Transcript

Ep 5: Swimming · The Starter

Swimming We sat at the edge of the pool with our feet dangling in the water. The water was cool and clean, and felt good between the toes. Sunlight gleamed off the surface in waving patterns of light and dark; a web of dancing reflections across the water. It was a beautiful day, and I felt awful. Lizzie had gone out of town, and per usual, I had gone on a bender. “You should come with me,” Lizzie said as she was making her travel plans; a trek through the mountains of Peru, followed by a tour of the Galapagos Islands. But I always had an excuse. I had to take care of Henry, or I had too much work, or not enough money. Something always tethered me down. Each time an opportunity presented itself where I would be on my own for an extended period, the spark of a relapse would ignite in the dark recesses of my mind. I would tell myself that I wasn’t going to make the decision until I was standing there in the liquor aisle, eyeing the orderly bottles on the shelves. I had always liked doing inventory when I worked the bar - arranging all the bottles in neat little rows, labels facing forward, and standing at attention. This time was like all the others, but maybe my brother thought it was worse. “Don’t fuck it up, Steve. You’ve got a good woman there,” Brian would tell me. “Next time you go on a bender, I’m flying to Michigan to drive my foot right up your ass. Size 13 golf cleats, bro.” Brian did wear size 13s, and he played golf in high school. I’m sure he still had the cleats, collecting dust in a closet somewhere. That summer, Brian flew to Michigan, but he left the golf cleats at home. He showed up somewhere in the middle of my lost week, and his presence was enough to sober me up. And I stayed that way. We went for daily swims. I immersed myself in the cool, clear water; a welcome reprieve from the alcohol withdrawal. Brian tried to cheer me up. “C’mon, man,” he said. “The sun is shining. We’re not working, and we’re hanging out at the pool. It doesn’t get much better than this.” “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. And he was right. There we were - two brothers, sitting at the pool on a sunny day. No wives, no kids, no work; just a day off, with a nice clean pool to swim in. I took in a deep breath, and dove headfirst under the water, the cold shock hitting me like a smack across the face. And I was drownin’, but now I’m swimmin’ Through stressful waters to relief One month before he died, Mac Miller released Swimming. Maybe it was because he was a fellow addict. Or maybe it was the story my friend Christophe had told me about buying weed off Mac Miller one time in their hometown of Pittsburgh. Either way, I felt a kinship. When I heard about his overdose, it was like hearing about an old friend you had lost touch with over the years. He passed away on September 7th, the day after Brian’s birthday. After that, I listened to Swimming on repeat. Woke up this morning with a bright idea Maybe I can exist forever right here The next few days Brian and I spent lounging around the pool, watching Breaking Bad, and eating ice cream. Brian even warmed up to the cats, a little bit. As he lay on the couch with his feet up, our little grey tiger cat Mickey curled up on his chest, and purred away. “She’s pretty snuggly,” Brian said, and stroked her fur. Moments later, she dug in her claws. Brian batted her away, and winced. “Why do they have to do that?” he said, rubbing his chest where Mickey had poked him with her little daggers. She had never learned to retract. After Brian left, I didn’t fuck it up. I treaded water, and I stayed afloat. A couple years later, Lizzie and I got married. Brian officiated the wedding. When I told him he would have to wear a suit, he scoffed. “Really? I gotta buy a suit?” He didn’t have one, and neither did Greg. My brothers went out and bought new suits so they could stand with me on my wedding day. I got one for Henry too. Later, Becky texted me a photo of Brian goofing off in his new suit, doing a little John Travolta-Pulp Fiction twist. It looked good on him. On the morning of my wedding day, Brian and I went out for a run. The ceremony was at a resort Up North called The Homestead. We had been there once as kids. I remembered the water slide at the hotel pool. Pine trees and sand dunes, and cool, clear Lake Michigan freshwater. We jogged through the little resort village, up and down the gradual hills, just a few hundred feet inland from the lake. After a couple miles, Brian stopped. “You go on,” he said. “I’m gonna walk the rest of the way. You’re in better shape than I am.” I had spent a lifetime trying to catch up to my older brother. When I was little, he would always give me shit for walking ten steps behind him. “C’mon pokey,” he’d yell back at me. “What are you doing back there - trying to check out my butt?” I wasn’t. I just liked to turn off that part of my brain that had to think about directions. I still do. One time when I was ten years old, I almost didn’t make it home. When we were kids, my mom always drove a van. Back then it was a white Ford Aerostar with blue pinstripes running down the sides. Whenever we started getting fresh in the van, she would threaten to pull over on the side of the road and make us walk home. I always took it as an empty threat, until one day she actually did it. We were living in Loch Alpine then, a country club neighborhood in between Ann Arbor and Dexter where we had a rented house. I don’t remember what we did that day to set my mom off, but true to her word, she pulled over and kicked us out of the van. We were only about a mile from home. Brian and I started up the dirt road that led to our neighborhood. After a few minutes, he turned to me. “I think I’m gonna jog the rest of the way,” Brian said. “You can find your way back, right?” At ten years old, I was on the swim team, but I was no jogger. “Sure,” I said, and watched him take off down the road. I walked along, past houses and trees and mailboxes and driveways. Everything started to look the same. I kept walking. Hours later, they found me. I had been circling our house, not too far out, but not too close either. That morning before my wedding, it was a strange feeling to leave my brother behind as I finished out the run. Growing up, he was the athletic one. And he always knew where he was going. Later that day, Brian put his $50 ordained minister license to good use, and conducted a fine ceremony. We stood outside among the tall pines and rolling hills of Northern Michigan, surrounded by our family and friends. Lizzie and I said our vows. In the background, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Nightsweats played over the speakers. “A Little Honey.” Lizzie had chosen our song. Grey skies are driftin’ Not livin’ forever They told me it only gets better That winter, Lizzie and I bought a house; a 1980s colonial nearly identical to one I had grown up in. As we walked through the front door, into that same old floorplan, it felt like home. The upstairs bathroom was tiled in a mustard yellow. Lizzie and I made plans to redo the whole thing. After Teddy was born, I called Brian and he agreed to come out and do the bathroom. He was a tilesetter by trade, and had been doing it for half his life; a real pro. Brian had just had heart surgery and was still in recovery. The doctors said it was a leaky valve, and he had been dealing with it unknowingly for years. A leaky valve - like something the mechanic finds wrong on your car when you go in for a routine oil change. After the surgery, Brian was off work, and he had time to come to Michigan and do the bathroom. His doctor had told him to take it easy, but he was starting to get antsy. Brian liked to keep his hands busy. Lizzie had been planning to go to San Diego to visit her sister. She would take Teddy with her, and I would have a week to myself. Perfect opportunity to get some work done. When I was little, my mom used to call me Stephen Angel. She said I was quiet, and agreeable, and well behaved. As a toddler, she would sit me up on the kitchen counter as she chopped vegetables and cooked dinner, announcing every step of the recipe along the way. I sat quietly, and listened. She also said when she turned her back, that’s when I would get into trouble. I remember squirting ketchup packets all over toilet seats at public restrooms. One time I went around the neighborhood and stole mail from all the neighbors’ mailboxes. Later I dumped the envelopes into a storm drain. Brian wouldn’t be here for a few days. I had time. At night, I drank until there was nothing left. During the day I got by on White Claws; sober enough to demo the bathroom, and not hurt myself in the process. I swung the sledge hammer and cracked through the mustard yellow tiles, sweating out the booze. It felt good to destroy something. Brian’s plane landed that evening. In the morning, I stopped drinking. When I picked him up from the airport, he didn’t seem to notice the dark circles under my eyes or the aroma of stale alcohol seeping through my pores. I didn’t feel the need to tell him. We got to work. Brian had packed tools in his suitcase; a grinder, trowels, knee pads - all mixed in with his clothes and toiletries. He approved of my demo job, and deemed it ready for tile. We fell into a familiar rhythm. Years ago, I had served as Brian’s tile bitch one summer when I lived in Bozeman. He would make neat pencil marks on the tiles, sending me back and forth down the stairs to make cuts on the wetsaw in the garage. Some days I would mess up half the cuts. Brian would send me back, and tell me to get it right this time. As I watched him mud and set the tiles, he expounded on the art of grouting, a medium I knew well. We worked, we bullshitted, and we listened to music. The only means of a stereo I had at the time was a fist-sized Wonderboom speaker. Brian was not impressed. Us Hollowell brothers grew up on formidable stereo systems, with multiple decks and big, loud speakers. The Wonderboom was an injustice. “This is it?” Brian asked, holding up the little Bluetooth speaker, his face bearing the trademark Brian grimace. “This is all you got for tunes?” He threw on some of his favorites - global lounge like St Germain and The Avener, and we listened to the classics; Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash. I put on Swimming. “Hey you remember the Fart Shower?” I asked Brian as he was standing in the tub, spreading mud from his trowel across the shower wall. He paused, and a wide smile spread across his face. A thick pad of mud balanced on his trowel. “Oh yeah,” he said, and laughed. During my summer as tile bitch, Brian had a job at this rich lady’s house tiling her bathroom, and I helped. I can’t remember what we had for lunch that day, but it got things moving, and Brian was heating up the shower with some real stinkers. Fart city. Moments after he let one rip, the lady walked into the bathroom and started to ask us how the tile was coming along. Mid-sentence, the stench hit her, and she was taken aback. She closed her hand over her mouth and slowly stepped backward out of the bathroom, leaving us to our den of stank. It felt good to be working with my brother again. I had ordered a new vanity, and it was sitting out in the garage. A real beast: six feet long with two sinks, and a thick stone top. The countertop alone must have weighed 150 pounds. “You really think you should be carrying this?” I asked Brian, as we unboxed the vanity. He was only a couple months past the heart surgery. “Yeah I’ll be alright,” Brian said. “I feel great.” We lugged the heavy slab of stone inside and up the stairs. Brian’s valve stayed intact. I kept it together too, for a while. A couple Christmases ago, things got dark. It had been building for months. Lizzie had made plans to go to San Diego to visit her sister, this time taking Phillip and leaving on Christmas morning. For me, it was another lost week, followed by months of picking up the pieces; a familiar rhythm. One night I called Brian. He said we were on the phone for two hours. He knew I was pretty far gone. He said I had the hiccups, and he kept telling me to stop whatever I was drinking, and get some water. “I was just glad I could be there for you, man.” he told me. A few weeks later, I drove Henry down to Indiana for his drum corps training camp. While he practiced with the band, I stayed in some crappy Holiday Inn Express. I talked to Brian for a long time that night, sitting in my little depressing suite. I noticed later there was a Hampton across the street. I should have booked there. It had been a rough winter for Brian too. He said things had gotten bad for him right before Christmas. Happy holidays. I would never know what he was actually going through. But I knew the feeling - of wanting to disappear. To walk off into the wilderness, and never come back. “I’m really glad you’re here, man.” I told him. He had started on some new meds, and said he was starting to feel a little better. I had done the same, for the first time in a long time. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t. I could never tell. The meds were too subtle. Nothing like the quick fix of a few strong drinks, or maybe even the whole bottle. Nothing else made me feel like everything was okay in the world, and I could breathe again. I just need a way out Of my head I’ll do anything for a way out Of my head For my 40th birthday, my brothers collaborated and got me a brand new stereo receiver - something a little more respectable than the Wonderboom. I declined the gift. “I just don’t want to build a whole new system,” I told them. “Speakers and turntable, records and everything. I’m trying to minimize, bros.” I sent the receiver back, and bought a much bigger Wonderboom speaker - the Hyperboom, a high-powered bluetooth party speaker with their “loudest and bassiest sound yet.” Greg said, “Whatever, man, it’s your choice.” Brian was a little butthurt, and maybe even mad. Over the past few years we had started sending each other records for birthdays and holidays. I could give, but without a system of my own, I couldn’t receive. My brothers just wanted to send me some cool records. For Brian’s birthday a couple years ago, I got him Mac Miller’s Swimming. “Thanks for the record, bro!” Brian said. “This is a good one, I actually already have it.” Our Uncle Bobby had sent him a copy for Christmas the year before, and Brian said he had it on repeat. “Mac Miller again?” Becky would ask him as he put on the record one more time. Another birthday, another Christmas, and Brian sent the copy of Swimming I gave him to Henry. Henry dug it. That little Wonderboom speaker now lives in the bathroom that Brian and I tiled together. It’s my shower speaker, and the acoustics in there are fantastic. A few months after that last Christmas, I stepped out of the shower one day and a thought occurred to me. I looked in the mirror. Brian’s gonna be 50 soon, I thought. That would be really cool if we could all get together and throw him a real big party. Last year would have been his 48th birthday. That summer, I made a decision. After we got back from the funeral, I would buy a record player. No elaborate stereo system like the ones we grew up on, just a modest turntable with bookshelf speakers. Something that looked nice, sounded clean, and fit next to the mantle in our family room. I started collecting again. September 6th came around, and I wanted to do something special to celebrate my brother’s birthday - the first one without him. I proposed the idea to Greg of buying each other records; albums that reminded us of Brian, or something that he would have liked. I called it The Vinyl Exchange. Greg was into it. He sent me Grateful Dead - Europe ‘72, a 3-record live set. I sent him Fat Freddy’s Drop, a New Zealand reggae dub band that Brian had turned me onto years ago. I sent Becky a copy as well. I bought a record for myself that day too; Swimming, by Mac Miller. This time around there was a rule I would adhere to for rebuilding my record collection; only the classics, the certified bangers. The albums that had been on repeat for years. When the package arrived, I practiced the ritual; the careful opening to preserve the plastic wrap around the album cover, pulling the record from its sleeve and placing it on the turntable. Dropping the needle, and then - the first listen. My regrets look just like texts I shouldn’t send My new record player had found its place right next to the mantle, under a big framed picture from our wedding day. In the photo, Lizzie and I are in the middle, and we are flanked on either side by our siblings, and Henry. All suited up, with the ladies in gowns. We look great. A silhouette of tall northern pines fills the background. Arms are locked through the whole group, with big smiles all around. Henry is looking up at Brian, and Brian is looking back. A strand of yellow lights hangs across the framed wedding photo, and casts a warm glow over the whole scene; Christmas lights I had strung up around the mantle one year and never took down. Every time I put on a record, I look at that picture, and think about that happy day Up North, among the pines just a few hundred feet inland from the lake. And I see my brother. This week was Lizzie’s 40th birthday. We celebrated over dinner with an elevated view of the world’s most active volcano; Mount Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii. It had just erupted a couple weeks before, and smoke was still pouring from the tip of the volcano. At night the top of the dome glowed orange and red. My wife has a tradition of spending every 5th birthday in a National Park. At 30, we went to Glacier in Montana, and met up with Brian and my nephew Jacob. At 35, we drove down to Kentucky to see Mammoth Cave. At 40, we decided to go big and visit Volcanoes National Park, and explore the Hawaiian islands. When the opportunity for travel comes up these days, I no longer make excuses to stay behind and drown myself in alcohol. The spark that used to ignite when a window to relapse opened up has dampened into a slowly fading ember. The glow may always be there somewhere in the dark, but it no longer spreads like wildfire. A couple days ago, Lizzie and I flew from the Big Island to Kauai. As our plane touched down, I had “Cold Little Heart” by Michael Kiwanuka playing in my headphones, drowning out the roar of the jet engine. I gazed out the window and watched the island grow into the surrounding Pacific as we made our descent. I felt every note of the haunting vocals and heavy strings of the six and a half minute intro. I remembered talking about this song with Brian one time years ago, in a different life. We had both agreed; it was epic. Did you ever notice? I’ve been ashamed All my life I’ve been playing games Lizzie and I whipped around volcanic mountain passes in our rental car, a Mustang convertible with a softtop; her choice. We talked about her other island trip; the one to the Galapagos, a decade ago, when that fire inside was still ablaze. “The marine iguanas,” Lizzie said. “They just lay around all day, then dive down into the ocean, eat algae, and come back up to the surface. And those tiny little penguins…” She smiled and reminisced on all the beautiful creatures. “I should have gone on that trip with you instead of staying home, and relapsing,” I said, one hand gripping the steering wheel as we navigated around a tight curve. My other hand reached for hers. “Yeah,” Lizzie sighed. “You should have.” This morning, we watched the sunrise from our Airbnb on the North Shore of Kauai. The condo has what my mom called a “million dollar view;” 180 degrees of clear blue ocean all the way to the horizon. Lizzie and I sat and drank our coffee, and felt the ocean breeze from the Hawaii Tradewinds blow through the open window. The waves broke at the reef, a few hundred feet out from shore, and somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed; the sound of Kauai. Way off at the horizon, a bright orange sun peeked out over the water, and a golden ray stretched toward us across the surface, dappled by the constant ebb and flow of the ocean. Aloha.