My Brother Mokey

Basically at home there were four people, Dad, Nora, me, and Mokey. Dad was never around much, he worked a lot and said he “trusted” us to be home alone and not kill each other. Nora and I knew what that meant, he didn’t have the time or patience to put up with us, but on the positive side he never interfered with anything we did or attempted to do. Nora went out sometimes and left me with Mokey as a companion. That was okay though. I could put up with him, Nora couldn’t.
Mokey was not like most six year olds, as far as we know he wasn’t like any of the six year olds in his first grade class. He didn’t play ball or watch cartoons or color pictures, except for the elaborate drawings he would produce after picking a new animal apart. Mokey watched the Discovery Channel and he told me when he grew up he wanted to be a mortician. That didn’t creep me out at all, I was used to what he did each day before and after school because his room was right across the hall from mine. He would take out his bike each morning, sometimes even before the sun had come up, and ride it all around the city looking for fresh corpses of creatures. Almost anything would do for him, it didn’t matter if it was a mouse or a stray dog, and the only exception to this was road kill. He didn’t like road kill one bit. He could never put the pieces back together, and sometimes there were actually a few pieces missing.
The process the deceased animal would undergo after Mokey rescued it from the outside world was truly fascinating. The first thing he did was skin it, he somehow acquired a large kitchen knife without Dad knowing and Nora and I knew better than to take it away from him. So for maybe an hour or so after he came home from school he would lock himself away in his room. I never really saw him do this, but once he emerged holding the detached fur of the animal in one hand and what was left of the animal in the other, it became pretty obvious. After skinning it he would boil both pieces of the thing on the stove in separate pots, constantly stirring them.
I sometimes even watched him sort out the pieces when he was finished boiling them, but I never helped, just because I accepted it didn’t mean I wanted to try it myself. He would place the organs in jars filled with salt water and then seal them tightly with candle wax, he said it was an old fashioned way of preserving things, and it must have worked because nothing’s smell ever got any worse while in his room except maybe his own smell. He then picked the bones clean of whatever was still on them, tendons or some unidentifiable scum, and then put the bones back together again so he had something of a skeleton puzzle. Last he stretched out the skin on a piece of cardboard, or whatever he had available, and proudly displayed it on his wall.
I don’t know when he started this, it was just kind of something he always did, and I didn’t care because it kept him occupied when I was left with him. The only problem was, after a while Nora started spending more and more time at home. Then I started noticing little things about her. She didn’t like Mokey. I don’t even think she liked me for that matter so I stayed out of her way. She had a permanent scowl on her face and always had something derogatory to say about everything anybody did when she was around. Of course I didn’t dare respond. Nora was oldest, biggest, and I thought, the smartest. It would be like turning myself in for a crime where the punishment was death if I challenged her so called authority.
Mokey was a different matter though. I didn’t really realize it either, but Nora was completely unaware of what Mokey did every day in all his spare time. That is, until she walked into the house right when he was boiling a sewer rat. First she made this funny face and wrinkled her nose like she does when Dad attempts to make meatloaf. Then she kind of looked around and dropped her bag. It finally clicked in her mind that the smell was coming from whatever mysterious brew Mokey was calmly stirring while standing on a chair.
“Mokey! What do you think you’re doing?” She was holding her nose and looking very peeved. He looked up, surprised she was even there.
“Boilin’ a rat.” He was busy again, this time stabbing the pot’s contents with a fork. Nora made a face that showed she was absolutely disgusted.
“A rat. Why?!” She was getting awfully loud. I made myself as small as possible on the couch hoping she wouldn’t notice me enjoying the ridiculous spectacle. Mokey however, seemed unfazed.
“Because I can.” He didn’t seem to understand Nora’s head was about to explode and what he was doing wasn’t exactly normal behavior for a little kid. Nora looked disturbed and horrified at the same time.
“You. You belong in an insane asylum. You’re sick you know that.” She stormed off leaving Mokey extremely amused. He looked at me and smiled.
“What am I sick with?” I knew this was a rhetorical question but still, the answer I had lingered in my mind. Insanity?
When Nora learned additional information on Mokey’s interesting hobby, she began to loathe him even more. It was kind of funny in a twisted way, this massive teenager being tormented by what somebody half her size did for fun. Mokey kept himself occupied very well for someone who was constantly subjected to degrading remarks and looks of disapproval. I don’t know how he managed to not lose his interest in his creatures but there are lots of things I don’t know about Mokey.
One day Nora brought home a cat. It wasn’t very cute. It had bald spots and was missing a few toes, it hissed and bit and clawed a lot too. Nora named it Fluffy, the reason I say it is because we didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl. I stayed away from the thing, and Mokey did too after it bit him. He was standing on a chair stirring his stuff like he usually does and the thing jumped on the counter and just bit him on the hand. He glared at it and muttered “Stupid thing.” He walked off after pouring the pot’s contents in a bag.
Nora seemed pretty proud of it. She was always holding it and petting it and trying to get us to either feel jealous or left out, but I don’t know why. The only thing she really achieved is showing us how much of a snot she could be. She got fuller of herself every day and Mokey and I avoided her completely. Her and that cat thing that was always following her around. I despised her and I’m pretty sure Mokey did too.
In the middle of winter, when Mokey stays inside a little more because it’s too cold to ride his bike, we left him alone for one day. Not really a day, a few hours, if even that. I was the first to get home and it was too quiet. Most people would have found that quiet peaceful and calm, but I knew better. At my house when there is quiet, disaster usually isn’t that far away either. I dropped my bag and walked into the kitchen. A large Mokey-pot was in the sink and a pile of dirty hand towels were on the counter. I finally stopped fooling myself and got up the nerve to walk down the hall to Mokey’s room. There weren’t any unusual noises coming from it but the door was closed and I knew Mokey could work silently if he felt like it.
I opened the door expecting to find him bringing Frankenstein to life or maybe sleeping in a coffin but instead he was bustling over the skin of some animal. He looked up at me and stepped back so I could get a good look at what it was. I almost threw up. I knew what it was and he did too. He smiled at me, but it wasn’t a nice “Look what I did!” smile it was more of a “Haha! What do you think?” kind of thing.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked me.
“It’s bigger than a lot of your other things.” I said back. He smiled again.
“I know.”
Nora doesn’t bother us anymore. She doesn’t glare at us or make rude comments and I like it because it’s funny, she’s almost a mute now. She stays out later and leaves Mokey and I to our own devices. Mokey quit collecting animal parts. He threw it all out and now builds with legos and modeling clay. I don’t know if Dad would even believe me if I told him what Mokey did, but that’s okay I wouldn’t tattle anyways. No matter what Mokey has thrown out or stopped doing one thing will probably never change. We will never have a pet.