Let's say, hypothetically, that it's just a bit after noon, on Friday, the 18th of August. Let's say, hypothetically, that this day happens to be your wife's birthday, and you've spent the night elsewhere, at her request, so that you both have some time to decompress from recent stress before spending the day together. A day which she knows you have plans for, but does not know what any of these plans are.
Let's say that she arrives at the location to which you have sequestered yourself, and with the sweet, overenthusiastic dog barking away, you're holding off on the big, first-thing, birthday hug just long enough to get the German Shepard/Husky mix to stop jumping up.
Let's say, hypothetically, that before you get to give her this hug she says these words, "You need to call your brother. Apparently your mom's border broke into his room, drunk, this morning, yelling at him about teaching him to be a 'real man.'"
Let's just pretend that this is what happened.
What would you do?
Me? Well, I called my brother to find out what the fuck was going on.
It turns out that yes, no shit, the guy who's been living in the detached apartment at my mother's house (for whom she did no background check before moving him in) quite literally burst through my naked, 17 year old brother's bedroom door at 11 a.m., drunk, informing him that he intended to teach him what it meant to be a Real Man.
Clearly he is a prime example of this, and is the perfect instructor.
To clarify the "quite literally burst through" reference, yes, my brother's bedroom door is now in multiple pieces.
My brother, being the level-headed sort that he is, having grown up with a father who exhibited quite similar behavioural traits, defused the situation, and once our mother returned home from her coffee date, phoned the police.
I got off the phone with the Punk, after getting the story, & talking briefly with my hysterical mother (the Punk was cool as anything through all of this), took my wife out to enjoy her birthday. We painted pottery, and had a 2 1/2 hour, six course Moroccan dinner, with a belly dancing show.
We then headed to my grandparents' house, to have dessert, and tell my grandparents that The Dr., while we were painting the aforementioned pottery, had recieved the final confirmation call on her new job in the East Bay (I'm headed up for Oakland Apartment Hunting this weekend).
The rest of the night was on & off the phone with my brother & mother. MomGarsh remained hysterical, the Punk became more & more shaken & irrational as the day went on. Can't say as how I blame hime, for, you see, the drama did not end with the initial police visit.
No. That would be far too cut & dried.
The details from here become all-too-familiar, in that powerless, fuzzy-thinking way. I'll skip the deatails.
I'll leave it with the fact that, at out last conversation, this afternoon, eveyone was alright, if frazzled, and the creep hadn't returned since the previous night, when he tried to claim that my mother had stolen his $2000 bicycle (????... you're fucking kidding me, right???? No...).
I'm exhausted. I haven't slept, it's after 3 a.m., and I have shit to do. Just got picked up for a column on comic book culture for The Noyse, & I need to get cracking on the first installment. I haven't done an Emcee Square strip for this week yet. I have lots of work to do on the Graphic Novel. Oh, & sleep. I really, really need to fucking sleep.
