Charlie hasn’t cried since he was 12 years old. His tear ducts worked perfectly when he was a baby and a child, but junior high harassment put a stop to that. Or maybe something else. He doesn’t know and doesn’t care that much. He just knows he doesn’t cry.
Not when his father died. Not when he puts a pet down. Not when his marriage blew apart. His sister Zell has seen him “near-cry,” as she put it. She told him his features engorged and his face got red, his eyes glistened and his expression was grievous, but no salt water emerged.
Zell thinks it’s an issue. She recommends therapy for him. In her opinion, Charlie’s tearlessness is a clue which, if unraveled, will reveal things he needs to know.
But that’s Zell. Just ask Charlie about his big sister; he’ll tell you that she’s got an opinion about everything.
Charlie and Zell are fond siblings. They’re close friends, too. But that’s a different thing than agreeing.
He named her. Zell’s parents put Abigail Renée on her birth certificate. Abigail was for her mother’s mother, but Renée was her father’s selection. He loved everything French, from Paris and champagne and cognac to Moliere and Saint-Saëns, and he referred to his daughter as Mademoiselle. Little Charlie, eight years younger than his sister, used the last syllable for her. The parents soon went along with him: Zell.
Charlie and Zell live near one another and work together too. They see each other almost daily. When they travel for business, they’re a matched set. There’s never an argument. It’s like they read each other’s thoughts and their moods coincide perfectly.
More than once they’ve been stopped on the street when they go out to lunch. It’s usually a couple. “I just have to say,” one of the strangers will comment. “We’ve noticed you two before. You’re always talking to each other and laughing. You seem like the happiest couple in the world.”
Then Charlie or Zell will explain “We’re siblings.” The reaction is always the same: surprise; understanding; relief.
But that’s a different thing than agreeing. Charlie and Zell hail from a close-knit, argumentative family. Everyone was competitive. Members had to organize their thoughts and raise their voices to inject their views. Rarely do any of them admit incorrectness or praise another for getting something right. A number of fine characteristics were taught in that household, but self-deprecation was not one of them.
For some reason that Zell could never determine, she was the family member “assigned” the reputation for the most aggressive, least acceptable level of argumentativeness. Undoubtedly her mother had something to do with this – Zell was the first child and a female quite different from her mom. As far back as Zell can recall, her mother was accusing her of laziness, lack of common sense, pushiness, loudness, and poor sportsmanship. Zell’s father was not as hysterical, but he was busy with his career and, as the youngest from his own family of origin, an accomplished tease and baiter; the hyperbolic comments he so often made about Zell eventually achieved the quality of “there must be some truth in it, if it’s said so often.”
It wasn’t a fair rap. In truth, Zell argued so consistently when young that she’d lost a number of debates. She learned to soften her punch when she was ahead, and to admit defeat when she wasn’t. Charlie didn’t jump into the ring all his childhood the way his sister did – there was no need, because Zell had loosened the ropes for him already.
In truth, Charlie won’t even let his girlfriend know she’s right about airplane seats.
Terry is 17 years younger than Charlie. They met through work: Charlie and Zell are business partners, and he handles most customer-service type calls (actually, they have clients instead of customers, but ever-friendly Charlie didn’t start the consulting practice and in the decade he’s worked with Zell, he hasn’t made the transition from helpful clerical to knowledgeable pro). Terry is office manager for a client, so she and Charlie developed a congenial phone and email acquaintance. She is unhappily married to a boy-back-home (she spends half her time in the Bay Area, earning far more than she could in her native Oshkosh, where she spends the other half). When Charlie’s marriage failed, Terry was there to be friendlier. A relationship took off and flew passionately for several months before percolating into friendly affection.
Terry is not only younger than Charlie; she’s also less educated and far less sophisticated. But she flies a lot, and Charlie has a way of mocking her germaphobic fastidiousness. As he’s described it several times to Zell and others, Terry goes nowhere without anti-bacterial wipes. First thing she does when she boards a plane is swab down the armrests, the seat-back tray: the entire seat-back, for that matter. Recently Charlie described a news item to Zell, all about how unsanitary airplanes are. Now that meals aren’t served, passengers bring food aboard, and passengers don’t always take away their snack detritus. Now that airlines are cutting back on maintenance, plane cabins aren’t well-cleaned. The unsurprising result is a population explosion of bacteria (maggots even).
Zell pointed out to Charlie that Terry’s wipe-down protocol turns out to be wise. Charlie agreed. “Are you going to let Terry know she’s correct?” “Not on your life,” he replied with a smirk of satisfaction.
That was two weeks ago. Charlie isn’t feeling satisfied lately. There have been a flurry of minor misfortunes. He threw his lower back out while gardening. His dog escaped from the yard and ended up tracking mud onto newly steam-cleaned carpets. He hurt Zell’s feelings without meaning to, and she confronted him about it. His ex-wife was begging him to return to counseling and another attempt at reconciliation.
And his social life seems to have collapsed. He used to have so many friends. Now the few left were tired all the time. Rarely did they put together parties like they used to. And when they did, it seemed to Charlie like he was always asking others about themselves, but no one asked anything about him. Socializing just wasn’t like he remembered it.
He had to admit he was often bored. Sometimes he even bored himself.
His email pinged. He saw it was correspondence from his niece, and he opened it. Angela is a regular on social media but she rarely writes to Charlie. She’s nearly 40, strong like her mother, blonde instead of Zell-brunette, into punk over R&B.
Angela wrote that she’d been complaining about being described as a strong and intimidating woman (it was the latter adjective that bothered her), and Zell sent her a recent piece of prose, in empathy. It was called “The Egotist’s Complaint,” and Angela found it hard to read. Emotionally. Apparently Zell was surprised about that; she said it didn’t hurt that much, or it was a hurt she was used to, or something.
Then Angela asked her mother if Charlie or Dana had seen the piece. Zell said no: neither ever looked at her writing.
Both Angela and Zell are strong (and intimidating), but that doesn’t stop Angela from feeling protective. She attached “The Egotist’s Complaint” and advised her uncle to read it.
He did. Halfway through, he forgot it was composed by his sister. He got interested in the character. It was a perceptual shift like his first acid trip. Suddenly he saw Zell differently. Not so much as a sibling, let alone the torch-bearing oldest child from his family of origin. He comprehended her as a friend, as a work mentor.
He didn’t shed any tears over his revelation or the piece of prose. But along with his shifted view he acquired an awareness about eyes. He thought about his father’s – always shining, whether from drops or tears or health – until he died. Charlie became aware that his own eyes were wet. His view seemed sharpened and softened through saline.
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