Walls: Essays, 1985-1990

A Death in the Family

A Death in the Family He was a kid of about the same age as Rufus, from some insane place like Jersey City or Syracuse, but somewhere along the line he had discovered that he could say it with a saxophone. He had a lot to say. He stood there, wide-legged, humping the air, filling his barrel chest, shivering in the rags of his twenty-odd years, and screaming through the horn Do you love me? Do you love? Do you me? And, again, Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? -James Baldwin, Another GauntI}' I recall how difficult it was for me to realize that my brother loved me. He was always in the streets , doing this and that, proverbially in trouble, in a place, Harlem, where trouble indeed was great. At times we would even come to blows , when, for example, drunk as he could be, he wished to borrow my car and I had visions of his entrails splayed over the city. I remember one incident as if it were yesterday: Paul, my younger brother, physically larger than me, his hand holding a screwdriver, poised to stab me, his anger so great that his brother, the college professor, wouldn't let him drive his "lady" home, even though he could barely walk. I can still see him chiding me about how I had always done the right thing, how I was not his father, how I was just a poor excuse for a white man, the last statement jeweled with venom. And from his place, this was certainly true: I had done what I was expected to do; and the world, in its dubious logic, had paid me well. I was a college teacher; I had 1 7 Walls : Essays, 1985 -1 990 published a few collections of poems; I had a wonderful girl­ friend; and what suffering I bore, at least to my brother's eyes, centered around my inability to leave him alone. Luckily, this confrontation ended when my father rushed in on us, our distress exceeded only by the distress in his eyes. Later, my brother would forget the events of that evening, but not the fact that I had not lent him the car. For my part, I would never forget how we were both so angry, so hate-fill ed. I, too , that night, might have killed my brother. As children we were often at each other's throat. The difference in our ages, just two years, was probably a greater bridge than either of us welcomed. And so we often went for each other's pressure points: the greater discomfort enacted , the more skillful our thrust. But this was child's play, in a child's world. On that November night when mybrother and I confronted each other with hate and murder in our eyes, I realized I had mined a new intensity, full of terror and, though I didn't know it then, of love. Though he was incredibly angry (bitter, some might say) , I always admired my brother's honesty and self-love. It seemed that everything he thrust into his body was a denial of self-alcohol, smoke, cocaine-yet his mindand his quick tongue demanded that he be heard. In a world full of weakness , he was outspoken, never letting anyone diminish him. When he was at the wheel ofthat torturous abandon euphemistically called " city driving, " he invariably would maneuver abreast of a driver who had somehow slighted him, and tell him, in no uncertain lan­ guage, where he could go and with utmost dispatch. Paul never cared how big, crazy, or dangerous this other driver might be. When I cautioned him, reliving again and again the thousand headlines of "Maniac Kills Two over Words ," he would just shrug. "He's a bastard, needs to know it. " I remember how scared I became when he would roll down the window-scared and yet proud. My brother was unable to ride within the subway, moving immediately to the small catwalk between the cars, 1 8 A Death in the Family where the air might reach him. He complained that he was always too hot, that the people were too close; indeed , as soon as he entered the train, sweat began to cascade off him, as if he had just completed a marathon. Later this image would remain with me: my...