Half of Harry

I’ve always operated as if I was an only child and, in any way practical, that’s exactly what I’ve been. But I do have half-siblings, by-products of my biological father’s (father #1) breezy dabble into parenthood.

I have 2 half brothers and a half sister, none of whom I really know that well except Harry. Harry was the youngest of the three and the most connected to my mother (his step-mother) after our father took off, once again, to find his sanity, that elusive comfort he probably couldn’t identify if he tripped over it. He’d just procreate, move on and repeat. Sort of like washing your hair; shampoo, rinse and repeat. Same deal, but with the latter at least you get clean hair.

Harry loved my mother because when he was younger and sent to visit his dad, she gave him a lot of the attention that he didn’t seem to be getting otherwise, especially from his dad. I really never knew Harry’s own mother, much like I really didn’t know my own father (other than he was an alcoholic), but when I got into my pre-teen years, Harry reconnected with my mom and started coming over to our house and hanging out and, as an added perk, started spending time with me.

I bonded with Harry pretty quickly, not only because it was rather revelatory to have a big brother but because he was a really sweet guy. I could see the warm spot he had for my mother and he and I were, after all, brothers, even if it was only the ‘half’ variety. I looked forward to him coming over for a game of Monopoly or some such time filler, but I just liked being around him because I felt a part of something that was bigger than me.

Probably like a lot of only children I felt somewhat isolated but when Harry came around I suddenly had an extension of myself, a real brother by blood, a piece of my elusive father, if you will. I liked that because I didn’t know much about our mutually mysterious sperm donor and, ‘hey, look, here’s another one just like me’ and he doesn’t know a whole lot more than I do. Misery was a little more blissful when there was company to share it with.

Like me, Harry wanted to know his father, spend some time with him, have a relationship with him, make that ghost come alive but our father didn’t want the same thing and was secretly living in another state, married once again and denying the existence of all the children he had helped to create. That did not stop Harry and through various means discovered our father’s whereabouts and set out to pay him a visit.

Father #1 caught wind of this somehow and was ready when Harry, who had crossed several states to get to our dad, wound up never even getting in the front door. Father’s wife met him in the yard, told him that our dad wouldn’t be seeing him, handed him $10 and told Harry he should turn around and go home.

Harry left, devastated, with the frustration of knowing now there would never be anything he could do to bridge this gap in his life. It would just be left empty. It was the same for me only I never had the guts to try what Harry did, although I considered it over and over, up until the day we had found out he died. Harry and I were partners in parental loss, knowing there was this man out there whose DNA we shared but who wanted nothing to do with us for reasons we couldn’t fathom.

For Harry and I, this incomprehensible rejection followed us around like a wounded animal crying for help. We looked at ourselves wondering what it was that a father would be repelled by and since we couldn’t even have a conversation with him about it, the mystery would never be solved in our heads. I know that this tortured Harry and maybe that’s why he turned to alcohol in such a ferocious way, or maybe that was only part of many other reasons. I’ll never know because we were a little afraid to talk to each other about it.

We stayed connected throughout my high school years, playing a little pick-up hockey in a night league and occasionally getting together with his family at our house; he’d married and was raising a couple of kids. We eventually lost contact altogether as I went to college on the other side of the state and finally moved across the country but many years later, after I had come back to Michigan, I got a phone call out of the blue from Harry.

Actually it was Harry’s wife who reintroduced herself and announced that Harry would like to talk to me. “Sure”, I said, wondering why Harry didn’t call me himself but, whatever, it was nice to hear from him. We talked a little and I started to get excited about seeing him again as we made plans to meet at a tavern right next to the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit, a renown player’s hangout, and then we’d go to the game right after having something to eat.

All of a sudden, during the phone call, Harry wasn’t there and the line went dead. I didn’t know what had happened but about 10 minutes later the phone rings again and it’s Harry’s wife, giving some cryptic explanation for the hang up and, “here’s Harry again”. I thought, ‘What the hell was that? She had to dial the phone number back and reintroduce my half-brother to me? Was that his wife or his secretary?’ But I just ignored it during our call and we finalized our plans. I had a source for the tickets and me and a friend would meet him at the bar on the designated day and time.

My friend and I got there on the day of the game, found a table and ordered some snacks and a couple of beers. Harry wasn’t there yet and so I kept looking around for him, thinking that he’d pop in at any minute and I was anxious to introduce my real-life brother to my friend. We eventually finished dinner and it was close to game time and he still hadn’t showed so we had no choice but to leave. I didn’t have Harry’s phone number and who knows how long we might have sat there waiting for no one.

I was pissed because this was more of that lost potential I had grown so weary of. Again, I was caught waiting around, like an excited puppy, for something that was never going to happen. Now my half-brother was just as invisible as my father and just as unreliable, and all that nonsense during that initial phone call suddenly made sense. If he couldn’t dial the phone on his own, how was he ever going to navigate his way to Tiger Stadium?

My suspicions were confirmed when my mother talked to his wife a few days later and she explained that he’d forgotten the details of the call and blah, blah, blah, maybe a tad too much booze at the time? So, what she was saying, in effect, was that my half-brother had become as big a boozer/loser as his/our father.

“Well, congratulations and thanks for playing our game.”

I made the decision right away that I would have none of that craziness, not because I didn’t have a place for him in my heart, but because I didn’t have the stomach to watch him turn to ineffectual mush like my father.

Harry chased the ghost, did not survive the challenge, and then became the ghost.

That was about 15 years ago and I’ve never seen him since and I probably never will. You might think me cold and unsympathetic but it’s more complicated than that. I truly miss him, or at least the ‘him’ that I knew as a kid but somewhere along the line this kind and good person surrendered to complete hopelessness and self-punishment.

It’s wonderful to have family but it’s healthier not to be swallowed into the undertow.

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