Heir pollution

For more than 20 years, my mother’s father (my grandfather) and one of his brothers (who was, as chance would have it, my mother’s all-time favorite uncle) did not speak to one another in spite of the fact that there were only six blocks between their homes. As legend had it, the root of the problem was that my grandfather did not like his brother’s wife. Speaking off the script of legend, I happen to agree with my grandfather on that point. My mother did as well. While that particular brother of my grandfather’s was her favorite uncle, his wife was her least favorite aunt. My mother, who not only aspired to clarity but actually achieved it, always referenced her as her “aunt by marriage, not blood.”

As a child I thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Family gatherings – the few of them we attended – were something like gymnastics tournaments, with entrances and exits – not to mention the routines themselves, especially the more advanced ones – orchestrated and choreographed with great care and finesse. There were different cars travelling on different streets at different times. Certain names could be mentioned at certain houses, but not at others. But as an adult, I’ve denounced my take on the situation almost completely: I not only understand why siblings elect to not speak to one another, I appreciate it. At times I even celebrate it. For two years now I haven’t spoken to one of my brothers, nor do I intend to start any time soon, and for more years than that I’ve been seething over another of my brothers and speak with him so rarely that moving his name into the incommunicado column would be nothing more than a formality.

I have many reasons, most of which I’ve shared to anyone who will listen, so here, in an abbreviated form, is my case as I understand it. One of my brothers is the most pompous power tripper I’ve ever endured. The other is vindictive but in a way that I consider unforgivably sneaky, snide and underhanded. Conversations with either of them, as I recall, are never good. The most cogent memory I have of speaking with either one of them is hanging up the telephone or leaving the kitchen table and being struck by the overwhelming sensation that I’ve just been insulted or attacked – or both – but in a way that’s almost impossible to pinpoint exactly, which, of course, only leads to more pondering along the lines of: Did he really just say that? Could that possibly have been a reference to …? And so on and so forth.

Many years ago I had a boyfriend. I don’t recall a lot about the relationship itself, but there are some things I have learned since its demise. The first is that desperation drives me to do truly crazy shit, like moving in with someone … along with his roommates. The second is that there is no lonelier place on earth that I’m aware of than sitting across the table from someone you’re in a relationship with and realizing that there is absolutely nothing to say. And the third thing is that forgiveness is a truly amazing entity.

As was painfully clear from the instant we met, my boyfriend and I were together because each of us, at that specific time, needed someone right here, right now. Two decades beyond that head-on collision, I have no problem making a couple of acknowledgements that not so many years ago I would have found so embarrassing that I probably would have fled the country just to avoid them. The first is that my boyfriend never loved me at all. The second, which I think is worse, is that I never really liked him. We lived by a silent, invisible code of conduct that I am convinced was fully accessible to us both: When the need that bonded us expired, when it contracted or expanded beyond repair, when someone else more capable of fulfilling that need appeared, one of us would be replaced and the other would be on the line for the worst job of them all: rewriting history without getting busted for doing so. I felt victimized, of course, because I’d been so quickly and thoroughly replaced. For quite a while I dreamed and schemed and fantasized about my boyfriend’s demise, pondered how I would celebrate it. If there is any human disorder I’m more prone to than lust it is revenge, and I was all over it.

Then one night I saw him at a bar in Seattle. As he walked toward me I thought, oh look, there’s David. He caught my eye and within a split second turned around and left. But in less than the same split second that drove him from the building, I realized that some sort of short circuiting had taken place inside of me, because I bore him no ill will. He was there, I was getting ready to say hello and then he was gone. There was no thrill, there was no agony. I thought about it, then I forgot about it, then I thought about it some more, and one day a few years ago I was talking with a friend of mine and it occurred to me that what had transpired is this: The opportunity to fuck with this guy’s head a bit, maybe make fun of his weight a little, or mention that I’d heard he was still having a horrible time staying in one job for more than a few months, or ask if he’d gotten around to telling his parents he was gay … none of that even seemed like fun anymore. It was a disappointment, actually. In fact, I found myself sincerely hoping that he’d found a way to live that didn’t involve heavy doses of self-torture because I had come to believe that that had been a big, big problem.

Is that forgiveness? I have no idea, and I don’t really care, but I can tell you what it is not. It is not exhausting. Plotting revenge is exhausting. I have been hard at work on it for a few years now – BB guns and kneecaps out in the back yard is my preferred scenario at the moment – and I need to figure out a way to have the same experience with my brothers that I had with my ex-boyfriend, because they are starting to make me really, really tired.