Charlie

 

While the sun was shining everywhere, my brother died yesterday. 

No music played—sad, soaring, symphonic or otherwise. It just happened, like day slipping into night. A beat.

Of all my many siblings, I was closest to him, though I don’t know if I could say we were close.

He was older than me. Smarter, too. He ran away from home at 13, when I was three, and never came back until most of the fires had burned out and our parents were too sluggish or too war-worn to administer more beatings.

What Charlie didn’t see might have saved him. Such things we’ll never know, answers none of us will find.

He was in ‘Nam. Spent a lot of time on the DMZ which stands for De-Militarized Zone, (although apparently it wasn't de-militarized at all). I have a photo of him standing next to a pyramid of motor shells the size of king salmon. He’s holding one, end-to-end in both hands, like it’s his firstborn. He looks so fucking young and handsome. 

His legal name was Chuck, but he went by “Charlie,” which I always found ironic or somehow symbolic since “Charlie” was the US army’s nickname for the enemy they fought in the Vietnam War. That’s why therapy is so important.

He got a Purple Heart. As he reluctantly explained to me, their helicopter had been shot down, one of his fellow soldiers was gravely wounded, unable to walk, so Charlie hoisted him over his shoulders, carrying him to safety, which was some four miles away. For the rest of his life after that, Charlie would suffer severe back pain.

For the most part, he never talked about the war that haunted him, that festered in his soul, shaping much of identity. He did, however, share a few horror stories the year my brothers and I held a reunion in Washington D.C. so Charlie could see the Vietnam Memorial, tracing the names of fellow soldiers he knew from the wall using rice paper.

His politics were decidedly different than mine (there were several confederate flags hanging in his house and garage) and he held some prejudices he was aware of and did not back away from.

But he was a loveable person, easy to laugh. I visited him many times back when he owned a tavern in Spokane. His work ethic and congeniality with customers was inspiring to witness and even though the business eventually wore him out, he’d achieved a life-long dream.

I always thought of him as extraordinarily brave. He was my hero and I got to tell him that during one of our first brother reunions back at the start of the new century, back when we were all a lot younger, back when all of us were still alive (Charlie is standing in the back row above, farthest right.) 

I’ll miss him. I miss him now. I’d like to think he knows that and that maybe he’s missing me back.