Insanity

Dean sits and thinks about her as he takes his next drag. He is seated in the corner of his apartment, the air containing the smell of rodent urine and gin soaked mothballs. As he squats in his square, lacking any furniture whatsoever, he imagines sunshine hair and porcelain skin through his latest puff of smoke. Looking “so much alike” as everyone points out to the pair. Well, if someone took away her wheelchair that came a few years later. Dean reminds himself this can’t be. In his black suit the cuffs are ripped, the shirt is un-tucked, tie is undone, and alcohol of multiple varieties stains the entire outfit. He takes another drag.

As his mind goes back, he thinks about only four days prior to this grueling moment in time. His khaki pants completely up to his waist, and his favorite red and white Hawaiian shirt buttoned all the way to the top. His neatly trimmed blonde hair had a tuff in the back. His wire-rimmed glasses lay askew on the tip of his nose as he tries to get a handle on his backpack. It is his only source of home and piece of luggage for his journey. But it’s the reason he came here to Las Vegas. To win big. For her. She needed the money, plain and simple. He didn’t even need a hotel. Why would he? He came with one objective, and determination was his only best friend. Through a blur of feather-infested chorus girls, poker chip hoarding billionaires, and dazzling bright lights of the street, he enters the Bellagio hotel and casino, and instantly finds the black jack table. Visualizing numbers, and preparing to count for her future and his entire family’s, he steps up to the dealer and gives him a nervous smile. The first hand is drawn.

He can’t really recall the disasters of his life after that last moment. It all made sense beforehand. He knew he could win it all, for Pete’s sake he’d practiced how to count them enough times. Even the most intelligent of people make mistakes I guess. He just kept playing and playing, waiting for his turn to win all of the money, winning it all so those bills of hers could be paid back. She trusted him to do so, but he failed in his attempt to do something extraordinary for her.

Before his memory could strike him with images of his losing everything he possibly owned, a sudden whiff of his cigarette caused him to snap back. An intense throat curdling of unhealthy waste formed in his throat. He spat right before reaching for his second bottle of straight vodka. Just as his ashy, pale lips went to tickle the top of the sweet heat he calls his only comfort, she rolled in through his front door. Literally, she rolled in with her golden drop hair and lake shimmered green eyes. It was so easy to be captivated by her, that anyone would forget that she was in a wheelchair. That was always the difference between them. Dean couldn’t hold a crowd like Lena could. For a fleeting second, he wondered how she could have known he’d come to this God forsaken town to get the cash.

“And here I thought you weren’t the alcoholic type.” Lena said. Dean answers this remark with a blank stare. He pulls the bottle away from his face and sets in roughly down on the concrete floor.

“You… you know me better than that.” Dean said.

“Do I?” She responds. Dean just looks away from her gaze, unbearable it was.

He finally asks her the proper question. “Lena, what’re you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I mean, mom would want me to check up on you.” Lena replies.

“Yeah, when I was seven, maybe.” Dean doesn’t try to hide the annoyance in his voice. She shouldn’t be watching out for him still. He was a grown man. He could take care of himself. Well, so he used to think. He should be taking care of her. She is still getting used to being in the wheelchair. Being able to operate on her own and all.

“ I know what you’re thinking, ya know.” Lena manages to stop his internal monologue.

“Oh yeah?” Dean lifts one eyebrow higher than the other.

“You need to go home Dean. To our old home.” Lena looks at him with concern, even a touch of pity.

“I can’t.”

Lena acted as though she expected this response from her brother.

“There is nothing here for you. You can’t get the money for me.” Lena said.

Muscles weakening, the meat near her bones, dissolving beneath the exterior of Lena’s precious vessel. The alcohol was getting to Dean, and it was hard to concentrate on remembering what the side effects of Muscular Dystrophy were. He couldn’t wrap his brain around this idea, what was trying to take away his sister. Disease sucks.

“Wanna bet??” Dean finally responds.

“It looks like you’ve done plenty of that.” His sister is always the smart ass in the family.

“There is still time. I could save you, and ya know, do something right.” Dean wasn’t going to admit this to his sister, but his words just fell out of his mouth.

“I’m already gone Dean. ”

Dean looked at his sister with complete confusion. Maybe he didn’t hear her correctly. Maybe the alcohol was finally taking a toll throughout his body. Maybe he was crazy. Or maybe she was really there, and her brain was starting to go with her muscles.

“You buried me at the funeral, remember?”

Lies. Complete lie. This wasn’t his sister. She’s at home, trying to survive and fight. He knows it. This CAN’T be a mirage.

“You need to go home. This place isn’t for you.”

What if she was telling the truth? His sister… dead. He didn’t win, so she died. Isn’t that just the bitch?

“If you’re dead, what am I supposed to do now, HUH??” Dean’s voice rises as he throws his hands out to the side in exasperation. Pressure in his chest fills likes a stack of encyclopedias as he imagines that world. A world without his sister. He couldn’t recall what that might be like. Er, is like, he guesses.

“Stay sane, move on, and go home.” Oh, so now she’s Buddha. Dean silently has a momentary commentary.

Dean goes to turn back to her, but nothing is left except invisible atoms filling the space where his fragile sister sat only seconds before.

For only one fourth of a second, Dean thinks about life. And not the whole, “meaning of life” crap. To what extent did he go to get his poor sister help?

Dean has enough warm, fiery liquor in him to try and realize where he is supposed to go next. Listening to his sister is the best choice. A dying wish perhaps.

So, Dean downs the rest of the vodka, enjoying the pain being engulfed by the flames insides his bottle, his new best friend. Dean doesn’t get up from his dingy, squatters place.

He lights a new cigarette.

He takes another drag.