More of my life; my cousin, the hitman
I had a cousin I loved more than life itself. When she died at 22, I was only 17, and I met her brother for the first time at her funeral. She and her brother were from Manhattan, and had had very rough lives - they'd come home from school, and the family would be gone from the hotel, as they skipped out to pay the rent!
So they'd go to Grand Central Station and hope to catch up with their parents. If that didn't happen, they were on the streets. Jay especially found himself on the streets often. Young, he learned to steal from markets, and sleep in Central Park.
He also got hooked up with very bad people. When I met him, we discussed our lives. I told him about my girl's school and my horse, and he laughed at me. Hurt, I asked him why he laughed. Because we were so different, he said. So very different. He'd done bad things.
Like what, I asked him?
Like kill, he responded.
He was a hitman.
I was in solid, jaw dropping shock when I heard this. I looked deeply into those grey eyes.... and there was indeed something missing there. They were empty.
He told me he looked over every contract carefully and killed only those who 'deserved to die.' Other killers. Drug dealers. I didn't know what the hell to say, I really didn't. I was just a baby at the time. Just 17. Can you imagine learning something like that about your family at that age? He told me "As of tonight, I'm out of your life forever. I don't want my life touching yours."
I asked, Don't I get an opinion?
No, he said, you don't. And I didn't hear from him for thirty years.
My beloved cousin Tooie, his sister, had just died of cancer. So I couldn't discuss it with her. Evidently I couldn't discuss it with my parents, either. I did discuss it with my mother. She said, 'He's just trash. Don't even bring up his name around me."
He was more than just trash. He got caught, did time in prison. Found God. Got out, married a preacher's daughter, and lived a righteous life. So people can change. My parents never believed it though, and never wanted me to have anything to do with him. Which caused me a great deal of pain.
When he first called, after thirty years, he said "I just got married. We're driving back through Tennessee. Can we stop and see you?"
I said "Of course."
My mother flipped a gasket when I told her. "I don't want him in this house."
"Well, it's not very biblical to not forgive someone," I said.
"What he's done is unforgiveable," she said. But she allowed him the visit, for me. And it went ok. Not great, but OK. His wife was charming. Every time I said "shit' or "God" she had something to say, and I generally don't care for people like that. But she loved Jay, George as she called him, and so did I.
He died five years ago, of a stroke, a changed man. I don't know whether he went to heaven or hell. Supposedly heaven, since he repented what he'd done, and he'd paid for it.
But did he really repent? Some of the things he said to me --after those thirty years-- indicated he'd get back into 'the business' if he could. If the contract was good enough. It would have broken his wife's heart, and mine as well.
He died before he ever got the chance.
It gives me a different outlook on life. I've been raised really well, spoiled actually. Rode hunters most of my life. Went to that excusive girl's school. Yet look what I had for a cousin. A hitman. In the flesh. I asked him what he felt when he did it. "Nothing," he responded. "Like taking out the trash."
How could ANYONE feel that way about taking another human being's life? It's the one thing I've never understood. His sister, by the way, was a Broadway actress before she died. She was in the original Sound of Music on Broadway. A more beautiful person you'd never meet, with her golden brown eyes, her sandy brown hair. And a more loving soul. It damn near killed me when she died. Damn near killed Jay, too. Loving brother, loving cousin, hitman. Does life make any less sense than that? I know I don't get it.
I know, at seventeen, I got it even less. Our family is small. I have the three cousins, one aunt. Two parents. Now I have the one brother left, and one cousin no one keeps in touch with. She's a hard case (and why not, after what her life has been?)
I don't keep in much contact with my half brother, either, and his is a story for another night. Tomorrow, maybe.
For now, let it be known that I miss the Jay I knew, the goodness in the boy I knew. And I pray that wherever he is, he's at peace.
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