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When we were young, Russell Bailyn and I were good friends. Russell was a hoot; nobody made me laugh more than he did. He was the youngest of three brothers; Evan a year older and Bradley two or more. His parents were divorced and he and Evan lived with Lisa, short for Melissa, Bailyn in Oceanside not too far from me. We both went to School #8, but weren't friends until 6th grade with Mrs. Krasnoff, nee Sontag. Russell gave Mrs. Krasnoff such a hard time. She would raise her voice at him to a point that scared the rest of us, but he was still a pain in the ass. It was great.
I wasn't always ready to admit to others that I was friends with Russell. He was nuts. He sat in the front row, his desk covered in Barney stickers with the inset of Janet Jackson's self-titled CD (the one where she's topless except for a pair of hands covering her breasts from behind, a hot one) propped up around the perimeter. He ogled the picture right in front of Mrs. Krasnoff and drew his own version with unconcealed breasts and an extra hairy bush instead of pants. One day he pushed Stacy Brecher across the room and into a metal cabinet. He got in a mess of trouble for that. Instead of apologizing to her, he said he'd put a jumping jack in her vagina and light it. He pushed Josh Kurot so far that Josh brought a knife to school and threatened Russell. Josh got suspended because of it. That's hilarious.
His father, Arthur Bailyn DDS, and Bradley lived in Great Neck. His father made a lot of money being a dentist, and shopped wholesale even though it was just him and Bradley in an apartment. Huge jugs of Hawaiian Punch and big things of peanut butter. For Russell's birthday one year, Dr. Bailyn treated me, David Miljoner, Lee Bergstein, and Russell to a night of fun in New York City. This included dinner at Jekyll and Hyde--a sort of PG-rated Chuck E. Cheese--and a helicopter tour of Manhattan. Dr. Bailyn's girlfriend came with us, appropriately aged and wearing a fur coat.
I don't think Lisa Bailyn dated much. She wasn't unattractive, but I think the stress of raising Russell took its toll on her morale. They didn't get along. Sometimes it was uncomfortable being over his house because of the screaming matches they had. But Lisa liked me, I reckon. I was polite.
Russell had a tent in his backyard where he had a stash of porno magazines that taught me as much as they confused me. I didn't understand why all the women spread apart their vaginas; it looked like that would hurt. We used his Zippo to make marshmallows taste like burnt paper and lighter fluid, set one end of a small length of twine and tried to smoke it. I didn't bother to ask how he got the Zippo and porn and stuff. I suspect he either stole these things or used his charm to persuade crooked Oceanside Flea Market merchants. One day he had cigars for us. We walked around the neighborhood smoking them while Russell fired rocks into the air with his slingshot and off in the distance something would break. Lee Bergstein's dad drove by and saw us with the cigars, and for the next couple of days I had that dizzying childhood fear in my gut that my mom would discover the horrible thing I'd done.
In middle school, Russell and I only shared Mrs. Fazio's orchestra class. I played violin, not poorly but without virtue. But Russell was a talented cellist, second only to the effeminate and overweight Jeffrey Brous whom Russell relentlessly tormented. He really let Jeff have it. He loved the cello. While I played whatever they put in front of me, Russell bought his own sheet music and practiced stuff he didn't even have to know. Once he showed me a composition he wrote, hundreds of notes written in pen on looseleaf paper. Then he played it for me. An hour later I finally stopped laughing.
Somewhere during high school he moved in with his father and finished school in Great Neck. We're friends on Facebook, and apparently he's a sort of financier now. I hope he's making at least one person's life difficult. That would be funny.
I wasn't always ready to admit to others that I was friends with Russell. He was nuts. He sat in the front row, his desk covered in Barney stickers with the inset of Janet Jackson's self-titled CD (the one where she's topless except for a pair of hands covering her breasts from behind, a hot one) propped up around the perimeter. He ogled the picture right in front of Mrs. Krasnoff and drew his own version with unconcealed breasts and an extra hairy bush instead of pants. One day he pushed Stacy Brecher across the room and into a metal cabinet. He got in a mess of trouble for that. Instead of apologizing to her, he said he'd put a jumping jack in her vagina and light it. He pushed Josh Kurot so far that Josh brought a knife to school and threatened Russell. Josh got suspended because of it. That's hilarious.
His father, Arthur Bailyn DDS, and Bradley lived in Great Neck. His father made a lot of money being a dentist, and shopped wholesale even though it was just him and Bradley in an apartment. Huge jugs of Hawaiian Punch and big things of peanut butter. For Russell's birthday one year, Dr. Bailyn treated me, David Miljoner, Lee Bergstein, and Russell to a night of fun in New York City. This included dinner at Jekyll and Hyde--a sort of PG-rated Chuck E. Cheese--and a helicopter tour of Manhattan. Dr. Bailyn's girlfriend came with us, appropriately aged and wearing a fur coat.
I don't think Lisa Bailyn dated much. She wasn't unattractive, but I think the stress of raising Russell took its toll on her morale. They didn't get along. Sometimes it was uncomfortable being over his house because of the screaming matches they had. But Lisa liked me, I reckon. I was polite.
Russell had a tent in his backyard where he had a stash of porno magazines that taught me as much as they confused me. I didn't understand why all the women spread apart their vaginas; it looked like that would hurt. We used his Zippo to make marshmallows taste like burnt paper and lighter fluid, set one end of a small length of twine and tried to smoke it. I didn't bother to ask how he got the Zippo and porn and stuff. I suspect he either stole these things or used his charm to persuade crooked Oceanside Flea Market merchants. One day he had cigars for us. We walked around the neighborhood smoking them while Russell fired rocks into the air with his slingshot and off in the distance something would break. Lee Bergstein's dad drove by and saw us with the cigars, and for the next couple of days I had that dizzying childhood fear in my gut that my mom would discover the horrible thing I'd done.
In middle school, Russell and I only shared Mrs. Fazio's orchestra class. I played violin, not poorly but without virtue. But Russell was a talented cellist, second only to the effeminate and overweight Jeffrey Brous whom Russell relentlessly tormented. He really let Jeff have it. He loved the cello. While I played whatever they put in front of me, Russell bought his own sheet music and practiced stuff he didn't even have to know. Once he showed me a composition he wrote, hundreds of notes written in pen on looseleaf paper. Then he played it for me. An hour later I finally stopped laughing.
Somewhere during high school he moved in with his father and finished school in Great Neck. We're friends on Facebook, and apparently he's a sort of financier now. I hope he's making at least one person's life difficult. That would be funny.
