Chapter Three: Death in the Family

My brother, being the goof that he was, called in a bomb threat to his high school just before he graduated [a not uncommon prank in the days before 9/11]. He bragged about his idiocy, was caught, and was given the option of either going to jail or joining the service. His father, being an air force officer, pulled some strings and he chose to join the air force at the age of seventeen. He got married to his high school sweetheart, fathered a child, got divorced a couple of years later, and left the service just after he turned 21. He came out to California in search of himself and to try to get to know the mother he never knew. What he found was life in the fast lane, along with an ice cold maternal mother and a brother who was his exact opposite. He was the extrovert defined; a young man who liked to play as hard as he worked. I was painfully introverted, almost to the point of being socially disabled. He moved in with his grandfather, who was by chance living in a small apartment building a few blocks away. It was the same place that my mom's friend lived, and it would be while visiting my brother that I'd start to get to know her like I never had before.

For my brother, trying to get to know our mom was disaster. She was as cold as ice as it was. When it became apparent that he was partying it up every night with loose women, booze, pot and cocaine she completely shut him off emotionally. I remember one time during the Christmas season that he came over to visit. Mom ignored him. As we left together to go out on his party rounds he turned to me with a tear in his eye and asked me why mom was like that. I replied "Like what? That's the way she always has been." When you're raised in a highly dysfunctional household, the abnormal appears normal. Dysfunction provides all the false comfort of a broken home and familiarity. I had no idea how bad he was hurting. He tried to numb himself with drugs and alcohol.

Meanwhile, I was starting to develop a close relationship with my ex. Her marriage was on the rocks. She needed a distraction and someone to talk to who cared. Her husband worked nights and she worked days. I would go over to their apartment and we'd leave to take long walks and talk. We started to become real close; the best of friends. My brother thought we should hook up, thought it would do me some good to get laid. At 19 I was still a virgin, and he thought the experience would open me up. But we were just friends at this point. It was a bit hard for me to conceive of taking part in an intimate relationship with a married woman who was also a friend of my mother's. But we were developing a strong attraction for one another. They were feelings that were to remain unrequited; at least until something happened that would change my life forever.

My brother called me one night needing to talk to someone. He sounded really down. He was working as an assistant manager at a restaurant on the other side of Long Beach, so I borrowed my grandmother's car [she was living in a house across the street from my parents'] and rode over to see him. But there was a girl I had been dating who lived close to where he worked, so I went to spend some time with her instead. I passed by his place of employment on the way to her house and passed by once again on the way back. I figured I would talk to my brother the next time we saw each other. That was a chance I would never get. Three hours after I had decided that it was too late to stop by his work to speak with him he was dead.

Next up: From Carrying My Brother to His Grave to Getting Laid