A Brother's Advice

                Joseph Fineman was seated at the kitchen table studying for an exam to be taken the next day on the vascular system. He was in his third year of medical school, and he now devoted all of his available time to his studies, even at the expense of his relationships. His friends no longer referred to him by name but rather as “The Hermit,” and his girlfriend Maria, who worked in Boston, was lucky to get an hour in on the phone with him every week let alone see him. Occasionally he would eat dinner with his parents, and sometimes he would cavort with his med-student roommates, but really, he was a hermit.

                Joseph’s phone began to ring. It was Maria. She sounded excited.

                “What’s up?” said Joseph.

                “Guess who has the week off next week!”

                “Oh, you do?”

                “Yep, and I have the money for a flight, too.”

                “Oh, well, you know…I don’t know. I’m real busy next week with school stuff. It’s nearing exam time and I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.”

                Maria sounded disappointed. “Oh, OK. I guess I can just hang around Boston.”

                “You sure?” asked Joseph, half-heartedly.

                “Yeah. I’ll be OK. We can get together after exams are finished.”

                “Great, thanks hon. I appreciate you being so understanding.”

                Joseph at first felt a pang of guilt when he hung up the phone, but then he told himself it was all for a purpose—he would become a great doctor and then he and Maria would have all the time in the world to be together.

                Joseph returned to his studies, and just as he was getting back into a rhythm, there was a knock on his front door.

                “Now what is it?” he said aloud, before going to answer the door.

                Joseph opened the door, and standing there was his older brother Michael, looking terribly disheveled and holding a stack of papers in his arms.

                “Joseph, I need your help,” he said sharply.

                “What is it?” said Joseph.

                “I have all of these stories, and I need to get them published, but I don’t know how. I am so unorganized. My mind just won’t settle down. It’s as if I have some sort of mental disorder.”

                “Michael, what do you expect me to do?”

                “Well can’t we sit down and organize these? I’m really desperate.”

                Joseph had had this conversation with his brother before, when Michael was writing poetry. Of course his brother had never gotten anything published. Joseph figured his brother didn’t have any talent.

                “Michael,” he said, “don’t you think it’s time you give up on all these crazy dreams? Nobody changes the world, at least not in the way you think they do. You should relax. Take a shower, and tomorrow go out and look for a regular job.”

                Michael was crestfallen. “So you won’t help me?”

                “No, Michael. Even if I had time, which I don’t, I wouldn’t help you. If you want to succeed, find a way to do it yourself.” And he slammed the door on his brother’s face.

                Joseph went back to the kitchen and sat down to study, but he had trouble focusing. He kept thinking of his brother, and how maniacal he looked with his wrinkled clothes and his long, unmanaged hair. Was this person really of the same genetic makeup as him? How presumptuous of him to think that he would help him sort out the mess he had made! For surely that’s what it all was, a mess. He couldn’t think of his brother actually crafting a fully developed story. He didn’t have the discipline, or the focus.

                A week passed, and Joseph found himself at the kitchen table again, studying. It was early in the morning. He hadn’t slept the night before. It was exam week, and Joseph was especially stressed. He was currently studying the nuances of EKG. He hadn’t showered, and was beginning to grow irritated with the sour smell that was emanating from his armpits. “No time to shower,” he thought, as he took another drink of coffee. “At least not until I master this.” And he was on the verge of mastering it when he received a call on his phone. It was his mother.

                “Hi, mom.”

                “Hello, sweetheart.”

                “What’s up?”

                “I have some bad news. You’re brother was found this morning, dead at the bottom of an overpass.”

                Joseph was stunned. He remembered what his brother had said about having a mental illness. At the time he thought it was just a form of hyperbole. His heart sank as he thought of what he had done, and he felt the stinging pain as he pictured his brother jumping, falling, and then the impact and the blood.

                “Did he leave a note?” he asked.

                “Not that we know of,” said his mother. “Your father and I were going to go to his apartment as soon as we take care of everything else. You’re welcome to come.”

                “Of course,” said Joseph.

                He hung up the phone and put his head in his hands. He looked at the open page in front of him, and closed the book in disgust.

                Joseph got the call from his mom and went to his brother’s apartment that afternoon. It was worse than he expected. His room looked as if a storm had passed through it. It was littered with papers and notebooks, all filled with poems and stories. Hundreds and hundreds of stories. He and his parents looked through them, slowly piecing together Michael’s life as they did. Joseph was looking through a notebook when he found a story that had a particular interest for him. It was about two brothers who went for runs with each other every morning and talked about their lives. In the story, the one brother asked the other about his relationship with his girlfriend. He told him that he should spend as much time as he possibly could with her, because “life is short, and love is too valuable to waste on your self.” Joseph was touched. It was like his brother could see him. He knew what he had to do.

                Joseph ignored his studies for the next week, spending all of his time collecting and organizing his brother’s stories into a book. When it was finished, he thought of a title and sent it off to publishers. It took several months to hear back about the book, months which for Joseph were very suspenseful. But the news was good. The book would be published. When it came, Joseph called his girlfriend.

                “How does it look?” Maria asked him.

                “Wonderful,” said Joseph.

                “So, tell me,” said Maria, “do you feel vindicated? I mean, do you feel like you’ve made amends to your brother?”

                Joseph looked at the copy of his brother’s book in his hand, and read the title: “A Brother’s Advice: Short Stories from a Soul Who Left Too Soon,” and looked at the cover art, which depicted two brothers running side by side, laughing. “I do,” said Joseph. “I really do.”