To B's or not To B's
I’m not proud of the way things finally went down, but neither do I hold myself entirely responsible for actions that I confess were solely my own; a lifetime of circumstance conspired with latent emotional pains to drive me toward the inevitable, unfortunate, events with my brother. Of course, it’s not as if I murdered him or anything--some would say my guilt is melodramatic, that I actually exhibited extraordinary self-containment given the circumstances. Still, I wish that things had gone differently. But that would have required the previous thirty-four years to have gone differently, as well, and how could I have helped that?
Snow was coming down already gray that evening, and a gloomy shadow of darkness had begun to press in at 5 o’clock, when I maneuvered my vehicle into the parking lot of Mr. B’s restaurant and bar. I drive a Geo Metro, newer--1998, which itself is a source of contention with my beloved baby brother. Bruce mocks me along with the little car, as if it were some extension of my personhood, or something I’d given birth to. Just two months before the regrettable events, on Thanksgiving, Bruce had taken the opportunity to delight our immediate and extended family with his own breed of standup comedy as I pulled up in front of the house, the last to arrive. Apparently, he had the place in stitches, so much so that my mother choked on a bit of Triscuit, necessitating--in my father’s eyes--a hearty thwack on the back, which he obliged her with. I only learned of the comedy theatre at my expense when I speculated to my young niece, a quiet girl who speaks only to me at family gatherings, as to why my mother wasn’t speaking to my father. She recounted the hilarity, then said: “I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, uncle Walter." Of course she hadn’t--what do I care what antics that nincompoop carries on my absence? So they laughed, big deal. There’s no accounting for the sense of humor of some, my own family included. They are a people with cabinets full of Adam Sandler movies, shelves populated by such literary giants as Dean Koontz and Ann Rule. The rationale and fiscal depth that makes prudent an economical automobile such as my Geo (also an attractive and sporty modern car, I might add, and trendily hip in teal, as my own is) escapes their pedestrian minds. Dear Bruce, despite my efforts to the contrary since his birth when I was just five years of age, is in every way a chip off the family block; he is one of them, as similar and base as I am singular and urbane. He drives a Lincoln Navigator, living with my parents to make ends meet on a waiter’s wages, and is the apple of their collective eye.
I circled the lamp-lit lot three times, then spied a slot being vacated, waited my turn, and claimed it. I was just there to have dinner, I told myself. But that wasn’t the truth. The story I told myself, I did so to distract me from the real purpose of my visit to Mr. B’s, which was to drink hard liquor. And even the liquor’s role was to further distract me from my true motive behind selecting that particular bar and restaurant, a philistine hip spot too trendy for my tastes. You see, I was compelled beyond my typical rationality to be near my brother, and this was his current place of employment.
I’d just left the house of my girlfriend and was filled with a rage that disguised itself as disinterest. It might comfort me, I thought, to see Bruce. Male bonding and brotherly love and all that. In my heartsick devastation, such things seemed possible to me. I was half mad with pain; reeling; there was a comfort to be found in this uncharacteristic infusion of meaning into things mundane and common, even cliche’. Of course, I thought, seeing Bruce was just the thing to do! I told myself this with great mental back-clapping and convincing gusto. Just the thing to pick a fellow up after being jilted by love, isn’t it? Beers with a brother who will commiserate, tell me funny stories, and—once or twice—look at me with a warmth that conveys love and protection, affiliation and belonging. These were my thoughts as I steered the Metro through snowy streets, leaving Karen (my love) shrinking behind me and looking ahead through intermittent blades to the sibling comfort I’d created in my mind.
They were foolish, desperate thoughts, and I knew this by the time I pulled open the heavy door and walked into the loud, smoky warmth of Mr. B’s. It was a particularly thick crowd for a Thursday evening, and I made myself chuckle wondering if Mr. B himself were in the house, as they say. (Humor—an acerbic wit, really—is one of my gifts.) It occurred to me then to turn back, lick my wounds in some other, more productive, fashion. But having realized the uselessness of my original, Pollyanic, plan, I was left face-to-face with the reality it meant to mask; I was one layer closer to a festering core of pain and—dare I say?—madness that had been aroused from a seeming lifetime of dormancy. It’s life moved me with animal force onward toward my brother, into the restaurant and toward the bar, while my mind took the simpler, more digestible route, believe that a stiff drink was all I was after. As a man who doesn’t drink, I was trading one fairytale fix to my woes for another.
Fooling myself intellectually as I was (“denial,” Karen would call it), I felt oddly powerful. It was a new and foreign experience, as I have lived a life that values the rational, always pragmatic. At age 16, a conscious decision had been made to live an intelligent life, distinguished, making use of my gifts in that regard. It was an epiphany, the only drawback of which was the pitiful specimens my new clarity revealed my own family to be. True, I’d never been taken with my father’s religion-like zest for all things sport, or my mother’s love of the almighty American McDollar (though I did make a good show of attempting athletic and financial success, neither mattered to me, and I wasn’t the least disappointed at my failures), but it was a jolt, nonetheless. I replaced as my role models great books—Tony Robbins and Tom Hopkins—and the music of artists like John Tesh, Yanni; geniuses, all. And, like me, misunderstood by the masses.
Because I am a grounded man, a type of high accompanied the temporary suspension of reason that night at Mr. B’s. You see, a part of my mind was aware of the layered deceptions, and even of the madness brewing beneath; freeing myself from the responsibility for this uncontrolled force by making believe in flimsy truths, and from the readily-accepted free-pass that alcohol provides, I was giddy in a painful and precarious way.
I’d come in the back door of the restaurant and found a spot at the corner of the bar that kept me hidden behind a post. Only the bartender and a woman two stools away knew of my presence. I ordered something tall and frozen, downing it in manly swigs until my eyebrows froze. The woman, shapely and blond with primetime hair and makeup, laughed, pointing my condition out to the bartender, as well. Enraged, I sweat beads of shame as I massaged my brow and defiantly swallowed another frosty lungful. I knew better than to think this woman was of my caliber; what did I care if she ridiculed me? Sure, it was annoying that she believed herself to be above me on the social scale, but that was characteristic of the dim and shallow. Where I judged her sincerity, intelligence, and kindness, she judged my trousers (it is difficult to find reasonably-priced pants for someone of my frame, six foot six and thin), my white socks peeking out beneath them, and probably even my stylish hair for not being slicked back with L.A. oils.
The evening morphed into night, and I watched Bruce. My brother looked like a romance novel cover prince, even in a waiter’s uniform. Looked like he was running for a pass, even with a tray over his loaded down by onion blossoms and bucket margaritas. I saw the women watching him. I watched him, too.
I watched him on the sly, without him knowing I was even there. I saw him move around the busy restaurant like a panther, with grace and power. I watched him smile politely at rude socialites, grin warmly at older couples, and register nothing at transparent flirting from rich wives and hot chicks, alike.
He had it so easy.
So much hair, thick and shiny. And under it, a demeanor of smooth likeability--flowing effortlessly from him, gliding easily over and around whatever were his particular environs of the moment. So much to love about Bruce. So much to hate.
Oh, I was aware, of course, of the obvious inherent rivalry nature had drawn between us. How could I ignore it, all my life, when aunts and uncles, fathers and mothers, were so quick to draw it to my attention?
...to be continued upon demand
Snow was coming down already gray that evening, and a gloomy shadow of darkness had begun to press in at 5 o’clock, when I maneuvered my vehicle into the parking lot of Mr. B’s restaurant and bar. I drive a Geo Metro, newer--1998, which itself is a source of contention with my beloved baby brother. Bruce mocks me along with the little car, as if it were some extension of my personhood, or something I’d given birth to. Just two months before the regrettable events, on Thanksgiving, Bruce had taken the opportunity to delight our immediate and extended family with his own breed of standup comedy as I pulled up in front of the house, the last to arrive. Apparently, he had the place in stitches, so much so that my mother choked on a bit of Triscuit, necessitating--in my father’s eyes--a hearty thwack on the back, which he obliged her with. I only learned of the comedy theatre at my expense when I speculated to my young niece, a quiet girl who speaks only to me at family gatherings, as to why my mother wasn’t speaking to my father. She recounted the hilarity, then said: “I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, uncle Walter." Of course she hadn’t--what do I care what antics that nincompoop carries on my absence? So they laughed, big deal. There’s no accounting for the sense of humor of some, my own family included. They are a people with cabinets full of Adam Sandler movies, shelves populated by such literary giants as Dean Koontz and Ann Rule. The rationale and fiscal depth that makes prudent an economical automobile such as my Geo (also an attractive and sporty modern car, I might add, and trendily hip in teal, as my own is) escapes their pedestrian minds. Dear Bruce, despite my efforts to the contrary since his birth when I was just five years of age, is in every way a chip off the family block; he is one of them, as similar and base as I am singular and urbane. He drives a Lincoln Navigator, living with my parents to make ends meet on a waiter’s wages, and is the apple of their collective eye.
I circled the lamp-lit lot three times, then spied a slot being vacated, waited my turn, and claimed it. I was just there to have dinner, I told myself. But that wasn’t the truth. The story I told myself, I did so to distract me from the real purpose of my visit to Mr. B’s, which was to drink hard liquor. And even the liquor’s role was to further distract me from my true motive behind selecting that particular bar and restaurant, a philistine hip spot too trendy for my tastes. You see, I was compelled beyond my typical rationality to be near my brother, and this was his current place of employment.
I’d just left the house of my girlfriend and was filled with a rage that disguised itself as disinterest. It might comfort me, I thought, to see Bruce. Male bonding and brotherly love and all that. In my heartsick devastation, such things seemed possible to me. I was half mad with pain; reeling; there was a comfort to be found in this uncharacteristic infusion of meaning into things mundane and common, even cliche’. Of course, I thought, seeing Bruce was just the thing to do! I told myself this with great mental back-clapping and convincing gusto. Just the thing to pick a fellow up after being jilted by love, isn’t it? Beers with a brother who will commiserate, tell me funny stories, and—once or twice—look at me with a warmth that conveys love and protection, affiliation and belonging. These were my thoughts as I steered the Metro through snowy streets, leaving Karen (my love) shrinking behind me and looking ahead through intermittent blades to the sibling comfort I’d created in my mind.
They were foolish, desperate thoughts, and I knew this by the time I pulled open the heavy door and walked into the loud, smoky warmth of Mr. B’s. It was a particularly thick crowd for a Thursday evening, and I made myself chuckle wondering if Mr. B himself were in the house, as they say. (Humor—an acerbic wit, really—is one of my gifts.) It occurred to me then to turn back, lick my wounds in some other, more productive, fashion. But having realized the uselessness of my original, Pollyanic, plan, I was left face-to-face with the reality it meant to mask; I was one layer closer to a festering core of pain and—dare I say?—madness that had been aroused from a seeming lifetime of dormancy. It’s life moved me with animal force onward toward my brother, into the restaurant and toward the bar, while my mind took the simpler, more digestible route, believe that a stiff drink was all I was after. As a man who doesn’t drink, I was trading one fairytale fix to my woes for another.
Fooling myself intellectually as I was (“denial,” Karen would call it), I felt oddly powerful. It was a new and foreign experience, as I have lived a life that values the rational, always pragmatic. At age 16, a conscious decision had been made to live an intelligent life, distinguished, making use of my gifts in that regard. It was an epiphany, the only drawback of which was the pitiful specimens my new clarity revealed my own family to be. True, I’d never been taken with my father’s religion-like zest for all things sport, or my mother’s love of the almighty American McDollar (though I did make a good show of attempting athletic and financial success, neither mattered to me, and I wasn’t the least disappointed at my failures), but it was a jolt, nonetheless. I replaced as my role models great books—Tony Robbins and Tom Hopkins—and the music of artists like John Tesh, Yanni; geniuses, all. And, like me, misunderstood by the masses.
Because I am a grounded man, a type of high accompanied the temporary suspension of reason that night at Mr. B’s. You see, a part of my mind was aware of the layered deceptions, and even of the madness brewing beneath; freeing myself from the responsibility for this uncontrolled force by making believe in flimsy truths, and from the readily-accepted free-pass that alcohol provides, I was giddy in a painful and precarious way.
I’d come in the back door of the restaurant and found a spot at the corner of the bar that kept me hidden behind a post. Only the bartender and a woman two stools away knew of my presence. I ordered something tall and frozen, downing it in manly swigs until my eyebrows froze. The woman, shapely and blond with primetime hair and makeup, laughed, pointing my condition out to the bartender, as well. Enraged, I sweat beads of shame as I massaged my brow and defiantly swallowed another frosty lungful. I knew better than to think this woman was of my caliber; what did I care if she ridiculed me? Sure, it was annoying that she believed herself to be above me on the social scale, but that was characteristic of the dim and shallow. Where I judged her sincerity, intelligence, and kindness, she judged my trousers (it is difficult to find reasonably-priced pants for someone of my frame, six foot six and thin), my white socks peeking out beneath them, and probably even my stylish hair for not being slicked back with L.A. oils.
The evening morphed into night, and I watched Bruce. My brother looked like a romance novel cover prince, even in a waiter’s uniform. Looked like he was running for a pass, even with a tray over his loaded down by onion blossoms and bucket margaritas. I saw the women watching him. I watched him, too.
I watched him on the sly, without him knowing I was even there. I saw him move around the busy restaurant like a panther, with grace and power. I watched him smile politely at rude socialites, grin warmly at older couples, and register nothing at transparent flirting from rich wives and hot chicks, alike.
He had it so easy.
So much hair, thick and shiny. And under it, a demeanor of smooth likeability--flowing effortlessly from him, gliding easily over and around whatever were his particular environs of the moment. So much to love about Bruce. So much to hate.
Oh, I was aware, of course, of the obvious inherent rivalry nature had drawn between us. How could I ignore it, all my life, when aunts and uncles, fathers and mothers, were so quick to draw it to my attention?
...to be continued upon demand
