Other Chris

Replaced like that kid from The Partridge Family

THERE’S A CABLE channel showing reruns of The Partridge Family. Between ads for incontinence products and life insurance, the tale of the widow Shirley Partridge, her five kids, and their musical career plays out to a horribly canned laugh track. I am pulled back through the years, trying to remember what I was like when the show first went on the air, September 25, 1970—a mere twenty days after my eighth birthday.

Part of a Friday night ABC lineup that included Nanny & the Professor and The Brady Bunch, the Partridge Family quickly became my favorite show. I’d sneak down to the basement with something to eat and drink, hoping my actual family wouldn’t join so I could pretend I was a groovy sun-dappled Partridge in the mythical land of California. It wasn’t hard to imagine: the youngest Partridge was around my age and named Chris.

“Wow! That’s my name!”

Played by young Jeremy Gelbwaks, who resembled a young chimpanzee, Chris Partridge could always be counted on for some off-kilter remark. But Jeremy Gelbwaks was not the breakout star of The Partridge Family. That would be Danny Bonaduce, a man we’re still dealing with to this day. I wanted to be Danny because he was a smart-ass and always got off a good line. And I wanted to be a Partridge because—unlike the antiseptic Brady Bunch—they’d snipe at each other, they were sarcastic, they’d argue and fight. Then they’d all burst into a catchy song written by Wes Farrel and some of our finest pop songwriters of the 70s, like Gerry Goffin, Bobby Hart, Tony Romeo, Paul Anka, and even Mike Appel. The eight-year-old me heard I Think I Love You and thought “That’s a catchy number!” That’s how you can tell if it’s a catchy song: if eight-year-olds like it. I didn’t know the Partridges were based on (ripped off from) Newport, Rhode Island’s own musical family, The Cowsills–featured in a November 1968 TV show (“The Ghost & Mrs. Muir will not be presented tonight so that we may bring you the following special program.”) A Family Thing, hosted by Buddy Ebsen and the impetus for ScreenGems, a Hollywood production company, approaching the family behind the Top 40 hits Hair and The Rain, The Park & Other Things with the idea of starring in a scripted, weekly show. Supposedly, the family balked when ScreenGems wanted to replace the mom Barbara Cowsill with Shirley Jones. I didn’t know any of this in 1970, nor that David Partridge didn’t write the songs and his “family” didn’t perform them. I watch the show now and think How could I have been so naïve?! First, they’re not really a family. Well, Shirley Jones is David Cassidy’s stepmom, but that’s it. They’re not singing. Except for Shirley Jones and David Cassidy. That’s IT. They’re not playing. Except for David Cassidy. It’s not The Cowsills. A bunch of stellar studio musicians nicknamed The Wrecking Crew provide the music. It’s phony baloney Hollywood time. But as I sat in my darkened basement, peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one grubby little fist, twelve ounces of cold Nestle’s Quik in the other, I’d think That’s what I want. I want to go out across the country in a bus with my family and play at these weird little nightclubs where everyone sits at long tables. I want us to be a family that fights and argues but still loves each other.

As theThe Partridge Family began it’s four year run, the end was beginning for my family. My parents fought constantly. My father was usually not home. My brothers and sisters and I were always at each other’s throats. And I lost myself in my sister’s friend Rodney’s Harmony guitar, which was the only musical instrument in our house, replacing our baby grand piano… just as the Partridge Family replaced the original Chris. When the show returned to the schedule in 1971 there was a different Chris behind the drums, played by a non-simian looking kid named Brian Forster. Perhaps they took Jeremy Gelbwaks aside and said, “You look like a chimpanzee and we’re getting rid of you.” No. That’s not what happened. It turns out Dad Gelbwaks took a job on the East Coast and moved the whole family there. According to Partridge Family creator Bernard Slade, ABC received “…not a single complaint about the switch.” Apparently, no one noticed. But I did. I continued watching the show but I found it impossible to see “Other Chris” without thinking Wow. You can be replaced. Just like that.

And then it happened to me.

I’d taken up guitar when The Partridge Family went off the air in 1974 and two years later was playing rock and roll covers in a band I dubbed Cobra, formed by my friend Billy and I. From Steve Miller to the Rolling Stones to Bad Company, we mutilated the mid-tempo rocker. On my white Ibanez Les Paul copy, through my Univox amp, I put out quite a racket, playing rhythm and lead. It was the only thing I felt proud of. Pride goeth before a fall. Cue Chris Anderson, The Other Chris. My brother Marc brought him in. I’m not sure how they met. It couldn’t have been school. Chris Anderson was a dropout. My brother was headed that way but he was still enrolled. Maybe they met at a party on Gilgo Beach? They were both into boats, as were most of the people I knew growing up on the south shore of Long Island. The Great South Bay was a few blocks from us but I had little to no interest in anything involving water. You can drown there. My brother and Other Chris probably started talking about propellers or bilge pumps or cavitation plates and before long they’re hanging out, drinking beer and ogling girls. Then the party moves to our house, where Chris Anderson can be found every single fucking day. I dimly recall something about his parents throwing him out. I think he was smoking pot. And drinking. Marc somehow convinced my mother to let him move in to the storage shed my father built in our backyard. When I say “shed” please don’t picture one of those tiny prefab structures for sale at the Home Depot. This was a substantial two-story wood-frame building with a foundation. It had no heat or running water but my father did wire it up with electricity. Downstairs held the lawnmower and all the other implements needed to maintain a suburban home. Upstairs was a big empty room that had been carpeted and paneled. I’m not sure what it was intended for but once my parents got divorced and my father moved out, my oldest sister Diana moved in with her boyfriend Keith. They lived there for a few years, then got an apartment in town. Then Marc took it over. My mother had gotten a job but she made a few extra bucks charging her children rent to live at home.

“If you’re eighteen you can pay rent or you can leave!”

She did the same with Chris Anderson, though I have no idea if he was eighteen. He looked thirty-five. Tall, sinewy, very tan, with a bulbous nose, pageboy haircut, and bad acne scars, he looked like the love child of Karl Malden and Mowgli from Disney’s Jungle Book. And like Mowgli, he went shirtless most of the time, which was a constant reproach to overweight me. The worst part of having Other Chris around, of course, was that I lost exclusive rights to my very own name. From the moment he moved in, whenever anyone else would say “Chris!” I’d have to ask “Which one?” In my own house, with my own family. My mother would call “Chris!” and my response wasn’t “What?!” it was “Which one?!”

“Not you. Other Chris!”

My mother and Other Chris became fast friends. She’d come home from work and he’d mix her up a screwdriver or vodka tonic and bring it to her in the living room. I’m sure he was mixing one up for himself, too. He seemed to be drunk more nights than not. They’d joke and laugh and I’d wonder to myself Does she actually prefer this guy to me?! I don’t know where Other Chris came from but his people must’ve hunted their food because he was always killing something. He’d go fishing and come back with half a dozen or more flounder. From our back window he’d fire his Benjamin air rifle into the trees by the barn and out would drop a pigeon. I found one once in our freezer wrapped in aluminum foil. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for in the freezer but I found squab. The next day Chris Anderson cleaned the bird, dressed it, and fried the meat in a pan. There wasn’t much meat. Other Chris and I, for whatever reason, were perpetually at each other, to the point where he started calling me the same names my brothers did.

“Fuck you, you whale.”

“Who said you could speak to me like that?”

“Why, what are you going to do about it? Whale.”

I looked to my brother Marc. He walked away. Other Chris stood there and asked, “Now what?”

Now what indeed.

I didn’t know how it came to this. I didn’t know how it happened that I was about to fight Other Chris. But it seemed I had to. I couldn’t back down now.

Why did we hate each other so much? It started out okay. He’d stay out in the barn, only come in to use the bathroom or the kitchen. But then he would hang out in the basement. Which is where I’d taken to sleeping. And satisfying certain urges. Like the ones I felt when I’d see Shirley Jones’s cleavage. Chris Anderson was thwarting my urges and their satisfaction. And my mother clearly favored him. She was always laughing when she spoke with him. Me, not so much. The last straw was the name-calling. Whale. Fat boy. Blimp. And so many more.  It led us to this. The Other Chris and I, standing at the back door, staring daggers at each other. He motions for me to go through the door first. Then he hurries out after me, shoving me down the back steps. I stumble, he grabs my coat and TUGS it down, pinning my arms to my sides. Then Other Chris proceeds to pummel me senseless. I fall down in the yard. He kicks me several times and leaves me struggling to get my coat off. When I finally pull myself back inside, Other Chris is gone and my mother’s left her bedroom and the tractor-beam glow of her Sony Trinitron to stomp into the kitchen and yell, “What the hell just happened?”

“Chris Anderson beat me up.”

“What did you do to provoke him?”

“What did I do to provoke him?”

“Why would he want to beat you up?”

“Because he’s an ASSHOLE?!”

Things were different after that. I made sure I was out of the house as often as possible. I avoided Other Chris. Occasionally, our paths would cross and it’d be oddly cordial and deeply unpleasant. Before much longer he was gone.

The subject of Other Chris came up a years ago at Thanksgiving. I don’t know who mentioned his name. It might’ve been me. My sister said, “I saw him wandering the streets of Lindenhurst years ago. He did not look good.”

“He’s an alcoholic.” my brother replied.

I told the story about him shooting the pigeon and putting it in the freezer. My mother laughed, adding “He was always a pleasure to have around.”

I was shocked and finally spoke up for myself.

“Do you know that I felt replaced by him? Do you remember he beat the crap out of me?”

My mother stopped laughing and quietly said “I was drinking back then.”