June-Pearl

This morning I woke up to a memory. An altercation I had with my brother years ago. It was Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, 2016. I just woke up and was making coffee in the kitchen as he slowly stirred on my couch a few feet away. He seemed like he was in a good mood so I decided to bring up the incident. All I said was “I’m a little concerned about what happened Friday night, Bill”. I mean, that’s all I said. You wouldn’t think that would cause such a ruckus. You wouldn’t think that he would start yelling and throwing shit around my apartment.

I opened my door to give myself space from his shouting and heard my friend Sarah from upstairs lighting a cigarillo on her balcony. No doubt she had heard him through her floor. She came out to keep an eye on things. She knows he’s unpredictable, she has a sister just like him. Things were escalating quickly, Bill couldn’t contain his anger. “I already told you what happened but you don’t believe me, Jesus Christ, no one believes me.” He whined loudly in his junkie voice. I’m once again in fight or flight mode, a position that’s become oddly familiar. I glanced up at Sarah and my eyes told her I was ok, for now.

“All I said was I’m a little concerned about you. You told me when you were in rehab the last time that you wanted me to call you out if I thought you were using.”

“Oh yeah, dad and I have been sitting around all weekend doing drugs,” he sarcastically sidestepped my actual inquiry. I retreated as I saw this was going nowhere. But he droned on about how stupid my accusation was. He had merely fallen asleep on the tram once he got to Tampa. Was I just too stupid to understand that?

He had been one year sober, or so we all thought. He was supposed to fly in on Friday and I was excited to see him. Things had not always been good between us. Our relationship had been strained most of our lives. Maybe it even started with my birth. My mom told me the first time she brought me home from the hospital, my three-year-old brother Bill walked up to me with a toy gun, put it to my infant head, and said “bang, bang.”

This latest stint of sobriety for him was great for our relationship. We took several trips together in 2016 and began to bond and heal as siblings who came from a chaotic past and were now both on a spiritual path. All that progress in our relationship had been scrapped for anger over my accusation. I was not totally out of line. His reaction alone told me everything I needed to know. That my intuition was correct. That he was using. That opiates were destroying his life and, in an instant, crushed the one-year truce we’d had while he maintained sobriety, again.

He was supposed to arrive Friday night during Hurricane Hermine, a minor hurricane blowing through West Central Florida. I told my dad I would get Bill and he could stay with me all weekend. He had earned my trust once again and I was quite excited for this time with him. I had made plans and invited friends to hang out with us. He liked my friends and always wanted to hang out with them. After years of enduring unpredictable behavior that at times made us look like we were in a domestic abuse relationship sometimes even out in public, a boundary I had set was that I would not be around him alone if I suspected he was high. I would never invite him around my friends when he was using either.

I was so proud of him the last time I saw him just a few weeks before. I couldn’t wait to drive through a storm to get him. It was a short flight between Ft. Lauderdale and the Tampa Airport and I could hop in the car shortly after his flight took off to arrive curbside at the perfect pick-up time (a superpower I pride myself on). I called him just before his takeoff since he hadn’t responded to my text requesting confirmation of an on-time departure. His speech was slurred when he answered, he could barely respond but it sounded like he said the flight attendants were refusing to let him board the plane. Then we got disconnected and he did not respond again. Not to calls, not to texts. I drove to the airport just in case. Waited outside the gate for 2 hours just in case. Walked back and forth between the baggage claim and the gate, just in case. Asked the flight attendants if they could tell me if he boarded just in case. Of course, they could not tell me, and I never found him. I went home. It was almost midnight. I was sad, scared, concerned, and felt like we were back to square one with trust-building.

I was willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Maybe his phone died. Maybe it was a practical joke. Maybe he just fell asleep at the airport. I mean these things happen all the time to him. Or at least these are the excuses he gives. I’ve never met anyone in my life who has missed so many flights because he got to the airport too early and fell asleep waiting for the flight. My family knew the truth even if we never wanted to admit it. He missed those flights because he was too high.

He eventually arrived in Tampa at about 4 am Saturday. He told my dad he had landed in Tampa at the scheduled time but fell asleep on the monorail which is a sixty-second ride from the gates to the main terminal. He said he slept on the monorail going back and forth on that one-minute journey till 4 am, six hours from the time he should have walked off the tram. Wouldn’t security or someone wake him? Again, we know the truth but lightly accept what he tells us because it’s easier.

All I said was “I’m a little concerned about what happened Friday night, Bill”. I was met with wrath equal to an angry god set to destroy his rebellious people. I gathered up all the fight I had in me and did something I’m ashamed to have done several times before. I kicked him out. Out of my apartment, out of my life, out of my friendship circle, out of my mind. I canceled him. Tears streamed down his face as he dragged his rollaboard suitcase through the unpaved ally to wait for an uber at the end of the street. He was still ranting to no one in particular when the first of my friends coming to hang out with us today pulled into the alley and parked in my guest spot. She entered my apartment, eyes wide in disbelief. She already knew what had happened. His behavior was predictably unpredictable. I was somehow still caught off-guard every time it happened.

It’s his birthday today and exactly 9 months to the day that he took his life. People tell you to just remember the good stuff when someone dies. This is the memory I woke up with.