Thirty Two Faces - 1. Smitten

The airport is as sparse as the rest of Wyoming, furnished with only a few chairs and colorful vending machines. Even the yellowish floor looks like the parched arid land outside. No pictures hanging on the white walls, only a red fire extinguisher and a sign that screams for emergency only. Simple and familiar, just the way I like it.

The only distracting feature is the huge flashy banners above.

Come see us at the Wyoming Stampede 2013 Rodeo!

The logo of two horses necking each other looks more like two arms wrestling. Trying not to look at it is like avoiding looking at an elephant inside a room. I can almost hear my brother saying: It’s an advertisement, Babe! That’s what it’s supposed to do!

Ads should be illegal because they are so distracting. Some even cause accidents on the road.

The terminal’s not crowded, I keep telling myself; the entire place is just small, only the size of a small K-Mart. I shift uncomfortably when the people around stand a little too close. Harsh shadows contort their rubbery faces. The creases on their forehead and cheek folds become more prominent under the bare fluorescent lights, which make it easier to read their faces; the etched lines make them look like drawn cartoons, just like the emoticons I used to have it on my phone.

They are waiting for someone, just like we are, but I wonder if they are feeling bored or excited. Such emotions are harder to track because I need to look at several things at once:

Wide distance between the brows, angled up slightly – check.

Creased eye corners – check.

Degree of cheek-eye flexing – check.

Lips corner slightly up… no wait, down… damn it, he changes the expression again. Make up your mind!

The lazy way is to simply look at their lips. Corners up, happy. Corners down, it means sad. If lips are pursed, they are angry. No need to hunt all over their faces to look for clues and end up getting crossed eye. All the wonderful shortcuts my brother has taught me.

And he should be arriving anytime soon.

Samuel emerges into the small arrival area.

We spot him immediately -- head standing above everyone, dirty-blond hair tousled, ripped arms swaying, and his long thick legs striding like a cowboy.

Mom stands to my left in her loose pastel dress, beaded bangles dangling as she waves. Dad is over my shoulders standing straight as a pencil, polo tee buttoned up to his neck, glasses hanging low on his nose. We stand among a crowd of strangers rowdily waiting at the arrival area, boisterous country music playing in the background.

Focus.

I crane my neck and squint at his approaching figure. Seven months, three days, eleven hours, two minutes and fifty four seconds since I last saw him during Christmas. It was the only time I’d seen him for the past two years since he left home for college. Even then, we hardly talked because everyone was dying to catch up with him. But this time, he is staying for the entire summer.

He approaches.

I stare.

Sleeves rolled up to the bulging forearms, his red tartan shirt opens wide at the neck and buttoned down as usual, exposing tanned skin and trailing hairs. Soft cotton drapes over the contours of taut chest and broad shoulders.

I swallow.

Eyes linger on his face instead. I don’t need to see every part of his face to know what he is feeling. Just one or two clues will suffice to piece in with other cues; his emotional patterns are more familiar to me than my routine jogging routes.

Heads turn as he walks, but he takes no notice. His face is gruff with stubble, eyes deep and blue, scanning ahead.

He is eager to meet us.

Our gaze meets, and the chiseled jaws melt into a smile, white and wide. Then his hand is thrown high up in the air, big waves and big smiles for us. I am elated.

He is excited to see me.

He stops before me and drops his frayed duffel bag, both arms extending and booms.

“BABE!”

That voice, the tone and his gaze.

I cannot pull my eyes away when he calls me.

Only moments ago, I stared at his face to understand what he was feeling. Every arch, every crinkle, every twitch unveiled his world.

Now I stare because I need to understand why I can’t stop staring.

My head hurts but I smile. Heart aches and leaps, body trembles with fear and anticipation.

I’ve never felt this way before. Am I freaking out?

Babe.

The same word, but I think its Mom or Dad calling me. I can’t even tell right now.

“Babe?”

He calls again.

Same voice I heard from my crib where he echoes Mom.

Babe, Babe, Babe, Babe…

Same timbre but deepened over the years like a cup of hot chocolate, rich to the tongue, full bodied to the throat, warming the gut and sweetening the heart.

Why am I feeling dizzy?

I used to freeze when I heard Babe! It meant I’d done something bad.

Babe! It’s this way.

Babe! The car!

Babe! Don’t climb that tree!

“Oh, Babe,” He pulls me in for a hug. Not Dad, not Mom, but me.

It’s me that he hugs first.

I thought I’ve heard obey. Obey. Oh Babe. Sounds close enough to me. Just like when he slaps his forehead and goes,

Oh Babe, why did you ruin my comics? Or. Oh Babe, stop hiding inside the blankets.

My world spins until I feel his arms tighten around me. And crazy things start to happen.

First my knees go weak.

Then my heart pounds like a drum.

Did I miss breakfast?

He exudes a heavy musk that is salt and sweet, pungent but inebriating. I can’t stop inhaling him. I would melt if he squeezes any harder.

Shyness strikes suddenly. My body is torn between pulling away and leaning in.

“I missed you….” His voice again.

Same heavy arms on my back, same face buried in my neck whispering. Still the same brother I knew. What has changed?

He inhales me back.

Something is wrong. I am drunk. But I haven’t touched any eggnog since Christmas.

One moment, I become hyper-aware of how his skin feels against mine. Bristling hairs, chin and jaw, warm and rough everywhere. Skin to skin as if the thin cotton no longer separates us. Then I melt and fuse, forgetting where my body ends, and where his body begins.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…

My heart pounds louder and faster.

What is going on?

Mom and Dad are staring.

I push him away, stumbling back and knocking the strangers behind me.

The creaking carts, the wailing public announcements, rattling footsteps and the whispers – every noise amplified like two loudhailers pressed against my ears,

Fingers pointing at me, hushed tone everywhere. I turn left and right.

Mom apologizes.

More whispers and pointing.

I squat down and slap my hands over the ears.

Don’t look at me…

I push an arm away.

“Babe, it’s just me.”

I peek through my fingers.

“Your best bud.”

His eyes are wounded. I’ve freaked out as if he was an encroaching stranger.

“Don’t be so rough. You’ll scare him.” Mom sweeps my hair back with her hands and rubs my back.

But that wasn’t it. I was thoroughly intimidated, and I don’t understand why. This is Samuel, not some big bully in school or even a stranger. Staying near him and staying away feel equally unbearable; it’s like his smell and touch become an allergy and addiction at the same time. My heart can’t stop pounding.

“I’m sorry.” My eyes are unable to meet his gaze. I owe him an apology. He mustn’t think we’re no longer friends.

He returns my awkward hug like I am a timid doe.

“Are you all right?”

I nod slowly and offer: “Let me take your bag for you.”

Inside the car, our conversation is mainly comprised of one-liner or even no-liner replies to his barrage of questions.

How’s school?

Shoulders shrug.

Met any girls?

Head shakes

Made any friends?

Shake again.

Am I still driving Mom crazy?

Nod vigorously. He chuckles.

Mom and Dad grill him with their own inquisition. He skilfully evades.

How’s Beth?

She’s in Europe.

You are moving in with her next year?

It depends. How’s Mom feeling?

I smile at his finesse in changing the subject. None of us wants to be pried. He catches my look and returns it with a knowing smile. Our little secret, his eyes wink.

We are spared from more awkward conversations when the familiar tree-lined driveway appears. I hop out of the car to wrestle his duffel bag from the trunk, only to wrestle it from him later because I insist on carrying it for him.

We live in the quiet suburbs of Hot Springs on a hilly estate. Our family moved here from Oregon five years ago when Dad landed a contract as a consulting psychologist.

Mom prefers it here because it is quieter for me and Dad has more time to come home. With hardly anyone on the streets, Hot Springs is as lethargic as the summer heat. There is plenty of prairie grass but few people in Wyoming.

Even the house is quieter, too. Mom and Dad don’t talk so loudly to each other anymore. Samuel says it’s because Dad spends more time with her than his secretary now. Or maybe we simply can’t hear them now because their rooms are two floors above. After Samuel left, the house became quiet, and the days are filled with long, vacant silences.

I like being left alone, anyway.

Our parents threw us back into public schooling after we moved here. They said I needed friends. Since Samuel is three years older than me, I had to start mixing with the other kids or I’d be all alone after he left for college. After this summer, I will be a senior in Rock Springs High, but I still didn’t have any friends.

Talking at school is a tiring affair. I have to explain myself many times, and other people still don’t get me. Not even Mom and Dad. Explain too much, they get impatient. Too little, they give me a blank look. The confusion is mutual; no one bothers to explain things properly. Daily conversations in school are coded, veiled with innuendos and blanks that everyone but me knows how to fill in.

Kids in my class talk very fast and expect you to respond just as quickly. Sometimes, they even finish each other’s sentences. Talking is like playing tennis with words. I prefer Facebook or text messages. They are less stressful. Writing lets you take your own sweet time to think and edit. Writing isn’t fun, but it’s still better than talking.

Mom says if I don’t talk to anyone, I will explode someday.

Some days I feel like that.

It’s not like I have a choice. There’s no one else to talk to nowadays. That’s why I still write in my journal. It’s like having a friend but without the frustrations of second guessing, third guessing and still getting it wrong and confused.

Because our house is built on a slope, Samuel’s room and mine in the basement overlook the descending hilly plains. Tall trees fill the vista, branches nodding away under the summer heat. We share a bathroom and a balcony that leads down to the small pool and sundeck behind the house. His old bathroom was converted into a darkroom for developing film.

In the past, when Samuel still lived at home, I often hovered outside his room and watched him. He didn’t mind me around, except when he brought girls home. I didn’t like to be disturbed, as well, especially when guests and neighbors visited.

Everyone needs space and company at the same time. It’s an irony. When he feels like being alone, I can just watch him quietly. I am good at staying invisible. Occasionally, he looks up and smiles or invites me into his room.

Sometimes, we’re up to mischief together. Mom and Dad can’t hear our ruckus when he chases me around our rooms. They sleep two floors above us. We can’t hear them talking loudly to each other when they close their bedroom door, either. The house is perfect for us. No one can hear each other.

His room is an exact mirror of mine: White walls, white ceiling, metallic wardrobes and varnished wooden floors. Over time, after he entered high school, things started to populate his room while mine remained as chaste as the first day we moved in.

His walls were lined with the slices of life in Wyoming, portraits of wrinkled faces, close-ups of my face, snapshots of a manicured hand, a deflated balloon, a lonesome meadowlark resting on a withered branch. He loves taking pictures with his camera. On the other wall, I remembered posters of zombie flicks, football stars, cars with and without the scantily clad models.

All these were gone when he left home. Nothing left but the same white walls, except for the dusty football trophies he left behind. Silence across the vacant room. Sometimes, I’ll still go over and sit at my usual corner against the wall. Especially at night when I can’t sleep, I stare out from his balcony to look at the stars. It is the same view as my room, but somehow it feels different.

For most of the time, Dad shuts himself in his study, two floors above. We can hear him typing away at his keyboard behind a closed door. Dusty old carpets face his heavy oaken door. Sometimes I like to stand outside to listen to his rhythmic taps while the antique clock in the corridor ticks on the wall.

If Mom isn’t doing housework, she’s in the adjacent bedroom, watching soap operas with boxes of tissues and a bowl of munchies. And I hear the TV in the background, the crunching chips, her tiny sobs and chuckles at the manufactured emotions of those fictional characters.

They never notice my presence. If I hear one small movement behind their doors, I run back to my room. My parents are not as observant as my brother.

“Do you want me to hang up your clothes?” I ask him when we’re in his room.

“No need, I’ll do it later.”

He looks like he could use a nap; somehow I don’t feel I am able to linger and watch him. Old implicit agreements are not always automatically renewed, especially after a two-year separation. I leave his room as soon as I put down his duffel bag.

Closing the door and collapsing to my bed, I am glad to be alone again. After two years of coming to terms with his absence, having him back feels strange.

We used to be each other’s only friend. But he made many other friends in high school. I pretty much became wallpaper by the time he was football-team captain. From inseparable to a weekly slot of ‘quality time’, I had to wait in line like everyone else.

Has he become a familiar stranger?

Even the weekly Skype sessions couldn’t keep us close. When I think of his face now, I can only recall pixels on a screen. His voice rang a mechanical echo over the speakers; nothing much was said but pallid pleasantries. You know him, yet you feel you know him less every day.

Is that why I feel shy now? All our old understandings have atrophied, and now I am unsure how to act around him?

Am I still his best friend? That is the question in my head.

The only way to find out is to ask him directly. But first, we need to break the ice.

My timorous attempts are stunted by a barrage of phone calls he received. Lurking at his doorway, I can either hear him talking or the phone ringing. Old friends, old flames, classmates, schoolmates, teammates, mates he doesn’t even remember call as soon as his Facebook status changes.

Heard you’re back! Missed me?

There’s a cool party at Remy’s. Wanna come?

Dude! Free tonight?

Back into the game again, I heard?

But it isn’t the constant phone interruptions that daunt me. It is his brisk, one word brushoff to the people who call.

Nah.

Blunt like a sledgehammer to crush any misplaced zeal to renew his friendship. He can’t be bothered. It leaves me wondering if I would survive the snub if he pulls the same attitude with me, even if he smooths it with gentler words because I’m his brother. I don’t blame him. After all he can only accept one invitation at a time. But I am not keen to know my place in his grand list of priorities.

If I’m lucky, from our shared balcony, I’ll catch a glimpse of his foot between the curtains after my exercise routine in the late morning. He’ll be sleeping in his bed, nursing a hangover, with or without a guest. Dad was foolish enough to disturb his sleep once, only to be greeted by a curt, grouchy, what is it?!

I was terrified.

Two days later, I work up my courage when Mom asks Samuel to pick up his old RX8 from the automobile repair shop. Does he know where it is? I offer to take him there; it is one of the few places that I am familiar with.

We walk there, like the old days in Portland. Though we are not holding hands, our chat is warm enough to melt away some of the frost. One thing leads to another; we take the more scenic route we used to travel – along the old railway tracks leading towards the Rocky Mountains standing beyond the endless stretch of maple trees before the river.

“Do you remember our old haunt?” I asked him.

He shrugs, “Which one?”

“In the clearing by the river.”

Nah. There are so many of them.

I am stung.

We enter an old country café that is totally dark and empty except for the waiter dozing off at the counter; the place smells of turpentine and old leather. Sam used to bring his dates here for dinner. The velvet seats were once vibrant with amorous youths. It was one the few affordable restaurants without the tacky old-west décor.

We wake the waiter and sit outside, order a pizza and eat alfresco by the dense woods behind the small rustic building. A solitary meadowlark, sitting on the tree across, croons a tune that is soon drowned by the chorus of cicadas.

He takes out his phone and takes a picture. I rarely see the long lens camera around his neck any more.

“What do you do these days?” he asks.

“The usual.”

Running, swimming, writing in my journal and learning to read faces – he is familiar with my routines.

“Whose face do you analyze now?”

I smile at the answer I am about to give. The same knowing smile on his face,

“Let me guess. Still mine.”

He reads my mind. But how, he asks, since he is not around anymore.

With my phone, I show him the recordings of our weekly Skype sessions. Every video frame comes with a tag next to his face - excited, happy, angry, frustrated, etc - like an annotated map of his inner world. These little clips are no more than a few minutes long; he is busy after all, but the time to tag them isn’t trivial.

He stares for a long time. Why? Why not Mom or Dad or even schoolteachers? Isn’t it easier to practice with someone who’s around?

“You’re the only one who bothers to explain everything.”

A smile grows on his face. “Don’t you get sick of me?”

He is teasing. I offer a sheepish look. He understands and says nothing; we smile.

I ask him how was college. The same old drill. Play football. Hang out with friends. Date Beth. Take pictures. How was last summer? It was horrible. Low pay, long hours, trapped in a cubicle as a lowly intern, learning the basic survival skills of a corporate drone: photocopying, making coffee and endless data entry. All thanks to Dad.

Nothing changes in my routine? I tell him I took up Parkour, a free-running sport played by street kids. The only rule is to get from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way. If there’s a gap between two buildings, you don’t take the stairs, you just jump over. If you need to backtrack, you don’t turn around, just do a back flip. I play the YouTube videos.

He is impressed.

And I get more eager to please. Want a live demonstration?

I climb up the tree and come down in seconds, turning back to him for more approving glances.

Want to see more?

Nah.

Another time perhaps, he’s meeting a friend later. It dawns on me that my clumsy ploys to get his attention are because I missed the old Samuel badly: the brother who would have held my hands without giving a second thought. I was too hasty to conclude that I came to terms with his absence.

A few days later, I am in luck. He decides to take a break from his social obligations that morning. I come across him sitting inside the garage and going through the old stuff he left behind, exhuming old relics we had buried away in tattered cardboard boxes.

He picks up the headset and blows away the dust. I squat down next to him.

“People used to stare at us.”

I remembered the first time he put this on my head when we walked into Dad’s office.

He smirks and examines the time piece,

“Who cares a fuck about what they think?”

“You used to say that all the time.” I said.

“I did?”

I pick out a dusty old camera and ask him if he remembers.

That’s so gay. A group of teenage girls say to us, pointing their manicured fingers at our holding hands. What did he say?

Who cares a fuck about what they think?

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “I remembered those bitches all right – told them to grow some tits, too.”

Our mirth resounds in the garage.

Then he pulls out a soiled gym shirt. “Eww… I remember this one.”

It was my first week of high school; some jerks dumped shit on my clothes while I was showering after gym class. He took off his jeans and gave them to me. Laughing faces appeared everywhere. He walked down the school halls in his undershorts, with me tugged behind.

Eyes, sniggers, fingers pointing, names whispered around.

What a freak.

That’s the retarded brother.

He’ll just point his middle finger at them and say to me.

Who cares a fuck about what they think?

“Why the hell do you still keep it?” He pinches his nose and picks it up with two fingers.

“Mom washed it.”

But what I wanted to say was that I keep it to remember what he did for me.

Then I pull out an old baby pillow. I thought he wouldn’t remember this one – it was ancient – but he does.

When I was six, everything in the world was huge and frightening. Menacing plastic toys dangling above me, the creepy looking figurines, the rattling traffic – almost everything got on my nerves. I’d hide under layers of blankets and mountains of pillows.

This was one of them. I press the small blue pillow against my face. And he says, “Everyone was trying to get you out, but you always crawled back in.”

“But you didn’t.” Can I come in and play? I still remember how he’d lift one corner and peek in.

“You came inside my blankets, instead.”

“We had fun, didn’t we?”

I showed him my world, and he changed it. My blankets became a fortress – with clothes pins, boxes and stacks of pillows, creating a tent big enough for both of us. When we’re not out roaming the streets, we’d hide inside with flashlights, comics and snacks to defend ourselves against the world – be it the zombie apocalypse, the alien invasion or simply Mom dragging us out for bed. I didn’t understand his world of imagination, but his excitement was infectious.

“Remember what you said when Mom and Dad yell that it was bedtime?”

He’d flash that familiar grin of camaraderie.

“Let me guess-”

Who cares a fuck about what they think?

The frost melts away with his warm smile, and he knocks his forehead gently against mine.

When otters sleep, floating in the river, they cling to each other so that they won’t drift apart when they wake. We must have forgotten to hold our hands in those sleeping years. Within those old cardboard boxes, each time capsule broken open with fondness and nostalgia, leaving a clue for us to find our way back to each other.

That smile, that gentle knock, feels like the old brother that I had almost forgotten. That night, I sleep with a smile on my face, dreaming that he is holding my hands.

The next morning, after returning from my morning run, I head for the shower but find that the bathroom is occupied.

The sound of running water is briefly interrupted by my brother’s voice.

“Babe, can you grab a towel for me?” He shouts from behind the bathroom door.

And so I pull out a towel, freshly pressed and scented with the minty laundry lotion. Should I hang it on the door knob outside? Just come in.

Five seconds. The image of his wet naked body burns into my head like a hot iron.

“Thanks, Babe.”

I close my eyes, turn my head; I see his dangling dick everywhere. I have to dash out immediately.

How did this happen?

This is not supposed to happen.

He is my brother. It is against the norm, and it is a serious intrusion of boundaries. The punishment for breaking this rule is serious.

I slump into my bed, putting a pillow over my head, trying to make sense of everything.

“Babe?”

From that moment, whenever he calls me that name, I no longer picture myself as the piglet that is too adorable to become bacon.

Babe?

I imagine him thinking of me as a babe, the ones he brings home to fuck. Legs wide open, hands everywhere, eyes willing and tongue-hungry babes that get him horny.

It strikes me with growing unease that what happened at the airport was much more insidious than shyness. He comes into my room, a towel hanging low on his waist, water dripping over his wet hair and body. I take a deep breath to fill up my tight chest. He asks if I’m feeling okay.

Silence.

Then all I can muster up is, “I need to shower now.”

He pats my shoulder and says, “All yours. I’m done.”

How could I not recognize this feeling after all this time?

Can you wake up and find yourself totally smitten by someone you have known for your whole life? Desire can’t spring on you suddenly; it’s not like it can hide under the bed, waiting to ambush you when you’re not on guard.

I realize the feeling isn’t new. It crept day by day, growing slowly with every passing minute of his absence, gradually heating up like a boiling frog that doesn’t know it’s being cooked.

Head over heels.

That’s how I feel right now. My world upside down, walking with my hands, legs pointing high up in the air like the girls he fucked.

I’m fucked, royally fucked.

I’m totally smitten by my brother.