For The Love Of A Woman.
Ok.
I'm sorry for to anyone reading this and expecting a straight forward progression in the stories. As you can see I get easily sidetracked and distracted. I plan on going back to 1974 tomorrow or the next day. (It's getting harder to keep this up daily as you can see. So I'm thinking of cutting back to every other day or something like that.)
Angie wrecked her truck a week ago tonight and hopefully it will be repaired by next weekend or so. Also today my brother John came home for two weeks from Iraq.
I've avoided speaking of John and mine's current relation to each other for quite some time here. It's been easy to remember the "fond" old days. Hell, from 1977 till around 1986 John and I were very close. We liked the same movies,books, and music. We both loved Ali, and boxing, and were big into art. Most of my early opinions were shaped by John's views.
In the summer of 1986 I came back from Eastern Illinois University engaged to be married. I had in all honesty not done as well as I could have in my last semester there. My plan was to regroup, take classes at my local community college for a semester then go back to Eastern to be with Diane.
That summer John and his wife Peggy broke up. He needed to find a place to stay while the divorce went though. I came up with George's house.
George's family had moved to Arizona the weekend before I went to Eastern. All year it sat empty. I called and asked Georges mother if John could stay in the house until they sold it , as long as he paid the utilities. She said yes.
And then in a move of unprecedented stupidity I moved in with him. I thought this house could hold 15 people comfortably so just the two of us should be ok. Steve warned me not to but as usual I ignored my older brother's wisdom.
It soon became obvious that John and I would not be a good match. One night he came storming into my room screaming about a can of Tuna I ate. He said it was his food, and wanted to know what the hell I was doing eating it. I laughed and told him to calm down.
"It's just a can of Tuna man", I said. "I'll buy you another one."
John threw the can on the floor and said in a mocking voice,"Just a can of tuna!"
If I had been more suspicious of John I would have been more on guard. Unfortunately I had a blind spot for him and chalked it up to John having a bad reaction to his divorce with Peggy. As the summer melted into fall John's behavior was becoming increasingly unstable. Rumors began to spread that John was having an affair with his best friends wife.
No I said. If it was true I'd be first to know, because after all I lived with him.
The more I thought about it the more I began to suspect however. His behavior around Jackie was more like a boyfriend then anything else.
One night I came home from the bars around 2 in the morning. By the front door I found her purse and shoes. I began to notice them there more and more.
As a young man with few morals I had no objection to sleeping with a married woman. But one thing I couldn't abide was sleeping with a woman married to a friend. To me it was an inexcusable betrayal. Especially when said woman was ugly and sleazy. What's sad is I was almost the last to know. One night in early November I asked John to his face. I told him I'd saw her purse and shoes by the door in the middle of the night. "John", I asked,"Are you sleeping with your best friends wife?" John looked me in the face and told me the BIG LIE.
The BIG LIE is the biggest lie I've ever been told by someone who actually thought I'd buy it.
John looked at me and said, "No Tom. Mark knows I've been having trouble falling asleep so he asked Jackie if she'd come over and hold me until I slept. Sometimes it takes all night."
Like I said I was engaged at the time. So when John told me that an image of my best friend Mark passed though my mind. In my image he asked me if Diane could sleep with him until he fell asleep. I then imagined myself killing Mark and burying him in a shallow grave.
I lost a lot of respect for John that night. More from the lie then the actual affair. How stupid did he think I was?
I didn't have time to long ponder it because 3 days later Diane dumped me. I was at the time devastated. All I could think about was how to get her back.
The same day Diane dumped me, Jackie told John she was going to have a baby. John thought it was his. I overheard her crying downstairs when she told him. Later John came up and wanted to know what I had heard. He acted very strange. Unfortunately I was to wrapped in thoughts of Diane to think about it much. I told John I heard her crying and that was it.
He told me she was going to have a baby and was crying with joy. Even engrossed in my own drama I thought it was weird.
At home the only support I was getting was from my Mom. My Dad was being a real jerk, and John was acting strangely. When he found me crying he went into a fit. He told me he had enough of me crying and was going to teach me to be a real man. He told me he was going to clean up , then he was driving me to the Air Force recruiter.
"But John, you told me anyone who joined the army was a loser?"
John looked at me and said, "You're being a loser. Time to join!" John stormed upstairs and started to get ready.
"Well to hell with that", I thought. I packed a few things and split. To make a long story short I went to Diane's (She lived 3 hours away) and tried to win her back. Since I'm married to a wonderful woman named Angie you can see I failed.
While I was gone I made some calls and charged them to my phone at George's house. It was the phone John and I shared. When John got the bill he went though the roof. (It was 152 dollars.)
I was gone on my little journey for a month and a half staying with different friends, but eventually ending up at Mark's. Dad made it clear I wasn't welcome home, and John was acting like I had killed his dog or something. Umknown to me at the time, he told my family very vile things about me while I was gone. He even took my comics collection and sold them $300.
$300!
I had Spiderman #1 in that collection. And Hulk 181. And many many others.
$300. Sigh. Sometimes just to make myself feel bad I look at a priceguide.
Eventually I came home. Dad still made me feel like crap for basically having a nervous breakdown for getting dumped. It was only later I learned John was telling Mom and Dad I owed him over $2000 dollars in bills, and that I had been using drugs while I lived with him. (Anyone who knows me knows how ridiculous that is.)
My first night home John called me and shouted at me. "You don't have a brother anymore!", he screamed.
"What did you do to Steve and Geno?", I asked him.
"You know what I mean! I'm not you're brother anymore!"
"But Steve and Geno are ok?" John hung up.
I felt horrible. For months I felt I did something wrong. I was embarrassed everytime any family came over. Whenever John was there I had to go to another room. I was so ashamed in fact I never brought it up to my family. I wanted it to fade away. Only Steve made me feel like I had nothing to be ashamed about.
Then in late July of 1987 I saw Jackie with her baby. And in a flash it all hit me. (Usually I'm very quick to understand these things.) John wanted me join the military because he was afraid I would tell someone it was his baby. (The funny thing is one look was all it took to know it WASN'T his baby) I went to Mom and asked her what John was telling her I did. Mom told me about the more then $2000 dollars I owed him, and the drugs and other things so vile I won't repeat them here.
Everything he was doing was to discredit me from the family. He was so afraid I'd say something about him and Jackie it drove him nuts. At one point he rode a bike over to my parents house. He let the air out of the tires and told Mom and Dad I slashed his tires. Luckily I had a friend over who vouched for me. Later when Dad put air in the tire he could see it wasn't slashed. It was about this time my family finally began to suspect that maybe everything John told them wasn't true. (I imagine John letting the air out of his tires and laugh about it too this day.)
One time my Mom asked him what was going on, and he shouted at Mom, "What's Tom been telling you?"
"Is there something Tom knows?", Mom asked.
John cheated with his best friend's wife. He thought if he just drove me away that his secret would be safe. What's funny is I really was the one of the last to know. I was the only one who asked him however. Once I did all he wanted to do was hide his shameful little secret. Which meant get rid of me.
17 years later the wounds are still raw for me. Maybe it would be easier if sometime in the last 17 years he stopped acting like a jerk. What's sad is he really wouldn't understand he was acting like a jerk.
Now at first I wasn't going to say any of this. I really don't like to dwell to long on certain parts of my life. I also don't want this to be a ,"My brother is so bad " blog.
But when I saw him walk off that plane today, and watched everyone hug him and welcome him back, I felt nothing.
And it made me very sorry.
Sorry that we would never be close again. Sorry that he would never be the brother he once was. I wish I could be a bigger man and just let it all go.
But I can't.
Like I've said before, I plan on taking this blog, reediting it and turning into a "book" for my children to have. A life's history from where they come from. So I guess there should also be lessons they should learn.
That lesson is, be careful what you argue with you family about. Pick your fights carefully. Pick your words even more carefully. John and I lost each other over a woman who isn't even in his life anymore.
I hope one day Ethan and Isaac will read this and understand how important they are to each other. I hope they never find the fate that John and I found.
Brothers should always have each other.