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It’s December 1972. I am three years old. My parents have to be away for the night. They drive me to stay with Dad’s brother and his family. It’s cold and it’s raining. We stand on a covered porch and knock. A big lady with a big smile opens the door to greet us.
“This is your Aunt Janice,” Mom tells me. “And this is your cousin Nicky.”
You are standing behind your mother. You are eight years old. This is the first time we meet. You’re not interested in a little kid like me, and I’m too timid to pay much attention to you.
Mom and Dad leave. Your mother reads to me: The Little Engine that Could, Curious GeorgeDoctor Seuss. You sit nearby and listen. Before bed, I learn that you wear plastic pants like I do. You’re a big boy but you still wet the bed.
It’s a Sunday in autumn 1978. You are fourteen; I am nine. My family is visiting yours after church. You are curled up in a chair watching football on a black-and-white television. You have a magazine in your lap. I am watching you watching football. We don’t have a TV, and I don’t know anything about football.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m watching the Pittsburgh Steelers,” you say. “They’re my favorite team.” You show me the magazine — an entire magazine only about football. It lists the teams and the players and the schedules for the entire season. You show me how you take notes in the magazine, writing down the scores of each game, writing notes about your favorite players.
I tell you that I like comic books. When the game is over, you take me upstairs to show me your comics. You don’t have many, and none of them are about superheroes, but when you offer me a Richie Rich, I take it home with me.
This is our first real interaction not as cousins, but as friends.
We see each other often at family gatherings during our childhoods. We are friendly, but the five years between us is a very real barrier at this point. Soon, that barrier will fall.
It’s sometime during 1983. I’m riding in…
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