Two

THEN ONE VANISHES

ALLAN GURGANUS

“Two” is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

“One” is one away from “two”

and post-subtraction, all that’s left is “You.”

I think I was a twin. We lost Brother so early. Sometimes I still feel him behind me, our first comfy trimester. We swayed, basted equally in Mom’s sweet saline. I remained the tense one, stringy, nearest the likely exit. He, far floppier, was apt to nod; he sure depended on me. But Brother Jesse had my back, literally. How did I know his gender in such darkness? Oh, I felt it there, the usual power-point indicator: disproportionate, optimistic, the trout of a guppy.

We’d grown near-onto-against each other. Each turn required treaty-scaled cooperation. I faced forward; his small arms slid under mine, support. Spooned against me, he had already become my church, my blue blanket, my Orville-Wilbur, the first monogamy and my last.

One morning he was gone. No resistance, only squishy margin. With Jesse missing, I was left forever after an open-face sandwich. If “two” is all you know, the joy of doubleness predates the act of eating, any appetite for oxygen, much less sex. He-me joined? A veritable pillow heaven. Now? my single topic is: us two, reduced.

Elvis Aaron Presley was, like me, a former always left-back twin. This pulled me even closer to our Tupelo boy. His brother, coincidentally, a “Jesse,” too!

Jesse Garon Presley, also born January 9, 1935, arrived in daylight dead. Elvis came out clay-colored but, once butt-slapped, turned crimson while wailing. That second boy, unsung, stayed clay-gray. The kingly survivor, living an intensity far more than doubled, confessed his growing adult relation with a brother still invisible to others.

So, yes, I’m sure I was a twin. Don’t you half-recall you might’ve started that way, too? It meant living hammocked in effortless rhyme. Some poets peddle mere romantic love. That’s just discount twin-ness practiced on a genetic stranger! That’s a handcuff afterthought compared to the subtle linkage joining me to Brother Jesse.

Even superb-fit partnerships dissolve too fast. I find that doctors have named my Jesse’s desertion The Vanishing Twin Syndrome.” (Go on, Google it. I’ll wait here, I’m used to that.) Twenty percent of all twins die in their first trimester; 40 percent of triplets. The inaugural ultrasound might register multiple pulses. Then one heartbeat simply candle-snuffs; a body is reabsorbed. Jesse’s exit? Silent, opaque paste. A mild discharge below, scarcely noted, unmourned even by our Mom.

My being born alone, as a Gemini, just teases me. And Mom’s forever praised me as her “oneand-only.” She’s never believed my rumor of a roommate in the womb. “Son? Trust me. As the gatekeeper, I would’ve noticed.” Was the late Jess better, gentler than I? Christ, yes.

So many of us considered “singles”—weren’t, aren’t. As comets have tails, we’re all still ruddered by starter sibs’ trace minerals. How much do I miss him? How long have you got? Grief that early shovel-shapes you—solely you—for a quest. I was “stood up” before I even quite unfolded. Whatever I have made of my adulthood, one act per day has been another little net I cast his way. I try and recollect all Jesse was becoming when he swam away without one parting back-pat. While I? Selfish, slept—as if for two.

II.

Famous Elvis’s barber became his shrink and confidant. To that new employee, one Larry Geller, Elvis confided his dead twin’s continuous company. Here I quote from Geller’s fascinating blog-post of February 4, 2011 (www.elvispresleybiography.net/elvis-presley-hairstylist-larry-geller-blog):

“The life and death of his stillborn twin, Jesse Garon, was a precious mystery to Elvis. . . . [The first time I cut his hair] he told me that as a child he would talk about him to anyone who would listen. ‘I have a brother!’ he announced proudly, telling everyone how close they were, and how they talked together all the time. At night as he lay in his bed, in the dark and silence of his room, he would have special conversations with Jesse, and later tell people what his brother had said to him. . . .

“‘I’ll tell ya, Larry . . . we were in our mother’s womb together, so why was he born dead and not me? He never even got his chance to live . . . why me? Why was I the one that was chosen? . . . I’ve always wondered what would’ve been if he had lived. . . . These kinds of questions tear my head up. There’s got to be reasons for all this.

“‘. . . Maybe, maybe it was something I did, ya know? . . . Maybe when we were in the womb together we were fighting like Jacob and his twin like it says in the Bible. Man, that story always stuck with me. Maybe I was like Jacob who tried to stop his brother from being born first. Hey, I’m just saying . . . anything’s possible.’

“I learned so much about Elvis that first afternoon; his freedom of expression, his willingness to explore, and most of all his vulnerability. And in a curious way, the guys [Elvis’s posse] were a composite of his twin—but never really a replacement.

“It wasn’t until 1977, just a few months before Elvis’s death, that I heard him bring up Jesse after all those years. . . . ‘Lawrence,’ Elvis declared excitedly, ‘you won’t believe the dream I just had. Man, it was so real. An’ I can’t remember dreaming about . . . Jesse Garon since I was a little kid. But there we were together—onstage. Seemed like thousands of people in the audience, and they were screaming at us. It was wild! We were dressed alike, wearing identical white jumpsuits, and we were both playing matching guitars slung around our shoulders. There were two blue spotlights, one shining on him, one on me. An’ I kept looking at him, and, man, he was the spitting image of me.

“‘I’ll tell you something else, Lawrence . . .’ Elvis grinned. ‘Jesse had a way better voice than me.’”

III.

The frequency of Vanishing Twin Syndrome means: one-fifth of you reading this are secretly like me. You are the aggressive—and therefore deserted—twin. Don’t you half-remember? Admit it.

Here’s how you can truly know, and tonight. Complete this bedtime fall-asleep assignment: Once you’re horizontal later, close those eyes as if you’ve never known there was a sun; draw your legs against your torso; wrap arms around those knees. Concentrate solely on your superior missing one. (Do not tell your sleeping partner who it is you’re trying to reach, then hold. It can only make your beloved feel half-a-man, half-a-woman.) Now lift your own pillow. Place it either in front or behind you, wherever instinct hints that your missing one last snuggled. Curve against, protect, enjoy that fine damn pillow. Just feel your way a while.

Remember? You were two. Remember? You were not alone.

At first.