Led Zeppelin, Wasps and Red Sauce

A blast from my past found my blog yesterday and emailed me. It freaked me out for so many reasons and in so many ways.

Besides some obvious reasons, this man’s very name in my inbox brought me directly back to the stark white aluminum-sided house with the huge pillars that I spent my first 18 years in.

We lived in a land of big, muscle-toned maple trees, blue blood, oxfords, polo shirts, khakis, beans and blue whale decals on every belt. My family didn't always realize where we were. Amidst the big green trees and the glistening lake my family rooted itself there like big plastic daffodils, smiling and yelling and gesturing madly as we spoke.

My mom picked me up from my private school blasting Donna Summer out the open windows of her massive, four door Lincoln Continental, smoking Benson & Hedges cigarettes and sporting a hard shell of blond hair.

My father was in the construction business, so besides everyone thinking we were Mafia (which doesn’t exist by the way), we also had what may have been the newest house in the neighborhood. My dad bought what was essentially someone's backyard and built upon this a shiny, stucco and aluminum sided white mammoth that looks more like a sculpted cake than a real house.

The staple of our diet was red sauce. But when my mother got a divorce we started eating Chicken Divine, a lot of Chicken Divine. I soon became a vegetarian and my mom thought that meant I couldn't eat her sauce anymore even though it didn't have meat in it.

My mother was just discovering a joy for piano bars and scotch on the rocks. I discovered pot and the Groove Shoppe on  Mack Avenue. My brother became the man of the house. Eventually he moved out and I moved away.

My closest brother in age looked like a cross between Denny Terio and John Travolta, but bigger and more loosely-clothed. He rode around in a 1970s  Monte Carlo with a Royal blue leather interior. Everyone else in our hometown drove reasonable Fords and Chryslers. He wore shirts that opened up to his navel and he furrowed his eyebrows at me all the time. He was scary but lovable at the same time. He was 17 and he told me he had someone at my school spying on me. He was attempting to be my father.

He liked Spaghetti Carbonara best and then he liked to squish meatballs dripping with red sauce on pieces of bread. He ate them over the big pan of sauce my mother made. Pieces of the sandwich fall in the pan.

"I'm not going to eat that sauce now," I told him. This was before I was a vegetarian.

"What the hell is on your t-shirt," he said and farted.

It was my Led Zeppelin t-shirt. I bought it at the Groove Shoppe on Mack Avenue where I also bought my one-hitter. I am twelve years old.

"It's Led Zeppelin."

"Take it off," he said and took a bite of his sandwich and a piece of meatball falls back onto the sauce.

"Mom" I yell. "[Brother’s name] is eating meatballs from the sauce and it's going all back into the sauce?"

He's wearing only a towel and he's big but puffy like a football player who works out and eats. In his left ear is a Q-tip. He swats at me with his free hand and I push in the Q-tip. I wasn't thinking. I just didn't know what to do and I didn't think the Q-tip would go in very far. But apparently it did as he let out a loud growl.

I ran through the linoleum filled kitchen and up the pink carpeted stairs and into my bedroom. I ran into the closet and covered myself with clothes.

I heard him crash open the door and then just slam it.

Later, I ate the red sauce and picked the meatballs out. I was alone at the table, as per usual. A sanctuary, the red lacquer table with ridges. My mom was up in her room, smoking cigarettes and lying on her bed.

Red Sauce

Ingredients:

I can 6 in 1 Tomatoes

Handful of Basil

2 cloves crushed garlic

olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions: cook and eat.