I’m about seven standing next to my father while he does the dishes.  My mother’s voice shoots from the dining room, carried on a plume of cigarette smoke:  “Roy, wash the dishes.” “I am, smokestack,” my father replies, scrubbing the hell out of a pan. He hands me the pan. I start to dry it. My father looks down at me. “Have you ever heard of the Zorbonites?” he asks. I shake my head. He nods. “This is very important. See, we’re Zorbonites. So we have to know the three basic characteristics of the Zorbonite.” “I thought we were white,” I say. I’ve recently discovered that I, in contrast to every other kid in my neighborhood, am white. I found this out when a new kid on the block asked my neighbors why they played with a white kid. “Nah,” my neighbors said, “that’s Mike-Mike. He doesn’t count.” It was all very confusing. “We’re also Jewish,” my father says, pushing his thick glasses onto his nose. “And Zorbonites.” He hands me a plate. I dry it. He continues: “Zorbonites do three things that not many other people do. Do you know what they are?” “No.  Also I think you’re making this up.” He smiles. “Zorbonites see things that aren’t there. They hear the sound of silence. And, and this is one your mother is really good at, they remember things that never happened.” My mother slouches into the kitchen, a half smoked Benson & Hedges hanging from her lips. “You guys better be washing the dishes. You didn’t yesterday.” “Actually, we did,” says my father, winking at me. “Yeah, mom,” I add, “You’re remembering things that never happened. You’re a Zorbonite!” My father and I start to giggle. “You’re both pathetic,” my mother says as her teeth come out of...

Jerry Garcia died the day I left Albany for good, August 9, 1995. In an apparent murder-suicide, he took my childhood with him. (NOTE TO MILLENNIAL FUCKWADS: I don’t want to hear how old you were in 1995. Whether you were in Middle School, Elementary School or Diapers, I don’t want to know about it. And wipe that patronizing “listening to Grampa Simpson tell his Lollapalooza Mosh-Pit Stories for the 10,000th Time” smirk off your soul-patched, hipster side-burned, weasely little face. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the suckers who showed up too late to the Great Global House Party of cheap gas, music videos and nuclear anxiety that was the 20th Century and arrived just in time to mop up the puke, save the polar bears, and recycle our empties to pay for healthcare. Have fun with that, kids. Hey- if you’re lucky, maybe you can scrape out a little resin ball of Contentment from the huge bowl of Prosperity we smoked last century. That was some gooooood shit.) Anyhow, I always felt like by dying right as I left my hometown for the Big City, that Jerry was looking out for me, protecting me from myself. It’s like he was saying: “Hey man, I know you’re moving to New York to follow your dreams and that’s groovy and all, but it’s going to suck major dog-balls for the first few years, so, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to go ahead and die That way, while you’re telemarketing credit cards to old people who can barely afford the minimum payment, or cleaning toilets in comedy clubs for stage time and tips, or getting turned down for that sweet job at Brookstone (fucking personality test- I was this close before they made...