Chapter 99: Chapter 99

“Get up Cas.”

“Hey, get up dork.”

“Gonna mope around all day? Lazy scrub. Get up and do the laundry, will ya?”

I groaned and rubbed my eyes. Where was I? That face. I remember.

“Alex?” I said.

“Why are you giving me that look?” said Alex as he threw a sweatshirt at me. “Is it that weird for me to ask my useless little brother to do his own laundry?” He shook his head. “God, I can’t believe we’re related.”

I blinked. “Alex?”

“Great, you finally broke,” said Alex as he threw his hands up. “Maybe you need to go in the wash too. Tumble dry your brain, maybe.”

I tried to get up but my feet got caught in my blanket. I fell to the ground, face-first. I looked up instantly and saw my brother Alex facepalming. It was his favorite pose growing up. Ever since he watched that one episode of Star Trek where Picard holds his shiny bald head in his hands.

“And clean your room while you’re at it,” he said as he closed the door to my bedroom. He continued speaking from outside my door. “I’m going out tonight, so you need to make something to eat for yourself. Eh, who am I kidding? The phone number for the pizza place is on the fridge.”

I heard the front door slam shut. I frowned. What was going on? Where was I? My childhood home? But I hadn’t lived in this apartment for years. Never renewed the lease after mom died. Why would I? This place was a mess. Tiny rooms, broken pipes, hordes of rats, and rent as high as the Empire State. In other ways, just your average, lousy New York City apartment.

I was confused because I felt like I didn’t belong here, but I didn’t know where I was supposed to be. Hazy memories were beginning to surface. My mom’s funeral. My brother and I staying together for the first time in forever.

Alex had always been loud and obnoxious, although he’d toned it down for the funeral. First time I ever felt like I had a mature, older brother, was when he let me cry on his shoulders when the permanence of my mother’s demise had finally sunken in. I think it was one of those moments where you call out for somebody for the most mundane of things: “mom, what’s for dinner?” or “mom, where’s the remote?” And then you peek into the living room, see a grim looking older brother, and realize he’s all the family you have left. And then you let the tears fall.

Anyways, Alex had recovered remarkably quickly. Didn’t he say he was going out tonight? A little sour anger gurgled in my gut. It had only been a few days. Was he really going to go pick up girls so soon after our mom’s funeral? Well, whatever. He can do whatever he likes. I have to do some laundry and clean my room.

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I ended up cleaning the entire apartment. There was something therapeutic about cleaning. Mopping the floors was the perfect opportunity to try to figure out what was going on and why I felt so strange. Maybe the weirdest thing, I realized, was that I had been incredibly depressed a few hours ago. Right before I took an unscheduled evening nap. I’d been feeling terrible since the funeral, and I wasn’t surprised Alex wanted me to clean up and stuff because I’d really let this place go.

But now everything was sparkling clean! The only place I hadn’t cleaned was Alex’s room, because I wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. I could almost picture it: “Clean your room, you lousy slob!” I would say to him. No, no, maybe something more like: “It’s a pigsty in there. Would you like some muck to roll around in too?” Yes, that was better. More elegant. More befitting of someone like me.

I chuckled. Even though I had a strange feeling in my head, I had to admit, it felt good to not be so intensely sad anymore. Sure, I still missed my mom, but whatever happened that made me feel this way, wasn’t all that important right now. Right now, I had to open the door to get my pizza. Oh right, where’s the money. Wait, there’s some in my pajama pockets. Talk about convenient. I tipped the guy a little extra because I was feeling nice.

Wait, maybe Alex wanted some pizza too? I remember he came back pretty late this night. Hungry and annoyed. He left the next day. Maybe I could catch him at one of his usual spots. The night was still young, he might be waiting for some of his friends, I could probably find him. Alright, I grabbed the pizza, still warm to the touch, opened the door, locked it behind me, and went to search for my older brother.

He wasn’t at the weird Irish pub he went to with his friends from high school. Not at the neighborhood bar either. Someone told me Alex went down to the subway station. I figured why not. He probably went one stop over to that Chinese place run by his best friend’s family. The pizza was still warm as I hopped out of the station, went to the restaurant, saw Alex wasn’t there, and asked if they’d seen him come in.

I went from bar to club to pub to restaurant to dingy alleyway in search of my brother. I didn’t have my phone and besides, it was getting pretty late. The guy was probably trashed by now. The pizza was still warm, somehow. Remarkable insulators, these cheap cardboard pizza boxes. I was halfway across Manhattan, when it hit me. Of course. I knew where he was!

I hopped back on the subway and made my way back home. It was almost midnight by the time I walked through the darkness of an alley not too far from our house. There was a corner store around here, that sold cheap cigarettes and alcohol. Was a little sketchy this late at night, but I wasn’t afraid. I had a box full of pizza. No New Yorker would stab a guy with a pizza!

I asked the guy behind the counter if he’d seen Alex. This was the guy who sold me my first cigarette, back when I’d been peer-pressured into it by some neighborhood kids who weren’t my friends anymore. The guy was definitely from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I couldn’t pin down his accent at all. He had wild hair, spoke in broken English even though he’d lived here for as long as I could remember, and he had a weird obsession with spoons. Had them framed everywhere behind the counter; a total weirdo. I offered him some pizza but he declined. He told me Alex had gone down to the morgue.

I found Alex hunched over in a dark alleyway a few blocks from the morgue. His body was shaking, and his head was tucked between his knees. I couldn’t believe he was sitting on the ground by a wall. Didn’t he know how many drunk men must have gone there over the years? Oh, right, I could smell it from here. Two distinct scents of alcohol.

I made Alex eat some pizza. He always said eating food sobered him up, but I didn’t buy it. It usually all came out in a few minutes, anyways. Still, I tossed the pizza box in a bin and put Alex on my shoulders. I dragged him all the way back to the apartment, laid him on his bed, and made sure he was facing sideways. I’d check him into the hospital, but I remembered he would be fine this night. Besides, I also remembered he didn’t have a great healthcare plan yet.

Another thing I remembered, was how I’d spent the rest of the night moping about, feeling angry at Alex for going out instead of being depressed inside like me. I guess he’d been just as sad as I was, except he was dealing with it in an even more unhealthy way. Wonderful. I love my family.

I sighed. I left some water by his bedside table and went back to the kitchen. I’d totally forgotten to eat any pizza. I checked the fridge but it was empty. Great. There was some pasta in the pantry, with a jar of marinara sauce tucked away behind some paper towels. It didn’t take a lot of time to prepare. I put the pasta in a bowl, sat down on the table, and twirled it around a fork. The sauce had probably gone bad, because I couldn’t smell a thing. I brought the fork to my mouth, let the noodles drop onto my tongue, and was about to have my first mouthful. Then, I bit my tongue.

I woke up from my dream in a dingy hide tent, my body itchy from my bed of grass and leaves.