My Grandma Died, and it’s All My Fault

By the time I was fourteen, I decided to do something with my life. Joel Kirsch, my 9th grade Health and Safety teacher, the one who was super cool with his out-to-here ‘fro, said, “you can do anything you want, as long as you’re willing to accept the consequences.” What a revelation! So I quit Hebrew High, which made my mom very unhappy, considering it was my idea to attend in the first place. My bobbe (grandma) and zeide (grandpa), who lived with us, tried to talk me out of quitting in their Yiddish-broken English. But I was stubborn. “I can do anything I want, as long as I’m willing to accept the consequences.” In this case, no more buying lunch at school till I paid off my debt. Bobbe had a heart attack soon after I quit, and she was gone the day of New Year’s Eve. My fault? Maybe.

Bobbe wasn’t the first family member who died as a result of my actions. When I was four, I used to like to play in the garage. I had a refrigerator box I’d fashioned into a rocket ship by cutting a door into it. One day, out of nowhere, our pet canary showed up. We never had real pets like dogs and cats, because my mom didn’t like them. We had a series of canaries that mostly lived inside the house. But this one, for whatever reason, was now in the garage. So I blew on it. Hard. Repeatedly.

The next day, out in the garage, there was the canary. Lying on its side. Dead. I didn’t know what to do, other than to not tell anyone. My dad had recently gotten rid of the Chrysler, which was costing eighty dollars a month in gas, a lot of money back then. Now he had a Toyota Corona, a much more efficient vehicle that could very easily fit into the garage. A four year old’s not cunning enough to put two and two together, but it occurred to me that what I should do next is let the air out of the new car’s tires. So that’s what I did.

When my dad saw the flat tires, he didn’t say “what the hell did you do to my tires,” he called AAA. They showed up in a big old tow truck and inflated them, and nobody asked me what happened or why. Not about the flat tires, and not about the dead canary. I didn’t understand yet how karma works in asymmetrical ways.

Three years later, at the age of seven, I was diagnosed with a hernia and spent nearly a week in the hospital. Justice served.

Coming back to when I was fourteen, what I really wanted to do with my life was alter it, so I approached my buddy Jim and asked him where I could score some pot, since my sister wouldn’t help me. He got me some, and I have a vague recollection of rolling it without the aid of a rolling machine. I didn’t get high that first time, or the next, or the next, but eventually I did, because I’m no quitter, at least not when it came to smoking pot at that time.

What I thought being high would be like, and what it was actually like were two different things. I assumed it would be pleasant. It wasn’t. It made my muscles twitch uncontrollably. And then even when I wasn’t high, it made me walk all stiff and funny, completely self-conscious. But I’m no quitter, so I stuck with the program, eventually falling into a weekend-only groove, which in my mind meant Thursday through Sunday, alone in my bedroom. Not sure how I didn’t get caught, but I didn’t. I also started growing my own plants, three in total, which grew all the way up to the ceiling before one of my classmates climbed through the unlocked window and stole them one afternoon. That one was tricky to explain, but by then I was so used to spinning odd circumstances I barely raised an eyebrow.

Sophomore year, I tried out for the cross country team, but it interfered with my pot smoking, so I quit. My friend John down the street didn’t smoke, so I got him started out in my garage, the night I dropped acid for the first and only time. Again, what I thought it would be like, and what it actually was like were two different things. It was fun for a while, till the thought crossed my mind that I might never come down. That ended the fun. Trying to get into my pajamas that night was an hour-long ordeal. Nothing wanted to go where it was supposed to. What I was hoping for was colorful visions, but that didn’t happen, either. You can have way more colorful visions watching cartoons.

I eventually did come down, and with $40 I borrowed from my cousin, I started a new business, selling weed outside the gym. I got caught and hauled down to the dean’s office, and from there off to Alhambra jail, where I contemplated hanging myself with my jacket. I wanted to teach them all a lesson and avoid being locked up with a murderer they brought in after me. I stood there for what seemed like a couple hours, when my parents showed up and dragged me down to the barber to get a haircut.

My pot bust earned me a one week suspension from school, along with an endless parade of visits from concerned relatives. That was also the day my dad took me with him to go buy a new car for the first time in ten years. Not sure what that was supposed to teach me. I decided to go straight, which lasted till they released me on Friday, and I got to go hang out with a friend.

What finally did get me to go straight was the following summer, my best friend, Jason, convinced me to give cross country another try. Way more fun once you get past the shin splints. After about forty days of not smoking pot, my head cleared up, and the world seemed brighter than it had for a long time.

I wasn’t done finishing off family members, though. Now sixteen years old, with a fresh driver’s license and a Datsun 710 I shared with my sister Annie, I was flying down the freeway like I wasn’t supposed to when the news came on that Elvis had died. I wasn’t a big Elvis fan, but I felt sure that driving on the freeway when my dad said not to might have something to do with it. Elvis wasn’t a family member, but my pet lizard was. A birthday gift from my friend Doug. I figured the lizard might want some sun, so I took him and his glass bowl out to the backyard so he could sun himself that morning in late July. I left him there to enjoy the day, but when I came back, he was all dried out and dead. Too much sun. This is what happens when the only pets you’ve ever known are canaries.

I never ended up doing anything with my life. I eventually graduated from college with a double major in Political Science and Spanish. Took me eight years just to do that, and then I didn’t do a thing with either degree. I became a freelance graphic designer and ditched that to start an IT business right after our baby was born. Stuck with that for twenty-three years before I quit to become whatever it is I am now.

We’ve all got to pay our dues. Sometimes that means breaking our bobbe’s heart and offing our pets along the way. That’s how we learn. The point is to stick with your values and persist till you either make it or die trying. You can do anything you want in life. As long as you’re willing to accept the consequences.