But Not Your Family

“Can I ask a question?” Phil Donner wondered during what his son Mike would remember as the worst phone conversation ever.

“Fire away.”

“Nobody at the hospital levels with me. How bad am I?”

“Sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Don't buy green bananas.”

“That bad?” his father said with a groan, which caused Mike to hesitate.

“Yup,” he finally admitted.

A moment later, his father spoke again. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Anything.”

“I'm sick of being a human pin cushion.”

“No more tests?” asked Mike.

“No more tests.”

It wasn't until hours later that Dr. Einhorn, from his office in Florida, returned Mike's call, then bristled upon hearing Mike's mandate. “Who's in charge here?” the physician demanded to know.

“Me,” responded Mike.

“Why do you think I administer tests?”

“I can only think of two reasons.”

“Namely?”

“To run up charges, or protect against a malpractice suit.”

“I resent that!” snarled the doctor.

“But you didn't say it's not true. No more tests without my approval.”

Two days later, Mike called the doctor's office to get an update on his father's condition. When no response was forthcoming, he called again after lunch. Then once more the following morning. On his fourth try, an officious woman identified herself as the office manager, then accused Mike of being a nuisance. “Doctor is a busy man,” she scolded.

“And so is director.”

“What?”

“Google me. I make documentaries, which means I'm a muckraker. Maybe it's time to examine how doctors in Florida mistreat the elderly.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, a statement of fact,” said Mike. “The next call will be from my attorney.”

Mike was in the back seat of an Uber the next morning when a call finally came in.
 
“I have good news,” announced Dr. Einhorn. “Your father's doing well.”


“You seated, buster?”


“I beg your pardon!” protested the physician.


“My father died this morning.”


“That's not funny.”


“Think I'm doing stand-up comedy? I'm headed to the airport to make funeral arrangements.”


“I-I don't know what to say.”


“I suggest you start with I'm very, very sorry.”


On the flight to Miami, Mike thought it ironic that it was he, who spent years estranged from his parents, who would be arranging the funeral rather than his kid sister or brother.


If one statement defined Mike's childhood discomfort, he realized, it was his mother's often repeated claim that the Ob/Gyn who delivered him was “The sadist who ruined my life.


Determined to rule her roost, Flo Donner dominated her husband, just as she later did Mike's kid sister Robin and younger brother Paul. Only Mike, who came into the world peeing everywhere in sight, invariably stood up to her, which made her furious. If Mike said “hot,” her answer was “cold.” If he said “day,” she countered with “night.” If he said “yes,” she could be counted on to say “no.”


When, as often happened, their confrontations grew heated, Phil would jump in, making it two against one.


Whereas his sister Robin was literally called Princess, and his brother Paul took the path of no resistance, Mike relished being a thorn in his parents' side. Among their laments was his disdain for school, plus his preference for troublemakers over what he called goodie-goodies, and above all his twin obsessions: sports (baseball, basketball, and boxing) and music (by the likes of Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, and Lavern Baker).


Little did any member of the family dream that Mike would eventually make films about his three favorite sports. Or that in both film and music business, his focus would be the artists he first heard on Newark's Black radio station WNJR.


“Why can't you be like Lenny Sass?” his mother would often gripe, invoking the son of a friend who wound up not a doctor or lawyer, but a truck driver. “Or Richie Salov?” another friend's son, who would be run over while tripping on acid.


Undaunted, Mike proudly became an equal opportunity antagonizer when it came to teachers, cops, and other figures of authority.


His sophomore year of high school, Mike, long a secret reader of Raymond Chandler, Kerouac, and Damon Runyon, was given a punishment of entering an essay contest. That led to dismay when he was declared the winner of a county-wide competition. As a junior, that same kind of punishment let to his winning for the entire state of New Jersey. Senior year, those victories were surpassed by a first place finish in a national contest.


Though reluctant to fulfill his parents' dream of seeing him enter college, Mike begrudgingly gave in when, thanks to test scores and athletic achievements, plus success in the essay contests, he was offered a scholarship.


In no time, Mike surmised that the keys success to academic success were memory and writing ability. Blessed with nearly total recall, plus writing skills honed in the essay contests, Mike took to carousing, plus runs to Greenwich Village.


Then came an even more radical decision. Instead of staying in college, somehow, some way, he was going to move to Paris – a seemingly impossible task given that he had little money, knew no one there, and was far from conversant in French.
The impossible became less so when he learned that Simon & Schuster was planning a travel guide for the youth market. Snagging the Paris section, Mike suddenly had a mandate to do everything imaginable, plus a modest expense account.


Far from home both literally and figuratively, Mike promptly put his Jersey street smarts to work. Renting a sixth-floor maid's room with a shared bathroom at the end of the hall, Mike found a way to enroll at the Sorbonne. Armed with a student card, he went to the Paris University athletic complex, hoping to join the basketball team. Disappointed that they wouldn't squander one of two spots for foreigners on someone under 6 feet, he wound up joining the boxing team. In addition to a great workout – plus swim and shower six days a week – he found another benefit that made him less anonymous in his new home: teammates who quickly became friends.


It was in Paris, a city where cinema reigns, that Mike's interest in film grew into an obsession. Haunting the Cinematheques and revival houses allowed for total immersion. Sometimes, he took in classics by Jean Renoir or Lubitsch. Other times, Kurosawa, Rossellini, or Ingmar Bergman. Or Godard, Truffaut, and Resnais. Or films noirs such as “Out Of The Past,” “In A Lonely Place,” and “Touch Of Evil.”
With his Simon & Schuster job ending, Mike returned to New Jersey with a new destination in mind: Hollywood.


Less than thrilled, his parents made an offer that seemed more like an ultimatum. They would pay for Mike to finish college, then law school.


“Why would I want that?” he countered.


His parents eyed each other, then his mother spoke. “To have something to fall back on.”


Mike shook his head. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”


Mike's in-the-air voyage down memory lane was temporarily suspended when the pilot announced the plane's descent into Miami Airport.


Heading north toward Boca Raton in a rented Toyota, Mike's thoughts once again returned to the past.


Despite absence supposedly making the heart grow fonder, Mike's phone calls with his parents grew more heated, then more infrequent. Nevertheless, upon learning that his father had suffered a heart attack while on a trip to see if Florida made sense for retirement, he dutifully boarded a flight.


Instead of being grateful, his mother immediately went into attack mode. “Now you show up!” she bellowed.


“Nice greeting,” replied Mike.


“You're the reason!”


“The reason for what?”


“Your dad's heart trouble.”


Instead of spending a long weekend, Mike immediately changed his reservation so as to depart the next day.


Precious little communication took place in the years that followed until Mike was surprised by a call from his father.


“I know you and Mom have issues,” Phil said sadly.


“Issues?” Mike replied. “That's like saying the ocean's a puddle.”


“She's on her last legs,” Phil stated. “Maybe you two can bury the hatchet before –”


Hearing his father hesitate, Mike finished the sentence. “Before she's buried?”


“Yeah,” said Phil.


Mike gulped. “I'll get on a plane.”


Filled with conflicting emotions, Mike again boarded a Miami-bound flight. Climbing into a rental car at the airport, he once more fought northbound traffic as he headed toward the hospital. Just his luck, his father promptly informed him that he was less than ten minutes late.


There would be neither a reconciliation nor a last fight.


While his sister and brother treated their stay in Florida as a vacation – Robin alternating between tennis and massages; Paul sunbathing on the beach – Mike helped his father make funeral arrangements.


Interrupting their running around for lunch at a nearby deli, where Phil made a concession to his cardiologist by ordering turkey rather than pastrami, the two found themselves in an awkward silence until at last Phil spoke. “I know you and your Mom had differences –”


“Differences?” Mike interrupted. “Oil and water had more in common.”


“But do you think that maybe –”


“Maybe what?”


“You and I could start over?”


Slowly at first, then with increasing comfort and ease, father and son got to know each other in a brand new way. Phone conversations started out on a weekly basis, then grew to every day, and sometimes even twice a day.


For the first time ever, Phil flew out to the Coast to stay with Mike, then returned the following year.


So it was with an entirely different set of emotions that Mike again drove to Boca Raton.


As before, Mike found that both Robin and Paul were making their time in Florida a vacation, leaving him to handle the arrangements.


In some ways that was easier, since it left no room for disagreements or appeasements. Only at the funeral did Mike cede ground as both sister and brother became melodramatic. Robin wailed, Paul moaned, then the two of them joined forces in what Mike viewed as excruciating bathos.


That moment of sibling unity ended abruptly the next morning when Robin knocked on Mike's door, displaying their father's will.


“Seems to me,” Robin announced, “Paul's not entitled to a share.”


“Of what?” asked Mike. “The crown jewels of England? The entire estate must be minuscule.”


“It's the principle. Paul was, is, and always will be a disappointment.”


“And I wasn't?”


“But you made something of yourself, while Paul never stopped borrowing.”


“To underwrite his lavish lifestyle? He borrowed from me as well, but I'm not asking for his share. Let me look.”


Reluctantly, Robin handed the will to Mike, who studied it before speaking. “There are two key points,” he then said. “First, our father's wishes.”


“Still –”


“Still, nothing. And second, the law.”


Staring daggers at her brother, Robin finally exploded. “Know what?” she said. “Mom was right. You're a goddamn know-it-all determined to get your way.”


Mike studied his sister for a moment before speaking. “You finished?”


“Far from it! Mom wanted nothing to do with you, and neither do I!”


As Robin stormed away, Mike sighed.


Before flying back to Los Angeles, Mike called his girlfriend and filled her in on the latest drama.


“Any lessons to be learned?” Alice wondered.


“You bet,” said Mike. “You pick your friends, but not your family.”


If one statement defined Mike's childhood discomfort, he realized, it was his mother's often repeated claim that the Ob/Gyn who delivered him was “The sadist who ruined my life."