Ego
The profound stature of
This hill I would die on
Disarms me;
Enveloping me with insidious
Melanalcoholic acceptance.
Sleepless nights become
Displaced, impassive sedation.
Monotony shrieks, bellows.
I bear the years behind me.
Ignore the lies I tell–
I feel them all.
Success robs me of peace;
Failure bats at my brain.
Beat it smooth so that
I may bask in the ambience
Of blissful oblivion.
She’s wrapped around the toilet,
face pressed into the cold, plastic lid,
tapping nails against the bowl–
yellow where the press-ons have popped off–
a fast rhythm, like the heartbeat in her head.
She can’t remember
switching from fast food to dry heaves,
but she does recall her folks’
hazy hours-long road trips in the old
broken-roll-down-window machine.
Cold coffee in paper cups, sulfur and spray deodorant,
AM talk radio hosts cut up with static and
bursts of fresh air as ash leaves the front windows.
Memory is sticky in her lungs.
There she sits
stinking of sweat and smoke,
near empty pack tucked into her bra;
shoes kicked off by the stall door,
stationary as the world moves around her
like lake water.
For the first time in forever,
for the third time this week,
she prays to God.
Swearing, cursing and bartering:
she’ll be nicer to the new neighbors–
and the old ones too–
she’ll swear off drinking on work nights
and start working on herself tomorrow
if he’ll just make it go away.
But saliva rushes against her teeth, and
there’s lightness in her pounding head, and
her stomach muscles quiver, and
tobacco lingers in her nostrils, and
she knows he can’t help her tonight.
I got the rarest of opportunities. Something of a fly on the wall in the most delicate of environments. As a kind of underling of a therapy team, an intern in a rehab is a unique kind of nothing; a cipher of experience, neither staff nor patient. Witness to anything with hardly any agency at all. “Inmate or Guard?”I was once asked by someone easing into their long-term stay. In truth, I wasn’t either. I’d find myself continually second-guessing the sense of service in my role.
One of the organic joys was watching communities form. Total strangers with their poison taken from them, being asked to come together. There is absolutely nothing more harmful to a recovery than isolation. The two pillars upholding any active addiction are isolation and shame. One tends to feed the other in a vicious cycle. Getting to witness people historically riddled with these but now seen and heard, finding a sense of togetherness. was a genuine privilege. Being a trusted presence, fostering a sense of safety where this could happen, was hugely validating.
Yet there was always push and pull. Wanting the best for people and to see their growth could be a difficult thing to regulate. Being the guardrails and not anything more could be a difficult post. So much could be on the line for those giving their stay at the rehab the most long-lasting value. People, who over time and conversations, would come to reveal all that was glowing and admirable in them. Witnessing exactly how communities would form and bond could also be uneasy. What was camaraderie and what was corrosive? What was the place of gallows humor and a visible sense of mischief in an environment designed to bring people to reality?
Nevertheless, reality would arrive to puncture any floating above it all or skirting round the edges.
Between process groups, therapy sessions and psycho-educational workshops, reality was coming after them day after day. In most cases I would witness, seldom would anybody leave without a sense that they had a problem of greater scale than they’d previously wanted to believe. Those staying had very real circumstances, phone calls could be worth the world, residents had families hanging in the balance.
Bruised and wounded
One of the several psychological interventions offered in the program was a “collateral letter”. The letter was to be read to a person staying at the rehab during a process group and it was to be written by their closest ones back home. Designed to be a confrontation with reality, not a lambasting or shaming. More a form of inventory of how much harm has been caused to those who mean the most.
One Monday, to a vibrant community of incredible lived stories and contagious characters, a collateral letter opened their week. It was thunderously powerful. The words written and read were searingly heartfelt. They were words laden with love, but a bruised and wounded one. The message was clear as day. The person the letter was written for was dearly loved, with children, a wife, a family to hold on to. This individual meant everything, but if they couldn’t leave alcohol behind, the mother of their children would have no choice but to protect the family and leave them behind.
The therapist sitting next to me was clearly moved. Breaths so deep I could’ve credited them to Tony Soprano. I was far from immune, sitting on a bubbling well of emotion that I needed to keep buttoned down for propriety. The person reading the letter was moved to tears and rightly so, she would lead the feedback as well. What she was reading mirrored her own circumstances, she’d spent the last couple of weeks clinging to phone calls on the present danger she could lose her own family. She would be seconded in the feedback. Another individual in the exact same present danger; grasp recovery or risk losing your closest. Soulful and robust, they underscored the gravity of matters to him: get a hold of yourself, get on with your recovery, words aren’t words alone, this is reality.
It was as if just for that 20-minute spell, somebody stopped the clocks. Time paused, reality was here and nothing else mattered. An individual was being handed truth in a form they’d never have again. A phosphorous, molten truth of priceless value. Where else could something with such honesty be handled with such care?
On that Monday, I felt an immense sense of service. To be sure, I was just a small cog in a much greater machine, but that Monday I walked out feeling a part of something profoundly valuable.
Monday and Friday
The main thing that the therapy team hammered into interns and Healthcare Assistants was boundaries and just how important they are. Maybe I didn’t get that down, maybe I had a degree of personal investment in outcomes I could have handled better. There is always a danger in emotional resonance with matters one can’t control. When I came back that Friday, there was a different feeling around the place. The air was thick and stilted, something was off. Just four days on, from one of their several random drug tests, someone in the community tested positive for cocaine.
The message from the therapy team was clear: when there’s using, there’s no growing. The healing back to square one, the value lost, the formidable message of Monday nowhere to be found. “The Community is Unwell”. I was gut-punched. The intervention couldn’t have been any more potent, the stakes any higher, yet mere days later we were staring down the barrel of families left in tatters. Addiction blindly bulldozing reality.
It would be the longest day I’d spend interning at that rehab. It didn’t belong to me. It really wasn’t my hurt but I couldn’t deny the sting of it. I was left with a painful doubt — what use did this work have to these people? What was my service?
I was a twentysomething, twentysomething. Lost and wayward, yet somehow granted the occasional tentpoles of good people to guide me along the way. I was nudged by one of those people at the time to go work for a rehabilitation center. I was raised in an alcoholic home and, like many who come from such beginnings, memory is a blur to me. A roof beam here, an adult’s face there, maybe a friend’s house. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I can see how things were.
The adults aren’t my parents, the roof beam doesn’t belong to a place I recognize, and the friend’s house isn’t really a friend’s. I was shifted around a lot. I was the youngest of my family and because of this, I was kept away from the disaster zone. Like many, I’m sure, I was left with a lot of questions.
I knew the “how” and I knew the “why,” but not the “what” exactly. What is the profile of a person? What is in the architecture of a person who loses their motherhood for the bottle? It’s a fall from grace that many don’t want to know exists. Women, I know, have described motherhood as something “sacred.” What exactly is the making of a supposed transgression?
While it originally brought some amusement to tell people that I was interning at a rehab, it would turn out to be an incredibly rich, spiritually nourishing experience. Moreover, this voluntary engagement would soon turn into employment. At the start, my placement was once a week and each day was illuminating. Shadowing the therapy team, I was sitting in on group therapy sessions, handovers, and supporting clients during their stay.
There’s a prevalent cultural misconception about what a rehab is and what exactly it does. These places don’t and can’t fix people, neither do they heal or get rid of addiction. In clinical terms, twenty-eight days is hardly a pocket of time at all. What a rehab can do and what I’ve witnessed it do, is bust denial. It can give appropriate interventions in the correct environment to assure that there are no illusions about the scale of the problem. A rehab can give a person abstinence and the tools to uphold it. It can show the way for a lasting sobriety. It is entirely up to the individual if they want to take it beyond their stay; the choice can only be made by them.
Across the months, there would be clients passing through for twenty-eight-day stays, or longer. Treated as a collective, they would be known as the “community” by the therapy team. Within a month it became clear I was in the right place. Each community passing through included at least one woman in her forties who had become alcoholic. More curiously, father, brother, lover, son… they all had a significant “Oliver” in their lives. So who were they?
They were clearly people giving their all. Perhaps too much, they were all remarkably hard on themselves. They were all either the only girl in the family, or the youngest, having a profound sense of being the runt of the litter. They were all from homes where doing one’s best was required and yet having one’s feelings acknowledged was seldom. They were all from formative environments where anxiety could be felt in the air. They were all able to speak of a mother or father, sometimes both, that they just couldn’t reach.
From school rebellion, to university freedom, to home life and domesticity, each was profoundly affected by their actions letting down others. Each understood their drinking habits but hadn’t realized the extent of this pervasive spiritual anesthetic. Each one of these women felt unseen or unheard as perennial perfectionists with sewer-bound self-worth. Something had to give.
Yet I look at these themes and can’t help but figure… it’s no cosmic curse. It’s not a smiting from the Almighty. To be sure: some had a genetic predisposition, a family disease, but some didn’t. The women in question were remarkably warm, provincial, and familiar figures. You can picture them loading up their shopping in a supermarket car park. Or waiting and chatting with fellow parents at the school gates. Maybe catching a coffee with friends, prams and/or little monsters in tow. Perhaps finding an oh-so-rare moment to themselves at a nearby salon. These women aren’t anomalies; they’re all around us everyday.
Transgression or falling? I’m not so sure. Addiction has an eerie ability to breed denial and minimization. From what I’ve seen, it’s a playing-out of matters we can’t control, a hard turn of misfortune, a flicker of fate away.
Alcohol abuse runs in my family.
It seems like a curse passed down the generations.
That said, I also struggled with substance abuse in my early adult life.
It has been a battle not to run to the bottle when I am feeling lonely or unsuccessful. I do not want my generational curse to overpower and ruin me. Hence, I fight for a better future every day.
A summer to remember
One summer, I was feeling extremely lonely and defeated. I was failing community college. I was having relationship drama. My mom was in Pennsylvania with my dad and my friends were nowhere in sight, so I turned to wine.
I was also on medication for my mental health. Mixing those with wine was a huge risk. There wasn’t a single day that summer when I was sober. As a result, I got a speeding ticket, three points on my license, and had to join a driving school.
For the first time, I felt completely alone, as if I did not have anyone to turn to. And I think that is why a lot of people drink. They drink not to feel or to numb their feelings of hurt and despair. Or, as in my grandma’s case, to forget, for a while, the mental trauma of the past.
My familial alcoholic traits
My dad’s family is all alcoholics. They drink in secret and judge people for drinking at a bar. It’s kind of a double standard mindset- like the saying, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” My dad is not as alcoholic as his mom and siblings, but he has some narcissistic traits.
My grandfather died of an overdose at the age of forty. He was a heavy drinker and physically abusive. My grandparents were divorced by then, so my grandma raised five kids by herself. My grandma and dad found my grandfather’s dead body in his apartment, surrounded by empty beer cans and pill bottles.
My aunt’s husband walked in the same footsteps as my grandfather. He was only in his thirties when he died of an overdose. He was found in his car at his workplace. Fortunately, he was not driving so the only life lost was his.
My way of ending the toxicity
Some people drink to celebrate a good time but mostly, I think, people drink to numb the pain and avoid feeling certain emotions.
I know because I did the same. I drank to numb my childhood pain, to numb my feelings of loneliness and despair, and to forget about life for just a little while.
I stopped after that summer. The reason was, firstly, my mother had returned, and I was no longer alone. Secondly, being fully aware of the effects of addiction, I never gave in completely to the high, having learned from my grandfather and uncle.
I lived in the present moment, so I could change the outcome of my life. I wanted a better future for my kids, so I chose therapy instead of the bottle.
This is how I broke the generational curses that haunted my family.
I awoke at the crack of noon. My first order of business was to determine my whereabouts. I appeared to be home, although one can never be certain. I searched for my chalice to soothe my parched throat, but it was empty.
I resolutely made the journey from reclining to standing.
Shall I drink to that?
Sir Henry was asleep in his corner of the domicile, and I had not the heart to wake the man. While he may not have been the best companion to share living quarters with — he often complained about the bracing winds that blew through — a man must receive all the rest he can get. I peered into a nearby fount to see if my armour was in good nick. My shoulder-protecting pauldrons were a bit dented, but the rest appeared fine. Most importantly, my cape with the colours of the rainbow, the symbol of any true Plastic Knight, was pristine as always. I left my residence and went to meet my knight in training, Squire Robert.
He arrived at the meadow on his old steed. It had belonged to his brother, who had no more need of it when he left to become a merchant on the other side of the Kingdom. Robert was a good lad. He spoke to everyone with a smile that could not be false. He had with him my morning’s sustenance. Bread with peanuts ground into a paste and a chalice filled with the dreaded orange sugar beverage.
“I told you not to bring me this vile liquid,” I said.
“Well you can’t just drink wine the whole day,” Robert replied. “Besides, we’re still a week away from the end of the month, and I’m not happy about it either.”
“I shall make do for now. I am simply voicing my displeasure at imbibing such ghastliness.”
“You’re being overly dramatic. Isn’t it the Way of the Plastic Knight to accept food and drink whenever offered?”
I grumbled and finished the drink. Though he was still green, the boy did have an understanding of the Code.
Leaving the meadow, the two of us proceeded to the Lord’s Castle. We paid our respects and then prepared for monster slaying. The boy was not ready to face beasts, and saying something about his upcoming trials, he departed.
Hunting monsters is a dangerous task. You must find a locale with a great number of intersections in order to intercept their path. Once there you must attack, with unwavering fortitude in the face of insurmountable odds. The beasts are truly terrifying — chimera of every possible fashion, wolves with horse heads and chicken legs, snake-headed apes sporting the wings of a bat, and more. Too many to count. Truly, only a Plastic Knight wielding a Great Sword can defeat them.
Fair maiden
From time to time, a citizen of the Kingdom would come and bequeath me the largesse of a small donative for my efforts. At a point, with my cloak flashing brilliantly in the light, a young maiden stopped by me.
“This is amazing,” she said with a smile. “I wish I could give you something, but I don’t have any money on me.”
“Fear not maiden, a Plastic Knight does not strive for wealth, but for honour.”
“You are hilarious.”
I wished the lady farewell and continued my task of defeating the savage hordes.
Go, Man, Go!
Once my long day of fighting was done, I visited the local merchant quarter. This bustling covered market of the Kingdom housed everything from food vendors to fine tailors. I patronized the wine merchant and, thanks to the generosity of the citizenry, procured two flagons made by the Cousins Four company. Before I left, I decided to head to the grocer and procure two fine Orange Fruit of the Man for me and Robert to have later. The boy has always loved them. I made my request to the merchant.
“Look Umkhulu, I’m sorry I don’t know what you are asking for?”
“The Orange Fruit of the Man, dearest lady, an exotic sweet fruit from lands far off. It has a sweet taste and green skin. Most delicious and soft.”
“Oh, okay, I see. Don’t worry, you want two, yes?”
From vintage to nectar to bottle
As I began the journey home, I noticed Ol’ Salazar guarding Kahs. These vicious and noisy creatures with giant silver teeth, wide-set yellow eyes, and stunted legs have power to travel much faster than a horse. Protecting Kaws is a very lucrative employment for a Plastic Knight. Unlike most, Salazar takes his task seriously. He is never too far from his mace if anyone molests one of his charges. I nodded to the man and offered him wine. He accepted.
“A fine vintage. One may be inclined to call it a nectar, do you not agree?” I said.
“I dunno, can hardly taste anything these days.”
I examined the man and noticed for the first time how heavy his eyes seemed, how deep the creases on his brow were, how taut the skin on his cheeks. The life of a Plastic Knight, rewarding as it may be, is a hard one. I left my struggling compatriot and headed back to my domicile. Sir Henry greeted me with joyous salutations. I believed my patron was glad I was home until I saw he spied the wine. I gave him a bottle and ignored his overplayed gratitude. I cursed the god that brought this vile wretch to my sanctum. We finished the bottle. I then realised that the sun had nearly set. It was time to meet with my squire again.
At the arena
Squire was performing in the Arena when I arrived. He struck furiously, the crowd cried out in triumph. I shouted “Huzzah!” and his comrades lifted him up and cheered. I met him outside after the events.
“Congratulations, young squire! A fine performance, I must say.”
“Thanks. I saw you were here about halfway in. Did you see me sc…?” but before he could finish his query, he was whisked away by one of his compatriots. I left him to his glory for a while. Once everyone else left, he returned to me.
“Sorry. Josh just wanted to say ‘well done.’ Anyway, why were you so late?” Robert asked.
“Well, hunting and killing the fiercest beasts in the land is not something one can do in a single turn of an hourglass. I also paid a visit to the fine wine vendor. He has a wonderful establishment, I must say.”
My squire seemed despondent. I asked what the matter was.
“You went to… actually, forget about it.”
“No, what is the matter, my young squire?”
“I just… I just can’t believe you went to the goddamn bottle store again. After what Mom… you know what? Fuck it! I’m done.”
The boy marched off before I could ask him what he was talking about. What is a mum? I decided to let him go. He obviously still burned with the fire of competition.
“Well into the night, towards adventure!”
***
Morning already?
I woke up but kept my eyes closed. I could feel my achy legs from the day before. My knees were stinging from the carpet burn I got off the grass. I rotated my ankles, and felt the dull throbbing pain of the late tackle from after I scored the game-winning goal last night. Everyone was so shocked that the ref didn’t even call a foul. My heart was pumping and I felt an electric energy all through my arms and legs. I could still hear the crowd chanting my name, their roar filling my body. I don’t know how Lebogang Manyana managed to play at Soccer City, with 50,000 chanting his name. I could still see Josh looking at me with a grin on his face, congratulating me.
Then I saw Granddad stumble over. I made myself cross and now I was properly awake. I called for Mom but she didn’t answer. She had left for church already. I don’t know why she always went to church, probably to pray for Granddad. I left my room and turned right, walked past the bathroom and into the kitchen. I popped some bread in the toaster, hearing the faint click as it locked in my breakfast. It was still six days to the end of the month, so I mixed some No Name squash drink for myself. I had peanut butter on the toast without more. Six days until payday.
Once I finished eating, I remembered I was supposed to meet up with the old man again today. Part of me felt like going back upstairs and sleeping the day away, but I got dressed, made some food and drink for him, grabbed my bag, got on my bike and was on my way. I rode through the neighbourhood, heading towards the park, our usual meeting place. There weren’t that many cars out, so I could build some speed, feeling the lactic acid in my charley horse legs finally burn away.
Out to lunch in the park
By the time I arrived at the park, I had a decent sweat going. It was a sunny day with no clouds in the sky. Couples had come in to be in love and make goo-goo eyes at each other. I sat by a bench for a bit just taking in the people.
Everyone had a smile on their face and a few gave me a nod as they walked by. I started to look around the park, pushing my bike as I walked.
I kept looking through the park until I saw a flash of colour through the bushes. I dropped my bike and dived in, the thorns raking through my legs and arms. I felt blood on my legs and I winced in pain. I got to the flash of colour, though I still couldn’t see it clearly through the bushes. I reached for it, more thorns tearing at me, and pulled out a condom wrapper. After washing my hands at a nearby fountain, I decided to move on to the statue.
By the time I got there my legs had started to feel rubbery and I was breathing hard. I looked around. I didn’t know who it was a statue of, just some old guy on a horse with a face too worn to see, but Granddad liked to kneel in front of it. I chilled there for a bit because I was kinda pissed at Granddad and didn’t really feel like finding him. Then I remembered seeing him stumbling, the smell of wine on his breath. I started worrying that he had got himself hurt. It had happened before.
I stopped people walking past the statue and asked, “Hey, have you seen an old man with a scruffy beard wearing a plastic costume?”
Some beer belly with a bald head told me to “Fuck off you bloody tsotsi!” He was probably thinking I was scamming him or something. A young white guy ignored me, saying “Sorry I don’t have anything on me, hey.”
My heart started beating faster and faster, images filled my mind of Granddad lying at the bottom of a ditch, his head cracked open and his face bloody.
I cycled down the road for quite a while, the sound of my own grinding chain distracting me. I kept going until I got to the courtyard next to the dam. Granddad would often “busk” there, pulling out a long piece of plastic pipe, yes, and swinging it around like crazy. It doesn’t sound too exciting, but he really goes for it, jumping and diving with flourishes and everything. People would often stop and watch and some would give him money.
I looked around, remembering that when I was eight years old, I felt so proud watching him. Afterwards he would buy us each a mango, or as he called them the orange fruit of the man. I could almost taste the sweetness of the fruit, sticky pulp clinging to my face. I always felt so safe around him. I believed he was the strongest man in the universe and would always protect me. I thought that until four years later when some drunk asshole punched him in the face during one of his performances.
I started looking more desperately, calling out to him, feeling the panic building in my chest.
Before giving in, I thought I’d better check the mini-mall. It was an okay place I guess, it had a little bit of everything, but the building stank and none of the stores ever had exactly what you wanted. I looked in the bushes and the dark corners of the parking lot. Still nothing. I asked Old Sal the car security guard if he had seen him. He rested his chin on his knobkierrie (African club) stick and said, “Not since yesterday. Tell him thanks for the wine.” He gave me a toothless grin. I said “No problem” and let him be. Old Sal had been there as long as I could remember, as unchanging as he was ancient, but still no slouch with his knobkierrie in hand.
I asked the shopkeepers if he’d been in. The bottle store was already closed and the manager at the supermarket said he didn’t see anything.
As I was leaving one of the ladies at the counter asked, “Are you looking for the orange man-fruit Umkhulu?”
“Yeah. An old man who dresses strange?”
“I saw him yesterday. Hasn’t been in today. If I see him, I’ll tell him you are looking for him.”
I figured I’d visit the overpass where he stayed, in case he was holed up there, but that’d be unusual. The place was absolutely trashed, with old blankets and garbage everywhere. Near a dirty mattress was what looked like a puddle of pee. Henry was still asleep. I tried to wake him to ask him where Granddad was, but all I got was a fart in response.
My Mom had always wanted Granddad to live with us, but he didn’t want to. He had always said, “The life of a Plastic Knight is one of absolute freedom. Why would I allow myself to be chained to the prison of domesticity?” Although he was homeless, Granddad didn’t stray too far away from his usual spots. So if I couldn’t find him anywhere it was something to worry about.
I started cycling through the streets aimlessly, looking out for any sign of Granddad and thinking about the time he helped me learn to ride a bike.
He would say, “Robert my young lad, to ride a steed first you must earn its respect. You must have confidence, my young man.”
“But what if I fall, Granddad?”
“Then you will rise again.”
I kept cycling and cycling
My legs ached, the muscles almost cramping. My throat was dry and I had finished Granddad’s orange squash hours ago. My heart was pounding in my ears and my head hurt. I began cycling downhill, pushing pace, going faster and faster. A passing car jumped to a stop. I swerved to avoid it. My bike hit the pavement. Pain shot through my body as the air left my lungs. Luckily I landed in a bush and didn’t seem to have hurt myself too badly. I had cuts all over my arms, hands and legs now. I turned my head and saw a massive rock right by my face. My heart dropped. I get why mom always nagged me about a helmet.
It was getting dark so I gave up and started for home. I passed by the football field just in case anyone saw him after I left. The field was probably the nicest place in a five-kilometer radius. The grass was always green and mown, the floodlights the only consistent lights in the area, all due to an outreach program that looked for up-and-coming players for professional clubs. My dream was to get a scholarship through the program. I just had to make sure my team won the league.
Josh came up to me. “Hey man, I just wanted to say again that the goal you scored last night was craaazy,” he said.
“Thanks, man. I was wondering if you saw that guy who was talking to me before I left?”
“Who you talking about?”
“You know, that old man I was with, kinda talks like our Shakespeare lessons in English.”
“Oh shit that guy, uh nah. Haven’t seen him since yesterday, dude.”
“Thanks. I’m out, see you around.”
And he kept recycling
I was a few blocks from home, wondering how I was going to tell Mom that her dad was missing, when I actually saw him passed out on the pavement. He was still wearing the suit made of old plastic milk bottles, and his cloak stitched together out of chip packets.
I woke him up and told him to come with me. I half carried him, with his arm around my shoulder, and most of his weight resting on me. He smelled like toilets and wine. I wondered if he had wet himself while he was sleeping.
“Where are we headed to, my squire?” His words were slurred.
“Back to Mom’s place. You need a meal and a bed. No arguments.”
“You cannot trap me in such confines, my good sir, I will resist with much fortitude.”
He tried to walk away from me and nearly fell back onto the pavement. Picking him back up, I said, “Listen, dear Knight, you have been invited by um … the Countess to come to a royal feast in order to celebrate your many accomplishments. It is, um, at her behest that I implore you to come join us. She has heard of your many exploits — from me.”
“If it is at her behest then I shall join you for said feasting. We shall sing and dance the night away. With many pitchers of wine.” He paused and looked me in the eyes for a second. “You have been injured, dear squire.”
“A few rapscallions are no match for the squire of a Plastic Knight, no?”
“While I have no doubts of your combative prowess, I beseech you leave the slaying of monsters and defeating of vagabonds to professionals. We cannot have the hero of the arena being harmed.”
“I guess you’re right. Come on then, Mom will be happy to see you.”
“Wait, squire, I have something for you.” He stopped and nearly stumbled. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out something green and golden.
“I have an Orange Fruit of the Man.” He took a knife out from his other pocket, made one long slice along the edge, and expertly peeled the mango in one quick movement. He handed it to me with a flourish.
I bit into it, tasting the sweetness, feeling the soft fruit on my cheeks.
My mother always told me that I was her sunshine. Not only is this because my name is Summer, but also because I was the only daughter in the family and was thus treated like a princess. I was told I would do great things in life and to always follow my dreams, so I grew up having many ambitions. I wanted to be a princess like many of the other girls in preschool. In elementary school, I wanted to be a teacher and an FBI agent. When I got to middle school, I wanted to be a therapist. Finally, in my high school years, I decided I wanted to be a profiler. This decision wasn’t just influenced by the many, many TV series of cop shows like Forensic Files, Law and Order, or NCIS, but also because of my brother.
To explain what I mean, I must start from the very beginning. As a single mother, my mom was always working. She started her day at 3 am and ended it by 6 pm, taking a total of three different buses in order to take her kids to and from school at the same time. To me and my second oldest brother (Zach), our oldest brother (Josh) was like our father. My mom was too poor to afford babysitters, so that’s what Josh became.
In a way, Josh had given up his childhood for us.
I think that’s why he changed; because of the responsibilities bestowed upon him from such an early age. Not only was he essentially a father to kids who weren’t his, it meant having to solely raise us right while Mom worked.
With all that responsibility and pressure, he constantly struggled with his mental health. Some days, I would catch him looking out of our nine-story building – which we were lucky enough to have – to a backyard beach. In those moments, time seemed to stand still. Moments like that were ever fleeting though when you are surrounded by kids who constantly bicker.
Introductions
One day, Josh brought home a girl. Now, my brother wasn’t one to date very often, nor did he usually bring girls over. With a mom who constantly had an opinion about every little thing we did, it’s not a surprise that none of us ever brought anyone home. Although we ultimately knew it was because she was just looking out for us, it was the way she did it that bugged us. She always started with this smug look, a look that always threw everyone off.
This first girl Josh brought over was very soft-spoken, nice, and had much in common with him. I would even go so far as to say they were practically the same person. She was the type of person who just clicks perfectly at the first meeting when you’re young, and you idolize them as the coolest person ever.
She stayed in our lives until I was about 11 years old.
There were times in their relationship when she and my brother would “take breaks,” but they would always end up back together. In hindsight, this possibly could have played a part in my own future commitment issues. Seeing those breaks made me realize the hardships of being in a serious relationship, a relationship – platonic or otherwise – that I thought I would never find myself in.
The different faces we hide
As time went on, things began to change.
Do you remember being younger and having everything hidden from you, whether out of necessity or compassion? More of those lies began to appear in our family from this point on, ones kept specifically from me so as not to dim my sunshine.
Looking back, I can see what a good liar my brother was; how easy it was for him to hide his millions of emotions behind the biggest smile in the world.
Don’t get me wrong, he still absolutely refused to smile in pictures. When he did, though, it would light up the entire room. When I did eventually recognize the mask he wore, it was a real eye-opener. This man, the one who raised me and who had become a saint in my eyes, had been facing his demons the whole time.
My brother has had his fair share of this cruel world since he was just a kid, including going through my mom’s many mistakes for lovers, and his dad, who could barely get himself together for his son.
No one is perfect, including my family and I, and living in Waianae certainly didn’t make things any better. We grew up having little money and only one income to support the four of us; That’s barely enough to live on in Hawaii.It made it easier to be drawn to things you never thought you would have the means to do.
You’ve probably heard a lot of times that smoking cigarettes or vapes are “gateway drugs.” Well, it was that previously-mentioned sweet girl who introduced my brother to these drugs. Addiction ran in my family and in Josh’s too, and this made the difference between this girl and my brother ever more apparent; she was able to stop when she wanted to. When she finally left for good, he refused to get clean. After all, when you have addiction problems, there is a lot you’ll do before you stop.
The spiral of addiction
Years went by as his addiction grew more intense until he finally couldn’t hide it from us any longer. By that point, we had moved in next door to the soon-to-be “chronics” – a fancy way of saying drug addicts in Hawaii – who only worsened it.
I couldn’t believe just how different my brother was becoming. I never imagined I would ever feel the need to leave a room or hide when he entered. Soon, I was even terrified to be home or around anyone at all. It was like watching a perfect flower blossom only to wither, just to see him deteriorate and lose his mind.
People say home is where the heart is, a saying that was becoming less and less true for me, because home was a place I was starting to despise. For one thing, it was the place where I had to be constantly on guard because of my brother’s new and questionable friends. One time I was even woken up by one of them sneaking in through my window!
One incident that stands out
It was late one night. I had just finished showering in the girls’ bathroom in my mom’s room and was heading down the hallway towards my room. Right in the middle of that hall was the boys’ bathroom.
Trying to be as quiet as I could – because Josh was in the boys’ bathroom – I sneaked to my room and made it safely through the hallway when I heard him finally exit the bathroom.
It was rare for my brother to ever yell at me.I was so scared of my brother’s anger that I did my best to avoid his bad side, and as a result, he completely spoiled me. I never got yelled at because I was smart enough not to push his buttons.
But my brother was different now. He no longer had sympathy for anyone, swearing they all hated him and were constantly talking behind his back. He would sometimes even tell me he could hear voices in the walls speaking to him, voices that revealed what we would say when he was gone.
This time was no different. Accusing me of speaking about him behind his back, he started screaming so loud that it woke my mother. She immediately rushed out of her room half-awake to see me cornered near the closet. My eyes were full of tears as I looked at her, pleading for help. She quickly swooped in to defend me.
That was my mom’s last straw. Soon after, she finally kicked Josh out, which was probably the hardest thing my mother ever had to do. She is a strong lady with her own share of trauma that made her empathy never-ending. In her eyes, no one deserved to be pushed away like that until absolutely necessary.
My struggle to understand
For the longest time, I never really understood why my mom put up with Josh for so long or even why my brother had switched so drastically. It made me question their actions. Why only then were they unable to control themselves?
I decided to look for an escape and turned to the shows I loved best: True Crime TV. I came upon this one show called N.C.I.S., a show that constantly relied on a profiler. A lot of shows I watched had profilers on them, but it wasn’t until I realized that I wanted to understand people better that I really started to notice them. In N.C.I.S., the profiler could read people like the back of her hand.
You’re probably thinking that shows like that aren’t completely accurate and, trust me, I know. But it was the fact that she understood everything that really caught my attention. It was a way for me to finally understand my brother’s reasons as to why he turned to drugs, and the reason my mom had so much empathy for people who deserved so much less. If it had not been for my brother and mother showing me such a change and putting me through those experiences, I probably would have been an entirely different person. A teacher, perhaps, or maybe even a princess.
