Bad Brother

       He was terrible until the day he died. Every time we got together he would spend most of the day describing how great his new job at the marshmallow factory was or how many donuts he could do around the buoys at the lake before vomiting. Six. It was no mystery that some of it was going to come up free marshmallows. I'd often think that maybe I'm the jerk for not being happier for him. Maybe it was just because I was so miserable that his news would always come across as arrogance. Which ever it was, he had no idea how much I'd always wanted to be him. And he was painfully unaware that I'd been on unemployment since I was laid off from my entry-level position at the sanitation department. You'd think trash-picking would be one industry untouched by the recession.

The day he died I was especially depressed after my cat was found by my neighbor at the bottom of their pool. I sat there wondering how I was supposed to dispose of my soggy friend when a knock brought me to the front door. A man in a trench coat was there facing the other way. Who does that? He didn't turn around until after l said hello and I recognized him as my brother's friend Douglas. Douglas was a weirdo. He was a bad influence on my brother I thought, or maybe it was the other way around. Either way I was not excited to see him or welcome him in to my death odorous home.

"What died in here?" he said.

"My cat. Well, it died next door. In the pool." I replied.

He got all serious after that, asking about my criminal record and when was the last time I traveled abroad. I told him as little as possible but my life had been so boring for the last couple months I went along with his strange questions longer than I'd like to admit. At a certain point though I excused myself to use the toilet and from there called my brother to see why Douglas had paid me an unwanted visit. He answered by telling me a story about a witch that cursed a small village in Norway.

"That village was racist." I said.

He agreed and told me that the meaning of this story was all that kept him from certain death. I didn't understand but my brother only lies in person so I knew it was true. Six hours later we met in the woods behind an abandoned bank our mother used to pay "outrageous fees" to years ago.

"It's definitely mafia but I'm bad with accents so I don't know." he said.

We rented a car and I drove all day trying to understand their stupid riddle while he slept for the first time in days. We had some great conversations on that trip before they caught up with us. After all these years I thought, finally a fond memory.