In Between Days: Raising Jordan (boyxman)✅

Radio Free Europe

Tim

Growing up, I always thought Radio Free Europe was an REM song. In the eighth grade I had a full blown argument with Mr. Cyr, my social studies teacher after a lecture about so-called Radio Free Europe. It was actually a press organization created in 1949 in Eastern Europe at the start of the Cold War. I argued that Mr. Cyr was wrong and that REM created the term and I made a big stink about it.

"You're full of shit," I said to Mr. Cyr in the middle of class. I was already on edge because my mother was sent to the hospital again after she claimed a little girl in the grocery store was her long lost daughter. She scared the crap out of everyone, especially the little girl and the little girl's mother. The police were called, as usual, and she was whisked off to the hospital, bypassing the police station.

Art wasn't around, of course. Nanny McGrath was called, my mother's mother, our grandmother, and Jordan and I had to go with her. She was almost as crazy as our mother. With her dyed orange hair and fed lipstick, she more or less looked like Lucille Ball. She picked us up from the hospital, only to drop us off at the house. She fed us some mac and cheese and left, leaving me to care for my three and a half year old brother. Jordan at the time wasn't even potty trained for some unknown reason nor could he speak. Doctors thought he had some kind of developmental disability or possibly mental retardation. I'd never forget the day he said his first word. Who'd have thought his first word would be Tim?

Luckily, for all of us, he stopped wearing diapers by his fifth birthday and was able to start kindergarten on time. And he turned out to be some kind of genius, truly a beautiful mind.

Somehow I talked myself out of detention that day. Maybe the principal took pity on me and my situation.

Jordan wasn't as much of an REM fan as I was. He was more of a Cure fan. When he was in the eighth grade, he dressed up as Robert Smith for Halloween. Although he was only twelve in the eighth grade (since he skipped both fifth and seventh grades), his Iron Man days were over. I was sure kids always made fun of him, but it was even worse when he showed up at school dressed like Robert Smith, lead singer of the Cure, makeup and everything. He had a fit, refusing to leave his Science class, sitting at his desk until I picked him up at three o'clock. He did a really good job with his makeup, too, and I think that's what made him even more upset. No one cared about how much time and effort it took for him to look like Robert Smith. Maybe if it were 1986 instead of 2011, his costume would have been better received.

Sometimes Jordan and I were more alike than I cared to admit. My argument with Mr. Cyr was something I could see Jordan doing. He also believed me when I told him REM invented Radio Free Europe, just like when he believed me that the Ramones' Beat on the Brat was about him. He must haven been eight or nine when I told him that story. He believed a lot of things I said.

Like Jordan, I questioned Art's motives for wanting to take him to England. Maybe his motives were altruistic and he really wanted the best for him, including the best education. Actually, I was almost certain he really did want the best for him and this was his way of trying to help him. Oxford was an exceptional school and maybe Jordan was lucky to have such an influential father who was instrumental in getting him in.

I was sure Jordan was bored with his current college education and would love the academic challenge at Oxford, but he'd be alone out there in a different country, living alone or with a roommate somewhere on campus. He didn't play well with other kids. How would he do with a roommate? He most certainly would not be living with Art. And he definitely wouldn't be living with Jamie, over fifty miles away in a small flat in London. And who would be there for him if he had a breakdown? Art would be the first one to have him locked up in some hospital. Not only that, Jordan would be away from everything and everyone he knew. His doctors were here in Massachusetts. If Art paid attention once and awhile, he'd know that. And Jamie had only known Jordan for a short while. Sure, they appeared to be totally into each other and I believed they loved each other, but I wasn't sure if Jamie was capable of handling Jordan during one of his meltdowns, especially in another country. Jamie got a glimpse of his behavior, but I'd seen it at his absolute worse. While these episodes were becoming fewer and fewer as he grew up and was able to identify his triggers, they still happened.