Give me an explanation of the tale of The Prodigal Son. I haven't read the bible but I know that story. I ask a lot of people about it, and it's never the same. It's either what they were told the meaning was, or the p.c. answer. What's p.c. about the bible? But I guess it's like any story. Ask two people to explain it and it's never, it's vastly, different appearances. Like two people witnessing a car accident. When I was a kid our neighbors had emus, briefly. I remember them looking adolescent, Mom remembers them as being chatty. My sister never talks about them. She barely remembers. But seriously, give me your take on that story. That story.
I'm elbow-deep in soft scrubby water, scrubbing the bathtub with my magic eraser. If I can get it as close to shine as possible I'll make Mom happy. She takes a bath every Sunday morning. Viola (sister) and I switch cleaning the bathroom Saturdays. It's Saturday, and I am elbow-deep. Got the faucet running cold water to die down the suds, but the water won't drain because V's long black hair clogs. Every goddam day with her hair. I walk in the bathroom to take my shower, there's a loose mesh of black hair on the bottom. I wipe it up and toss it. Shower. The water doesn't drain, so I stick my fingers down the drain to pick out more. I go through nail polish and Liquid Plumr a motherfucker.
The first year back from college my sister didn't speak to me because she was pissed she had to share a bathroom again. Even though she's the pig--she's got this brown, gritty facial mask. It's on the mirror, it's on the walls, in the tub, on the tile floor. Apparently this is okay?
Every Saturday it's my turn to clean I get angry at her empty bottles. Two empty bottles of contact cleanser. Old box of hair dye with the plastic gloves and empty mix bottles inside. Used tissues. Bottle of conditioner with a cunt hair's worth of product left. Open case of vaseline. We grew up in the same house, but Mom's persnick cleanliness negatively affected my sister? Or maybe Dad's laissez-faire attitude about anything next to and/or godliness was dominant. So I clean around her trash and leave it. If you can't fucking part with your garbage, you can have it.
I've thought about murdering my sister. At least, beating the shit out of her. Face to fucking face and knocking her down on the wood floors. Using her hair like handlebars, ramming her head onto the floor. Blood oozing from her mouth and coating her teeth. Kneeling on her waifish chest and ribs. Strangulation. I would watch those fucking eyes, so insolent and sneering, turn into fishbowl shape. Dilated Black Moors. Also referred to as a popeye.
But then I realized how much it would hurt my mother. How I would be the villain and V the irreproachable martyr. That boils me worse than V, herself. A lifetime of reading people's faces. Their faces a royal oil portrait of my sister: gorgeous, remote, misunderstood, beloved.
So then I thought about something happening to her. She's a stock car driver in a jankety ass Ford Focus. It wouldn't be that far off for her to crash and croak. Alas, I envisioned the same result. Mom woebegone; focus forever on her memory. And memories of the dead often fib. Enhancing, positive prejudice. I can't have that.
So ultimately my hope is that she does something so terrible, ridiculously selfish and mean that my mother would have to despise her. Of course, afterward my mother would doubtless blame herself and stick in that for eternity. But at least V would be gone.
As much as I never want a hint of harm to come to my mother, I wish her pregnancy with Viola had been so detrimental to her health that she'd have been forced to abort.
It could just be us. Me and Mom. Dad could stay, too. Even now, with my sister still very much alive and involved, it always runs better when she's out with friends or at her therapy sessions. I get time alone with Mom to talk about anything, laugh always, sit in calm quietude. But when Viola is here, she sticks to my mother like glue and gets irritated if I ever talk. She doesn't understand my life and is disinterested in the evidence of it. She's always fucking up and never taking any suggestions or careful thought. She doesn't learn.
She smokes fucking menthols. It's okay when Snoop does it, but that box of V's fucking Marlboro Menthols drives me insane. Menthols.
Of course, she could've been born a thorn in my side, or it could be that my parents equally enable her shiteousness. She gets arrested for shoplifting at Sephora? One night of anger, the next day nothing. She flunks out of school and burns up $10,000 of Dad's money by sleeping all the time and not feeling like meeting people or trying? It's unspoken. She doesn't speak to me for a year over a goddamn square yard of space? Okay. "We can't get involved; it breaks our hearts." Two car accidents in one week? "As long as you're okay, we're okay." And I get chided over exclaiming, "Jesus Christ!" in a moment of disgust.
I mean what's the worst thing I ever did? Become a rabid pro-wrestling fan. Trashy, low-rent, absurd, tacky. Watch Happy Days as a kid. Enjoy my Chirgilchin CD. Love the History Channel. You're a dork, darling. You're a nerd. Nerd. Dork. Lunatic. Loon. Buttock. I'm the son that did everything by the book, and you know what happens to him.
I mean I'm such a paranoid goodie-good I can't even smoke weed anymore. It's a rocketship to Anxiety Moon. I give youth a bad name.
Ultimately, I wish V hadn't been born. That would erase any possibility of my mom feeling pain. But wishes.
A theory: Because I despise my sister so much, there is much I have to learn from her being my sibling.
But the reality. I wish.
The Secret describes the law of attraction: that your personality becomes the average of the people you surround yourself with. This kind of claptrap certainly applies to those with a personality the consistency of sculpey. Or, to further the craft imagery--are like shrinky dinks. Look them up if you don't know. Hours of fun with your toaster oven. Draw a cartoon character on this dink paper. Microwave. Clip a hole through it and the newly-rigid plastic attaches perfectly to your keychain.
