Like Jacob, Like Esau

Daniel finished placing the last of the forks and knives on the dinner table and turned around to head back to the kitchen. Three places set at the table tonight – unusual for this household. It would take some getting used to.

Daniel was still trying to be optimistic about the arrival of his older brother late last night. Mark had just served a fifteen month tour in Iraq and came back with more brutality in his eyes than he had left with. But Daniel had to have known that it would have happened that way. He just hoped that maybe the environment of war had gotten to Mark and convinced him of the horrors of a career in death.

On the surface, the previous evening had actually gone remarkably well. Daniel’s mother broke down, of course, and engulfed Mark in the largest hug Daniel had ever seen her give. He had been hesitant about the moment where they came face to face again – when Mark left they weren’t even on speaking terms. So Daniel stood behind his mother, half hiding and half waiting for his obligatory turn to embrace the third and final member of their family. Shuffling nervously, he watched his older brother turn and offer him a hearty smile. Mark had extended a powerful arm to slap Daniel on the back, and then pulled him into a bear-hug.

“Good to see you, Dan. I’d call you little brother but you’re looking like more of a man these days,” Mark had said.

“Missed you too, Mark,” Daniel mumbled through a smile. For a brief moment, he was happy to see his brother.

And that had been all there was to it. After the normal motions of becoming reacquainted with one another, they all three sat in the living room until well after midnight listening to Mark recount glorious war stories and life-changing experiences in foreign lands. And after his mother went to bed, Mark’s old high school friends came over to welcome him with several beers in hand. Daniel had retreated upstairs to his room – he had no interest in socializing with them. But through his cracked door he could hear Mark’s tone change, and his stories became more about “killing fucking towelheads” than the noble heroism he had related in his mother’s presence. Daniel had shifted in his bed endlessly that night. Mark hadn’t changed. He was worse.

And so the following evening Daniel wandered into the kitchen and grabbed the bowl of spaghetti – Mark’s favorite – and carried it to the table he had just set. He worried that all he would hear tonight is more stories of celebrated violence and irresponsible adventuring in foreign lands. Mark was right to say that Daniel had done some growing up. In their time apart, Daniel had gone through the usual changes and self-discovery one experiences in their late teens. He had taken extensive interest in philosophy and politics and emerged as a young man with a highly developed set of moral principles. Daniel had even veered towards what he knew some people might call extremism.

Mark soon came bounding down the stairs from his room, freshly showered and shaved. He strutted over to the dining room and playfully bumped into Daniel’s shoulder before finding his seat at the head of the table.
“This looks amazing,” Mark complimented his mother as she walked out with a pitcher of iced tea and a bottle of wine, placing them near the pasta and salad.
“Thanks,” his mother returned with a pleased look. She and Daniel sat down at their usual places.

“Would you say the blessing, Dan?”

Daniel was completely taken aback. He couldn’t remember the last time a blessing was said before dinner in this house. His mother’s tone seemed to suggest that this was as routine a thing as the sunset.

“Wait, we believe in God now?” Daniel asked in genuine awe.

“Just say it please.”

Daniel quickly resolved his composure, retracted his slightly hanging jaw, and began awkwardly stumbling through the only dinner table prayer he could remember.

“Bless us, O Lord and these… thy gifts? Thy gifts. Which…” His mother opened her eyes long enough to shoot him a brief quizzical glance. Daniel straightened in his chair and sped up. “…We are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.” He looked up and saw the disappointment in his mother’s eyes and immediately realized what he had forgotten. “And thank God for bringing Mark back to us safe and sound,” he finished. She seemed pleased with this and offered an especially loving smile at Mark before reaching for the wine. Mark began serving himself a massive portion of spaghetti while Daniel reached for the salad first. After a moment of silence, Daniel detected that some sort of glance or unspoken communication had been exchanged between Mark and his mother.

“So Dan,” Mark began, “You’re going to be starting college soon. Just one more year, right? What do you plan on doing?”

Daniel cringed. It had begun. This is exactly the conversation he had feared. An earlier incarnation of it had occurred back when Mark was getting ready to leave for basic training, and that had led to one of the fiercest arguments the two brothers had ever experienced. It was the reason they weren’t speaking when Mark left, other than the usual animosity he subjected Daniel to on a regular basis.
As young as six years old, Daniel could remember being in his brother’s shadow. That was when his father was still alive and the drugs were still in the house and empty beer bottles were found scattered around the place as commonly as toys, shoes, or even dust. But more vivid to him than the addiction and decay was Daniel’s memory of Mark as the favorite. Their mother, though a submissive and quiet woman, had loved the both of them equally. But Mark was the only one in his father’s eyes. He was a naturally built athlete and he had enough aggression to fill every boy on his team. By the time the brothers reached High School, when Mark wasn’t playing football he was playing baseball. And when baseball was out of season, Mark was busy finding ways to torment his younger brother. Daniel had always been the type to be perfectly satisfied reading alone in his room, or playing piano and trying to figure out how to create songs with his hands. In the occasions that Daniel was dragged along with Mark and his friends, he usually came back bruised and bleeding.

At the table, Daniel idly rearranged some leaves of lettuce in his salad bowl.

“I’m not really sure what I want to do yet. It seems like such a heavy decision to make so suddenly.”

“Yeah,” replied Mark, “I heard you were having some difficulty finding direction.” It became immediately obvious that Mark had been planning this talk.

“Yeah, but I hear plenty of people go into college completely unsure of how they’ll end up. I’m sure I’ll figure it out somewhere along the way.” But Daniel knew it was pointless before he spoke. It wouldn’t be enough to deter this train-wreck. Mark knew how Daniel felt about the military; surely he wouldn’t suggest what Daniel feared he might.

“You know, the army really isn’t so bad. It’s tough at first, I’ll admit, but –“

“No thanks, I don’t feel like killing people, it’s not really one of my strengths,” Daniel said, cutting him off. He didn’t know if he had just killed the conversation or insured its persistence. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“Killing people? If that’s what you want to call it. More like fighting for your country,” Mark said while peering at him through a hardened face.

“Mark, I understand that you joined the army and you’re behind it one-hundred-percent. But it’s not for me. Please don’t give me this tired bit about ‘fighting for my freedoms,’ you and I both know that’s ridiculous.”

“You fucking kidding me?” Mark asked incredulously. Daniel heard his mother choke on the sip of wine she had been drinking.

“No, Mark, I’m not kidding. You can justify murder with whatever labels you want but it’s still murder at the end of the day.”

“You’re still just a damn child. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought by now you were old enough to listen to some sense, but I was apparently wrong. I’ve made sacrifices, I’m a fucking hero and I don’t have to listen to this shit. I do what I do for you, and for Mom. For our country. It’s called honor and defense, not murder.”

“You became a trained soldier at will. You were taught to kill, and you are paid to employ that training against people in other countries just because they are that – people who are from other countries. But in politics, if a hitman puts on a green outfit, it suddenly makes him a hero. I don’t think it works that way. Whether a gang leader asks you to kill or the president does, it is still murder. To try and differentiate between the two is completely morally inconsistent.”

Mark dropped the spaghetti he had been stuffing in his mouth. It fell to the edge of the plate and the noodles dangled over the side like limp and bloodied arms. Their mother’s meek attempts to intervene were ignored. Daniel continued.

“I heard you talking to your friends last night. So did you ask the people you killed if they felt their deaths were worth your banner of ‘bringing democracy’ or did you just decide for them with a bullet?” Daniel was completely surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth. He had never spoken these things out loud before.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Mark snarled, barely able to contain his anger into verbal form. “You have no idea what war is like. You have no fucking clue of the things I’ve done. I fight so you have the right to sit here and spew this bullshit out of your mouth. So shut the fuck up before you end up regretting this.”

“I never asked for anyone to fight for me. The way I know you’re not ‘fighting for anyone’s freedoms’ is because we as citizens don’t have the option to refuse your services. It’s all a big fucking circle of violence. Taxation is the initiation of violence. The people are coerced into paying the government money, and the government uses that as blood money to spread their violent imperialism around the world. You’re not fighting for me, you’re not fighting for America, you’re fighting to fill the wallets of politicians.”

Mark’s jaw clenched and he reached across the table and backhanded Daniel across the face. Daniel was completely frozen for an instant. Their mother shrieked and slammed her glass down on the table.

“And now you’ve brought the violence into your own family, just like Dad.” Daniel said quietly as he rubbed the sting from his face. “I wish you had come home from prison instead of war. At least then you would have paid for your crimes. ”

Mark’s face contorted in a rage more pure than any that Daniel had ever seen. He watched his older brother rise from his seat and with scarred and muscular hands, Mark grabbed Daniel by his shirt collar. Within seconds, Daniel was being dragged through the back door.

“I told you to shut your fucking mouth! You’re no better than the goddamn Iraqis. You’re a spineless rat like all of them.”

Daniel was silent as he was dragged off the back porch and into the soft grass. He remained silent even as he felt Mark’s knuckles breaking his nose, bruising his eyes. He did not fight back even as he felt himself sinking into the soil from the brutality. He gasped as the last of his brother’s ‘lesson’ kicked him in the ribs, and left him coughing blood and saliva into the green grass. He saw through blurry eyes his mother weeping in the door frame, covering her face. Daniel rolled slowly onto his side and inhaled the air. Even that was painful. He exhaled quickly; sad but content that he had proven his point.

Mark walked away from the house and towards the back fence to breathe. He rubbed his red and purple hands. They were sore and there were traces of his brother’s blood in the cracked and jagged skin of his knuckles. Behind him, from the doorway of their small house, he could hear his mother’s soft sobs. Mark couldn’t bring himself to turn around yet, but at least he had proven his point.