More About the Author
Two years after my first stepfather left a friend asked about him. 'Whatever happened to what's-his-name?'
There was a long pause before I responded. During those times, so many years ago in Bensonhurst, no one divorced.
I remember witnessing the parents of one of my friends brawling with stickball bats, another set of parents wrestling on the kitchen floor, girlfriends showing up on doorsteps, but for better or worse, often for worse, everyone stayed together.
No one talked of divorce; divorce wasn't in the media, and coming from a 'broken home' was nearly in the category of having a rare, socially shameful disease. In fact, the sentence that always leaped at me from the 10 O'clock News was a comment frequently uttered after a criminal was finally apprehended, 'He came from a broken home.'
I turned to my friend and forced a casual tone. 'He left, ' I said, intentionally avoiding the D word. My friend took it in, gave me a quizzical look and said, 'So, what, we getting hooked up tonight?'
And that's how it went. As if the tide of my home life carried me along, I was asked to leave Lafayette High School as a result of my aggressive behavior'and you can imagine how aggressive you have to be in Brooklyn to be considered over the top.
Then there was the brief stay at The Brooklyn House of Detention, the second stepfather'only a slight improvement over the first'and the 180-turn-around.
The guy considered least likely to succeed at anything worthwhile, the guy with the hi-rise chip on his shoulder, became, of all things, a relationship expert! I specialize in working with couples in my Long Island practice.
Having dug myself out of the dangerous foxholes of my former life, I've become a psychologist with a hospital staff and medical school faculty appointment.
From being told, "You write the way you speak and you don't speak very well at all," I've stepped over the rejections and become what some consider a prolific author.
And what about you? Talk to me at drblock@drblock.com or visit me on my website, www.drblock.com
