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PERSONAL ESSAY
Two Brothers, One Phone Call
A brief note on the impossible task of changing your mind
It’s hard to find sleep in this heat. The earth stops spinning after sunset, leaving us all in a wet, sticky intermission. A numb silence filled with anxious dogs, cats fighting, and mosquitos. My insomniac neighbor chases her ghosts with a flashlight, casting shadows in my bedroom like Bogart in Dark Passage, while every creak and crack leads me closer to the morning. The wrapped sheets, the high-pitched moped, and the Town Hall’s hourly bell all do their best to forgive me for wasting yet another night.
“You can’t change.”
We spoke on the phone earlier, my brother and I, and he grabbed one of his insights and smashed it across the field as a well-known fact. It’s his favorite discipline, like philosophical shotgun practice, with sharp bullets flying in all directions, hitting random targets.
We’re from back then, with local radio for breakfast, TV for dinner, and a single landline in the hallway. We answered by number, not by name, and he was the uncrowned king of phone calls. Now, he blooms on weekends when he’s slightly drunk and widely bored, and I let him speak out of habit.
His firm statement on the Unchangeable Man was based on two simple things: He himself. An excuse as good as any never to change anything. And a former girlfriend, allegedly spending her life signing up for every course with the word change in the subtitle.
“She’s been going to all these things her whole life,” he continued, “I never saw her change. Not even once. You are who you are.”
I know nothing about her quest, and it’s easy to assume that this blindside to her needs didn’t help much during their breakup. I’m also at the other end of the rope: change is the one thing we’re all good at. No one remains as God made him. We’re all moving forward, broken, manipulated, and astray. For whatever reason. Even my brother.
“I’ve changed,” I replied.
“It’s not the same. We grow up, but you’re still you.”
Well, there you go. Defending your convictions against good intentions requires persistence. You tread your waters while building a…
