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muckefuckAn unfortunate effect of M.'s illness was that it curtailed his growth experiences. He was supposed to be the first of us four to go abroad (if his mental crisis had happened a month later, he would've been on a three-week trip to Russia); he ended up being the only one in the family who never left the country. And he should've been the first to graduate college, but that was me. He ended up experiencing a kind of enforced extended adolescence, having to move back in with his parents (first one, then the other) while the rest of us got jobs and started dating.
It was a strange role-reversal. In a few years I went from having him teach me the ins-and-outs of prep school to explaining to him how hotel minibars work and what level of service was reasonable to expect from a harried server. And he wanted to learn. He was patient with our explanations and strove to remember them so he wouldn't "screw up" the same way the next time. (But of course there were always new ways to screw up.)
A big part of the appeal of role-playing games to him was that they allowed him to live out his fantasies of being an adult. The last exchange between us concerned the Vampire: The Masquerade campaign our brother was running for him, and it focused on the nitty-gritty details of the life of one of his characters--an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.
He never acquired the same "grown up" tastes as the rest of us. One Christmas,bunj told him that all his wife wanted from him (he always got us all gifts, no matter how he had to husband his very limited funds) was a tiny box of Godiva chocolates and M. couldn't fathom why anyone would spend so much for four bonbons when for the same price they could get a 24 oz. Whitman's sampler. I teased him for saying he loved steak and then always eating it well-done or for getting "girl drinks" on the rare occasions when he got away with ordering something at an open bar. We were all appalled at the amount of supermarket eggnog he could put away over the holidays; if he we didn't hide it, he'd go through it all before anyone else had more than a sip.
He even though of himself physically as a big kid. He had a run-in with a neighbour once because she misread his attempts at being friendly. When I tried to explain to him why a grown woman might find someone with his six-foot frame threatening, he was aghast. How could anyone in the world ever be scared of him?
It was a strange role-reversal. In a few years I went from having him teach me the ins-and-outs of prep school to explaining to him how hotel minibars work and what level of service was reasonable to expect from a harried server. And he wanted to learn. He was patient with our explanations and strove to remember them so he wouldn't "screw up" the same way the next time. (But of course there were always new ways to screw up.)
A big part of the appeal of role-playing games to him was that they allowed him to live out his fantasies of being an adult. The last exchange between us concerned the Vampire: The Masquerade campaign our brother was running for him, and it focused on the nitty-gritty details of the life of one of his characters--an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.
He never acquired the same "grown up" tastes as the rest of us. One Christmas,
bunj told him that all his wife wanted from him (he always got us all gifts, no matter how he had to husband his very limited funds) was a tiny box of Godiva chocolates and M. couldn't fathom why anyone would spend so much for four bonbons when for the same price they could get a 24 oz. Whitman's sampler. I teased him for saying he loved steak and then always eating it well-done or for getting "girl drinks" on the rare occasions when he got away with ordering something at an open bar. We were all appalled at the amount of supermarket eggnog he could put away over the holidays; if he we didn't hide it, he'd go through it all before anyone else had more than a sip.He even though of himself physically as a big kid. He had a run-in with a neighbour once because she misread his attempts at being friendly. When I tried to explain to him why a grown woman might find someone with his six-foot frame threatening, he was aghast. How could anyone in the world ever be scared of him?