Jobriath, ND, by Anonymous

From MemoryArchive

In a life of out-of-the-ordinary (and most often hurtful) experiences, probably the most unusual thing was that at age 13 I had a half-brother who was, quite briefly, a rock star.

We remember things that were important to us then, and nothing could have been less important to me at that time (or for decades later) than the family from whom I felt so emotionally separate. Everyone was older than me, and they smoked and drank and seemed always to speak out of the corners of their mouths as if they'd had every experience, done everything, and found the world boring or less witty than themselves. My family were all tall, smug, and somehow above disclosure, intimacy, or kindness. It was like growing up forever at a party. Nothing was spoken that couldn't be followed by a bit of light laughter. But there was laughter.

So my mother's favorite son, revved up and fragile, a crystal engine, would visit from time to time, always bringing gifts (juice glasses, pottery, jewelry) and carrying a large bag filled with herbal remedies and powders. He spoke as if he thought he was Tallulah Bankhead. He was the first homosexual I ever knew. He impressed me as nasty and duplicitous, conceited and capable of cruelty. Yet I can recall maybe a single sentence from each of my three brothers that seemed to indicate a desire to bust the superficiality. Mostly it was when drinking became a problem.

My biggest memory of Jobriath is when he was staying with us, sleeping on the Naugahyde sofa bed in the living room and writing things into a hard-back ledger book, as if God were speaking to him. Some of my friends came home with me after we had been out, and Jobriath played and sang for them. I know one of the songs was "Movie Queen." He really hammed it up and nearly broke the strings of my tiny spinet piano that had only seen tame versions of church hymns or one or two of the pieces from Schirmer's "Album of Twenty-Five Piano Classics."

I was terribly embarrassed by the shrieking, and I was amazed that anyone liked this music. My mother's three-martini enthusiasm seemed typical, and I found it sad that a woman could be star-struck by her own child. Weeks later she had to ask him to pack up his wheat germ and candles and move on. We were becoming the victims of a celebrity squatter, and my mom's wage couldn't cover the extra milk and meatloaf.

It's not a good idea to be always contra to what's going on around you. That's harder for some of us than for others, for whom removing ourselves is the only survival mechanism. For some persons, speaking out is an impossibility, especially for children and adolescents. We become adults who believe changing the world, or our environment, is a hopeless task.

These were my perceptions of "Jobriath" as an adolescent. Of course, today I take pride in the fact that my family was so unique, so cool. The fact is they had seen many things the world had to offer, and they had more talent, and more personal charm, than they knew what to do with. I was the runt of the litter, and perhaps I felt that then.

My mother and Jobriath loved to go out to unaffordable places to eat. Once the three of us went to a swank bistro in a hotel and Jobriath had to drive home at top speed to pick up dinner jackets for us so we could get in. My mother's eyes glistened with laughter - at the vaudeville of our situation ... our slapstick glamour.

It took me 40 years to understand that this sort of laughter is a kind of love.