The Twins

In Loving Memory

Jason would have turned 59 today. Gone five years now and literally not a day goes by that I do not think about him. Two months before he decided he could no longer take the punishing cruelty his own mis-wired brain perpetually doled out, he sent me a text message. The release party for my last book, The Tao of Bob, was coming up at BookPeople, where J had worked for years. Would I be okay with him introducing me?

I was more than okay with that. I was grateful and relieved. Many years prior there’d been a brief period when I had crushed out on him, mistaking our then daily exchanges as an indication of the potential for something more. Then he stood me up for dinner one night, prompting that other feeling associated with crush. I felt flattened by his last minute dodge. But to his credit, he called a day or two later to deeply apologize. Though our rapidfire exchanges ground to a halt, our friendship did not. 

When I got the call that he was gone, having at last “accomplished” the thing he had attempted several times before, I howled. I distinctly remember two specific feelings. I was not surprised. And yet I was shocked. 

Later that day, I retrieved two of his four dogs—Luna, his ancient service dog, and Polly the puppy, who would soon prove too rambunctious and destructive to remain with my own already large pack. Not long after, I orchestrated the emptying of his house, winding up with many of his possessions, most of which I redistributed to his friends, keeping for myself a few prized t-shirts and his messenger bag. 

Before the week was out, I met with his family for dinner, so we could plan J’s memorial at the ranch. Afterwards, we headed to meet his favorite tattoo artist, Mig, who gave J’s mom, then 75, her first tattoo: a broken heart.

Mig, like the very best tattoo artists, is an excellent listener, a natural healer, and a no bullshitter. He didn’t offer platitudes as he worked. He spoke honestly and directly of Jason, addressing not just his finer points, but also his demons. At one point, he looked at me and asked, “Did you two ever date?”

I sputtered, suddenly inhabited by my fifth-grade self. “No,” I said, vividly remembering that long ago schoolgirl crush. 

“Why not?” Mig asked. 

I laughed nervously. “I guess we’ll never know now.”

After he finished the tattoo, when Jason’s family had stepped into the other room, I had a question for Mig. “Why did you ask me that? In front of his family!” But I wasn’t mad. Hardly. If anything I was flattered.

“Because you two are twins,” he said.

I thought about that. Jason and I were born nine months apart. Both punks. Ink freaks. Music fanatics. Bibliophiles. Shy introverts with the ironic superpower of making friends easily. Dog rescuers. People rescuers. Also both addicts. Both victims of chronic severe depression. 

Twins. This was the first real clue I got, not only toward solving the mystery of my once confused feelings for my dead friend, but also toward solving one of the greatest mysteries of my life. A mystery that had been so shrouded I had missed seeing it entirely for decades.

***

My eight siblings and I were (and remain) divided into three categories: The Big Girls, The Little Girls, The Twins. My three older sisters comprise The Big Girls, an impenetrable trio forever bent on excluding me. My four younger sisters make up The Little Girls. And in the middle? My only brother—dead center, four sisters above, four below—and myself. 

Though I preceded my brother by two years, since I didn’t qualify as a Big Girl and neither of us qualified as Little Girls, we were lumped together as our own grouping. I speculate it was our father’s passionate, identical disdain for us both that prompted the title The Twins, doled out like the most offensive vulgarity you can conjure. What he meant was Twin Fuckups, Twin Disappointments, Twin Failures. “You’re as bad as your twin,” he would regularly spittle at one or the other of us.

But it was more than being equally despised that forged the intense bond between my brother and me. We were best friends, confidantes, co-anchors, collaborators. We loved music and playing cards and watching Starsky and Hutch and The Love Boat. And, until puberty arrived and he could suddenly overpower me, we wrestled like feral beasts. More than anything, as best as we could we offered each other shelter in the storm of our sick father’s wrath.

As the only boy, he was never required to do kitchen work. As the eldest child at home once the Big Girls moved out, it fell to me most nights to cook for and clean up after my “twin” and the Little Girls. (Save for the nightmarish Sunday dinners eaten en masse and in total silence at the plywood table our father built to accommodate us all like some South Jersey re-creation of the Last Supper, we kids ate different food at separate times from our parents.) My brother kept me company as I put things away. Often the little black and white TV on the counter was tuned to a Flyers game. At least once, I made him eat a cold scrapple and ketchup sandwich on white bread so that I didn’t have to wrap up the leftovers. 

***

Impossible to pinpoint the cruelest thing my father ever did. But very high on the list is that he ruined The Twins. As a narcissist and sociopath he had a knack for dividing and conquering. A clear message we received from infanthood: His way or the highway. You were with him or against him and this determined your fate in the family.

Miraculously, I escaped at 18, ran away to college and very slowly started to educate myself, find my autonomy, address my trauma. After I was gone, my brother tried to run away, too. But the pressure was too much. And so he returned, the one son, who escaped doing “girl” chores but could not escape the wrong idea that it fell to him to follow in the footsteps of the cruel man for whom he had been named. 

By the age of thirty he had five kids. He leaned in hard to the Holy Spirit and all the fire and brimstone propaganda we’d had shoved down our throats. He became a MAGA guy. He forbade his children from speaking of me. And, as our father had done to me, he disowned one of his own children, prompting a flood of painful emotions as I relived my own casting out.

Mostly when I think of my brother now, I try to remember the card games and the hockey games and the shared music. The ditty we wrote decrying the Boston Bruins, which I can still recite by heart. I don’t like dwelling on who he has become, on how his own children have suffered. Having been an eyewitness to what he went through, I can summon deep compassion for him, even if I cannot speak to him anymore.

***

I cried all day the day of my book release party, consumed with anxiety. I knew I would be stepping into a packed room and, as is always the case when I take the stage, while I was grateful for this support it also brought an onslaught of feelings, my long dead father’s voice in my head chiding me that I did not deserve such love. 

I had not expected that Jason would prepare an actual speech, a rousing, loving tribute to our friendship. I had no idea he had thought so deeply about me. And when he called me to the podium, he held me in a long, tight embrace to calm me. 

It was the last time we saw each other.

Eight weeks later, when Mig pointed out that Jason and I were twins, that weighted word—twin— began to open my eyes to the mystery I’d been not seeing for so long. I started to understand I had been grieving the loss of my brother, of our childhood closeness, for more than forty years. We could not ford the river of history between us, not so long as he stood planted on the bank of insisting our father was a hero to be emulated and I, on the other bank, knowing he most certainly was not. 

***

Throughout my adult life, I have had many Boy Friends, two words, capitalized, to differentiate from boyfriends and mere friends who are male. These Boy Friends have always, to my mind, straddled a line that confused me. Invariably my confusion would translate to some level of romantic attraction. Never would thewe feelings be mutual. Each in turn eventually left, pulled away by some true romance, no chance of our friendship continuing on such a deep level. Such was the case with Jason, who started “casually” dropping another woman’s name into our daily conversations, before disappearing from my life for a good stretch as he fell in love with her.

And so, at last, in having our twinship pointed out, I finally found an explanation for all those Boy Friends, who were never going to be boyfriends but who were definitely more than boy friends. I had been searching for my brother in these men, not a partner. I had, all along, been trying to heal the ragged wound of sibling amputation. 

***

I have revisited the night of the book release party many times in my mind. Always I hear J’s voice. In particular I recall him saying that anytime someone asked him how we met, he never could remember, that it just seemed like we’d known each other forever. I felt the same.

I miss Jason so much. I miss him like I miss my brother. My kindreds. My twins. 

Both beyond my reach now and still forever a part of me.

NOTES:

If you are struggling with suicidal ideation, I beg you, please ask for help. 988 is the Mental Health Hotline. You can also email me for resources. 

Thanks to all who subscribed and bought merch last week to help replace the broken chapel window. If you’re willing and able to subscribe for $5 per month/$50 per year, I hope you’ll consider it. If not, it still helps if you’ll share this with someone you think will dig it. There’s also a tip jar on Venmo: @spike-gillespie. 

When I started this substack I named it whimsically. I’m thinking (not too hard) about renaming it. Maybe Bloody Monday in honor of my very first weekly column. Or how about Articulate Freak? Or maybe just keep it as is. I don’t often seek out opinions, but if you have one on this topic, let’s hear it please. 

The next six-week writing workshop for women starts the first Tuesday in October at the ranch. I have 2-3 spaces left. Message if you want details. 

Thanks for reading, y’all!