Republican Cleanup on Aisle 3
Fan Mail from Some Flounderer.
Face it, you hate just about everything he does. At this precise moment, 11 am on a Monday morning, you know where he is: passed out nude and uncovered on the bed in the upstairs bedroom, crack pipe stuck on his lower lip, prostitutes long gone as they have to work to make a living, and fifty unanswered calls on his vibrating cellphone—half of them from you. He left the back door open, and the house is full of strangers speaking Spanish. You’ve tried reasoning with him. You have had endless marathons of arguments with him and at the end of each he promised to try harder. You tried tough love. He is a train wreck that has already happened, is happening, and will continue to happen. To say that you’ve lost hope would be an understatement. And yet, with all that, you cannot lose hope because he is your older brother. He is family, and you are here on this Earth to make things right. You know it—you hate it—but you will do it.
First things first. Brush up your high-school Spanish and ask the strangers what they want. You will discover and be amazed by the fact that they desire a life which is remarkably similar to the life you desire; one of promise, hard work, hopefully just rewards and a solid education and sound moral environment for raising children. You didn’t expect that. They are embarrassed about how they arrived but they tell you, it is what it is. They are thankful to your brother for leaving the back door open and hope that he will get well soon. They think that maybe it is not such a good idea to leave the back door open anymore. It is better if new arrivals need to knock, so that you get an idea of who you are letting in. If you understand you understand. They hope that you understand.
You see your brother’s mess with new eyes. It’s still a mess, but it is also an opportunity. Your mind begins racing and you start making a plan. Keep it local, atomized. Lay leaders will lead the way. Bored youth can be employed as facilitators; it will give meaning to their lives. Your excitement is evident on your face and the strangers observe you warily, wearily, and skeptically, but slowly your enthusiasm overwhelms them and just like that, like turning on a light switch, you discover that you have an army. It is then that you realize that most of the heavy lifting will be done, willingly, by the strangers themselves. All they need is a safe place. You can help them find that.
The process is slow at first, taking place underground, without fanfare. The first year or two in school are difficult for the children. Surprisingly, the children refuse to participate in special Spanish language courses prepared for them by the Apparatus. They want the real thing. They will hold all things Spanish close to their hearts, forever, but there is room in their hearts for more. That thing for which they are striving is not something that can be held in one’s hands. They are not naming it but they know that it is real, as do you. You call it The Good. A part of you had thought it lost, scattered among the clothes and used tissue upstairs. Now once skeptical eyes look beyond you with certainty at a point on the horizon, with a certainty that you had trouble of late holding onto yourself. Those eyes illuminate like a train engine’s headlamp the direction to be traveled, towards that which you had feared was lost. The direction is true, and movement has begun.
You make strong coffee. You climb the stairs this time with no resentment. You look upon your brother. There he is. The word “splayed” comes to mind. You set the coffee down. He will smell it when he is ready. You cover him out of respect. And love. You pull the pipe away and put a pillow under his head to give him some comfort. You put aside all of the corrections of character that you wish to instill in him that regularly flood your mind whenever you see him. You look at that strung-out, hung-over wreck of a brother and concede. The main move, without which no resurrection could occur, was his. Crazily, absolutely his. He did the thing that made a future possible.
He let them in.
So beautifully written