he may have hurt a lot of innocent people in his time, but it was good to see him act like the big kid i remember taking me fishing when i was growing up.

ray told tony that he was looking for his notebook in his apartment, and that it was important because it was part of "the big journal" that he'd been keeping throughout his tumultuous life. i hope he finds it, from one "journalist" to another. at least now i understand that this addiction is also hereditary.

on a considerably lighter note, i had an odd conversation with a kid working at quizno's this evening. he read my shirt and asked me a question that caught me off-guard.
"you work at the newburgh rec department? when should i stop by to apply for a job?"
i didn't realize what the hell he was talking about at first because i buy random stupid t-shirts at salvage stores since that's what cool people do and all.
"uhhhh..."
he points to my shirt and i realize if i try to explain my mildly amusing ironic fashion sense to him i'll just look like more of an asshole.
"i'd wait a few weeks. what's the matter?, don't want to stay in the fast food business?"
"no, i can work both jobs. money makes the world go around."
"oh, i see..."
i actually didn't.
then he compliments my tattoos and asks about them. again, it comes out of left field and i fumble for words since no one usually pretends to give a shit about the ink i've wasted so much money on.
"i want one soon, but i'm not sure what."
"i got my first one five years ago when i was still doing time in the fast food business and got addicted. be careful!"
he starts talking about piercings and says how they're not as appealing to him. i say i agree, especially when it comes to weird shit on females. that's when he makes a comment that any other pimply seventeen-year-old would have also made:
"yeah, but the tongue rings aren't bad..."
as if he knew...
"eh, they're not all they're cracked up to be, and they just kind of hurt after awhile to be honest."
his eyes lit up at my blunt honesty and even the shy, chubby kid working next to him laughed. i paid for my meal, grabbed my bag of food, and told them both to have a good one. in retrospect i should have told him that he's wrong about money making the world go around. just ask uncle tony, or if you have time for a longer conversation, uncle ray.