Firefighter

In the Indiana summer of 1963, I’m almost ten and my brother Paul is eight. The babysitter Gloria watches TV in the living room as usual, and in the backyard the neighborhood boys find creative new ways to kill the giant spotted gray slugs that emerge on the back porch after each summer rain. Everybody knows that pouring salt on them makes them melt like the Wicked Witch after Dorothy tosses water on her; but what about the Witch’s Scarecrow tactic—fire? The bigger boys have matches, and there’s plenty of lawnmower gasoline.

The next thing we know my brother is rolling around on the ground, one denim pant leg on fire, screaming. I have wished many times I knew all the tricks I know now about treating burns, but back then we had only Gloria, a frightened thirteen year old who won’t call our parents because she doesn’t want to piss them off, and who thinks maybe butter will help. My brother lies on the couch in agony, with giant blisters three and four inches long rising on his leg. Eventually, my parents arrive home and take him to the hospital.

My brother was a frequent flyer in the ER. He had more energy than other kids. He could never sit still in school, could never do what he was told, mercilessly teased my younger sisters with taunts, hands wiggling in their faces, and more. He had a lot of trouble sleeping. He liked to play with knives and fire. My father said he “only learned things the hard way.”
He was bipolar—and in 1963 nobody in our circles knew much about that, or about therapy or lithium. So there were many trips to the ER, and when he got older there were trips of another kind, as he sampled every drug he could get his hands on, perhaps unconsciously seeking some relief or control for his wild energy.

He never teased me. My fate instead was to be the responsible firstborn, trying and failing to keep the younger sisters safe from him, trying to keep him safe from himself, flushing the acid he got in high school down the toilet, talking him down, picking him up, helping him out, loving him nevertheless, appreciating the good things—his wit, his music. I fought the fires the best I could, and there was a lot I didn’t know then that I know now.

Suicide attempts, pharmacy scams to get prescription drugs, prison assault, drama, insanity followed over the years—fires galore. There came a day when I began to truly understand that some fires burn so fiercely that the best firefighter is powerless to contain them. A few months later, shortly after he turned fifty, my brother moved into a lonely little apartment he was provided when his name came up on the waiting list after various agencies finally acknowledged he was too sick to support himself. He adopted a stray cat. He had many visitors, but few friends. One Saturday night he sat down in a blue armchair he had found for himself that was a lot like the blue chair I used to have in my living room years ago—and he shot up enough methadone to stop his heart forever.

It was only then that his pain and my firefighting on his behalf ceased.