Read an Excerpt

I.

It is dark.

It is late.

It is 1984.

We are lying next to each other in one of our twin beds. But, predictably, we are not asleep. We are talking about life. And our dreams. And the great mystery of cable television.

“Jay?”

“Yes, Mark?”

(Silence. Mark has always loved the dramatic silence. I am older by four years and should find this annoying, but I love this about him.)

“When is it coming?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

(I take a moment to mitigate expectations and not get my seven—year—old baby brother too excited.)

“Dad said by next week it’ll be here.”

“What does it look like?”

(I actually do not know, but I have a few theories.)

“I’m not sure.”

“Is it, like ... a big cable?”

“I think so?”

“Do they just drag it down the street and plug it into the house?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t know.”

(Mark thinks on this. Wide—eyed. Young mind grappling with what it all means.)

“What is going to happen to us, Jay?”

“Nothing crazy. I don’t think. Or maybe everything.”

“I’m so excited.”

“Yeah, me too.”

(Pause.)

“Jay?”

“Yes, Mark.”

“I have something to confess.”

“What?”

(Again, the dramatic pause.)

“I don’t know what cable is.”

(I try extremely hard not to laugh. I am careful never to condescend, because he is smart and very sensitive. Still, I am an older brother and can’t help myself. ... )

“If you don’t know what it is, then why are you so excited about it?”

“I don’t know. I just ... I heard you talking about it to your friends. And ... I can tell how excited you are about it. So ... I got excited about it.”

(Not an extremely eloquent response, but quite prophetic in many ways as to the nature of our unique brotherly bond and complex relationship to come.)

“It’s going to be bringing a lot of movies, and TV shows, and a bunch of new channels into the neighborhood.”

“Do you think it’s gonna change everything?”

“I don’t know.”

(Pause.)

“Jay?”

“Yes, Mark.”

“When we grow up do you want to get houses next to each other?”

“Definitely.”

(Mark considers this.)

“Do you think ... we could share the same cable? Or do we have to get different cables for each house?”

“I could probably figure out how to share one.”

(Mark believes me. He believes that I am very good at this kind of thing. Good at everything, actually, if you asked Mark in 1984. This was a huge part of building my confidence.)

“What happens if we wanna watch different movies but we share the same cable?”

“I think we’d have to watch the same movie.”

“So what do we do if we ever want to watch a different movie at the same time?”

(We both consider this question. It’s a troublesome thought. Might there come a time when our interests, and therefore our lives, diverge? The question hangs over us like a fat black cloud for a moment. But then we smile. Because this is a ridiculous thought. We will always want to watch the same movie. We will always live right next to each other. We will always lie in bed at night and talk about our lives and our dreams.)

Two weeks later, cable arrives at our home.

And everything changes.

The Woog

Do you feel weird inside? We do. All the time. Sometimes we call it depression. Sometimes we call it anxiety. Sometimes we just call it “The Woog.” As in “I’m feelin’ woogie today.” At the core of this weird feeling is a sense that there are, at minimum, two people inside of us at war. And we don’t know how to make them get along.

“I’m gonna stay up all night and write and put on my weird hat and two different socks and smoke weed and eat cereal and maybe pizza too and try to crack a new kind of story and make something fascinating and different and I don’t care if I never make any money because I’m an artist who is trying to represent the underrepresented and create empathy for all. ...”

And.

“I probably should go back to business school. And learn how to buy and sell companies and make millions and millions and maybe billions and use that money to start charities. This is the better way to live. For others. Not for myself and for my artistic vision. That’s ... that’s kind of a load of selfish horseshit in the end. ...”

And then some other voices start to pop up. And it’s hard to tell if they are subsets of these two main people or if they are actually secondary characters that also live inside of us.

“I just want to live a quiet, simple life with my family. I want to stay home and be there at all times with my kids. Read to them. Cook for and with them. Play board games. Just be a good parent and husband and, in the end, just kinda be ...

“TEACHERS! That’s what the world needs now. Leadership for young kids who don’t have positive role models. Give myself and everything I can to them. An innocent child needs a thoughtful role model, and even though I’m not perfect, I am likely willing to give more than what I hear the average burned—out public high school teacher can give, so I should get my teacher’s license and ...

“The world is hard enough. Who am I to think I can help and save anyone? I’m just an average—intelligence person trying to get by. It’s enough just to make my own way in the world. I should just go inside myself. Stop talking and start listening. Get small and find a small sliver of happiness in the world and hang on to it for dear ...”

You get the picture.

Do you ever feel this way? Hopefully not. And if you don’t, feel free to skip to the next chapter.

But if you do ... we want to say sorry. Sorry you feel conflicted like we do. That you are uncertain as to what the right path is in life. Sorry that you want so badly to be useful but also happy. To be inspired but also at peace. To make change but also just get by.

But we also want to say ... CONGRATULATIONS! Because, in our opinion, you may just be part of a dying breed. There will be fewer and fewer of you, and because of that and so much more, you are truly special.

Here’s our theory:

When our parents got married, it was a time when people mostly married young. And in many cases, they married without fully vetting whether they would be a good matrimonial fit. Let’s face it, they often got married because their religion said “no sex before marriage” and they really just wanted to start humping and not go to hell for it. They got married because they were sexually attracted to each other. And that attraction was often a result of the “opposites attract” theory. So when we were made, we were made from very different individuals who came together mostly because they liked the way the other smelled, as opposed to any long—lasting traits that made for a sustainable partnership. Hence, the two different people inside of us.