We didn't fit in all the usual ways, and it wasn't something that the other children around us or their parents (or even our teachers), would be able to discern readily, because like the Dodo bird (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo), we are a very small tribe. We just didn't expect to meet anyone like us, ever, so it didn't really seem like that big a deal to us when we didn't meet them out in the world. So. <shrug> It was just like at home, with my mom's loud Italian/Irish family who'd dominate any gathering anyway with their hysterical shrieks, unless one of our native werewolves got drunk and smashed his car while re-parking it in our very own driveway, which naturally would take center stage as the primary household drama of the day.
But, for Bernard, it was different. He responded with an intensity that frightened us, like his nighttime roaming that'd find him downstairs rummaging through the closet in the spare bedroom, or opening the door to the garage, or, even weirder, just standing in a corner facing the wall, like some horror movie vision with ghosts and ghouls. His anger was scary-bad, and we had no idea where it came from, other than he was born to it, and that's just the way it was. My oldest brother played the all-knowing diplomat who'd work a room like a seasoned politician using his special blend of phony charm, my youngest brother played the spoiled brat for all it was worth, I simply stood up and fought back, while Bernie continued to struggle with a response to it, like the schoolwork that so often evaded him.
We'd have impromptu boxing sessions in the backyard, so we'd develop the confidence to fight back if we were attacked, but given our father's background, his sparring sessions were dubious at best. He told us he "studied" at the famous Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, a well-known boxing studio in the city (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleason%27s_Gym), but just like our most troubled brother, he could turn on you, too, by taking pleasure in besting us as children, that he defended while laughing. "Well, I might not be able to 'beat' you for much longer", which is an odd thing to say to a young girl and her smaller brothers, when he was fully grown at 6 ft. He liked to lord it over us by looming angrily above our heads and breathing heavily like a bull ready to charge. It was that bizarre.
If we dared to ask them how they problem-solved bad situations as children, they would give us showbiz answers like "Oh, I was so funny I just joked my way out of it", which, if you've ever met my mother, you'd immediately know is total bullshit. It was the same with my dad. He'd lie just like my mom: because it was raining, or sunny, or the sun came up. No good reason for it. Ever. And so, just like every other facet of our lives, we had to think our own way out of it, because if we had the audacity to speak up, we'd be punished for it by my dad, who made a scene at school with a teacher who was much smaller than him, with violent curses and threats. After he pulled that trick at elementary school with Bernard's teacher (who just happened to have a French-Canadian last name, and be several feet shorter), parents were forbidden from our lives, which is what they wanted anyway.
We were just as stressed out at school as my middle brother, but because my father favored him above us —he wanted to flatter himself into feeling like they were the same type of person, which my brother chafed at all the time, because he knows my dad, and any comparisons are not favorable to him—we were left to figure it out on our own successfully, which we did, with some of us better at it than others (ahem, that's me). Whereas their name-calling became our playground opportunity to throw a few good curse words around, Bernie would crumble under it. "Pretty boy! Pretty boy!" He was taunted by the less attractive boys for his blue eyes, long eyelashes, golden brown curls, and olive skin that tanned with just a hint of sun, making him a stand-out target for the uglier kids in his classes.
I was a "nerd" who couldn't compete with the pampered Jewish girls and their expensive Gloria Vanderbilt jeans in the coveted dark wash that meant they were brand new from the mall and unworn by any other siblings in the house, while my mom might put out my brothers old Toughskin jeans from Sears and then shrug it off. "What?" She'd act offended. "You're 'lucky' to have any clothes at all! Jeans are jeans!" This, from a woman whose favorite color in the 70s was a "shit brown" made into long polyester skirts worn with clunky orthopedic shoes that made her resemble a nun, or a lesbian, or a lesbian nun. Take your pick. She'd blow it off as part of her "genius cred" that went with science, which meant she could be completely stupid about anything that wasn't under a microscope or in a Petri* dish.
Bernie, in comparison to us, always felt insecure. I could read, spell, write, speak, and draw brilliantly, while my oldest brother aced his grades and played sports. But Bernie just didn't fit into any niches at all. He had learning disabilities that made school torture for him, and the rather generic team sports at our American schools were lame. He'd try them and then abandon them all, like he was trying on clothes. After my father left home, we'd talk about applying to the colleges he was deathly afraid of, because he couldn't take the tests. We talked about the Army, but during the height of Reagan's "Cold War" years, we were afraid he'd be drafted into some bullshit war with the Soviet Union, when, in truth, they starved behind their walls and killed each other off way quicker than we ever could, but that information came to us only after the Berlin Wall fell.
After a year in the freezing north of New York that can shake loose the heartiest of souls, he came home for good, to live at home with my mother while attending school, and that was the trick of it for him. He gave up on the skills he couldn't master to focus on the numbers that spoke to him in the only language he really understands, which allowed him to attend my father's Alma mater. Because of my father's identity/personality disorders, he's hell when you cross-over into whatever he feels is his area(s) of "expertise", though like any other life situation in our lives, I'm happy to report that my brother aced him with his experience, not that my father didn't try and best him by ruining it in comparison to his life experiences, which is always made to seem much harder than anyone around him, as part of the con job.
Not only did my brother graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Accounting, he received an MBA in the same four years, something my father couldn't top as an accomplishment. And just like so much in our lives, the style of fighting we felt in our blood as children became the sport that you watch today in the UFC. How's that for winning? He's the most belted martial artist in our family, the strongest male sibling, and he can also count like a muthafucka. The universe cares about us, man. Really. Like, way more than our biological parents, yo! But not more than this here Acadian Métis mama. No. Not more than me. I love you more. I love you more than all of them.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petri_dish
