A lot of his alcohol intake seemed associated with his sexual orientation, or rather, the isolation he had because of it.
He talked about men he would date and how he was only comfortable eating dinner or sitting at a bar with a man if alcohol was involved. It was his way to push past his fears.
He was very strict, though, when in the presence of other men out in public. He allowed absolutely no displays of affection and kept all that within the privacy of his home. He got pressure from the men he dated, most unwilling to live a closeted lifestyle. It tore Brooks between having safety from my father’s wrath and truly being happy with his personal life.
And it wasn’t just my father who made things difficult on Brooks for being gay. It was the league as a whole. Historically, male-dominated sports have a crude culture within the locker room that has kept gay men quiet. The unenlightened behemoths think being homosexual means weakness or frailty, and that leads to inherent bias. I myself have heard so many gay jokes within the locker room, I know that if I were in Brooks’s shoes, I would’ve never come out to my team either.
All those things weighed heavily on him, and I could see chronicled over time when he started needing alcohol to dull the pain. There were times when Brooks would come home after practice or a game or even a trip out shopping, and he’d crack open a fifth of bourbon. He would sit and drink all night until he fell into blessed sleep.
I learned within the journals that the breaking point was when my brother slept through an alarm and missed a practice with the Titans. In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal. He was fined, which was expected. But it scared him badly to know that he could’ve slept through the alarm to make it to the airport for an away game. He went to his coach and explained he thought he had a problem.
His coach helped him that day find a place to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and that is where he met Harlow.
Not only did I get to learn so many beautiful and awful things about my brother—making me feel closer to him than I ever have despite the fact he is dead—I got to know Harlow Alston through my reading.
Brooks had so much to say about his new friend. Not only the support she gave him to maintain sobriety, but in all other ways outside of their shared alcoholism.
They spent a lot of time together, either at his condo or hers. They often ate dinner together when he wasn’t at games. They vacationed together. She went out on dates with him, playing the wingman so he would feel secure that he wouldn’t be outed.
She was there for him during all his triumphs. She bought a season ticket to cheer him on, and she was always there to make sure he stayed on a sober path.
While he didn’t necessarily say it, I guarantee he helped her stay on that same straight and narrow as well.
I don’t regret reading a single word. Every bit of the information—good and bad—was healing to my soul. It’s a bit devastating to know I could’ve learned this stuff myself had I just made better efforts to repair my relationship with Brooks, but it was enough to know he loved me in the end, so much so that he wanted these journals shared with me.
In addition to being exhausted from taking all this in, I have newfound anger toward my father, so much so I’m now feeling the need to hurt him in some way. Over this past year, things changed between me and my brother, and I can tell that the estrangement was actually manufactured by my father.
While Brooks had withstood years of my father using me as a weapon over him, either by making me a saint or a villain, it’s clear that this past year, Brooks started to doubt me. There were entries that Brooks would write after talking to our father. Apparently, Dad was telling Brooks that I was talking crap about him.
Dad told me tonight that Stone is fueled by jealousy over my success. He told me that Stone wants what I now have and that he can’t stand me for having it. He said Stone hated me for being in the pros… that Stone blamed me for his inability to make it back up. None of that seems like Stone, but Dad is insistent.
They were flat-out lies my father was telling in his efforts to keep injecting that poison. I know Brooks couldn’t see it, but my father did it for purely self-serving reasons. Brooks’s star was now on the rise, mine had been snuffed out, and my dad knew the one person Brooks loved the most was me. My dad knew if he could remove me, then he would have Brooks all to himself.