My Brother
My brother sent me an email today. That may not sound like news but it is the first email he has ever sent me and it is the first time I have had any communication with him in about 7 or 8 years.
We're not estranged or anything, we were just never particularly close. He has lived in the middle east for about 13 years. He is extremely intelligent. He has a MBA, a JD and a PhD and he speaks and writes Arabic and Russian. I have no idea what he does for a living but it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to figure it out. I've never asked though.
It was such a funny, short email. Of the nature of "Hi! How are you? I'm seeing a new girl from whereever, etc." Nothing major, as if he writes every other day.
I think my brother and I are primarily alike in that we both have very powerful sex drives. Only he favors Eastern European chicks while I go for built dark haired men. That's a general preference for both of us. We appreciate many other physical types.
My brother has done some really shitty stuff. He has a son here (from a bad first marriage) who is about 14 or 15 and honestly I have no idea if he has any communication with him. That's something else I do not want to know.
He's 5 years older and when I was little he either tortured me or ignored me or ganged up with my father and was mean to me. I think being mean to me was a way that my father and brother could connect and i was the victim. I hated him for a long time but then I got older and really popular and started to feel sorry for him because he is (was) so socially awkward.
He used to drink a lot when he was a teenager and he could not hold his liquor and he was a mean drunk:
1) When he was 17 he tried to break into a house around the block that he mistakenly thought was ours.
2) Some of his "friends" called from a party to say that he was drunk and unruly and had to be picked up by my Mom.
3) He went to The Ritz to see Squeeze and got separated from his friend and we got a call from a stranger who found my brother rolling around on a subway car in Upper Manhattan. This was about 1981. Suffice to say he could have been killed. 1981 was not a good year for crime.
4) In 1984 he woke up on New Year's Day bloodied and swollen. It turns out he had the shit beaten out of him the night before by a psycho in my grade who also had anger and drinking issues and was very strong and could fight.
At some point he gave up drinking.
I, meanwhile, seemed to have been given 9 lives when it came to drinking as a teen. Teflon all the way. I was in unreal situations all the time and could have died a thousand times yet nothing ever happened to me. Weird. Karma, luck or my innate charm, I dunno.
Anyway, my brother was angry for a long time. I suspect he has grown up. One of these days we will probably have more of a relationship. All said, he is a sweet and trusting person at heart and I know he has affection for me. Unlike my sister...but that will come another time.
We're not estranged or anything, we were just never particularly close. He has lived in the middle east for about 13 years. He is extremely intelligent. He has a MBA, a JD and a PhD and he speaks and writes Arabic and Russian. I have no idea what he does for a living but it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to figure it out. I've never asked though.
It was such a funny, short email. Of the nature of "Hi! How are you? I'm seeing a new girl from whereever, etc." Nothing major, as if he writes every other day.
I think my brother and I are primarily alike in that we both have very powerful sex drives. Only he favors Eastern European chicks while I go for built dark haired men. That's a general preference for both of us. We appreciate many other physical types.
My brother has done some really shitty stuff. He has a son here (from a bad first marriage) who is about 14 or 15 and honestly I have no idea if he has any communication with him. That's something else I do not want to know.
He's 5 years older and when I was little he either tortured me or ignored me or ganged up with my father and was mean to me. I think being mean to me was a way that my father and brother could connect and i was the victim. I hated him for a long time but then I got older and really popular and started to feel sorry for him because he is (was) so socially awkward.
He used to drink a lot when he was a teenager and he could not hold his liquor and he was a mean drunk:
1) When he was 17 he tried to break into a house around the block that he mistakenly thought was ours.
2) Some of his "friends" called from a party to say that he was drunk and unruly and had to be picked up by my Mom.
3) He went to The Ritz to see Squeeze and got separated from his friend and we got a call from a stranger who found my brother rolling around on a subway car in Upper Manhattan. This was about 1981. Suffice to say he could have been killed. 1981 was not a good year for crime.
4) In 1984 he woke up on New Year's Day bloodied and swollen. It turns out he had the shit beaten out of him the night before by a psycho in my grade who also had anger and drinking issues and was very strong and could fight.
At some point he gave up drinking.
I, meanwhile, seemed to have been given 9 lives when it came to drinking as a teen. Teflon all the way. I was in unreal situations all the time and could have died a thousand times yet nothing ever happened to me. Weird. Karma, luck or my innate charm, I dunno.
Anyway, my brother was angry for a long time. I suspect he has grown up. One of these days we will probably have more of a relationship. All said, he is a sweet and trusting person at heart and I know he has affection for me. Unlike my sister...but that will come another time.
posted by Bart at 11:01 PM
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