I Had a Brother Once Read online

  I Had a Brother Once is a work of nonfiction. Some names and identifying details have been changed.

  Copyright © 2021 by Giants of Science, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by One World, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  One World and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mansbach, Adam, author.

  Title: I had a brother once : a poem, a memoir / Adam Mansbach.

  Description: New York : One World, [2021]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020031115 (print) | LCCN 2020031116 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593134795 (hardcover ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593134801 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Grief—Poetry. | LCGFT: Poetry.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A57 I3 2021 (print) | LCC PS3613.A57 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020031115

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020031116

  Ebook ISBN 9780593134801

  oneworldlit.com

  Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook

  Title page and interlude image: iStock/traffic_analyzer

  Cover design: Ella Laytham

  Cover art: © José Parlá

  ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  I Had a Brother Once

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  first of all i never

  usually stayed out past

  midnight or even ten,

  but i was feeling

  myself that night.

  something was ending

  & it was time to celebrate.

  my friend emery had

  reserved the back room

  of a center city lounge

  so we could spin some

  records for the first &

  final time before i

  packed up the rented

  carriage house &

  u-hauled out of town.

  one year in philly had

  sprawled into two &

  i’d been digging weekly

  that whole time

  at this spot called beautiful

  world & another called

  milkcrate, plus mark’s

  spot, which didn’t have

  a name, & then there was

  another out past bryn mawr

  that i found by accident,

  a place the local deejays

  had long written off

  as trash, except i happened

  to fall through just as

  a new collection came up

  from the basement, had not

  even been filed yet, all

  holy grail joints—the del

  jones record, a mint

  original headless heroes

  of the apocalypse lp,

  the bo diddley with the

  break, the rhetta hughes,

  the johnny houston, some

  forty pieces & nothing

  stickered past eight bucks.

  it’s bound to happen if

  you dig long & doggedly

  enough, but only about

  once per decade. my last two

  had been waterville maine

  in ninety-six & the jamaican

  lady i met outside academy

  records in manhattan double

  parked on twelfth street,

  truck sagging with roots

  reggae. there were two guys

  working that day, a bald

  headed whiteboy & a dread,

  & the wrong one jogged out.

  he took a quick flip through

  & passed. i slid up & i asked

  if i could look, ended up

  jumping in the shotgun seat

  & driving back up to the bronx

  to see what she had left at home.

  that was two thousand two

  or possibly oh-three

  & now it was may twenty-eight

  two thousand eleven. i’d

  amassed two crates, one for

  each year of my expiring

  university appointment, &

  barely listened to a lot of it

  myself; all i had at the house

  was a portable turntable emery

  had let me hold, & all my

  three year old wanted to hear

  was the dixie cups crooning

  about their trip to the chapel

  of love, maybe because her

  mother & i were not

  married ourselves.

  i had not spun out

  since leaving california, &

  music always sounds different

  when you are rocking for

  a room, studying the way

  each song hits. deejaying

  is the art of making people

  hear what you do. each

  record transforms the crowd

  & each crowd the record.

  i invited my grad students

  & most of them came. it

  was a small mfa program,

  tightknit, with little of the

  pettiness or gamesmanship

  i recalled from my own.

  after workshop we often

  went for drinks, a motorcade

  of hatchbacks & tin cans

  cruising four blocks to the

  tavern near campus because

  walking even that far was

  considered foolhardy in

  camden at night. one bar

  for an entire university was

  one too few, meant i risked

  seeing my undergrads

  drunk, but it was no worse

  than running into them while

  i was lifting weights at the

  school gym, & for the most

  part we were all adept at

  not getting in each other’s

  way, like housemates sharing

  a kitchen.

  somebody took a flick

  of me behind the wheels

  that night, probably leslie.

  my left hand is pressed

  to the wax, fingertips

  backcuing the funky

  little drumfill at the top

  of hit or miss, right hand

  a jutting peace sign,

  elbow cocked, arms tan,

  emery grinning beside me.

  that was one of the last

  records i played, which

  means it was about twelve

  thirty & might even be after

  the first call from my father,

  the one i ignored, straight

  cognitive dissonance, there

  was no earthly reason

  he would call that late &

  i was in the middle of

  my set, no one was sick

  or frail, my last living

  grandparent was already

  dead. i told myself
r />   he must have dialed by

  mistake in his car, home

  bound from the newspaper

  after writing the first headline

  the greater boston area would

  see tomorrow when they freed

  the globe from its plastic

  sheath, tipped their coffee

  mugs mouthward, destroyed

  the symmetry of their donuts.

  but five minutes later

  he called again & this time i

  picked up, cupping a palm

  over my open ear to blunt

  the funk booming behind.

  i still didn’t think anything

  was wrong. in fact, i remember

  or think i remember being

  slightly annoyed, in the belief

  that this call was a frivolous

  intrusion, which makes

  so little sense that perhaps

  i knew better & was frightened

  enough to erect this cardboard

  buttress.

  my father said

  i’ve put this off as

  long as possible

  that’s not what he said.

  i mean me. i would live

  here in this preamble

  forever. rework it. fold in

  new ingredients. knead it

  till the gluten breaks. yammer

  on about records. tell some

  jokes. have i mentioned

  that on this night & for

  the six weeks beforehand

  a book i had written that

  did not yet technically exist,

  could not be held in hands till

  june, was somehow outselling

  every other book in the world?

  there was almost certainly

  a split second when i

  convinced myself my father

  was calling about that,

  jubilant with some new

  tidbit that had dropped into his

  newsroom off the a.p.

  wire, additional victims

  claimed by this viral sensation

  of mine. we could talk about

  the book. i could tell you

  a few stories about stories,

  flip a little wordplay, we could

  warm up with some improv

  games. it has been eight

  fucking years & i have written

  everything but this.

  my father said

  david has taken his own life

  & i answered as if i didn’t

  understand or hadn’t heard.

  my reply was what? & he

  repeated it. there is plenty

  to regret & perhaps this

  is insignificant but i wish

  i had not made him

  say it to me twice.

  the second time i was in

  motion, walking through the

  back room, the front room,

  out into the heatwave night.

  i wasn’t crying yet but i also

  couldn’t speak or think.

  my father’s sentence was

  unrecognizable, a cluster of

  words spinning in a void.

  the notion that it was all

  a mistake flashed through me

  & fell instantly to ash.

  no parent would say such

  a thing about his child

  to his child if there was any

  hope. & here begins a different

  kind of struggle, on this

  page, akin to keeping the

  steering wheel perfectly

  straight, a struggle not

  to crane out of this shot, not

  to add voiceover, not

  to do the one thing i am

  trained to, which is make

  things legible, impose

  structure & plot, motivation,

  a frame, a double helix of

  narrative to snake through

  the spine, to be the spine.

  here i am, here we are,

  not fifty feet from the news

  of my brother’s suicide &

  already i can feel a tug at

  the reins. i don’t know if

  naming these things can

  sap their power or if it

  constitutes a sacrifice

  at their altar, an invitation

  to the impulse i am trying

  to disperse. what are

  the rules of this endeavor,

  am i supposed to unfold

  the moments of this night

  like an origami crane,

  crease by crease, is that

  the penance or the healing,

  the ritual, a march toward

  or away from what? penance

  for what? if you are making

  up the ritual as you go,

  is it a ritual? if the loss is

  a hole that cannot be filled,

  is the remainder of your

  life the ritual? are rituals

  supposed to fill the hole or

  deepen it until you can

  crawl out the other side,

  & who am i that i have

  to ask? my mother’s mother’s

  father’s parents were the

  children of famed rabbis,

  they came here & founded

  a jewish community

  in burlington vermont by

  paying other jews to keep

  the sabbath, making them whole

  & a minyan by handing out

  the wages they would have

  lost in observing the holy day,

  & here i am not even a hundred

  & fifty years later, acting as if

  the books my people carried

  & died for are unknown to me.

  here i am freighted by nothing,

  reinventing the wheel, reinventing

  the rack. daring to believe

  that perhaps you only realize

  a ritual was one after

  you complete it, inscribe the

  final character. a tear falls

  on the page, becomes

  the final period or some

  stupid maudlin shit like that.

  i don’t know what more

  my father said right then. i

  hung up, walked back inside

  somehow, told emery i had

  to go, told him my brother

  was dead, felt something

  of the horror come into focus

  when i read it on his face.

  he asked me what i needed,

  offered to drive me home, but

  i said no, just, i don’t know,

  take my shit when you leave,

  & i walked out through the

  front door again & called

  my father back, but not right

  away, i think. first i stood

  talking to my brother.

  david, what did you do?

  david, what have you done?

  i haven’t gotten past that, have

  received no answer, have not

  felt him lingering, not even

  then, not like when my grandfather

  died & the thunderstorm came or

  my grandmother died &

  a month of nightmares

  about her staggeri
ng vacant

  & drooling through the halls of

  her summer house followed.

  no, my brother had chosen

  to go & was gone, utterly

  gone, was not nearby, was not

  available in any way i could discern,

  & i was crying too hard to see now,

  walking through badly blurred

  streets toward my car. i called

  my father back. he was with

  my mother, of course, they

  were at david’s apartment

  with his wife. widow.

  david had been missing

  all day & they had feared that

  he would not come back,

  but only just now had his body

  been discovered, in his car,

  he was a scientist, had done it

  by mixing two chemicals

  into a gas that killed him

  painlessly, with a single

  breath. he’d left a note

  on his windshield warning

  of the toxic fumes inside so

  no one else would die, but

  i did not learn that until later.

  what i learned then was that

  there was, had been, a secret

  & that secret was death, the

  want of death. his wife had

  kept it for him, fasted, prayed,

  she was catholic, from a catholic

  country, she placed her faith

  in self-denial & fervent whispered

  words, believed they held

  the power to restore him

  to himself, or maybe she just

  didn’t know what else to do.

  david forbade her to tell

  anyone that he cried in dark rooms,

  held his head between his hands,

  his hands between his knees,

  did not want children, refused

  to put another person through

  that, that being childhood,

  that being life. i could not

  even conceive of a word like

  forbade describing david.

  he was too gentle, his hands

  were large & powerful but

  looked most natural holding

  puny things, gripping a carrot

  & a peeler or splaying an

  eyelid & squeezing a dropper

  from above. but no one is

  gentle with the things they

  fear or the people who

  discover them unmade.

  she kept his secrets until

  she could not, then told

  my parents, who did not