My brother once opened his arm with a butcher knife. He stuck the knife into his skin just below his elbow and slid it all the way down to his wrist. There was a lot of blood spurting from his arm. So much so that it stained the ceiling. His muscles looked strong, stronger than a body builder’s would. He didn’t work out. It was natural, like Andre Roussimov. My brother was no giant, though. Six foot at the most, maybe 200 pounds. His biggest assets were his arms. They looked like two tree trunks. Well, one tree trunk and a peeled red banana, now.

When I was six my brother tried to drown me. I used to think he was just a jerk, but I’ve come to realize that he was evil. I was sitting in our spa at the time, playing with my toy boat. I pretended that the boat hit an iceberg and began to capsize. So, my brother did the same thing to me. At age nine, he put his foot on my head and pushed down under the water. I probably would have drowned, but he lost his balance and fell into the spa. I ran out of there as fast as I could. I came into the house crying. My mother came to my side and knelt down. I told her of the wickedness that had just taken place. She had my brother placed in an insane asylum. He was released when he was 18.

My sister was there when my brother tried to murder me. She felt she had no reason to do anything. She didn’t think he’d actually go through with it. She was twelve and had a much more sophisticated mind. I was told that when she was seven she designed her own intricate toy house. It had seven rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and even a backyard. “Don’t you ever worry about how you’re going to live,” she said to me once. “I will build a house big enough for all of us to live in, and I’ll make enough money to pay for all of it.” She so desperately wanted to be queen of the world. Not because she was greedy and wanted power; but because she was a born nurturer. She wanted to take care of everyone and everything. She even managed to take care of my brother after he was released. She even got in a word or two with him between his acid trips.

When I was thirty I had to watch my father die. He came in second place in a match with a chainsaw. Bruce Campbell would have been proud. First, my brother cut of his left arm, then his right leg. He couldn’t believe that my brother was wielding this massive weapon that was about to end his life. He looked up at me and my sister; we were watching helplessly. I connected eyes with him, just before his head rolled off his shoulders. My brother picked up his head along with the rest of his body and tossed them in an oil drum. He sealed it tight and tossed it in the back of his truck. He told us later that, “I wanted to see if he could swim his way out of the ocean.” None of us ever talked about the event after it happened. My father’s funeral had an empty casket. Most of our relatives figured that he just up and left town and didn’t tell anybody. Of course these were the speculations of the family members on my mother’s side.

My mother was a mentally strong woman. That must have been where my sister got it. “Mom, do you think Dad will ever get off the couch and do something useful,” I said, well out of my father’s earshot.

“Don’t talk like that, he’s trying.”

“Trying what, to be in the Book of Records for most hours of television watched by one person?”

“That’s not fair, you know that your father…”

“Is a drunk?”

“Is not well.”

“That’s because he has a perpetual hangover.”

“Stop it right now; you have no right to judge your father. You don’t know what he’s been through. You should at least be thankful that he’s not a violent drunk.”

“These were the only types of conversations that I had with anyone in my family. That is why when I was 20 I decided to search for a female counterpart. I soon found one. She was intensely beautiful; she had the kind of looks that would excite a blind man. The first time I kissed her I felt what I assumed at the time to be joy. A couple years later I realized it was just relief of sexual tension. I was not exactly the biggest female monger when I was younger. In fact, I hand no friends of any kind, male or female. I wish I had the sociality of a yuppie, bunches of people at least masquerading as my friends. It would have quenched my thirst for affection. A yuppie doesn’t know who truly cares about them or not. At least I had found this woman, who liked to kiss me. She was quite good at it too. One night I asked her, “Do you think we’ll be together forever.” She replied honestly.

“No.” To make sure the relationship wasn’t a total waste I had sex with her that night. That showed her. She lost her virginity to someone she saw no future with. She was right. A couple weeks and four sexual sessions later, she left me, with not so much as a note. I called her apartment only to find out that she moved away. I’m sure at the time I was hurt, but in retrospect I can’t say it really bothered me.

I opened the door for my sister when she came into the house presenting her fiancé. My father nearly fell out of his chair when he heard the news. My brother was walking in the clouds and did not hear any of it. My mother shed one tear. I looked at her fiancé, examining him, making sure he was the right material for my sister. He looked as if he couldn’t perform any actions without say so (from my sister or whoever). My brother, when he finally realized what was going on a few weeks later, killed him. He did it with his bare hands this time. The fiancé was beaten so badly that when the police found him they concluded that a gang got to him. I knew the truth, however. My pure evil sibling got the job done by himself. My sister cried for a week. I was impartial, I wasn’t marrying him, nor did I even like him for that matter.

There was only one time in my life when I felt truly happy. In only one moment out of an infinite number of events did I find happiness. I was deprived. Most people by age 46 couldn’t count how many times they felt joy. This was the only time for me. It came the moment I died. I can only assume it was my brother. The bullet ripped through my brain from behind, and that was that.