North of Buffalo

I wanted to pluck out Billy's eyes and feed them to him.

He had been away at college for three months, so his tolerance for my playing had diminished. I hadn't even finished a chromatic scale when I heard the throat-clearing from upstairs, and I had only just delved into Weber's opening measures when Billy lodged his first complaint. This was his break; his vacation. Couldn't he enjoy his Thanksgiving vacation? Peterson and Matt Ryan were over; he had company. Couldn't they play Techmo Superbowl in peace?

Thankfully, Mom intervened right away. Good old Mom, she sided with the defendant. Billy would simply have to deal with it.

In the second movement of his second clarinet concerto, the great German composer and playboy Carl Maria von Weber started off gracefully, each phrase lovelier than the last, until he must have snorted some crack. Or I guess it was opium in those days. He took some opium, and suddenly his pen was swooping from the lowest notes in the clarinet's register to the highest, or at least the highest for me at the time. He moved right from a rich, noble E, up, up, through the staff, all the way up and above the key signature into the clouds, with a piercing, unbearable F sharp. It was idiocy, and it was ruining my life. At least it was ruining Billy's as well.

I had honked out about four F sharps when Billy was down the stairs again, pleading with my mother, using this new evidence to bolster his case. He didn't even look at me as he summoned Mom into the living room. He just stood there, staring straight ahead, still in his boxers at two in the afternoon, yes, but with his spiky hair gelled and groomed for the guests. Billy always claimed that he was the most handsome in the family. Throughout high school, girls threw themselves at his imposing frame, his clear, blue eyes, his dimpled chin.

"Mooommm," he whined. "Listen to him! He's shrieking! He's doing it on purpose. It's got to stop."

I didn't think I even needed to make a case; we'd gone over this already, and it was clear that I needed this time to prepare my impossible solo, because it was my last year in the middle-school division, and I could win the principal chair. But Mom changed her mind. My F sharps were ruining The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She didn't hesitate to overrule herself and hand the victory to Billy, commanding me to play something more pleasant. I surrendered.

Mom headed to the basement so she could focus more closely on Rosie, while Billy climbed triumphantly to his room. I selected some lighter, shorter etudes and shifted my attention to the conversation upstairs.

Peterson and Matt Ryan were nice boys, according to Mom, sweet, polite boys with perfect manners. Billy had met them his senior year on the crew team, and they'd become close, they had really bonded on the Niagara River. It was just great to have them back in the house, trading college stories with Billy over a spirited game of Nintendo. It was swell.

Matt Ryan talked too much and too loudly, and even while screeching through my F sharps, I could hear Billy urging him to be quiet. But he was nice in a dumb way. I didn't have to breeze through many etudes before I heard his loud, stupid baritone uttering the line I had been waiting for, that juicy, beautiful observation: "Man, you were wasted last night."

Yes, Billy was wasted last night. He had pulled Mom's car into the driveway when she was already asleep, because she could sleep easily this weekend; she trusted those nice boys; she just loved them. But I was awake enough to sit up and see 4:15 on my clock.

Billy came home from college and took Mom's car and got terribly drunk.

Better yet, Matt Ryan was now grilling him, coaxing out stories about his many wild binges and amorous encounters over the past few months. Billy was wasted last night. I lifted my reed to my lips and let out a long, loud, glorious screech.

It was just a matter of finding the right moment, the golden opportunity to expose the new Billy, Mom's first and smartest and most perfect son. I thought I'd wait until grocery time and volunteer to accompany Mom on her little mission. Mom would dispatch me to the beverage aisle for Sprite, because Billy loved Sprite, and "Oh," I would note, "that's not all he drinks these days."

Mom used to post our report cards on the refrigerator, Billy's on top and mine below. This was just fantastic when Billy entered high school, because St. Joe's had a liberal weighting policy, a generous, kindhearted disposition, and Billy would often come home with a 103 GPA. Once it climbed to a 105. Yes, Billy, your brilliance transcends our grading system; you are beyond perfect; we'll violate basic mathematical laws just for you. His transcript always overlapped my own just a bit, enough to cover up my 90 in Earth science.

When we arrived at Tops, Mom assigned me to push the cart, and I immediately saw my mistake. I wasn't help. I was an odd burden she hadn't anticipated. She had a lot of work to do for tomorrow, and I had heard about it since the morning. She had carpets to vacuum, Jell-O molds to sculpt. It was best to stay out of her way.

But I realized this too late, of course, and sure enough, she was barking by the time we hit the Jell-O section. This was North Tonawanda, or "NT," as it had been affectionately nicknamed. This was the land of Jell-O molds, and lawn fêtes, and bowling. On weekends, the rebellious youth would head to Clifton Hill in Canada, a mysterious, glowing stretch of bars, casinos, and wax museums. Every July, the bosses of the Tonawandas would get together and organize a weeklong celebration on the Erie Canal. Fat, bald men would sample Polish sausage and pierogi, then swill Molsons in the beer tent. The city of NT even paid for a huge, illuminated sign that read "Canal Fest," except one summer the "C" burned out, so everyone now calls the week "Anal Fest." Billy snapped a picture of the sign and took it to Boston with him. It hung above his desk, and I could see him admiring it with his witty, worldly collegiate buddies, as he mocked our hometown. I mean, it was a suburb of Buffalo. It was the outskirts of the outskirts of the world.

"You know, you could have practiced more quietly," Mom said. "Billy doesn't need to hear that same squawking high note ten times a day."

I could have responded in many ways. Maybe the note wouldn't have hurt so much if Billy hadn't been hung over. But this was not the time to be flippant, or to reveal to Mom that her superchild was a drinker. No, I needed to save that for a tender moment in the grocery store. I would locate the Stove Top stuffing, and Mom would say, "Gee, thanks, Jim; you're the greatest." And I would say, "Aw, shucks, Mom. But it's time to talk about your other son." I could wait.

Billy was probably showing his guests to the door at the moment; they would need to put in their obligatory family time before going out again tonight. He'd only be here three more days, thank God, and then I'd regain his TV, his desk, and his room. I'd have the entire upper floor to myself. I would wave to him from the airport window, after giving him a big hug, of course, and saying, "Happy Thanksgiving, Billy. It was great to see you. Can't wait for Christmas." Oh, but I could easily wait for Christmas.

As we approached the end of the shopping list, Mom was decent for a few minutes. Then I brought back the wrong salad dressing, and she gave up on me. I was silent all the way to the car, to the trunk, which popped open at Mom's command and revealed two mysterious little beer bottle caps.

"That's odd," Mom said. "Come on, get into the car."

Our mother could be great sometimes. Most of the time. She was one of those sweet, round little women, with cute curly hair and huge glasses--a prime candidate for the role of Mrs. Claus. Every year, the day before Thanksgiving, she'd make mounds of extra food and carry them down the street to our old babysitter, wacky Mrs. St. Peter, who would remove her prosthetic leg if you asked her nicely. That was mainly Mom's job: to be excessively helpful to random people. She drove the senior citizen bus to Target every Thursday and dispensed condoms to migrant workers during the summer. And she drove Billy and me everywhere, I mean everywhere, like a taxi, because Dad worked all the time.

But Mom generally wasn't bubbly toward us during the holidays. Mom was especially less-than-bubbly when she found little Heineken caps in the back of her car. Still, Billy probably would have avoided severe punishment if he hadn't stupidly said, "I didn't drink that much." Once Mom learned that her beloved son had actually sipped from those Heineken bottles, she blew her top. It was hard for me to remember when she had ever been this angry. Once when I was eight, Billy and I stayed home alone for the first time and watched The Silence of the Lambs. The phone rang right when Hannibal ripped off the security guard's face. No one spoke on the other end. We concluded it was Hannibal, of course, and our parents received an urgent summons to the telephone just as Mom was about to receive some award from Hospice. But she wasn't as angry that day.

Now she had shifted into lecture mode. Billy would not be going out tonight, or any night this weekend. He would stay home with me, and we'd clean.

I couldn't see how I'd been dragged into this. It was like the one time Billy picked me up from middle school on his way home from St. Joe's. He had a little bottle of wine with him, because he'd done a fermentation lab for AP Bio. He let me drink some of it, just a little, and I was holding the bottle when a cop pulled us over. Billy had rolled through a stop sign, and we were receiving a warning. He nearly crapped his pants. And I sat there the whole time, 12 years old, with a bottle of wine in my right hand. I was still laughing when he told Mom about it, and somehow she'd found a way to direct her lecture at me. But she wasn't as angry that day.

"I don't know what's gotten into you," she was saying now. "You never pulled this crap in high school."

Oh, but Billy pulled some crap in high school. He could be a lot of fun now and then. Once I got out of school at noon, and Billy skipped the rest of his classes to take me bowling. Mom never heard about that day.

"This is probably just like a typical night for you in Boston, isn't it? Just belt a few back with your fake ID? Is that what he does in Boston, Jim? Tell me about it. What have you heard?"

All this time I'd been studying the floor, but I looked up now; I stared straight back at her.

"Nothing," I said. "I haven't heard anything."

Billy's assignment was to wash the hallway and dining room floors, while I wandered around with a duster and shook it at living room furniture. Dusting was always my job. No one would ever inspect our bookshelves too closely; I was sure of that.

Celine Dion occasionally wafted in from the kitchen. Mom was working there and watching a concert on Canadian TV. "Near . . . far . . . whereeever you are, I believe that the heart does go on . . ."

"Hey, Jim," Billy called from the hallway.

"What?"

"I just wanted to let you know that you're saaafe in my heart, okay? And my heart will go ooonnn and ooonnn."

"Wow, Billy. That's great. That's really good to hear." I racked my brain for some Celine Dion lyrics. "And, you know, I just wanted to thank you, because you stood by me, and I stood tall. I had your love. I had it all. I'm everything I am, because you loved me. You know that, right?"

"Sure. Of course."

I had to move some pictures to give the coffee table my full attention. The church photo was the largest; a family portrait from five or six years ago. It was possibly the worst picture ever taken. Billy had braces and curly hair, I was fat, a whole lot shorter and rounder than I was now. Dad just looked very tired, and Mom's smile was forced. Billy had taped a little piece of paper over his own face when the picture first appeared on the coffee table, but Mom removed it.

Now she was barking from the kitchen. "I'm walking this food over to Mrs. St. Peter's. You'll start on the basement when Dad gets home."

It took her another ten minutes to make her way out the door. Billy came into the living room and collapsed on the couch. "Thanks for keeping quiet today," he said.

I switched from the coffee table to the bench, where I'd practiced this afternoon. Every afternoon. "You know you're screwed when Dad gets home."

"Whatever. You just have to learn with them; you have to stick up for yourself sometimes. There's no reason for you to put up with her tirades."

"Yeah, I know."

"No, you don't. I'm serious. Like tonight. Look at us. I'm 18, I live in another state, and here I am, I'm stuck in a North Tonawanda living room, listening to Celine Dion. Grounded." He stared out the window, and I knew the gears were spinning up there; I knew he was planning something dumb.

"Hey, Jim," he said.

"What?"

"Let's go to Canada."

I rolled my eyes. "Canada? They'd kill us."

"They'll get over it." He was on his feet. "Come on, get your shoes on. Let's go."

Carl Maria von Weber stared up at me from the music stand. I looked back at the church photo, at Mom's fake smile, and saw those same teeth flashing at me three weeks from now, as I fought my way through the audition. I looked from Billy's girly, curly 13-year-old hair to the carefully cultivated spikes and impatient eyes in the doorway.

"All right," I said. "Let's go."

Mom would go nuts when she returned to the carless driveway and empty house. She'd rant all night when Dad got home, and he'd fall asleep in the living room while they waited for us to return. We'd be paying for this weeks from now, somehow, maybe with a huge cash withdrawal from Billy's account and some cruel and unusual housework for me. Yep.

Billy had my coat ready in my kitchen, with a bright orange snow cap I hadn't worn since I was six. I laughed at my obnoxious, irritating brother, and we waved goodbye to NT.