I Had a Brother Once

by Adam Mansbach

receipt for the chemicals.

  he had bought them only

  two weeks earlier. perhaps

  that was the event horizon, or

  perhaps it was neither event

  nor horizon. these clues that

  were not clues were everywhere,

  waterlogging everything, as if

  the wave he’d spent his life

  surfing had finally broken.

  among the items my brother

  had purchased after the means

  of killing himself was an

  expensive skateboard that

  had not yet arrived, was still

  en route. printed out on his

  desk, time stamped a few

  days earlier, were directions

  to a memorial service for our

  grandfather that was not until

  july. this set of data staggered

  me: the bifurcation of david’s

  intentions, part of him planning

  to live & mourn & skateboard,

  the rest of him planning to die.

  it was not a toggle switch, they

  tell me, not an either/or but a

  both at once. no more a paradox

  than a train station with two

  sets of tracks running in

  opposite directions.

  the note on his windshield

  was not the note. the real note

  came to us later, in a hazmat

  envelope. i only read it once,

  transcribed into an email

  by my father. it began

  As far back as I can remember, I

  have always thought I should be dead.

  who am i to line break

  that sentence, chop it

  where i feel the rhythm

  lies? i’m sorry for that,

  david. but also i am furious.

  i don’t believe you. i

  remember your childhood

  too, your sun-warmed

  body draped across mine

  on the beach where we

  returned each summer,

  bigger & stronger, where

  we bored careful holes in

  flat wedges of sand with

  our thumbs & first fingers

  & named them clantobars,

  played running bases & rolled

  giggling down the sloping

  dune into the ocean to

  spring up & battle waves.

  i remember you with dandelions

  behind your ears in grandma’s

  garden & another poking from

  the waistband of your shorts,

  before your round belly

  knotted into muscle. your

  body was the closest mystery,

  so like my own that i

  cartographed all our differences,

  your nose a mansbach &

  mine a kaplan, your back

  broader & chest hairier,

  your strength deeper set

  than mine, honed fighting

  water instead of iron.

  i remember holding your head

  still for the clippers, trying to

  clean up the haircut you’d

  inflicted on yourself, a prelude

  to the night a few years later

  when, left alone in the house,

  you removed the braces from

  your teeth & videotaped

  the procedure. mom & dad

  had made you get them,

  did not take seriously your

  objection that it was

  forced cosmetic surgery.

  they believed you’d thank

  them later, but you reclaimed

  sovereignty over your body,

  for the first but not the final

  time. even the orthodontist

  had to admit you did a superb

  job. you walked dogs to pay

  back what they had spent &

  your teeth stayed fucked up

  for the rest of your life, like

  our father’s. except now, at

  seventy-five, he sports invisaligns,

  is making what has long been

  crooked straight; time passed

  & he changed his mind, as

  you cannot. there was glee

  in your eyes that evening,

  do not tell me otherwise,

  you bobbed atop your mischief,

  grinning with those wires

  extruding wildly from your face

  like broken walrus whiskers

  & the sterilized nail clippers

  waving in your hand. &

  what about the year you

  swallowed daily capsules of

  resveratrol, the magic

  grape skin compound you

  said increased longevity in

  rats? i don’t believe you,

  your last words are lies,

  i hereby accuse you, too,

  of laying a false frame over

  your life, putting braces on it.

  but i don’t know for sure, i can

  prove nothing, am testifying

  only to my own blindness,

  or your skill at hiding behind

  a mask.

  the note was short, very

  short & very polite. it

  seemed almost to elide

  the point. there is that first

  sentence, & then a part i don’t

  remember, & then it ends

  I would have succumbed to your love

  and would be here still.

  i suspect i cannot quote the

  fragment that lies between

  because it is so vague. it

  does not name the thing

  that is killing him. my father

  the editor, the headline writer,

  the master artisan of words,

  pointed this out. the phrasing

  suggests no awareness of how

  this murder will affect those

  left behind. this too is said

  to be typical. those who take

  themselves away are sure

  that we will all be better off

  without them. they cannot

  see past their own mirrors,

  have lost the ability to

  imagine a world in flux,

  capable of becoming any

  worse than it already is,

  or any better.

  how do you mourn someone

  who claims he never wanted

  life? how can you memorialize

  a person who chose oblivion?

  such a death has nothing in

  common with any other.

  it is unnatural, may in fact

  be the only thing in the world

  that is truly & completely so.

  the life force is meant to be

  locked in combat with the

  death force. we evolved to

  survive, we fight for our

  lives. my brother switched

  sides, turned his back on

  all of history. david fought

  to die.

  & meanwhile, as the house

  bulged inchoate with grief &

  vinnie packed the contents

  of my philly crib & trucked

  them up to boston, & v &

  vivi
en went to wait at the

  cottage on martha’s vineyard

  that felicia & ben had passed

  down to their four grandsons,

  meanwhile the book was

  hurtling toward existence.

  in two more weeks it would

  debut atop the list, this

  fourteen stanza fake kids’

  story with cusswords on

  every page that all the giant

  publishers had tried & failed

  to buy out from beneath

  the tiny one. there was a good

  chance it would fizzle before

  the summer ended & also a

  possibility it would achieve

  escape velocity & orbit the

  planet in perpetuity. my family

  was adamant that the best thing

  i could do was everything

  anybody asked me to, all the

  press & all the travel, starting

  with a today show interview

  locked in for june fourteen,

  pub day. better to occupy

  yourself, they said, & didn’t

  need to add that if i stayed

  wallowed in the basement

  we all lost again. besides

  which, their advice was

  always the same: work.

  work no matter what

  & above all. a boston jew

  is nothing without his

  puritan work ethic. but

  i didn’t need convincing.

  i was desperate to get

  out of there & desperately

  ambitious, as i had always

  been. i wanted to succeed,

  wanted to breathe life into

  a mythic version of myself

  i had sketched out down

  there in that wood-paneled

  subterranean room where i’d

  once gone to play my music

  loud. i wanted to be able

  to say the year my brother

  killed himself, i made

  a million dollars. it sounded

  like a jay-z lyric in my head:

  when tragedy hits we hustle

  harder, ball out for the dead

  & gone, put down our heads

  & earn. we smoke these

  cigars not for ourselves

  now but for them, our

  joy forever tempered but

  regardless we must glow,

  are duty bound to shine

  no matter what it takes.

  later in the summer i did

  say it, to my friend josh,

  both of us floating some

  hundred yards off the shore

  of a flat ocean, & it sounded

  so meaningless i never

  uttered it again.

  david’s mask had rendered

  his suffering invisible & now

  i needed one of my own.

  i kept worrying that some

  interviewer would learn about

  my brother & ambush me,

  which was ridiculous. making

  the luckiest asshole in the world

  break down on camera is not

  in anybody’s interest, but

  being forced to account for

  all the parts of myself at once

  terrified me nonetheless.

  perhaps i also had some notion,

  a superstition almost, that

  if tragedy was ever allowed

  to step into the winner’s circle

  triumph would be incinerated.

  but the realer fear, the one that

  stared back from the mirror

  lens of every television camera,

  was how i would look to

  those who knew, which was

  all my people by now.

  i had asked sarah & daniel

  & torrance to make calls,

  to spread the word so that

  i would never again be

  forced to say it myself.

  what would my friends think,

  i wondered, watching me

  grin & quip with kathie lee

  gifford like some sociopath?

  what would i think of myself

  if the mask did not at least slip?

  i watch those interviews now &

  try to catch something, see

  beneath it. i cannot. you’d

  never know that anything

  was wrong, & perhaps for

  those few minutes nothing

  was. i too became a train

  station.

  for the next year, i was always

  on the road or on the phone,

  or lying on my couch awash

  in television, gathering

  the strength to leave again.

  i answered every question

  like no one had ever asked

  before. we do not turn into

  what we pretend to be, but

  what we pretend can still

  unmake us. worship the false

  idol & tell yourself you are

  only playing the game

  of survival: how long before

  that graven image comes to

  mean something, or everything?

  how long before we confuse

  happiness with distance from

  disaster, closure with being

  unable to remember?

  i do remember a gig in dc

  that fall. a public relations

  firm brought me out for

  a happy hour at a georgetown

  restaurant, with passed hors

  d’oeuvres & cocktails named

  after the book. the company

  was owned by a woman who

  had gone to my high school.

  her name was not familiar,

  but she knew me & knew

  my brother, was between

  my age & his; this connection

  had been a part of her pitch.

  she was going to ask after

  david at some point &

  the whole night, as i

  told funny stories &

  signed books & posed

  for photos with my arms

  around the bare shoulders

  of strangers, i could think

  of nothing else. this was

  one of the scenarios that

  haunted me: blindsiding

  someone who was only

  making polite conversation,

  having to watch eyes

  register the news again.

  they seated us together

  at dinner, & i tried to

  steer her away from

  the only game we had

  to play, the game of who

  is where & doing what,

  do you remember tasha,

  her older brother was

  your year, didn’t you

  date my friend susie

  for a minute, do you

  still keep in touch with

  bujalski, gessen, cho.

  i took a stab at falling

  into a long, absorbing

  discussion with the woman

  on my other side, but

  i could feel it coming, the

  heat prickling my skin,

  a churning at the bottom

  of the g
ut, & sure enough,

  as the servers cleared away

  the remains of a meal i

  had not even noticed

  eating, my hostess fisted

  her hand beneath her chin

  & asked so how is dave,

  i haven’t seen him in

  forever. & i said yeah,

  he’s doing great, he lives

  in brookline with his wife.

  a century ago, being born

  with bilateral clubfoot meant

  you would never walk.

  now ten seconds of surgery

  can fix it. the achilles tendons

  are severed & regrown,

  the tiny soft young bones

  retrained over the course

  of months & then reminded

  every night for years.

  you learn that your child

  has this genetic defect when

  a sudden silence fills

  the ultrasound room.

  the technician stops chit

  chatting, adjusts her glasses,

  rolls her chair across the

  tile, darts out the door. you

  sense that certain protocols

  are being put into effect &

  it cannot be good. the goo

  stiffens across the taut

  exposed belly of your partner

  & you lean forward awkwardly

  so that your hands can clasp,

  & then a doctor you have

  never seen before appears.

  later a genetic counselor

  ushers you into an office

  off the main hallway &

  says there is a six percent

  chance more is wrong.

  the number is icy steep,

  no matter that a six percent

  likelihood of rain would not

  make you reconsider your

  picnic. & then there are

  decisions to make, fraught

  & immediate. do you chance

  finding out more, when more

  might only confuse you, reveal

  snarls in the dna that no one

  can explain, that science

  has yet to map, that might

  mean nothing, or everything?

  do you risk peace of mind

  via the needle, leech a draw

  of amniotic broth when there is

  a point-five percent possibility

  that the thin metal, entering

  the body, kills? no one

  cancels a picnic over

  half a percent, but this is not

  a picnic. & for that matter,

  how well do you know

  this person, with whom you

  are having a baby but have

  never before been truly

  scared? what could you