Et Tu, Brian, pt2

The days of summer were coming to a close, and soon, I’d be entering school for the first time. I hoped with all my might that there would be more than one classroom so that I would not be stuck with her again. One afternoon over grilled cheese sandwiches, I asked my mother about this. Calpurnia sat much too close to my left and sipped a glass of milk as I made my inquisition. Mother smiled,

“Well, Brian, they do have several different classes at your new school. There are three, I believe.”

Calpurnia put down her glass of milk and smiled so widely, I felt my stomach turn.

“But we are in the same one!” she said, ecstatically. I slumped in my chair and said nothing more for the rest of the day. Just my luck, I thought, she’ll never go away. Once we’d cleaned up and washed our hands, Mother sent us out to play. Calpurnia grabbed me by the hand and dragged me with her as she ran towards the hill in the back yard.

Upon reaching the edge, she pulled me close against her and kissed me on the mouth. I grew catatonic and she pulled away, looking at me with those wide blue eyes. She smiled at me and I felt my stomach turn again. Without a second thought, I vomited all over the grass, just barely missing her little white sandals. Calpurnia screamed and my mother called out to us, hobbling down from the porch to see what was happening. I wiped my mouth on the sleeve of my t-shirt and looked up at Calpurnia, glaring.

“Are you okay?” She asked me. I pushed her to send her tumbling down the hill, but she grabbed a hold of me and took me along with her. She laughed and screamed and held onto me for dear life. To protect myself from bodily damage, I did just the same. I could hear my mother yelling for us as we tumbled down. We came to a halt when the earth grew flat.

I wriggled myself out of her grasp and stood immediately, dusting the blades of grass from my clothes. She lay on the grass, giggling still and rolling around like an infant.

“Brian, look! Grass angels!” she cried, moving her arms up and down as if she had wings. I rolled my eyes and headed for the hill to march home.

“Brian, wait!” she grabbed onto my ankles and sent me toppling down into the grass again. “Make angels with me!”

I sneered and pushed her.

“I hate you,” I said. She only smiled more.

“Na uh!”

“Ya huh!”

“My mommy says that when boys are mean, they like you!”

“I don’t!” I shouted, raising my little fists in the air like a heated gorilla.

“You like me! You like me! You like me!” she chanted in a sing-song voice.

“No, I don’t. Shut up!”

“You love me!” she entwined herself around me in such a fashion that I’d have needed a pair of industrial pliers to pry her off of me.

“Brian! Cally!” My mother called. Startled by the sound, she gasped and let go of me. The relief was exquisite to me, better than any of the sweet treats my father brought back from his journeys at sea. I ran up the hill with great haste, doing my damnedest to escape her, but she followed with such vehemence, the task proved near impossible. I reached the top of the hill, breathless. I paused for a moment to catch it just before I felt her tackle me from behind, knocking the wind out of me all over again. We fell to the ground as a unit and she laughed. I rolled over and glared at her.

“Stop!” I insisted.

“Make me!” she stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her arms.

My eye twitched and, without a second thought, I swung my little fist hard into her eye. She screamed and wailed at the top of her lungs, writhing on the ground in pain. I got up and walked away from her and back to my swing, lackadaisical, apathetic, unmoved by her suffering. My mother ran off of the porch, screaming my name bloody murder as she rushed to Calpurnia’s side. I began to swing back and forth, escaping my reality into a world of thought and dreaming.

“He hit me,” I heard her wail through choked tears, but thought nothing of it.

I swung higher and higher, imagining what the clouds would taste like if I could reach them, how the sun would feel if I could touch it, how the world would look if I were above it.

“Brian!”

I ignored her.

“Brian!”

Still tasting the clouds and swinging above the trees.

“BRIAN!”

My mother pulled the swing to a halt, forcing me to come back down to Earth. Calpurnia stood at her side, sniffling like the baby that she was. I looked at her, then at the girl.

“Get off of that swing this instant,” she demanded. I stared at her for a moment before climbing down.

“Why did you hit her?” she asked. My gaze shifted to the sniveling little princess. I could see a bruise starting to form at the site of my mean left hook. I frowned, slightly, then looked back at my mother, shrugging.

“Brian, under no circumstances do you hit!”

“She wouldn’t stop!” I snapped.

“No excuses. Do not do it ever again. Do you understand?”

Calpurnia wiped her nose on her little pink dress and pouted. I sighed, saying nothing more.

“Well, apologize.” My mother said.

“What?”

“Apologize! Say you’re sorry.”

I crossed my arms and kicked gravel across the ground.

“No,” I said, lowly.

“Brian, I am going to count to three. You’re already in trouble. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

I said nothing. Why be sorry for her faults? She’d brought it upon herself, after all, by irritating me so extensively.

“It’s okay, Brian. I still love you,” Calpurnia said. I raised my eyes to her to find her smiling. Somehow, that dopey grin coupled with her bruised, swollen face stirred a reaction in me. I felt the corners of my cheeks begin to burn as the muscles shifted. Somehow, the little princess had ushered a sickening smile out of me. I don’t know why nor how, but perhaps it had something to do with the twisted pleasure I gained from torturing her, yet always keeping her on my side. Perhaps this could prove useful for me as we entered school together. She would protect me, and I would give her the minutest pieces of myself to always make her beg for more. She’d do anything I said. Anything.

That night, upon the arrival of my father, I got the spanking of a lifetime. I think my backside was raw until the second month of kindergarten. The entire time, however, no matter how hard his hand met my skin, I did not flinch or shed a tear. I lay across the bed and took every lashing with a sense of pride. He taught me from a very early age to show no emotion, as many fathers often do their sons. Who knew how gravely it would affect me.

I lay in the bathtub that evening, letting my mind mull over the day as the bubbles swirled around me. I watched them dance, twirling around and around, waltzing, colliding, then evaporating into nothingness. In a way, it was exactly how I wished to be. I sank below the surface of the water and slowly opened my eyes. For a moment, the soap stung, but I recovered quickly. I glanced around, noticing how blurred and rippled everything now appeared, like a dream sequence in a bad movie. I saw my sponge creeping across the bottom of the tub, swimming like a bottom feeder, walking like a crab. I reached out to take a hold of it, but it slipped away from my reach. Not thinking, I breathed in a full mouth of air, taking the soapy water into my lungs.

I burst through the top of the water, gasping, choking, sputtering. Oh, I could feel the life draining from my very bones. I tried to shout, but could make no sound. I grabbed the bar of soap and threw it as hard as I could against the bathroom door, producing an epic thud. The air escaped me, the light turned to darkness. The end must have assuredly been nigh as I slipped below the water’s surface into slumber.

I woke in the same fashion I had gone to sleep: gasping, choking, sputtering. My father knelt above me, pushing on my chest. I looked to his left and saw my mother, sobbing and hugging her swollen belly. I blinked and took in a shoddy breath.

“He’s back, Janet,” my father said, resting a calming hand on my mother’s arm. She wailed and swallowed me in her arms like an infant.

“Oh, Brian. Thank God!” she sobbed. I shivered from the cold, still bare and wet. My mother wrapped me in a towel and dried my hair.

“Should we take him to the hospital?” she asked, “Brian are you all right?”
I looked at her, unmoved,

“I didn’t dream,” I said.
“What?”

“I went to sleep, but I didn’t dream. It was just dark.”

She did not respond to my statement, but simply carried me back to my bedroom and helped me into my pajamas. She kissed me on the forehead and stroked my hair.

“Get some rest, sweetie. You’ve got a big day ahead of you. School’s starting.”
She planted one last kiss on my forehead and closed the lights.

“Sweet dreams.”

I closed my eyes and drifted away to my most favorite of all places. Yes, I did dream in this sleep, and, oh, was it sweet. Who’d have known just how quickly I’d end up once again in the dark when my eyes opened with morning.

Et Tu, Brian, 1

Et Tu, Brian?

To JJW: The muse and inspiration for this project.
_________________________________________________________

Calpurnia was a whore, but she was my whore, and I hated her with every fiber of my soul. As children, she wrote her name in as a contender for the role of my best friend. Though she remained the uncontested candidate, I’d have nothing of it. Still, she clung to me like the pesky fungus she’d become, entwining her flimsy arms around my neck and kissing my cheeks with such innocence that I’d fling her to the ground. She’d roll around and giggle in the mud, failing to notice that I’d left her there to wallow in filth and squalor.

It didn’t stop there. Through grade school, she remained a horrid nightmare, torturing me to acknowledge her existence, coercing me to watch her skip rope, climb monkey bars, and build towers in the sand. It seemed that the more I detested her, the more she fawned on me. I could do nothing to be rid of her, and thus, succumbed to tolerate her as much as any person could. She was a ray of sunshine in my world of rain, and, quite frankly, I preferred my own personal brand of Seattle to her California Coast.

I suppose it’s best to begin this oh-so-tragic tale at its start. After all, how else will you even come close to understanding me and everything I am about to tell you? I don’t want you to draw your own conclusions about a damn thing. I don’t want you to try and evaluate what I’m going to say on a deeper, philosophical level – especially if you’ve got some smarmy professor requesting you to do so. It is what it is, and that’s exactly what I say it is. Don’t go looking for a deeper meaning when there isn’t one to find. This is my story, our story, and I’m in no way proud of it.

I know you’re bound to judge. It’s only human nature and I don’t give a shit. Most people don’t even have the gall to be as brutally honest as I am about to be. That being said, you owe me some amount of credit and respect. Yes, I’m a heartless bastard, yes, I’m a selfish prick. You don’t think I’m aware of these things, already? In any case, here’s the truth, so now you can hate me. But, please, do so with the utmost conviction and cause. Really, there is no other way to express such a powerful emotion without carrying it to the fullest extent. I’ve learned that through the course of my lifetime, all thanks to her.

She and I happened to be born on the same year, in the same hospital, and grew up in the same neighborhood. How we ended up so terribly different has always been an enigma to me, but not one that I ever cared too much about to really ponder. Our mothers became good friends, both being new to the game and, at the time, the only two with children in the neighborhood. They relied on one another for support and friendship, particularly since neither one of them had a goddamned clue what to do with us.

They’d sit for hours on our porch, sipping tea, discussing their latest discoveries on child rearing, clipping coupons, and trading recipes and gossip. They left me and Calpurnia to our own devices, sometimes with a set of blocks, play dough, or coloring books. Every single time I wanted to go off on my own with one of those toys, Calpurnia would begin to cry, wailing at the top of her lungs until I returned to her side. I only did it to shut her up. Truthfully, I could not have given a shit less if she feared abandonment. Apparently, that was something that would be bound to haunt her forever. It seemed that no amount of attention could suffice her, and because of that, I found myself permanently by her side. The two of us were inseparable, but not by choice. I would have much preferred my solitude, but she needed me. She needed me, and I absolutely loathed her for it. She had become a parasite, sucking the life from me because she could not survive on her own.

My father installed a swing set in our backyard one spring. Somehow, the carefree swaying soothed me, and swinging became a daily ritual of mine, rain or shine. I can’t tell you how furious I grew the moment my parents invited Calpurnia over to share it with me. She had infringed upon my time, my therapy, my escape. Mother stood barefoot and full-bellied on the porch, waving and smiling at us. She insisted that I be a gentleman and push the lady on the swing. I cannot convey to you just how livid it made me. Calpurnia laughed and screamed as I pushed her higher, higher, harder, harder. I wished she’d fly off of the damned thing and break her neck, but, of course, she never did.

“Brian, stop! No more! Too high! Wanna come down!” she’d yell, once she’d had enough. I kept pushing her until my mother hobbled down from the porch to stop me and give me a harsh scolding on my behavior.
“Sweetie, not so hard. You don’t want her to fly away, now, do you?”
I simply scowled and folded my arms across my chest. Calpurnia hopped off of the swing and ran to me, squeezing my midsection with fervor and burying her face between my shoulder blades.
“I was scared!”
“Say you’re sorry, sweetheart. Are you all right, Cally? Brian, apologize.”

I said nothing and refused to do so. Apologize? Whatever for? For something I’d felt strongly enough about to do? Never. My mother frowned and crossed over to me, pinching my ear, fiercely.
“Brian, apologize!”
I flinched only slightly, but my spirit remained inexorable. She turned to Calpurnia and smiled softly.
“Sweetie, why don’t you run inside and wash your hands? I’ll get you a juice box, okay?”
Calpurnia smiled and nodded before running off and up the stairs into the house. My mother took hold of me and dragged me across the gravel driveway until she was capable of sitting down upon a stair. She lifted me up onto her lap and looked me over, sternly.
“I will give you one more chance to go in there and say you’re sorry. You could have really hurt her, Brian. That is not acceptable. Will you go in and apologize, please?”
I said nothing. My mother sighed and flipped me over, pummeling my backside with the fierce palm of her hand. I did not cry or make a sound. I bit my lip with fervor as she smacked harder, but refused to succumb to the pain. I looked up onto the porch and saw Calpurnia there, crying in silence as my mother spanked me. A few moments later, she lifted me off of her lap and placed me on the gravel. It took her a moment to get off of the step, being so full with child, but she made her way up and noticed the girl standing there in tears.
“Oh, it’s okay, honey. He was being a bad little boy. That’s what happens to bad little boys. Now, come on, let’s dry those tears and get you some juice.”

She ushered her inside and closed the door, leaving me outside alone to stew over my so-called mistakes. I went back to my swing and let the motion carry me away. I watched the sun fall behind its curtain of sleep, painting the sky with an illustrious myriad of majestic wonders. I must have been out there for quite some time to have witnessed it all. I hopped down off of the swing and took one last look at the bright oranges, pinks, and reds above me before walking up the gravel driveway to the house.

My mother sat in the kitchen reading as a pot boiled on the stove. I crossed with caution to wash my hands, one habit she had fully instilled in me. To this day, I blame her incessant speeches on germs and hand washing and keeping things tidy for my obsessive compulsive disorder. Sure, she’d only meant well, but truly took it to an extreme.
“Daddy’s going to be late. He needed to stay later on watch duty,” she said, not even looking up at me from her reading. I made no response as I soaked my hands under the hot water. In a way, I somewhat enjoyed the excessive heat. When it nearly burned my skin, it offered a pleasurable tingling sensation, leaving my skin a lovely shade of red. I watched the steam rise off of the water as the temperature continued to climb too high even for my liking. I turned off the faucet and stepped down off of my stool. My mother remained engrossed in her reading and said nothing more to me until dinner was ready.

That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, allowing my mind to reflect on the day. I closed my eyes and listened to my breathing and the muted beating of my little heart. I was free of her, that pretty little leech that refused to release her grasp on me. These were the moments I valued most. I fell fast asleep and slipped off to dreamland, my haven, my escape. I knew, damn well, at 6:30 on the nose, she’d be back again: smiling, laughing, taking my hands in hers. She was every little boy’s worst nightmare, a pretty little blonde doll, always dressed in pink, with wide blue eyes full of wonder, and a heart of gold. Yes, she was somethin’, all right. I think I may have dreaded that moment more than death itself. Scratch that. I did.