He Ain't Heavy

After I turned 5 and before I was about 9, if you had ever asked me if I had any siblings, I'd have said, "Yeah, one."

He was the product of my father's previous marriage to a woman who I could make no fair judgment of except to say that she is the mother of my half-brother's. He, therefore, was literally, my brother from another mother, completely destroying the clever nuances of the expression the first time I had heard it, around 2nd grade.

My father explained to me, one quiet hot summer (for some reason, the ocean makes everything hotter or colder), that the reason he had to mail a portion of his salary ever month to Costa Rica (his home country) from my native Connecticut (where we were then located) was that I had a brother preceding me. This was astounding to me, the thought that before me someone else existed.

I would say that it wasn't fair for my brother, the way he grew up. I had a lot of advantages growing up that he'd certainly missed out on. Again, I can't make a judgment on his mother, but I have two great parents, many financial advantages, and a much more structured life than he'd had.

I'm not sure what had prompted it, but in the next year, my half-brother was going to live with us.

I'd be lying to you (and really, why would I lie to you?) if I told you something asinine like, "I was really looking forward to having him around." It was more like, "I wonder how he intends to get in my way." I was a spoiled child. I can only blame my parents, but how do you know what to do until you do?

The apartment we had taken residence in has been made mention of before in this blog, but a short summary. I lived in the 3rd floor apartment in a ghetto of Connecticut. The apartment existed in a converted house. The house: a massive 3 story, 4 deck house with a rear entry for the rear two units on the first and second floor and top unit. The front of the house was converted for entry to the remaining two units. Each doorway was secured by a keypad, though, because of the paranoid nature of the landlord (he owned a security company), each keypad had a different code, though the numbers 9, 5, and 1 had been worn off from use.

In it's day, the house had been massive.

In our time, that apartment still had seemed massive. 3 total bedrooms, each larger than 10 x 10, a conjoined living room, dining room, entrance. The entrance contained 3 doors, and wooden floors (great for sock-skating). One led to our massive deck, one led to the stairwell (where we had hidden the key under the pulled up rug), the last led to our antiquated bathroom.

In the bathroom, on the left, lined first with a tub, with a shower and a toilet, divided by a wall. the right hand side, only slightly less interesting contained a closet (closest to the door) containing from the bottom to the top, towels, medicine, first aid supplies, shampoo and other toiletries, and cleaning supplies. Then, on the very top shelf, approximately 10 years of Playboy. Next to this closet, a standalone porcelain sink, medicine cabinet (containing other pharmaceuticals like eye drops and the Costa Rican equivalent of "Vicks Vapor Rub": Zepol (it's Lopez backwards). Next to that, a towel rack, and a hamper. The bathroom always radiated a yellow hue, most likely from the old tiles.

The room next to the bathroom, around a small corner, was infuriatingly, the kitchen. A hole in the wall, though still sizable. It lacked counter space, but made up for this with the small table we had placed there (though it was black and did not match the off-white cabinets or off-yellow walls.

My brother, much older and much cooler than I (although his English suffered a bit) moved quietly in to my room, displacing my brother to live in the "play room". living with my brother, around mostly to spend time with my father was like living with a friend. We shared no special relationship, told the same dirty jokes we told to friends, played Nintendo together, watched TV together and even convinced my parents to get this fisher price basketball set (about half size) from which we learned how to throw the tiny ball (about 1/4 size) from the end of our driveway (some 50 feet) in to the hoop (this is an important life lesson for me later in life, but not in this post). The last time I had visited, approximately 5 years ago, that damned hoop was still there, though the jumble of cars no longer aloud for the previously mentioned fun.

Kind of a tangent, I know, but it's important to develop character.

I had finally grown tall enough by the start of the school year that I could reach the top shelf of the bathroom closet, enabling me to soak up knowledge of the female anatomy that had previously gone undiscovered (though I had played "doctor" with a friend growing up, her anatomy wasn't quiet as... developed as was the anatomy now revealed to me thru the fruits of Hugh Hefner's enterprises).

Part of my whole concocted scheme (I was a genius then, too) was that I could never replace the magazines in any order other than the order they originated in. Believing I was on the sly, however, I never considered the possibility that my newly represented half-brother could possibly have been looking at these magazines as well; I was under the mistaken believe that this treasure had been limited to my exposure and that of its proprietor.

It's Christmas Eve that year, and though we were never a religious family, we always made Christmas a big deal. All of our friends whose family was located far and away always made sure to come to our house for the Christmas feast. In our living room, though there was barely space for the 3 seat couch and love seat, we squeezed in a Christmas Tree, heavily decorated, to displace the single seat to the corner, faced away from the hole in the wall containing our 27" console tv.

I had sat in this seat, not long after relieving myself in the bathroom (I failed to mention that the dividing wall between the entry way and living room was only a half-height wall). With the gameboy, which I had acquired because it was the thing to have (I told you I was spoiled), I pearched, burning alkaline to the tune of Super Mario Land. My half-brother lay on the 3 seat couch, watching a show I don't recall, my other brother, in his room, watching Barney.

My father, who's patronly duties had concluded prior to the evening entertainment, retires himself to the bathroom, and immediately bursts back thru the door.

"Who's been looking at my magazines?"

My half-brother and I looked at each other, terrified of what this had meant. My only thought, "Confess, and your death may be quick and painless." A lump, which had quickly developed in my throat, prevented this action.

"Isn't anyone going to say something?"

My half-brother chimed in at this critical moment. "I did, I'm sorry."

My father, tamed by my half-brother's confession, morose with the concept of getting angry at the son he had see only a handful of times before could say only this: "Well, these magazines are not the way to learn about women. We'll talk about this later."

That moment will forever define the importance of my half-brother in my life. Now, if you were to ever ask me if I had any siblings, "Yes," I would answer, "I have one and a half." But only because he didn't live under my roof. In every other way, he would be simply: my brother.

UPDATE: I have this post as the previous post and reposted it because someone used some clever html to thread jack my comments. Because of this, I'm disabling anonymous commenting. To whomever it was that did that: I know it's hard to get your quote up on the QDB popular list, but in the long term, who gives a flying fuck if you do? It's an alias for fuck's sake. And it wasn't even a good quote. Stop being a dick, and my blog is nowhere near popular enough for you to earn votes for that.