Elba, Act 2: Sex, Violence and a Closet Full of Rotting Peaches

Due to “creative differences,” Mac has chosen to leave this blog permanently. The role of Blogger’s Brother will be portrayed by a more versatile chap called Jude, who may be recognized from his appearance as Department Store Employee in the previous installment.

There could not be two more antithetical brothers.

            There’s the older brother – yours truly – with huge, Aqua Net encrusted, bleach-blonde hair, with all 150 lbs. of me shoved into tight stonewashed jeans and a leather riding jacket. I was a womanizing mercenary bassist at-large, fluorescently accessorized, with earrings, studded belt, suede boots and – yes – eyeliner. After enduring the turmoil of a dysfunctional family, complete with dramatic confrontations, colorful arrests and several bouts with homelessness, I had found my niche among the glam rockers of the late 80’s. With the chaos of my teen years behind me, I preferred to be more agreeable, fun-loving and easy-going.

            In stark contrast, there was Jude, same height, fifty pounds heavier in a football uniform sporting a Mohawk,* his jersey number shaved into the stubble on the sides of his head. Nearly everybody despised Jude. He would bully the boys, verbally abuse the girls and was openly disrespectful to teachers. Fighting was a regular occurrence. He was an egotistical braggart who had even pulled my father over on the road once to insult, degrade and threaten him.

            I had a scholarly side and sometimes even read books. Jude, on the other hand, was an anti-intellectual, chest-thumpin’ jock. Jude hung out in gyms; whereas, I smoked like a chimney and thrived on fast food. I was an ectomorph; Jude was a mesomorph. He was an extrovert, as I was an introvert.

            Jude and I were so extremely different that a mutual acquaintance was genuinely surprised to discover we were brothers. Even though we had the same last name, he assumed there was no way we could possibly be related.

            Despite his faults, Jude managed to accomplish a few things in high school. Senior year he went to the state finals with the varsity football team. He was also one of the subjects of a feature article in the newspaper about up-and-coming power lifters. Unlike me, he graduated high school and managed to get into a semi-selective, out-of-town university.

           Jude’s Quest for World Domination continued in college. There, he reunited with an old sidekick from grade school called Bubba. They lifted heavy weights, injected each other in the butt with steroids, ate whole chickens and became incredibly huge. Jude joined a fraternity and lived in a place like Animal House.

            I visited Jude in college once while his fraternity was throwing a party. In a vulgar display of tacky charm, I followed two attractive young ladies into a restroom and shouted “Who wants it?” Within ten minutes of my arrival, I was banging one of them, and would then have the other before sunrise. My exploits immediately elevated me to honorary frat boy status and I was permitted to abuse the pledges at will. I also recall being nearly electrocuted when I attempted to repair a fan that fell into a puddle of water at the foot of the keg. It gave my spritzed up hair a needed lift, though it nearly rendered me unconscious and breathless. Yes, some drinking was involved.

            Oddly, I remember finding a closet full of rotting peaches while hunting for the door to the basement steps. This discovery profoundly confused me. 

            In the meantime, Jude  found it necessary to toss some unwelcome guests off the porch. One of the disgruntled ejectees returned to throw a punch at my brother, who responded, in turn, by hitting him upside the face with a ceramic mug full of beer.

            This would now be a good opportunity to introduce my sister, Celeste. She becomes suddenly important because she had given the offending mug to my brother for his birthday. Perhaps it is unfair to represent the first 16 years of her life as culminating only in the act of buying a mug that would eventually be smashed upside somebody’s face at a frat party. But this story isn’t about her.

            So . . . Dude required stitches and plastic surgery. My mother’s concern over my brother’s aggression issues (remember my mother?) turned into sheer panic when she found out she was being sued as a result. Mom had to lawyer up and eventually settled out of court.

            As time wore on, Jude would get thrown out of the fraternity for fighting and kicked out of college due to failing grades. He stuck around campus for a while to pursue a career in power liftin’/steroid shootin’/chicken eatin’/ beer drinkin’ and creating general mayhem with Bubba. Eventually, he made his way home.

            By this time, my parents were becoming increasingly concerned. They had thought the worst was over as their eldest son became increasingly more stable. But now they were now dealing with an entirely different, yet more volitile, animal. Despite my problems, fighting and steroids were never among them. Apparently, the “good son” had now devolved into a monster.

            Given my brothers inflammatory nature, he frequently found himself at odds with the people who were  closest to him. This included friends, coworkers, family and girlfriends. One day, I stopped in at my mother’s place to discover Jude in the garage unloading some camping gear after a weekend trip. Among his belongings, I found a strange banner that I initially mistook for a Japanese flag. “Why do you have a Japanese flag?” I asked.

            “That’s not a Japanese flag,” he replied. “That’s the flag of Elba.”

            I unfurled it to discover three bees superimposed over a diagonal red stripe against a white background. Very strange. Of course, one must ask . . .

            “What is Elba?”

            “It’s the island where they banished Napoleon to keep him out of trouble.” Jude continued to explain that he had alienated all his friends and nobody wanted to go camping with him. So he camped alone in brooding, self-imposed exile, flew his bizarre flag and called it Camp Elba.

            Please understand, dear people, my brother was under no contract with any advertisers to continuously draw parallels to the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. This was not a reality TV show. He did all this willingly, albeit unconsciously, one could only hope. The question remained: When and where was Waterloo?

*Note: No Mohawks were harmed, maligned or disenfranchised in the production of this narrative. The term “Mohawk” refers to the hairstyle, not the Native American tribe of the same name.

End of Act 2