The silent war that bloodied both our hands

Lyrics from My Brother Esau by John Barlow:

Esau skates on mirrors anymore...
He meets his pale reflection at the door.
Yet sometimes at night I dream
He's still that hairy man
Shadowboxing the Apocalypse
And wandering the land
Shadowboxing the Apocalypse
And wandering the land.

Esau holds a blessing;
Brother Esau bears a curse.
I would say that the blame is mine
But I suspect it's something worse.
The more my brother looks like me,
The less I understand
The silent war that bloodied both our hands
Sometimes at night, I think I understand.

Sometimes the spaces in between say more than the words on the page. Sometimes the words not said speak louder. My brother has just finished writing his first book. There is a lot to be impressed about. He has a publisher who has backed him and sent him to various places to promote it. You can order it on line as I did. It appears to be doing well for a book of its kind. Dan sought me out to warn me that there was a part in there that refers to me - but it was really not to be intended as a literal statement. The opposite rule works well with most of my family including Dan. Take what they say - take the opposite of it - and there it is. So when he says he wanted me to be struck down by lightning in his book, his attempts to diminish and distance himself from this only serve to reinforce it in my mind. I don't take it too personally though. He has basically shunned me for the last 20 years. I have been shut out. Being struck by lightning pales in comparison. My wife read the first two chapters and I didn't even know that certain phases of his life existed. The book is well written - I need my dictionary to look up some of the words. He paints a picture in a novel setting in a way that I would never be able to bring myself to do. It is quite clear that he reveals some and holds quite a bit back, but that is who he is. He does not lay all the cards out on the table. My folks never have, and he has inherited that from them. To toot my own horn here, I have always seen that as my ability. I respect those who can't do what I can do - I couldn't hike the Pacific Crest Trail and I couldn't write a book - or let's just say - wouldn't want to do either one. I am more of a short essay type - I spit it out and I am done. I don't want to revisit or rewrite it. Honestly I am not too interested - to borrow a Rutles line - in flogging my memory and filling in the blanks in the past for events I barely even remember from 10 years ago. I get bits and pieces, sometimes I write bits and pieces, but I just don't see a whole book in me.

But getting back to the biggest kick in the ass - it is in the two page thanks and acknowledgements section. Over half of the family is mentioned - Mom, Dad, Edie. Two people - I know - the two ASS-HOLES of the family - are left out. One being myself, and the other being Phil. The two mean older brothers. The two ones who never respected the baby brother. I don't want to sound egotistical, but I know I have had a big influence on him and still do. To not mention me - in the same way he danced over Amy's absence on the cruise by saying she was "sick" is just another elephant in the room. I was sick that week too - sick with emotional nausea. I could have gotten the doctor's note by saying I was having suicidal urges. But I went anyway- for my daughter's sake. She had a great time and even if I am scarred for life I did it for her. That's being a Dad for you. Otherwise no way in hell I would have put myself through this. I admire her for not going - for being the one person who was not going to subject herself to unnecesary misery in dealing with my folks. I believe I had a share in inspiring him to write this book - the way he mentioned those who told him he couldn't do the trail pushed him to show them he could. My biggest crime while being young was making fun of his writing. Well - FUCK YOU - I wrote a book - how do ya like them apples. I know I was part of it. To not mention my name was a way to specifically get another revenge stab back at me. That seems to be the silent jab in there. FUCK YOU - I am going to make it a point NOT to mention you. And if the intention was to hurt me - mission accomplished. I didn't have the best dreams last night. I had a dream something like there was this brief window of time where he could be open and honest with me, but that window kept closing in.

I don't remember too much of my dispute with Dan. I know it was ongoing. It goes back to my earliest memory - even being close to 4 - I was fighting with him. I don't know why. Who is to blame for this? Do I blame my mother for her constant psychotic rages? Do I blame my father for his unrealistic expectations of my mother, and his rages toward her, that in turn caused her to pass the shit down hill, until I in turn passed it down one more rung to my brother, and he had no place left to pass it down to? When I mocked him for saying how much he liked ice cream - yeah - that was pretty lame. Do I regret all this happened? Well of course I do. I am sorry that it happened. But how many fucking times can I apologize? FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME - I'M SORRY. Sorry - I am done apologizing. I think of the Michael Franti line from One Step Closer "I didn't mean to hurt you no, and you didn't mean to hurt me too - but it seems like we always do." But - I don't blame myself - not any more. I don't really know who to blame. What good is it going to do anyways? The past sucks, but I can choose to let it keep on sucking or finally say enough is enough. It is like this sick cloud of mental illness and dark rage and despair settled over my family and we all succumbed to it - every one of us. That is why going on this cruise was something I dreaded so much - because I don't really care to be brought back to it and my parent's delusional attempts to see us as being a close family just seems that much more desperate and pathetic to me. Don Miguel Ruiz says we can punish ourselves over and over for an event in the past that happened once. I have forgiven myself. I may have had an 18 month edge over Dan at one point, but he probably could kick my ass now. He is stronger, more muscular, and in better shape. And I do remember that although I was pretty mean to him, that it was not all one-sided either. He had his way of getting back at me too. He made it a point to stick the knife in my back when I came back from college in a depression. He almost seemed to be gloating and acting like I deserved it. Scoreboard - karma. He would mock me when I got high. He even had his way of nailing me when we were young. The scoreboard is not nearly as onesided as he thinks it is. Maybe I was winning the brutality game, but he got some pretty good hits on me in the process. He underestimated his own power. I might have been one mean son of a bitch, but he was a mean motherfucker too. I had one and a half years on him, but the older we got he bridged the gap closely. It wasn't all bad though - I made him laugh - he liked my twisted sense of humor. At the God awful boring religious services, I had him in tears a couple times. What is sad to me is that he still feels like it was all my fault and has blamed the whole thing on me. We spent a lot of time together growing up. In college we communicated some, but it got ugly at times. And then at one point, the door just closed shut - BOOM OUTTA HERE. It has never opened since. It is so big I am not sure if it can be opened any more. On the cruise he made it clear that he is over all of this, no longer sees me as the voice of his undoing, and no longer wishes me to be struck down by lightning. He is past all this now. Just like the line from Spinal Tap where Nigel says something like brothers fight, but our relationship is way past that now. I wished that I believed Dan. I just know that is not the way he feels, even if that is how he tries to present it. Actions speak louder than words.

I admit - I do want us to be close. I just don't see it as being possible. He fooled me last time I saw him at Mammoth Lakes - I thought he wanted that too. But I grasped like Charlie Brown at Lucy's football - SUCKER! It became quickly clear that I fell for the show, but that is all it was. I know better now. I came into the cruise prepared this time. We avoided each other the first two days. The last day he sought me out to be with me on the deck with my guitar. He said it meant a lot to me that I was there. I do believe him. I do believe he meant it. That is what is crazy about this - it is not all one sided. There is an incredible amount of rage and hatred he has for what I represent to him, but that has taken on a life of its own. I am not that person any more, but that is how he will always see me. At one point maybe I acted out the part, but my personality has changed. I am not a bitter 4 year old looking to bully his brother any more. Hell - almost 40 fucking years have passed. But he is still there. Yet in a way he looks up to me too. Our writing styles are kind of like opposites. His is poised, prepared, researched with picturesque and elaborate words, mine are more raw in your face unconscious exposure of emotions. Here I am - I am naked - my penis is dangling out to the left. What you see is what you get. If you put our two styles together, imagine what we could do. He did make an effort to come out and see me a few times - ironically shortly after his hike. Every time though something went wrong, either an exchange with Vicky, or I found out that I treaded on too personal territory by bringing up his mental collapse - never mind that I shared a similar collapse. He wrote to me in a fit of rage - don't EVER EVER EVER EVER - bring it up again. So I haven't. I thought it was something that could bond us. He saw it as an intrusion. He was enraged by my wife asking him how he was doing in his relationship. Way too personal. So when we see him now we watch what we say. If you have so many limiations on what you can bring up, than what is there left to discuss? So although the intent was there, we are back to square one. He says he may come out this way to see us. Honestly I am not holding my breath.

I feel bad for him too. I get a sense he is not walking on solid ground. There was a pretty retarded review at Amazon condeming his book and he seemed consumed by it. He took it very personally. I tried to convey some of the Ruiz philosophy - don't take anything personally - believe in your work and fuck everyone else. Who cares. I actually felt a current of spirit going through me as I tried to discuss this with him. It was one of the high points of my trip. I guess that is one thing that separates us now - I just don't get too caught up in what others think of me now. With the wife and family it is a little harder to do. Obviously my omission in his book was a slap in the face to me, but in time that will fade too. At some point I will surrendur to the script of my life and move on. I am probably not reading much more of the book - I honestly find it too depressing to be reminded of the shut-out and how much of his life I have been left out of, but Victoria will find the lightning sequence and convey it to me. What am I going to do - hire a hitman at that point? For me - the most hurtful thing that happened was the excommunication. I have found his replacement - to a degree - in some of my best friends, Kirk, Youndy, John, Rich and Joe - they have become my brothers and then some. I can say anything to them. And I still have a bond with my older brother Phil. But to say it doesn't hurt - hell - I am lying. He thinks I deserve it and he will always see me owing him for what I did. I just don't see it that way. So here we are - so close but worlds apart. Like the song lyric says - both our hands are bloodied, not just mine - not just his - both. Can this ever change or are we stuck in this limited role playing for the rest of our lives? Hell - our time may be running out - people start getting cancer at our age. Michael Franti writes "It's never too late to start the day over". It seems like in this case it is, but if he ever wants to prove me wrong - I am here. I have a lot to offer. I know I do. But at this point, it is just going to go where it goes. I am not delusional though. It is dead and it is never going to come back to life. And quite frankly - as broken as he is now (however much of it is seemingly my doing) - I don't really see what he has to offer me anyways.

"Like a steam locomotive - rolling down the track
He's gone - and nothing's gonna bring him back" Robert Hunter