Three Weeks With My Brother (5 page)

That’s where I was throughout 2002: in the middle of the rapids, steering frantically, with the waterfall growing louder. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. And I’d been there for the previous three years.

I’m not proud of this. It’s not a sign of success. It’s a life without any sort of balance, and in the long run the waterfall will eventually take you. I know that now. The problem was that I didn’t know that then.

My wife, however, understood this. Cat is one of those rare people who find it easy to keep everything in perspective. She’s not only an attentive mother, but has dozens of friends she talks to regularly. She is close to her family, and yet, as busy as she was (five children, with three under two, will keep any mom busy), she spent her days with none of the frantic urgency that I couldn’t seem to escape. She, more than anyone, knew I needed an escape; she also knew that my natural inclination was to deny that I needed one and to suddenly think of an excuse not to go on the trip. Or worse, refuse to enjoy it and relax, even if I did.

Lying in bed one night, she asked me about the trip and I mumbled again that I was having second thoughts.

She rolled over and faced me.

“You’ll have fun,” she urged. “And you need to go. You’ve never done something like this.”

“I know. But it’s not really a good time.”

“It’ll never be a good time to go. You’ll always be busy. It’s part of your nature.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Of course it is. In fact, you never let yourself not be busy.”

“Just for the last couple of years.”

Cathy shook her head. “No, sweetheart. You’ve been busy since I’ve known you. You can’t not be busy.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I thought about that. “For the next couple of years, I’ll be really busy. But after that, it’ll slow down. In a couple of years, I’m sure I’ll have time for something like this.”

“You said the same thing a couple of years ago.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

I paused. “I guess I was wrong then. But I’m sure I’m right this time.”

Beside me, I heard my wife sigh.

Despite her words, my feelings of anxiety about the trip only grew stronger as autumn approached. My brother, like my wife, sensed my ambivalence on the phone, and began to call more frequently, doing his best to bolster my interest.

“Hey Nicky,” Micah said into the receiver. “Did you get the package TCS sent us?”

TCS was the company in charge of the tour. I was at my desk in the office working on my new novel,
The Guardian
; stacked in the corner were two large boxes, still sealed, that had remained untouched for two weeks.

“Yeah, I got ’em, but I haven’t opened them yet.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t had the time.”

“Well open them,” he said. “They sent us a bunch of cool stuff. They sent us a jacket, backpack, and suitcase—and other gizmos, too. There’s also an itinerary . . .”

“I’ll get to it this weekend.”

“You should open it now,” he insisted. “In fact, I think you were supposed to send in one of the health forms already. And, you’re supposed to make a decision about which site you want to see in Guatemala. It’s either the ruins or the market downtown. You have to send that by the end of the week.”

I closed my eyes, fretting that something else had just been added to my plate.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get to it tonight if I get the chance.”

There was a long pause on the other end.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I answered.

“You don’t sound like you’re too excited about this.”

“I will be. When it’s time to go, I mean. Right now, I’ve got so much work that I haven’t had time to think about it much. I’ll get more excited the closer we get. Right now, I’m swamped.”

He took a deep breath. “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you learned yet?” he asked. “The anticipation is an essential part of this whole trip. The excitement of going, the places we’ll see, the people we’ll meet. That’s part of the joy of this whole thing.”

“I know. But—”

He cut me off.

“You’re not listening to me, little brother. Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work’s important, family’s important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You’re cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what’s coming.”

I closed my eyes, knowing he was right, but still lost in all that I had to do. “It’s just that right now, I’ve got different priorities.”

“That’s part of your problem,” he said, his voice steady. “You’ve always had different priorities.”

Whereas suspension came to be a regular aspect of Micah’s early school life, I found that I loved school. Everything about my first year was easy—my teacher was sweet, the kids were nice, and nothing we learned seemed difficult. Still, because he was a year older, Micah was nonetheless more advanced in most subjects than I. Or, so I assumed.

Our parents had us join the Cub Scouts, and one of our projects was to carve a wooden rocket, powered by a CO
₂
cartridge and held in place by a wire, which we later raced against other rockets made by other Cub Scouts. Micah and I walked the couple of miles to the recreation hall alone, both of us nervous about how we would do. My rocket lost in the first round. Micah’s won, however, and continued to win. In the end, Micah’s rocket ended up placing second overall, and I was both proud of him and jealous at the same time. It was the first time I’d ever experienced the feeling of jealousy toward my brother, and the feeling only grew stronger when he received a red ribbon amidst applause. He could not only do everything, I realized, but do everything better than I. Meanwhile, the ribbon I received—which was given to everyone who, like me, hadn’t placed, soon made me feel even worse. I was just learning letters and sounds—I could read small words, but longer words were often incomprehensible. I had no idea what the ribbon said; all I knew was that it was given to people who didn’t do well.

Still, I tried my best to read the ribbon. It had two words, and the second one was “Mention.” I knew that much right away, but the first word didn’t seem to make much sense, so I tried to sound it out. It started with an HO, had an R in the middle, and ended with BLE . . . my lips began forming the word, when I suddenly paled.

Oh no
, I thought.
It can’t be . . .

I stared at the word trying to blink it away. But it was right there, for everyone to see.

The world began to spin as it finally dawned on me. Of course, I thought, it made sense. I felt my stomach lurch and I wanted to cry. In the distance, I could see my brother proudly showing off his rocket and ribbon, standing among the people who’d done Great. Meanwhile, people like me had done exactly what the ribbon said. Horrible. They’d given me a ribbon that said
Horrible Mention
.

I don’t remember leaving, but I do remember walking home. Micah knew I was upset but I kept shaking my head when he asked why. Finally, when the feelings became too overwhelming, I thrust the ribbon toward him.

“See!” I cried. “I did horrible. That’s what the ribbon says.”

“Your ribbon doesn’t say that.”

“Look at it!”

He stared at the word, trying to sound it out like I had, then slowly looked up at me as if he were about to cry, too. “That’s not very nice,” he mumbled.

Oh . . . no . . . I was
right
. I realized I’d been holding on to a ray of hope that somehow I’d read it wrong. That I’d made a mistake. But I hadn’t, and I felt the dam holding back my emotions begin to burst.

“I tried my hardest . . . I really tried . . .” I blubbered, and all at once I began to cry. My shoulders shuddered violently, and Micah put his arms around me, pulling me close.

“I know. And your rocket wasn’t horrible.”

“But they said it was.”

“Who cares about them. I think your rocket was one of the best.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. You did a great job with it. I’m proud of your rocket. And I’m not going back to Cub Scouts ever again. Not if they’d do something like that.”

I don’t know whether his words made me feel better or worse; all I knew was that I needed him.

By then I wanted to forget all about it, but Micah wouldn’t let it go.

“I can’t believe they said you were horrible,” he kept murmuring in disbelief, and every time he said it, my shoulders slumped even more.

When we finally reached home, we found my mom cooking in the kitchen. She turned toward us.

“Hey guys! How’d you do?”

For a long moment, neither of us answered. Micah offered his ribbon, holding it low, almost as if embarrassed. “I got second place,” he said.

My mom took his ribbon and held it up. “Wow! Congratulations! Second, huh?”

“I almost won,” he said.

“Well, second place is great. How’d you do, Nick?”

I shrugged without answering, trying to hold back the tears.

Her face softened. “You didn’t get a ribbon?”

I nodded.

“You did get a ribbon?”

I nodded again. “It doesn’t matter though.”

“Sure it matters. Can I see it?”

I shook my head.

“Why not, sweeetie?”

“Because,” I finally said, beginning to break down. “It says I did horrible!” The tears started flowing, and I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to stop them.

“It doesn’t say that,” my mom said.

“Oh yeah, it does,” Micah said. “It says he did horrible.”

I began crying even harder and my mom put her arms around me.

“Can I see it?”

Perhaps it was the security I felt in my mom’s arms, but I finally summomed the will to reach into my pocket and pull out the wrinkled ribbon. My mom glanced at it for a moment before using her finger to turn my chin toward her.

“It doesn’t say horrible,” she said, “it says honorable. That’s a good thing, sweetie. It’s saying they’re proud of the job you did. You did an honorable job.”

At first, I wasn’t sure I heard her right. And a moment later, when she sounded out the word for me, I even felt a little better. Still, part of me wished I’d never received a ribbon at all.

In 1971, a series of earthquakes convulsed Los Angeles. The first one struck in the middle of the night, and I remember waking up and feeling the bed shake violently, as if someone were attempting to toss me out of it.

Dana woke up about the same time and started screaming. I could hear the rumbling and crackling of the walls, saw toys toppling over. The ground was vibrating, looking almost like liquid, and though I didn’t know what was happening, I knew it wasn’t a
good
thing, and I suspected we were in danger. Micah understood this as well, and jumped out of bed to grab my sister and me. He was pulling us to the center of the room as if to huddle, when my dad came bursting through our bedroom door. He was buck naked and wild-eyed. None of us had ever seen him naked before, and the sight of him standing in the doorway was in some ways even more shocking than what was happening around us. My mom was right behind him—unlike him, she was wearing a gown. Surging into the room, they enveloped us and forced us down to the floor, piling us together. Then, they both lay on top of us in an attempt to protect us from falling debris.

The ground continued to rumble, the walls continued to sway, but there was something calming about being heaped together as a family. As scary as it was, I remember suddenly feeling that we were going to be okay—that somehow this obvious sign of parental love and concern was enough to protect us. It wasn’t until I saw the damage on television that I realized how bad it had been. Throughout the city, buildings had crumbled and freeways had buckled. The Richter scale had estimated the quake at a magnitude of 7.2, making it one of the largest quakes ever measured in the area.

For my brother and me, the quake required that we inspect the damage ourselves, and we spent the next few days probing and searching like FEMA representatives. Perhaps it was our way of trying to get the fear out of our system, and it seemed to work during the daytime. At night, though, we’d lie in bed, having trouble falling asleep, and suffering from nightmares.

The aftershocks continued for days after that first big quake. In the beginning, my parents would continue to rush into our room as they had the night of the first quake. But as the aftershocks continued, their responses grew slower, until finally they stopped getting up to check on us at all. After that, the three of us would rush into
their
room.

In the midst of yet another aftershock we kids thundered into their room, launched ourselves airborne from the foot of the bed, and heard the
whumph
of air escape our parents’ lungs as we landed on top of them. My dad, obviously tiring of this sort of thing awakening him in the middle of the night, heard my mom’s exortations to “Do something, Mike!” and decided to put a stop to it once and for all. Getting out of bed—naked again, but by then we’d grown used to it—he suddenly performed what resembled an Indian rain dance in the middle of the bedroom. Waving his arms, he spun in circles, chanting,
“Stop earthquake, stop, oh, yey, mighty earthquake be gone . . .”
and in the moment that he stopped circling and chanting,
the earth suddenly stopped shaking.

All we could do was stare at him. We were awestruck as he crawled back into bed and shooed us from the room.

I don’t suppose I need to explain the significance of such an event to young minds, and after we crawled under the covers in our own beds, my brother and I understood exactly what this meant. Coincidence? I think not.

As Micah explained solemnly, “Our dad has magic powers.”

This, of course, made us see our father in a completely different light, a new and
exciting
light, and I must say that when I got back to school, I wasn’t reticent in sharing this information with others in my class. They, too, were amazed.

In addition to stopping earthquakes, my father was also able to stop the rain from falling. Not all the time, mind you, but only when we were driving in the car, and only for a little while. It didn’t matter how hard the rain might be coming down, but as we hurtled down the highway, my dad would glance over his shoulder and sometimes ask us if we were ready for the rain to stop. If we said yes, he’d tell us to close our eyes, remind us not to peek, and then, in the moment that he said “Stop,”
the rain would stop falling
. It would be utterly quiet for about a second—the roar against the roof completely silenced—and then, just as suddenly, we’d hear the rain begin to pound again. As he explained: “It takes a lot of energy to stop the rain—I can’t keep it up for long.”