When my mom died in 1991, she took the entire family history with her.
Every family has an unofficial family historian. You know, that one person you can go to and ask any question about any family member for whom you need a little bit of information or possible clarification. How are you related to this person? Who's child is this and when did they get married? Is that guy we call "uncle" really my uncle? For as long as I can remember, my mom was that person. She was the keeper of the Small family (her maiden name) history and she eventually served in the same capacity for the Pincus family when she married my father. (Curiously, there was no one in my father's family that could be relied upon to give an accurate account of family relations. My father's family all shared one common trait. They were habitual liars.)
My mom was the youngest of five siblings — her oldest brother being eighteen years her senior. I recall my mom settling many an argument among her siblings. The phone in our house would ring regularly as a brother or a sister would call to confirm with my mom which one of their uncles owned a produce pushcart or which aunt was especially promiscuous. My mom always had the answer. "Call Doris! She'll know!" was a phase that was spoken frequently among the Small clan and eventually the lying Pincuses came to rely on my mother's encyclopedic knowledge.
In October 1991, after a long, up-and-down battle with cancer, my mom died and left her family in a state of confusion. Not only was she beloved among her immediate and extended family, but she one of the few family members (on both sides) that nobody had an issue with. She was always helpful and pleasant and funny. And when she died, family history began to rewrite itself. Surviving family members were left to piece together their vague, mostly inaccurate memories. This left the Smalls and Pincuses with a legacy that resembled a poorly-sewn patchwork quilt.
There is one story that I really wish my mom were here to set the record straight. It's a story that has become a "bone of contention" between by brother Max and I. Max, as is the way of most big brothers, is always right. This story has been discussed many times since my mother's passing and the way I remember it and the way Max remembers it couldn't be more different. It's as though it isn't even an account of the same incident. Personally, I am fuzzy on the exact time frame. I don't remember exactly how old I was when it happened. But I do know that the way Max tells it is not the way it happened. The way I remember it was....
My mother had purchased a cake for an upcoming birthday — maybe mine, maybe my brother's. I don't remember who would be the eventual recipient. The cake was in a bakery box on the second shelf down in our over-stuffed refrigerator. (I always remember our family's refrigerator being packed so tightly that items needed to be constantly rearranged in order to accommodate new purchases from the supermarket or even a plastic container of leftovers. How my mom managed to find space to fit a bakery box in that frigid Tetris game remains a mystery..... but, I digress....)
The box containing the cake had the string that secured the lid removed and it sat on the shelf with the lid just loosely protecting the pasty within. As was typical for the Pincus family, I sat with my mom and dad in our den, watching television — most likely a program of my father's choosing. My brother was not with us. He was upstairs in his room doing whatever it was that he did up there. At some point, he came downstairs and visited the kitchen, perhaps for a snack or a beverage or both. From the den — adjacent to the kitchen in our small Northeast Philadelphia house — we could hear the refrigerator door open followed by my brother clinking bottles and moving covered dishes in an effort to see what sort of after-dinner nibbles were available. Suddenly, we heard a noise — a sort of a bang! — followed by my brother angrily muttering "OH!"
My mom, my dad and I scrambled into the kitchen to find my brother standing in front of the refrigerator. The door was open. At his feet was the cake box. It was upside-down and its visible contents were smashed on the kitchen floor — a scattering of crumbs and icing in a small, misshapen arrangement on the linoleum. We all stood silently for a few moments staring at the unexpected scene that surrounded my brother's feet. Finally, my father spoke.
"What the hell happened?" he bellowed, gesturing with his omnipresent cigarette towards the destroyed baked good strewn across the Pincus kitchen floor.
My brother, with not a lick of fear in his voice, plainly stated, "I dropped the cake."
My father was positively dumbfounded. Dumfounded! He jammed his cigarette into his mouth, knelt down and awkwardly gathered up the cake box in his hands. He frowned and spat, "How do you drop a cake?" He repeated this like a mantra several more times, until he forcefully shoved the unwieldy mess into my brother's hands and screamed — demanded! — "Show me how you drop a cake!"
The words sounded downright stupid coming out of my father's mouth. It was one of those things where your anger is so out of control and over-the top, that your mind can't form coherent sentences to express the serious tone of the situation. My mom and I stifled our laughter knowing it would have made my mad father even madder. My always-defiant brother, however, just rolled his eyes as he accepted the dented cardboard box from my father. He placed it on the kitchen table. Of course, he wasn't about to demonstrate the procedure of dropping a cake for my father. This was a one-time performance. Max just stood by quietly and waited for my father's tirade to wind down. Finally, my father let out an annoyed exhale, lit another cigarette and retired to the den, shaking his head muttering about dropping a cake.
My brother returned to his room with a couple of slices of cheese from the refrigerator.
And that's the story. For years — years! — the phrase "Show me how you drop a cake!" — was repeated in the Pincus household for comedic effect. My son, whose birth came decades after the notorious "cake-dropping" incident, has made use of the phrase from time to time. It's a funny story with all the elements you'd expect in a funny story — a silly accident, an over-reaction from my father, my brother standing his ground and my mom and I hiding our amusement.
My brother, however, remembers the event completely different — right down to the action taking place on the sidewalk in front of our house instead of in the kitchen. Because of this, the story is never ever told in my brother's company.
He may have to start a blog of his own.
