LOCAL OBSERVATION

Dirty Brian

BY CHRISTINA OXENBERG

Dirty Brian was a white boy with Irish roots who missed out on the fabled luck.

Starting life in the projects of NYC, he was raised by his mother, a mean spirited drunk. They shared a one bedroom apartment in a slum high rise. She hated him, and frequently told him he was the reason his father abandoned them.

Brian tried in vain to earn his mother’s attention, affection, dare he long for her love?

For his 18th birthday, she gathered his possessions and rammed them into a garbage bag and scooted him and the bag out her front door, for the last time.

Dirty Brian moved to a friend’s sofa and took a job stocking parts for a motorcycle dealership. When he bought a bicycle, on his very first day pedaling around northern Central Park, a band of thugs jumped him roughed him up and took his ride.

When he was waiting on a subway, a hollering lunatic came barreling down the platform and slammed into Dirty Brian, knocking him onto the tracks in front of a train. Dirty Brian got a bit mangled but miraculously survived.

He saved his money and eventually bought a used car. He phoned his mother and asked her for lunch. “I’ll be taking you out in my automobile!” he boasted. She didn’t believe a word. On the drive over, smoke and flames from under the hood obstructed his view and he crashed into a wall. The car exploded to a fireball.

“I’m lucky to be alive!” he told his mother when he phoned to explain the delay, second degree burns stippling his skin. She yawned and hung up on her son.

The first time Dirty Brian met with crack cocaine he fell in love. He went in headfirst and gorged until he hit another wall. OD, the police said.

Dirty Brian’s friends arranged his funeral. They invited his mother who declined. The funeral was scheduled for mid-morning mid-September in NYC on a perfect clear bright day with Tiffany blue skies.

Such a remarkable day it appeared Dirty Brian’s luck had finally improved. Except no one would get to that funeral.

This was September 11, 2001.

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