The Pimp and the Great One

Behind hate lies hurt. The first time I heard that phrase was back in 2007. I was in the middle of the first of what would become many heart-to-heart, post-rehab-sit-downs with my brother where he attempted to explain all the anger he held towards me. Three months of sobriety had given him the necessary space to fully process the horrible things I’d done to him back when we were kids and he was certain they were connected to his addiction. He wasn’t actually calling it addiction back then, but you get the point. We met at a Starbucks a few miles from my parents’ house – it was a neutral and public location designed to keep the conversation civil. I deliberately got there ten minutes late because the last thing I needed was to sit there awkwardly waiting for him to arrive. I hadn’t seen David in about five months and when I walked up to the table he was sitting at, I was shocked at how large he still was. Wasn’t heroin supposed to make you skinny and emaciated? He wasn’t as bulging as he used to be, his face looked tired and his teeth were browned from cigarettes, but he still had the bodybuilder physique that he used to intimidate us all for so many years. The long flannel shirt hid both his steroid stretch marks and his needle tracks. I walked up to the table, said hello, and he grunted a “hey” back at me as he stood up. Despite literally only saying one word to him, he was already mad at me, flexing his pecs and scowling. I decided to let the moment pass without comment and we gave each other the most insincere hug in the history of recorded hugs. I sat there quietly for about twenty minutes as he stammered at a freakishly manic pace, pausing only to take pulls from his cigarette while ranting about how I was “a real asshole my senior year of high school when I wouldn’t let him hang out with my friends and how that feeling of exclusion still sat with him eleven years later.” Given that I was 29 and he was 27, it was hard for me to seriously consider the connective tissue between my not giving him rides home from school to the rabid alcohol, heroin, and crystal meth addiction he was trapped in fourteen years later. I mean, he didn’t even start drinking until after I had left for college. How the hell could I be the root cause? Sure, I wasn’t the best big brother, but isn’t that kind of the definition of being a big brother? They make movies and tv shows about it. I must’ve missed the episode of Friends where Monica shot up because Ross was a dick to her when they were kids. What kind of stupid ass argumen— Deep breath, Andrew… don’t go back there. Don’t play his game. Don’t get sucked in again. I took another deep breath and closed my eyes in order to mask an eye roll. I thought we might talk about what he’d done to my mom right before he wound up back in rehab again, but if the price of connecting with him and getting closer to some version of a normal relationship meant I had to play along and pretend that he’s a violent drug addict because I had been an asshole, so be it. I guess horror stories can have mundane origins. “Wow, David. That must’ve been really… hard,” I half-heartedly sighed. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t nicer back then. But do you think we could talk—” “Behind hate lies hurt, Andy.” He recited this line like some fortune cookie mantra, quickly cutting me off. “Behind hate lies hurt. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?” Okay, fair enough. Behind my hate for my brother lies an insane amount of hurt. It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that sobriety didn’t stick for very long, or that he’d wind up back in rehab eight more times. The logic of that conversation may have been crazy, but the phrase always stuck with me. And now, five years later, as I walk through the white maze of halls at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla looking for the waiting room, it plays on an endless loop inside my head. Because if it’s really true that hurt and hate are tied together, then how much has David hurt me over the years? Maybe it’s quantifiable. Twelve years of hurt (fourteen if you want to count the early years) where hurt and hate increase in a 1:1 ratio leads to X amount of verified hatred. Or maybe I need to use a hurt coefficient where the pain has a multiplying effect, causing the hatred to grow at an exponential rate? Either way, one thing is clear: I fucking hate my brother. He is the villain in my life, the monster that hunts me, and the wound that will not heal. And I’m about to see him. I have to see him. But like this? At the hospital? Fuck me. I finally arrive at the waiting room door. I peer through the window and see my mom and some of her friends sitting together with a collective, worried look. One of her friends spots me, gets my mom’s attention, and then points in my direction. I nod back at them and let out a not-happy-to-be-here, half-smile. I breathe in. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to see him. Not now. Not ever really. I breathe out. We haven’t seen each other in almost a year. We haven’t had a conversation in eight months and that ended with me hanging up on him as he ragefully shouted threatening obscenities into the phone. I breathe in again, this time closing my eyes for a long meditative blink. I reach for the handle, hanging onto it for as long as possible, but unable to bring myself to actually open the door. I can’t turn back now. My mom already saw me. I breathe out. I told my parents I didn’t want him in my life, that I was done with his shit, done with the drama, the rage, violence, and trauma. And now, we’re here? In the hospital of all places? How cliché. Fuck him. This isn’t what I need to be focusing on right now. I breathe in one more time. Get it together, Andrew. You’re the responsible one, the normal one, the brother who “handles it.” Put up the wall and do what you’re supposed to do. Be the adult. Someone has to. I breathe out one last long slow breath, my chest quivering as I exhale all remnants of emotion from my body. The wall goes up. There’s no smile, but also no scowl. Business mode on. My dad calls this “midwestern emotion” because when he was growing up in Minnesota “the F-word was feelings.” I’m channeling him right now. I squeeze the door handle tight, turn the lever downward, push the door open, and walk inside.