Chapter 16: Be Careful What You Wish For

The next step in my estrangement from my brother occurred in another couple of weeks. Monday, the 22^nd, during Thanksgiving week, I asked my parents if I could bring Jeana to Thanksgiving dinner. This was pretty much a first for me. Shelley Talbot had come over several times back when we were seeing each other, but we had also been working on the Science Fair together, and besides, since neither of us could drive, a parent always was around. Jeana was the only girl I had ever asked to bring over.

Hamilton immediately said no since it was against the rules. Everybody ignored him, and my parents said it would be all right. Mom asked if I had already asked Jeana. I answered, “No, I wanted to clear it with you, first, before asking.” That certainly satisfied my mother, and we all continued to ignore Hamilton.

In retrospect, that was a mistake. The next night at dinner, Mom asked if Jeana was coming to Thanksgiving dinner. I just shook my head. “No, Jeana and her parents are driving up to Long Island to spend the weekend with family. They leave Wednesday after school.”

“That’s too bad. Maybe you can invite her over for Sunday supper afterwards.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad,” parroted a smirking Hamilton. “You won’t be able to use these, will you?” Everybody at the table turned to look at him, and we stared as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a wad of foil wrapped condoms and dumped them on the dining room table. “I found these downstairs.”

My mother gasped, but that was the only sound in the room. I actually saw red for a moment, but managed to grab the table with both hands, and held on until my fingers turned white. By the time my vision cleared, I could see that my father was actually watching me, to see if I would kill my brother. I certainly wanted to.

I don’t know how he did it. Did I leave the padlock loose on the footlocker? Or had he finally figured out how to pick the lock? I never found out. I calmed my breathing and turned to him. The room was still staring at us, and the rubbers on the table. Even Ham was starting to look like maybe he had overplayed his hand. “Have you absolutely lost your mind? Dumping a box of condoms on the table in front of your mother, your grandmother, and your little sister? What in God’s name are you thinking?” I asked quietly.

The mention of my sister and grandmother roused Mom from her shocked silence. “Suzie, help your grandmother upstairs to her room, and stay with her.” Nana really was out of it these days, and I’m not sure she really understood what was happening.

“But Mom...!”

“Suzie, go now, and take your grandmother. Don’t make me tell you again.” Then she turned to Ham. “Go to your room now, mister.”

Before he could get up, I said, “No, Hamilton, go into the living room and stay there. Do not go downstairs.”

This was very confusing to the others, so Mom simply said, “Go to your room.”

Again, I interjected, “Go to the living room and sit down and stay there.” I looked at my mother. “It’s obvious he has gotten into my stuff. If he goes down there now, we won’t know what else he’ll destroy or steal before I can check.”

Hamilton immediately protested his innocence, stating I had just left the box of rubbers out in the open. Mom looked at my father, who said, “Hamilton, go up to your mother’s and my bedroom, and sit down, and if you even think about touching anything, you won’t sit for a week. Now, go.”

Again, he tried to protest, but my father was furious. If he could have reached him through me, Dad would have smacked him right then and there. Hamilton went upstairs.

Once he was gone, Mom looked at me coldly, and said, “How dare you do this?”

I stared at her in amazement. “Excuse me?”

“How dare you bring those ... things ... into my house!”

I simply couldn’t believe it! Hamilton breaks into my locked possessions, ransacks through them, and then has the gall to dump rubbers on the dining room table - and it’s my fault! “You are kidding me, right?” I asked.

Mom swung at me, but since my seat was actually closer to the other end of the table, I just moved my head back and she missed completely. She tried a second time, half rising out of her chair, and I caught her wrist. “Mother, we’ve been over this before. You are not going to ever hit me again.” I glanced over at my father, who was easily in reach to deck me.

“Shirley, settle down.” He looked at me coldly. “Don’t ever touch your mother again, or it will be me you’ll be dealing with.”

“It will be the last day I live in this house if I do.” I replied.

I let Mom’s arm go, and she moved to hit me again, but Dad barked out, “I said to knock it off, both of you.”

I sat back in my chair and looked at him. “I just want to know how it is that he busts into my footlocker, steals my possessions, dumps them on the table, and it is my fault. Just explain it to me, please!”

“Don’t push it, mister. That’s the only thing you have going for you in this mess as it is,” he answered.

“Again, excuse me?” I asked incredulously. “Explain to me what I have done wrong!”

“Those!” cried Mom, pointing at the rubbers still on the table. “Get them off my dining room table! How dare you have them out!”

I reached out and grabbed the little envelopes and stuffed them in my pants pocket, holding one back. “These, Mom? These. You know perfectly well what they are. They are prophylactic condoms for the purpose of birth control, and you and Dad have been using them for years. It’s not like it’s a secret.”

Mom gasped, but Dad just rolled his eyes. “What?” she demanded, sputtering.

“Mother, stop it. I have emptied the garbage cans around here for a while now, and I have seen the torn foil wrappers. Please, for the love of God, stop treating me like a child. I knew perfectly well what they were for then, and I know perfectly well what they are for now.”

“It’s that Jeana girl, isn’t it? She’s the one you’re having sex with. And you wanted to bring her here to my house! How dare you!”

This was going nowhere. “Mother, I have never even been to bed with Jeana. To the best of my knowledge, she’s a virgin. I have been using these, as needed, for quite a while, and no, I will not tell you with who.”

This totally stumped her, and she turned her face to Dad. “Are you just going to sit there?”

“Or do what? What do you want me to do, Shirley?” he asked.

“Well, do something! He’s your son! Make him behave!”

I buried my head in my hands as I listened to them argue. Mom wanted me to go back to being four years old, Dad wanted this to all go away, and it was all my fault, regardless. I finally was just so sick and tired of it, I stood up. They both stopped and stared at me. “Where do you think you’re going?” asked my father.

“I am going downstairs. I have had enough of this.”

“The hell you are!”

“Yes, the hell I am!” I replied. “This just totally blows my mind. Hamilton is free to break into my possessions and do any damn thing he wants, and I’m the one getting yelled at for acting responsibly when I am with a girl. I’m glad he hasn’t shot me; I’d hate to get in trouble for getting blood on his bullets! If you have anything else to yell at me about, I’ll be down in my room checking my belongings.”

I left them yelling at each other in the dining room. Eventually I heard them yelling at Hamilton upstairs. By then I had determined that he had only gotten into the one footlocker. It seemed like as soon as he saw the rubbers, he figured he had hit the mother lode, and took them and left everything else.

Eventually, Hamilton was returned, crying and holding his bottom. Dad pointed at me, and I followed him out to the family room. “Keep that stuff locked up in the future,” he said.

“Hey, I thought I had.”

“Well, double check in the future. And forget about bringing Jeana over until your mother has had a chance to calm down.”

He waited for me to say something. I just nodded. “Okay, but he is getting totally out of control. He needs help, professional help, and you know exactly what I mean.”

“Not going to happen,” Dad responded.

I just nodded again. “Then be warned. This is the end of it. He does anything else, anything at all, and I am history. I will pack my shit up and leave. How much longer do I have to live like this before I wake up some night with him coming after me with a knife or baseball bat.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Last time, Dad, last time!”

I slept out in the family room that night. Our bedroom, which had been the garage previously, still had the original doorknob on it. This meant it was actually an exterior lock, with the latch on the inside, so that you could lock the door and prevent people coming in through the garage. I flipped the latch when I went to bed, locking him in the room. I just didn’t trust him.

I couldn’t understand how much worse Hamilton was this time versus the last time. He had always been a problem, and had hated me back then, too, but now it was far worse. I remember thinking that it was because he was two years younger than me, and had to follow in my tracks, with the same teachers, on the same school bus, and everybody expected him to be just like me. I had thought that must have been infuriating to him, but after a while, I figured that was the most narcissistic thing I had ever come up with. Now, I wasn’t so sure. It seemed that the more successful I became, in school or otherwise, the more antagonistic he became.

Now, the more I thought of it, the more I thought I was right all those years. The only thing different was me. Mom, Dad, and Suzie were still the same, but my behavior was different. On my first incarnation I had fought constantly with Ham but wasn’t otherwise a threat to his self-image. Now, I didn’t fight, no matter what he did to provoke me. Worse was that by any measure, I was far more successful than he was at school. In that first life he could argue to be smarter, even if I was more socially successful. Now he was under a stricter discipline (I didn’t get hit anymore) and I was getting privileges (cars) long before he would.

It was becoming noticeable to others as well. On my first trip through, Hamilton had been in the Towsontown Junior Science Fair when I was a junior at Towson High. He hadn’t won, but neither had I, and he had entered. This year he had loudly refused to even enter. He had also been mouthing off to any teacher at Towsontown who compared the two of us, earning him detentions, which he had never gotten before.

I slept in the family room another couple of nights, through Thanksgiving, safely. There were too many eyes on him over the next couple of days for him to get into any more trouble. He did make an ass of himself at Thanksgiving, though. Nana wasn’t doing well, and she stayed in her room. That left my parents, Aunt Peg and Uncle Jack, Aunt Nan and Uncle Fred, and Grandpa at the main table. As the oldest of the grandkids, I got promoted to the big table. Hamilton had a full-blown temper tantrum, demanding that he sit there as well. He was finally sent to his room without dinner.

It was on Friday that the lid blew off. Everybody had the day off. Mom and Dad took a day off, and school was out. Mom and my aunts went shopping, and then came home. Everything was very quiet, up until dinner. Friday was leftovers, of course, but the feast was always big enough to serve a second meal, allowing me to have some more oyster stuffing. I didn’t complain. It was a few minutes before six when the doorbell rang. I was in the living room, along with Mom, and she opened the door to find a Maryland State Trooper standing there.

“Hello,” she said, curious as to why the State Police were at the front door.

“Is this the residence of Carling Buckman?” he asked.

Mom gave me a look of ‘Now what?’ but kept her mouth shut. After all, I had been home the entire day with Dad. I stepped forward. “I’m Carl Buckman. Come on in.”

The trooper stepped inside. “Mister Buckman, are you the owner of the yellow Ford Galaxie parked over there?” He pointed at my car, and I followed his gaze.

It was my car, parked behind Mom’s. Dad’s car was on the other side of the corner. “Uh, yeah, that’s my car. What’s wrong, officer?” Always be polite to large men with guns, that’s my motto!