Rocky Terrain

However wide the landscape, certain elements have stronger impact than others.

Who is stopping me, who is going to pin me to the facts? From whom must I defend my every step? Who’s going to tell me my logic is wrong, my facts are screwed, I don’t know what I’m talking about? That would be my brother Skip. The dukes I put up at age six stayed up for decades.

Rocky, treacherous place in my landscape: this brother I feared, full of craggy ironies.

He discarded the name Skip in eighth grade and insisted we call him by his birth name, John. John grew up to be a brilliant classical guitarist people sought out for weddings and brunches. Comfort, gentility, precision distinguished his playing, but were absent from most of his conversation.

A peace activist who lay on railroad tracks to stop weapons trains, he often seemed devoid of personal sensitivity or even social skills. Never knowing when to yield the floor, he was a constant filibuster for himself and his opinions, which were mostly dire. Never sensing when he’d hurt your feelings, he’d use his sharp mind like a blunt instrument, to clobber you with facts. (This strategic mind served him well in chess and tournament-level bridge.) The guy could just drive you crazy.

Our best times were always creative. For example, our “radio shows.”

In 1965, Tom received his Army officer’s commission. He was stationed in Germany. Since overseas long-distance rates cost the equivalent of $86.00 for three minutes, like many families we got a cassette tape recorder to make and listen to audio letters from Tom. Using the recorder, John, Jim, and I invent and enact radio shows We interview Dracula and his daughter, a hyena trainer, Chef Boyardee and other notables, laughing ourselves silly listening to the playbacks.

But better than our “broadcasts,” music really brought us together.

In high school, Mom and Dad gave Tom a guitar for Christmas. John couldn’t put it down. It absorbed him as nothing ever had. Tom left it to him when he went to college.

By the time John reached high school, he had developed real proficiency. He’d sing and play and I’d harmonize. Together we’d “hoist up the John B sails,” “Row the boat ashore,” and cover Peter Paul and Mary numbers, Woody Guthrie anthems, whaling songs, and a particularly devastating version of “The Spring Hill Mining Disaster.” Bone and blood is the price of coal.

Our piercing harmonies made us both proud. We practiced when we could and performed for the family. Not too often—both of us were in high school with play practice, debate, and all the other extracurriculars. But the speechless communion of song forged a bond that was to surprise me as the tumultuous sixties unfolded in assassinations, riots, and explosive protests against the Viet Nam War.

•••

A chill runs through us when Tom tells us in 1967 that he himself is being sent to Vietnam as an information officer. Before he leaves in May, we all assemble at a photographer’s studio to have a family portrait taken. The convent even releases Mary Kay for the occasion. Our smiles are guarded, wreathed in gravitas, as though we know this will be the final picture of us all; the last time in a room together, speaking to each other, civilly.