Clever Swine

Our sister bought Ros this book on the history of body modification in an attempt to prove to our mother that it was a perfectly normal thing after he came home for Christmas in '92 with his ears pierced and a tattoo on his arm. Seeing what he had done to his body nearly sent our mother into a state of catatonic shock. Of course, Dad's only worry was that the ensuing argument was going to delay Christmas dinner, and I can't say any part of the situation surprised me in the least.

I finally read the book about five years ago. It had been sitting on the coffee table in my den for ages and I happened to pick it up one night when I couldn't sleep, knowing full well there would be parts of it that would have me cringing at the mere mention. I have never been good with needles and pain. I hated getting shots as a child, the sight of blood has always bothered me, but Ros could be stabbed and not so much as flinch at the feeling of metal slicing his skin. He was always stronger and crazier than I am like that.

Flipping through the pages, I wound up reading about accidental tattooing, in which some substance gets into an open wound and it's similar to the primitive process of putting ink into a fresh carving in the skin to create a tattoo, but it's not done on purpose. The book talks about how it's not an uncommon occurrence with certain professions, like coal miners getting dust in open wounds, or with injuries like road rash where asphalt embeds in the skin and then it heals over, creating discoloration.

Nanni had a bunch of gray spots on her skin, but she had this one area in particular that didn't look random like the other marks. It was darker, near black. It probably was black at one point and had just faded over time. I never paid it much mind as a child, but when I got a little older, I found myself fascinated by it. It was too suspiciously placed, too specifically shaped to be accidental. I had to know the truth. She had a lot of scars and discoloration on her skin that she never wanted, but this one was intentional. The story still bothers me slightly, but for a different reason that it used to.

She had fallen asleep in Grandpa's chair watching television with a lit cigarette still burning between her fingers. I was convinced that's how she would die someday. She was going to fall asleep when she was home alone during the day, drop her cigarette into the couch, it would catch fire and burn the whole house down with her in it. I can't say the thought ever bothered me either.

My eyes lingered on that dark stain on her hand as I slipped the cigarette from in between her fingers and extinguished it in the ashtray. Staring at her asleep in the chair, it almost felt like she was dead, but the strange thing is that she always felt like that. It was like she wasn't living anymore. She was just alive, but barely. She was breathing, her heart was still beating, her organs worked, and she was cognizant, but she was lifeless. Physically she was alive, but her spirit died a long time ago.

I did my best to brush off the uneasy feeling she gave me as I left the room and I checked my watch as I hurried upstairs, skipping every second step in an attempt to make up for lost time. I knew I was going to be late to meet Valerie. That was one of those things we constantly argued about. I couldn't be on time. I was always late for our dates, I missed doctor and dentist appointments often, I spent quite a bit of my school years in detention for showing up to class after the bell had rung. I was always caught up in something, from football practice and after school activities, to homework, chores, dealing with my brothers. Valerie kind of got lost in all that craziness sometimes. I think she was used to it. She accepted it for the most part, but I knew she was never going to be happy feeling like everything else in my life was more important than her.

The light from his bedroom spread into the dark hallway and I could hear the faint sound of music getting louder until I was standing in the doorframe listening to that voice I still recognize immediately whenever I hear it. Ros loved two things with equally intensity at that age: himself and the Smiths. Morrissey is like a reminder these days of years gone by. It sometimes brings a smile to my face with the memories it resurfaces and sometimes destroys me for the same reason.

Either way, I'm rather amused by the fact I still remember all the lyrics three decades later. I remember every song, every album, every line that Ros loved quoting. He drove everyone in the house insane playing those records over and over again until they were so well worn that the sounds of clicks and pops on tracks became normal. When he finally converted over to CDs, it was hard for both of us to adjust to hearing those songs without the noise distortion we had grown used to on vinyl.

He was laying on his bed reading some book and mumbling along with the lyrics to the song that was playing. I never understood how anyone could read while listening to music, but Ros did everything to music. He never minded noise: it was silence that bothered him. I knocked on his door, but he didn't look up from his book to acknowledge me.

Stepping into Ros' bedroom always felt like his personality had exploded all over the room, splattering the walls with posters of British rock bands, lining the bookshelf with the words of dead Irishmen, and covering the floor in dirty soccer equipment. He was very particular about his space. He didn't like people just barging in without permission and moving things around on him. Although it seemed like he just left items wherever they happened to fall, he claimed that he knew where everything was that way. Someone coming in and touching things sent his whole nonexistent organizational system out of whack.

He eyed me as I slowly entered his room uninvited. I hung around by the door at first, lightly kicking his soccer ball out of my way. I knew what I was after though to really drive him insane. He had a globe perched on the corner of his desk that was marked with distances and times. The number of kilometers, never miles, from Thailand to Australia. How many hours it would take to drive the length of Chile. What the time difference is between Naperville and Łódź.

And then there was this thick black line dividing Europe in half: the half of Europe that existed in everyone's dreams with cultural hotspots like Paris and London, and then there was the half of Europe that was everyone's nightmare: our half of Europe. He had drawn the Iron Curtain in permanent marker. Today, it's just graffiti on an outdated world map, but back then it was a reminder of why we left Poland. Our parents didn't want us to live like that. They didn't want us to have to grow up they way they did in a communist nation on a continent bisected into freedom and oppression, but Ros never saw it like that. In his mind, leaving wasn't some selfless act by our parents to give us the opportunities they never had. It was just running away from the bigger problem instead of fighting to fix it like the factory workers on strike. I always thought it was stupid that he wanted to be in the midst of all that, but that was another difference between Ros and me; I was content to let it be someone else's problem and Ros knew someone had to make it their problem if change was to ever occur.

I picked up one of his records from on top of a pile next to his turntable. He listened to the weirdest things, like bands named after German design schools and mythical Irish wailing women. I still wonder a killing moon is sometimes.

"If you're so anti-CD, why don't you just listen to cassettes like normal people?"

"Because I don't have to rewind a seven inch if I want to listen to it again." He lowered his book. "Don't touch that."

I put the record down gently and moved over to his desk. "So Kacper's asleep and I've sent Bogdan to bed —"

"Bogdan's not going to bed."

I opened one of the books he had sitting there and flipped through its pages. "Don't care. He's in his room. Just make sure he stays there."

"Do you mind?" He nodded to the book in my hand. I could hear the annoyance in his voice already.

"No." I shut the book and put it back on his desk, purposefully out of place.

Over the years, I had learned how to get under his skin the way he got under mine. By the time he was fifteen and a half that summer, I had annoying him down to a science.

"Nanni's passed out in the chair," I continued. "I put her cigarette out."

He rolled his eyes at me before turning the page he had finished reading. "Only you can prevent house fires, Smokey."

"Keep your music down so you don't wake anyone."

He lowered his book to glare at me. "Anything else, matka?"

If nagging your little brother was an olympic sport, I'd take home gold, silver, and bronze. There was no contest: I lived to piss off Rościsław. It was essentially payback for him existing. Growing up, I felt like I had never asked for a younger brother, let alone three, and I certainly didn't ask to spend my life in direct competition with Ros over everything. I wasn't going to stand by while outdid me in every aspect. Whenever I did something, he just had to one up me. He couldn't let me be better at anything. It infuriated me to a point beyond words and rational thought. So, of course, I did it right back to him. I made it a point to knock him down a notch until this pissing contest of ours spiraled out of control and we wound up grounded for exchanging bloody noses and black eyes in the living room yet again.

"Bring the cat in before midnight," I told him.

"Whatever," he grumbled.

Engrossed in his book and desperately trying to ignore me, I began tracing my fingers over the shape of the continents on the globe. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye as I turned it to be able to touch every landmass. With one quick flick of my wrist, I sent the globe spinning rapidly on its axis.

"Wojciech!" He sprung up from his bed and stormed over to steady the globe between his hands. "Get out!"

I put my hands up like I was innocent. "Hey, I just came in to give you your fair share." I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and thumbed around for a five dollar bill to hand to him.

"Ten," he said upon seeing the five.

"Ten?"

"Ten," he repeated.

"You're out of your mind if you think you're getting ten. You're lucky you get five."

"And you get twenty for going out while I'm the one stuck here doing what Ma told you to do. I want half."

I pocketed the five, taking the offer off the table. "No way!"

"Fine." He plopped back down on his bed and picked up his book. "I sure hope nothing goes wrong while you're not here tonight."

I internally debated giving him ten dollars just so I could leave. Ros was just trying to see how far he could manipulate this situation in his favor and I knew that. However, every minute I stood there arguing with him was one less minute I spent with Valerie. He knew fighting with him over five extra dollars wasn't worth the ensuing argument being any later than I already was would cause with my girlfriend. I just really hated giving him what he wanted though.

"Eight," I bargained. "That's the highest I'm going."

"Ten, or I go wake Nanni right now and tell her what you're doing." He reclined against his pillow like he knew I was going to give in. "That's the offer," he said smugly. "Take it or leave it. It's simple supply and demand. Pay attention in economics and you might learn how this stuff works."

"You should go into politics when you're older. You're way too comfortable blackmailing people."

"Don't think of it as blackmail. It's a perfectly legitimate deal." He sat up and I knew I was in for another one of his infamously longwinded explanations of something that frankly I didn't care to have explained to me.

I groaned. "Oh, here we go."

"You need my services. You're used to receiving these services at the low, low price of just five dollars. That's a great deal. However, as my business expands to include more services — Not just babysitting two kids, but making sure Nanni doesn't burn the house down and the cat is returned safely to the laundry room where she belongs before her curfew, in addition to not telling anyone what you're up to. — Well, you don't get four services at the price of two. I already throw in keeping your secrets for free because you're my brother and I love you —"

"Is there an end to this speech, or —"

"You either pay up, or you're not going anywhere." He stretched out on his bed, clearly satisfied with himself. "Business is business, Woj. Don't take it personally."

I removed a ten dollar bill from my wallet and held it out toward him. As he went to grab it, I pulled it back out of his reach. "Go into politics, Rostek. Seriously." I dropped the bill on the bed and turned to leave. "So, I'll be back before eleven. Valerie and I are —"

"Don't care. Close the door on your way out."

I didn't like Ros at that age very much. He was everything I wasn't and I was everything he didn't want to be. We were polar opposites who got great pleasure out of tormenting each other. I think it was the age difference, or lack thereof, that was the cause of all the friction. Being that close in age, Ros was like a shadow. He was everywhere I went and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't escape the fact I was always going to be stuck with him.

I slammed his door behind me and I could hear him cursing me out in Polish as I raced down the hall. I felt like the White Rabbit constantly checking my watch as I ran as fast as I could to make sure my little brothers were both still in their rooms before I rushed downstairs.

On my way out, I peaked into the living room to make sure Nanni was still in a deep sleep. I remember her dress, always ankle length and never fitted, the dark blue of the flowing fabric fading into the black of the chair. But it was those red nails that stand out to me the most. Those brightly colored claws she always kept long and painted with precision. Never chipped, always expertly applied. I remember those red nails and the discolored skin of her right ring finger.

The unsettling feeling was back and grew stronger with each second I watched her peacefully sleeping in the living room. I couldn't stomach it anymore and slipped out the front door as quietly as I could. Carefully and silently, I inched the door closed behind me, as not to wake her with the sound.

Perhaps I should have been less hasty to leave that night, because it was the last time things were going to be normal that summer. Everything in my world was about to change drastically and I still debate with myself over whether I can take fault for it or not. I keep thinking I never should have left Ros in charge and gone to Valerie's that evening, but I was dictated by hormones, not responsibility at that age. I didn't think about the consequences of my actions. I so rarely have in life.

On the other hand, I like to believe that it was inevitable. I had that feeling that something was wrong and there was no escaping it. My grandmother was always insistent that she had the gift of foresight and it ran in her family. Sometimes, the phone would ring and she would tell us not to answer it because it was bad news. She would tell someone to go answer the door before the doorbell even rang. She'd wait at green traffic lights when she had a hunch, and sure enough some asshole would come barreling through the red light. She always knew when Dad was about to injure himself with power tools again, but I don't think you needed the gift of foresight for that one. If he brings out the power drill, it's safe to assume the first aid kit will be needed.

We derogatorily called it gypsy magic and it was essentially the ability to sense misfortune. It was just silly premonition, crazy superstition, and old slavic women thrive on that sort of stuff. When we moved in, my grandmother put bread under the stove to attract a domowoj, a guardian of the home. We never had a house spirit, but we certainly had mice for a while. She believed in a lot of foolish things like that. She played lottery numbers based on her dreams, so everything Grandma said had to be taken with a grain of salt, but for some reason Ros' teasing words were stuck in my mind. I sure hope nothing goes wrong while you're not here tonight.

I knew something was wrong, like Kacper was going to get sick, or Bogdan's pyromaniacal streak was going to end in disaster that evening, but I ignored it. I just ignored it because I didn't like being abnormal. My family was insane and I wished they could have just been like everyone else. My friends had normal families. No one's dad ever put the screws in backwards on a bunk bed ladder. Twice. Their mothers didn't wield wooden spoons as a weapons. People in America didn't believe in folklore and presage so I refused to believe in it as well.

Gypsy magic in my house referred to the belief in this gut feeling that tragedy was about to strike and it's never been wrong.