The Temper

Many times it seems, I have defended my brother’s transgressions, but on Christmas night there would be no more sympathy. While driving home from midnight mass I let my infamous temper grow. I fed it with the cries of a disappointed mother, and the sighs of a father dejected and withdrawn. I played over and over the promise that he made, and the pew seat saved until the very end. Like great bellows to a fire I let my mind run through the past six months, ten months, maybe year and a half of stealing and lying my brother had sewn into the fabric of our family. As our black car whipped through side streets and avenues, I remained quiet and stoic like a mountain lion invisible and dangerous.

To simply let forth rage would be the act of a barbarian and would be discounted quickly as the second wrong of the night, but I had other intentions for the late hour when my brother would inevitably return. I had noticed my brother had a form of cancer that was as equally unseen as those that grow within, but his was all around him and as insidious as death itself. My brother had been changed from a loving son to a teen immersed in addiction. So, to act on him in rage would only be a rip in his invisible, heavy cloak of addiction, but what I had in mind was to purify him with hate. What is a brother that loses his except a son of his parents?
As we pulled into the driveway, Christmas day was well upon us. The house was as dark within as the night was outside, and I observed my defeated parents turn to one another and offer some consolation. The sublime holiday turned to surreal as a long-standing tradition of Christmas gift exchanging took place with only three people instead of four. We passed gifts to one another as solemn as those respecting the dead, which seemed befitting since the one person missing had been replaced with a shell of himself for the last year and a half. I recalled the Christmas passed and how my parents tilted the scale of gifts so obviously in the direction of my brother. They had hoped to earn some respect in their crusade to stop his senseless self-destruction. I remembered how unimportant this display made me feel. I had been the same son to them; surely but this was of less concern to me than my brother.

My father opened my gift and smiled in a way that made it obvious that my generosity was only a small bandage on the wound that he had suffered this night. A halfhearted, “Thanks,” and an equally weak embrace congratulated me on my effort. My ire grew. My parents went into the kitchen only a few steps from our Christmas tree and talked the talk of beaten fighters, and as many that are defeated, they began to pass blame from one another to themselves. I had time to plot my course that would run this night while sitting alone under the blinking star of the fake, plastic tree that looked queer in a home without any other Christmas decorations. In fact, I was the only one that even made effort to erect the sad, green, over-grown pipe cleaner from the dusty crawl space. It was as if my brother had turned into a vampire and usurped the lifeblood that once vitalized this family. Tonight all this was going to change, and if I had to put a stake through the chest of the devil himself I would see an end to this conflict.
In accordance to my plan, I said, “good night,” to my parents in the kitchen and took to my room to wait for the stirring that would set me into action. Although I was three years his junior, I had grown quicker and larger than my brother had. I was ready for battle. I knew that he would come home tonight in an awful condition doing one of his obscene dances that spoke volumes of where he had been and what he had done. His eyes would be half-closed; his demeanor would be callous and loud. The volcano inside me that had lain dormant for years was about to erupt. My father said that I learned to be this way from my mother: my mother said I learned to be this way from my father. Wherever I had developed my temper wasn’t important, it was only certain that I had it. Maybe I had foreseen my brother’s falling from grace years earlier as he often was the recipient of my madness. My rage enveloped my brother many times before. Once at a baseball field I beat him with a bat, and another time after a long bitter fight I called him out of the house and shot him with a bee-bee gun. My accuracy was unnerving: my coldness was astonishing. All of these events had long passed, and my temper now was only a story that I told to scare younger cousins. Something was happening now; I heard chairs in the kitchen slide and the front door shut.
“Bob! Look at your son!” I heard my mother shouting.
“What’s wrong with me?” my brother answered with swaggering impudence.
“Don’t talk to your mother that way! Where have you been Dave?” My father’s voice was deep and serious.
“I was out. I met up with some friends, and went to church.” my brother started his tale.
“To church huh?” my mother added.
“Yeah church. We went to St. Joe’s like you asked.” The lie was complete.
“We were at St. Joe’s, and your father waited for you in the back of the church the entire mass.” My mother was losing tone to her voice like a sick, weak cat.
“I was there,” my brother continued humorously.
“Dave where were you? Were you getting high?” my father took her place in the firing squad. I knew that it was time for me to get into the mix. So, I quietly got out of bed and stood at the top of the stairs looking down on the argument.
“Whatever, I’m going to bed.”

“Like hell you are! You owe us an explanation! It is Christmas damn it!” My father grabbed my brother by his arm, and my brother shrugged him off violently. As he was about to turn and head up the stairs, I spoke.
“What is going on down there?” I asked in a faint, groggy voice that implied I had just woken up.
“Look you woke up Aaron!” my mother charged. As I watched the argument below, I saw my father predictably grab my brother’s arm again. This time I saw my brother lash out trying to throw a punch in response. The effort was a bad one, underscoring the condition he was in, but his fist managed to hit my father in such a way that made my father fall back on himself and tripped over his feet. No one seemed to notice as I lurched down the stairs with my eyes fiery focused on the malignant disease that had just attacked his own father. My brother turned only in time to show me his heavy eyes and slouching posture as I leapt onto him. My mother, who was helping my father get up, watched as I began to unleash a wicked beating on my brother. He threw his arms forward to try and fend off the blows, but only managed to include his arms in the beating. Finally, my father threw me off of my brother. My brother got up, wiped some blood off his face, and came after me, landing a kick in my side. Now my father jumped in between us and tried to stymie my brother.

Getting up, I began with a hateful discourse that made everyone in the room shutter, “You are not my brother! You are not part of this family. You are a lowlife bastard to do this to your own family on Christmas. I hate you. I don’t want anything to do with you from now on. If dad would get out of my way I would kill you right now!”
On my last statement my brother laughed a little and said, “Come try it big boy!”
The vision in my eyes seemed to blur with intense anger, and I looked for some way to flush this emotion out. I turned and saw next to the fireplace a cast iron poker. With the precision of a blacksmith, I grabbed the poker and whirled around to catch a glimpse of my prey. Three sets of eyes turned gray and wide seeing me with the weapon, my father went for me first and then my mother. My brother shrank back into the flickering of the tree.
“I am going to kill him! Let go of me! I hate you! You hear me? I hate you!” I made sure to pronounce each syllable with sickening disgust. I watched as the shroud that enveloped my brother melted off of him enough that he looked over to me using his own eyes. His eyes were tired and sorrowful. I knew then that I had accomplished something. My parents and I danced together. They wrenched the weapon from my grasp. I stayed fixated on my brother as a long moment passed between us. We were not unalike. My mother’s crying and my father’s accusations all seemed to fade into a place far from the few seconds my brother and I shared admiring each other. I wasn’t looking in a mirror, was I? As he fell to the ground under the weight of his own epiphany, I noticed his head tilt awkwardly like the way a dolls head limps when unheld. The blinking lights strobed over my sprinting parents as they hurried to my brother’s side. It was then I noticed. It was everywhere. Blinking lights turned into sirens and more lights. Time passed like the lighting of a match. I.V. drips and beeping machines announced his passing. Sanctified and delivered I had released my brother of the devil for good.