Fake House

F
AKE
H
OUSE

A
s I sit at my desk eating a ham sandwich (with mayo, no mustard), head bent over the sports section of the
Chronicle
(Dodgers 3, Giants 0), the phone rings. It’s my wife: “Guess who just showed up?”

We haven’t seen my brother Josh in over a year. “I’m really sorry,” I say.

“Are you coming home early?”

“I … I will.”

The last time he came, Josh stayed with us for over two weeks and didn’t leave until I had given him a thousand dollars. “Good luck, Josh,” I said as I left him at the Greyhound station.

“Thanks, Boffo.”

Josh has called me “Boffo,” short for “Boffo Mofo,” since we were teenagers. He has always fancied himself to be some kind of a wordsmith. He also likes to draw pictures, blow into a saxophone.

Josh lives on the beach in Santa Monica. About six months ago I received a letter from him: “Dear Boffo, How are you? I was squatting in this warehouse with a bunch of people, very nice folks, mostly artists and musicians. We called it the Fake House (because it looked fake on the outside). It had running water but no shower and no electricity. To take a shower, you stood in a large trash can and scooped water from the sink and poured it on yourself. Everything was fine until three days ago. Mustapha—he’s a painter—always left turpentine-soaked rags on the floor, and somebody must have dropped a cigarette on one of these rags because the place went up in flames! Poof! Just like that! No more Fake House! Now I sleep on the beach. I am ashamed to ask you this, but, Boffo, could you please send me two hundred dollars by Western Union? I’ll pay you back when I can. Your brother, Josh. P.S. Please send my regards to Sheila.” (My wife’s name is “Sheilah,” but Josh has always deleted the
h
from her name—yet another symptom of his overall slovenliness.) I thought,
There’s no Fake House, no Mustapha, no fire
, but I sent him two hundred dollars anyway.

Aside from these begging letters, he also sends me postcards from places you and I would never visit. One postmarked Salt Lake City said simply, “Ate flapjacks, saw pronghorns.” One postmarked Belize City said, “Soggy Chinese food.”

Why should I care that he ate flapjacks and saw pronghorns in Utah? That he had soggy Chinese food in Belize? But I suspect that for a man like Josh, who has accomplished nothing in this life, these trivial correspondences serve as confirmations that he exists, that he is doing something.

One year a flyer arrived around Christmas with a meticulously drawn image of Joseph Stalin in an awkward dancing pose,
with this caption:
“No Party Like a Party Congress! Everybody Dances the Studder Steps!”

“Tracy, I … I … I … I …” I am unable to finish my sentence. My secretary smiles. “You’re stepping out, sir?”

I nod.

“You’ll be back, sir?” I shake my head.

“You’re going home, sir?”

I nod again, smile, and walk out of the office. There was an extra sparkle in Tracy’s eyes. Perhaps she finds my stuttering, an absurd yet harmless defect, endearing. I’ve noticed that she has done something strange to her hair lately and that, since the weather has gotten warmer, she shows up most days for work in a curt, clingy dress and a clingy blouse made from a sheer fabric.

Aside from this small, perhaps endearing defect, I am a man in control of my own faculties and life. I manage two dozen residential units and four commercial buildings. Last year I cleared $135,000 after taxes. My wife does not have to do anything. She sits home and watches
Oprah
, takes tai chi lessons. A month ago she went to Hawaii alone.

I grip the steering wheel with my left hand and massage my left forearm with my right hand. Muscle tone is important. Time also. I do not like to waste time, even when driving. Then I switch hands, gripping the steering wheel with my right hand and massaging my right forearm with my left hand. Then I massage my right biceps while rotating my neck. “A clear road ahead!” I shout. As I drive, I like to reinforce my constitution with uplifting slogans. I never stutter when alone. “Firm but fair!” “Money is time!” Positive thoughts are an important component of my success. It is what separates me from those of my brother’s ilk.

Occasionally, while driving, I’d surprise myself with an exuberant
act of violence. Without premeditation my right hand would fly off the steering wheel and land flush on my right cheek. Whack! Afterward I’d feel a strange mixture of pride and humility, not because of the pain but because I had felt no pain.

I am in excellent shape for a man of forty-two. I have very little fat and no beer gut. With dinner I allow myself a single glass of chardonnay. Each morning before work I go to the spa and swim a dozen precise laps. Never thirteen. Never eleven. Then I stand still for about two minutes at the shallow end of the pool, with my eyes closed and my hands bobbing in the water, thinking about nothing. Mr. Chow, who is also at the pool early in the morning, has taught me this exercise. After watching me swim, he said: “You have too much yang. You must learn how to cultivate your ying.” Or maybe it was the other way around: “You have too much ying. You must learn how to cultivate your yang.” In any case he suggested that I stand still at the shallow end of the pool for a couple of minutes each day, breathe in deeply, exhale slowly, and think about nothing.

It is very relaxing, this exercise, but of course, no one can ever think about nothing. As I stand still at the shallow end of the pool, what I must do for the rest of the day comes sharply into focus:
Send eviction notice to 2B, 245 Montgomery. Jack up rent from 600 to 625 on new lease for 2450 Anna Drive. The idiot on the third floor at 844 Taylor has dumped paper towel into the toilet again, flooding the basement. Call plumber. Send bill to idiot.…

Josh is my only sibling. He is a year older than me. He is my older brother. When we were kids, Josh was considered by our parents to be by far the smarter one, someone who would surely leave his mark on the world, a prediction he took quite seriously. But the facts have proven otherwise. I have often thought the reason
I tolerate these visits by my loser brother, during which he never behaves graciously but often vulgarly, atrociously, and at the end of which I will have to part with a thousand dollars, or at least five hundred bucks, is because he is tangible proof that I have not failed in this life. I’m not a loser. I am not Josh. We have the same background, grew up in the same idiotic city, San Mateo, raised by the same quarrelsome parents, a garrulous, megalomaniacal father and a childish, know-nothing mother. Josh was considered by all to be the smarter one, even the better-looking one. Although we started out with roughly the same handicaps, I was never afflicted by his hubris, never thought I had to leave a so-called mark on this world. I never wanted to be better than people, although, such is life, I am now doing better than just about anyone I know (and certainly better than everyone I grew up with), whereas Josh, who was so convinced of his superiority, has degenerated into a pathetic loser, taking showers in trash cans and living under the same roof with people with names like Mustapha.

It is true that my brother is better-looking than me. Girls were enthralled by him. He lost his virginity at fifteen. I at twenty-three. But as he grew older, this superficial asset became increasingly worthless. Mature women do not care for good looks and a glib conversation. What they want is a roof over their head, a breadwinner, and a father for their children. They like to be warm and clean. What woman will put up with standing in a trash can and having water poured over herself? Although Sheilah and I do not have children, we will when the time is right. There is no hurry.