O brother, where art thou?

I hated my brother, growing up.  Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.

That sentiment, now, can only possibly ever be matched by the degree to which I love him.  Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.

Two words, four letters each, and such polar opposites of each other.  Much like my brother and I.  I'll let you decide which of us is which; but I'd not hazard much to say that we've taken it in turns embracing each of those.

There have only ever been two people in the whole of my existence that have possessed the uncanny and seeming innate ability to reach past my outer defenses, dabble at the machinations of my soul with a lover's caress, find the one discordant string with unerring aim, pluck, and cause such dissonance in my being that I have been left seeing nothing but red.  Angry, mad, red.  Want to kick you in the fucking teeth and stomp your head into the curb mad.  Want to pick up that cast iron frying pan and not be able to identify you from your dental records mad.  Want to do such violence to your person that there is no physical way you will EVER be able to get up and make me feel this way again mad.  This is such an incredibly unique feeling; and it has only ever been incited in me by two people.

Thankfully, oh so very thankfully, I have grown to love the one.  And thankfully, oh so very thankfully, I never married the other.

I asked for, and was honoured to have, my brother stand up for me at my wedding last year.  He stood three places to my left and was disappointed not to go home with the woman standing two places to my right.  I had a list of 'thank yous' to make at the reception, and his name was prominent on that.

Especially after the speech he gave.  My brother was asked to welcome my wife to the family.  We wanted to keep the speeches short, so Amy and I had jointly decided that the only ones to be given were to be the toasts to the Bride and Groom, and welcoming the one spouse into the other's family.  I asked Aaron to welcome Amy into our family; he graciously accepted.  And he brought the house down.

In the space of five minutes, my brother had the entire audience roaring in laughter and had moved those of us who knew enough near tears.  He very simply and eloquently summed up our childhood in such a self deprecating manner that I could not but laugh out loud at his audacious delivery while cringing a little on the inside at the Truth bobbing for some few to see beneath that veneer.  He was welcoming my wife to all of that, and I loved him a little more for it.

When Amy and I had the opportunity to address the reception for a few minutes, I gave Aaron, in jest, the most truthful statement I had made since the ceremony.  I told him that I had always loved him as a brother because I had to; but I never really liked him until he moved out of home.  It garnered a few laughs, but I really, really meant it.  And Aaron knew that.

Growing up together, my brother and I took very different approaches to our relationship.  I always viewed him as the antagonist, and I only EVER retaliated to his incessant onslaughts of verbal vitriol, mimickry and the sinister bait-and-trap.  I certainly never assumed an air of superiority or gave him any cause to lash out in his wonted way.  Nor, of course, was I in any way oblivious to the influence exerted by the now divergent, erratic and conflicted orbits brought about by an alteration in our heretofore stable parental mass.  Right.

One of my most vivid memories of our typical exchange centres around a video game.  It was called Jumpman Junior and it was a favourite of mine and my brother's on our Commodore 64.  I had just given up on a very frustrating game and Aaron took my seat in front of the screen.  I don't recall what exactly he said to taunt me, but I certainly recall my, and our mother's, reactions.  Mere femtoseconds after the sound waves from his larynx reached my tympanic membrane, whose oscillations triggered an autonomic recognition of the voice of the person on the earth whom I hated more than any other, I lashed out and, in what I now recognise to be most Homeresque fashion, throttled my brother.

I so loved the feel of my hands wrapped around the throat of my brother.  His own slapping and clawing at my wrists.  This was a familiar dance.  With one slight difference this time.  He.  Could.  Not.  Breathe.  For the blissful eon that was fifteen seconds, my fervor had cut off all air to the lungs of mine enemy.  His flailing increased and his colour rose on par with my ire.  This triggered yet another autonomic response.  From our mother.

Child.  In mortal danger!  Whoop!!  Whoop!!  Whoop!!  Better to stand between a mother bear and her cub, poking the cub with a pointy stick while blowing raspberries at the mother, than to get caught accosting one of our own mother's offspring.  Never mind that the aggressor at the time also happened to be her progeny.

We were both hauled up by the scruff of the neck and deposited on our asses in the living room.  At this very second, both of us panting for breath, my brother and I were completely frozen with fear.  Our mother took this rare opportunity to expound upon the many and trying faults exhibited by both of her sons.  At great length; at high volume; and completely unintelligibly.  This was accompanied by sporadic and spastic hand flailing which was received either by the thin air, my brother's head or my own.  I am only assuming that she was berating the two of us; though her voice was too high for human hearing, there was enough condemnation in her face for all of Christ's killers.

The silver lining to this particular episode was that my brother and I each learned many very valuable lessons.  It was not, unfortunately, until several years later that we actually retained them.

I share this particular event in relation to my wedding because it was only years later that my brother and I could begin to see parts of the other's upbringing through respective eyes.  It is still taking place; and very slowly.  I think it would be far too painful were it to come all at once.

The relationships that exist between men, and more especially brothers, are often very strange (estranged?  strained?) and grow, to whatever extent, through non-verbal communication more often than not.  Just a couple years ago I began referring to my brother - in letters, on the phone and recently through Email - as 'LB'.  Little Brother.  Just one small way of expressing something a little more intimate than a name.

We are still and always will be such very different people, he and I.  We're also, thankfully, much more aware of those differences.  We each have a deeper respect for the other than ever existed in our youth.  That would be a hard value for any parent to inculcate with their children.  At least now it allows us to know where not to tread or, when doing so, to tread lightly.

Looking back over this post now, I realise it sounds a little like a Daniel Stern sort of Wonder Years voice over.  Sometimes I get overly sentimental.  I'm like that.

Comments

[Linda]

My God Simon. I'm sorry it's taken me all this time to get this far in reading your past posts. I would very much love to have an autographed copy of this upon it's publication. I'm rarely this close to speechless...