Clair's Thoughts

Fucking Brian.

He is such a Goddamned hypocrite. He’s always saying that he doesn’t care about his family, that he has no family and that he would have been better off if Mom had gone through with the abortion that Daddy wanted her to have.

Fine, he may say that, but it sure as Hell isn’t what he thinks, the bastard.

He’s always been the smart one, the handsome one, the one with the damn scholarships and varsity letters and then the big job and the fancy clothes and money to burn.

I was always just Claire—steady, reliable, the one Mom and Daddy would tell to baby-sit or clean up the kitchen or change the beds, clean the bathroom, vacuum. The plain one, the one who wasn’t as smart, the one who always fell apart, the one who cried.

Brian never cried, not after he was seven or eight. I’ll bet he still never does. Asshole.

If he cried then he’d at least be human.

Fucking Brian.

He did whatever the Hell he wanted, he always has.

And the boyfriends.

Sure, he’s smart and he’s good looking and he makes piles of money, but he’s still my fag baby brother who doesn’t do shit to help out with anything.

All he ever thought about was himself. All he ever worried about was himself and where his next designer suit or stash was coming from. It’s always about Brian.

No wonder Daddy gave up on him.

I think Daddy always suspected that he was a queer, especially when Debbie Novotny made such a big deal about Michael and they’d been best friends since they were kids. I mean, it’s not like it was hard to figure out.

Starting when Brian was about twelve I’d find things in his room—magazines and pictures and things like that. You know the kind. They weren’t the usual dirty pictures, they were all about men. Just men, never a Playboy or even a Hustler anywhere. Just men. And he never called girls. Oh, they called him, alright. He was cute, I guess even if he always was a rude fuck, but they all liked him.

Well, he did have a girlfriend once, in college. Linda or something like that—that tall blonde he spent time with. I thought that maybe she would bring him around, but that didn’t last.

Stupid Brian. He had a good thing going there, she was crazy about him, though God knows why.

The day after Daddy found out that he’s gay he came over to my house and sat in the kitchen and just asked me how long I’d known and why hadn’t I ever told him. I didn’t know what to say, you know? I finally said something about not wanting to hurt him and Mom, but he said that was a load of bullshit and he had a fucking right to know that his own son is a fairy.

Then he started on about how Brian was always such a cold shit, that he could have beaten him like a gong—you did Daddy, remember?—and it wouldn’t have made any difference to how he turned out. Then he started asking of I thought that it was his fault that Brian is queer, did he do something that made him like boys?

I started reading about it when I was in high school. I found out that he was probably born that way. I told Daddy that, but he didn’t believe me, just kept saying that he must have screwed up somehow.

I think that at some point he wanted Brian to love him, to have a father/son thing with him.

I know that sounds like bullshit, but I think he did, at least for a while, after he realized that Brian had turned whatever corner it was he went around and decided that as far as he was concerned he didn’t have a family. I guess that was when he was about fourteen or so, after Daddy broke his ribs for the last time. I think that was when Daddy started to realize that Brian was going to do everything that he had wanted to do himself—have the looks and the money and the respect and the fancy home and car and all the rest. That’s when Daddy started to think that having a son might be alright after all, but by then it was too late.

Brian had written him off. He had written us all of and after that we only saw him for an hour or two at a time every six months or so.

I think that Brian would have liked things to turn out differently, too.

I know he pretty much adopted the Novotny’s but that bitch was always ragging him about something or other.

Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him but he’s such a nasty shit that I stopped caring a long time ago and after what happened with Johnny I can’t even look at him anymore and I know Mom feels the same, but more so.

Fine, I know that he might not have actually done everything that John suggested, but he’s a prick and I wouldn’t put almost anything past him. When that cop came over with Debbie and that blond boy—whom I gather had some kind of affair with Brian, God! I thought that I’d never be able to sleep again.

Every time I tried to close my eyes I’d picture Brian and that boy doing disgusting—things to one another and I’d start to be sick. I understand that they’re back together after some kind of breakup and that he’s even paying the boy’s tuition and a lot of his living expenses.

I guess he takes it out in trade.

And not a penny for his own family.

Fucking Brian. We’re better off without him.

Bastard.

Return to Thoughts