My mom, Hildegard, was, and still is, a stunningly beautiful woman. Born in Germany, she lived through World War II being evacuated from one small village to the next. She was five years old when Hitler passed through town in one of his flamboyant, goose-stepping parades. Pushing through the crowd to see what all the fuss was about, she found herself face-to-face with the man himself, who passed her a little swastika flag. She turned to run home and show her mother, but as she did she fell and the sharp end of the flag cut her chin open. She decided it was a bad omen and that Hitler was not to be trusted. To this day she still has what she calls her “Hitler scar.”
And, of course, she was right about Hitler. He led Germany to ruin as well as her family. They lost everything when the Nazis evacuated them and took over their home as a base camp.
As a little girl my mom sometimes had to steal cabbages so they had enough to eat, and most evenings found her walking the streets searching for her papa until she found him asleep in a bar or singing with his drinking buddies. Both wartime poverty and her father’s drinking were deeply humiliating for her.
When she was older, she was sponsored by a fiancé to come to America and work as a dental hygienist. That relationship fell through, and she ended up living with the owners of the Brown Derby, the famous Hollywood restaurant. She worked on Mae West’s teeth and dated William Frawley, who played Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy. She never sought out celebrities, but she was classy and extremely attractive and so naturally found herself moving in circles that attracted them.
Even in middle age, when a future governor of California tried to hit on her in their shared Germanic tongue, she gave him short shrift. It was at my birthday party, and she came over to ask me who he was.
“Mom, that’s the Terminator.”
“I don’t care who he is, he’s a very rude man. You should have heard him. He’s been living in America too long.”
When my mom’s friends tried to set her up with my father, she wasn’t interested and tried to push him onto another friend. But my dad can be determined when he sets his mind to something, and eventually he won her over with his Gregory Peck–style good looks and a ride in his Corvette Stingray.
My mom gave me the desire to improve my lot in life with style. She’s an incredibly hard worker and fast learner. She took an unfinished education and ended up the manager of Giorgio’s, one of the swankiest stores in Beverly Hills.
But back then, when my parents first got married, they were poor. My dad started at the bottom, working at a gas station, and slowly worked his way up the ladder at Shell one rung at a time.
I get my determination from my dad, my need to prove myself, to show the world that I can make it on my own without any handouts. But I’ve always been mindful of the toll that success took on both him and our family. He was always away, and when he was at home he was tense, high-strung, and not easy to be around. As a parent I guess you fall back on what you know, and he had been raised in a brutal military school and expected us to fall in line like those little Von Trapp kids in The Sound of Music. The problem was that we all had his stubborn streak, so conflict was inevitable.
When I say that my dad was stubborn and determined, I mean it. He had a hangover one morning when he was in his early forties, after a New Year’s party with his work buddies, and swore he’d never drink again. Alcohol was his father’s demon and he didn’t plan on making it his. To this day he still hasn’t touched a drop of the stuff.
Back in Houston it was still dark in the mornings when we’d jump on the bus that would take us to our new schools. We’d start sweating at nine in the morning and finish at sunset. The only place to swim was the bayou, which was teeming with venomous water moccasins. Swatting at mosquitoes, I used to watch the crawdads swarm all over the gutters. We used to jokingly call Houston “Satan’s shack.”
It was October 22, 1973, and two of my brothers had gotten into a fight with my dad about homework. Patrick was a rebellious fourteen and Jimmy was a year younger. My dad was always tightly wound at the end of the day and had no patience for kids who didn’t follow the rules in his house. A futile, frustrating argument broke out.
“We’re outa here!” Patrick said, slamming open the screen door and storming out of the house. From the table I watched him tie his blue bandana around his head and grab his bike from the lawn, Jimmy right on his heels.
“Where do you think you’re going?” our dad yelled.
Over his shoulder, Patrick shouted, “7-Eleven!”
My brothers raced off down the street. Jimmy pulled ahead, laughing, with Patrick rushing to catch up. They were neck-and-neck for a block or two, and then Jimmy took the lead again, younger by a year, but faster. At the intersection, he slowed for a split second, waiting for the light to turn green, then leaned down over his handlebars and barreled through.
Patrick pedaled hard to catch him and had nearly made up the lost ground as he raced across the intersection. Jimmy saw a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye and skidded to a stop, turning back in time to see the driver who had run the red light hit Patrick at full speed. Patrick rolled all the way over the car and slammed down hard on the pavement. By the time Jimmy got to his side, Pat lay crumpled on the ground.
Jimmy tried to get Pat to move off the road but he was unconscious, blood seeping out of his head. In Boy Scouts, Jimmy had learned that you’re not supposed to move someone who’s got a head injury, so he left him lying in the road and tried waving down another car to get help.
It was a quiet street in a residential neighborhood. Fading in and out of consciousness, Patrick was lying in the intersection next to two fallen bikes. He must’ve been easy to see.
At dinner that night, we’d all been doing Monty Python and Rich Little impersonations, when out of the blue Patrick said, “You know, if I ever get hit by a car, I won’t get hurt. I’m going to jump up quickly, then roll over the hood and down the back.”
We didn’t think much of it at the time; it’s the kind of thing boys say all the time. But when the bumper hit his bike, that’s exactly what he did. Patrick leapt up and rolled over the hood and down the back of the car. It left him with a broken leg and a head injury, but he was going to be alright.
Jumping up and rolling was a good plan. It would’ve worked, except the driver of the second car was drunk. He ran right over Patrick, killing him instantly.
Every detail of that day is burnt into my memory. The neighbors had volunteered to watch us when my parents were called to the scene. I was sitting in their hallway with Vince when these two kids came to the door. They didn’t realize that we were the siblings of the boy who was hit.
“Hey, we just saw an accident! A kid’s head got fuckin’ squashed like a melon!”
We were speechless, and the kids just kept going on and on like that until the adult nearest the door told them to get the hell out of there. Vince was the youngest brother, and I was the youngest child, so we used to fight all the time, but right then we found ourselves holding each other’s trembling hands. Then the door of the neighbors’ house opened again and my mom came stumbling toward us, clutching the bloody blue bandana left behind when the paramedics lifted Patrick’s body from the street. I saw in her face that what the kids said was true—Patrick
