Yesterday my older brother called me at 8:00PM to tell me that he was in his way to my apartment.  I asked, “Ummm, ok, but why are you driving all the way from Utuado to Guaynabo to visit me in the middle of the week at this time in the night?, is there a problem?, something wrong?”, then he replied, “Oh no!, everything is ok, is that I found a job in the area so I am going to live with you, I have all my things in the car..”

My first reaction was WHAT?!?!?!, Then I breathed, and started asking what kind of job it was and things like that. 

He took too long to arrive so I said to myself “Great he desisted of the crazy idea…”, but he arrived at midnight with all his crap on the car, like he said, I couldn’t believed it, my space was being violated without previous announcement.  Before you start saying, “Hey, this guy is an asshole, he does not support his brother…”, well, there is a reason for that, my brother has been deceiving us since he was a teenager.  We always do all we can to help him, to support him, and he always gives up, and then he turn his back on us and blame us of his misgivings and problems, no matter how much we try to support him.

So, like the little masochist that I am, I accepted him in my apartment knowing that something could go terribly wrong.  I started inquiring where he was going to work and then he told me “Near Plaza Carolina, they say is like 10 minutes from here”, my reaction, “HAHAHAHAHA!!!, 10 minutes?!?!, are you suppose to be there at 3:00AM?”…, he “What’s wrong?”

And then I explained to him where Plaza Carolina is located and the hell that I have to go trough all week long to travel to that place.  He didn’t say anything, but by the face he made I knew that he was not going to wake up in the morning to go there.  I told him that he could follow me in his car to the place and he agreed and then I went to sleep.  The next morning I wake up like always, follow my routine, make breakfast, wash my ass, sit in the throne, you know, the usual, and he stays in the sofa looking at the roof.  After a few minutes of silence he says, “you know, I am not going, for what they are going to pay me is not worth to travel that much…”, I said, “Whatever you want, but you have to be sure of that because I leave in 10 minutes so I don’t have time to be convincing you to go if you don’t want to…”, and after that I got dressed and left the house knowing that he would stay there all day doing nothing but eating all my food and infecting my house with cigarette smoke.

I got home at 7:30PM and I found the house suspiciously dark, when I enter and looked around I noticed that none if his things were there, in my mind I start to hear an “AAAAALELUYAH!!!!”, I felt relieved, I had regained my privacy and my long cherished solitude.  But, I feel somewhat bad about him, I mean, he is my brother and he is trying to make a living, to make something out of him, on the other side, if he cannot help himself I cannot do much either, then again, no matter how annoying I find his attitude, my house doors will always be open for him and any other family member…, just don’t smoke in my house :-).

Posted in English Writings, Family |