Brothers In Arms

By Alexander Avalle

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I know exactly what people mean when they speak about not having anything in common with their brother. I used to say the same thing about my own brother.

As kids we were very close- he was the oldest, then my sister almost a year younger, then me a short year later. Because we grew up much like military brats, we never got to develop lasting friendships, and almost every year we were enrolled in a different school, a different state or a different country. So, the three of us grew very close as kids.

Then, as a teenager, my brother started drinking and doing drugs, getting in trouble with the law-going down the "wrong road". And I left home at 15, settled down with my first lover, went to work full time and never looked back. I was glad to get away from him (and the rest of my family) when Sam and I moved west to California . Here I developed my chosen "gay family"- those special people who I was very close to, and still am after over 30 years. They will be a part of my family as long as we live.

As the years went by, I grew more and more estranged from my brother, even knowing he had cleaned up his act. I seldom saw him on my frequent trips back to North Carolina . He ran with a very different crowd - people I was not comfortable around, and I had no desire to get to know them any better.

After he had been clean and sober for five years (a long time to somebody who was 25 at the time), I realized that I did not know the person he had become- so I sent him a round-trip airline ticket to come and visit. It was the best money I have ever spent. He fell in love with San Francisco and moved here almost immediately- at first living in a little attic apartment that my partner Doyle and I had above our flat on Castro Street , then moving into a condominium in an Art Deco highrise in the Tenderloin.

Things changed and we would see him frequently when times were good, and seldom when he was doing poorly. We were never what I would have called "close". He started a gay "escort" service, and made a lucrative living from the sex trade. Then a few years ago, for reasons that still aren't clear to me, he moved off to L.A. and I rarely saw him again. Recently he passed away.

Meanwhile we saw more of my "gay family"- especially my “brother” Mark, who was 2 years older than me, but was always a kid at heart. Mark had come from San Antonio and lived with us in the big house on Pine Street for years, then drifted off to various points- Guerneville, L.A. , San Luis Obispo . He finally settled down in Palm Springs a few years ago. He passed away there at Christmastime.

Tonight I had a long talk with his brother who is out here sorting through some of Mark's art and possessions. Deciding what the family wants to take back to Texas and what they will leave behind, he has questions that don't have easy answers. He and Mark were also gay brothers. They too went in different directions and seemingly lost that fraternal bond. But he doesn't understand when. Or how. Or why...

We should try not to sit in judgment of our brothers and instead try to see the commonality of a life growing up together. Gay or straight, hairdresser or trucker, you might be surprised at the things that you do share as adults. Enjoy them while you can.