Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
Sunday was the big MS walk in Los Angeles. I have participated in that parade of humans many times. I am certain to be a life-long member of the big boisterous group “The Jiggy Wiggits,” spearheaded by my childhood friend Michael B Gerber and his family. The Jiggy’s gathered an army of friends and family for these events over the years and have raised over 800,000 dollars for the cause and honestly, had great fun doing it. We all missed it this year. Too much on our collective plates: a new daughter for Jenica, logistical challenges for Adam and his family. The two of them have known me as Auntie Beth since they were born. I am now Great Auntie Beth to the four kids they have between their two families and that is exactly how their Pop would want it. He would also want us to do that damned walk. Next year, I promise.
I met Michael when I was thirteen years old. He was new in school and cut an exotic figure. He had a big city haircut, and wore shoes with a slight heel. Huntington Beach high school was not generally a fashionable joint. At least not on the men’s side of things, so he was a standout. He was also ‘tribe’ and had made a beeline for the theater department, which, at the time of his entry into our midst, was run by a woman whose name escapes me. Mrs. Howl? Mrs. … well, Mrs. something. She was, to put it mildly, a bit of a nutter.
She had us doing weird initiation rituals and whatnot, which only served to cement our reputation as outsider freaks. It was also just dopey and had nothing to do with the art of the theatre. We were as a group not well-regarded and I don’t remember giving much of a damn about that, but no one liked Mrs. Whosee-what’s it. I think she became a theatre teacher by default. Someone had to do it and it seemed they had “eenie meanie minee moed” it and picked her. She did not have a feel for the ‘craft’. Anyone could see that.
Mrs. Howl!!!! We’ll go with that. Michael took an instant dislike to her; he had participated in programs which were taught by serious theatre scholars. He was not having it. Michael was a determined guy, and his mom Lila was a tiger. Mrs. Howl never stood a chance. She was out at the end of that year and replaced by Al Madalena. A serious guy who knew his stuff. Things improved immensely and we started to learn about the art for real, though in truth Mike and I were terrible scene partners. Couldn’t help cracking each other up. We once did a piece where I was supposedly losing my mind from being at sea too long and he had to say:
“You ain’t mad be you, Annie?”
We never made it through. Collapsed into fits of laughter every time we tried. This was not an uncommon occurrence for us, much to our new teacher’s consternation, but Al had a big heart and an even bigger impact on the department. Our besties Jenny and Bryan, Mike and I all loved him.
Michael and I became the best of friends. He dubbed me Babs, was the only one to ever call me that, and over the years he would become Mickey, Mugsy, or sometimes The Gerbs. We both loved to debate and to explore ideas. As kids, we would stay up for hours drinking coffee, playing Scrabble, and talking about the world, and our possible futures in it. We wanted justice for the downtrodden and civil rights for all. We were worried about the planet and our role in threatening to destroy it. Would we end up learning to live on Mars in our lifetime? The world was changing, birth control was available at last, and the Women’s movement had made great strides. I was in the “Mobilization for Survival” anti-nuke movement and the teen chapter of NOW at our school. Michael was involved in a ton of extracurricular activities.
Like most teens, we drank alcohol too, and I think we all smoked cigarettes then—Jenny Mike and I—but not Bryan. He never took it up. There were lots of wild nights at my house. We only had to wait until the scotch kicked in, and my mom would be out like a light by the early evening. We had the run of the place after that, and we acted like ridiculous teenagers but mostly stayed out of any real trouble. The four of us were engaged and talented and wanted to succeed.
Michael’s house was fascinating to me. His Mom was very Mom-mish; there was always tons of home-made food in the refrigerator and exotic things like wild blueberry jam. At my place, it was tv dinners, kraft mac, and canned veggies. Jam was strawberry, jelly was grape, period, end of story. In fairness my mom worked very hard to keep a roof over our heads; it was a miracle that she put food in the fridge, but she managed. Lila did not approve of me or of her son having girls at the house, especially um, me. She worried that I was too wild, could be a bad influence, but Mike ignored her, and we stayed tight. We were never physical with each other; I was two years younger and not ready for any of all of that, but there was a kind of romance in the depth of our friendship.
THE MYSTERY.
One night after several games and a long chat which kept us up until at least 2 AM, I grabbed a blanket and hit the couch, and Mike turned in. When I woke, the place was in chaos, flashing lights were casting circular red shadows on the walls. There were lots of people in the house, a flurry of activity.
“Go home!” Lila barked at me. “Now! You have to go home now!”"
It was around four AM, cold out, and I was a couple of miles from my place, but I did as I was told. I was terrified walking in the pitch dark and could not decide if it was safer to cross through the golf course, where I would be entirely alone, or stay on the main road, a longer route but maybe safer? I had no way of knowing then, still couldn’t say for sure, but I was freezing, so I chose the golf course and made it home in one piece. I had no idea what had happened or if Mike was okay. Was it him? His brother? Lila’s boyfriend? I had no clue who was in the ambulance that I heard speed away as I was leaving the development.
It was Michael. He was epileptic and had himself a whopper of a Grand-Mal that night. They had taken him in for observation, but he bounced back, and was released the next day. I would not learn of this until he got home and could call. I was cross-eyed with worry.
He had as a child been so seizure prone that he was forced to wear a crash-helmet for most of his early years. You gotta give Lila credit; she wasn’t ever very nice to me, but boy howdy did she love her son. She searched high and low for answers, went from city to city looking for a doctor who could treat him. She finally found one in Chicago, and Michael lived in a hospital there for a time while she commuted back and forth between the family in California and the specialists in Illinois. It worked. He emerged from those treatments a healthy-ish young man. He had become so reliably stable in his teens, that he didn’t think to tell his friends about it. He was determined to be done with it, and mostly he was. Mostly.
After high school, we all remained close even though we were at different colleges in different towns. I went to acting school, Bryan to art school, and Jenny to U.C. Berkeley to study Poli-sci and Lit. After I got done with acting school, Michael, Bryan, and I lived together in L.A. for a while with our new and now very long time pal Michael A. The two Mikes became best friends and in many ways were each other’s hero throughout his life. Before long, I headed to New York City, Jenny was still in Berkeley, and Bryan headed North. We were all trying to begin our lives in earnest. When Michael B (Mugsy) met and married his wife Gail, the rest of us were shocked. It was so adult, so real life adult, that it took us a minute to wrap our heads around it.
They became the center, the grounding force in our lives, the backbone of our family of friends. Mike opened his own mortgage company and employed dozens of folks. Jenica was born and then Adam. He adored his children, wrote songs for and about them, spent as much time as he could being a dad. I stayed there whenever I visited; I loved it. He and Gail had a real bona-fide happy home—not perfect, but happy—something I had never known. Home is a concept I still have no real sense of for myself, but the notion wrapped its arms around me there. Home.
NOW WHAT.
Mike loved to run, and he had noticed some changes in the way his feet hit the ground. Had felt a little different for some time, but he shook it off. He was accustomed to having a body that could betray him without warning and had grown used to entirely ignoring that fact. It was not until he and Gail were making their way through a local mall on a back-to -school shopping trip with the kids that the thing got his attention. He fell. Repeatedly that day and for days after until finally he was persuaded to seek medical attention.
MS. M. frigging S.
None of us were thrilled about this diagnosis, but Michael took it in stride, and we followed his example. His basic health was pretty good, and his spirits never waned. He was the most optimistic person I have ever known. He had his worries like all of us, around money and the kids’ futures, and the world at large but he remained relentlessly upbeat. A therapist friend of his once suggested that he had “MS Euphoria” Mike’s response to that was:
“Wonderful! Given the circumstances, I cannot think of a better thing to have!”
I remember taking him to get a tuxedo for some event for one of the kids. We parked, and we were making our way down Wilshire Blvd toward the shop. He asked if I could hold on to him as we stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk. I grabbed his arm with my right hand and wrapped my left around his waist. He was quite a bit bigger than me, but I was sure I could help him maneuver. When his leg gave out and he toppled into me, I went down like a paper doll in a windstorm. We looked at each other and devolved into fits of laughter in the middle of the road. This made it doubly difficult for us to get back up; we were literally crying with laughter. This went on until someone finally got out of their car and helped to right us and send us on our way.
He laughed his way through the cane stage, ditto when it was time for the walker. When we got to the wheelchair part, we died laughing every time we tried and failed to transfer him correctly to a chair or toilet seat. He never missed an event or an adventure. Never. No matter what the challenges were. When he was unable to use his arms, he got a dictation machine and kept right on working, and writing, and staying in touch with pals. Our on-line Scrabble game continued without him ever missing a move. Gail and he traveled far and wide with a companion to help maneuver him in and out of airports and hotel beds.
We got together as a group whenever we could, meeting in Austin, New York, and Chicago as our schedules permitted. He was always up for an adventure. We drank, and dined, and laughed, and loved, and knew we were blessed to have one another.
His only complaint was that he did not like looking up into people’s noses in big crowds. They eventually got a wheelchair that could raise him to be at eye-level with the rest of us. He loved that chair. He truly loved that thing.
There were other gizmos. A standing machine that could hold him upright in the hope of retaining some muscle strength. There was a machine that could lower him into the pool and keep him safe it he water. There were transfer aids and all manner of equipment. Gail cared for him throughout, a task that would have overwhelmed most folks, but she maintained the same high spirits and equanimity that Mike never lost.
He and I sat talking for hours as we always had, whenever we got the chance, his dog Jiggy asleep in his lap. We still worried about the world and the future and wondered if the kids would live on Mars in their lifetimes.
He made it to both of his children’s weddings. We all did, wouldn’t dream of missing them. With Mike A. at his side, he somehow managed to escort his daughter down the aisle in his chair after a rainstorm turned the path to mud. He met his granddaughter Zoe and wrote her a song. He loved his life and lived it full throttle MS be damned. A talented writer and speaker, he was a big influence in his MS support groups and was engaged to give talks all over the country. His big theme was gratitude. He encouraged everyone to keep believing that they could make a difference, could be a part of the solution. The Gerbs is a grandfather of four now, and I know he is up there somewhere over the moon about it.
He watched every show I did, every movie I made, and attended every live performance I ever gave (even when that meant traveling to other cities and counting nose hairs in the crowd from the vantage of his then, short stubby wheelchair.) He was a dedicated friend, father, and husband.
As the end grew near, we all visited as often as possible. When he went into the hospital, our old gang of pals flew in several times fearing the worst, only to see him rally and be released, flashing us the old Mugsy grin. The last year must have been a tremendous strain on Gail, but she never complained. I thank God I was in LA when the time finally came to say goodbye. His body somehow, against all odds, survived the massive heart attack, but his brain did not. We all gathered for the vigil, begging the nurses for more morphine to help him leave.
“If I can’t be a part of the conversation, I want you guys to let me go. No heroics!” This had been his edict from the start, and we tried to get it done for him, but his will once again ignored his body, and he lingered all that night and most of the next day.
We buried him with his old worn Scrabble set and a good bottle of Bourbon.
I still miss him. I still break into laughter at some memories and tears at others. I will forever be pissed off at stupid shitty MS for taking my friend from me, from all of us, but I am grateful too, for the many years I had with him. He never complained, and I try not to, but I am not quite as huge of spirit. I do, however, want to continue to be a part of the solution whenever and however I can. He would have it no other way.
On we go …
Dystopia Tonight: March 28th at 4 PM Pacific Time
I will once again be appearing with the amazing John Poveromo on ‘Dystopia Tonight’ for their 24 hour marathon podcast to raise awareness and funds for the MS Society. I wish Mike was here to do the show with me; he was the all-time best communicator, but I have his memory to guide me, and I will do what I can to honor it.
You can tune in on March 28th at 4 PM Pacific Time. John will have been at it for over 20 hours by then, so you never know what he is going to say at that point, but I guarantee it will be fun. To tune in or donate, you can use the link below.
https://bit.ly/dystopiaallnight24
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our valued subscribers whose support makes the publication of Wit and Wisdom possible. Thank you!
Mugsy and Babs and All...