backup- unnamed
A/N: UMMMMM. For some reason, the McManus brothers for me = no quotation marks, which is really annoying for you and for me, but I'm not sure why, I just can't put quotation marks when I'm writing it, and adding it in just seems wrong. So bear with me.
+
Tell me, Murph, Conner says suddenly, slurring his words around his cigarette, when you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be?
An adult, Murphy says, not without a bit of sarcasm, with a bump on the back of my head, from Ma hitting me there so much. He reaches over and slaps the back of Conner's head with the flat of his palm, the way their mother used to. Conner scowls, but keeps on walking. Plodding, really, Murphy used to say. So determined, you are, Murphy would joke. Like you knew where you were going. Course I do, Conner would answer. If I didn't, you'd get us lost.
No, really, Murph. What did you want to be?
What about you? I don't remember you ever having some elevated goal in life either.
A priest, Conner answers, simply and dryly in this way Murphy has only heard from Conner. Like the question didn't exist. Like he was continuing a lecture or a sermon. Like he didn't have another second to waste and every word meant a life.
Thought that was just what Ma wanted you to be, Murphy says, fiddling with the buttons on his coat.
No, Conner says, still short and clipped, and Murphy can see his eyes start to stray from the ground to the sky. I did, actually, Connor finishes lamely.
And quote the Bible in Latin?
Conner makes some amused sound by exhaling. We do that already, he says.
And in all those other languages as well.
Those too.
A bartender, Murphy says abruptly, looking at his brother's back as he walks ahead. I wanted to be a bartender. Get myself drunk everyday of the week and wreck the bar passing out free drinks and throw ice at the customers. Be like Doc. Spout mixed-up proverbs.
Be up the waitress's skirt every other day, Conner cuts in, laughing.
Murphy chuckles. I'm the one who has respect for women, remember?
Macho Murph, Conner says, still smiling.
Aye, Murphy says, while all he can do is think to himself, actually all I've ever wanted to be was your brother. Just that. Wait for you to come home with your head filled with all that shit from confessions and let you sit there beside me, brooding and being intelligent, while I just sit there with my leg touching yours and try to draw out all of the day's worries into me, so I can break my fingers punching the wall and watch my knuckles bleed. Actually all I've ever wanted to do in my life was to stand a few paces behind you, close enough so you can feel me but not enough so that you can see me, and when you fall in love with some perfect and beautiful and moral girl, be jealous, right there in that cold place you aren't anymore, and when you're asleep I can turn over in my bed and see the vaguest outlines of your body in the dark, you dreaming of this perfect girl who is every thing God would have ever wanted for you, and I just want to still be here, still your brother. Actually all I've ever wanted to learn was what the patterns of your fingertips look like, and how warm your breath is, and how fast you can run when your heart is murdering you in your chest. All I've ever wanted to remember is that you have at least 27 beads on your rosary and that you must have a habit of rubbing your cross because it's smooth and worn away at the edges, and that your lips when you kiss are holy, sacred, ethereal, even if you sin while doing it.
Murphy knows what Conner would say if he ever confessed. But you're already my brother, Conner would say, his eyes sharp enough so that Murphy thinks they're chipped from the stones of the old cathedrals. But you're already my brother, and I already love you, Connor would say, his hand reaching out to grab the loose bends of Murphy's sleeve as Murphy walks on ahead.
Yeah, Murphy thinks, but I want you to love me like you've never loved anyone before. Like the way I love you.
+
Love isn't something Conner and Murphy talk about, even if they're thinking about it, and Murphy has this thing, see, that if he doesn't talk about it he obsesses over it, makes a mess of himself thinking about it when there's silence and he wants to talk about it with Conner, because Conner would know, see, because Conner knows everything. And it's there, this love that they never talk about but Murphy thinks about all the time: there when in his sleep Murphy turns automatically to face Conner and reaches out to him, eyes shut and hoping to feel his brother, there when Conner automatically opens two cans of beer, even when Murphy isn't with him, there when Murphy can recite the punch line to every joke Conner makes and deliver it with the same quirk as well, there when Conner knows automatically when Murphy's sick just by the way he breathes. There, but still they don't talk about it, Conner making like he doesn't even think about it, while Murphy is making an utter fool of himself musing over it and nearly cutting himself trimming fat in the meat packaging plant musing over it and tripping over his own feet worrying about it. Not the kind of love you know exists when you're born just seconds or minutes or even hours away from someone else, Murphy wants to say, but this love, this love that overwhelms every bit of you, makes it your death and resurrection every time you see this person, makes you want to cry with the fullness of it, the futility of it. Almost like the love they both have for God, but not quite. Not quite there, but almost, and Murphy wants to tell this all to Conner because Conner would know, see, because Conner has always been smart like that.
Love is like a vacation that none of them go on because they don't have enough money or time and can't figure out where to go anyway.
Love is like picking at a scab until it bleeds again. Conner may have said that one, at a time when they were both drunk, because if Conner is drunk that means Murphy is more likely than not drunk as well. Or Conner said something like, love is shit, and Murphy, drunk, thought it was the deepest and most sincere thing anyone has ever said. Later, sober, he had probably translated it in his head, inserting words and making a sentence. Murphy has always been better than Conner at languages for this reason, because he can juggle words and ideas and phrases around so easily, translate it in his head to some basic universal language no one else knows but Murphy understands. In his head Murphy can compose long blocks of perfect sentences in foreign languages. I have to be good at something, Murphy used to tell Conner. Can't let you have all of it.
You, Murphy says, stopping suddenly as he walks so that Conner, behind him for once, runs right into Murphy because Conner always walks with his head down, looking at the street, are meant for great things in life.
Not without you, Conner says shortly, impatiently, almost angrily, that bit of anger only Murphy can hear, a hurt sort of anger that makes Conner's mouth quiver at the corners and his hand shake in his coat. Murphy does his head bobbing when he's nervous; Conner shakes, sometimes so bad Murphy wonders if he'll be able to hold a gun straight, but he does, he always does, because Conner, see, is good and great and meant for better things in life.
You are, Murphy says, unrelenting, and Conner doesn't say anything, just shoves Murphy in the right direction and that's supposed to tell Murphy to walk.
+
Conner is also meant to be a priest. Murphy can hear that in the way Conner mutters his prayers and fingers the rosary around his neck. Murphy has always been the one people say is devoutly religious, but that's because Murphy has long discovered that he has a particular way of convincing people he's sincere. This thing with Murphy's eyes, and his voice. And the way he smiled. Actually, though, it's Conner who's the truly religious one. Sometimes Murphy wonders if he would believe at all, if it wasn't for his brother. Conner was like a living sermon, able to convert people with just the way he looked on his knees, praying, and the way he said "Hail Mary, full of grace", like he was singing it, like he could fly.
This, Conner had said, his head on Murphy's stomach, putting his hand right over the zipper of Murphy's pants, concentrating hard and Murphy could feel the tremors and the shaking, this I can do, but that-- and Murphy knew what he was talking about because again, it was that thing he couldn't talk about with Conner, that love, that particular kind of love-- that I can't do.
But I can, thought Murphy, and I would. Because I love you. Even that much.
+
Irish monasticism became well known for its ascetic practices. Much emphasis was placed on careful examination of conscience to determine if one had committed a sin against God. To facilitate this examination, penitentials were developed that listed possible sins with appropriate penances. Penance usually meant fasting a number of days each week, taking only bread and water. Although these penitentials were eventually used throughout Christendom, they were especially important in Irish Christianity. This excerpt from the penitential of Cummean, an Irish abbot, was written about 650 and demonstrates a distinctive feature of the penitentials, an acute preoccupation with sexual sins.
"A bishop who commits fornication shall be degraded and do penance for twelve years.
A priest or a deacon who commits natural fornication, having previously taken the vow of a monk, shall do penance for seven years. He shall ask pardon every hour; he shall perform a special fast during each week except in the days between Easter and Pentecost.
He who defiles his mother shall do penance for three years, with perpetual pilgrimage.
So shall those who commit sodomy do penance every seven years.
He who merely desires in his mind to commit fornication but is not able, shall do penance for one year, especially in the three forty-day periods.
He who is willing polluted during sleep shall arise and sing nine psalms in order, kneeling. On the following day, he shall live on bread and water.
A cleric who commits fornication once shall do penance for one year on bread and water; if he begets a son he shall do penance for seven years as a n exile; so also a virgin.
He who loves any woman, but is unaware of any evil beyond a few conversations, shall do penance for forty days.
He who is in a state of matrimony ought to be continent during the three forty-day periods and on Saturday and on Sunday, night and day, and in the two appointed week days [Wednesday and Friday], and after conception, and during the entire menstrual period.
After a birth he shall abstain, if it is a son, for thirty-three [days]; if a daughter, for sixty-six [days].
Boys talking alone and transgressing the regulations of the elders [in the monastery], shall be corrected by three special fasts.
Children who imitate acts of fornication, twenty days; if frequently, forty.
But boys of twenty years who practice masturbation together and confess [shall do penance] twenty or forty days before they take communion."
A great love of learning also characterized Irish monasticism. The Irish eagerly absorbed both Latin and Greek culture and fostered education as a major part of their monastic life. The emphasis on asceticism led many Irish monks to go into voluntary exile. This "exile for the love of God" was not into isolation, however, but into missionary activity. Irish monks became fervid missionaries.
--Excerpted from Western Civilization, the Fifth Edition, by Jackson J. Spielvogel
+
Murphy believes that he would love Conner even if Conner wasn't his brother. Actually, as a kid, Murphy didn't think he was going to be anything, he knew what he was going to be. He wasn't going to be Murphy, he was going to be Conner's brother Murphy, and he was going to be Conner's, no matter how little or much Conner wanted him to be. It wasn't something Murphy picked up along the way, from school to adulthood, following Conner around and being invisible to someone until they knew to look for Conner's brother Murphy, who was devoted and devout and loved his brother, even if they never knew how much.
It was already decided and it's one of those things Murphy can't change, even if he wanted to.