Official Book Club Selection Part 2

We did plenty of gay stuff; we just didn't know how gay we were at the time.

I was so used to hanging out with gay guys that when I had a real high school boyfriend, I couldn't believe that he wanted to actual y fool around and have s.e.x. His name was Nick. He was shy and cute and third string on the basketbal team. And I couldn't believe he liked me. One time we had a date and he tried to feel me up over my paisley b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt and olive green elephant bel s, and I was appal ed. Tom Murphy never tried to go that far with me. To this day, the behavior of straight men is something I've never been able to wrap my head around. Have you ever met one? They're real y weird. Sometimes they want to have s.e.x without A Chorus Line A Chorus Line playing in the background. Yuck. How is that even possible? playing in the background. Yuck. How is that even possible?

So while straight guys may have mystified me, I was a girl who knew what she wanted in terms of fame and recognition: a lead in the school play. I scratched and clawed my way to starring in the big shows my senior year. I was Rosemary in How to Succeed in Business Without How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Really Trying, the part that Michele Lee played in the film. (Now, of course, I'd never take that role, because it's not the funny sidekick.) I was also Hodel, one of the daughters in Fiddler on the Roof Fiddler on the Roof , a production in which I believe there was only one Jewish girl. Very multi-culti. Even then, I wanted my school to think outside the box. Why weren't we doing , a production in which I believe there was only one Jewish girl. Very multi-culti. Even then, I wanted my school to think outside the box. Why weren't we doing For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf? When the Rainbow Is Enuf?

My senior year I started having vicious, tearful fights with my parents about why I didn't want to go to col ege. They couldn't figure it out.

They'd saved for it. Joyce, John, and Gary had al gone.

But I knew that I had to try to be a real actress, and start as soon as possible. I certainly wasn't going to fol ow the paths imagined by my parents, who never took my show business yearnings seriously. They kept trying to talk me into being a dental hygienist, so I could meet a nice dentist, who would then take care of me. That was after I got braces, which means it probably occurred to Mom after she b.i.t.c.hed and moaned about the price. The second option to consider was being a "stew." In other words, stewardess. They said if I became a "stew," I could fly for free. You can see where this is going.

"That sounds like you you just want to get free plane tickets," I said. just want to get free plane tickets," I said.

"No, no, you'd be great!" They beamed.

In any case, I'd already had a taste of "the biz" when I got to appear in a commercial while I was stil in high school. My parents had a friend who did local voice-overs, and that friend's son announced one day that he was going to be an extra in a commercial for the Chicago White Sox, and did I want to do it, too? "You come, you sit in the seats, they film it, and you get twenty-five dol ars."

I'd be rich! Sign me up!

The shoot was held at the old Comiskey Park, where the White Sox played. I was outfitted in braids, a red-and-white-check gingham s.h.i.+rt, and a Sox cap. I got to sit in the crowd and sing the team's anthem, which was the oldie "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Good-bye" but with a chorus that ended in "good times." That day I had the time of my life, and then, sure enough, they decided to put me in a smal group shot. So out of the whole crowd, they zoomed in on me, my parents' friend's son, and two other people. I didn't even know I was recognizable until the commercial started airing. "Hey, you were in the Sox commercial!" I'd suddenly hear when I was at school or walking down the street, which thril ed me to no end. I had become a famous face!

My first award, for second best singer in a talent compet.i.tion. Yeah, I rocked Genoa City, Wisconsin. Next stop, Hol ywood!

My parents may have pooh-poohed my career aspirations, but they were cool enough to foot the bil for my first headshots. I needed them, too, because after that commercial I went and signed with every talent agency in Chicago. (No one cared about exclusivity there.) They were corny shots-me with a handbag in a Sears catalog pose, as a counter girl in a generic fast-food restaurant, and as a tomboy in OshKosh B'Gosh overal s-but the idea was to show a range of what I could do.

Despite my efforts, I didn't get booked for anything else.

I knew I had to move to Los Angeles. That was where it was going to happen for me. I had talked my parents out of col ege, and now other factors made the notion of relocating also attractive to Mom and Dad.

Kenny was already out in California touting the place, Joyce was looking for a change of scenery, my parents were now old enough to retire, and the winters in Chicago were real y starting to kick my mother's a.s.s. So after living six decades in one city, my parents up and moved to a place where they didn't know a soul. Joyce and I headed out a month later, driving across the country together. I was eighteen.

LA may have been the home of movie-star mansions, big studio lots, and the expanse of the Pacific, but the Griffins found a way to live there like Depression-era Irish. We were al enmeshed in a run-down apartment building at Pico and Lincoln, to this day a hinky area of Santa Monica. I was living with my parents in a two-bedroom apartment, Joyce was in the unit closest to the street, and in between us lived a guy named John who worked for the General Accounting Office and who I ended up dating for five years. Yes, men, you could have had me as your girlfriend if you'd lived close enough.

It real y was some f.u.c.ked-up white version of Good Times Good Times. I had just come from such a typical suburban environment that our street in Oak Park, Il inois, was cal ed, if you'l remember, Home Avenue. Medium-sized middle-cla.s.s houses, children, dogs, block parties, relatively quiet. Now, we lived across the street from Santa Monica High, so urban teenage rowdiness was a daily fact of life. Occasional y we'd go downstairs to the communal washer-and-dryer room and find some Malibu trust fund ne'er-do-wel or poor Mexican teen smoking pot. Then there was the homeless contingent in Santa Monica. Being a beach town, my mother's theory was that we shouldn't spend money on air-conditioning. She would prop open the front door to our apartment and plug in the Builders Emporium box fan to cool the place down. One time a big, scary-looking, stanky-smel ing vagrant just walked into our apartment and started yel ing at my dad, caught unawares in his boxers and Sears T-s.h.i.+rt.

"I wanna take a SHAWAH! I wanna take a SHAWAH!"

He did actual y need one, by the way. He was filthy. But that doesn't mean you do what my dad-who wasn't having any of it-did next. My five-foot, six-inch, roughly sixty-year-old father, without batting an eyelash, took this guy on. He repeatedly poked an angry finger in the homeless guy's chest. "You're not takin' a shower HERE, pal!" The guy backed up and Dad slammed the door in his face.

I'm not saying it was the hood, but it definitely wasn't the safe suburban enclave to which we'd become accustomed.

No matter, though. I was in California. I was excited. And I had a plan. I was going to work as an extra, take acting cla.s.ses, then become a professional actress! I was going to get in the door! I was going to pound the pavement! I was going to go from agency to agency! I was going to be a star!

I ended up living with my parents til I was twenty-eight. (Sigh.)

That's Dad and me and Kenny, taken at the first Thanksgiving I had in LA.

Moving out to LA meant that my family and I were going to be in close proximity to my oldest brother Kenny. My memories of Kenny are perhaps the most difficult part of writing this book. My recol ection of him just doesn't line up with those of family. What fol ows is my version of my relations.h.i.+p with him, and I've decided to get it out in the open for the first time. He was real y the dominant male figure of my formative years, for reasons that started out good and eventual y turned very bad.

Early on, Kenny was living the life I hoped to one day lead, and as an impressionable young girl with a dream to be in show business, I looked up to him for that. It was clear as I was growing up that Kenny was the star of the family. He was very bright and very charming, and he became something of a minor celebrity as an actor and musician. He was in a band-okay, a cover band, which back then seemed glamorous-but when I was a kid what was more important to me was that he had the lead in a celebrated production of Hair Hair at the famed Shubert Theatre in Chicago. That was a big deal. At the end of the musical, when the song at the famed Shubert Theatre in Chicago. That was a big deal. At the end of the musical, when the song "The Age of Aquarius" segues into that chorus of "Let the sun s.h.i.+ne in,"

they would have the audience come up on stage. I remember I was too young to see the play, but one night Kenny brought me up anyway and I got to dance in the finale with everyone, and that's one of those bitten-by-the-bug moments I'l never forget.

I would hear about Kenny getting to meet local celebrities, actors at the Playboy mansion (which was then a Chicago hotspot), and he was getting offers to sing commercial jingles. It al seemed so fantastic. Part of me real y did have a bit of idol wors.h.i.+p with him. And when I was a snotty little kid who annoyed the family by singing and dancing around in the house every night, he was the encouraging one. He'd say, "You know, you could do this if you want to." A comment like that, as simple as it sounds, can real y fuel the optimism of a starstruck kid.

Kenny's behavior at other times, though, offered up contradictions. He had a terrible work ethic, for instance, which real y burned itself into my brain as something very negative. He was an "artist," he'd claim, so he always felt he was above a regular job, and because he was a charmer, he could always find a hot chick or girlfriend to support him. His att.i.tude, though, would shock me. I remember one time when Kenny was between road gigs and staying at the house, I was in my room and someone cal ed the upstairs phone. It was an offer for Kenny to do a voice-over. The job was short notice, though, as in, happening in a few hours.

"What? I'm not going to do some stupid voice-over! I'm in a band!" he yel ed into the phone.

I overheard that the pay was $300, which seemed like an instant windfal to me. I gasped and thought, Get out of bed and go do that Get out of bed and go do that voice-over for three hundred dollars! What are you thinking? voice-over for three hundred dollars! What are you thinking?

But he hung up. Then he got into a big fight in the hal with Mom, who also couldn't believe he was turning down that kind of cash. Then of course two months later he'd be asking her for money.

As talented as Kenny was, he was a troublemaker from as early as I can remember, always causing Mom and Dad a lot of heartache. He was getting arrested for one thing or another, and because our family knew the local cops, he'd be let off easy, after which Mom would go off and cry somewhere. He was always asking for money from Mom -never Dad, who would just explode on him if he tried-but instead of just borrowing it like a normal person, he'd turn it into a confrontation that would end with him in her face screaming, "I don't want your G.o.dd.a.m.n money!" and then throwing it on the floor. He could be physical y frightening in every way, and easily spin out of control.

But sure enough, he found a beautiful, sweet girl to marry him. Her name was Kathy, a red-haired knockout who wore fas.h.i.+onable clothes and was real y cool, and I thought she was a superfox. But shortly after they got married, she would take me aside and tel me that Kenny beat her. I know: There's a boundary issue here, and you can debate the appropriateness of tel ing an eleven-year-old these things. She would tel me about the time Kenny threw her out of their apartment naked in the middle of winter to humiliate her. But Mom and Dad would say, "Oh, she's being dramatic." I'd look at the tightly wound Kenny and easily believe it happened.

Then it happened in front of me. We were hanging out in Joyce's room upstairs, and Kenny and Kathy got into an altercation. They started yel ing, and in an instant, it seemed, Kenny threw his wife across the room. She hit the wal and slid down to the floor. It knocked the wind out of her. I was horrified. Joyce tried to stop it, and I ran into my room, terrorized. I couldn't stop shaking. My brother Johnny came in, asked me what was wrong. I was trembling, too scared even to talk at al , fearful of escalating the situation. After a few minutes, I stammered out the words, "Kenny beat up Kathy."

As a result of al the shouting, Mom and Dad ran up the stairs and Kenny was already in the hal way. But what surprised me was that the commotion afterward focused on me, the crying little girl, and not the woman who'd just been abused. I was overcome with guilt, and I remember thinking, No, look after her! I saw her get thrown across the No, look after her! I saw her get thrown across the room! room! But Kathy didn't have a mark on her, and she was quickly tamping out the fire with "I'm fine! I'm fine!" Kenny, meanwhile, wasn't saying anything, just tapping his thumbnail repeatedly against his teeth. My father went off on him, of course. "How do you hit a woman?! What the hel are you thinking?" But they kept making a fuss about me. "Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?" Even Kenny's wife, the victim here, was taking it upon herself to comfort me by saying, "I'm so sorry you had to see this." By the end of that night, everybody in the family was acting like Kenny had shoved his wife a little, there was some hysteria, and it would never happen again. But Kathy didn't have a mark on her, and she was quickly tamping out the fire with "I'm fine! I'm fine!" Kenny, meanwhile, wasn't saying anything, just tapping his thumbnail repeatedly against his teeth. My father went off on him, of course. "How do you hit a woman?! What the hel are you thinking?" But they kept making a fuss about me. "Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?" Even Kenny's wife, the victim here, was taking it upon herself to comfort me by saying, "I'm so sorry you had to see this." By the end of that night, everybody in the family was acting like Kenny had shoved his wife a little, there was some hysteria, and it would never happen again.

But Kathy continued to tel me about beatings. And when they got divorced, and Kenny got another girlfriend, she told me privately about his being violent with her, too.

Then there was the extremely inappropriate s.e.xual energy that came from Kenny. This older brother I wors.h.i.+pped would crawl into my bed and softly say to me over and over things like "You're so pretty" and "You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen." If you saw this, if you'd been in the room, you'd stop it from happening. He never molested me, but a twenty-eight-year-old guy whispering sweet nothings into his ten-year-old sister's ear like a lover is out of line in any sane person's book.

Another incident occurred with a creepy friend of Kenny's when I was around thirteen. Our house was always pretty welcoming, and friends staying over was never an issue. So Kenny brought home a guy he knew. When he and Kenny were in my brothers' back bedroom, I was singing and dancing in front of them and being a general show-off. My brother left the room, and in two seconds this grown man pul ed me onto his knee, and before my preteen brain could even process what this was, he jammed his tongue down my throat. Our teeth tapped. It's odd, the details you remember. It was over in a minute maybe, and my thoughts ran to Bleeccch! What was THAT? Bleeccch! What was THAT? I stood up, and then he casual y went downstairs like nothing had happened. I stood up, and then he casual y went downstairs like nothing had happened.

This guy ended up cooking dinner for my family that night. Tacos, I recal , which we al thought were pretty exotic. This guy had it down. The whole family liked him, which is what pedophiles know how to do: charm everyone. Meanwhile, as the evening wore on, I started getting angrier and angrier, reliving in my mind what had happened upstairs. I wanted revenge. After dinner, when it was family talk time in the living room, he was sitting on a chair, and I deliberately chose to sit on the arm of his chair. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I could at least start to make him uncomfortable. At one point he was holding court, tel ing a story, when out of the blue I made a fist and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

"What are you doing, Kathy?" everyone yel ed.

I'm sure this a.s.shole knew what was up, because he tried to laugh it off, to make sure I didn't talk about what he did. "Oh, don't mind her!" he joked. "Look out for little Attila the Hun here!"

Later that night, I was too scared to be in my bed alone, so I told Mom what he did, and insisted on sleeping in her and Dad's room. Mom, to her credit, kept saying, "Oh my G.o.d," and told me that this guy would never be al owed in the house again. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything directly to him, so he spent the night. This upset me for so many years that in my twenties I confronted Mom about it, and yel ed, "How could you have let him spend the night in our house after what he did?" My mom burst into tears and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't know what to do. We didn't real y know what that was!" She was trying to explain to me that that kind of behavior was something you saw on the news, or happened to other families. She obviously didn't know how to process it.

I do remember that she had the wherewithal to protect me that night, to the extent that I got to sleep in my parents' bedroom, and I specifical y remember her locking the door. But she wasn't able to confront this guy.

She later told me that she wanted to tel Dad, but she knew a chain reaction would start, and this is where Kenny comes in, as an unstable force that n.o.body wanted to unleash. It was the fear of the wrath of Kenny that prevented her from doing more. If Kenny were to be upset -G.o.d forbid-Mom knew this would lead to one of his inevitable rages.

The cops would come. Somebody would end up in jail or the hospital.

With Kenny you never knew. It was a cal she made. Maybe not the best cal .

Plus, how do you prove what had happened to me? That was when I began thinking, if Kenny's friend is doing this, then Kenny might be doing it as wel . When Kenny's wife told me later that during the production of Hair Hair she came home to their apartment to find Kenny hanging out with two thirteen-year-old girls, I started to put things together. she came home to their apartment to find Kenny hanging out with two thirteen-year-old girls, I started to put things together.

Later, after I'd moved to LA and was performing regularly at the Groundlings theater, I had a conversation with my brother John and mentioned the incident with Kenny's friend. John said he didn't know about it. "Real y?" I said, surprised.

He said, "Kathy, I would remember if you'd told me that."

So I fil ed him in on what had happened. Then John did something I'l never stop loving him for. From Chicago, where John lived, and total y unsolicited, he tracked the guy down in another city and confronted him by phone. The guy's response was that the cal caught him off guard and he'd have to get back to him. Which is a sure sign of guilt, don't you think? If someone asked you if you'd molested a child, you wouldn't reply, "Um, I need a minute," if you were innocent. Anyway, John cal ed me back and said, "That f.u.c.ker, he did it." But he also told me that the guy wanted to take me and my mother out to lunch to explain. This threw me into a tailspin. I didn't want to see the guy. I thought the request was categorical y weird.

Wel , that Friday I performed at the Groundlings, and afterward I got flowers backstage with a note from the guy saying, "I'm here, and I want to take you out for a drink after the show." This seriously creeped me out. Natural y, I was dating some loser at the time who wouldn't go outside for me and find him and ask him to leave. So I had to walk out in front of the theater and confront the guy. I was shaking from head to toe.

"You want to talk this out?" he said.

"No," I nervously replied. "Please don't ever contact me again, and certainly don't contact my mom." And that was it. I never heard from him after that. John and I may have fought a lot as kids, but I love that he felt protective enough of me to stop everything in the middle of his workday and freakin' cold-cal this guy from years ago.

Hearing that Kenny was a pedophile, though, was what set me on the path to cutting him out of my life. Again, his al eged pedophilia is something that there is no record of, as is sadly the case with many pa.s.sed-on stories like this. No child has come up to me, either, and said, "Your brother molested me." But here's what I know: independently of each other, women deeply involved with Kenny-his wife Kathy, and then later a longtime girlfriend-told me about his being caught with minors, then his admitting it to them and crying.

Kathy once told me about a phone cal she got from a guy who wanted to kil Kenny because he'd caught Kenny with his underage daughter, and by underage I mean a child. These women I knew had graphic stories that, coupled with how I knew he'd been with me in bed when I was very young, were convincing enough for me. Kenny would eventual y get locked up for drug charges and theft, but I wanted him to go away for being a pedophile. For ruining lives.

"How can you be so hard on him?" I'd hear from members of my family, who just didn't believe me.

I couldn't get these kids out of my mind. You think f.u.c.king a kid doesn't ruin their life forever?

Those were the crying, screaming arguments I'd have with my family.

Unfortunately, the cheese stood alone.

It was so difficult for me to understand why the rest of my family wouldn't consider the possibility that Kenny was a pedophile. My mom and dad would constantly say, "Kathleen, that's a horrible accusation to make." And I think it's a worse crime to commit than an accusation to make. This caused a great divide between me and the rest of my family, resulting in everything from separate holiday gatherings in one day -one where Kenny saw the family, and a later one that I attended-to the mere mention of his name by anyone else in my family, setting me off.

off.

The final straw for me came a couple of years after my parents and I had moved to Los Angeles, when I was in my midtwenties. Kenny, as you know, had been in LA already. I gave Kenny the benefit of the doubt for a couple of years. Then, I heard another story from his longtime girlfriend involving my brother confessing to s.e.xual relations with kids.

On separate occasions, he had molested one boy and one girl in the apartment building he managed. His explanation, according to the person who told me, was that they they were coming on to were coming on to him him. Typical pedophile logic. In any case, I had the apartment numbers of the victims, and this may sound odd, but I actual y tried to get my own brother arrested. I never told my family this. Blood is not thicker than water, not when it involves the abuse of kids. I was dating an attorney at the time, and he checked LA county arrest records for me. Kenny had never been arrested for molestation. There was no record of anything. I cal ed the LAPD, and I told them that my brother was molesting kids-and then I provided the addresses. To my surprise, they told me that unless the children or the parents themselves contacted them, they could not investigate it.

It was frustrating to me that there was no recourse for these accusations that I believed to be true. Though this led me to cut off al contact with Kenny, I stepped up my crusade with the rest of my immediate family. You have to understand that they simply didn't want to believe that he was a pedophile. They stil don't. They would say things like, "You're exaggerating," or "You're being overly dramatic," and about my break with Kenny, "He's the only oldest brother you'l ever have." But I took a hard line. My crusade continued in the form of years of arguments with my parents.

Cutting off contact with Kenny wasn't the answer, though. It didn't get him out of my life, as I hoped it would. It may have been easy for me not to have contact with him, but because he was my brother, I was stil hearing about what he was up to from the other family members, whether intentional y or not. When you're dealing with someone as dangerous, damaged, and volatile as Kenny, it shouldn't have surprised me that his life spiraled even further downward, very quickly. He was living with a woman who was a registered nurse-of course, he'd found a woman who could take care of him-and he started using drugs while he was with her.

And then, in what seemed like an instant-either she kicked him out or he left-he was homeless and hooked on crack. It was devastating to watch the effect this had on my parents. They tried to use logic with an out-of-control addict-getting him on food stamps, for instance-but he wasn't wil ing to work. "I'm too good for food stamps," he told my mom once.

It had been some years, but I did see Kenny again, in the weirdest of circ.u.mstances. I was driving to an audition at the CBS Radford lot in Studio City, and as I was getting off at the Laurel Canyon exit from the freeway, there he was. My brother was holding a sign: HOMELESS, NEED FOOD, NEED MONEY.

Maybe you're hoping this story ends with a tearful reunion. Wel , it doesn't. I'l never forget that the sign didn't didn't say, WILL WORK FOR say, WILL WORK FOR FOOD. I remember thinking, that f.u.c.ker would rather be homeless than that f.u.c.ker would rather be homeless than work! work! The sight admittedly shook me. I knew I had just witnessed something n.o.body should ever have to see. The sight admittedly shook me. I knew I had just witnessed something n.o.body should ever have to see.

Yes, I went to the audition. No, I didn't get the job.

Then, things got even worse. I remember the day Mom and Dad returned to their apartment only to find Kenny had used his key to let himself in and burglarized them. And the panhandling that I had seen was, it turned out, to support his habit. Apparently in those days you could buy some rock cocaine for $5. He told my mom he would panhandle til he got enough for a rock, as he cal ed it, then go back and beg strangers until he could get another $5 for another rock, and on and on. He would also go missing for days at a time, and my mom and dad would then drive around the streets of LA trying to find him.

It kil ed me to see my parents go through al this with Kenny. One time when I was at their apartment, the phone rang, and I picked it up. It was him. Keep in mind, I hadn't talked to Kenny in many years at this point.

But I just started screaming into the phone: "Stay away from Mom and Dad, you f.u.c.king child molester! I'm on to you! I know who you are! I know what you did! Stay away from them!" I remember saying to my mom after the phone cal , "This isn't a poor troubled drug addict to me.

This guy is a child molester. That's a whole different animal."

Eventual y he was arrested, I believe, for drug-related charges: burglary, etc. Then I had to watch my parents go through the excruciating process of going to court with Kenny, vouching for this middle-aged man like he was a child, and later making the sad trips to visit him at the state penitentiary.

My not shutting up about Kenny was always a sore spot with the family, but I held firm about what I knew, and the subject of Kenny never ceased to potential y turn any gathering with my parents into a volatile argument.

But then my dad did something surprising. He was talking to Kenny on the phone, and Kenny-ever the victim-asked him, "Why does Kathy have such a problem with me?" And Dad told me he said to Kenny, "You know, she thinks you're a child molester. Is that true?"

I couldn't believe it. Dad had actual y, final y, asked him flat out.

According to my dad, Kenny replied, "Wel , I do what I do."

After Dad told me this, he said to me, "So you can take that whichever way."

Huh? "I do what I do?" "I do what I do?"

"DAD!" I responded, my jaw on the floor. "If someone accused you of having s.e.x with children, your answer would not be, 'I do what I do'! Your answer would be, 'That's outrageous!' ANYTHING but 'I do what I do.' "

And that's where my family and I reached our separate peace, because that was the moment they stopped d.o.g.g.i.ng me for separating from Kenny. Something might have final y clicked for my family. Not enough to admit it to themselves, but enough not to fight me about it.

I eventual y learned that John had been suspicious about Kenny for a while, as wel . When John's daughter, Claire, was born, he and his wife were terrified that if they brought Claire out to Los Angeles for a visit, that there might be an instance when Kenny would be alone with the baby. John had held out hope that I was exaggerating, but when it came right down to it, he had to tel Mom, "Tel Kenny that he can't ever come over when our kids are there." When Kenny died, Claire was around twelve, and she never knew she had another uncle. Like me, John had come to realize that it was necessary to cut Kenny off.

Mind you, it was never like I insisted Kenny be cut off. I only wanted everyone to cut the bul s.h.i.+t and admit what my brother real y was. How could anybody have begun to help Kenny if they wouldn't face up to it?

As it turned out, later in life Kenny admitted to my parents that he'd been molested by someone a.s.sociated with his junior-league basebal team.

We al now think a cousin of ours who used to babysit Kenny might have molested him, too. This cousin went on to become a priest who got moved from parish to parish each time he was caught with a kid. He eventual y died of AIDS.

When I put myself in my mom's shoes, I can see why being the parent of someone like Kenny leads you to think of his transgressions as symptoms of an il ness, rather than criminal wrongdoing. I know the only time I've ever seen my dad sob was with guilt over Kenny. "What did we do? What did we do?" he cried, putting his fists to his forehead. They'd question everything about their parenting, and how could you not? I was hard on my parents about their denial, but they get a free pa.s.s from me now, and here's why. After Kenny got out of prison, word was he tried to right himself. He even got a job as a deliveryman for a restaurant. My mom's version of this story is that at the end, he had final y cleaned his life up. I don't know about that, but here's what I do know: He literal y died in my mom's arms. After years of living on and off the streets, he contracted pneumonia, and while on a visit with my parents at their

condo, he took seriously il . But before the paramedics could arrive, he col apsed in my mom's arms.

When he was in Cedars Sinai hospital, he was declared brain-dead, and my parents had one last request for me: They wanted me to go to the hospital and say good-bye. I had not laid eyes on Kenny in several years, but of course I couldn't deny them this request.

There he was, thin, frail, and final y harmless. It was easy to say good-bye, and even to forgive him, but only for the effect he had on me. I could never forgive him for what he did to those kids, and it wasn't up to me, anyway. That's an important delineation. Also, there's something about seeing the lifeless state of someone who real y did terrify you that final y al ows you to stop feeling afraid. It was perhaps an il ogical feeling at that point in my life-because for years I'd had no reason to be scared of him-but at that moment I was able to put the fear and angst that I had suffered for so long to bed as wel .

I'd be lying if I said Kenny wasn't a big influence on me. I don't do drugs. I'm not homeless. I'm not an addict. I know what serious f.u.c.king up looks like. Kenny turned down the voice-over. I'd do the voice-over.

Kenny cal ed in sick to Hair Hair al the time. I think, al the time. I think, Don't ever miss a Don't ever miss a performance performance. That's a form of influence, for sure. Negative, perhaps, but an important one, nonetheless.

My parents probably wouldn't have even considered retiring in California if Kenny hadn't convinced them it was a beautiful place to live.

So say what you want, but Kenny tangential y set the stage for my parents and me to come to Hol ywood. I'm looking for positives here, people. Hopeful y you'l cut me some slack.