Leaving Home (1987) | Chapter One
The summer of 1987 didn’t arrive quietly.
It came with heat, with restlessness, with the kind of pressure that builds behind your ribs when you know your life is about to change.
I told my mother I was leaving.
She cried — not loudly, not dramatically, but in that soft, trembling way that makes you feel every year you’ve spent under her roof. I had been her oldest, her shadow, her steady pair of hands. Leaving wasn’t just a move. It was a shift in the entire balance of our home.
But I needed out.
I needed space.
I needed a life that was mine.
I had the education.
I had the discipline.
I had the plan.
What I didn’t have was money — not the kind that buys you an apartment in New York City, not on an entry‑level salary at a major ad agency.
So, I did what everyone did back then:
I turned to the Daily News classifieds, the original jungle of hope and disappointment.
Roommate finder agencies.
Strangers’ phone numbers.
Tiny ads promising “quiet room, responsible roommate,” which always meant the opposite.
I didn’t know it yet, but this search — this simple hunt for a room — was about to test the bond that had carried me and my brother through every storm.
And it was only the beginning.
