Who Are You?
by Ethan Tankel
There I was around the same time of night listening to the same terrible yelling emitting from my parents and the horrible beast downstairs that I could barely recognize as my brother. I was burying my head deep into the pillow to block out the terrible sound. It was as if the yells that were coming from the kitchen were actually coming up from the ground. I cringed as I heard my dad yell in a boomining voice in the kitchen, “Look! Look at what you’ve done to our family! Look at what you’re still doing!” my dad yelled with uncontrollable anger and sadness at Eric. As this was happening, I buried my head even deeper within my pillow. I felt my dog’s cold nose nuzzle me in the side as was his custom when he became afraid, which happened more and more often.
Eric was roaring back equally loudly in response. Just hearing his voice made me cringe with anger and fear. He screamed. I could clearly picture his face red and strained so that the veins were nearly popping out of his neck as he yelled, “I haven’t done anything wrong. You’re the ones ruining my life!” I had heard those words far too many times already. I had heard the same thing almost every day for the previous few weeks. I don’t know how, but my brother had made a mental block that was at least four feet thick because he managed to make it seem to himself that he was a good kid who hadn’t done anything wrong. He had managed to make himself truly believe in that far-fetched fiction.
The one part of my life that separates me from everyone else is my brother. That is the part of my life that has turned me into the person that I am now. At the age of fifteen my brother’s friends convinced him that taking drugs was cool. My brother had always been smart. He was a very fast learner, but there was one flaw in my poor brother that led to something that could have ruined his life. In addition, could have ruined my family and still might, because, despite all that I have already been through, it still is not over. I can see that there is still more to come. My brother was tricked in the worst way. His friends had no idea that by introducing my brother that one time to Marijuana (commonly known as pot) they had put him and my family through years of pain.
My mother began to become suspicious. She knew that something was wrong by the kids he was hanging out with and his drastic changes in behavior. His grades began to drop and he became more and more secretive. His replies, when asked a question, were snappy and intimidating. I became afraid as he slept later and later. When I brought a friend up into my room he would stagger out of his and scream, “Shut up I’m trying to sleep! Do you have any idea how late it is?”
Intimidated by his unstable and unreasonable rage, I would reply. “It’s two O clock P.M.” He seemed to become more and more withdrawn, becoming less and less human. He would reply with a grunt and swear as if he were some kind of disgruntled beast and withdraw back into the dark room with the curtains drawn. He had gotten my mom to put a coating of a special material on the walls, which was like a chalkboard so that he could draw to his heart’s content. As he shut the door behind him, I glimpsed many terrible things scrawled upon the walls.
Over the years I began to care less and less about him as the drugs gradually consumed his identity and nothing remained of Eric except for some old tendencies. Whenever he came out and swore at me, I would swear back. I started to hate him. As I started to fight back, I started to become just as intimidating to him in his fragile state as he used to be to me when I was young. The drugs were dulling his mind and he perceived that I was sharper and keener than he was.
My family was forced to adapt to the changes; the house split apart into what could almost be called “territories.” We all loathed seeing him outside of his room or “territory” that happened to be around the middle of the house, but it was an inescapable fact that he would sometimes come out
What the doctors say is true; when you start taking drugs you stop developing. If you continue to take drugs, from that point on your development stays on hold. That was the case with my brother. His emotional state was equivalent to that of a child who had just reached the age of fifteen. In the years between 14 to 21 you develop more than you do from day one to three years of age. Therefore my brother at the age of eighteen had lost a lot of very important development because of the drug use that had started when he was fifteen.
When my brother turned nineteen, my parents found him an apartment. It was small, only three rooms counting the little bathroom. Despite its small size, it was nice. There was a little balcony over the side. I stood out on it as my parents and my brother looked around, even though there was not really that much to look at. It was good for him because it was cheap, about $520.00 a month. It was a good deal considering rent prices these days.
The problem was my brother did not have a cent. Whenever he got lucky enough to get some cash, (which normally was stolen from my mom’s pocket book, which she soon after had to hide), he spent it on drugs.
Once Eric moved out, I was happier than I had been in a long time. Friends started to come over more freely. Most of them would not come over before because they were afraid of the thing that was always lurking in the shadow across the hall.
Yet my happiness was not long lived for his problems soon got worse without my parent’s supervision. He moved up to the drug that people die of every day, heroin. He was taken to a psychologist. Some days I was taken too. Then it got too horrible to bear.
Finally my parents decided to do the best thing possible, my dad drove over to my brother’s apartment picked him up in his car and asked him if he would rather live on the streets without any help other than handouts from kind unsuspecting people who would walk by and drop a quarter in the cheap Coca Cola cup he would be holding out, without any idea that he would use their change to buy himself illegal drugs to poison himself with. It was that or go to one of the best rehabs worldwide.
That day my brother did something totally unexpected, something he hadn’t done in years; he made the right choice.
My dad took him to the airport and off he went to Montana. At present he is doing great and is on his way to Florida so that he can stay clean. I wish I could say he magically got all better, but the truth is I can’t, at least not yet.
Who Are You?
