The quiet in the flat, with which he had become used to, rarely failed him. It gave him much needed room in his head and body. Yet the canary’s song from the garden endeared him, reassuring him in some odd way, that his day would go okay. His husband, Billie was in the living room working from home with multiple projects to juggle; and Peter had just one, his clients. It was 11:00am and he counted in his head who was coming, six in all, back-to-back from 1-7. Like the saying goes, he had one too many for his liking.
He picked up his phone from the arm of the Mission chair–he heard its ping, scanned the text. Hey, Peter, when you have a minute can you call me? Want to talk about something. Thanks. Peter sighed. It was his older brother who usually took more than he gave. Never quite sure what his older brother wanted, he still would give him the benefit of the doubt, as his mother would say.
He zipped up his backpack, chose his green-and-black shoes and slipped his feet into them. “I will call Bud on my walk to the gym. Ready Peter,” he said to himself and hurled his pack onto his shoulders, walked down the long hallway and waved to Billie as he closed the door.
Walking along Scott Street he smoked a cigarette, his usual walking companion, and trotted across Geary Street. He pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and pressed Bud and presto it knew who to call. In one ring Bud picked up, “Oh, Hi Peter, how are you?”
“I’m okay,” he lied, a lie of omission. Peter was kind of low in mood.
“Oh, good. I just wanted to ask you something. It’s not about you.”
Smoke signals went up encircling Peter’s brain. Those were the words from Bud, the giveaway, that meant in the end it would be. “Sure well, Bud.” He murmered.
“You see, I am trying to understand myself.”
“Uh, Huh.”
“I know I can get hyper and wound up, so I know that; but does it really bother you?” Peter kept walking counting his steps. “Cause on Thanksgiving, Peter, when I got to your house, I was so excited, and Billie gave me a hug. After five minutes of me you said. ‘Bud, you seem hyped up.’ I felt you were scolding me like a little boy. Just scolded.”
(Oh no, this is going to get psychological.) Peter puffed his cigarette and stopped near the mailbox. It was Tuesday and Peter knew that Bud had just come from therapy. “Bud, I didn’t think I was scolding you.” Peter turned for a moment and faced the sun, “I just needed a little quiet; sometimes I get full in my head. That’s just the way I am, some days.” The sun caressed his face and settled him.
“Well, couldn’t you have just said it differently, Peter?”
“I tried, Bud, later in the car. When we switched and I drove and asked if we could have a couple minutes of quiet. Or when I put on the Counter tenor, thought we could all enjoy his voice.”
“Well, you see you did it again, scolding me. In the car, Billie ate a gummy. Does that help him feel less hyper-anxious?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him do it.” Already, Peter was feeling a bit put upon, so he waved to the UPS driver, “Maybe I should hop in the truck and get away.”
Bud went on with himself, “Peter, I had so many expectations of the day, you see, and when you also said ‘you didn’t sleep great,’ I figured, well there goes the fun.”
Peter imagined his brother dressed in his aqua t-shirt, with his short cropped grey hair, his eyes fixed, the phone in one hand and his finger on his chin; “I didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun, and to be honest, I was feeling upset about getting older. My spirit was a bit dim. Thought I did a good job with my angst and all, to put on a good enough show. My birthday being this month got me down.” Peter quickened his pace before the traffic light turned against him.
“Well, like I said. I felt scolded. So, I wasn’t going to obey.”
Peter guessed Bud really didn’t hear him, so now his words leaped forward, “Okay Bud, it isn’t just you. I get that way when anyone is talking a lot and gets wound up. Even with our sister, Therese, and you know.”
“Know what?”
“Never mind, she and I sometimes get going on the phone.” He stopped right there, didn’t want to hurt his sister. Even if she was not on the phone listening in, she has a kind of telepathy that travels beyond borders.
“Well. Bud said, “You always say, that’s how I am built. Well, I am built this way, so!”
(Right, it’s not about me). Peter stopped in the middle of the block. “Someone yell fire!” he thought. Then like a blown fuse rising from the pit of his belly, he ignited, “Well Bud, you called me to ask me about it and I just told you.”
“So now you are going to get impatient with me, Peter.”
Peter stood still, “I think we should end here. I will think on it, Bud.” He pressed, End call. As he started walking, his head was spiraling with their dialogue. He paused, leaned on one foot, back against a city Sycamore and asked the raven pecking some scraps from the dirt around the tree, “What should I do, oh Black bird?” Still restless, he held his phone and texted Bud. Didn’t mean to be curt, but sometimes we spark. You were brave to call. I will think about it.
“Now, you did your part.” Peter told himself. Yet that didn’t ease his soul.
He knew Bud’s plight. From his early teens onward, Bud yelled out his rage. He reminisced. He has a big wound: unmet needs, too many empathetic failures, hard to tolerate intimacy for fear of loss. Reciprocity does not come easily. Peter’s psychologist mind understood it well; all of him did. “Oh. I should have responded like a therapist. It was not my intention to hurt you or make you feel small. I am sorry it hurt.” But I am not his therapist. Well, yes, I am a therapist. But I am not his therapist, a brother. He was caught in his own tennis match with multiple balls bouncing and rackets swinging.
He kept walking and thinking. I have this problem with three narcissists, Albert, Jack and Bud—the trio. for whom I am never really enough—fall short of expectations.
Chattering, unable to hush himself, his mind’s churning tormented him. One day, Bud would tell me his bottom-line truth. If Peter wasn’t born, the family would have been saved. You severed the tie. “Mom almost died when you were born. It’s you,” he heard Bud say.
Then he stopped. The danger warning flashed. He looked at the trees, “Basta, Peter.” He put his hand on his chest. Then asked God, “Why am I the one, my brother chose to heal his wounds? I don’t want the job, God. I just don’t.”
“Too late.” God replied. And then whispered kindly, “But I’ll help stop this train from circling ‘round your mind. Trust me and swallow a half a clozapine. Did you put one in your pocket?”
So, he did swallow.
Andrew Pelfini has been writing in multiple genres for many years. He seeks mentorship for his writing pursuits. Andrew published an anthology of works from the Intergenerational Writing Group in San Francisco, of which he has been a member for over twenty-five years. He is a psychotherapist by trade.
