A Deadman's Tale

Drive in the park

My mother later explained that it was my father's little quirk. He would watch the lottery with his friends, and they would always scream and verbally assault each other. It was their way of relaxing and socialising amongst their peers. She proceeded to then tell me how she discovered this neat little detail so when my mom asks him something in a calm and orderly manner, he screams at her and then does what she asked him. The best thing about it she says is he doesn't remember a thing. Truly a phenomenon.

"Your mother has just come, I have got to go. Oh and Bruce thank you for being nice to her. You know she needs you to spoil now.

„You know me, always the charmer." I lied through my teeth and could actually feel the guilt tearing me up inside.

"What did you do my wonderful son, she seems so happy? My Father asked more curious than ever. He probably wanted to hone this trick that didn't exist for himself.

"Come on dad, isn't my general well-being enough. It is me after all", I started to laugh, followed by a brief silence to my jokingly answer before responding himself

"Fine, don't tell me." He snarls before the line went silent. He hung up on me.

I wondered why was she happy, because I sure wasn't, but I am unhappy because I thought that I hurt her. So why do I still have this feeling of guilt inside? She was smiling. Doesn't that mean I did the right thing or was she purposely trying to look happy in front of my dad so he wouldn't kick my ass? In any case, she is a saint, and I am an insolent brat. If only she listened to me. It is easy to talk, it is harder to truly listen, and it is a treacherous path towards being heard. If she would at least tell me what I have to do to make her listen. Dare to dream I guess. I decided to do some crosswords to take my mind off of things. Just as I sat at the table, he came into the room. My stupid ass brother Nathan.

"What's up? Bruce, the gay!!" He entered the room screaming, Luckily we were the only ones in the room at the moment.

"Not your best one there Nate, " I told him, not taking my eyes off the crossword puzzle. I called him Nate or Nath because he would get really flustered when I called him Nath. I never bothered to ask him or figure out why.

"Are mom and dad at the restaurant?" I continued.

"Why the fuck are you asking me for? They should be, well that's where dad was when I left so they probably still are."

"No need to be a Nathan about it, just asking." I decided to provoke him a bit. There wasn't really any reason, but I had missed this.

"Excuse me? A Nathan?!!! You only wish you could be a Nathan, handsome and vigorous is only the beginning my friend.

"Yeah, whatever. Are you going to help me with this crossword or what?" I say. He looks at the table.

"Well, why didn't you say sooner dickwad?" He sits next to me in the hospital's chair at the table.

"This one is pretty hard though." I sincerely told him.

"Hmph, maybe to you." Nathan reeks of self-confidence and arrogance. It is the one thing that got him through life and at the same time was holding him back. He was always popular with the ladies, because of it. He would get carried away as with the number of girlfriends, as with the tequila shots as with everything, but he always managed to get out of any sticky situation all by himself. To be fair, he was the one who put himself in all of those situations. That is what I admired about him. I would often joke that it was the only thing. We were doing the crossword and were halfway done when the ink dried on the pen. We only had one pen and were worried we wouldn't get to finish the crossword we had implemented so much time in. Even though we had only started fifteen minutes ago.