Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 06:46:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Wess Subject: Double E: Part One I was born in 1987 and my family didn't get our first house until 1990. The first thing I remember doing in it was running the length of each bare room that would soon bore the resemblance to an early-American estate - courtesy of my mother's keen eye for interior decorating. My room in our house was upstairs, under the eaves. At night I could lie in bed beneath one of these eaves - if I sat up suddenly, I was apt to whack my head a good one - and read by the light of a gooseneck lamp that put an amusing shadow on the ceiling. Sometimes the house was quiet except for the whoosh of the furnace; sometimes my grandmother would spend an hour or so around midnight yelling for someone to check Ruby - she was afraid she'd escape. Ruby, a house cat of ours, was at least thirty years dead. I had a desk beneath the room's other eave and a hundred or so paperback novels, mostly murder mysteries. By the time I was sixteen (and shaving twice a week whether I needed to or not) I'd grown use to sharing a full house and my little room under the eaves. The fact that my parents, grandmother, grandfather, my two brother's and sisters walked the same corridors I did every day had less of an impact on me. Although he was a year younger than his classmates, my eldest brother, Seamus, was bored with high school. Some of this had to do with his intellect - Seamus's IQ tested in the 150s or 160s - but I think it was mostly his restless nature. For Seamus, high school just wasn't great enough - there was no pow, no wham. My parent's highly encouraged him to continue his education, obviously, and he went from time to time. Though my parents, who weren't any the wisest, suspected that he went every-single-day like the rest of their children. Yet more often than not, I watched the red pin lights of his car drive down the road - away from school. Somehow, he maintained grades that soon got him into college. My other siblings and I loathed him for that reason. If I wasn't reading the most recent murder mystery to hit the libraries shelves, I was sitting in my small room sweating over my homework, hoping, praying, for at least a C average. Rhapsody and Genevieve, my two big sisters, were more entertained with cheerleading, boys, and sneaking out of the house than they were with school. They would have gotten away with the sneaking out part, had my grandmother not been searching the grounds for Ruby. Mingled with the cry, "Ruby!", I would sometimes hear my mother shouting directly below my room at either Rhapsody or Genevieve or both. "Drive the last bit of sanity out me, that's what you'll do!" she would shout, and then the whole house would shudder as the door slammed with force. My other brother, Eliot, was a year older than I was, and turning out not much better than Rhapsody or Genevieve. He was really good at biting his tongue when my mother would yell at him, but when he yelled back - I swear it would send a flock of birds soaring into the air. Then, once again, a door would slam, rock music would blare, and dust would sprinkle down onto my head from the eaves. I was something of a peace maker in the house. If one of my siblings were furious with my parents they would, for some reason, talk to me about it. "I just can't stand either of them!" Eliot raged one night, pacing my room, and smacking a dangling paper machete airplane. "I mean, they never had a problem with Seamus and they never had a problem with you! How do you do it?" "I..." I would start, but Eliot always cut across me. "I'm the only son they flip a shit on! One more year," he said threateningly, "one more year and I'll be out of this place for good." He turned to face me. Eliot was, despite his temper, the epitome of a male in the Temime family. He had the tanned skin, chestnut brown hair that was unkempt and piercing blue eyes. The only thing he added to the family trait was his toned body that attracted girls from all over the country. "So what do I do for a whole year?" he demanded of me, the bedroom light dangling just inches above his head. I set aside my book, having just read the same sentence one hundred times. I looked up at Eliot. "Lay low," I said simply. "Stay out of their way. Don't go traipsing around after midnight and come back reeking of alcohol." If there is one thing I repeatedly failed to learn about Eliot, it is that if he asks for advice, opinions, or suggestions when he is angry, the best thing to do is to keep your mouth sealed. I wanted to help, I tried to help, but I failed. He turned on his heels, muttering something along the lines of, "Thanks a lot, Dr. Phil" and slammed my door shut, leaving the paper machete airplane to fall to the ground. This was the life I grew used to - the domestic version of the Ringling Brothers. In public, however, you would not guess how dysfunctional we really were. Take today for instance - a lovely, windswept autumn day. Minus Seamus and Rhapsody, who were now in college and not likely to return, all of us were crammed in the mini van. My grandmother was dressed in her Sunday best on a Saturday, convinced we were going to Easter mass. Her hefty frame was sandwiched between me and Eliot, and she had bathed in some horrible perfume. "Do you think that Louise will be at mass today, Marianne?" she called ahead to my mother, fixing the fringed lace around her neck. "That nasty husband of hers tries to keep her from going. The one year - oh I think it was 1954 - I drove over there and picked Louise up myself. I didn't give two toots about her husband's protest." "Mom, Louise has moved out of town," my father called back to her from behind the wheel. Though we all knew that, like Ruby, Louise had been dead for quite some time. My grandmother looked slightly crestfallen. "Oh, right, then I should send her a postcard, let's pick one up on the way home, Roger," she continued to address my father. I distinctly saw the nervous glances my parents exchanged. My grandmother had a habit of sending her dead friends postcards and I knew none of those cards ever made it to our mailbox. My parents kept them in a large binder in their room. There was one time my grandmother saw to it that the one card got delivered to her dear friend Andrea, convinced that the mailmen weren't doing their job, because Andrea never wrote back to the previous two hundred cards that were sent. Number two hundred and one came back with a note that reminded my grandmother her friend had been dead for a couple of years. My grandmother was hurt for quite some time and so my whole family made a pact not to tell her that her whole world was, well - dead, except for her husband and us. "Roger, dear boy, this whiskey is practically as old as I am," my grandfather, who was something of an alcoholic, called from the way back. Startled, the mini van swerved over the yellow line, a horn blared, and my flustered father straightened the car back out amidst my mother's panicked squeals. "Dad," he said in a harsh whisper, "it's only noon what are you doing with the whiskey?" "It gets me started," he responded in a matter-of-fact, raspy tone. "Eliot," my father said sharply, as though they were in the middle of an argument. "I thought I told you to lock the liquor cabinet." Eliot barely peeled his eyes away from the window. "Oh, right, sorry, I got caught up rescuing Ruby from the tree, you see." I could see him smirking slightly in the reflection of the window. Had my grandmother not been in the car, I knew this excuse would not fly with either of my parents. At the present moment the most they could do was scowl at him through the rear view mirror. Much to my grandmother's surprise and dismay, our tiny van shot right pass the old church on the corner and continued a few blocks down until swerving into the mall parking lot, which was jammed with afternoon shoppers. My grandmother made a "tsk-tsk" noise while shaking her head. "What this world is coming to - shopping on Easter Sunday. I hope wherever Louise is, they're not shopping." "Don't worry grandma; I hear God's waiting room only allows churches." My mother shot Eliot a nasty look. I half expected my grandmother to inquire what he meant, but she merely laughed gaily and patted my disgruntled mother on the shoulder. "It's only good humor, Marianne. You say she is in Florida, then? She always did like it there and it is kind of like God's waiting room." Still looking discontented, my mother climbed out of the car and everyone followed suit. "Dad, I want you to get rid of that whiskey pronto," my father said, coming around from the other side of the van. "Genevieve, stop lollygagging and go with your mother and grandmother - Eliot you - where's Eliot?" My father turned on the spot and faced me. "Where's your brother?" "I'm not too sure," I lied, knowing that Eliot had gone with my grandfather to help "throw away" the whiskey. "Eliot!" my father exclaimed as he reappeared, my grandfather trailing behind him. "You will go with Elijah, I and your grandpa." With his hands shoved deep into his jean pockets, Eliot swept by him muttering, "I can do without a chaperone." He nudged me, and gave a sly wink, as though I were part of his scheme to tick off my parents. Before following Eliot, I cast a glance back to my father who was red in the face, waiting for the next person to cross the line. I expected it to be either Eliot, my grandfather, or Genevieve, but to my surprise it was me. "Elijah!" he barked, stopping me cold in my tracks. "Don't go with your brother - leave him to wallow in his stubbornness." Eliot stood only a few feet from me, hands on his hips, giving me a look that read, "come on are you really going to take his crap?" My father stood on my other side giving me that exact same look. Today was a bad day for fathers. Seeing that Eliot was standing closer to me, I lifted my foot to take a step closer to him. "I..." I started; searching for the right words, making mindless gestures that I'd hope would make my father understand. He didn't. Feeling flustered, I quickly turned and faced my always-smirking-brother. I took quick, calculated steps to catch up with him, only looking back to see my father with his back towards me. Eliot raised his middle finger to my dad's back and patted me on the back. "Let's go," he said. Together we weaved our way through the cars, heading towards a side entrance, leaving as much clearance between my father and grandfather. The silence between us left me to my thoughts. I would apologize to my father later. Maybe even admit that I should have gone with him, even if I didn't mean it. But there was something about Eliot that I was destined to figure out - it revolves primarily around his sexual orientation and I only had a year to figure it out before he graduates. Why do I care? Because the secretive part that makes my family even more circus-like was the fact that I had this mad, absurd crush on the person currently walking next to me, looking naturally disgruntled. I knew how those girls felt when they were around Eliot. And something told me, Eliot wasn't as straight as a line as he wanted everyone to believe. I just had to prove it. I'll tell you this much, had I currently had a crystal ball to look into the future; I never would have bothered to throw myself into this whole ordeal. Nothing could have prepared me for what lie ahead. Welcome to my story: Double E.