DOWNHILL LIES

There was the father, Vincent, a 50 year-old stockbroker, who had achieved a fair amount of success, particularly for someone from the Bronx without any college education. In addition, he spent 10 years at a strict Catholic orphanage in the Bronx called St. Damien’s. Later in life, he tried briefly to find out who his parents were, without any apparent success. He wasn’t sure whether both had died, or if he had been abandoned.

He was a good-looking man, five foot nine, with thinning, ash-blond hair, and a trim weight of 150 pounds. He dressed well for business, although he had only three suits. Every day, he wore the same grey herringbone weave, with a stiffly starched white shirt. He rotated a series of ties of various muted colors to distract people from realizing that he was literally wearing the same suit on a daily basis.

He always wore suspenders with his suit and a thin, shiny, black leather belt with a metal buckle. With the suspenders, he didn’t need the belt to hold up his pants. He wore it more like a policeman might wear a holster. The belt turned out to be his weapon for abuse. Looking at him, one saw a well-polished man, at least externally, but inside, he felt like he had been savaged financially and psychologically, trying to raise and educate his family in this upper middle class community in which they were now living. He never felt comfortable. He always felt uneasy and out of place, particularly in dealing with the Westchester lifestyle.

His strengths were his engaging gray eyes and his sharp and intelligent mind. His major problem seemed to be that he was an alcoholic, and he refused to admit it, nor did he want to examine the underlying cause. He was afraid of what he might find. After trying to control his drinking during the day at the office, he would stop at his favorite bar on the way home. When he arrived at home, he would unleash abusive behavior, both physical and mental, on his wife, Dorothy, and then, in equal doses, on his teenaged sons, Randy, Tony and Derek. The boys, when alone, would comment to each other that while their mother, Dorothy, would always assure them that she loved them all equally, they were also confident that their father disliked them equally, as well.

Dorothy was 45 years old, and had been a strikingly attractive woman in her youth. She was five foot ten, with piercing hazel eyes and dark black hair that was always cut short. She had the patrician looks of her family, who had, for generations, lived in Connecticut. Even though she was an inch or so taller than Vincent, their coloring and features had seemed to blend over the years so that husband and wife resembled one another.

The last 20 years had taken its toll on her. Like many people who lived under similar stress, her anxiety was apparent in the darting movements of her eyes versus the rest of her body. She knew that Vincent had become much weaker and more insecure as the years went by than when she had first married him. Nevertheless, her deep loyalty to family kept her focused on its survival. She never gave up on portraying to her neighbors the picture of a happy Westchester family. The bond of fidelity to her family was perhaps more reflective of her upbringing than of her relationships with Vincent and her children.

When inside their home at 27 Gladstone Place near the Apawamis Golf Club, the stage acting of the family outside their home would often break down into the realities of five individuals, struggling for their own survival, often at the cost of one another.

Their home was a Tudor style, predominately brick, and built in the early twenties; but although it was very nice, it certainly was not in the wealthiest part of Rye. The brick exterior in some ways represented a fireplace, because the people inside were all burning in Vincent’s embers. Those embers could be found in the minds and bodies of each member of the family. The interior of the house was modest, but Dorothy kept it impeccably clean. The floors were oak with a smattering of faux Orientals, primarily with a fading reddish hue. The furniture itself was uniformly beige and brown, with only the walls and the ceilings being white. While the color white is symbolic of goodness and purity, the blackened embers still burned in the bodies of Dorothy and the three sons. The future of each of the sons was being forged at 27 Gladstone Place.