Cops and Robbers
two
Hope.
"Mom, I am almost there... No, I'm literally making the turn right now."
I have never met someone as worried as my mother. It started when I was in eighth grade and my brother, Jeremy, had been part of this huge drug bust at Claremont Prep, which had ended up being the third private school in Manhatten that he had been kicked out of.
My mom thought that he was "troubled", when really he was just a bored seventeen year old boy. She made me watch over him, like she couldn't do it herself. I just couldn't do anything on Friday nights, because I had to tag along with my brother. Most of my friends were in love with him. And Jeremy had always been one to humor the opposite sex. So the majority of my Friday nights in the fucking eighth grade were spent sitting on one side of Main Cheung's, picking at my egg rolls as my brother made out with one of my fourteen-year-old friends.
I never told my mom this. A. Jeremy would probably have been sent to Springfield to live with my dad and B. I couldn't take living alone with my mother.
My brother continued to get caught with weed, nothing too bad, and considering who my mother was they always let him off with a warning, saying "next time" this and "next time" that. There was always a next time for Jeremy Rivers, but never any consequences. Throughout high school he was in and out of the police stations. I came to the conlusion that if you're not smart enough to not get caught, then why do it? But my brother did not share that philosphy.
Jeremy enrolled in Brown, but halfway through his junior year my mother pulled him out and put him in a 60 day rehab program in Roanoke. Per usual I was forced to do the dirty work, this time picking up Jer.
"OK, but honey... Make sure you get all of his things. I don't want him to leave anything there. I surely don't want you to have to make another trip down there for a shoe he left under his bed or some other ludacris thing," my mother drones in my ear for another few minutes as I drive down the freeway, trees on either side of me. I let her talk because I am by myself, and after all of these years, I still like the sound of her voice. Steady and comforting.
When I turn into the town, I talk myself out of the call, saying "Mom, I should probably go. The city is extrememly congested, and I want to get to Jeremy sooner than later..."
She sighs, "OK, but call me on the trip home."
"I will."
"Mom, I am almost there... No, I'm literally making the turn right now."
I have never met someone as worried as my mother. It started when I was in eighth grade and my brother, Jeremy, had been part of this huge drug bust at Claremont Prep, which had ended up being the third private school in Manhatten that he had been kicked out of.
My mom thought that he was "troubled", when really he was just a bored seventeen year old boy. She made me watch over him, like she couldn't do it herself. I just couldn't do anything on Friday nights, because I had to tag along with my brother. Most of my friends were in love with him. And Jeremy had always been one to humor the opposite sex. So the majority of my Friday nights in the fucking eighth grade were spent sitting on one side of Main Cheung's, picking at my egg rolls as my brother made out with one of my fourteen-year-old friends.
I never told my mom this. A. Jeremy would probably have been sent to Springfield to live with my dad and B. I couldn't take living alone with my mother.
My brother continued to get caught with weed, nothing too bad, and considering who my mother was they always let him off with a warning, saying "next time" this and "next time" that. There was always a next time for Jeremy Rivers, but never any consequences. Throughout high school he was in and out of the police stations. I came to the conlusion that if you're not smart enough to not get caught, then why do it? But my brother did not share that philosphy.
Jeremy enrolled in Brown, but halfway through his junior year my mother pulled him out and put him in a 60 day rehab program in Roanoke. Per usual I was forced to do the dirty work, this time picking up Jer.
"OK, but honey... Make sure you get all of his things. I don't want him to leave anything there. I surely don't want you to have to make another trip down there for a shoe he left under his bed or some other ludacris thing," my mother drones in my ear for another few minutes as I drive down the freeway, trees on either side of me. I let her talk because I am by myself, and after all of these years, I still like the sound of her voice. Steady and comforting.
When I turn into the town, I talk myself out of the call, saying "Mom, I should probably go. The city is extrememly congested, and I want to get to Jeremy sooner than later..."
She sighs, "OK, but call me on the trip home."
"I will."
♠ ♠ ♠
comment?