Thursday, August 18, 2016
Incredible
Comic books were a big part of my brothers lives growing up, and by extension, mine, too. Because we were so often put into situations we couldn't control as children, we naturally turned to any medium that offered us a respite from the abuse around us. Nowhere was safe, not even the tree house we built in the backyard, because my parents had long ago established that they could get to us, no matter where we were. They considered us their property, and they would stop at nothing to remove any barriers that blocked their access to us, including the cheap thin doors with easy locks you could undo with a thumbnail or a knife from the kitchen, which was part of my mother's hysterical scenes. I briefly had a diary for a day, before my brothers found it and read it aloud at the kitchen table with my mother's approval. "You shouldn't keep secrets, Marie." She did.
There was one set of rules for my parents, and another set of randomly changing rules that suited either their mania or their depression, depending on how they felt, though they would never articulate it as such. We were always to blame, for any household infraction big or small. They acted like desperate street thugs afraid of getting busted by the police, which, in essence, they were to us: criminal in the extreme. Heroes were very hard for us to find, because other than me—or occasionally my brothers and grandparents—we didn't know any. I mean, none, and we come from a huge Catholic family. Since the bulk of my parents power came from their status as bigger adults to much smaller children, they used their physicality as their number one weapon against children who did nothing wrong besides exist.
I had all the proof of that that I needed, what with our good grades and frequent church attendance, though in later years, everyone in my family would use a bogus faith as a smokescreen to hide their real infractions, but not me. I thought it was hypocritical bullshit, because my parents lied all the time to my face, which as blown off easily by "don't do as I do, do as I say", which meant I was always better than them, and I knew it. They knew it, too. I didn't have the arrogant smart-ass mouth of my oldest brother, or the stone-cold demeanor of my deadened middle brother, because I was truly alive in their sea of sickness. Of course, with time, their tactics became more brutal and concerted as I grew older, which signaled clearly to me that my brain power was terrifying to them and so was my beauty, so much did they try to hurt me when I was stuck in the home, also by their contrivance.
The only solace I ever found—amid their suddenly stormy attacks that could sink into sullen silences lasting months or years—was among the books that were written by much better people than the ones I was surrounded with daily. I knew someday I would join their ranks, because I understood their writings much better than my family's virulent mental diseases. And so, when a t.v. show came on about a comic book superhero we admired, psyched didn't even begin to cover it for us as kids. Bernard, in his fear about being beaten up, was drawn to the "The Hulk" character who would turn into a strong beast whenever he became really angry. It mirrored my brother's ongoing struggles with a violent psychosis stemming from his emotional problems, manifesting itself into bursts of uncontrollable anger that both scared him and protected him, too, just like the comic read.
When we found out that the actor portraying the Hulk in the t.v. show was an Italian-American from the city (just like us!), we were ecstatic. We couldn't read enough about him in our fanzines, hoping to catch a glimpse of him at our comic book conventions at Madison Square Garden, not that I would take a typical fan photo with anyone: too shy. We'd tell each other fun facts about his life, like the muscle movie he made with Arnold Schwarzenegger that was a huge hit, with both actor/athletes going on to star in movies and shows about mythical comic book action heroes. It was an epic time to be a kid. And when we found out that he was successful despite his deafness, we hero-worshipped him like no other star from our childhood.
Our grandmother was deaf, and so was our aunt, with my father and I also joining the genetic ranks of profound hearing impairment that is the inherited deafness running in my paternal line. We'd cite lines from his interviews like "Did you know that Lou Ferrigno has a 'deaf voice' he tries to hide, so he went for a t.v. role without any speaking parts?" Fascinating! He'd been born deaf! We loved his triumph over adversity in real life that meant he wasn't some typical show business phony from Hollywood who'd sing anything for a buck, like a cheap sell-out. He was for real, yo! We read with avid interest about the special earpiece he wore in his ear for stage directions from the sidelines that made us cheer even louder for him whenever he appeared on screen. "Change! Change! Change!" We'd root for the "monster" in each and every episode, over the lamer Bill Bixby character. What a wimp!
Of course, as savvy New York City kids, we knew that a lot of bodybuilders took steroids to get big, but we reasoned that Mr. Ferrigno had probably been forced into it, as part of his Hollywood success, because he had a serious handicap he needed to compensate for, we reasoned out loud to each other. Unlike the other seriously delusional people we knew, we weren't looking for god-like perfection in our 'hood heroes. To us, he was great just the way he was: a city kid who'd made good, coming out of the mean city streets. That was enough for us. And it's more than enough now, though by his photos on social media, I'm proud to report that he looks as amazingly healthy as ever, and I know he doesn't need any drugs to do it. He has a really hard work ethic, just like us. Sometimes heroes are real!
