About Andres (2004)

Antigone, Icarus, and on keeping my brother (alive)

“Antigone in Front of the Dead Polynices” by Nikiforos Lytras, 1865.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been afraid for my brother.

One of my earliest memories of him: soon after he’d first learned to walk. He quickly nurtured a habit of escaping his crib and waddling around fearlessly, getting into every little nook and cranny he could reach. Once, my mom asked me as I was messing around drawing or something: “Where’s your brother?” I got popped for my knee-jerk response: “I don’t know. Where’s your son?” Turns out, he’d managed to open the front door and he’d walked his little diapered self all the way downstairs and onto the sidewalk, where he was laughing, tumbling into drifts of snow as tall as he was.

He’s always been fearless. The kind of person you can’t tell what to do, at all, even when you’re trying to keep them from hurting themselves. Don’t go to that party, bro, there’s bad kids there. Fuck you, I’ll go where I want. Don’t sneak out the house at night and steal Dad’s keys to go see your girlfriend, dude, you’ll never get away with it. Watch me and see. (I watched him get caught.) Don’t join a gang, please, you don’t know how hard it is to distance yourself from something like that. Don’t worry, I’m only affiliated. Whatever you do, just don’t get a felony or have a kid too early. Or die. Don’t worry. I use condoms. (I don’t believe you.)

He was always too young to relate to me and I was always too old to care about whatever he’s got going on. But sometimes our orbits would overlap. I remember my early high school summer nights when all 3 of us would curl up and watch Toonami’s anime premieres and chat about them all week. I laughed as he cried when my dad would show him no mercy on Madden and NBA 2K. I tried (and failed) to get him into Naruto, Gundam, heavy metal, all the stuff I thought an older brother would be cool for knowing about. For years, we had a tradition where I’d drive both my brothers to Sonic and treat them with tater tots and large shakes before we window shop at Gamestop or Barnes & Noble.

There are some things once said or done that you can’t ever take back. He told me once it took years to forgive me for leaving the family behind when I came to New York for college. “I had to be the big brother then,” he said. Like that responsibility was too heavy for his shoulders. Like I was cruel for choosing to live my life over protecting his innocence.

I never expected resentment from that. Considering all those years he’d bitterly resisted any authority I tried to show, I’d imagined my absence would gift him some understanding and empathy for me. If anything, it only seemed to make things worse between us for a time. I’m grateful he’s learned to forgive me since then. But the wound has scarred over, not disappeared. There’s still an invisible wall between us that he won’t acknowledge and which I can’t overcome. Not yet.

Before him, when I was still an only child, I remember being torn apart by loneliness. The #1 item on every wishlist (birthday, Christmas, Easter) was always a brother. In my innocent ignorance, I had no idea that my parents were trying desperately and suffered multiple miscarriages. All I knew was that when he was finally born, I was old enough to have gotten used to being alone, and how could I hang out with a needy, screaming little fart that messed up all my toys? I didn’t want him anymore, I’d say, often. Sometimes I wonder if he remembers that, somehow, even unconsciously. Maybe he’s never forgiven me for it.