Winky and "the Brain"

“Yeah? If you’re so smart, what’s a half divided by a third?”

I stared at him in disbelief. When I tell people what I do for a living, that isn’t usually their response.

The correct answer is not 1.5, dear reader. Unbeknownst to me, I had found myself in an interview for a position I had little desire to attain. The intended goal of the question was not to ascertain but to demean my accomplishments. Any attempt to respond would be an acknowledgement of this idiot question—that it was an adequate and appropriate measure of ability.

I wish I could say that were he not DH’s twin brother, I would scarcely allow him to speak to me in such a manner without a stinging riposte. But the truth is, I’m a softy. My disposition is not nasty, nor brutish, nor short—ill equipped to survive in a state of “warre of every man against every man.”

I had assumed that most adults interested in measuring my abilities would simply engage me in conversation. By conversation I do not mean verbal exchanges within an adversarial framework, which outcome must yield a definite winner and a definite loser. By conversation, I do not mean:

“Anyone can talk… got any money on you? Want to bet on it? How much?” And, yes, I consider it appalling to bully a near stranger into staking a humiliating wager. It compounds the insult.

To be fair and to put this all in context, it was a difficult time for the family. Only the heartless would deny compassion for DH and his brothers, who must watch both parents undergo rapid deterioration of mental and physical health. And if this is the cause of one’s rudeness, then so be it. But, I cannot pretend, dear reader, that I am immune to the petty indignities endured that weekend. Even if a portion was the workings of my hypersensitive imagination, the remainder were undeserved slights—at least, undeserved by me.

I understand all of the reasons why DH brought me down there that weekend. And, I also understand why his brother would resent my intrusion. It was painfully clear that he regarded me as an opportunist whose purpose is to insinuate into the family. And if his demeanor toward me was chilly, his wife, Winky, achieved what scientists believed only theoretical—bringing temperatures down to Absolute Zero Kelvin (–273.15 °C). In Boca, no less.

Before the trip, DH predicted that she and I would get on well. We are so alike, he said. I'll totally love her. Now that I've met her, I can't say that I appreciate the comparison. Then again, men are less attuned to female territoriality. And it is difficult to cozy up with any woman who behaves as one's mere existence was a personal affront.

“It wouldn’t have mattered who you are,” said Toby, the eldest brother. “They would have hated you anyway because of the situation. It isn’t personal.”

I like Toby and appreciate his efforts to welcome me (if somewhat prematurely) into the family. But, his assessment is also off the mark. Their animus may have been non-specific, but it is entirely personal. How could it be otherwise? In their eyes, I am an empty object, the most visible manifestation of what they believe to be DH's midlife crisis, abhorrent to his twin brother but even more so to his brother’s wife.

Overheard (Day 2): “I am secure! I am secure in my place as a woman...as a loving wife...as a mother of two...in my career. I am not at all threatened.” Winky’s protestations belie her argument, methinks—in the same way that her persistent references to her accomplishments have me believe that such confidence is for my benefit. Either that, or she thinks the family requires constant reminder to that effect, which would be bizarre, lame or both. The compulsion to qualify statements needlessly with non-sequiturs as “As a medical doctor…” makes those insecurities transparent as to be cringe-inducing. What is that idiom: pena ajena? As a woman, her embarrassment is mine. And the anxiety of compensating for youth by those who no longer possess it engenders pathos, but not so much that it forgives the wrong of causing injury to others through quiet condescension.

She has difficulty addressing me except in the third person, communicating with me only through other people in the room. She does give a grudging direct answer when I ask her a direct question. But even in such situations, her eyes are fixed on some point on the floor or the wall, as if she’s talking to the furniture. Because she has no reason to address me as a peer, an adult. To countervail the perceived threat of a significantly younger woman, Winky sought to reduce me (ostensibly, the significantly younger woman) to the diminished status and mental capacity of a child.

Else, how can we account for her gasp of horror when she overheard me confess to Toby that I do not read Bukowski? "OH MY GOD! I LOVE Bukowski! Toby, don't you love Bukowski? DH, Bukowski is your favorite, right?”¹ Indeed. I might just be an illiterate yokel, but Bukowski isn't exactly the voice of my generation, man.

Or consider this comment to her 15-year-old son while his father, DH, and I sat around, each drinking beer, contemplating the division of 1/2 by 1/3: “Son, I would have given you a beer, but Chiik drank the last one.” Had I known it was the last one, I would have certainly reserved it for the enjoyment of her underage son. But it wasn’t DH or DH’s brother, but I who took her son’s beer, because we are in the same age group? Of course, this is all predicated on the assumption that as a medical doctor, she possesses a level of sophisticated power-play that goes beyond “Chiik is a jerk for drinking the last beer.”

I can accept that members of DH's family may simply not like me. I have been disliked by far worthier people, who have had cause. Dear reader, why can't people just act right? It's not just the fractional arithmetic, or the wagering, or Bukowski, or internal beverage politicking. It's just exhausting having to mind the tedious or the small-minded, who look only to inflict damage by scores of psychological papercuts.