Mugged By Unnerving Fear and Dread, just past 4 am

It was January 79’ when I was awakened by the winter freeze that had wafted through our front door that was left wide open. It was just past 4 am.

While seated on the toilet I felt a freezing blast of wind and then heard the crash of our front storm door, which was broken. Both of our front doors were wide open.

While open the outer storm door would smack back-and-forth if the wind was anything above a gentle gale.

But this might as well have been a category 5 tornado.

I slowly descended the stairs so that I could then lock the door. I was shaking uncontrollably, from both the winter freeze and fear that someone might have broken into our house.

My father was passed out on the sofa, again, and was somehow unaffected by the icebox which had become our living room. I attempted to rouse him from his drunken slumber.

It was impossible.

Instead I covered him with three coats. He remained statuesque.

I was still too young to understand that my father’s ‘sickness’ was full-blown alcoholism. I might have better luck waking the dead from St. Anne’s cemetery, just a couple of blocks from where we lived, than to rouse him from his booze-induced coma.

After closing and locking both doors I ascended the stairs only to see the back bedroom, my older brother’s bedroom door, wide open. The night-light illuminated his empty bed and he wasn’t in the bathroom.

 The realization was one of the most terrifying days of my life-even though I wasn’t in any inherent danger.

My 10 year-old brother, with severe mental retardation, and who was also mute, was missing from our home.

I ran into my mother’s bedroom, screaming: “Mom, Eddie’s gone!” “Eddie’s not here!” “He’s gone, Mom!”

She was running before her feet hit the floor, futilely checked his bedroom and the bathroom. Then tore down the steps, suddenly screaming profanities at my father who was still struggling to awaken.

She grabbed the rotary dial phone (no cell phones in the 70’s) and called the police.

She also called her mother and I don’t know who else, threw on her winter coat and clogs and then ran out the front door, curlers still in her hair.

I wanted to go with my mother but she ordered me to stay at home, saying that the police would soon be at our house to help.

My father, now semi-alert, phoned his mother and his brother, my Uncle Joe. Fortunately they lived just around the corner, and were with us in 5 minutes.

It was the weekend so, without the distraction of school, we had nothing but time to consume ourselves with dread. We all prayed for a safe return of our helpless brother.

My paternal grandmother suddenly started crying and my Uncle Joe was arguing with our father in the kitchen about his drinking too much when the police arrived. My father started explaining that he did not know when my brother went missing.

I chimed in, “My Dad was sleeping on the couch when Eddie left,” and that “I came down the stairs to close our doors, which were wide open.”

The police asked my father how that was possible, that his son managed to leave our house undetected in the middle of the night.

My Uncle Joe hollered, “Because he was passed out from boozing!”

My father could only shake his head. He had no words. No answer was a good answer for Eddie’s disappearance.

The officer persisted with more questions, “Where’s his mother?”

Just as I was starting to answer that my mother left to find our brother my grandmother herded me and my siblings to the kitchen, saying: “Let the adults talk about how they’ll find Eddie; we’ll go have breakfast.”

By now the sun was shining brightly. But it was windy and cold outside and Eddie’s coat was in our house. It was somewhere in the 20’s and Eddie was without his winter coat.

My maternal grandparents had arrived just before 8 am. Almost four hours had passed and Eddie was still nowhere to be found.

My grandmother took me and my siblings to her house to help. She bought pizza and root beer for us. But we were only filled with dread. I couldn’t eat. I kept trying to think of where he would go.

I asked my grandmother if I could go out to help find him. She forbade it, saying: “It’ll be easier if the adults find your brother; come over here, Steve.”

She hugged me and my siblings and said that we should pray for St. Jude’s intervention, the patron saint of lost causes in the Catholic Church. She explained that God would help bring Eddie safely home.

My grandmother’s phone rang half past 4 pm. Eddie had been found, several miles from home. He was laying motionless on the ground in a playground, in pajamas and roller skates.

He was taken to the hospital for treatment of frostbite, dehydration and minor bruises. He spent the night at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

I remember feeling guilty because I helped teach him how to roller skate and it lead to this.

Guilt is the cornerstone of the Catholic faith and also motivated me to frequent church on Saturday afternoons so that I could make my confession to a priest, to atone for my sins lest I die-not in a state of grace.

My brother was incredibly lucky. We all were. At least this time the story had a happy ending.