Fiction: Eatin’ Pussy

By Neil Randall

In the early 1980s, or hate-ies as I like to call them, my brother Miles landed a small part in what would become a hugely successful cult movie. His role, that of an arresting police officer interrogating a suspect, consisted of only nine words.

     “Where’d you get that scar, tough guy? Eatin’ pussy?”

     Inexplicably, that section of dialogue and what amounted to around fifteen seconds of screen time would provide him with a comfortable existence for the rest of his life. He never had to find himself a regular job. He never had to struggle to make ends meet. How remains a mystery to me to this day. But perhaps the reason why is an even more perplexing proposition, one I’ve been wrestling with for years.

    Twelve years Miles’ senior, I felt an acute sense of shock when our parents sat me down one day and explained that I would soon have a little brother or sister to play with. Having been perfectly content with the family dynamic up to that point in time, I saw no reason why my mother and father would want to upset our peaceful domestic routine with another child. More to the point, I was considered somewhat of a prodigy back then, a gifted piano virtuoso. Much of my time – and by extension, my parents’ time – was spent either travelling to and from music lessons, or playing the piano itself, at intimate gatherings (i.e. for my mother and father’s exclusive delectation) or modest performances in the local area. I just couldn’t see how we could possibly accommodate another hugely demanding human presence into our busy schedule.

     “Don’t worry, Nicholas,” said my mother, as if sensing my disgruntlement. “Everything will work out just fine. And while father and I will have to spend a lot of time with the new baby, it doesn’t mean that we love you any less.”

    Worthy sentiments, but actions are so much more important than words.

    Vividly, I remember seeing my little brother for the first time at the hospital. Grotesquely fat, the wriggling ball of pinkish flesh in my mother’s arms did little during what constituted the first twelve to eighteen months of its existence other than gorge itself on the copious amounts of milk in her swollen breasts. Not only did the new arrival cause all kinds of unwanted distractions in my life, he transformed my once pretty and petite mother into a bloated whale of a woman who failed to recover her slender, attractive figure, no matter what lengths she went to with different and innovative dieting regimes. Never again would she wear stylish cocktail dresses to one of my recitals, rather hessian-sack like sartorial disasters which were a source of great embarrassment to everyone concerned.

    But I digress.

    I won’t bore you with a classic tale of sibling rivalry. How the older child was jealous of the attention his parents bestowed upon the baby of the family. Then and now, I consider myself above such primitive emotions. I simply accepted our much-changed circumstances and continued to dedicate myself to the pursuit of artistic excellence. I ignored, if not completely drowned out the new baby’s crying fits. I banished the smell of soiled diapers from both my mind and airwaves, through intense piano work and the lighting of endless incense sticks throughout the home. If I was ever encouraged to interact with the infant myself, I would dutifully fulfil my brotherly role and play with the baby or pose for family photographs.

    Besides, great changes were on my own personal horizon. Namely, I was offered a place at the world-famous Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. With enduring pride, I remember my high school principal inviting me to his office to discuss a ‘matter of utmost importance’.

    “You’ve been presented with an incredible opportunity, Nicholas. Not many young people from Hoboken are invited to attend one of the finest conservatories in the world.”

     Hence, I was absent for much, if not all of Miles’ formative years. Bar standard visits home during the holiday periods: Christmas (always), Thanksgiving (every other year), Summer (never, due to the cultural delights of Europe and a punishing musical schedule), I only saw my brother from around the age of four or five to his early twenties on a dozen or so occasions. That’s not to say I didn’t get regular updates from my parents. In heartfelt letters or tearful long-distance phone calls, they spoke of a lazy, unruly child constantly in trouble at school or with the police in the local area. They told wild, fantastical, almost unbelievable tales of my brother’s antics. The kind of teenager into everything before it was fashionable, he drank alcohol and smoked illicit substances, shoplifted and handled stolen goods (on more than one occasion, the high school principal caught him in the act of selling car radios or cartons of cigarettes to his fellow students), he somehow contrived to lose his virginity at the age of thirteen and faced paternity tests regarding the fatherhood of two babies (both of which proved thankfully inconclusive), and spent nine weeks in a juvenile detention centre for stealing a car and driving some friends to Miami for spring break.

    But what perhaps distressed my parents more than any of the above was their second child’s innate indolence, his lack of drive and purpose in life.

    “We’re at our wit’s end,” said my mother, during one of her weekly telephone rants. “We simply don’t know what to do with Miles anymore. We can’t understand why he’s so different to you. Since the day you were born, you were such a bright, inquisitive child. Once you discovered your musical gift, there was no looking back. You dedicated every free moment to the piano. Even though Miles has been given the same opportunities and encouragement you had – we’ve paid for music lessons, sports classes, out of school initiatives – he just can’t seem to stick at anything for more than five minutes. He’s perfectly content to sit in his bedroom all day, play computer games, and smoke those funny cigarettes of his.”

     I didn’t really know what to say to reassure my parents, other than reel off standard cliches about the teenage years being difficult and it just being a phase Miles was going through. To be perfectly honest, there was far too much going on in my own life at the time for me to show much interest or genuine sympathy. Consequently, I never really, truly understood the depth of the problem.

    My time at the conservatoire, nine extraordinary years, were the happiest of my life. I was not only given the opportunity to dedicate all my time to perfecting my musical abilities, but was exposed to a life of order, discipline, and artistic excellence. I quickly became one of the finest students in not just my year, but in the institute’s fabled history. For ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day, I immersed myself in some of the most exquisite classical compositions of all-time: Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Clair du Lune by Debussy, Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major. Routinely, I had to soak my fingers in packs of ice to ease my aching joints. Every evening, I threw myself down on the bed in my modest lodgings and fell into a profound and tranquil sleep, safe in the knowledge that the day that awaited me tomorrow would pass just like the day I had just enjoyed to the full.

     It was a beautiful, golden period. All the hours I had practised as a child, all the sacrifices I had made culminated in gala performances in some of the finest concert halls in Europe, in standing ovations, and heady acclaim. Perhaps that’s why my parents’ stories about my brother were complete anathema to me. For I couldn’t possibly envisage another individual not being possessed of the drive and determination to accomplish great things in life.

     Of my personal life, I am not inclined to share much. Yes, there was a relationship, founded on an intense passion for music, with a Romanian violinist at the conservatoire. But our dedication to our musical careers made any kind of normal relationship difficult to envisage. Fate ultimately took us in different directions. And when one career trajectory soars at a steady and consistent rate and the other peaks only to fall off in the same steady and consistent manner, it is a recipe for disaster and resentment. And while I retain no lingering bitterness, I often wonder why one artist is blessed with such immense good fortune and another is forsaken by the musical gods completely.

     When my time at the conservatoire was drawing to an end, I was inundated with offers from different philharmonic orchestras in both Europe and back in the United States. In truth, a return to my home country never once crossed my mind, even though in some cases the financial renumeration was far superior.

    “Take you time, Nicholas,” counselled my tutor, Heinrich Richter, an incredible mentor I both loved and revered. “In many ways, this is the most important decision of your life. What you must understand is that only a handful of select, elite virtuosos can be the next Claudio Arrau or Vladimir Ashkenazy. Moreover, there is only room for one lead pianist in any orchestra. For that reason, why not consider staying on here at the conservatoire in a teaching capacity?”

    As much as I admired the man, I could barely believe my ears. What he had just suggested was tantamount to sacrilege.

     “But with the greatest respect, Herr Richter, one of those offers has come from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. You yourself encouraged me to aim for the stars. You said that a talent like mine was born to grace the world’s finest stages.”

     “And I meant it, Nicholas. I am only outlining your options. You are possessed of immense musical abilities but have a delicate temperament. Remember, whatever your decision, or whatever may happen in the future, you will always be welcome back here at your alma mater.”

    “Thank you. I truly appreciate your kind words. I will try to rein in my more emotional side. But my mind is made up.”

     When I called my parents to tell them the wonderful news, that I would be joining the Berlin Philharmonic as a junior orchestral pianist, their reaction was beyond muted.

     “We’ve just got back from the hospital,” said my mother. “Miles again. It’s so stupid. A prank at a frat party that went terribly wrong.”

     “A prank?”

     “Yes. By all accounts he was attempting to set light to, erm…a flatulent episode with a disposable lighter. When it wasn’t successful, he applied some highly flammable material to the area in question and ended up with second-degree burns.”

     Despite expressing both sympathy and astonishment, the true nature of not just the scene, but how something so vulgar, crass, and juvenile had overshadowed the crowning moment of my musical journey thus far, failed to fully register.

    “Will he be okay?”

     “We hope so. He’s in a lot of pain at the moment, though. And will be for some time, especially where his bowel movements are concerned.”

     Three weeks later, I embarked upon my career with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In the days before I left Helsinki, the company had arranged for all my personal belongings to be transported to a modest but well-located apartment close to the Tiergarten and magnificent concert hall that would soon become my second home. It’s almost impossible to exaggerate my excitement and sense of achievement. All my life, I had dreamed of an opportunity like this, to be part of the one of the world’s most famous orchestras, to be synonymous with excellence on the loftiest of artistic scales. I remember the first time Herr Sommer, the musical and artistic director, walked me around the auditorium. Even when empty – or maybe because of that very fact – I got a real sense of the history of the place, the gravitas, that some of the finest artists in the history of classical music had played some of the most beautiful pieces ever composed here.

     “We are most happy to have you, Nicholas. You are a gifted musician with an admirable work ethic. Be patient. Look, listen, observe. And one day you may have the great honour of performing on that wonderful stage.”

     Besides the thrill of having taken the first steps to fulfilling a life’s dream, I cannot fail to mention the city itself. In the late 1970s and early 80s, Berlin was an incredible place to live. There was something in the air, a spirit of change, of social and cultural ferment, a melting pot. Hordes of writers, artists, and musicians had flocked to the city. In a bar one evening, I was introduced to flamboyant singer/songwriter David Bowie. Having never had anything resembling a social life, and having been brought up in a backwater place like Hoboken (hardly the most sophisticated or worldly of locales), I was completely taken aback by the diversity of the city, how young people on the streets or in cafes and bars, be they punk rockers with bright-green Mohicans or furrowed browed intellectuals in berets, used their individuality as vehicles for self-expression. As most of the other musicians in the orchestra frequented a small bar just off Friedrichstraße after rehearsals, I too became a habitué. For the first time in my life, I not only sampled alcohol but came to enjoy my mug of frothy beer and apple schnapps as much I did the conversations about music, art, politics, the need for a true socialist revolution in Western Europe.

     “Only art can transform people’s lives,” said Miroslav Boniek, the finest flautist I ever had the pleasure of performing with. “In such uncertain times, with nuclear war a real and worrying possibility, it’s up to us to keep the flame of humanity burning bright.”

    And while I certainly don’t want to become embroiled in any kind of political discussion, or talk with a ridiculous degree of hindsight, something was happening in Berlin around that period. Events that would, in incremental stages, lead to the demolishing of that accursed Wall and the historic scenes that would be shown on televisions all around the world.

    As much as I loved Berlin, the life of a classically trained musician can be incredibly difficult at times, especially for a junior member of an orchestra who is burning with ambition. To repeat the words of Heinrich Reiter, there are only a limited number of renowned philharmonic orchestras in the world. And by definition, only one lead pianist in each company. On my arrival in Berlin, Japanese virtuoso Obi Kan Kobi was considered the most gifted classical pianist of his generation – and for good reason. His interpretation of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 is still seen by many as a watermark performance, a redefining of a piano’s capabilities. Long before I was offered a place with the orchestra, I would listen to that recording over and over again. In my spare time, when alone at my piano, I tried to replicate the most stirring sequences but always fell infuriatingly short. Why, I could never quite tell. It most certainly wasn’t for a lack of talent or persistence – the two vital ingredients in any musician’s armoury. Only there was something missing, something elusive and magical that separates the true genius from the multitude of super-gifted musicians trying to ascend to stars just out of reach.

    Kobi had not only been the lead pianist with the orchestra for nearly a decade, but was seen as one of its most prominent and influential figures. Like many revered people from any walk of life, he had an aura, a presence about him. If ever he talked, everybody else would immediately fall silent. At only five foot two, he nevertheless towered over the rest of the musicians like a startling apparition from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Often, I would watch from the wings, during both rehearsals and performances, and be struck by a sense of wonder and crushing inferiority. Intently, I would study his long, elegant fingers as they caressed the keys of the piano, and even though I knew I was capable of producing truly beautiful music, Kobi’s genius was truly of another world, leaving me with the depressing certainty that I would never be capable of escaping his shadow, that I would never become the lead pianist with the orchestra.

     A fact made abundantly clear to me during a conversation we had after rehearsals. To put this into context, certain rumours had been circulating regarding a huge money offer for Kobi’s services, that another orchestra was prepared to go to extreme financial lengths to tempt him away from Berlin. Rumours he quashed in the most emphatic fashion.

     “I love it here, Nicholas. I feel so at home. Never would I consider leaving the orchestra. This is where I’m destined to be. They will have to drag me off this stage in a coffin.”

     And while visions of Kobi as a desiccated corpse-like figure still playing lead piano in forty of fifty years might be fanciful, I found it hard to reconcile the love and respect I had for him and the knowledge that he was an immoveable impediment to me fulfilling my most cherished ambitions.

    As such, my years in the city, nine in all (mirroring my stay in Helsinki) were full of immense professional frustration and monumental personal crises. From the outset, it became abundantly clear that I would be expected to play an understudy role to Kobi for many years to come, perhaps in perpetuity. During countless gala performances, I was reduced to watching from the wings as Kobi, bathed in dazzling spotlights, wowed packed auditoriums with displays of virtuoso piano playing that had rarely if ever been seen before. I was reduced to the role of an impotent voyeur, a nobody, helpless as a paraplegic in a wheelchair. I had to look on as he strode to the front of the stage, bowed, and acknowledged the rapturous applause, the wild, feverous standing ovations, acclaim so heartfelt and well-deserved, it sent a vicarious shiver down my spine, a spike of poisonous jealousy. Put in the starkest possible terms, I felt like I was on the outside looking in, that I didn’t deserve to be circulating in such a rarefied orbit. I felt second-rate and singularly lacking in talent – the one thing I had always felt I possessed in abundance.

     On many occasions, I considered leaving the company, spreading my wings, and looking for a more prominent position with a lesser orchestra. But something held me back. What? I can’t say with any certainty. A fear of missing out on something. Vanity. Pride. Any step away from the Berlin Philharmonic felt like a monumental step backward. What would I tell my family and friends? The people I had sent such enthusiastic and misleading letters regarding my ‘incredible success’. I even had the gall to include newspaper clippings of reviews praising the lead pianist’s performance, but only if they didn’t refer to Kobi by name.

    In short, I became an imposter to myself. Granted, I still rehearsed with the same discipline and dedication as before. I still spent long hours at the piano each day. But it was no more than going through the motions. My disappointment slowly extinguished the flame of ambition inside me, I could feel my talent atrophying, drying up and withering away, like a plant without the water and light and nutrients it needs to flourish. This led to an almost terminal state of depression which, I’m ashamed to admit, saw me succumb to the demons of drink and occasional substance abuse. Each evening, I came to enjoy my frothy beer and fiery schnapps a little too much. In many ways, the now almost constant state of intoxication replaced the thrill of playing the piano, those moments of artistic expression which had been so intense and all-consuming.

     All of which culminated in me being relieved of my position with the orchestra.

     “I don’t know what has happened to you, Nicholas,” said Herr Sommer. “You were always such a steadfast and reliable character. A joy to be around. The other musicians never had a bad word to say about you. But for some time now, they have started to voice their concerns. Routinely, this last eighteen months or so, you’ve drunken to excess in the evenings and made a display of yourself. You have been involved in fistfights in taverns, for pity’s sake. You have been seen stumbling out of some of the city’s most notorious sex clubs and brothels in the early hours of the morning. Only last week, when I stopped to wish you a good morning, the smell of alcohol on your breath was so strong, it almost brought tears to my eyes. I can only suggest that you seek professional treatment for your problems. For make no mistake, one of the finest orchestras in the world is no place for a drunkard.”

     This was a difficult pill for me to swallow. Through my own weakness and stupidity, I had squandered the most wonderful of opportunities. If I had only been patient and accepted my role within the orchestra with good grace, I could have spent the rest of my life in the kind of environment I had always dreamed of inhabiting. And who knows? Five, ten years down the line, Kobi may have accepted one of those big money offers and I, as his natural understudy, would’ve taken on the role of lead pianist. In musical terms, I was still young, just a baby, in fact. And even though I had never been more than a junior member of the orchestra, I had come to see my fellow musicians as close friends and the city as my home. It had been such an honour to join the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, but – and this is hard for me to disclose – I couldn’t live with the fact of being anything other than the star attraction.

     But rather than heed Herr Sommer’s advice, I went off on an epic drinking binge that lasted for many months. Eaten up with self-loathing, self-pity, and regret – a truly horrendous cocktail of emotions for someone of my disposition – I stumbled from one drinking den to the next, often not eating or changing my clothes and washing for days on end. Things eventually came to a head one afternoon in a dingy tavern just off Karl Marx Allee. Having boasted of my musical prowess to a flirtatious pair of underage girls who had been cadging drinks off me all afternoon, they challenged me to play some Beethoven for them on the establishment’s rickety old piano.

    “My pleasure.” I staggered across the barroom. “Prepare to be stunned. Prepare to give up your religious beliefs.”

     It was only when I sat down and attempted to play and realised that I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking to even begin to strike a note, that I knew I had to stop drinking immediately, that I had to get out of Berlin full-stop. Only I had nowhere else to go – nowhere but my parents’ house back in the U.S, that is.      

    Having squandered most of my savings on drink and dissolute living, I somehow managed to scrap enough money together for a one-way ticket to New York. Creating a suitably dramatic cover story (I lied to my family about having contracted a rare respiratory illness that had incapacitated me for several months), I made it crystal clear that I would need several more months of rest and recuperation.

     “Of course, darling,” said my mother over the telephone. “We understand completely. You’ve worked so hard these last few years. This is your home. Stay for as long as you need to get yourself back to full health.”

     On the plane, I was resolute enough to decline the stewardess’ many offers of alcoholic beverages (‘We have a fine selection of spirits, wines, and beers’), closed my eyes, and tried to forget about everything that happened in Berlin. Despite knowing I was at my lowest point, I also felt a sense of relief. Under my parents’ roof, in the loving bosom of a mother and father who had always idolised me, I could clearly envisage straightening myself out. I still had a few contacts in the area. If I got my head right, I could make a few phone calls and try and rebuild my musical career. In three to six months, I could be doing the one thing I loved doing the most: playing the piano.

     What I returned to, however, made me realise that I had badly misjudged the situation.

    As arranged, my parents met me at the airport and drove me back to the family home. In the car, we chatted about light inconsequential matters – the weather, the state of the economy, the upcoming presidential elections. Regardless, I could tell they were taken aback by my gaunt features, pasty pallor, and how thin I’d become since they last saw me, no matter how explicit my fallacious explanation over the telephone, giving them advance warning. But all pleasant enough. Nothing to indicate that anything was amiss.

     It wasn’t until we walked through the front door that I got an inkling of the great changes that had taken place over the last decade or two. The house, always so clean, ordered, and pristine in my childhood, was what I could only have described as an unholy mess. On the coffee table in the front room were empty beer cans and a lone pizza box (containing the one obligatory cold congealed leftover slice, curling up at the ends like a genie’s slippers), VHS cases and vinyl record sleeves were strewn across the floor, dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen sink, the downstairs toilet was clogged with some fresh fecal monstrosity that defied description, both visual and olfactory.

     “Oh, we do apologise,” said my mother, looking suitably mortified. “We did ask Miles to clear up. He had one of his movie nights last night, and they always get a little out of hand.”

     Granted, on my short visits home during holiday periods, I had noticed small changes to the family home and family dynamic. Most noticeably, how much my parents had aged and how meek and subservient they were towards Miles. Whenever the little boy or chubby teen or later beer-swollen twenty-something walked into the room, they leapt to their feet like the most servile of domestic staff and began fawning around him, asking him what he wanted for his breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

     On my last Christmas visit, over a fine bottle of twelve-year-old Scotch, my father confessed to still having problems with my brother.

     “It’s just one thing after another. If he isn’t out all-night partying, he’s sleeping off hangovers until noon. We don’t know where we’ve gone wrong with him. He just doesn’t seem to have any get-up and go, any ambition. And the worst of it is, you can’t help liking the boy. He’s sharp and funny. If we share a beer in the backyard of an evening, he has both me and your mother in fits of laughter. If he could only channel that, I’m sure he could be whatever he wanted to be in life.”

     Naturally, I gave my father what I considered sensible advice on the benefits of ‘tough love’. I told him that Miles needed discipline, that being cruel was actually being kind. And as the eldest child and only sibling (our parents decided against adding to their brood following complications during Miles’ delivery), I felt duty-bound to sit down with my wayward brother and tell him some home truths.

     “Now, Miles, you really are going to have to pull yourself together and get a job. You can’t laze around and sponge off mother and father for the rest of your life.”

     “Oh, come on, Nicky, loosen up,” he said, hunching his shoulders like an Annie Hall period Woody Allen, mid amusing monologue. “Everybody my age gets stoned and laid. I’m just ticking off a few boxes, you know.”

    “But you must have some idea about what you want to do with your life. You’re twenty-one, for goodness’ sake. Most men your age have left the family home and are making their own way in the world.”

     “Way-Smay. I’m biding my time. You’ve got to smell the roses and all that.”

     I don’t recall how that particularly unsuccessful brotherly chat ended. What remained etched in my mind was Miles’ complacency, the smarmy look on his face. For someone who had made so many sacrifices, who had dedicated his whole life to the mastery of one of the world’s most expressive musical instruments, I found his attitude repellent. Age difference aside, it was like conversing with a creature from outer space.

    But back to events immediately following my return from European exile.    

   If the state of the family home wasn’t enough, imagine my astonishment when I learned that Miles had recently attained some kind of perverse celebrity status in the local neighbourhood and, as I was soon to discover, much further afield.

    At the kitchen table, an area thankfully not despoiled by my brother’s excesses, I was regaled with an almost preposterous chain of events.

     “It was the most unlikely of things,” my mother said over an inadvisably large pitcher of Tom Collins’ to celebrate my homecoming (my resistance to alcohol proved sadly short-lived – I felt like I badly needed a drink at that moment in time and was soon almost unconsciously reaching out to top up my glass). “Nicky got himself a part in a film. Not that your father and I have seen it. By all accounts, it’s not really our type of thing. But he does seem to have done rather well for himself. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing and he’s always out and about at promotional events or screenings or parties.”

     In terms of the specifics regarding Miles’ fifteen minutes of fame (which, in his own inimitable style, he managed to cram into around fifteen seconds of actual screen time), he met a friend of a friend at a frat party. To clarify, Miles never got anywhere close to university, he just used to hang out, drink beer, and smoke marijuana with student drop-out types in and around any number of given campuses. Over the course of a particularly stoned conversation, this friend of a friend happened to mention that he was part of the production team working on an independent film. As the budget was limited, the director was looking for amateur actors who’d be willing to offer their services for free.

    “You should come along, man. You’ve got an interesting kind’a face. It’ll be a gas.”

    The rest, as they say, is history. Miles landed the role of the police officer in the film and was given those nine immortal words that turned him into a tinpot local celebrity.

    As for my first encounter with my brother, he yawned his way into the kitchen a couple of hours after my arrival. By that stage, mother had prepared another pitcher of Tom Collins’ and I had a fuzzy alcoholic layer of perceptual cushioning to protect myself from Miles’ overwhelming presence. Bare-top and only in his boxer shorts (bright-pink, depicting a pair of copulating elephants, and emblazoned with the words: Big Lover), I was struck by the marshmallow folds of his flabby stomach, thick hairy legs, and big Bob Dylan cappuccino perm which bounced and bubbled atop his head like hot milk boiling over from a stove-side pan.

     “Hey, Nicky, good to see you again.” He picked up either my mother or father’s glass from the table and dispatched the contents in two easy swallows. “Jesus, Pop!” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Was there any gin in there? ‘Cos if there was, I sure as hell couldn’t taste it. Ha!”

     He nudged me with his elbow, as if encouraging me to join in with his laughter, and then lectured our father on how to make the perfect Tom Collins.

    “Shit! Let me demonstrate.” He clapped me on the back and bounded across the kitchen. “It’s magic time.”

     Reaching into one cupboard after another, he proceeded to juggle bottles from right hand to left, then twirl them high up in the air and over his shoulder, before pouring a liberal glug of gin into a pitcher while facing in the opposite direction, shaking his head, and sticking out his tongue. Giving everything a stir, he garnished four glasses with a slice of lemon and a cherry on a stick.

      “Try that, Nickster.” He handed me a glass. “Tell me what you think.”

     More mildly intoxicated than impressed, I nevertheless indulged my younger sibling and took a sip.

   “Whoa!” I couldn’t help but gasp. His take on a cocktail classic contained what very much tasted like pure undiluted alcohol.

    “Boo-ya! He shoots he scores. Ma, Pa, go on, try yours. Tell me that isn’t the best damn Tom Collins you ever tasted.”

     Dutifully, as if they had been given a direct command from a superior in the armed forces, my parents hurriedly shuffled across the kitchen and sampled Miles’ drinks.

    “Oh, that is rather good,” beamed our father. “You certainly know what you’re doing behind a bar, son.”

    “No shit, Pops. The guys down Jerry’s” – he turned to me – “that’s my local haunt, Nicky. I’ll take you there one night. We can blow the head off a few cold ones and chew the fat, get to know each other better. Well, they think I’m a natural born drinkologist. They think I should like branch my ass all the way out there now I’m fuckin’ famous. Like leverage my newfound star status to make some serious cash money. Not so much open a bar of my own, but make celebrity guest appearances at the hottest spots around.”

    I couldn’t help but chuckle. Hoboken was bereft of any ‘spots’, whether hot, cold, or anywhere in between.

    “Oh, laugh it up, Nickster.” Miles chuckled good-naturedly. “My shit is about to explode.”

    I had no idea what he meant by that expression, but couldn’t help but visualise the mess he had made in the downstairs toilet.

    “Right now, tho’, I better have something to eat. Hey, Mom, what’s on the menu? There any of that fillet steak left that I bought back from the premiere the other night? You should see this stuff, Nicky.” He laid one of his pudgy hands on my shoulder. “Best meat in New Jersey. This guy who’s got a shop off 14th Street gave me half a fuckin’ cow for doing a radio voiceover for his latest commercial.”

    Zoning out somewhat by this stage, I couldn’t help but start to assimilate the information that I had received ever since I walked through the door. My errant and not-so-little brother had evidently come into some serious money in recent months.

    Over the next few days, I observed Miles at much closer quarters. Citing jetlag and the physical weakness associated with my invented illness as an excuse to periodically snooze on the sofa, I would often listen in to his conversations with my parents. Most of which were gabbled and nonsensical to my ears. But once I’d familiarised myself with his slurry, breakneck delivery and the way he would randomly switch from one subject to the next (‘I might get a part in the remake, you know…Midnight start at Jerry’s, tho’…And I gotta call those people at the printers…pubic lice are the least of Andy’s worries, believe me…’), I managed to piece together a more complete picture of his life. All through the day, the telephone rang almost non-stop. In the same way I’d phantom-snoozed to get some much-needed breathing space, I would eavesdrop on these conversations, too. In both bemusement and disbelief, I heard my brother haggle with a whole host of diverse business entities (‘I couldn’t do it for less than twenty-two hundred…’ and: ‘I don’t care if she sucks off the whole damn crew, we’re professionals and should be remunerated accordingly…’ and: ‘Great doing business with you, chief. A Monday night residency sounds perfect for all parties concerned.’)

    It really was the most absurd set of circumstances. To be perfectly truthful, I had been so wrapped up in my own preoccupations, I hadn’t given my relationship with Miles a second thought. As far as I was aware, he had turned out to be a complete waster and a wild disappointment to our parents. I had no interest in him whatsoever, and certainly didn’t envisage us interacting in any significant way. Ten-plus years between siblings is a huge gap. Toss in the fact that I was a classically trained musician and a highly cultured individual who had lived overseas, against someone so much younger who had turned the act of couch-surfing into an artform, whose moronic party piece was to set light to his own rectal gas, and who had never been out of Hoboken in his life to the best of my knowledge, there simply wasn’t any common ground on which to build any kind of rapport.

    Only now, I felt, perhaps only unconsciously at this stage, that something could be gained from striking up, if not a friendship, then opening a channel of communication with someone I had considered no more than an irritant, a bit-part nuisance in what I hoped would be my own personal renaissance.

     One afternoon, Miles slumped down in an armchair with a leftover plate of canapes from whatever film-related event he had attended last night in one hand, and a bottle of Dom Perignon in the other (from which he liberally gulped from the neck whenever a semi-masticated lump of prawn or caviar-smeared pastry threatened to block his perennially wheezing airwaves).

    “I know this will sound stupid, Nicky,” he said, without any preamble whatsoever. “But as soon as I saw that script, I knew it was the perfect part for me. I knew it would be a stepping-stone to making some serious dough.”

     “Really?”

    “Damn straight.” Another canape. Another almighty swig of champagne. “It was written in the stars. It was inevitable that I’d hit the big time.”

    “Sorry, Miles, but can I just clarify one thing? All these phone calls. All these ‘celebrity guest appearances’. The goods you’ve ordered from the printers. And did you mention a ‘convention’ earlier? It’s all to do with the role you had in an independent film?”

    He nodded.

    “And in this film, all you said was, ‘Where do you like eating pussy’?”

    “No, no, Nick, you’ve got it all wrong. It was: ‘Where’d you get that scar, tough guy? Eatin’ pussy?’ The beauty of the whole scene is in my delivery. I drop the softer, more formal ‘ing’ sound from the eating part, right? And gave it a much harder edge, which really makes the piece of dialogue all the more compelling.”

     Getting to his feet, he demonstrated, he put the plate and bottle on the coffee table and started pacing up and down the room, pulling the wildest, most contorted of facial expressions, like Brando with pads of cotton wool shoved into his mouth in The Godfather, enunciating and thus differentiating the ‘in’ from the ‘ing’ sound.

    “‘Eat-IN’ pussy’, Nicky, not ‘eat-ING pussy’. There’s a world of difference, believe me. I’ll take you to the movie one night. You can see for yourself.”

    An impromptu and peculiar performance, for sure. But no empty boast. For what truly astounded me in those early days was the amount of money Miles consistently brought home from these events. Routinely, I would come downstairs in the morning and find him passed out in the front room like a crime scene corpse. Beside him there would always be a paper trail of money (to which, I would, of course, help myself to the odd crumpled fifty- or twenty-dollar bill – in truth, this saved me the embarrassment of having to ask my parents for some walking around money, so I was, in my own way, eternally grateful to Miles). On one occasion, when he was snoring so loudly, I knew it would take a fire alarm of epic proportion to rouse him, I counted the great wad of bills he had left on the coffee table: a little under $3,000. And for what? Turning up at a Hoboken nightspot, climbing onto a stage bathed in neon strobe lights in front of a crowd of inebriated simpletons, and saying, ‘Where’d you get that scar, tough guy? Eating (sorry, eatin’) pussy?’ Surely not. The perversity of the situation simply wouldn’t compute. In my youth, I had spent the best part of a decade dedicating myself to the piano. I had practiced for six to eight hours a day. In later years, I had attended one of the finest conservatories in Europe and joined one of the most renowned philharmonic orchestras in the world. But never had I received anything close to that sum of money for an hour or two’s work.

     This confounded and depressed me in equal measure. What had all my sacrifices been for? What had I been chasing after? What had I hoped to achieve? If material wealth could be attained so easily, why had I driven myself to despair and been cast down to what very much felt like the bottom of the barrel?

    Questions, then and now, that drove me to distraction, if not the exact same tunnel of despair. But questions I could never escape.

     Since my unexpectedly boozy homecoming, I had consciously tried to avoid alcohol. When our father offered me a glass of wine at the dinner table, or something stronger later in the evenings, I politely declined and told him that I had just taken a painkiller that didn’t mix well with alcohol. But it wasn’t something I could avoid forever, without making the kind of naked and raw admission I would never have made in a million years (‘Mother, Father, I have something to tell you. My name is Nicholas and I’m an alcoholic’). No, I wasn’t ready for that yet (if I ever would be), and framed the situation in my head in many different ways to justify any potential lapses. One part of me contended (most vehemently) that it was okay to relax for a week or two, to go with the flow, to put my feet up and recharge my batteries, enjoy myself, even spend some time with Miles and really get to know him a little better. He was my own flesh and blood brother, after all. The other, more sensible part, the crumbling remnants of the steadfast and disciplined person I had once been, knew this was contextually suicidal. As my last few months in Berlin had taught me, I no longer had any control over myself where alcohol was concerned. One sip (literally) was all it ever took. The next thing I knew, I was collapsed out in bed if I was lucky, or in some darkened alley if I wasn’t, with a horrible sense of guilt, regret, and confusion gnawing away at me, not knowing what I had done, where I had been, or who I had offended or (latterly) attacked, both verbally and physically.

    Thus, I was in an unenviable quandary. More than anything, I wanted to conceal the true nature of my fall from grace from my parents. Never would I openly confess to my dismissal from the orchestra or the cloud under which I had left Berlin, with my reputation perhaps tarnished forever. It was too shameful. Rather, I was more inclined to leave things to chance, to fate. A coward’s way out, I know. What would happen would happen. I would either avoid alcohol, or it would find me.

    Early one evening, a few days after my return, Miles bounded down the stairs in a reasonably stylish suit of clothes (if a man of his immense drink-swollen frame could never really carry off the fine lines of a tailored garment, no matter how skilled the tailor himself).

     “Woo-wee,” beamed our mother, whose childish chortles in response to whatever Miles said or did had not only become grating to the extreme, but were perhaps too revealing for comfort, in relation to which of her sons she favoured the most. “Who’s this Hollywood heartthrob?”

    “Ah, just something I found in the back of the closet.” Miles performed a pouty three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, with one hand on his hip and his head slightly tilted, à la Christy Turlington in her supermodel pomp. “But I’m all dressed up for a reason.”

    “Why?” she asked.

    “Tonight’s the night, Nickster,” he turned and said to me with cryptic solemnity.

    “I’m sorry. I don’t quite follow you.”

    “Me, you, Jerry’s bar. Two big fuck-off steaks, enough premium booze to sink the Titanic and, who knows, maybe a nice piece of ass to round off the evening.”

    “Miles!” our mother admonished him, but in such a jokey throwaway manner, it was obvious she approved of his plan one hundred per cent. “Seriously. You’re too much. Your brother hasn’t been well. He might not be up to going to a smoky barroom and having a late night.”

    “It’s non-negotiable,” said Miles. “Jer’s promised us the best table in the house. Smoke-free. It’ll be like dining in the Swiss alps in terms of air quality. Besides, me and my big bro need a bit of alone time, without you two old foggies cramping our style.

    “Get your ass upstairs, Nicky. Pull on your best togs. Let’s make a real night of it. My treat all the way.”

    Naturally, I feigned reluctance. I hummed and hawed, got up out of my chair only to sit straight back down again. But it was all an act. I had been increasingly curious to see a full, unadulterated, firsthand slice of Miles’ newfound fame. With my own eyes, I wanted to witness what all the fuss was about, why (and if, I must be completely honest, as part of me suspected that Miles was a massive fantasist and barefaced liar to boot) he was receiving large amounts of money almost every evening.

    “Okay, okay,” I said, getting to my feet in earnest this time. “I’ll go and get changed. But like mother said, Miles, I don’t want to go too mad. A few relaxing drinks and a bite to eat would be lovely. Nothing more. I’m not a young buck like you.”

     “Whatever you say, Nicky. Let’s play it by ear. If we get shitfaced and laid, we’ll put it down to experience.”

X X X 

Jerry’s bar was an even worse dive than even my worst fears had conjured in my head. Like something out of a bad seventies’ movie, it was dark and dingy, with crappy faux-leather booths, flashing neon lights, a smoke machine regurgitating noxious clouds into the already closeted air, tinny disco music blaring from concealed speakers, and, to my horror, a circular runway (or conveyor belt) of sorts, populated by bikini-clad pole dancers. In the main, skinny, malnourished, and uncoordinated waifs in threadbare brassieres and mismatched panties.

    “What a place, eh?” said Miles, somehow oblivious to the truly horrendous first impression the nightclub had made on me. “And look, here comes the man himself. Jerry.”

    The proprietor, the very same Jerry, was a corpulent mafioso type in a garish raspberry-colored tuxedo and with big pomaded white hair which could quite conceivably have been a toupee.

    “You must be, Nick, right? The piano guy.”

    I nodded and smiled to conceal my disdain. The piano guy!

    “Any friend of Miles’ is a friend of ours. You drink on the house all night. Anything you want. Apart from the Jack Daniel’s and Courvoisier. We can’t skim off the top of the good stuff, you get me?”

    I nodded out my thanks in as gracious and sincere-looking manner as I could muster. But my mock show of appreciation was quickly disturbed by the first cry of ‘Eatin’ pussy, eatin’ pussy’ that broke out from somewhere off in the smoky distance of what I later learned was the bar. Shortly followed by a rhythmic handclapping, the odd wolf whistle, and chanting of Miles’ name. Over the next ten to fifteen minutes, long before we were able to get to our table, dozens of patrons came up to Miles, patted him on the back, roared what had become both his personal catchphrase and meal ticket into his ear, and/or handed him a drink (in the main, shot glasses of vodka, which my younger brother tossed back as if it were tap water). Women, far more desirable than the establishment’s professional dancers, it must be said, some in hotpants or impossibly short skirts gravitated towards Miles, magnet-like. Some kissed his cheek and, far from discreetly, grabbed his crotch or cradled his scrotum, as if weighing up fresh produce at a farmers’ market. One striking-looking brunette with long fluttering eyelashes and crimson-red lipstick slipped a folded-up piece of paper into Miles’ hand. Patting her behind as she skipped away, he turned the note around and showed it to me. In a fortuitous flash of strobe light, I clearly saw the words (written in eye pencil):

 

Why don’t you come back to my place and eat my pussy?

 

It was no less hectic when we finally made it to our table, a corner booth right next to the dancefloor and right beside the offending smoke machine that seemed intent on delivering a fatal poison cloud to everybody in the now packed nightspot. Swiss alps, indeed. Not that Miles seemed in the least bit put out on his own or my behalf. Clearly, and I could see it plastered across his fleshy face already flushed with alcohol, that he was in his element. These were his people, his audience, fanbase, devotees, or whatever you wanted to call them. In between signing autographs and making plans for sexual assignations with scores of women varying in degrees of attractiveness, he would wink and flash me a wide yet almost challenging grin (well, that’s most certainly how I interpreted it at the time). He had brought me here with the sole intention of showing me exactly how popular he had become in the local neighborhood.

     “I had Jerry send over a bottle of his best champagne.”

     He picked up the bottle and haphazardly poured out two glasses of surprisingly acceptable sparkling wine. Not champagne by any stretch, perhaps something new world, Australian or South African, chardonnay based, but chilled and refreshing nonetheless. And he wasn’t shy of gesturing to the waiter for another bottle when he saw how steadily I quaffed through two glasses in the space of ten or so minutes. That was one thing I was soon to learn, and, I have to admit, love about my brother. He was generous to a fault. A good, fine, and noble fault, from my point of view at least. If you were in his company, you could be as excessive as you wanted. An empty glass or uneaten plate of food were almost offensive to him.

     “So, what’d you think of Jerry’s, Nicky. I know it’s not the kind’a place you’re used to over there in Europe. But it’s got its own unique charm, right? And wait until you try these steaks.”

     As if on cue, a team of waiters brought out a series of silver serving platters heaped with food – two of the biggest medium-rare steaks I have ever seen, four whole lobsters, a mountain of French fries and onion rings, dressed salads, and a basket of freshly baked bread. Not that any of these dishes were presented with any semblance of je ne sais quo, rather they were heaped on those platters in the same way a garbage truck dumps refuse at a landfill site. But being decidedly ravenous at the time, and, from experience, knowing one can consume and enjoy far more alcohol on a full stomach, I began to eat with a relish and gusto that I hadn’t displayed in months. The food was absolutely exquisite – the steaks cooked perfectly, the lobster to die for, the salad dressing balanced and tangy, even the French fries had a little something special about them. Without doubt, it was one of the best meals I’d ever had. And to qualify that statement, I have eaten at some of the finest restaurants in Europe, places in Paris, Moscow, and Rome frequented by gastronomes of worldwide repute. If that wasn’t enough of a pleasant surprise (and the fact we were in what amounted to a New Jersy titty bar was anomalous to the extreme), Miles, in a state of high-kick drunkenness by now, a level of superhuman intoxication I recognised so well, simply wouldn’t stop ordering drinks, even though his legion of fans were still delivering a steady stream of vodka shots over to our table.

     By the time we had finished eating – and believe me, we both did justice to that mighty meal, leaving only the merest crumb or morsel on any of those serving platters – I felt so mellow and content, so nicely sozzled and satiated that I experienced a groundswell of affection for my almost forgotten sibling, a brother who I had never really thought about much over the last two decades, a virtual stranger to whom I penned one birthday and one Christmas card each year. When he put a question to me, therefore, I almost (almost) let down my guard.

   “Hey, Nicky, you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

    “Not at all.”

   “Why’d you really come home so sudden, eh? You get into some kind’a trouble out there in Berlin?”

     Our eyes met across the table, bloodshot and blurry, but far from unfocused. Pure showdown at the OK Corral fare.

    “Trouble is such a subjective and ambiguous term, Miles. Unfortunately, I got sick. And world-famous philharmonic orchestras have to keep performing. The show must go on and all that.”

    “That sounds like top quality horseshit, Nickster. Come on. Don’t kid a kidder. You can be honest with me. What happened? I get the impression that you…” but before he could finish what had started to veer into uncomfortable interrogative territory, the music suddenly stopped and a burst of crackly feedback reverberated through the speakers.

    We both swung round to see the proprietor Jerry appear on stage. Through a haze of that wispy yet omnipotent manufactured smoke, he unhitched the microphone from a stand.

    “Ladies and gents, thanks so much for coming out and seeing us tonight. As all you regulars know, at this stage of the evening we invite one of our most famous sons to come up on stage and speak for a little while. Like my good personal friend Franky Sinatra said, this kid most certainly did it his way. Come on, guys and gals, show your appreciation for who we’ve all come to affectionately know as Miles the Pussy Eater.”

    As another round of wild applause and more wolf whistles broke out, Miles jettisoned himself out of his seat, like a fighter pilot having just engaged the ejector switch. A second later, it was he who occupied the stage and held the microphone in his hand. With the same propulsive dynamic, he launched into a stand-up comedy routine that reduced everybody in the audience to fits of laughter. And while I remember little of what Miles actually said that evening, in terms of content, the jokes he told, the stories he relayed, I was struck by how natural and assured he was on stage, how polished his performance (which could only ever have been improvised), the timing, the masterly pauses before delivering a punchline, the subtle use of physical comedy, the little mannerisms and quirks, twitches, a rolling of the eyes or a throwing up of the hands. It was if he’d been performing in front of live audiences for years.

     “So I says to the director, ‘You know you’ve given me the best freakin’ line in the whole freakin’ movie’. And he kind’a looks up at me over his glasses, squints up his eyes, like he ain’t got the foggiest idea who the hell I am. And I says to him, ‘I’m the cop from the interrogation scene at the start of the picture’. And no word of a lie, he, just like my good friend Jerry when he introduced me onto the stage earlier, says, ‘Oh right, yeah, you’re the pussy eatin’ guy.”

    Riotous laughter.

   “But in all seriousness. I was brought up, or dragged up as some folks ‘round here say, in this neighborhood. At school, I remember the teachers asking us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Of course, we all said ball players, film stars, or astronauts. Now, I’ve seen a lot of my old friends either wind up dead or in prison. I’ve seen good, hard-working souls settle down and have families and do very well for ‘emselves. You do a job, you become that job. You got Pauly the carpenter. Petey the baker. Johnny the car mechanic. You got Nicky, my own brother over in the corner there, the piano guy. And on stage in front of you now, you got Miles the pussy eatin’ guy.”

   More riotous laughter.

   “It’s an epitaph, if I even know what that means, fit for my tombstone. But if anybody had told me back in high school that that was how I’d be remembered, I shit you not, I’d have bitten their freakin’ hand off. Miles the sanitation worker, Miles the hemorrhoid specialist, Miles the mass murderer, Miles the child molester. I rest my case.”

    As the applause and laughter rang out once again, I had something akin to an epiphany. My drunkenness all but melted away from me, if only for a handful of brief moments. For I realised that Miles had something that I would never possess, even if I lived a thousand lifetimes. A realness, a humanness, a warmth. But all those attributes aside, the most important thing about my brother was his star quality, that certain something which set my dear friend and bitter rival Obi Kan Kobi apart from all other piano virtuosos – including myself. A quality that an individual cannot acquire, no matter how hard they work or how many sacrifices they make in life.

    “Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’ve been a great audience, you really have. God bless. Say your prayer and keep eatin’, you hear me.”

    Later that night, as we drunkenly stumbled in a direction that we dearly hoped was close to home, we happened to pass a late-night cinema.

    “You’re not going to fuckin’ believe this, Nicky. My movie.” He pointed to the billboard directly above the establishment’s main entrance. “It’s playing here tonight. Christ, what time is it?”

    He made a big show of rolling up his sleeve to check his wristwatch: a magnificent Rolex Submariner (although in hindsight, we were both so inebriated by that time, any calculated display of showiness should really be discounted).

     “Hey, it’s just started.” He tugged my sleeve. “Come on. We might miss it.”

     “Miss what?” I slurred, being decidedly slow on the uptake at that point of the evening.

     “My scene, shit-face.” He tugged my sleeve anew and with far more vigour, dragging me in through the main entrance and into the theatre house itself.

     I won’t bore you with another rehash of the scene in question. All I will say is that we crashed into the auditorium just as Miles’ character delivered those quasi-immortal lines. It was uncanny, beyond coincidental, as if the entire world and the fate of every person in it were mere puppets on Miles’ strings. Taking my hand and squeezing it hard, he stood in the centre aisle awestruck at himself, displaying such blinkered and utter delusion that not even a veritable ocean of strong booze could excuse it. And it was at that moment that the first stirrings of true contempt for brother began to churn in the pit of my (very probably ulcerative) stomach, even before he mouthed the words:

    “Beautiful, beautiful,” over and over again.

    Over the coming days, I felt compelled to find out more about the movie. In the months after its release, it had truly attained unique cult status. Far from a slow burner, it wasn’t the kind of film that takes little or nothing at the box office but becomes hugely popular years after its release, a best-kept secret between hip underground movie afficionados. Miles’ film (and I’m loathe to refer to it in such terms) bucked standard trends. It was already being spoken about as a modern classic. And like all phenomenon in life, little cottage industries sprung up around it like cancer cells in an ailing patient. Everybody wanted a slice of the pie, a jump on the bandwagon, their piece of the action. Miles was just so much better at it than anyone else – if he did have far more legitimate claims than the other opportunists out there.

   Every day people greeted him in the streets. But this, I must stress, wasn’t because they recognised him – not at first, anyway. As I’ve mentioned before, his appearance was so fleeting, even if you paused the film and freeze-framed his face, it was unlikely that anybody would’ve been able to identify him in real-life (whatever that means). Rather because Miles never stopped advertising the fact that he had featured in a film that had become this underground sensation. Striking while the iron was hot, he showcased commendable entrepreneurial spirit and invested the money he had accumulated through his many public appearances to buy some associated merchandise: T-shirts emblazoned with the words: ‘Where’d you get that scar, tough guy? Eatin’ pussy?’, mugs, keyrings, bumper stickers, whoopee cushions, even a range of edible panties. True to his word, he took his ‘operation’ as he called it to the next level. From my parents’ garage, he started to sell the merchandise to fans of the movie. The more he sold, the higher the demand in the neighborhood – and beyond. If I ever popped out for a paper or a stroll around the park, I saw dozens of local people from all walks of life – goofy teenagers, twenty- and thirty-somethings, young professionals, to the middle-aged and borderline geriatric – wearing Miles’ T-shirts. A week or so after our epic blow-out at Jerry’s, I sneaked out for a clandestine afternoon drink at an out-of-the-way bar and every car in the parking lot had an Eatin’ Pussy bumper sticker attached to its rear end.

    At home, the phone went into overdrive, ringing incessantly through office hours and late into the evening. As I was around the house most of the day, I ended up not only fielding a string of calls regarding everything from personal appearances (nightclub openings, officiating wet T-shirt competitions, motivational talks), bulk orders, to juggling Miles more intimate relations, making sure that he hadn’t arranged to meet Jeanette or Raquel on the same evening.

     “You’re a diamond, Nickelodeon. I don’t know what I’d do without you. My shit has really blown up ever since you landed back in the homestead. Maybe you’re my lucky charm.”

     In the nightclubs he frequented each evening, the dive bars where he worked off his hangovers in the early afternoon (he never rose before noon), or on street corners, Hoboken really was alive with the sound of Miles. Every time he stepped out of the house, it was like a final curtain standing ovation. On one occasion, I had the misfortune of bumping into him in the street, not a few hundred yards from our family home, as he was being regaled with a chorus of ‘Eatin’ pussy, eatin’ pussy’ by a gang of burly construction workers. Ever the showman, Miles climbed onto the hood of a parked car and not only joined in with the raucous chants but waved his arms around in the air like one of my mentors conducting a full classical orchestra.

    “You guys are the best,” he shouted, when their cunnilingus-based requiem had subsided. “Soon as you finish your shift, you get your asses over to Jerry’s bar. There’ll be a cold brew waiting for each and every one you. You hear me?”

    I was lost for words.

    Moreover, the popularity of the movie never seemed to wane. And by association, neither did Miles’ popularity. Not a fortnight after I had returned home, a new ‘Director’s Cut’ was released in cinemas. To commemorate the event, the director and main cast members appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In a slapstick pastiche – and to clarify, Miles didn’t tell the rest of the family the real reason why he would be away in New York overnight – they recreated the interrogation scene in which Miles featured. Excruciatingly corny, as soon as Miles mouthed his now legendary nine words, a hip-hop backbeat pounded from concealed speakers, along with some jerky record scratching, shortly followed by the words ‘Eatin’ pussy’ and ‘tough guy’ looped and repeated over and over again, and Miles not only saying the words in time and semi-hilarious staccato fashion but pulling off some surprisingly impressive breakdancing moves – a moonwalk, down into a scramble and backspin, if the attempted head-spin was always doomed to falling-into-a-heap failure.

     It didn’t matter.

    The following day, Miles’ appearance on arguably the biggest TV talk show in the country was all over the local newspapers. Streams of well-wishers either stopped by the house to offer their congratulations or called on the telephone. It got to the stage where I refused to answer the door and pulled the phone cord out of the wall socket.

    I remember how he swaggered into our parents’ house the following evening. While most certainly close to falling over drunk, slurring his words, spilling copious amounts of champagne (whether opening a bottle, pouring everyone a glass, or trying to manoeuvre his own drink from the kitchen table to his gaping mouth), he never once, in the two or three hours he regaled us with stories of his New York/Johnny Carson adventures, stopped talking.

     “What an experience! I met ‘em all, Ma. Pacino. Vanilla Ice. Madonna. Pheobe Cates gave me her freakin’ phone number. And Johnny! What a guy. A true gentleman. He loved the skit. He told me it was one of the funniest they’d pulled off in a while. And he not only gave me free tickets to the next Yankees game but exclusive use of his executive box.”

    Nationwide exposure only further fanned the flames of Miles’ counterfeit celebrity. Delivery trucks deposited so much ‘Eatin’ Pussy’ merchandise to the house, the garage space was soon fully occupied. Now we had boxes of edible panties, bumper stickers, frisbees, even blow-up dolls in the hallway and (much to my horror) my old music room. With light-stomached repulsion (i.e., by that point I was almost physically sick of Miles’ success and constant references to a film he had barely appeared in), I distinctly recall pushing open the door to my former musical haven, a place I had spent so many fine hours honing my craft, feeling so at one with my instrument it almost felt like a part of me, and being so crushed by the fact it had been reduced to a storage space, that cardboard boxes were actually stacked on my beloved old piano itself, that I almost dropped to my knees and burst into tears.

    Rather than be afforded the time and space to come to terms with the situation, I was soon aware of Miles’ heavy tread on the landing and wheezing breath close to my neck.

    “Oh, Nicky, look, I’m sorry about all of this.” He put one of his great meaty hands on my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to encroach on your own personal space. I know what this room means to you, the sentimental value, all those memories. I’ll be sure to get these boxes cleared in the next day or two. You have my personal guarantee on that.”

    I mumbled out something vague and neutral, in the hope that it would serve in lieu of thanks and remove Miles from my presence. But that didn’t prove to be case.

    “And I’ve been meaning to have a little talk with you for a while now. Look, Nicky, I know you’re down-at-the-heels at the moment. So why don’cha let me help you out. Here.” He took a great roll of dollar bills from, of all places, the cleavage of his considerable buttocks. “Just some walking around money until you work out your next move, eh?”

    “No, no, really, that isn’t necessary,” I said, even though my first impulse had been to snatch the money from his hand and abscond to the nearest bar, no matter how sweaty and unpleasant the storage place for that money had been.

    “Oh, come on, man. We’re brothers. I wanna help. I’m riding a crest of a wave at the moment. Next week, I’m takin’ my operation to a whole other level. The T-shirts, bumper stickers, and mugs are just the tip of the iceberg. After my appearance on The Tonight Show, I’m in negotiations with this toy manufacturer out in Taiwan. Action figures is where it’s at, Nickster. Any day now, they’re gonna send me a Miles the Pussy Eater doll. One that talks, you know, with the cord that you pull. ‘Where’d you get that scar, tough guy’. Ha! It’s gonna be massive.”

    I must’ve visibly grimaced at the thought, which my little brother took utmost exception to.

    “Oh, come on, don’t look so superior. I’m just try’na make an honest living. I’m a businessman showing a bit of initiative, making the most of my time in the sun, not a stuck-up, stuffed shirt of a classical pianist. But everybody’s shit stinks. And it don’t take a genius to work out why you ended up back here with your tail between your legs.”

    “Whatever do you mean?”

    “You’re a booze-hound, Nicky. Pure and simple. I see the way you guzzle back mom and dad’s table wine at dinner. And how you sneak a bottle of good stuff up to your room each night. Christ, I even saw you getting rid of your empty bottles in a dumpster down by the store the other day. Concealing the evidence, huh? I bet that’s why you got the bullet from the orchestra. Look at your hands, man. A solid case of the shakes. I bet if we moved all that shit off’a the piano, you couldn’t play two consecutive fuckin’ notes.”

     Hate is a strong word. But as much as it pains me to say it, my dislike for Miles at that point in time had certainly attained that unpleasant status. Why? Because everything he said was true – I had barely more than a few hundred dollars to my name (all of it stolen from Miles when he had passed out downstairs) and hadn’t gone anywhere close to getting my drinking under control. More worryingly, whenever I secreted myself away to my old music room (before it had become a storage space, of course) and tried to play the piano, even simple movements I could’ve played in my sleep, simple movements a reasonably proficient child could’ve played, I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking, just like Miles had speculated. The one and only means for me to provide for myself – and I’d been seriously considering, as much as I hated the idea, taking on pupils for private music lessons – was all but denied me. I was down and out, lost and singularly lacking in any hope. And I’m ashamed to admit that I started to sob in front of my brother. So softly at first, I genuinely harboured hopes of being able to suck back my upset and thus conceal it from Miles. But all that pent-up emotion was far too strong.

    “Ah, come here, Nicky.” Miles wrapped his arms around me and drew me close. He smelt of an unsavoury cocktail of airborne contaminants: hamburgers and fried onions, cigarette smoke, stale booze, cheap perfume, and something distinctly vaginal. “Don’t worry about a thing. A problem shared is a problem halved, as they say. I’ll help you get back on your feet. Stick with your lil’ bro Miles. I’ll cover you in diamonds.”

     We never spoke about my tearful breakdown again – not directly, anyway. I resolved not to drink for a few days to try and regain my mental equilibrium. Where possible, I avoided the family and went for long strolls around the old neighbourhood to clear my head. Sensible endeavours on both counts. But that’s the main problem living with a force of nature like Miles. The next seismic happening is only ever just round the corner.

    One evening, a week after my embarrassing display outside the music room, Miles trooped into the house with his usual high kicks cannonball dynamic. There were two distinct anomalies to consider, however. A. It was far too early for Miles to return to the house. B. He wasn’t alone.

    “I know you thought this day would never come,” he said cryptically, before ushering a vision of pure loveliness into the front room, a young woman in her mid to late twenties, with shiny chestnut hair cut into a bob, high cheekbones, flashing duck-blue eyes, dressed in a stylish trouser suit that would not have looked out of place at the Milan fashion show, and standing a good six to eight inches taller than her fleshy-faced companion.

    “Ma, Pa, Nickelodeon, I want you to meet my fiancée, Jane.”

     Confused doesn’t come close to describing my initial reaction. Not only did Jane possess all the beauty, grace, and glamour of the golden age of Hollywood, but she had obtained an economics degree from Princeton and was also a classically trained musician, a cellist familiar with my work.

     “Pleasure to meet you, Nicholas. Miles has told me so much about you. It must’ve been such a thrill to play with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I would love to hear all about it one day.”

    Flustered, I muttered a few agreeable words and told her I would be most happy to share some of my experiences. But as I watched my parents fuss around the new arrival, rushing hither and thither, preparing drinks and plates of finger snacks, I found it difficult to control any number of contrary, conflicting emotions. Never in a million years did I think I would harbour jealous thoughts towards my flabby to the point of clinically obese, talentless, ignorant to the point of the barely literate, unrepentantly flatulent, mannerless, younger sibling. But now he had very much got everything anyone could ever want – fame (modest and admittedly baseless), money (and lots of it), and now love (in the shape of a truly beautiful and classy woman). In pursuit of artistic excellence, I had forsaken dates, regular girlfriends, any kind of social life. When my peers had been out getting drunk and working their way towards second or third base with a host of delectable teenage girls, I had been locked away at home perfecting Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music ever composed. And where had it got me? – nowhere.  

    “And the surprises don’t end there,” said Miles, as he eased the cork from a bottle of Don Perignon. “As of tomorrow, I move into my own apartment. Yeah, you heard me right, Ma. I’m finally flying the nest. Me and Jane have just put down a deposit on a place in Manhattan. It makes sense to buy rather than rent. Dead money and all that.

    “Here you go, Nicky.” He handed me a glass. “If you play your cards right, you might just have the honour of being my best man. That’s right, tough guy. Keep it in the family. What’d you say?”

    More than anything, that evening represented another truly horrible epiphany for me, for I realised that our roles had been reversed. Having earned not a single cent since I returned from Europe, having not lifted one finger to help around the house, I was now the lay-about, never-do-well sponging off his parents, whereas Miles had somehow transformed himself into the golden child, the rich, successful, well-respected man about the local community.

    Once a week he insisted that we visit his new penthouse apartment for a family meal. Naturally, I was hugely averse to attending these perfunctory functions, what I saw as no more than a way for Miles to flaunt his wealth and newfound status. But as I knew there would be unlimited amounts of premium booze on offer, I came to look forward to these occasions in the same way a child looks forward to Christmas morning. On arrival, Miles would invariably press an overflowing champagne flute to my hand and tell me, in the sternest of terms, like it was a life and death matter, to help myself, that we were in a mi casa es su casa situation.

     “What’s mine is yours, Nicky. Grab whatever you want.”

    And for the rest of the evening, we would be treated to different versions of Miles’ stand-up comedy routine. If he wasn’t regaling us with celebrity anecdotes (on his one appearance on The Tonight Show, he had seemingly met hundreds of famous people, from Marlon Brando to Sylvester Stallone, to Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson and everyone in between) he was providing us with a financial breakdown of his business operations.

     “Like Sly says to me in New York the other night, ‘It’s not how hard you can punch. It’s how hard you can get punched and keep coming back for more’. Wise words. To date, I’ve sold over 3,000 pairs of edible panties.”

     But what perhaps galled me more than anything was Jane’s reaction. And not just to the jokes, when Miles intended to be funny (‘So when Tony Bennett asked me where the bathroom was, I said just down the corridor on the right. Don’t worry. There’s plenty of paper in there if you wanna take a shit’), but literally everything he said and did. Every movement, mannerism, the way he would pour wine into a glass, hoisting the bottle high in the air and directing it towards the intended receptacle from a distance of about four feet.

     “Oh, Miles, you’re too much,” and she would laugh so hard, she would begin to choke, her face would colour and her eyes cloud, and Miles or myself would have to gently pat her back to help her recover.

     I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman more smitten with a man before in my entire life. The fact Miles was a chubby, foul-mouthed, braggart with the table manners of a pig, a man who often returned from the toilet with either his zip undone or a large developing urine stain across his crotch didn’t seem to faze or disgust her in the slightest. And remember, we’re talking about a sophisticated, highly intelligent woman, a woman of class and refinement. To say their relationship was a mystery doesn’t even come close to summing up the general bafflement I felt whenever I was in their company.

    During rare lulls, when Miles had either gone to the kitchen or bathroom, Jane would often turn her alluring eyes upon me and ask questions about my time in Europe. She wanted to know about life at the conservatoire, how many hours we practised each day. She wanted to know about my time with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and, in particular, my relationship with Obi Kan Kobi.

    “For my money, he’s the finest classical pianist of all-time.”

    “I agree. Only last week, we exchanged letters. Not only is Obi the most exquisite of musicians but a true gentleman. We worked together side by side for many years. It was truly an honour. He has the most wonderful quirk, you know. When warming up, going through scales, arpeggios, or just a combination of chords, he would always wear a blindfold.”

    “A blindfold! Really? How fascinating.”

    “Yes. Most delightful. Obi…” but before I could go on, Miles would return to the room, firing off a series of squelchy sounding underarm farts, or tossing a fake turd onto the table.

     Often, I considered getting Jane’s phone number and arranging a lunch date to discuss all matters musical. Not that I had any romantic designs on my future sister-in-law (I’m not really that way inclined) but simply because she was the first like-minded individual I had spoken to in what felt like a long time. But something held me back. It’s doubtful I would’ve been able to avoid the subject of her relationship with Miles. By this stage, his unlikely success, the way everything he touched turned to gold had reached such vexatious heights, I could barely sleep. Whenever I fielded a phone call from a fan, or signed for a delivery, I found it increasingly difficult to hold my tongue. I wanted to make everyone I came into contact with aware of the fact that Miles was an oafish chancer, a fraud. I wanted to shake them by the shoulder and scream into their faces: ‘He had a walk-on role in a film and said nine words’. But again, I didn’t have any confidence in my convictions. I simply jotted down whatever message one of his army of fans relayed, or signed for the delivery in question.

    As it transpired, I didn’t have to deploy any unorthodox or underhand tactics to get the desired audience with Jane alone. One afternoon, she called round to the house looking for Miles.

     “I’m terribly sorry, Jane. But he isn’t here. And I have no idea where he might be or when he’ll be back.”

     The last words I heard Miles mumble into the telephone before he left the house was something about an important meeting with someone called Dolores.

     “Oh, I see.” She brought her hand close to her mouth and gave her thumbnail a phantom gnaw. She looked pensive, on edge, like something was bothering her, maybe an argument with my brother, something I could exploit to my own advantage.

    “But, please, do come in and wait. He might only be twenty minutes or so.”

    “Okay, great. Thanks, Nicholas.”

    We went and sat at the kitchen table.

    “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, a glass of wine?”

    “Oh, a glass of wine would be great. But only if you don’t think it’s too early, and that you join me.”

     “Why, of course. And no, it’s never too early for a glass of wine with one’s future sister-in-law.”

    In truth, I had already consumed two litres of rosé, a cheap if acceptable little tipple I had developed a certain fondness for. But on such an auspicious occasion, I thought it only right and proper to appropriate something special from Miles’ impressive wine collection, a Dauvissat Renee et Vincent Séchet, a spectacular Chablis that had been gifted to him by the mayor of New Jersey after his appearance on The Johnny Carson Show.

    With no preamble, and having not touched her wine at all, Jane made a surprisingly forward statement.

     “I know you must think of me and Miles as a bit of an odd couple.”

    My first impulse was to argue, to assure her that that wasn’t the case at all, but such was my lack of faith at being able to appear sincere, I simply pulled what I hoped was a neutral expression, and gestured for her to continue.

    “Miles is an incredible man. I know he has his faults and can be a little full-on for some people’s tastes. But you shouldn’t judge him too harshly, Nicholas. I can’t even begin to tell you how much he admires and looks up to you. All throughout his childhood, he had this image of his big brother being a world-famous pianist. He used to boast about you to other kids at school.”

    “Really? I had no idea. I thought Miles was, erm…rather indifferent to my career.”

     “Not at all. He’s always felt like he’s competing against a demi-god. Whenever there were guests at the house when he was growing up, all your parents would talk about was you and your musical achievements. Rightly, they were so, so proud. But it made Miles feel inferior. That’s why he refused to ever come out and see you. He resented being second best. That’s why he always cultivated such a slacker persona. He never felt like he could ever get close to matching your achievements, so why even try?”

     I couldn’t help but be moved by her words. During my European sojourn, I had often felt the very same emotions – jealousy and resentment. Whenever I had a piece of exciting news to share, my parents were so distracted by whatever stupid scrape Miles had got himself involved in, they barely seemed to be listening. Families are indeed strange. They suffer in the exact same ways, but feel they have exclusive ownership of their personal disgruntlement, when it is only ever a bigger part of a more general malaise.

     “I think I understand. And for the record, as I’ve got to know Miles better, I’ve come to genuinely like him. Granted, as you correctly observed, he can be a little overpowering at times, but he is a man possessed of many talents. I only hope he can find his true calling.”

    Token words, in many ways only saying what I sensed Jane wanted to hear.

    “Oh, I do hope so, Nicholas. He has so many ideas. It makes my head spin at times. And I really hope that you and I can become good friends. We have so much in common. If you ever need someone to tag along to a classical concert, just you let me know.”

    Unfortunately, this turned into a missed opportunity, despite me scouring the local press for upcoming recitals. Inevitably, Miles’ relationship with Jane didn’t last long – six months was the official split-up date. But in a drunken confessional, Miles admitted to things having never been quite right between them. Not through her seeing the light, however, seeing Miles for who he really was, but strictly due to Miles’ affair with who I can only describe as a repulsive Hoboken trollop, the same Dolores he had been so eager to meet on the day or mine and Jane’s revealing conversation. A woman so misshapen from giving birth to multiple children (five in all) from multiple different fathers, she was positively troglodytical in appearance. Then again, the vast majority of women would appear plain to the point of ugliness in comparison to his former and short-lived fiancée.

     “She was always my true love, Nicky. We were childhood sweethearts, and there are some feelings that never go away.”

    When I had the misfortune of meeting Delores myself, I was appalled beyond any serviceable definition of the word. Hard-faced, scowling, and confrontational, she had the frame, chewed-up face, and aggressive demeanour of a successful super middleweight boxer.

    “You’re the brother, right? The piano guy. Not to be rude, but don’t you think you ought’a get yourself a job, rather than sponging money off’a Miles all the time?”

    Aghast, I had no idea what to say. As far as I was aware, Miles was completely ignorant of my early morning appropriations from the vast money trails he left strewn across the house. But clearly that wasn’t the case.

    “I don’t wanna offend no one over here. But right’s right. You’ve been back in the country for months now. You need to get off’a your ass and start earning. I won’t have my Miles being taken advantage of no more. You hear me?”

    To feed, clothe, and entertain the five rambunctious children the quite hideous and foul-mouthed Delores had borne from the same number of men, Miles became increasingly desperate to make money. He appeared at more and more nightclubs and film-related events. He had an ‘Eatin’ Pussy’ sign erected above the garage (Open All Hours) and persuaded me to man the ‘shop’ whenever he was away. He did the voiceovers for dozens of local commercials. Whenever I happened to switch the radio on, I would more-often-than-not hear Miles’ voice hawking anything from bedding plants to sanitary towels.

     All of which culminated in him starring in a full-length adult feature film, imaginatively titled: ‘Eatin’ Pussy’. Apparently, a five-figure offer had been on the table for many months, only Miles had never liked the idea of appearing naked in front of a camera.

     “I know it’s every guy’s dream – getting paid to bang a shitload of hot chicks, one after the other. I just think celebrities should keep a bit of mystique about ‘emselves, you know. Of course, your fans want to know if you’re packing meat. But that doesn’t mean you gotta give them everything they want. Like Sly said to me in New York, ‘Always keep ‘em guessing, champ’.”

    Late one evening, while our parents were vacationing in Hawaii, I woke up with the most potent alcoholic cravings (an almost nightly occurrence now). On creeping through to the living room in search of something strong and expedient, to both satisfy those cravings and hopefully send me back to sleep, I found a VHS copy of Miles’ pornographic feature. I don’t know what possessed me, but once I’d found an unopened bottle of Remy Martin (gifted to Miles by the local chief of police after he made a personal appearance at his daughter’s twenty-first birthday party), I couldn’t help but be curious, and slipped the tape into the machine.

    I’ve often heard people say that the camera can add ten or twenty pounds to a person. In Miles’ case, this was a wild underestimate. Proportionally, he very much resembled the classic beached whale. In fact, the rolls of flab from his stomach hung down to such a degree, his penis was all but invisible. Not that it really seemed to matter. Opening with a brief rehash from the film that had made Miles’ name, an interrogation scene, a relaying of those famous nine words, things quickly descended into an orgy, an oral-based free-for-all, with half a dozen nubile young women sitting in a line with their legs spread wide open awaiting Miles’s tongue (and latterly, penis). Despite his physical restrictions, Miles was a quite extraordinary – lover, might be inappropriate in this context – perhaps sexual athlete is better. Although, granted, athlete was a word rarely used in association with my younger brother. But credit where credit is due. Disregarding his repulsive back hair and pimple-spotted behind, he looked almost artistic, his portly frame being a counterweight to the delicate, considered head movements, that I got the distinct impression that he really had been put on this earth to tread the path that he was now treading, that it was written in the stars, that him landing the role in the cult film and being gifted those immortal nine words had been fated, an act of God, that he were fulfilling a historic destiny.

     Inevitably, the film was a huge success, selling out across the U.S. and Europe and making serious inroads into the new emerging Asian markets, and actually won first prize at the Amsterdam Porn Awards. To mark the achievement, the organisers offered to fly Miles and his partner out to the Dutch capital to receive his accolade in person at the award ceremony, all expenses paid. As Dolores had a pathological fear of flying, he asked me if I would like to accompany him

     “What’d you say, Nickster? Me, you, running wild in A-dam for a few days. It’s the dream freakin’ ticket.”

     While far from five-star treatment (we were put up in a woeful hotel a stone’s throw from the red-light district and populated by pot-smoking fundamentalists waiting for something to bomb), the food and, in particular, the drinks were indeed gratis. As such, our three-day spree remains a blur for me, if I do remember being cajoled into sampling some ‘space cake’ and smoking marijuana for the first time. Both of which were surprisingly pleasant pastimes.

    At one point, Miles turned to me in a smoky café and said:

     “Try and worry about something.”

     An unusual proposition, no matter what the circumstances. And despite having untold and seemingly unsurmountable problems in my life, I did indeed try to worry, and came up spectacularly short, no matter how much I tried to focus on any number of personal issues. All of which convinced me that my problems weren’t real problems at all. Delusionary and unhelpful, of course, but something which provided me with temporary consolation at the very least.

     The award ceremony was equally as shambolic. On the way over to the venue in a taxi, Miles had the misfortune of laughing and sneezing at the same time and soiling himself in the most grotesque manner imaginable.

     “Jesus Christ! This thing is Gucci,” he said in reference to his garish pink suit. “It cost me five hundred bucks.”

     But rather than return to the hotel for a change of clothes, he simply bundled up his stinking designer outfit, threw it out of the window, and had me run into a department store to buy him a sober off-the-peg suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a nerdish geography teacher of the most moderate tastes.

    “Bit on the square side, Nicky. But what the hell. They’ll probably think I’m try’na be ironic.”

    As one of the star attractions – there was a life-size cardboard cut-out of a fully naked Miles in the foyer – it took over an hour for us to get to our table in the main function room. One after another, adult film enthusiasts, other porn stars, and members of the press clamoured to either get their photo taken with Miles or ask him questions related to the film.

     “We were totally blown away by some of your oral techniques.”

     “Do you like have to train for moves like that? I mean, you were clearly pleasuring those women for real.”

     “If you want to come back to my hotel room, then maybe we could reenact a few scenes from the movie.”

    In response to a question about whether he had any plans to work in the industry in the future, Miles was teasingly non-committal, but most certainly didn’t rule anything out.

     “Never say never,” he said to a sweaty and worryingly over-tactile Dutch journalist. “If the part is right and the money attractive, I’d most definitely be interested in making another skin-flick. Truth be told, I had a blast shooting ‘Eatin’ Pussy’. Who knows? I might even come to Europe and make a movie over here.”

     For some obscure reason, we had been allocated a table with a group of non-English speaking and teetotal Albanians clad from head to foot in black leather, their faces obscured by what Miles told me were ‘gimp masks’.

     “I know this might not strictly be your thing, Nicky. But you can’t fault the hospitality. And they’ve created a great vibe.”

     And while the booze was again plentiful and reassuringly gratis, I couldn’t help but be appalled by the perversity of my surroundings, the almost blanket nakedness (I think Miles and I were the only two attendees not exposing parts of our genitalia), brazen copulation, oral sex, borderline bestiality, the oily odour of miscellaneous lubricants mingling with the far more potent marijuana fumes, the midgets and amputees fully prepared to degrade themselves in any abominable manner to get a simple laugh. Only two years ago, I had travelled to St. Petersburg with the orchestra and dined in the palaces of former tzars surrounded by exquisite beauty and elegance at every turn. Alongside my great friend and mentor Obi Kan Kobi, I played the most soaring piano four hands pieces, a performance which received the highest praise from Russia’s cultural elite. Now look at me!

    “And don’t be too worried about any rogue bodily fluids coming your way,” Miles counselled at one point, compounding my own sense of burning shame and regret. “It all comes off in the wash. And that’s just the way they do things ’round here, you know.”

    By the time he was announced as the winner in the Outstanding Male Performance category, he was so intoxicated, he could barely make it up to the stage. But once he had stumbled, fumbled, and fallen in that general direction (via an expedient fireman’s lift from one of his adult film brethren), he managed to recite a quite ridiculously moving acceptance speech.

     “Recognition in life is so hard to get. When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, there were no math or debating or sporting trophies for me. I never seemed to be able to find my niche and have someone notice me for who I really am – or was, I should probably say. But on a deeper level, away from the glitz and glamour, all we really need to keep on keeping on is for a guy in the street to smile and say a kind word to us. For that reason, I can’t even begin to tell you how much this award means to me. And what’s extra special is that my big brother is here to share this moment.

     “Thank you. I love you. God bless. Say your prayer. And keep eatin’.”

   When we eventually got back to the hotel, well in our cups, we had what is probably the only open and honest conversation of our entire relationship.

    “Unfortunately, Nicky, things have gone a little off-key with me and Dolores. We’ve been arguing a hell of a lot of late. And it turns out that the kid she’s carrying ain’t mine.”

    “She’s pregnant?” I couldn’t help but express my surprise – I had no idea. I thought her distended stomach was just part of her unsightly and physiologically curious frame.

    “The long of the short of which means I’m gonna be moving out of the apartment. I think it’s only fair. The kids have kind’a made the place home, you know. I don’t have the heart to turf them out on the streets.”

    “No, Miles,” I almost shouted. “That’s a step too far. Not the apartment. You can’t give her a prime piece of real estate in one of the most exclusive parts of New York. You’re too kind for your own good.”

   I tried everything to convince him to change his mind, and for worthy, selfless reasons, rather than having designs on the place myself. I told him to seek legal advice. If none of her children were his own flesh and blood, including the foetus currently inhabiting Dolores’ womb, he wasn’t obliged to pay her another single cent or let her stay in his apartment.

    “This goes way beyond money. Ah, I don’t know. I guess I always wanted a proper family life, you know. With yous living over there in Europe, it made me feel like an only child. And with mom and dad being so busy all the time with their careers, I guess I turned into a solitary kind’a kid. I always wanted to fit in, you know. Only I always went about things the wrong way. I turned into a bit of clown, saying and doing stupid shit to make people laugh.

     “With Dolores, I just want to do the right thing for once. Even though I’ve made an unholy mess of my own life, I can at least give her kids a decent start in theirs.”

     “But, Miles, you can do that in so many other ways. Write them a cheque when they’re about to start college. Pay for music lessons. Buy them a telescope or a pair of rollerblades. Take them out at weekends.”

    But as long and hard as I argued, he wouldn’t be swayed

   “Let’s drop it, eh, Nicky? Let’s talk about something else.” He lit a cigarette and poured us both a generous glass of apple schnapps. “I have a proposition for you. An idea that might just save my ass from having to file for bankruptcy sooner rather than later. That, or talk mom and dad into getting a third mortgage on the house.”

     “Third mortgage?”

     He shot me a quick, uneasy glance.

    “That’s right, Nicky. I promised I wouldn’t say nothing, but they’ve really struggled to make ends meet having to support your musical career and having you back home for the last year.”

    Year, I remember thinking to myself – had I really been living back at the family home for a full whole year!

    “So this is what I was going to suggest. Me and you team up and put an act together. I’ll do my stand-up and monologue routines. You know, the ‘Eatin’ Pussy’ stuff, the old dynamite material. And you’ll be in the background tinkling the ivories. Then, as an encore, I’ll a bang out a few old classics. Some Sinatra, Tony Bennett. It’ll be a blast. We’ll clean up.”

    In the circumstances, I could do nothing other than accept Miles’ offer. I felt so crushed and humiliated that I’d become such a financial burden to my parents, they’d had to make a radical decision like this at their time of life, when they should be planning for a comfortable retirement.

     When we got back to the states, we started to rehearse at home. Now most of the Eatin’ Pussy paraphernalia had been sold, there was ample space in my old music room again. To cure my almost chronic shakes, I had no other option than to drink steadily each morning until I felt almost ‘normal’ and could strike a key with solid if wavering certitude. Thankfully, once we’d got into a regular routine, I regained a little bit of my confidence and was more than capable of holding a basic tune. In truth, all that was really required of me. While Miles strutted across an imaginary stage telling jokes and stories, I played some simple, jazzy chords.

     “Everything is coming together nicely,” he said, after the last full rehearsal before our debut performance at Jerry’s bar. “And I got one last surprise before we hit the stage.”

     He ducked out of the room and returned a few moments later with two elegant black tuxedos in his hands.

    “I know it’s a bit on the fancy side, but the way I see it, why not make a freakin’ statement. Start as you mean to go on. Today, Jerry’s bar. Tomorrow, Carnegie Hall.”

    The sight of attire that wouldn’t have looked out of place on any member of a renowned philharmonic orchestra made me feel stupidly emotional.

    “Hey, what’s up, Nickster? You okay?”

    “Yes, yes, ignore me. I’m just a little nervous, that’s all. It’s been a long time since I’ve been onstage.”

    “Ah, forget about it. You’ll be fine. You’re a true pro. You’ll knock ‘em dead. We both will.”

    When we walked on stage for the first of what would be thousands of performances, I had a surreal, almost out-of-body experience. When I was a young boy, years before Miles was born, I used to lay in the darkness of my bedroom and dream of playing the piano in packed auditoriums, dazzling the great and the good with works from the greatest composers in history, stirring the finer emotions of the most refined and cultured people in the world. Now I found myself in a dingy nowhere nightclub in front of a tuneless piano, listening to dozens of drunken idiots and moronic frat boys chanting ‘Eatin’ pussy, eatin’ pussy…’ But somehow, I remained stoic and at least present in the moment, certainly enough not to hit any noticeably bum notes or ruin the act in any way. Undoubtedly, Miles is a singularly puerile individual. How he attained any kind of success (or, more correctly, is perceived as a success by an equally puerile society) never fails to astonish me. Regardless, he is adept at telling a compelling story and held crowds of people enrapt, night after night. And despite the money we received almost being nominal (he was no longer able to command large booking fees), it was enough to sustain the both of us for many years to come.

    About three months after beginning of our partnership, I received an urgent telegram from Berlin.

 

Write to inform you of tragic death of Obi Kan Kobi – STOP – terrible automobile accident – STOP – funeral will take place next Friday – STOP – please make arrangements to attend – STOP – As his most trusted understudy – STOP – it was his last wish and dying words that you take his place as lead pianist – STOP – in reverence to his greatness – STOP – we have chosen to respect his wishes.

 

I don’t know how long I stared at that most awful of communiques before I scrunched it up and tossed it into the trash can. Who knows, maybe I could’ve gone back to Berlin, attended the funeral, paid my respects to one the finest musicians who had ever lived, and rebuilt my career, no matter how unlikely that may’ve seemed. But deep down, I knew that you only have one chance of realising your most cherished dreams before they turn into nightmares, the very worst things you could ever wish upon yourself.

Neil Randall is a novelist and short story writer. His debut novel, A Quiet Place to Die (Wild Wolf Publishing), was voted e-thriller Book of the Month for February 2014. His first collection of short stories, Tales of Ordinary Sadness (Knox Robinson Publishing, 2016) received much critical acclaim. One story was short-listed for the prestigious Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2009, another long-listed for the RTÉ Guide/Penguin Ireland Short Story Competition 2015. His latest novel, Bestial Burdens (Cephalopress) was released in April of 2020. His shorter fiction and poetry have been published in the UK, US, India, Australia and Canada.