Mike at Sixty-Four

Today would have been my brother Mike’s 64^th birthday. My mind kind of baulks when I try to imagine a 64-year-old Mike; would he wear a grey beard? Would he be fatter or thinner? How much of his great strength would he have left? Would he be plagued with any of the other health problems that bedevil the rest of us boys or would he have his own peculiar ailments? Where and how would he live? Would he, could he, finally be happy? Speculations that can never be known or will ever be known, now. For good or ill, the matter is settled.

I was watching Crimes and Misdemeanors the other day, and I was reminded by the accent of the little old professor in it that in the past I could do a passable version of him and that Mike had wanted me to do it as a voiceover on a project he was speculating on. And that led me to thinking about his favorite movies and music and above all authors, and how his own Archive was scattered to the winds, and of how much it revealed about him, and of how much of it could I remember.

For a moment I was panicked by how little came to mind. There was of course first and always Ernest Hemingway, whom Mike looked upon almost as a father figure and role model. Straight-forward, hard-writing, hard-drinking, a man’s man who knew his hunting and who could throw a punch and write a lean, sinewy prose. The fact that Heminway ultimately committed suicide was an unfortunate element in the mix; it always suggested it as an alternative to suffering. Thankfully it never came to that.

But as I thought more and more about it, more authors sprang to mind. The trouble was there were almost too many to remember, and John recalled more. John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, John Gardner, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, William S. Burroughs, Jean-Ferdinand Celine, Charles Bukowski, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Harris. They came in layers through his life, first American Modernism, then Russian Realism, then Outsider stuff, then Modern American Gothic; with Shakespeare and Melville sprinkled liberally throughout.

And almost inextricably linked with that was his taste in music. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Van Morrison, Boomtown Rats, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, David Bowie, The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, Nine Inch Nails. Music that tended to struggle with Issues, and Dark Emotion, and Troubled Relationships. There had to be real meat in the stew, something to get your teeth into and chew a bit.

Along with Books and Music, I wanted to include Movies, but fewer examples sprang to mind. The Godfather I & II, Apocalypse Now, The Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal, M, and Jaws, of course. These are films that I can definitely state had his loyalty. I’m sure there were many more, but again, my mind baulks. He was less demonstrative about film, but again, you can see the themes of Struggle and Survive, with very little Sentiment.

Which I think contradicts an ultimate truth about my brother, which is that he was a man of great love and loyalties. But he had been hurt: the disillusionment of religion (the hypocritical JW’s), a tragic high school romance (rejection), our parents seeming indifference to his future (what did they know about college?); all had made him wary about where to place his trust. I think his approach to art, whether literature, music, or movies, was the rejection of sentiment and the development of a hard outer armor, that tested and turned whatever was flung at it. Something tough to protect the tender soul underneath.

Before he passed away, I think he was beginning to come out of his shell. As an uncle, he could be a better kind of a parent, and get love that was sincere and adoring. His caregiving job was a good outlet for his inner teacher and guard-dog. He was responding to the arguments of a cleaner kind of religion. If he had lived, who knows where he would be now?

Happy Birthday, Mike. We remember. We remember, though we can forget so much.