A Tale of Two Brothers

   By brothers, I mean actual brothers, two men from the same mother and the same father.  I knew the whole family.  I knew the mother, the father, the older sister, the younger sister and both brothers.  I knew the older brother’s wife and her younger sister. I’m going to name some first names, but I will not name family names out of respect for the dead.

   I grew up in a foster home and had the displeasure of having to fight Ralph repeatedly. He was four years older than me and twice my size, and seemed to enjoy tormenting people.  His younger brother, Freddy, was two years younger than me, and like me, the shortest one in the class, but Ralph would always look out for Freddy.  Freddy was fairly decent, and actually never liked Ralph trying to fight his battles, and he certainly never used his older brother as an “attack dog” like a greasy snitch would do.

   After a few years I was transferred to another foster home, and didn’t have any contact with them, until after I came back to Milwaukee in 1986.  We all liked the same kind of music, and would see each other at shows at the Eagles Club, or Odd Rock Cafe, or the Majeska Theatre etc.  By that time, Ralph and Freddy were heavily into drugs.  They knew I quit all of it, including drinking, so at first they hid it from me, but you don’t hide habits like that very long. It wasn’t just ...