But that all ended abruptly when he lost his bike privileges. Afterward Coyle became irritable with everyone, but particularly with me.
In those months after Coyle lost his bike privileges Coyle would step on me as he got down from his bunk. He elbowed me when we sat next to each other in the car. He hunted me down at school during his lunch period. We’d fought before. Of course we had. Fighting was in our blood. I think initially our father even encouraged it. He thought it built character. But this was different. It was not a single squabble. It was an unending war. And as I try to parse the threads of what went wrong, I have come to believe that there was something in the excessive, confrontational, competitive nature of our upbringing that spurred us to achieve, but also fostered combativeness. And once things went wrong, they went really wrong, because we had no training in moderation. Through that motorcycle Coyle had caught a glimpse of a bright, vibrant life that was suddenly snatched from him. And with no other outlet, he took his frustration out on me.
I was punched and kicked and pinched and elbowed and tripped and tormented. And I hated this. I was not combative by nature. Just the opposite. I was a dreamy kid—a lover of books and music and poetry. So at first I did everything to avoid fighting. I went through the usual progression of trying to hide, trying to tattle, but none of that stopped Coyle, and I came to the natural understanding that anyone would come to in that situation: Even the weakest in a group, the most frail, the most fearful, the most withdrawing, will see that the only way to keep from getting hit by a more powerful enemy is to hit first and make it hard enough that it’s a real deterrent. And if this were true in a normal family, it was doubly true in ours.
* * *
—
“Pull me,” Coyle said.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“Pull fast.”
“Jimmy will pull you,” I said. “I’ll pull Fergus.”
It was December, dusk, the trees heavy and thick and rounded with snow, flakes drifting here or there in the suburban twilight. We were out on the sidewalk playing a game called the gauntlet, named after a Clint Eastwood movie. Like all our games, it involved strength, enduring punishment, and the chance to attack one another. The rules were simple: You stood on a sled and were pulled down the sidewalk while other kids threw snowballs. If you didn’t fall off the sled you won. It was Coyle, Fergus, me, and my best friend Jimmy, our neighbor, a good-natured kid, who, like everyone who spent time around Coyle and me that year, was always trying to keep us from fighting.
“I don’t care,” my friend Jimmy said to Coyle, taking the rope. “I can pull you.”
“I don’t want you to pull me,” Coyle said, jerking the rope back. “Willie should pull me.”
“You’re too big for me to pull,” I said. “I’m pulling Fergus.”
“You won’t get stronger if you don’t try to do hard things,” Coyle said.
He was always noticing how frail and skinny and weak I was. It bugged him.
“Why should I do harder things? You can always do them for me,” I baited him.
Coyle reached out to grab me, but stopped because a voice from across the street called, “Hey, losers!”
It was Robert Dainty. He sauntered over, coming from his big house down the block. Robert had stayed away for a few months after he fought with Coyle, but had then started hanging around again. Coyle and Robert, two alpha dogs, had a sort of negative attraction to each other.
“We’re playing a sled game,” I called to Robert.
“A sled game,” Robert said in his snide tone.
“Yes. Pulling sleds!” I said. “Coyle pulled me. Now I’m supposed to pull him, but he doesn’t think I’ll do it. Coyle loves the sled game!”
“Is that right, Brennan? Are you a sled fanatic?” Robert said.
Coyle didn’t bother answering. He just stepped toward me.
“What?” I said.
“You know what,” he said.
Coyle punched me, but my puffy parka softened the blow. He shoved me so I fell, but I landed in a snowdrift. I laughed. Coyle hated that. He got on top of me, flipped me over, and shoved my face down.
“Eat snow, weasel,” he said.
There was a moment of burning, icy smothering. Then Coyle let go and I leapt up, wiping the snow and a little blood from my face.
“I’m bleeding!” I bleated.
Coyle got a dismissive look.
“Like one drop. Who cares?”
Jimmy and Fergus laughed. Even Robert Dainty laughed. I must have sounded pathetic. I retreated down the snowy street.
“Idiots!” I yelled.
I arrived at the house. I packed a snowball and waited on the porch to ambush Coyle, but he didn’t come back. I could hear them down the block. They were playing the game again. Even Robert was playing.
I went around the house to the backyard. The shape of Coyle’s motorcycle with a tarp over it made a stationary lump in the snow. I thought of pushing it over, but I knew Coyle would go crazy if I touched his bike. I didn’t dare do it.
I walked back to the front yard. I made the snowball larger. I went inside and held the snowball beneath the faucet until it compressed into ice. I went back to the porch. Coyle still wasn’t coming. I packed the ball even tighter. It was heavy and hard as a lump of steel. I put the ice ball in the freezer. I went back to the window. I waited. I knew what I was thinking of doing was wrong. A face-wash in the snow was unpleasant, but an ice ball, frozen solid in the freezer, was a dangerous weapon. I was afraid of what I was doing, but also felt justified in doing it. I was sick of Coyle blaming me for losing his bike privileges and I was sick of taking beatings, and there was a defiant, slippery temptation to get revenge.
I waited at the window. It got dark. Twice I got up from the window and walked away, thinking I’d just let it go. But then I went back to the window and kept waiting, sitting in that dim room with the dusky blue light, wondering, Should I do it? Will I do it? I’d fought before, but I’d never done anything purposefully brutal.
Maddy came down the stairs dragging one of her dolls by the hair.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Go away.”
She went back upstairs without a word. The disruption between Coyle and me, the constant fighting, had filtered through everyone in the family. It was like acid on the fabric of the household. Fergus sided with Coyle to keep from getting hit himself. Mom also sided with Coyle. She thought I was sneaky. Dad didn’t want to waste time on squabbles, but I think he was on my side, thinking correctly that I was getting the worst of the beating. Maddy just didn’t want to get pulled into the maelstrom. She had started talking to her dolls and punishing them when they were “bad.” The fighting affected all of us, but no one more than me. Under that constant assault I had been changing secretly, and now, the flowering of that change: I was waiting at the window with an ice ball in the freezer.
It grew dark. I thought my parents might come home before I did anything. Maybe I even wanted them to come home, to stop me from what I was planning. I knew it was wrong. I didn’t care.
After an hour I heard a voice in the gloom. It was Coyle.
I ran to the freezer and got the ice ball. It was heavy and as hard as stone. I propped the interior door open so I would have a straight shot. I waited. I heard Coyle on the steps. I held the frozen ball in my cocked hand. And then there Coyle was, opening the door. I didn’t hesitate. I threw as hard as I could from three feet away. The ice ball hit his face with a nasty, fleshy thud. Coyle’s head snapped back. He fell on the porch. The ice ball skidded away, not even dented.
“That’s what you get!” I shouted.
Coyle reached out blindly. I jerked away, but too late. Coyle had me. He pulled me to him. Even with blood pouring from his nose and mouth, he
dragged me to him and knocked me to the ground. He began to pummel me blindly. Both of us cursed each other, our blood mixing in snow.
* * *
—
Two hours later Coyle and I sat on opposite ends of the couch. I had what would be bruises on my face from where Coyle had hit my head against the porch. Coyle had the beginnings of two black eyes.
“One of us was supposed to pull him on the sled,” I said in a wavering, indignant tone. “Jimmy said he’d do it, because he’s stronger than me, and he can pull Coyle faster, but Coyle was being bossy, as usual. He said it had to be me who pulled him and he went crazy when he didn’t get his way.”
“Did you agree to pull him?” Dad asked me.
“No,” I said. “There wasn’t a rule that I had to pull Coyle. It was that I had to pull someone. Coyle just decided that I was going to be the one who pulled him and got mad we weren’t bowing down to him like slaves.”
“You’re such a liar,” Coyle said. “It’s true I wanted him to pull me. But I shoved his face in the snow because he was being a weasel with Robert Dainty. Robert showed up and Willie yelled, ‘We’re playing with sleds.’ ”
“What’s wrong with that?” Dad asked.
“They think sleds are passé,” Mom said to our father.
“They think it’s for poor people,” Coyle said.
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Dad said.
“They don’t go sledding. They go skiing in Aspen,” Coyle said.
“Proud to be poor!” Fergus yelled from the living room.
“Cut it!” Dad yelled.
Fergus was pretending to do homework nearby, but was really listening in. Maddy was trying not to hear by playing with her tea set and humming. That was another thing she had started to do, humming to block out our voices.
“Willie tried to embarrass me in front of Robert,” Coyle was saying. “So I pushed him over. Big deal. Then he hit me in the face with ice.”
“After he started it,” I said.
“After you embarrassed me,” Coyle said.
Dad waved his hands to silence us.
“Coyle, you shouldn’t have shoved your brother’s face in the snow. And Willie, you overreacted by hitting your brother with ice. Brothers might fight a little, but they don’t use weapons. You need to learn to defend yourself with your hands.”
“Look at him and look at me,” I said. “He’s a year older than me and twice my size. How am I supposed to fight back with my hands?”
“Figure it out,” Mom said. “And stop making such a drama about it. Your father and I are both working very hard. When we leave you together we expect you to behave like normal human beings. Not having us come back to a bloodbath. Too much of our time is spent refereeing.”
“Because Coyle’s a bully,” I said. “He thinks everything is my fault.”
“Willie’s a weasel,” Coyle said. “He lost my bike privileges for me and now he’s getting me in trouble again.”
“Enough!” Dad said. “Shake hands. Then go upstairs.”
Coyle and I shook hands without looking at each other. We went up to the bedroom and stood between the two bunk beds, side by side.
“Is he coming?” I said.
“What do you think?” Coyle said. “It’s your fault.”
“You always have to get your way. And you blame me for everything that you don’t like. I’m sick of it.”
“You hit me with ice.”
“You shoved my face in the snow.”
“You went against me in public with Robert Dainty.”
“You beat on me in public all the time.”
“Because you deserve it,” he said.
I started to reply, but then we heard Dad’s footsteps on the stairs. The door opened. Dad came in. He shut the door behind him.
“You know the rules,” Dad said. “You can’t be wasting time fighting with each other. And if you do fight you need to learn that it’s worse for both of you.”
“We didn’t really fight,” Coyle murmured.
“Yeah, you did,” Dad said.
Dad stepped in front of Coyle and motioned for him to lower his hands. As he did, really fast, without warning, Dad hit Coyle with the butt of his hand in the temple. Coyle’s head jerked to the side. He fell and lay there on the wool carpet, curled in case Dad came at him again. Dad didn’t. He stepped in front of me. I looked down. I knew what was coming. I could hear the scrape of a snow shovel on a driveway down the block. I could hear the clink of Mom doing dishes downstairs. I was thinking of how to get out of it, of inventing something that would make it seem like it was all Coyle’s fault. I was good at making things up, thinking of clever arguments. I was smaller and weaker than everyone else, so I had to be clever to get out of things. I started to think up a lie, but there was a blur to the side and a white light flashed in my head and I was sprawled on the carpet between the beds. I was crying a little. I thought I wouldn’t cry, but then I did before I knew I was, and I hated that I was. Coyle hadn’t cried. He hadn’t even let out a sound when he was hit. I was pathetic. I always cried when I got smacked, even when I promised myself I wouldn’t. I lay there for a while, chest heaving. Finally I sat up. Coyle was giving me a look that said, Why be such a baby? Dad had already left.
“Can’t tell them anything or we both get hit,” Coyle said.
“Good,” I said. “I’ll keep telling. At least it’s both of us and not just me.”
As we walked out, Coyle elbowed me. I shoved him. We weaved from each other and took little jabs and pretended we were just walking down the stairs.
* * *
—
There’s a story in our family, legend now, about how, when I was six years old, I was asked to eat three peas at the dinner table and I refused. Mom said I’d sit at the table until I ate them. I said I wouldn’t eat them. She said I’d sit there until I did eat them. I sat at the table for five hours. In the end I was sent to bed straight from the dinner table, but I never ate the peas. And a lot of what follows makes sense only if you take in the moral of this story. I was the weakest in the family and the least confrontational of the boys. But I had one strength. I was stubborn. I knew my own mind. And as Coyle and I started to fight I fell back on this stubbornness. I decided that whenever Coyle did something to me, I would do something back, no matter what. When Coyle pushed me or tripped me or poked me or biffed me with a raised knuckle, I promised myself I would always get him back. Tit for tat. So he hit me and I stole his notebooks. I hid his baseball glove. I once pushed him down the stairs when he wasn’t paying attention. Not that these efforts discouraged Coyle from attacking me. If anything, they spurred him on. Coyle was trained in the same school of relentless effort as I was. We used our excessive training not to conquer the world but to try to destroy each other. And as our battles progressed both of us descended into a maze of adolescent plotting and brawling. Secret scheming and secret pleasure in watching each other suffer. Thorns in shoes, fiberglass on blankets. I acquired a taste for revenge and he acquired a taste for tormenting me. And when I look back on this now I understand that it wasn’t just that I was learning to defend myself. It wasn’t really that at all. I was learning to enjoy combat. I was becoming a flintier person than I’d been for the first twelve years of my life. And maybe some people thought it was for the best. Maybe they thought toughness was necessary. But being meandering and gentle by nature, I did not have practice in moderating my responses, so this change in temperament was like some illnesses that are worse for adolescents than young children. Learning to defend myself at that relatively late age was a dangerous thing.
* * *
—
Crammed into the station wagon, we were on the way to see Coyle’s basketball game. We were late and Mom had forgotten the parking pass.
“If you’d have remembered the pass
I’d be able to see the game,” Dad said. “But you had to forget it.”
“Oh, stop complaining,” Mom said. “I’ll go back.”
“You’d probably crash the car in the snow if you drove,” Dad said. “I shouldn’t have to worry about it. But you forgot it.”
“I did forget it,” Mom said coolly. “I apologized. Now get over it.”
“Why don’t you ask the guy at the gate?” Maddy said. “He might let us park.”
“He won’t let us in,” Dad said in a beleaguered tone. “You need the pass. So I’ll go back. Even though it wasn’t me who forgot.”
“Just pull over,” I said. “I’ll talk to them.”
Coyle made a clicking sound.
“Of course Willie says he’ll talk to them. Any chance to suck ass.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Mom said. “Let Willie try.”
“Just don’t beg,” Coyle said. “Willie the Wheeder.”
Dad pulled over in front of the turnoff for the parking lot. I jumped out. It was six o’clock in January. Pitch-black and frigid, and the guy working the lot was dressed up in a heavy parka and boots and thick gloves. I walked over in the headlights.
“My brother’s on the team. My mom forgot the parking pass,” I said. “Can we still park here?”
“Who’s your brother?”
“Coyle Brennan.”
The attendant looked over at the old Ford station wagon with the bumper held on with a belt. Everyone knew Coyle. The varsity baseball coaches were already talking about the blue-collar kid who pitched eighty miles an hour and also played good defense in basketball.
“All right,” he said. “But remember the pass next time.”
“We will. Thanks.”
I walked back to the car, swinging my arms. I got inside.
“We can park,” I said.
“See,” Mom said to Dad. “After all that.”
The Brother Years Page 4