Black Sheep Mourn Uncle

We leave the diner. My sister and I walk to the car. Mom will join us once she's done using the facilities. I pop the trunk so I can get my backpack out. My sister, Diane, gets her portable lint roller from her purse and begins applying it to her spandexed legs. There is cat hair or dog hair or both hair bespeckling her slimming black stretchies.

We're to spread our recently departed uncle's ashes today. I took the bus out to Mom's last night and slept on the couch. Diane met us in the morning after a who's-going-to-watch-the-kid fiasco. Mom eventually joins us at the car and we're off.

There are some things that just won't change. For instance, I know that when I call ahead to tell my mom or sis when my bus will be arriving, no one will be there to pick me up. I'll have to wait in whatever kind of weather for at least an additional 20 minutes to an hour for either of them to arrive. Excuses will spill out of the car as I get in.

"Well, Paul didn't want to come, but I couldn't leave him alone, so I had to call Kathy but she wasn't in and Lisa wasn't a help so I called Mom but she wasn't in either, I think she went to pick up some veggie burgers for you, so I had to get Paul dressed. I mean, I couldn't take him in his underwear. Were you here long?" says Diane.

It's not really a surprise that a similar who's-going-to-watch-Paul incident took place this morning. It's only the spreading of the ashes of a beloved. Uncle Charlie died about three months ago, so there wasn't really enough time to plan a sitter, relative or friend for Paul, my 10-year-old nephew going on nine.

Another thing that won't change is how we go down the shore. We'll take the Garden State Pkwy., of course, but as far as my mother is concerned, there is only one way to get on the parkway and that's by 287. That's how we used to go when departing from the old house, the sold house. Old habits die hard, if at all, so we search for 287 rather than head for the parkway directly from her apartment complex, King's Village, which is neither a village nor kingly.

My family is the black sheep of the family. My mother went through an embarrassing battle with alcohol while married to her second husband who was alcoholic enough for the entire family. Not that one has to be embarrassed about being alcoholic, especially since she overcame it, but when Mom has to crawl her way out of the family gathering it leaves an impression. Diane has three kids by two different men, both of whom are in jail now. One for beating up on whores and the other for conspiring with his father to murder someone. Her oldest son, Joe, has already been in jail by the age of 21 and has since fled for West Virginia. Her daughter, Lisa, married at 21 across racial lines without inviting anyone to her justice-of-the-peace ceremony. After the wedding, she went back to my sister's and the groom went back to his sister's. They didn't have a place of their own and there was no honeymoon. Paul, the youngest at 10, doesn't bathe and one or two of his teeth are decayed from sugar, sugar, sugar without brushing. Dad split years ago with the big-boobed blonde who was renting a room in our house at the time, before the divorce.

We're going to Mom's side of the family so Dad doesn't count anyway, he's also dead. It is Father's Day. As for me, being the normal one, I've always identified with Marilyn Munster, the normal one from an abnormal family. Don't let the gender-bending confuse you; it should clarify my contribution to the black sheepedness of our family within the family.

We make it through the first toll booth, the sun has come out and it looks like it'll be an all right day. Mom plays her cassette of music without words, "Born Free," "Fiddler on the Roof, "The Sound of Music." Diane rides in silence and I type away on my laptop in the backseat.

When we make it down there, to Spring Lake, we'll be joined by the Ralph Lauren part of the family. They'll be white, friendly and polite. I get along with all of them; so does my mother. My sister isn't much of a social butterfly and she's got too many skeletons out of her closet to gain their respect at this point.

We pull into a rest stop. Upon entering the food court area, Mom and Diane are lost like chameleons as they blend in with the other rest-stoppers. Overweight, untucked sweatshirts, sunglasses and a wounded walk are indicative of the American way of life, survival of the fattest.

We get back on the road, agree that we're grateful for such a lovely day when rain was predicted and make the familiar last leg of the trip to Spring Lake. We've been doing summer weeks there all our lives as that's where my mom grew up before marrying and moving to the other side of the tracks with my dad.

The family is to gather at the train-station parking lot. There will be many of us and the lake is just across the way. We meet Cousin Steve, his wife Deborah and their 15-month-old Madeleine. Uncle Bill and his wife Ruth show up, as do Cousin Billy with his two daughters from his first marriage and his fiancee for his marriage to be, Suzy. Cousin Charlie and Barbara arrive, Cousin Jeannie and Gregg show up; they got married a week after Uncle Charlie's death. The upcoming wedding in the shadow of Uncle Charlie dying felt like some twisted emotional experiment. Here we are, all gathered again. Actually, I was the only one invited to Jeannie's wedding from my family.

"Well I find that kind of funny," says my mother in my ear.

"What?"

"They told us that no kids were going to be here so we shouldn't bring Paul and look, there's Billy's kids and Clark's kids and Steve's got Madeleine." She drifts into thinking; they don't approve. Her daughter's a failure, her son is gay and she's twice divorced. Did you see the car they drove up in.

Yet they all love her. Both her brothers do indeed, and her kids. There's probably a trickle-down of devotion from there into nephews and nieces and such, but she really is one of the most joyous and inclusive people I know, not to mention forgiving to a fault.

We're to spread Uncle Charlie's ashes at his favorite fishing spot. It may as well be his secret fishing spot because he never told anyone where that spot is. Mom says it's by the bridge; Anne, his widowed wife, thinks it's by the church. We agree that he fished all around the lake, so the bench between the church and bridge will do just fine.

The heavyset widow sits on the bench with assistance from the three children. Charlie, Jeannie and Steve take their place, backs to the lake, facing the arching family standing on the grass and seated Anne.

There's an eerie echo of the memorial service that is present here as Charlie makes an announcement and Jeannie reads a blessing and Steven reads a poem. Charlie says something else and then Anne joins them with some effort, at lakeside, where they throw his ashes from a heart-shaped tin into the water.

I drift away with my mother, the oldest of her siblings (Uncle Charlie was the youngest), 62. "I think that's what I'd like done for me," she says. She's had her own battles with cancer already, and she's since told me that they found something in an entirely different place but they don't know what it is yet. The issue is too common, the routine too well known; returning visits, diagnoses, death.

"Gone Fishing" reads the plaque that will be in memoriam for Uncle Charlie. It will be attached to a bench on the boardwalk, ever facing the ocean. Mom would like that too.

The family caravans on back to Cousin Billy's for eats and chatter. The conversation is mostly who went where, especially Jeannie and Gregg for their honeymoon, who knows whom from one investment firm to another and what I'm doing. They all like that I recently got a job where I have a business card with my name on it. Some are intrigued with my moviemaking efforts and arty lifestyle in the city, but I'm still somewhere out there to them, someplace not safe.

I bid my mom and the others farewell. I'll be riding back to the city with Cousin Charlie and Barbara, Cousin Jeannie and Gregg. My mom will drive Diane back on home, thinking themselves slighted in the eyes of her family, in the eyes of herself.

Me and my cousins part in Times Square. They try to catch a cab.

"I'm going to take the train." It's straight down to 14th St., my neck of the woods.

"Why don't you grab a cab?"

"No." I can see that they're already having trouble finding one for themselves to the Upper East Side. "I'm gonna take the train."

I shuffle on down the stairs with my backpack; they hail cabs from the corner.