The morning, busier than ordinary, began with me sending a ridiculously long text message. It read:
Hey mom,
Kenny’s getting in today for a quick visit. Thought I’d let you know. Not sure if he filled you in or not, but they’re remodeling his restaurant or something so he finally has a chance to make the trip back out. I hope he’ll go see you and Dad next. He didn’t tell me his plans.
Anyway, me and Gracie are real excited. She’s never met him before, you know. She spent all week going through all you and Grammy’s old recipes to cook his favorites. I tried to help out but she’s got something to prove. She wants to show him she can cook, see. We got in the fridge right now, cardiac potatoes, peanut butter pork, spaghetti pie, and a nice looking coffee cake. I told her a hundred times he’d only be around a day and a half. But you more than anyone know how these things go.
By the way, she wasn’t able to pull off the oatmeal cookies despite several attempts and one almost manic episode. Things very nearly approached violence after the third failure. They won’t make it in time for Kenny’s visit, but if you could please send a batch or two.
Your son,
J.
P.S. Did you see the picture of him they put in the article about that James Beard stuff?? I didn’t want to say anything until I heard what you think. But my god…
Sent. I set my phone down. Why was it that as parents got older every form of communication with them closer approached the formality of a letter?
Just then Gracie emerged from the bedroom in a huff. “Why’d you let me sleep so late?” she said. I always woke up first—a bad sleeper—and had been assigned the role of alarm clock.
“It’s not even ten, babe,” I said.
“I just have a lot to do to get ready, is all,” she said. She looked at herself in the mirror and messed up her dirty-blonde hair and then smoothed it back down. She came up to where I was sitting on the couch and leaned her hips against me while she hit on the joint I was smoking.
“Oh you do not,” I said. “Everything’s fine, believe me. The two of us lived together for years, remember. Believe me, he wouldn’t notice even if it was a mess.” It was a small house so there wasn’t much cleaning to do in the first place. And it was such an old house so that even when it was immaculately clean it still looked a little dirty. “I thought we might just have one last relaxing morning to ourselves, that’s all,” I said.
But almost before I could finish speaking there was a knock at the door. “Who the hell could that be at this time on a Sunday?” my girlfriend said.
She opened the door and there stood my brother. Neither one of us could have guessed at that.
“You’re already here!” she said. She feigned excitement, but I could hear the horror of unpreparedness come through in her voice.
I remained on the couch. “Baby brother!” I said. “Wasn’t I supposed to get you at the airport at noon?”
He still hadn’t smiled, just kind of stood there on the doorstep. “You didn’t get my text last night,” he said. “Some bullshit with the airlines and a canceled flight. I got bumped to an earlier one. I texted you about it last night.”
“Oh, my bad,” I said. “I guess I just missed it. Sorry man.”
“No, it’s cool,” he said.
There was an awkward silence.
“Well, come in, come in, sit down” my girlfriend said.
She stepped aside so he could bring in his bag and set it down by the couch. I watched him come through the doorway, but I could hardly look. I didn’t want to see. I wanted to cover my eyes. He was so fat it was hard to believe. He must have been a hundred pounds heavier than the last time I’d seen him. He looked even worse in person than in that awful photograph. He looked completely miserable.
“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” Gracie said when he’d set down his bag. “Im Gracie!” She extended her hand. “I’m so excited to finally be meeting you!”
He took her hand in his big soft grip, thick white flesh enveloping those beautiful bony fingers. “Kenny,” he said. “Can’t wait to learn a little bit about my big bro’s new lady.”
“She’s not that new,” I said. But nobody acknowledged it. So I said, “here man, have a seat. You wanna smoke a joint?”
“No, thanks. I quit a couple years ago,” he said.
“Really?” I said. I was genuinely surprised. “I thought people in your line of work smoke this shit all day and drink whisky all night. At the very least. For stress, I mean.”
“Well yeah, some people do. But not so much in the kinds of places I work anymore. We try to keep things pretty professional,” he said.
“Right, right, of course,” I said. And I thought, you look real fuckin’ professional. “You’re still doing grill there, right? Or was it sauté?”
“Yeah, I started out as sous, but they made me CDC a little over a year ago. I still work those stations all the time though,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“Your mom told me the place you work is really fancy, right? Like it’s supposed to be kind of a big deal, like five Michelin stars or something? And you’re like a hot-shot chef?” Gracie said.
“It’s pretty nice,” he said. “But it only has three stars. And I don’t know about hot-shot, I just do my best because I like it there. I do my best, and I think our food makes people happy. That makes me happy so that’s all I care about, really.”
I rolled my eyes. “They pay you good, too? Or is it still the way it used to be?
“It’s a little better, but not much. I guess I’d say make about enough to get by,” he said. “What about you, though? You already know all about my job and what I do. Last I heard from you you were working on a novel, I think? About a man who goes out to sea alone so he can find himself if I’m remembering correctly. Is that right? How’d that go? You must be getting that published by now.”
I shifted a little on the couch. I couldn’t quite get comfortable. “Oh yeah, I’m still working on that. I’ve been so busy, you know. So many different projects going at the same time. New contracts, and deals, all that stuff. Things are very good still, we’re very lucky everything is so easy and good,” I said. “Oh yeah, I got a write up in a magazine for that old short story recently.”
“That’s awesome, man! Good for you! Is it that same one about the drifter?” he said. “Kind of a western?
“Yeah,” I said.
“Which magazine?” he said. “I’d like to read that write up,” he said.
“Oh, it’s a small one. You probably wouldn’t be able to find it online anyways,” I said.
Gracie came to my rescue, as usual. She said, “Hey, before you guys get too caught up, I bet Kenny would like to get a little settled in, and maybe have a shower. You must have got up real early to be getting in at this time.”
“Yeah, I guess it was technically a red-eye,” he said. “That sounds great, thank you Gracie. Should I call you Gracie, or Grace?” he said.
“Oh Gracie, please, yeah, just Gracie,” she said. “Ok the bedroom’s just down that hallway there on the right, and the bathroom is across the hall. And take your time, we’re not on schedule yet.” She winked at him.
“Thanks,” he said and he went down the hall.
I remained on the couch, and started rolling up another joint for myself. I simply could not believe how fat he was. Could not believe it. My own little brother.
I knew something like this would happen all along. And I’d told him. It had been a point of division between the two of us. We’d had the one big blowout over it and that was that. It was right after I’d come home from my first summer fishing in Alaska, my very first job outside the restaurant industry and I’d been bragging about how much money I made there. We were sitting in our loft apartment in Portland, drinking coffee or beer and smoking weed probably.
“I'm telling you man, once you start making a little real money you’ll see. Restaurant work is not the way to go. I don’t think I could ever go back now.” I think we got to arguing on some comment like that.
“Yeah, I know. I just love it so much,” he said. “I don’t really care about how much money I make right now. I just want to do something I really enjoy. And right now I do. I’m excited to go to work everyday and every day I have a great time there. That’s plenty good enough for me right now.”
“But what about later?” I said. “What if you decide you want to do something else but by then you’re in your mid-thirties or something and it’s already too late? I’ve worked with so many older guys working in shitty places who are just fucking miserable, man. They make no money, they either don’t have a family or never see them, their bodies start to fall apart. It seems so awful. I just don’t want that to be me. Or you for that matter.”
And this is where the real division started. He said, “yeah but don’t you think those guys were always kind of just losers? You know, they were lazy and they always took easy jobs and never had any ambition and were drug addicts or alcoholics or pot heads. They lived like irresponsible teenagers. And then suddenly they were old and in the same place they’d always been. That’s what I think.”
“Really,” I said. “That’s surprising, because I kind of think the complete opposite. I see guys like that and I see somebody just like me who had dreams just as real and vivid as mine are now, but theirs never came true. Sure maybe they made the wrong decisions and that’s on them. But I don’t think I’m immune to that. I’m terrified of turning into one of those guys.”
He didn’t say anything, so I went on.
“I fished with this guy Dan up there. He was a cool fucking guy. He really liked how I was an english major and how I took a bunch of philosophy classes. He told me he was gonna be a philosophy major with an english minor before he dropped out of college and hitchhiked across the country. He hitchhiked and bummed ferry rides until he ended up in Alaska. That’s what he told me. He said he’d always kept a little notepad in his pocket so he could write it down if somebody said something nice or a good line popped into his head. And he’d camp outside town and write poetry. He said he was gonna work hard and have adventures and make some money and then go back to school and get on with his life. That’s what he told me he thought he would do. I hear stories like that and I think, ‘this guy was just like me,’ you know. He had some real dreams and ambitions—write books, start a band, really do something—and he got this job that he liked but he didn’t want to do it forever. Just like us, you know. He never would have imagined himself being where he is today. In the exact same place. Just like you could never see yourself turning into one of those bitter, broken, old line cooks. But people get stuck. Somewhere along the line Dan did, and now it’s too late. He missed his chance, you know. I’m so scared I’ll miss mine. Aren’t you? Don’t you ever think about that?
“I know what you mean, man, but I just really don’t think that’ll happen to me. I know it won’t. I’ll figure something else out eventually. But for right now, I just love cooking. I want to learn as much as I can about food and maybe when that stops I’ll figure something else out. But I am passionate about this. For right now, it makes me happy. Isn’t that enough?” he said.
It wasn’t enough. I tried not to say any more. He was getting frustrated, I could tell. He was quiet when I spoke and averted my eyes. He hated conversations like this, when people told him what to do—especially when the people were me. But, as usual, I couldn’t help myself. I had a big old soapbox and I loved to talk to him from on top of it.
“Kenny,” I said, “don’t you think guys like that, like Dan, would have said the exact same thing when they were our age? Like they thought what they were doing was ‘good enough for now’, and maybe the next year they’d go and do something else” I said, “one day they woke up and they were forty and they didn’t have any other choices. It seems like every year that goes on is one year closer to getting stuck like that. It’s like you’re building a cage around yourself.” I said, “that’s why I got out. You don’t have enough time to get good at all the things you want to get good at, so you have to be careful.”
“But I want to get good at this. I guess I haven’t figured out if working in restaurants has a place in my dreams or not yet. I don’t know what I want. I just like it enough that I want to see if I can make it work,” he said.
And I said, “you aren’t listening to me, dog. I’m trying to tell you you’re gonna be miserable if you keep doing this for too long.”
“No man,” he said. “You’re not listening to me. You never do. I’m fine. I like what I do. I can handle my own life.”
“Oh, my bad, I didn’t realize that,” I said. “I guess I just didn’t realize how fucking put together you are.”
“Yeah, man, I am. I’ve got it. I don’t need you to help me out, okay, thanks anyway,” he said.
That put me over the edge. I said, “Oh yeah so when you lost your ID last year and never got a new one, or broke three phones I paid to replace, you had that all handled right? What about when you got all drunk and knocked over your laptop? Who paid to fix that? Who drove you to the fucking Apple store? Now that I mention it, who drives you anywhere? Who covers your rent when you spend all your money? And you even make more fucking money than me. You’ve got it though, right? I’ll just let you keep handling everything.”
“Oh fuck you,” he said. If you’re gonna tally it all up like that, don’t bother helping me out with anything any more. You offered to do that stuff, remember.”
“Because you never do that shit on your own!” I said. I started to shout. “Are you serious? Fuck me? Fuck you dude. I look out for you. I help you out all the time. Don’t fucking tell me ‘fuck you’, you fuckin’ dickhead.”
That was when Kenny started to cry and his voice started to break. He said, “well you can just go ahead and stop all that now. I don’t want it to be like this, man. But I don’t need you red-dogging every decision in my life. I don’t want you looking out for me. Don’t worry about my dreams. Don’t worry about me at all. Just fuck off and stay out of my business.”
“You really fucking mean that?” I screamed. I was so pissed off, now that I think about it, that we must have been drinking.
“Yeah,” he said. “I really mean it. I don’t want you doing anything for me ever again. You think you’re so much better than me. Well, guess what? You’re not. You’re just as much of a fuck-up and a piece-of-shit as I am. You don’t have any place trying to run my fucking life for me.”
“Alright then. Fuck me, I guess. That sounds good. You take it from here. See how that goes. I’m done with you, if that’s what you want to do. Don't take my advice. You’ll see. Just wait, you’ll see for yourself. When you’re poor forever. And you never have weekends or regular hours off so you never find a really good stable relationship. Or if you do you don’t have enough time to make it work. And for the rest of your life you never have friends you don’t work with. Not really. Not people you see on any kind of regular basis. You’ll be alone. And you’ll drink. And eat too much. And give up on everything in your life outside of work. You’ll be a fat, pathetic, miserable son-of-a-bitch, and I won’t give a shit. Just you wait.” I said. I was storming out. “Oh yeah and one more thing, fuck you Kenny. I really mean that. Fuck you.” I slammed the door.
When I got back to the loft he was gone. And so were all his things. We didn’t talk for a long time after that. I guess we got a little line of communication going—a text here and there—after a visit home for Christmas maybe a year or two later. To keep mom happy, you know. But even when I did try to reach out, I never knew what to say, so I kept it brief. It's so hard to really say what you mean in a text. And a phone call always seemed like it would be too uncomfortable. After a certain amount of time apart it was hard to imagine what we would be able to talk about at all.
And now here he was in my house. And I had been right all along. That was pretty much obvious now. One look could tell you that.
Gracie walked back into the room dressed and done up and interrupted my thoughts. She said, “why were you being like that with him?” She looked irritated.
“Like what?” I said. “By the way, can you believe it?” I held out my hands in front of my waist like I was holding a giant bowl.
“You were being all dumb and macho,” she said. “You know exactly like what. Like subtly putting him down with everything you said. What’s that? What are you doing?” She whispered, “oh, stop it. You’re terrible. He is not.”
I put my hands down. “You don’t think he was doing that same stuff to me? Trying to put me down?” I said.
“Yeah you were both doing it,” she said, “but you more than him I think. That’s what I’m saying. At least you were more obvious about it. And meaner.” She paused for a second and I could see she was choosing her words carefully. She said, “did you really not see his text about the flight change last night?”
“What? Of course I didn’t see it. You think I would do that? And then lie about it?” I said.
“You’re right, you’re right. I don’t know why I asked,” she said.
But I was forced to ask myself: had I seen the text? Had I seen the text from him and ignored it by some baser instinct? As if the sight of his name could trigger a subliminal response to ignore and retreat.
I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, because he came out of the hallway to join us again. He had on blue jeans an old black Melvins t shirt I’d given him years and years ago. I guess I couldn’t be totally sure it was the same shirt.
One thing was clear though, he’d recovered his humor after the flight and long cab ride. Now he had this big smile on his face. He was looking right at me and he couldn’t stop smiling even despite what appeared to be his sincerest efforts. He looked like a goofy kid, just like he looked when we were little. He said, “it’s good to see you bro. I missed you. I really missed you.” And he pulled me off the couch to hug me. A big humongous bear hug.
And I thought maybe, just maybe things would be better this time.