My uncle is dead. He lived 91 years and died last night, my son told me this morning. My uncle was a surgeon, some would say a “great” surgeon who, as often as not, acted as a general practitioner and treated Greenwich Village residents for little or nothing, as did his father, my grandfather and his sister, my mother.
My uncle and my mother did not like one another. I don’t think my uncle had a drop of love in his heart for her. I don’t know why, though I’ve always suspected by uncle of being gay. On the other hand, my mother, raised also in the Village, had no issue with sexual orientation. So I don’t know, though, taking all of this to a very personal level; affluent man that he was, it’s likely that bitterness, notwithstanding my relationship with him, will no doubt result in, well, to put it bluntly, no bequest.
Oddly, and I just found this out in the past month or so, my uncle had a friend; a very long time friend. I’ve spoken with this fellow, also up in years, several times since my uncle began to deteriorate. Imagine my surprise when I learned that they had known one another since the 50s and this fellow, in fact, knew me.
We spoke regularly on the phone, though over the past two or three years he’s fallen more a victim to dementia and the conversations have taken place “in the past,” so to speak.
I remember growing up and going to plays on Broadway with him; the great plays of the 40s and 50s. As one of his patients owned pieces of several Broadway theatres, we attended for nothing and always watched from the wings. This might sound wonderful, and for the most part it was, until I was about 12 or so and saw Mary Martin in Peter Pan. I wanted very much to know that she was actually flying in the play, but alas, she was, indeed strapped to cables. I remember one day being dropped off at his office. I must have been about 8 or 9 at the time. When I walked into my Uncle’s office I saw a tall, bald man and immediately shouted “The King is here.” We had seen “The King and I” a week or so earlier and Yul Brynner was being attended by my Uncle for some injury. Later, I remember meeting Jason Robards and Gertrude Lawrence, along with a slew of others he attended for one medical reason or another; some of whom baby sat for me.
After a Broadway show we would walk down Broadway and he’d buy pistachio nuts, the old kind that were covered with red dye. We’d arrive home and my mother, a psychiatrist, would be appalled that I was covered in red.
Being covered in red also occurred when he’d take me to the Friday night fights at Madison Square Garden, where he acted as the staff physician from time to time. We’d stand right in the corners of the ring and blood would occasionally spatter. Oh, how angry mother would get.
I remember him taking me down to Chinatown one day when I was very young, under ten. We climbed several flights of stairs in an old building. I watched an Asian fellow sticking needles into my uncle. Much later I learned that it was acupuncture and my uncle used that therapy for bursitis he had in his shoulder that otherwise might preclude him from operating effectively.
He was the last of my mother’s side of the family and I will miss him.
