Patrick
Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2003 3:48 pm
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Poor Pat. We actually had a nice conversation for probably the first time ever. He sounded sad and pathetic, like always, talking in that Eeyore voice that I simply cannot stand. But I tried hard to get past his 'woe is me' crap. And we talked.

When we were little, we always hated each other.

We actually despised one another. My mother used to tell us that there was something wrong, normal children did not fight like we did.

Looking back now, I can sort of see what caused it. I hated him because I was jealous. He was my father's son, born six months before he died, so everyone adored him. Patrick could do no wrong in their eyes. He got away with murder.

He hated me mostly I think because I was clever. I did well in school (he stayed back in Kindergarten for Goddess' sake)and usually I was put in charge of him.

So we fought. We hurt each other. I still have a scar under my bottom lip from the time he sat on my chest and beat in my face with his cowboy boot. I made him eat worms and locked him out of the house.

When my cousins and I got together at family parties (nine girls and Pat) we would drop him and run away together. We laughed at him and called him Pattywaggles, after the way his butt wiggled when he ran. We used to lock ourselves in my gran's bathroom while he beat on the door to be let in.

Now we are older, and I still feel the same animosity toward him. Only now, its mixed with pity. I feel sorry for him and the mess his life is. He's moved seventeen times since his eighteenth birthday.

Three of those times he lived with me. He lived on the streets for the whole summer of 01.

He just got into this new apartment, and I am hoping he won't screw it up like last time. This place is sort of an assisted living situation, which is what he has needed all along. He doesn't know how to care for himself. How to pay bills, budget, or shop.

Now he has his own apartment, but someone is in the office if he needs help, and they do surprise inspections and drug test him frequently.

My whole family is holding its collective breath, waiting for him to screw up again. He was evicted from his last apartment in January, after living there only three months.

If he messes this one up, he won't have anywhere else to go. He has burned his bridges behind him. Every single member of my family has let him stay with them, and he fucked all of them over to the point where he can't be trusted in their homes.

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