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The neighborhood where I grew up was a mixture of old and new. Most of the newer homes, like ours, were single story, 3-bedroom ranch-styles with unfinished basements, sitting on quarter-acre lots. A couple of blocks away, the homes were much older brick multi-story dwellings, and most were falling into various stages of disrepair. Many had long since been sub-divided into apartments.
Lowell J.C. Newman lived in just such a home with his mother and brother, Curt. The place was dingy and had a certain musty odor. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, although I always associated it with the bodies inevitably buried either in the walls or the cellar. The place took on the outward appearance of a mausoleum and there wasn't thirty inches of uncluttered space available anywhere inside.
Lowell was the ‘poor’ kid in the neighborhood. We know he was, because our fathers said so. Besides, his mother was divorced, so she was obviously a woman of questionable virtue. In those days, anyone who got a divorce was trash… period.
I could never understand why my father was always the one who’d come to look for me if I didn’t come home on time. If I were late for supper while playing ball, he’d be mad as hell when he finally found me. But, if he located me at Lowell’s place, he was always extremely cordial to Mrs. Newman (or Cindy, as he referred to her). Whenever he was around her, he liked to joke and smile a lot. I think he just felt sorry for her, since she didn’t have a husband. For some reason, Mom didn’t seem to be quite as crazy about her as Dad was, and she always asked me a lot of questions when we got home, about what Dad and Mrs. Newman talked about. I think she was concerned that Dad wouldn’t be nice enough, but she really had nothing to worry about, because once I overheard him offer her a trip around the world. I don’t think she took it, though. I looked on the map, but I couldn’t find Highway 69.
Lowell’s brother, Curt, was cool. He was three or four years older than us. Curt was almost old enough to drive, and he spent a lot of time in the bathroom. His hair was jet-black and he combed it straight back, but it was ‘poofed’ up, and one little curl hung down over his forehead. He said he was the next Sal Mineo. Only a few of his shirts had any sleeves in them, either. He lifted weights at all times that he wasn’t in the bathroom, so his arms probably wouldn’t fit, anyway. He’s the only guy I ever knew who smoked while he pumped iron. Also, he had a huge vein in his neck that stood out about two inches when he was straining doing curls or bench presses.
I had to stop going over to Lowell J.C.’s house after Dad found out they were Quakers. He said that Quakers were fanatics who were very closely tied in with the Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Holy Rollers and probably even the Baptists and Communists. Besides, he said, it was a known fact that Quaker women were all a bunch of liars who made up stories, just to get honest family men into trouble with their wives. And Dad would know, too, he was an expert on religion. He took us to Mass every Sunday. Usually he came back to pick us up, too, if he didn’t have another commitment.
No, it was painfully obvious that Lowell J.C. would never amount to a hill of beans. The poor kid just didn’t have what it took. I lost touch with Lowell J.C. not long afterwards. When it came time for college, and the rest of us were serving our country in Viet Nam, he had to settle for some little technical school back east. I think it was called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Poor Lowell probably never got the chance to drive big rigs or work at the cement plant like the rest of us. I got a call from him years later. He’d been forced to sell everything and move to some God-forsaken South Seas island called Bali. Now that I think about it, he didn’t sound real unhappy…
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