My aunt--she's my father's eldest sister--is one of those people whose higher faculties shut down when she has more than one thing on her plate. She'll either freeze up or get so frazzled that she starts to forget things like where she last left her keys or her wallet or her son.
Until I was about 15, she lived in the adjacent town with her husband and my two cousins. Being the closest relatives geographically, we did a lot of things together. Over the years we had a lot of fun, but I never really clicked with her eldest son (my cousin Brian). He was just...I don't know...a little different.
For starters, he was painfully obese. He was greasy and smelly to the point that his hygiene short-circuited at least a half dozen pre-planned family outings. For whatever reason, my aunt either could not or would not convince Brian to take a bath. She'd bribe, threaten, cajole. Nothing she did ever worked.
He was like a cross between Pigpen and Ralph Wiggum. He chewed his nails down to the quick. When he wasn't gnawing his cuticles off, he was eating some mayonnaise or butter-covered concoction my aunt dreamt up to keep him sated. I remember one Labor Day barbecue at their house, watching Brian eat a sandwich.
On white bread, the sandwich had butter, mayo, mustard, sugar, ham, bologna, salami, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and American cheese. Brian placed the sandwich squarely in front of him, took the top piece of bread off the sandwich and proceeded to eat each layer of sandwich, one by one.
First he licked off the sugar. Then, he took a knife and carefully scraped off the mustard. When he was done with the mustard, he quietly and deliberately licked the mayo from the white bread. It reminded me a mother dog instinctively licking her newborn pup clean. From there, he made his way through the layers of meat, cheese, and garnish until he got to the butter that coated every sqaure inch of the bread on the bottom. He used his knife and fork to pull the butter off the last piece of bread. Finally picked clean, Brian took the two pieces of bread, pressed them together, and threw them in the garbage.
This process took 35 minutes. I was probably 12 at the time (Brian was 11) and even I knew that what I had witnessed was beyond weird. There was something wrong with Brian. On the drive home, I asked my parents what was wrong with him. They sort of looked at each other with that half-frightened, half-amused look parents get when their child asks them about something they know the child is too young to understand.
"Well" my dad started, "it's complicated. Back whe--"
My mom cut in almost like she couldn't handle the build up.
"When Brian was 18 months old, your aunt forgot that he was in the carseat on the roof of the car as she left the house to pick up your uncle at work. Brian fell off and tumbled down the entire length of the hill in his carseat."
Until they moved to New Mexico when I was a sophomore in high school, my aunt and uncle lived in the Montclair section of the Oakland Hills. For those of you unfamiliar with that area, this is the section renowned for its steep, winding streets and large houses tucked into lush, small, secluded canyons. It was the area that was hit hardest by the big Oakland firestorm in 1991.
My aunt and uncle lived in a house perched about 3/4 of the way up one of the steeper, windier streets. "When Brian fell" my mom continued, "the carseat bounced high off the driveway, skidded on its back into the street, and then tumbled end over end down the hill as your aunt turned left to go up it."
I could sense, even then, that my mother took considerable joy in relating that story to me. She never really got along with many members of my fathers family. They were all very learned and blustery and she felt like they sort of looked down their noses at her for only having a B.A. I think the fact that I wasn't a filthy, nail-biting greaseball was a small victory in her unspoken war against my father's siblings.
When my mother finished regaling me with that story, my father chimed in to basically countermand my mother's version of events. Yes, it was true that Brian careened down a giant hill while strapped to a carseat when he less than 2 years old. But, my father contended, that wasn't why Brian was so messed up.
I remember him talking about it in very unspecific terms for the remainder of the ride home. I can't recall exactly what he said because it was neither as funny nor as interesting as the image of Brian bouncing down a hill. What I do know, however, is that what he said boiled down to my aunt being a basketcase and a bad mother.
My aunt and uncle are still married and living in New Mexico. My uncle has advanced diabetes and my aunt has advanced arthritis. Together, they own and operate an unprofitable, high-end restaurant supply business for which they could convince neither of my cousins to work.
Jenna, their daughter, dropped out of college to follow some shit-ska band on their tour through the bustling southwestern music scene. She returned from the tour tatted up both forearms. She currently manages a fastfood restaurant.
Brian barely managed to get out of high school with a diploma. For several years he tried, in vain, to gain admission to art school. He has moved back and forth between Oakland and New Mexico at least 4 times in the last 10 years accompanied, each time, by a different girlfriend. Last I checked, he is in Oakland and his ex-girlfriend is still living with my aunt and uncle. Brian, ever the entrepreneur and independent, free-thinker has struck out on his own. He has drawn, inked, and written his own comic book and he pitches it to whomever may listen. His position in the movie industry has, no doubt, aided him in this endeavor. Most recently, that position included the title "projectionist" and "ticket-taker."
My parents divorced right after Christmas of the year I watched Brian eat the sandwich. Whenever I mention to my mom that I had just recently spoken to my father she asks, "So any gossip from the Parker clan?" I usually indulge her and save the Brian-and-Jenna tidbits for the big finish. When I get to it, I can hear, through the phone, the cheshire grin pasted on my mother's face.
Small victories, indeed.
Posted by nils at 10:46 AM