Onii-san and Me

Peter had not felt comfortable with being watched for nearly a decade. In early childhood he had craved attention as an over exuberant puppy might and reveled in playing to a crowd. However, years of being lashed by the spiny side of Mommy’s tongue had done well to mute and wither his self-confidence. The schoolchildren ridiculed him for his intelligence, his bookish nature, his baby fat and soft voice. The only two people he felt safe to entirely be himself with were Sam, his beloved betrothed, and his twin brother.

Now, any man or woman you met might lay claim that Peter was a unit in himself. He had been born alone. But if one were to delve into his past you might find that Gerard, his twin, had always been present since infancy. Only Peter was aware of this, of course, and had he not brought his brother to his family’s attention they might never have known. But Gerard had always been and always would be, for twins are an uncanny sort of symbiotic sibling and Peter would never be without need of his gentle counterpart.

Gerard had first begun to make himself known in Peter’s actions by the age of two years. Peter saw many other personalities that others could not, but no one was as special nor constant as his bedmate. When Peter learned to speak he named his personal friend ‘Blue’ because Gerard had never offered a name and both children’s vocabularies were lacking girth. This most likely came about because Peter adored the nursery story character of Little Boy Blue and he thought that Gerard’s soft blond hair caused a correlation. Even before Peter began to spin stories and draw his tales on napkins he disclosed details about ‘Blue’ to his Mommy and Daddy respectively. They were always together, the twin boys, though Peter was not quite a boy at the time.

Peter loved Blue with all his heart and Blue offered the same unconditional devotion. He was the only one who was never angry with Peter, did not shout or hit, and was always always there. Blue was not an imaginary friend, Peter decided in his early adolescent years. Those came and went and were fashioned with the intent of entertainment. This was not so with Blue. Oh, they did play together (Peter’s early childhood was, after all, a landscape of content solitude). Just as Peter was never precisely a girl Blue was never really a boy, they just possessed genitals that branded them one way or another. Peter loved the boy characters of stories and Blue liked dresses and ribbons in his hair. Blue wanted to be Tinkerbell while Peter preferred to play a Lost Boy (or Pan himself).

They saw one another through some of the most frightening times. This bond between the twin children would become essential to survival in the following years. When Mommy attended parties and disappeared into backrooms with her boyfriend of the moment, Blue held Peter’s hand tightly in his own. Both their palms were cold as they sat in the dark room listening to the drugged and drunken murmurs of adults they did not know. The cloud of cigarette smoke causing the dim glow of a single bulb in the corner to become fog shivered as a man strummed an acoustic guitar. Peter was sniffling because he had asked for his Mommy and been told she was too busy, and sadly at only five he knew that she was having sex back there and leaving him alone in the middle of nowhere. But at least he was not entirely alone.

Peter was not even in Kindergarten when he had sex for the first time. He was a she, back then, and his (her) older cousin found her a perfect target. A small girl who was far too intelligent and very vulnerable to manipulation was prime game for a sexual predator. Peter lost count of how many times he was forced to commit underage intercourse (from which his child’s anatomy gained no pleasure) and remain silent as the grave about it. Blue told him it was wrong with his nose and eyes running like facets but Peter was too frightened to listen. She was just being a good cousin, right?

When big brother Justin, the sixteen-year-old son of an evil butcher named Randy (one of Mommy’s boyfriends, who also sexually abused Peter) tried to watch pornography with the Kindergartener s/he turned his back and ignored it. Blue sat in front of him, squatting on the dirty flea-infested carpet, and held his tiny hands. They carried on a silent conversation about how sad they were that Justin was being naughty, but Peter did not understand that this was not the same as sneaking a cookie from the jar. His Mommy had had sex with Randy and other boyfriends while she thought Peter was sleeping on his side of the bed and thus he did not know that sex was not a normal part of childhood. Blue threw a temper-tantrum when Peter submitted to big brother Justin’s sexual abuse. He believed the big brother he loved so much that this was normal sibling behavior. Blue knew better, but Peter had stopped listening to his advice some time ago.

Blue lay in the water bed and watched The Land Before Time with Peter when the latter contracted chickenpocks. This feverish in-bed business was no fun, because Peter loved school very much, and he complained to his twin about being itchy for days. Blue giggled and kissed the spots on his hands and feet, although it did not take the itch away. The days were bearable with this companionable lazing. But it was more than itchy spots that Blue kissed to make better. When Peter was frightened of the monsters from the Time Machine movie dwelling beneath his bed Blue climbed under the blankets with him and cuddled. ‘See? There’s no monsters. And if there is they’ll take me first.’, he told his worried brother. Blue was always selfless in that fashion, which was part of what Peter treasured about him most.

With time Peter learned that it was considered incorrect to speak flippantly of his constant companion. After all, no one else could hear or see the other boy. No one could feel his tender embraces, nor smell the scent of fresh linen when they buried their nose in Blue’s hair. Peter accepted that Blue was to be kept a secret, like so many other things. This saddened Peter greatly, for in his experience secrets were always terrible, ghastly things and Blue most certainly was the direct opposite. Blue never did vanish, like all of Peter’s imaginary friends. He lingered like a ghost and swooped in to hold his twin when something was badly amiss. Whenever Peter turned, there was his brother with his gentle features.

Peter changed and grew and was reformed like Play-Dough constantly, yet Blue never did change much. He grew taller, and lanky, and began dying his hair black and wearing only one color when Peter was still wearing yellow peasant skirts and long auburn curls. They could still be identified as twins, however, because they shared wide green eyes and round features. Eventually, Peter cut his hair short and dyed it to match his twin’s. He used anorexia to be thin like his brother (who was none too happy about this dangerous activity and could on occasion be highly vocal about it). Now they did look like twins. Yet no one understood. No one could hear Blue scream, or laugh, or watch him dance as Peter could.

The palpable twin changed a great deal and found himself in a terrible position. The time had come to deal and heal with his demons and past wrongs (both his own and those of others). More than ever, he needed his twin brother to be there for him. To hold, to comfort, to slap when needed, to speak with a gentle voice and touch with love. As always, Blue did not fail to deliver. And in doing so he gained a new name: Gerard, which means ‘spear-brave’ in some cultures and ‘honorable’ in others. He was, and always has been, both. Everything a twin should be; unconditionally loving, concerned, kind, courageous, and constant.

And that, in brief, is the story of Oniisan and me.