Brothers
September 18, 2010, my brother stands at the mahogany altar awaiting my new sister-in-law to glide down the aisle of St. John Vienna’s Cathedral. The stained glass windows let the light from Jesus’ halo down upon the priest waiting to start the ceremony. My brother stands upright in a black Armani tuxedo with an eggplant purple vest and matching tie. He looks nervous, but I could be mistaking his expression for excitement. I cannot be sure because I was not present. I viewed the picture in my Facebook newsfeed on my new sister-in-law’s page.
My brother turned twenty-five on January 20th, eight months earlier. Because both of us were at our respective universities I called him to wish him a happy birthday. No answer. I left a message.
He and his fiancé have been engaged for six years, so when he returned my phone call three weeks later I wasn’t surprised to hear him say that they have finally seat a date, I was surprised, however, by what he said next:
“So, uhh, would you like to be a groomsman in my wedding?”
It wasn’t the question, it was the hesitation.
“Well, do you want me in the wedding or does mom want me in the wedding?” I responded
Long has it been known that at seven years apart my brother and I have next to nothing in common except our beloved olive skinned, Italian-American parents.
Again, hesitation, finally broken by his response:
“Well, you’re my brother. So, yeah, I want you in it.”
As skeptical as I was, I felt I had to agree. After all, he is my only brother.
I didn’t hear anything more about the subject for six months when I moved back home for the summer. My brother had also moved back home after graduating law school at the top of his class. For the first time in six years, our entire family was once again living under the same roof.
The quiet suburban, three story, barn shaped house was a lot louder inside then anyone could have imagined. A family that portrayed perfection in the images of a conservative, elegant, loving family was slowly being torn apart in the hands of its only sons.
At first family dinners were quiet and I hardly seen my brother with our work schedules being completely opposite. Even when we did see each other we were getting along well. As the wedding approached rapidly my brother became more and more on edge, soon distancing us. We retreated to our boyish behavior of picking on one another. A smart-ass comment here, a little prank there. Harmless actions that are not so harmless, boiling to a point of the first fight of the summer.
Four stitches and a nose reconstruction surgery later my brother and I sat at the same dinner table. My parents sitting between us, walls of silent hatred separating us. Wedding talk dominated the conversation as I sat and played with the baked carrots on my plate, silent.
I’m not even sure what triggered it or who hit whom first. It happened so fast that all I can remember is how much blood fell from my eye socket onto my brand new Captain American shirt I had bought several hours earlier that morning and sitting in the hospital bed as the doctor stitched me up, my brother in the bed next to mine holding a bloody towel to his now broken nose, muttering something about a ‘cheap shot’.
My mother would have to explain later to both of us that the argument started over me tripping over the vacuum cord and I believed that my brother, who had been using it, had done it on purpose. The fight had escalated so fast that my petite mother could only watch in horror from the top step of the kitchen as blood sprayed and dripped over her newly painted, blue-gray walls.
“Who’s Ryan bringing?” My mother asked, attempting to break the silence.
“He’s been dating Jen for a few years now and I would assume her.” My brother responded coldly.
“That’s nice. Are you bringing anyone Vinnie?”
I looked up from my plate of food and through my one non-swollen eye, I saw my mother glancing over at me. Her eyes following the dried blood that stained my face. Looking at each individual stitch that held together my eye socket. She hoped by using my family nickname she would be able to extract my voice from my swollen lips, she thought I might cave to her emotion:
“No one, I’m not going to be able to make it. It’s the second week of school and I’ll be really busy.”
No one’s busy the second week of classes.
Silence returned to the table, my mother froze and put her fork down with a loud clink that irritated my eardrums. I felt her stare burn into the side of my skull as I continued to look down.
“I’ll get someone to replace you in the wedding party.” My brother mumbled.
I excused myself from dinner and walked towards my car in the driveway just as my future sister-in-law pulled in.
“What the fuck happened to your face?!”
“Ask your fiancé.” I said as I slammed the car door and skidded out onto the side street.
Three days of avoiding my brother and we finally ran into each other outside our rooms, which are located right next to one another. I opened my door as he was going into his. He looked at me and laughed.
“What’s your problem?” I asked
“Nothing, you just really fucked up my nose.”
I began to laugh,
“Lucky punch.”
“Hey, I got you a new shirt. I’m sorry about all the blood on it.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. And, uh, I’m sorry for everything.”
“It’s cool, it happens. Also, I didn’t replace you yet so…”
I cut him off, “Yeah, I’d like to still be in your wedding.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
Suddenly, the big day was only a few months away. My family was struggling to get ready. Between tuxedo fittings, invitations, seating charts, rehearsal dinners, and flower arrangements tensions were running high in my household.
Everyone was concerned about the wedding, except me. I was more concerned with my new. As my move-in date came closer I began to panic about things I thought I would need. My brother and I were both pressuring my parents for help and money. My mother began to disregard my own needs in place of my brothers’. Ditching the treasured one-on-one time with her for double dates with my brother and her. After a few weeks of being totally ignored I became angry with him, I even despised him. Once again, I felt my brother was more important in my parents’ eyes. The golden child, the four sport varsity letterman, the honor role student, the straight, clean cut, all American man.
I slowly became more and more bitter, but not at my parents. Instead I was angry with my brother for taking the spotlight in our family. Soon the anger would grow into another fight over a simple issue.
My mother once again became interested in who I was planning on bringing to the wedding:
“Have you put any thought into who you might bring?”
My father interjected:
“Why are you bringing someone? You’ll be busy and have to sit at the main table anyways.”
“Everyone else is allowed to bring someone, why can’t I?” I remarked.
Being in a gay relationship at the time I had planned on attending the wedding with my then boyfriend of two years. While my Roman Catholic, conservative parents knew I was gay; they were never pleased about my ‘choice’ as they referred to it.
Instead they chose to ignore it, which not only angered me, but more it upset me that not even my parents could be proud of whom I really was. I started to realize they were more concerned about how the family would look if I were with another man, instead of a woman. They didn’t seem to care about my happiness or even my mental state of mind.
“Well, I wanted to bring Charley.” I replied to my mother, ignoring my father’s comments.
Again my father interjected:
“Absolutely not!”
“Why?! It’s not like we’re going to do anything.”
“Because it’s just not right and that’s the end of it. Why don’t you bring Emily instead?”
“She’s not even allowed legally drink! I want to bring someone that I can get drunk with and have fun. It’s not like anyone else there is going to talk to me. No one ever does. I’m too young and have nothing to say to anyone else.”
“Then you can’t bring anyone.”
At this point I had a feeling my brother was behind this. My father never seemed to care before about things like this and I knew my father felt his reputation, as a man, was more important than his youngest son’s feelings. It had become evident that my father still held the conservative view that what his children turn out to be is a direct product of his parenting. How would raising a fag for a son look to his closest friends, to his siblings?
I took this very personally. Not only could I not bring the person I loved, but also, I was being forced to partake in a ceremony I could not myself have by law. The idea of hiding myself in public for their benefit soon began to rule my life. The forced conformity that I had rebelled against as soon as I had come to college. I was being forced to play a game, to play by the rules of a society that my parents, for so long, had lived by.
When I finally had my brother alone I casually brought up the subject.
“Do you care who I bring to the wedding?”
“I thought you weren’t bringing anybody. Didn’t we already have this conversation? I thought this was taken care of.”
“So you think it’s okay that Dad spoke for you?”
“You don’t need to bring a faggot to my wedding and make a joke out of the whole thing because you’ll be dancing with some guy. Don’t you care what these people will say about you? About me? About our family?”
I didn’t even know what to say, I was hurt. The tears began to well up in my eyes and my anger boiled over:
“Fuck you! Fuck out family! Fuck your wedding!”
“What the fuck did you just say to me?”
“You fucking heard what I said you ignorant asshole!”
“You don’t fucking deserve our last name you fucking fairy!”
That’s the last thing I remember saying as my brother reached out his arms to grab me. I fought he advances as he barreled toward me with disgust in his eyes. His arms wrapped around my neck. I struggled to breathe. All I could make out was the anger in his eyes and my mother’s screams of terror. My vision began to darken and distress fell upon my face. My mother was now on top of my brother screaming at him to release me, I could no longer fight back. I was light headed and everything went black. I hit the floor and the door slammed. I lied there unable to speak, defeated.
My mother tried to help me up, but I swatted her away. I couldn’t bear to have her help me after what had just happened. When I finally caught my breath the only thing I could say or think was that there was no way in hell that I was going to his wedding, let alone standing there as a groomsman in his wedding. My mother said she didn’t care, my father wasn’t there and my brother had left. I had no one to talk to; I had no one to ask if I was in the wrong.
At our next family gathering, Fourth of July, new had already spread about the wedding and my absence. No one knew the real reason why, and I didn’t want to talk about it, but all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins wanted to know why I wasn’t going.
“You can get drunk for free and just hang out with us!” my cousin Michele said. “What’s the harm in going?”
“It’s not for free though, I have to pay for gas to get myself from Athens to home. I could just as easily buy a case of beer and get drunk on my balcony for fifteen bucks instead of paying sixty for round trip. Plus you have factor in the four-hour drive there and back and the homework I might have from classes. There’s just too much. Besides, Nick already replaced me in the wedding so why would I even bother going?”
I’ve repeated this argument so many times I actually started to believe it.
“Because he’s your brother!” she said.
I didn’t have the strength or desire to talk about the subject any further. I retreated into the house to get more food and find some solitude. I had this discussion with so many people already I was exhausted and unwilling to let anyone in on what really happened. No one was on my side. No one thought it was more important for me to stand up for what I thought was right. They all wanted me to swallow my pride and just go to the wedding.
Finally, my Aunt Judy and I were able to talk one on one. She’s my closest relative and I spend the most time with her. Weather it’s going to lunch to get Chinese, or helping her crochet hats for cancer patients, she’s the type of woman who obviously plays favorites, and I am her favorite and everyone knows it. Not only does she know I’m gay, she’s okay with it. I confide in her and when she asked why I didn’t want to go to the wedding I explained what had happened.
“Fuck him.” she said, “You shouldn’t go to the wedding after that.”
Someone was finally on my side and it restored my belief that for once, I was in the right. Even though I had been reassured, the weight of my decision weighed heavily. Dinner conversations continued with wedding talk as if I wasn’t there, my parents were always off with my brother shopping for the wedding, and my brother’s fiancé became more and more present in our household. Surely she had known what had happened, and yet, she continuously tried to speak with me. Asking advice, wondering if I thought she chose the right flower arrangements or centerpieces.
She wanted me to feel included, but I just wanted her to take my brother and disappear. I didn’t have anything against her; I even kind of liked her. She was smart and pretty with a lean athletic body. I felt my brother didn’t deserve her. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she was with my asshole of a brother. What was she seeing in him that I never saw in the twenty some years I’ve known him? She even tried to console me by writing a letter explaining that she understands brothers always fight, but what I didn’t know was that my brother did love me.
This made no sense to me. I had never even heard my brother say those words; I love you. If he did really care about me, why didn’t he write the letter? Why didn’t he care enough to talk to me about it? While her attempt was well appreciated it seemed worthless in my eyes. It only furthered my hatred of him and strengthens my argument that he didn’t deserve her.
Slowly I began to receive e-mails, texts, and calls from all sides of my family attempting to persuade me to go to the wedding. My mother’s sister even offered to buy me anything I wanted, within reason, and pay double for my gas. I asked her why it was so important to her for me to go.
“Your mother is so upset that you two do not get along. She’s afraid you are never going to talk again.”
“I asked her if she cared and she said no. What am I supposed to do?”
“You know your mother is stubborn. Please just go for her. Who cares about Nick, just go for your mother.”
Once again I felt trapped by the decision I had made. Every time I had tried to talk to my mother she had said she didn’t care if I came or not. Now to discover that she was upset about the whole thing made me even angrier that she wouldn’t tell me the truth. I was being lied to, I was being manipulated, I was confused.
I approached my mother one last time before I left for Athens. With my car packed, my brother nowhere in sight I knew I had to know the truth.
“Mom!”
“What?”
“Aunt Karen told me everything. You know, about the wedding and how upset you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you remember to pack your computer and toothbrush and phone charger? You better do another run through the house to make sure you got it all.”
I couldn’t believe that I had cornered her and she was trying to change the subject.
“Yes mother, I got everything. I ran through the house twice already. Seriously though, do you care if I go to Nick’s wedding?”
“No, I don’t care.”
“Okay then, I’m not going.”
“Fine, have a good drive. Call me when you get there. Here’ some money for gas.”
“Thanks mom, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
So there it was, I was not going to go to my own brother’s wedding. Neither of us would let the other in to the way we truly felt and we were both going to pay the price for our ignorance. I drove down to school, my car packed wit things from home, my music blaring, my thoughts racing about everything that happened that summer.
The day of my brother’s wedding I awoke to a bang at my door. I screamed for them to go away. I checked my phone and there was a text message from my mom’ sister:
“Hope to see you today.”
The banging continued. I stood up and walked to the door to see my two best friends standing there.
“Hey, What’s up?” I said in a morning haze.
“We brought treats!”
As soon as they were inside my friend Lauren pulled a sack from her backpack.
“I brought you something. Well, not just for you, you better share.”
She handed me the bag and I opened it. Inside was a bottle of vodka, three glasses and a bag of weed. It was the perfect way to forget about everything. So there I was, sitting on my bed with my two best friends smoking a blunt and washing it down with OJ and Vodka while my brother said, “I do.”
