My brother is so much older than me he is just: not—he is not. Not there, not real, not known. Gone or alone or elsewhere. He has a skateboard. He threatens me with scissors if I knock on his door. When I am very little he chases me in a Gene Simmons mask, and scares me to death, and I run through the house screeching. My mom explains it’s not scary, it’s just a rock band that wears lots of white makeup and this person has an especially long tongue. Like a demon? And this is not scary? There is no logic to this.
I’m pretty easily rattled. I get scared if anyone breathes like Darth Vader, for instance. (My brother does it. He comes into my room and breathes like Darth Vader, and I scream and run through the house.) We go to the movies and my dad doesn’t like to go because he is always working or fishing or in the woods, and my brother doesn’t like to sit with my mom at the movies, so my mom takes me to the movies and has me sit with her for company and my brother goes elsewhere. We go to see Raiders. My brother has already seen it. Do not take her, my brother says, She’s going to flip out at the end. I do fine for the whole film and then we get to the end, and they open the ark, and the faces melt and I flip out. I’m scared of Nazis after that. My mom says, Well, that’s alright, Nazis are very scary. But also I’m scared of biblical artifacts?
My mom wants to see The Elephant Man and doesn’t want to go alone. My brother says, Do not do this, do not take her to see The Elephant Man. My mom takes me. I am five. I scream, I wail, but my mom really wants to see the end of the movie so I have to sit there. To this day, I think I will die in my sleep if I lay flat, that my deformities will literally crush my lungs. I sleep with so many pillows; I sleep propped up, like a pneumonia patient.