I am cfujikawa (and so are you)

My brother Charlie has some issues with me. We haven’t talked in like seven years. It will be exactly eight, come to think of it, this New Year’s day that he stopped talking to me. The following year my sister got sick and died, and a year later my other brother was on the verge of homeless, and I never heard boo from Charlie about anything. Yep, ever since that Jerry Springer New Years Day in Saint George, Utah. The cops came and everything. I had come to his apartment after what had been an abysmal New Years Eve the night before. I showed up without warning. He was not happy to see me.

The night before he had been trying to provoke me with the usual: jabs about Hollywood, the Liberal Media, how public schools were a waste of time, blah blah. Even something about guns. I admit, I’m not that strong. Eventually I took the bait, and he sort of shuffled into the next room in his neck brace after he got under my skin.

So New Years Eve day night, I was there to apologize, and also to bring him a gift….medical marijuana. See, he’d just had surgery on his neck for chronic pain he’s in. His estranged family all said he’d been a miserable human due to the painkillers. So me, the queen of fixing everything, arrived bearing a most original and frankly practical Christmas gift. It was all wrapped up in a box, and couldn’t have been sweeter unless I’d grown the pot myself. And I’m not even a pot smoker, mind you. (The first bag of pot I ever spied was in his desk drawer.)

So as I said, he didn’t look so happy when he found me at the doorbell, but he let me in. But he knew why I came:

I’m his little sister.
I’m here on vacation with my family.
He’s been actively ignoring us (except when trying to provoke me).
I’m leaving tomorrow, so this is our last chance.
And let’s not forget this little tidbit: our mother has just passed away;
Finally, last night did not go too well, and who wants to end on that kind of note.

Basically, I said what the hell is your problem. I don’t even think I said it like that. But I had cornered him. This was a very new me.  I can be confrontational, but not with him. He’s my oldest brother, and I know he won’t put up with that from little sister. I know my place.

So he asked me to leave, I said no, till I get an answer. I was still hoping we could actually talk in a meaningful way.

He called 911 and said there was an intruder in his house and that she won’t leave:

Charlie (on the phone with 911): Her name is Cynthia Murphy.

Cyndy: (sitting on couch, not budging): That’s not my name, Charlie.

Charlie: It’s Cynthia Murphy!

(note: Murphy is my husband’s last name. I don’t know why this formality became so important to him….something Rush or Laura told him really mattered to true family values.)

Charlie (into phone ) How old is she? I don’t know how old she is! Maybe 47 or 48.

Me: I’m 49. Tell them I’m 49. (trying to be heard on the call:) I’M FORTY NINE!

Charlie (into the phone) She says she’s 49.

Would I lie about this sort of thing?

He decided to wait for the police in his bedroom. I walked toward him and with a great deal of force, he put his hand on my chest and shoved me away, hard.

I felt his rage. I felt his absolute hatred of me. But I’ve come this far, haven’t I.  Stubborn me,  I decided to wait for the police outside on the porch.

After 10 minutes or so I got cold. It was a January night in Utah afterall. I decided to move to my car. The cops were taking their sweet time so I called my sister in law (his wife) and my husband, both of whom were up the street with the four kids. I don’t exactly know what he thought would happen If they took me away. It would just upset and confuse the most innocent among us.

Anyway, the St. George police showed up, and they seemed primarily concerned with my well being. They advised me to have my husband come right away (yes, they were male cops and I assume good Mormon boys). I told them everything, including that our family was a bit stressed, since our mom had passed away a few months before. I left out the detail about what was in the Christmas present I brought. They wanted to know if Charlie had a firearm, and I said I did not know. (Later I thought about it and realized he did.)

They talked to him some, and then returned to me and advised me to go home. I said the little woman was waiting for her husband to arrive, and they were ok with me waiting till then.

When Dennis came, he made an attempt to mediate it in the doorway. It did not go well. The last thing my brother said to me was “I’ll see you at my funeral!” Wow. The thing was was that he shouted it while he was brushing his teeth, in his neck brace, but with the passion and anger of someone who was absolutely furious that his little sister was interrupting his bedtime rituals. What can I say. I have that affect on people when they’re brushing their teeth.

Charlie’s then wife (from whom he was amicably separated) is a pretty gentle person. I admit, I had been a bit sour on her over the summer when she did not attend my mother’s meager memorial service. But I’d lost my brother that evening, so I turned to her.  She’s sweet, but she doesn’t mince words when it comes to Charlie. Indeed, she was well aware of his resentment and anger toward me for many years. She was sympathetic to the place this puts me in, having been the target of his passive-aggressiveness, and his outbursts.

“I don’t know why he’s so angry at you,” she said.

I know he was uncomfortable that I struck up a relationship with his son and his daughter. I know he was silent when I retrieved our mother from senior board and care in the state of Washington, when he moved away and left her there without warning me. I know he was upset that I criticized his choice to sell our childhood home to invest half her money in a South African diamond scheme, which went bankrupt about 6 months later.  Sure, I know he hates my politics, the industry which has fed my family, my many friendships, the fact that I keep in touch with so many people (he leads a solitary life…one might consider misanthropic). I know he resents that I have a house and a somewhat stable-ish financial situation. Clearly he hates that I go by our father’s name, and not my husband’s name. I know he was peeved that I was trying to stash away a few bucks for each of his kids for college. And I KNOW he absolutely HATED that I wanted my 10 year old to show Uncle Charlie a cartwheel and a (sort of) handstand two nights before. While Sam was hanging upside down, Charlie left the room.  After all, Charlie was the champion gymnast in the 1970s.

Ellen says to me with a note of sarcasm. “Maybe it’s because you got cfujikawa@aol.com before he did. He was pissed off about that.”

Yeah, that’s right. You feelin’ me? This is a no win situation. I can see, and you can see, that there is room for more than one cfujikawa in the world. But apparently little sister had just done it again.

My brother is competitive by nature. So’s my husband. I can honestly say that I am not. I have a lot of qualities that can be categorized as aggressive. But I don’t have a competitive nature. Not that that makes sense of this.

The truth is I am done with cfujikawa@aol.com. I would be very happy to bequeath it to him if that would make things right. I would even turn back time and give him that first America-on-Line cd (and the second and the third and the fourth…) that came in the mail and tell him, “Here…you’re the oldest. You go first. I’ll chose another screen name.” I  would do that if only to have my real brother back.

My brother was the best big brother in the entire world. He was silent and strong and good looking and (yes) popular.  Maybe I never really knew him, but that is what I saw as a child.  I saw someone to aspire to be; someone to emulate. Never someone to compete with. It never occurred to me that being myself would be so offensive.  I admit I don’t know how to fix it.

I don’t need to be cfujikawa.  I am cyndyfujikawa anyway.  I like it better, besides.  I’m me.  The other one is all yours if you need it.