familial i

It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday.   The phone rattles and chimes, startling me from my alcohol induced slumber.   My eyes open one at a time.   They sting with thirst, leaving everything blurry before me.  

     The curtains are drawn, so the room is still dark.   The phone rings again.   I reach out from bed and snatch it from the spot where it rests on the floor.

     I stare at the receiver, still not turning it on yet.   Opening and closing my mouth a few times, I chew at nothing trying to dissipate a strange taste from within.   The phone rings again.

     I answer it.

     Cradling it between my head and shoulder, still in bed, I say, “What?”   My voice crawls up out of my throat like a growl.  

     A woman’s on the other end.  

“It’s your mother,” she says.   “Did I wake you?”

I ignore her question because in my mind the answer should have been obvious. 

“What is it, Mom?” I ask in audible disgust.

     “Listen,” her voice tingles with timid traces in the ear-piece of the phone.  

My head hurts.  

I look around the room in the darkness, trying to allow my eyes a chance to adjust. 

  I try to get out of bed but something is around my waist, weighing me down.   

My mother is still talking as I reach over and feel around the bed.

“I’m terribly sorry I woke you, but I need you to do something for me,” she continues.

I interrupt before she can go any further.  

“Hang on a second, Ma,” I mutter in confusion, then put the phone on hold.  

Still pinned, I tear the blanket up from my bed in a furious whip.  

Next to me someone lays sleeping.  

I tell myself that I have to stop waking up like this.  

I poke the body.  

“Hey.   Hey.   Who are you?”  

A blue-eyed, blond-haired girl turns and stares at me, wide-eyed.   “Huh?” she asks, still not coherent.  

The pale, naked skin of her body wraps around me with an embrace not welcomed.

I tell the girl to hit the road and as I watch her gather her things and get dressed, I wonder how I ended up in bed with her.  

It’s no surprise that I do not remember.  

What happened to Friday, I ask myself.  

This happens more often than I’d like to admit.  

She’s cute, though.  

Nice ass.

Once she tells me that she’ll call me later and leaves, it seems like an endless stretch of time has past.  

The phone beeps, reminding me that my mother is still holding on the line.

“Who’s dead?”

“No one,” she sputters.

I sigh.  

“What do you want?”  

"Listen, you"

I’m surprised at the tone.

Her too.

There’s a pause.  

She recollects herself.

“I need you to look after Chris for today,” my mother’s statement sounds more like a question.

“Who?” I ask annoyed, reaching for my pants and picking them out of a pile on the floor.

“Your cousin,” she barks back almost equally annoyed.

“Oh, right.   I can’t today, sorry.”   

I want to hang up and go back to sleep.  

“God damn it!”   My mother explodes.   “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Whoa, easy mom,” I sooth, “You wouldn’t want to have another episode.   Take a pill or something.”  

“Listen,” she explains.   “The kid’s going through a rough time.   His father is dying and he’s got no one.”

“And?”   I ask, bored.

   “And he’s always thought the world of you,” she tells me.   “It’s the very least you can do.”  

I roll my eyes in the dark, not really listening to her ramble.   

I could do less and she knows it. 

“Family is all we have in this world.”

     These words catch my attention.   I almost laugh.  

“Why don’t you tell that to Dad?” I mutter with a taste of bitterness.  

My fingertips find the dry patch of black on my left arm.  

     “Oh God,” she sighs, “do not start this again.   I gave your father a choice and he clearly made it obvious that he only wanted to serve his own… interests.”

     This sort of amuses me.

“You mean–”

     “Don’t!”    She cuts me off.  “Please, just… don’t.   Chris will be there in an hour.”   Before I can protest, she says, “Do this for me, okay?” and then hangs up.

     “Shit,” is the only thing I can make come out of my mouth.

     My cousin Chris isn’t the problem; it’s doing something for my mother that bothers me.      She’s always making me jump through hoops and never returns the favors.   When mother-dearest isn’t drinking her emotional problems away, she’s dropping Valium like tic-tacs.  

I haven’t seen my father.  

     I don’t think I can forgive either of them.  

     I sigh and get dressed.  

The shirt I put on is too small and probably doesn’t even belong to me.  

My room smells like sex.  

I don’t even remember the last time I’ve seen my roommate.  

I decide not to take Chris back up here.  

I wouldn’t want to traumatize him.