Matt Died Today
1. Sunday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
I was expecting to hear from him any day now I hadn’t heard from him in awhile He was the kind of person where no news was generally bad Bad news generally made him quiet
But my birthday was coming up and I knew I’d hear from him soon
You see, when we were kids we made a deal On my birthday I gave him a dollar and on his birthday he gave me a dollar That way neither of us would feel bad about not getting presents I figured him to call when I sent him the dollar
Usually when he called with bad news it was because he needed money I’m not great about giving money away so he really needed money when he called and I gave
He’d had a bunch of bad patches-- heart attack at age 35, followed by a layoff at a high paying, high pressure telephone sales job at Time-Life and a compulsive gambling problem, which after he lost his job became worse and the break-up of a 10+ year relationship with the woman he lived with
One day he showed up at my door in his car without money, with broken glasses, without a place to live-- even the car had to go that very day--he couldn’t make the payments no job I put him up and got him on his feet
Or rather, he got himself up got treatment for his gambling got a job, not a good job though When he worked he worked hard but he never worked hard at getting work and we fought about that He’d always take the first thing that came along and stop looking because he knew that something better would be coming
and sometimes something better came
He was my favorite brother
2. Monday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
When growing up he never learned to care for his appearance and he had a nasty case of acne, even worse than mine But it never made him shy Matt was always outgoing, friendly, and even then a very funny guy
He never seemed to care about his appearance-- odd, for someone who wanted to be an actor The few actors I’ve known seemed to care about nothing else
His friends thought he was brilliant One said, after hearing of his death, “I can’t believe that mind is gone...” Others said similar things
His movie career consisted of one movie, “Slap Shot” starring Paul Newman Matt’s the fan in the seats who throws his keys at the hockey thugs shouting, “You can’t skate, You can’t skate!” And they pummel him climbing high up into the stands to do it It was a very short acting career
My two other brothers and I never thought he was brilliant, smart perhaps very smart He was always funny always making you laugh and always into odd stuff like Elgar and Monty Python (before either became popular) but academically he was not usually brilliant and didn’t care to compete that way with us
3. Tuesday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
“You’re a wonderful person...” He would say after meeting me at work when I gave him a check I wasn’t so wonderful, at times I resented having to give at all and I suspected that if I made it easy he would always ask
Finally, after some awful jobs that just came his way, a friend of his found him a telephone sales job in Jamaica (the country, not Queens, NY) This presented a problem-- how to get satellite TV because he loved watching TV, especially sports, and couldn’t be expected to live without it He learned he couldn’t purchase satellite TV there but had to arrange for it here, taking the “dish” with him
Because he was paying the bills (this was one of his good paying jobs) the dish continued to work (even in Jamaica, the country, not Queens) until one day, Matt’s ex-roommate in NY got a call from the company asking “Where’s the dish?” He replies “I don’t know, I think its in Jamaica” “Jamaica, Queens?” “No, Jamaica, Jamaica” “Oh” Then he’d get a call the next day “Where’s the dish?” “I don’t know, I think its in Jamaica” “Jamaica Queens?” “No, Jamaica, Jamaica” “Oh” I’m told, this conversation repeated for months
Matt was in Jamaica for about a year and half Then he left that job for one in Florida with even a little money saved
But the job in Florida didn’t work out and the little saved money was almost gone and as it turned out, I was in Florida with my wife and kids, because we always go there at the end of August on Captiva Island for two weeks, which is far away from Miami which was where Matt was at the time he decided to take a bus across Florida to visit us
The bus of course didn’t go the whole way and my wife, driving an hour each way picked him up He stayed with us about four days leaving his clothes and towels on the bathroom floor and drinking a lot of ginger ale (not diet)
He and I took a long walk together on the beach I don’t remember all that we talked about, living in Jamaica mainly, but I do remember how hard it was for him to walk He was overweight, easily out of breath, with hurting feet He was only 43
One Jamaica story he told me was this-- The company had given him a van and his first pay (which was on him and in cash) and a place to live (he had the dish) and he was driving home when the van broke down and he was lost Two men in dread locks stopped to help (so he hoped), it was dark, he was lost, it was a strange country One of them said to him “You have nothing to worry about...I am a very very good man” and then a moment later “But you might have to worry, because I am also a very very bad man” Goodness, however, prevailed, because they did help him get the van working and did tell him how to find his house and he did give them some money which his Jamaica friends told him was too much money and all was well
After seeing us in Florida he decided that he would start over again in Iowa City, Iowa where our older brother, Howard, lives and generously offered to put him up
When he got to Iowa, again by bus, Howard would ask him, Matt, would you like to have some breakfast in the kitchen or watch some television, or go to a movie, or go to lunch or some other such question and for the first few months his answer was always the same “Do we have to take the bus there? Because, if we have to take the bus the answer is no”
“No, Matt-- we don’t have to take the bus”
4. Wednesday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
Well, after being in Iowa for a few days Matt landed a job making luxury soaps He even sent me some and to be truthful they weren’t much better than normal soap but did cost more That job didn’t last (I guess others thought the same as me about the soap) and Matt went to work at a fancy grocery store named the “Coop” where he made enough money to move to his own place a little two room basement in a private house in walking distance from work (no bus) with free cable TV (no dish)
One room in the back was large and he didn’t use it because you had to squeeze through a small opening to get to it and because it didn’t have heat He lived in the front room with a large bed and a small kitchen and there he died of a heart attack
It isn’t clear when he knew he was in trouble or if he tried to get to the phone or the pills near his bed or if he knew what was happening at all
When we went to his apartment to clear things out we found a library book of folk tales and the first tale was as follows:
My servant came running to me in terror He had just been to the market when he saw Death lurking behind him He begged me to loan him a horse so that he could ride away from here as soon and as far away as possible, even to the next town I agreed Later that day I went to the market myself and I too happened to see Death I went up to him and said “Why did you frighten my servant?” “Actually, I did not mean to frighten him I did not even expect to see him My appointment with him is not until much later this evening, in the next town over”
5. Thursday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
In high school Matt was one grade before me We only once had a class together, an elective, “Comparative Religion” with Dr. H. Dr. H was in his sixties when he taught that class had been at the school forever and taught
Aldous Huxley’s “perennial philosophy” whose idea was that all the great religions were at base the same, with the same hidden wisdom and essence Matt loved it and when he loved something he always did well He really took well to Dr. H (even getting as good a grade as me or maybe better) whose style of teaching was open and warm, enquiring and tolerant For instance, Dr. H more than tolerated the atheist in me He would, after a class in which we gave our opinions (and he always wanted to hear what any of us had to say) encourage the class, as we were leaving, to do careful reading and, also, to “go home and pray for Peter’s soul, even though he thinks he doesn’t have one”
Not so Mr. L Mr. L was tall, white haired, formal in his grey banker’s suit and taught mathematics by intimidation Both me and Matt had him for algebra though not in the same year Mr. L’s style was to make you stand up and give the answer to last night’s assignment and if you couldn’t answer right, and even if you could, he’d insult you In his favor, for some of us, this often worked He used to call me Winey because my name was Weinberg He’d accuse the guys of not listening and insist that instead of math we were all admiring M’s legs M had (has still?) great legs but I don’t think she appreciated that I’m sorry to say that this method of teaching worked on me and I got out of that rather unpleasant class with an A I do not, to this day, remember any algebra, though perhaps under torture it might come back I still remember much from Dr. H
Mr. L’s sadistic methods didn’t work on Matt If Matt didn’t like something he wouldn’t do it and you couldn’t make him do it, and while it took him a long time to get mad once he got mad he stayed that way One day in class after being called Winey, ugly and stupid by Mr. L for months, Matt stood up and firmly said “Mr. L, go to hell”, which was unheard of speech in those days
Matt’s friends tell me that Matt could do five or six things at once, that his memory for details was astonishing They thought of him as one of the smartest people around My two other brothers and I never knew this
6. Friday
Matt died today He was all alone I heard about it over the telephone from Iowa
Matt the class clown He told me that at sales meetings at Time-Life (at Time-Life they were big on plaques, salesman of the day, salesman of the week, best salesman of this or that, Matt had a wall full of plaques, and they were big on meetings to hand out the plaques) he used to imitate our grandma, Dora and I’m told that at the Coop where he last worked Dora was famous for her sayings, though nobody there or at Time-Life had ever met Dora
No doubt about it Grandma Dora was an original She was a soprano and a pianist and fine musician she was short and wrinkled, with big bosoms and a prima donna, selfish as they come, with a good sense of humor and not much common sense
When I was a small child I’m told I famously asked her “Grandma, why is your bottom on your top?” and that she laughed at the question When we were older she and my Mom would have loud, bitter fights over bridge bringing up years of bitterness between them
But we could also visit her at her apartment where she would sight read Brahms But when she came to visit us she’d enough money to get there but not enough to go home and my mother would have to give her the money to go
Matt was the only one of us who could deal with her in long stretches Once, with some time on his hands, He somehow let himself get bamboozled into taking her to Florida Now grandma would not fly and so they went by train (not bus), Grandma paying the way Grandma did not believe in tipping people and so Matt would sneak back after each encounter to do it himself Grandma found it somehow unacceptable that items would be priced 96¢ or 87¢ instead of 90¢ or 80¢ and would ask “What’s the 6¢ for?” “What’s the 7¢ for?” The “trip from hell” ended when Dora was dancing and hurt her leg mercifully causing them to cut the trip short Years later Dora was complaining to Matt about her hard life and crying, how she missed my Mom (who had died of breast cancer years before) and started a phrase with “Not a day goes by, that I do not feel the pain...” A few moments later she asked “Matt, do you remember when we went together to Florida?” and Matt, far from being a saint, said “Not a day goes by, that I do not feel the pain...”
He would get up in front of large groups and imitate this strange old woman (who referred to herself as his decrepit, old grandma) who none of them had ever met
He would tell of her reaction upon hearing that her dentist of 30 years had died, how she broke down into tears and how he had tried to comfort her upon the loss of this close friend but heard through the tears instead “Now who will take care of my teeth?” He would quote her sayings “What’s the 6¢ for?” Or the time she announced that she would now eat only “antibiotic food” (moldy carrots and bread, I suppose), or the time she said she would not go to the planetarium because she doesn’t like fish
I was not at the Time-Life sales meetings and can’t tell you how the spectacle of Matt in front of these drunken salespeople dressed in an old house dress speaking in a high pitched voice imitating this old eccentric woman, played Did they laugh as Matt insisted they did?
At the Coop I’m told Matt had a lot of fun with the intercom He would announce to people that the express check-out was for eight items only and that if you had more than eight items you could not use it and that no exceptions would be made, none He would then wait the requisite three to six beats and announce “Well, if you have nine items, it might be okay, but definitely no more than nine items at the express check-out lane” And I’m told he also pretended to be Dora After Matt’s funeral I went to the Coop and there were Dora sayings on the wall there to remember Matt So I hope it was as he said, “They loved it!”
7. Saturday
Matt died today Was he afraid? I don’t know He was alone
-November 24, 2000