N ow w i t h a R e a d i n g G ro u p G u i d e

Winner of the Chatauqua South Award for Fiction Janis

O
ut of the shotgun “Owens’ fine writing and the ring
of her natural voice will carry
Owens
houses and deep,
readers along like a tale told on a
shaded porches of
porch on a sultry Southern night.”
a West Florida mill —Publishers Weekly

town comes this extraordinary
novel of love and redemption
as told by Gabriel Catts. On
the eve of his fortieth birthday
Gabe attempts to reconcile a
family shattered by his betrayal
of his older brother, Michael.
My Brother Michael
“These pages sing with an energy
that is rare and wonderful. Janis
Owens’ book is strong and true
and all her own.”
—Harry Crews
“Of all the novels written about

My Brother
As Gabe contends with a host families, very few have been able

of personal demons, he recounts

to make the reader blood kin. My a novel
Brother Michael does this.”
his lifelong love —James Dickey
for his brother’s
wife, Myra— “A luminously written first novel.”
whose own —Kirkus Reviews

Michael
demons threaten
“A heartfelt and poignant novel
to overwhelm all rooted in the beauty and
three of them. sorrow of ordinary lives.”
Circumstance —Connie May Fowler
and passion push
“A haunting, unforgettable work
them beyond the
of singular authenticity . . . sur-
moral boundaries of their close- prising in its accrued power."
knit community in this intimate —Doug Marlette
view of a Southern family.
“ N o t h i n g s h o r t o f s t u n n i n g .”
$12.95 —Librar y Journal
ISBN 1-56164-343-2
51295
Pineapple Press, Inc. “ Janis Owens is one of the f inest
Sarasota, Florida n o v e l i s t s o f o u r t i m e s . " — Pat Conroy
www.pineapplepress.com
cover design by Carol Tornatore
cover photograph courtesy of the Florida State Archives
9 781561 643431 pineapple
press
Ja n is Ow e ns
MY BROTHER
MICHAEL
Also by Janis Owens
Myra Sims
The Schooling of Claybird Catts
 MY BROTHER
MICHAEL

Janis Owens

Pineapple Press, Inc.

Sarasota, Florida
Copyright © 1997 by Janis Owens
First paperback edition 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may

be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.

Inquiries should be addressed to:

Pineapple Press, Inc.

P.O. Box 3889
Sarasota, Florida 34230

www.pineapplepress.com

Lyrics from “Lay, Lady, Lay,” by Bob Dylan

© 1969 by Big Sky Music. All rights
reserved. International copyright secured.
Reprinted by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data

Owens, Janis, 1960-

  My brother Michael / by Janis Owens.-- 1st
Pineapple Press pbk. ed.
       p. cm.
  ISBN-13: 978-1-56164-343-1 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
  ISBN-10: 1-56164-343-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
 1.  Brothers--Fiction. 2.  West Florida--
Fiction.  I. Title.
  PS3565.W5665M9 2005
  813’.54--dc22
                                                  2005016658

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Design by Carol Tornatore

Printed in the United States of America
for WRO: Thank you for
letting me be myself
A historian is a prophet in reverse.

Friedrich von Schlegel

 1
Chapter

O

n the day my brother Michael died,
I was standing at a lectern surrounded
by fifty-seven bored freshmen scribbling notes to my concise dissection
of FDR and New Deal politics. With no knock, no warning at all, our
department secretary, Mrs. Weeks, walked in with a small yellow tele-
phone message that said simply: Call home.
Before I could react, before I could even ask why she had taken it
upon herself to interrupt my honors-level American history class with a
routine phone message, she said, very gently, “Dr. Catts, your brother
has died.” She paused to let the news sink in, then: “I’m so sorry. I know
you were close.”
Seeing my stunned face, my tears, my total lack of control, she
dismissed the class and, with remarkable Yankee efficiency, had me on
a plane to Tallahassee within hours. She even packed me a suitcase,
though to this day I don’t know how she found my apartment (I’d just
moved) much less the socks, the underwear, and the dark funeral suit,
still clean and crisp in a dry cleaner’s bag.


 Janis Owens

But whatever her method, she had me in Florida late in the after-
noon of his death, renting a car in Tallahassee and driving west to the
town of my birth, arriving with two days to spare, but checking into
an interstate motel room quite anonymously, refusing to let the family
know I’d arrived. For they have long memories, my people do, and are
not the kind to forget old indiscretions, no matter how far removed.
And with Michael dead, dead at forty-three of pancreatic cancer that was
only diagnosed during routine gallbladder surgery in October, I could
not imagine them in a very forgiving mood and was too broken myself
to withstand them.
So I stayed holed up in that seedy motel room for the better part
of two days, drinking whiskey for courage, sometimes dialing Michael’s
home phone, but hanging up when unfamiliar voices answered, for
despite Mrs. Weeks’ kind words, my brother and I had not spoken in
eight years. We had not communicated at all beyond a quick visit by his
daughter Melissa when she flew out of LaGaurdia on a student trip to
Europe a year and a half earlier and the standard Christmas cards, quite
impersonal, his name printed in calligraphy, as befitting a small town
aristocrat, an impatient signature scribbled below. But not another word
until shortly after Thanksgiving when he called from his hospital bed to
remind me of a promise I’d made him the last time I ever saw him alive.
A promise that was causing me actual physical pain as I dressed for
his funeral, for I am a Tagamet addict and, what with the whiskey, had
gone through a week’s supply in three days. By the time I’d knotted my
tie and started for the church, I was actually spitting blood and hoping
to God I wouldn’t do something humiliating at the service, like pass
out. It would really be too much for these God-fearing folk to bear—the
prodigal son stealing the limelight at the funeral of the older son—so I
forewent the family section to take a seat among strangers in the back
row, slumping passively and quietly bleeding into my handkerchief like
the gentleman my mother raised me to be. I could see Mama, in fact,


 My Brother Michael

seated twenty or so pews ahead of me in the front and corner of the

mob that packed the small sanctuary. Despite her diminutive size, she
had a distinct set to her shoulders and a headful of white hair that made
her easy to pick out of the line of bowed heads on the family row.
My brother’s widow was not so easily discerned, for her brown
hair that showed red only in the sun was covered with a fine netting, her
body was clothed like half the other women, in solemn, pagan black. But
I tried. I have to say I tried. Even at his funeral, God help me, and if her
brother Ira had seen me, I believe he would have killed me for it.
But providentially, no one noticed me there in the back, with the
place packed to perhaps twice that of normal capacity, folding chairs
blocking the aisle, even the choir loft filled with sobbing mourners, all
in evidence of the fact my brother was a mover and a shaker, a man of
ideas. The owner of the town’s most prosperous factory, president of any
civic organization he ever cared to join, the largest contributor to any and
every charity in town—and those are just the laurels the first speaker, Dr.
Winston (once GP to every snotnose and dogbite in the county, more
recently, mayor) could get out before he was overcome by emotion and
gave the pulpit back to the preacher. I was surprised to see this was still
Brother Sloan, the same pastor who’d weaned us on salvation and dam-
nation as children, who, with his fifty-odd years in the ministry, might
have been expected to have something fortifying to say, but didn’t, only
standing there an uncertain moment, then blowing his nose and asking
Brother Cain, the AME pastor, to please come to the front.
It was the first time I’d ever seen a black man without a tool belt
step foot in Welcome Baptist, and I listened with a little more interest
as he managed to sputter a few things about Michael, how he had hired
the first black manager in the county, how that small act of tolerance had
unlocked doors they never thought would open. He was trying to make
some statement, some plea this practice not be abandoned when he,
too, was overcome, not really crying, but shaking his head and returning


 Janis Owens

to the deacon’s bench that was packed with ministers of every descrip-
tion, all mourning in various degrees of sincerity. Fresh from the land of
rationalism, I couldn’t help but wonder if they weren’t weeping more at
the death of those computer-generated checks than at Michael’s actual
passing, but this small cynicism did not distract me as our old childhood
friend from Magnolia Hill, Benny McQuaig, took the pulpit and managed
between snorts and shuttering breaths to spin a pretty accurate eulogy.
Foregoing the titles and civic niceties, Benny painted a truer pic-
ture of Michael, a portrait of a man who was a natural optimist, a prag-
matist who was born poor but worked his way out of it one grinding,
clocked-in hour at a time. Randomly jumping here and there, he recalled
the summer Michael tried out for the majors in Sarasota, his lifelong
love of the Braves, the tough years in the seventies when the plant had
almost rolled over—years I was away, years I came back, years I wasn’t
so fond of remembering.
Benny’s flat country sincerity, along with his red face and many
pauses to cry unabashedly, was whipping the audience into an even
greater frenzy of remorse, but I was suddenly diverted by a flash of red
hair in the front pew and for a moment was too mesmerized to bother
anymore with grief.
But it wasn’t her; I could see that fairly quickly. The red was bright
carrot orange, not deep auburn, edging close to brown. It was—yes,
surely—it was Melissa, my niece, the one who had dropped by between
flights last year. On the pew next to her was a tall young man—that
would be Simon, the oldest son, named for our father, and next to him
Clayton, the baby, his hair fair and light. And next to him was an averted
head, bowed in prayer or prostrated by grief, I could not tell, as my heart
began its old relentless gallop.
From the moment I spotted her till the last amen, the service
slipped by with unexpected ease. There were the usual hymns and a
fast, predictable sermon by a young minister I’d never seen before. Then


 My Brother Michael

suddenly, we were all standing, singing “Amazing Grace” a cappella and

then filing up the aisle for the last viewing. In this, my careful retreat to
the back betrayed me, for the ushers brought us out first, herding us up
like so many sheep, trying to move things along so the family would be
spared a prolonged wait. But I would not be hurried. I was too stunned
for that and walked on heavy, leaden feet past pews and pews of people
I’d left once, twenty years ago, then again, nine years ago, and never with
many regrets, for we were not so compatible, my hometown and I.
But I paid them no mind that day, my eyes on the long oaken cas-
ket that was so amassed in flowers that the air was almost stifled with the
particular waxy smell of the florist shop. Roses, carnations, arrangements
and sprays, all pressed in such profusion that it bewildered the eye, and
I had paused to see, in wonder, how they covered the very walls, when
someone hit me from behind in a powerful, hysterical embrace.
For one incredible moment I thought it was Myra and was filled
with a fast scramble of emotions: shock, shame, and yes—I won’t lie—
pure joy. Then I heard my mother’s voice, rough, country, telling the
world, “Gabe, Gabe, I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come—my son,
my son—”
And while she punctuated her every word with a solid knock of
her hard little West Florida head, I turned and found myself facing my
brother’s family: Melissa, with a red, shattered face, who stepped for-
ward to hug me over Mama’s head; Simon, dark and controlled, offering
his hand like a grown man, though he was hardly more than a child, just
outside sixteen, a vague breath of a memory of Michael, only taller and
broader through the shoulders, a legacy of his mother’s blood, of the
hardy frame of the North Alabama Celt.
But that was all, no one else stirred, for the younger son, Clayton,
was a stranger to me, watching me with level, neutral eyes that were mad
and sullen, young enough to be petulant with something as relentless as
death as he stood at his mother’s side, supporting her in her grief. And


 Janis Owens

though she was very close, barely an arm’s length away, there was no
recognition at all in her face as she looked at me, only a blank silence,
and something in her very immobility reminded me desperately of the
day her bastard of a father broke my wrist for showing her how to make
a hopscotch board in the dirt of her backyard.
She had backed away slowly that day, one baby step at a time, till
she was flush against the fence that marked the iron-clad border of her
hellish little world and stood there passively, with no word of protest
spoken, none allowed. And just as before, when I had been too afraid of
that monster of a father to do anything but stare, I abandoned her, giving
in to my mother’s embrace and turning and looking on the corpse of my
brother Michael.
And instead of the true confession I was afraid I might blurt out, or
the useless words of regret, I only blinked at him, then murmured aloud
in a very plain, controlled voice, “God, he looks like Daddy.”


 My Brother Michael
by
Janis Owens

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