Posted on

Rest Easy, Flan

The last time I saw Kevin Flanagan (his friends called him “Flan”) was at a bar about a decade ago.

We had been in touch after years without contact and were trying to reconnect. That night, his wry sense of humor was as sharp as I remembered from our days growing up in Revere’s Point of Pines. The evening was the result of our talking on the phone after 20 years. He reached out to me, and I remember the voicemail he left clearly:

“Mr. Brenner, I just want to say sorry for being such a punk when we were kids and for taking so long to call you.”

We had a lot of laughs that night. I went home, and I haven’t seen him since.

Tuesday, I was informed of his passing.

Mood Music:

After the initial shock, the sadness settled in. My mind rewound to memories of days spent smoking on Revere Beach, bantering on the bus to and from the Voke, where we were briefly in the same shop, and the summer we hid behind boxes in my father’s warehouse, avoiding work and smoking, as always.

He was always in my orbit growing up, straight back to elementary school. He grew up a few streets from mine. He was among the friends who tried to offer me sympathy when my brother died in 1984.

We fought a lot as kids, mostly because we were both awkward and would sometimes pick on someone else to make ourselves feel better. At one point when we were around 16, I boasted to my under-the-bridge friends that I could take him in a fight.

They held me to it. They brought the two of us down onto the beach, carved a boxing ring into the mud and we went at it for a good hour. We didn’t really fight, mind you. We just circled each other, waiting for someone to throw the first punch.

Flan and I smoked a lot of cigarettes behind this wall, photographed during a recent visit to the old neighborhood.

We worked out those kinks as we got older. We settled into a pattern of smoking cigarettes on the boulders behind the sea wall at Carey Circle, occasionally drinking. He was a regular in my basement, which sometimes resembled a neighborhood bar for minors.

Then he went his way and I went mine.

Turns out he’d been living in Atkinson, N.H. — the next town over from me — for years.

I’m glad he came back in my life, if only for a little while. You can never have too many good friends, and he certainly was one.

Until next time, Flan, rest easy.

Posted on

A Basement in Revere

A photo from the old days in Revere is sparking some flashbacks. It’s November 1991, and Dan Waters, Sean Marley, and I are in the basement of the old house I grew up in.

Bill Brenner, Dan Waters, Sean MarleyFrom left to right: Bill Brenner, Dan Waters, and Sean Marley

We partied a lot in that basement. It was the scene of many impressive and entertaining mood swings.
I could be mistaken, but I believe we were having a belated Halloween party in the photo, which is why Sean is dressed as a vampire.

On Halloween 1991, the No-Name Hurricane, immortalized in The Perfect Storm, had blown through, badly flooding out the neighborhood. My basement, Sean’s basement and that of the house in between ours were among the handful of homes that escaped the damage. I was gearing up for one last semester at North Shore Community College before transferring to Salem State College.

A lot of good metal blared from that basement.

It’s also the place where I would literally run in circles for one to two hours to keep thin after going on binge-eating jags.

I moved out of there in late 1992, so that was in the last year in that basement.

Sometimes I miss it. But not much.

Posted on

Heavy Metal Saved Me

I am your main man, if you’re looking for trouble. I’ll take no lip, no one’s tougher than me. I kicked your face you’d soon be seeing double. Hey little girl, keep your hands off of me…I’m a rocker.

“The Rocker,” by Thin Lizzy

A lot of people are amused to learn about my musical tastes. My work space at home and the office is cluttered with political and history-based trinkets, which would leave one to believe I listened to country or folk or maybe even some 1970s rock.

Heavy Metal music? It just doesn’t fit my image.

And yet, some 30 years ago, that music saved my life. And to this day, I listen to it faithfully. In fact, it’s become one of the main tools of my recovery from a life of mental disorder.

Let’s start from the beginning.

1984

This is the year my older brother died. But even without that, life was pretty miserable. I wasn’t exactly popular in school. I was overweight and the subject of ridicule. Emotions were understandably raw at home.

But that was also the year I began listening to heavy metal music.

It allowed me to escape the pain around me. The aggressiveness of the music gave me an outlet to process all the rage I was feeling. Without it, drugs and violence toward others might have been next.

My closest friend at the time, who lived two doors down, got me into the music — introducing me to the likes of Motley Crue and Thin Lizzy. When that friend died 12 years later, the music would again help me process my rage and keep me steady.

I’d be angry, hurt or scared, and I needed something to absorb my aggression. Heavy metal was the punching bag.

One of my favorite songs in 1984 was “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” from Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” album. The lyrics go something like this:

Heard a star-spangled fight/A steel-belted scream

Now I’m black/I’m black/I’m black

Another sidewalk’s bloody dream

I heard the sirens wine/My blood turned to freeze

You’ll see the red in my eyes/as you take my disease

For me, it was excellent therapy.

Around 2003, as I was going through a rough patch at work (my own shortcomings at the time more than anything else), that therapy took the form of Metallica’s “St. Anger” album. The album itself is far from their best, but the opening song, “Frantic,” tore a path straight into my soul.

The song came out a year before I started to come to grips with the OCD, and the guy in the video WAS me. The lyrics were me. I was frantic. I just didn’t realize it at that point.

Today, I listen to the music more for simple enjoyment than as an anger-management device. The anger went away some time ago.

The nostalgia is a big attraction for me, too. It takes me back to a time when I was in pieces; to a time when the music literally saved me. It has become something of a security blanket.

A lot of it makes me laugh as well — no small thing when you’re struggling not to take life too seriously.

How can you not find a live Motley Crue clip funny? Vince Neil sings every fifth word of most songs live. It’s amusing to watch.

The spikes-and-leather dress code make me laugh, too.

It reminds me not to take myself too seriously. And once I’m brought down to Earth like that, sanity prevails.

Posted on

For Parents With Kids Freaked About Winter Storms

With a blizzard in the New England forecast this week and next month’s 37th anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978, I thought this might be of use:

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/6-WMbP1RcC4

I got a message awhile back from a mom who reads this blog regularly. I’ll keep her anonymous but share some details of the note:

“My son, only 7, has suffered from pretty severe anxieties about weather over the past 3 or so years. It took me forever to figure out what was going on (the doctors couldn’t) and finally found an amazing counselor for him that has given him the tools to deal. But still it is a lot for a little kid.”

Since this one really hits me where I live, I’m going to take a stab at offering something useful. But be warned first that I AM NOT a doctor. It’s also important to note that one person’s perfect solution might make things worse for another individual. What I offer is simply based on my own personal experience and some of what I’ve read from smart people in the medical community.

Tricky stuff, mental illness is.

I do think there’s good news for children who suffer:

1.) Getting the right help early will spare him/her from a lot of pain later on.

2.) Children seem to learn things like coping mechanisms more readily than adults.

3.) If a kid has to deal with any form of mental anguish, anxiety is probably one of the more natural, normal reactions to life. Even the healthiest of children live with a certain level of fear. My kids are healthy boys, mentally and physically, but they still crawl into bed with Mom and Dad in the middle of the night because their minds are spinning with worry over a ghost story they heard in school.

What really resonated with me is that this child gets anxiety over the weather. It’s been nearly 35 years since I watched in fear as the ocean rose up and ripped apart my neighborhood along the northern edge of Revere Beach in Massachusetts during the Blizzard of 1078..

Houses were torn from their foundations. Schoolmates had to stay in hotels for a year or more while their homes were rebuilt. The wind tore the roofing off some of the pavilions lining the beach.

Every winter since then, every nor’easter riding up the coast filled me with anxiety. The TV news doesn’t help. Impending storms are more often than not pitched as the coming apocalypse.

From the late 1970s straight through the 1990s, I’d shake from weather reports mentioning the Blizzard of 1978 with each new storm. As a young adult, I developed a pattern of throwing a blanket over my head and going to sleep. That’s exactly what I did in 1985 when Hurricane Gloria grazed us and, at age 21 in August 1991, when New England took a direct blow from Hurricane Bob.

My step-sister still likes to bring up how, on the morning Hurricane Bob was coming, I came into her room and yelled at her to wake up, telling her, “This aint no (expletive) Gloria.” That was me in OCD mode.

That rough weather scared the heck out of me as a kid, I think, was perfectly normal. Carrying that same fear and anxiety well into adulthood? Probably not so normal.

In more recent years, I’ve overcome that fear, and I actually like a good storm now and again. I love to drive through the snow. And when Washington D.C. got smacked with 30-plus inches of heavy snow in a blizzard in 2010, I gleefully walked the streets as the storm continued to rage.

That’s my long-winded way of saying this 7-year-old probably — hopefully — will grow out of his weather-based anxiety, and hopefully sooner than I did.

I think the best thing his mom can do is talk him through it, explaining that weather changes all the time and we usually get through the rough stuff just fine, even if a tree is blown over.

I’d tell him it’s ok to be concerned about a coming storm, but that the storm always passes and is followed by the sun.

When the TV news starts to hype up a storm, make fun of them for making mountains out of molehills. Sometimes, the hype is warranted, like when Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew came along. The Blizzard of 1978 certainly lived up to the hype.  But most of the time, the media exaggerates the importance of a storm, and they deserve to be picked on for it, especially if it makes a little kid feel better.

Now, for those seeking a more scientific, medically-grounded piece of advice on treating childhood anxiety, I once again direct you toward the excellent WebMD site. I did some digging and found some helpful tips, which include the following:

Professional counseling is an important part of the treatment for depression. Types of counseling most often used to treat depression in children and teens are:

  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy, which helps reduce negative patterns of thinking and encourages positive behaviors.
  • Interpersonal therapy, which focuses on the child’s relationships with others.
  • Problem-solving therapy, which helps the child deal with current problems.
  • Family therapy, which provides a place for the whole family to express fears and concerns and learn new ways of getting along.
  • Play therapy, which is used with young children or children with developmental delays to help them cope with fears and anxieties. But there is no proof that this type of treatment reduces symptoms of depression.

Hope that helps!

“Blizzard of ’78,” by Norman Gautreau, depicting the devastation of Revere Beach following The Blizzard of 1978:

Posted on

Is the Point of Pines of My Generation Cursed?

A friend from my old neighborhood opined a couple years ago that our generation of Revere kids lived under a curse. “The more time moves on, I think we may be lucky for just getting out of the city,” he told me in an email. “Revere was just eating people up back then. It’s like we lost a generation.”

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/QPNqojbyIDk

The death tally boggles the mind:

  • Stefanie Santarpio died last week at age 36 from pneumonia complications. Her mom died a couple days later.
  • TJ Leduc died in early October in an apparent suicide. His father died a few hours later.
  • Jay Nickerson died from cancer in 2006.
  • Sean Marley ended his life in 1996.
  • Zane Mead was the first of the three people on this list to die of suicide, in 1988.
  • Michael Brenner, my brother, died in 1984 from a severe asthma attack.
  • Michael McDonald was a name I remember from the neighborhood, though I didn’t really know him. He died several years ago.
  • Kenny Page was also a name I remember but someone I didn’t know, who died several years ago.
  • Scott James also died several years ago. He’s the one I know the least about.

A sad legacy, for sure. A curse? You be the judge.

I keep all these people in my prayers, and I’m thankful for those I was blessed to know.

Point of Pines

Posted on

Another Point of Pines Tragedy

For the second time since October 1, something terrible has happened to people that were part of my childhood orbit.

Last month, my old friend TJ committed suicide, hours before his father died of leukemia. This past week, the sister and mother of another childhood friend both died within a couple days of each other: The sister died from complications with pneumonia. and then the mother suffered a fatal aneurysm.

Mood music:

The latter case is particularly sad. Mark Hedgecock, my friend and classmate from grades 1 through 12, is a registered sex offender. There’s no glossing over it. His records are all over the Internet. I talked to him a few years ago but broke off communications shortly after that. Earlier this week, I got word that his sister, Stefanie Santarpio, had passed away, leaving behind a young son.

Then a couple days later I heard about his mother Betty’s death.

As a kid, I was in their home constantly, from first grade straight through high school. His parents treated me like part of the family. I never knew Stefanie in adulthood, but I remember her as the baby sister. My most recent memory of their father, Victor, is from around 1986, when he scolded me for speeding around our Point of Pines neighborhood in my father’s 1985 Lincoln. I deserved the scolding. I was a 16 year old with a new driver’s license and an attitude.

Last time I was sick from Crohn’s Disease was that same year. Mark came over to check on me almost daily. As angry as I was — and still am — to learn the nature of his criminal record, that’s an act of friendship I can’t forget. I also know what it’s like to lose a sibling, and I remember how Mark was there for me when my brother died in 1984.

I sometimes wonder if Mark’s life would have turned out differently had I been a better friend after high school. I tend to doubt it, because I was damaged and couldn’t get out of my own way back then.

I feel terribly for the family and hold them in my prayers.

Roosevelt School's 1983 Grade 6
The 1983 grade 6 class picture from the Roosevelt School in the Point of Pines, Revere, Massachusetts. Mark Hedgecock is at the top left. I’m below him at the bottom left.

Posted on

The Paul Revere Owl of Rage

A friend of mine from Revere found a drawing I did in junior high school. I had totally forgotten about it, but once I had a look yesterday, I remembered what it was about.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/JCGvONbVCa0

I was asked to draw something that could be used for the Paul Revere School eighth-grade graduation program. I was a misfit back then, a fat, slovenly kid who sucked at sports and verbally fought with just about everyone. But I could draw, and my peers appreciated the skill. My drawings were one of the few things I’d get praise for. So, naturally, I drew a lot of pictures.

This one was modeled after the scholarly owl in the 1970s kids program New Zoo Review. I decided to inject my attitude into the creature’s face, however, and you can see it best in his angry eyes. The picture is a bit blurry, but the eyes come through clearly enough:

Bill drawing from 1984
To be fair, I was just getting into heavy metal music at the time, and that had some influence on this “owl of rage.” But 1984 was also the worst year of my life up to that point. My brother had just died, and it was the first of my two years at Paul Revere School, where I didn’t fit in the way I had at the Roosevelt School in the Point of Pines.

One thing I remember clearly: My drawings always reflected how I was feeling. And at that time, I was feeling rage.

More on this time period in “Seeds Of Rage At The Paul Revere School

The rage lasted all through high school and beyond, though it moderated and mixed with the chaotic emotions found in all teenagers.

I eventually found God, a stable family life and a career, and today I can’t relate to the look in that owl’s eyes as well as I used to.

This makes me happy.

Posted on

Human Tourniquets And Freaks Who Love Them

I originally wrote this three years ago. Looking at it again, it’s an important post describing a time when not even best friends were safe from my insanity. I’ve updated it for the present. 

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2YGwSRjcY4Hjz6fktW9619]

You know the type. They hang  out with people who act more like abusive spouses than friends. They are human tourniquets. They absorb the pain of their tormentor daily and without complaint.

This is the story of the man who used to be my tourniquet.

I met Aaron Lewis in 1985, my freshman year of high school. He was the kid with really bad acne. But nothing ever seemed to bother him. I’m sure a lot of things bothered him, but he was very good at hiding his feelings.

That made him the perfect target for a creep like me.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a true friend. One of my best friends. We shared a love of heavy metal. We both got picked on, though unlike me, he didn’t take it out on other, weaker classmates.

We hung out constantly. He practically lived in my Revere basement at times. I let him borrow my car regularly. And if I drank, that was OK, because he almost never drank. He could be the driver.

Except for the time I encouraged him to drink a bottle of vodka. He had just eaten a bag of McDonald’s and I told him I was sick of him trying to get buzzed off of wine coolers. This night, I told him, he was going to do it right. He got smashed, and proceeded to puke all over my basement — on the bed, the carpets, the couch, the dresser. That was some strange vomit. It looked like brown confetti.

I sat on the floor, drunk myself, writing in my journal. I wrote about how drunk Aaron was and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die. Man, would I love to find that journal.

We saw a lot of movies together. We watched a lot of MTV.

He was the perfect counterweight to Sean Marley. Marley was essentially my older brother and I spent a lot of time trying to earn his approval. I didn’t have to do that with Aaron. He didn’t criticize. He didn’t judge. He just took all my mood swings on the chin.

I would sling verbal bombs at him and he’d take it.

I would slap him on the back of the neck and he’d take it.

I was evil. And he took it.

That’s a true friend.

Aaron got married, moved to California and has a growing family. He’s doing some wonderful things with his life. I cleaned up from my compulsive binge eating, found my Faith and untangled the coarse, jagged wiring in my brain that eventually became an OCD diagnosis.

If he’s reading this, I apologize for all the times I was an asshole. I hope somewhere in there, I was a good friend, too.

Buddies
Left: Aaron Lewis. Right: His asshole friend

Posted on

MomDay Monday – School Daze

Every school has its issues.

Issues with teachers. Issues with other parents. Miscommunication. Problems with other students.

Every school.

There’s no getting around it. We’re all human. We all have failings. And a school is, after all, made up of us imperfect humans.

But at what point does a school have so many issues it becomes dysfunctional?

Is it when the faculty talks out of turn to your child about their parents’ divorce?

Or perhaps it’s when other parents refuse to accept that their child is the school bully & consistently puts the blame for their child’s behavior on the very kids he’s bullying.

Is it when there are arbitrary punishments meted out at whim? One day a behavior is punishable by making the child sit out of recess. The next day, the same behavior is overlooked. One day, uniform infractions are barely mentioned. The next day, a student loses privileges for wearing the wrong uniform piece.

Perhaps….

But I believe it’s when a school & its principal are so afraid of criticism that they close off lines of communication to keep others from hearing it.

I believe it’s when a principal is more concerned with who saw a comment on the school Facebook page than she is with addressing the issues brought to her attention.

I believe it is when a student receives retaliation for the actions of their parent.

And I believe it is when anti-bullying rallies are held for the students but parents & staff are seemingly the biggest offenders.

The Kids attend a private, Catholic school. They have been there since they were each 3 years old, starting in the youngest Pre-K group. They have known their classmates for most of their lives & we have made good friends with some of the families of these kids. When The Ex & I decided to divorce, we quietly told The Kids’ teachers so they were aware of the situation at home & on the lookout for any kind of behavioral issues that might occur because of it. This school had an opportunity to show The Kids an example of what it means to be a Christian & support my children during a particularly tough time.

They failed.

Within weeks, it seemed as if everyone knew what was happening in our family. The rumor mill was in full force until people I hardly knew & rarely spoke to had an opinion on my divorce & The Kids’ reaction to it. I had been blind to the dysfunction in the past, believing my kids were in the best possible place for the best possible education. There were two things I hoped to keep consistent throughout the divorce as the kids lives were being uprooted. Their school & their house. I was determined to keep them in that school & in the house they had been in for the past 4 years even if it meant having to ask my dad for money. But little by little, my eyes were opened & I saw that there were issues with this school far beyond anything I ever realized. There certainly have been people on the faculty as well as other parents who have been more than supportive & I can’t thank those people enough for the kindness & support they’ve shown, especially to The Kids. But they have unfortunately been too few & too far between. It is school dysfunction at its best. Or worst.

I’ve stopped my insistence that The Kids stay in that school. It’s part of my letting go. And it’s okay. I am aware that any school will have issues, dysfunction, intolerant people & parents who violate the school drop off & pick up rules. At this point, I’m willing to take my chances.

But I’m keeping the house.

Posted on

Cancer and The Mouth

The author has some words for a kid fighting cancer.

Mood music for this post: “Heart-shaped Box” by Nirvana:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6P0SitRwy8&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Expect a couple shorter posts today. I have a few things on my mind and don’t need many words to get out what I’m feeling.

Here’s the first thing on my mind:

During my teenage years, my step-sister hung out with a kid I nicknamed mouth because she had a really loud voice. As annoyed as I would get with her, I couldn’t help but like her spunk.

She didn’t mind that I called her Mouth. In fact, I think she reveled in it.

For the sake of her privacy, I’ll keep her name out of this post. I’ll just stick with the nickname, which only a few people will get.

Yesterday, my step-sister told me that Mouth has breast cancer.

She’s way too young to have breast cancer.

The good news is that they think they caught it early. The bad news is that it may well mean the breast has to be removed.

Mouth probably doesn’t read this blog, but in case she ever stumbles upon it, I just want to say this:

You may be scared as hell right now, and who could blame you? The C-word is one of the most feared words there is. You’ll no doubt go through a lot of difficult days fighting this one.

But you’ve always been a tough kid, so I know you will fight well.

That you’re going to beat this is a foregone conclusion in my mind. And while you can’t imagine anyone saying this, you’ll probably fight the battle cheerfully.

And after you beat this, you’re going to be better than ever before. Much better. You’ll find an inner strength you never knew you had. And you’ll use that strength to help others. Because that’s who you are.

You’ll also have a new appetite for life.

How do I know these things? Well, I’ve never had cancer, though I know I’m a very good candidate for colon cancer at some point because of the damage Crohn’s Disease inflicted on me as a kid.

But I did survive a nasty childhood with that disease, and I’ve survived a lot worse at the hands of mental illness and addiction in more recent years.

Only after making it through the worst did I realize how precious life is. I found a sense of joy I had never experienced before.

It’s impossible to see that from where you’re standing now.

But someday you’ll understand.

Now go out there and kick some ass.