Prodigal Son

My brother and I don’t talk anymore.


After decades of conflict, we found a way to co-exist.


But when he demanded the three grand I owed him, even threatened to take me to court, everything collapsed. He was entitled, but I had just broken up with my girlfriend, things were tight. I asked him to be patient, I could barely afford food. In the following months I had to rely on credit to stay afloat. I just finished paying off those shylocks, ten years later.


My brother is the one I hated most growing up. One third of the memoir I wrote is attributed describing his cruelty. I absolved him long ago, intellectualizing his behavior; family dysfunction has a way of warping things. I’ve never come to an understanding of why I’m the only one of the three of us that has had any measure of success, however limited. I came out of it with a strong belief in therapy. My brother thinks it’s a bunch of crap.


Type I Diabetes is his crutch. He hobbles around on it like it’s a battle scar. Low sugars make him prone to violent outbursts that leave doctors, and Dad, shrugging. I’m not fooled. If my therapist is correct, anger is a non-optional response to pain. Pushing it down is like trying to keep a beach ball submerged; inevitably, it pops up elsewhere. His low blood sugars are the psychological manifesting itself in the physical.


I can only imagine that Dad feels some measure of guilt for my brother’s inability to rejoin the collective after eight years of being locked up. My brother tried, went back to school, made it onto the honor roll. His probation officer violated him after his first dirty urine, the judge’s reluctance to send an A student back behind the wall waned after the second one.


Dad called me last night at work and asked to speak to me. I need to see you, eight-thirty in the usual spot? Most sons never worry that meeting their Dad for a pizza at Regina's might be the call to rob again. It’s the first thing that pops into my mind. He told me a sentencing glitch and recalculation means my brother will be released on Friday. With Dad’s knee surgery scheduled for Thursday, there’s no one to pick my brother up.


I wouldn't ask if I weren't having my knee replaced. I know you have your differences. I was hoping you two could set them aside. Maybe get along again.


Dad doesn’t understand that it’s never been about money. My own brother threatened to take me to court. He forgot that when I got out I had to take care of Mom, alone, while cancer ate her alive. He forgot that the reason he has his inheritance is because of me.


Our relationship dissolved over a paltry three grand, the going rate for brotherhood.


So what do you think? Should I do it?

Dirt, Cheap?

I clean.


Big deal, right?


Maybe you don't understand.


I CLEAN.


It wasn't always an obsession, a war, if you will, against dirt. At one time, I really didn't care about the matter, or more precisely, I ignored it because everyone else in my family was so obsessed with it. Ignoring it was my of telling them to F off.


It's not like you have to go out of your way to be messy. Just don't do anything, and watch dirt slowly, but surely, take over. Dust wisps in, coating every surface. Grime permeates shower tiles so subtly you hardly notice the build-up. Floors, once smooth and slick on your bare feet, become course and grimy.


My room growing up was deplorable. Mold grew freely, green patches formed like lily pads on all my wooden furniture. Discarded food crusted, molded, then crumbled to dust before ever being acknowledged. One of our eight cats frequently pissed under my desk, he wasn't neutered.


There were two spots that I kept clean, or at least free of clutter, my bed, and my porn collection, which was stored high lest the cat desire some reading material to shit on. In drunken stupors, I'd lie in filth, face down, careless.


Given the fact that she screamed about it constantly, I can only surmise that Mom saw Satan in dirt. She hunted it like a marksman, paling in comparison to her mother, who'd move all the furniture just to give the room a rim job.


But then...something happened. Dirt bothered me. I noticed it. Everywhere. The first time I cleaned a hardwood floor I stood over it, unconvinced the mop picked up all the dirt. I knelt with towel in hand, and wiped up my arch enemy, glaring at my mop the same way one looks upon a traitor.


Once I moved into my own place, things went from bad to worse. I worked long hours to make it on my own. Sunday I scoured. Monday I relaxed. Tuesday, dirt's assault began, showing up in the corners, random dustbunnies scampered across the floor. Wednesday, I'd clean. Friday. Sunday. Random spot checks on non-essential cleaning days. God forbid someone invited me out. I'd have declined, knowing full well dirt loves an empty house.


My therapist calls the behavior a neurotic loyalty to Mom. He must live in filth. Dirt and I have reached an understanding. It accumulates. Sometimes I let it, others I don't. It's hard to keep up an obsession, especially when you live with people who don't seem as offended by dirt's existence. It's not that Rachel is a slob, she just has better things to do. It's ironic how I've spent a good deal of my life trying to combat the very thing I'll be buried in when I pass.


Unless I'm cremated and mixed into a vat of 409.


Get my lawyer on the phone. Time to change my will.

White is Right

It's a good god damn thing we keep those niggers behind fences!


She declared. It surprised us the same way a blown tire might have if it was blown by a laser from an alien ship. My brother and I looked around at first. I checked the radio to make sure we weren't tuned to WKKK while my brother rolled up the window, either because he thought it came from outside, or to keep the flagrant racism in.


Grandma sat in the back, purse clutched to her chest, wig secured by enough bobby pins to set off a metal detector. We were driving by a low income housing development just after gorging on Thanksgiving dinner.


Her rascism was usually more subtle. The tightening of her grip as we walked by anyone of color, the forbidden line that dissected the neighborhood, white from black, the generalizations spoken under her breath to friends, They all steal, you know.


When we were caught robbing jewelry stores and plastered all over the 6 o'clock news, she was devastated. I can't imagine the embarrassment, humiliation, and shame. Her peers would look down on her as a failed Mother.


She blamed it on a woman, Some girl did this to your father, brainwashed him into stealing, he'd never do it on his own. My therapist says she's right, it was a woman that brainwashed him, her.



I don't talk to her was her response when Rachel asked if she ever saw my sister. She ruined the family's good name by having a baby with a black man.



The family's good name? I thought. Didn't Dad single-handedly drive a wrecking ball into that long before my sister gave birth to the anti-Christ?



Classic Grandma.



John McCain will receive a vote from her not because he stands for what she believes in, but because he's the 'right' color. I fear others, black and white, are going to the polls this November to pick a color, not a candidate.



Maybe we should keep them behind fences.

Just Curious

Who is this?

Wow! I found your blog last month and read all the entries that same night! I came back tonight to re-read the one that mentions my name, although, it's mispelled (no "ce" just a "z")I'm glad you're ok and I think you are a great writer... hopefully, you have some better memories of me...

My brain is sprained trying to figure it out.

Miss Bossy Pants Meets Mr. Sensitive

It’s as if she said give me the Demi Moore but they gave her the Hitler. Since it’s been short things have changed. Now she’s Miss Bossy Pants.

Colonel Rara demands Mow Mow and I walk in tight formation. Mow Mow on my left, my eyes forward, shoulders square, feet always pointed in the direction I intend to walk.

Warden Rara says lockdown is at 11pm sharp. Mow Mow is to be crated regardless of whether or not she’s tired. The Warden needs her sleep, Mow Mow needs routine. There will be no discussions about going to bed without me.

The accounting firm of Rara & Rara says that the procurement of dog treats are no longer allowed through a vendor, “We can buy ten pounds of ground beef for what pet stores charge for lips and assholes.”

Maybe it’s because she’s under the most stress ever and works a million hours. Is it possible I’m misinterpreting all this? Could bossy really just be determined? Maybe her discipline offsets my wanting to spoil our dog rotten.

Could there be some transference going on here?

Nah, it’s definitely the hair…

Primal Scream!

I’ve been telling her for three and a half years now. Not directly. We men save direct for car salesmen and strippers. No, I’ve been telling her passively, aggressively, don’t cut your hair short.

She cut it Friday.

99% of me has no problem with it, it complements her round features, her almond eyes. But she disobeyed an indirect order, and there’s a part of me, 1% to be exact, that is enraged at her insolence.

I’m as far from a manly man than you can get. I cry, love Pixar movies, bawled when I watched The Notebook (Damn that Nicholas Sparks!). I don’t drink and have very few guy friends. In general, I shake my head at the male gender, but this is a violation against something primal, something raw.

I said no.

Of course rather than express it, release the rage, and process it in a healthy, productive manner, I want to punish her, shut down, make snide comments, and deny her affection. Sing along guys, you know the words!

She brought the castrated hair home, wrapped in elastic, to donate to cancer kids. Cancer Kids! Now what kind of fuckbucket complains about his GF cutting her hair when one, she absolutely loves it, and two, it helps dying kids?

This kind of fuckbucket.

Maybe I should re-grow my mullet, all business up front with a party in the back.

Agent R

There is something wrong with me. No one is up in arms over this statement, I'm sure, but now more than ever I know it to be true. After more than three years of hoping, dreaming, and working for my dream to become a reality, I'm one giant hurdle closer.

Last Monday I signed and dated a one year contract to have my memoir represented by the Pratt Literary Group. It came with a letter of congratulations. I'm on their site as an active project, along with a bio.

My name in lights, so to speak.

Then why do I feel numb?

Part of it has to do with the fact that, other than my super supportive GF, I had no one to tell. The reason my memoir is attractive to agents, and hopefully publishers, is because of the extraordinary circumstances that has lead to Christmas being just another day, and Thanksgiving a time to be grateful for the fact that there is no Thanksgiving.

It's like an atom bomb blew my family to pieces, leaving shards strewn across two states. Dad lives with grandma. My brother's back inside. And my half sister lives in NH. We haven't been in the same room together in I don't know how long.

My agent asked me what my vision was for the book. I promptly answered, "To use it as a tool. To travel around to high schools and give talks, maybe reach a student like me, and let them know that change is optional: here are your options."