The Ghost That Saved Me

"No," I said for the tenth time in a row.

“Come on Ray please? You always say no! Just this once, just come out.”

I hated when he did this. He did this to me often. Marek would beg me to come out with him partying even though I wasn’t of legal age to drink. I wanted to party, sure; I wasn’t a loser or anything like that. I just didn’t want to get in trouble. If the cops showed up and I had a beer in my hand? I would be in deep shit.

My brother was always telling me how much he wished I was at the parties he went to. He had fun without me, I knew that much. But he wanted to share the good times with me. I could appreciate that. Still didn’t mean I would break the law though.

It was funny how Marek’s brain operated- because it usually didn’t. Marek functioned like a child in the sense that he was so unaware of consequences. He was so outgoing, so untouchable. Or so he thought he was.

Marek and I were not that close in age, but we were very close siblings. He took care of me and made sure I was looked after. He was 4 when I was born, he was old enough to understand his role as my big brother. Ever since then it was just me and him against the world. We balanced each other out a lot. He allowed me to let loose and enjoy life instead of holding my breath every second…and I encouraged him to think and calm down before he did some serious damage.

“I can’t Marek. I have a lot of studying to do and not a lot of time to do it. Next time.”

My brother sighed and lightly tapped my bedroom door with his fist. “You always say next time and then when it’s next time you say the same thing. You’re a genius as it is, you don’t even need to study.”

I heard him stir on the other side of my door. “I promise next time I really will go,” I said and put down my pen. “You can come in you know. I never lock you out.”

Marek opened the door and sat on my bed.

“I know you don’t. I just don’t like to barge in. You know who does that to me? Mom. My lock broke a few months ago and ever since she’s just been popping in whenever she feels like it. It’s so annoying!”

I chuckled and turned my body to face him.

“And why is it annoying, Mar? Because she’s coming in without knocking or because she’s interrupting your sleep at three in the afternoon? Honestly I think she’s just checking to see if you’re still breathing.”

My brother situated himself on his back and let his feet hang off of the side of the mattress; he knew I’d be irate if his shoes touched my clean sheets.

“Both. I mean you know how I am. I like my sleep. After being out until five in the morning I think I deserve to sleep in,” he folded his arms and looked at the ceiling. “I love her, swear I do, but she doesn’t stop. You know, she still speaks Czech to me. Like, I forgot that shit so long ago. She wakes me up saying ‘vstat, vstat z postele’ and I’m like what the fuck I don’t know what that means.”

'That' shit just so happened to be our language and part of our heritage and was not something to just ‘forget’ but if I mentioned that he would probably just walk away from me and pretend to be mad at me for a week.

I would normally lecture my brother about how he’s not doing a thing with his life accept drink his life away but he always got so mad at me when I called him out on his lack of responsibility. It always ended with him saying he couldn’t ever measure up to me. I hated when he said that because he was actually very talented. He saw the world differently than everyone else, and he proved that with his photographs and paintings. It was a waste for him to be the way he was but he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“I’m sure dad will fix your lock soon. If you keep bitching about it he will. It’s the only way he responds.”

“I noticed that! If you ask him nicely to do something he won’t do it but if you whine and annoy him he does it. It’s like failed reverse psychology.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him on that one because he was 100 percent right. Our father was used to responding to bitching and moaning; he was trained by our mother. She was really good at that.

“I almost feel bad for dad. We should send him on a vacation for his birthday. He could use a couple days away from us I think.”

“Send mom with him too. Then we can have the house to ourselves and have a party!”

Marek had such a one-tracked mind. All he could think about was where his next drink was coming from. Rehab would probably have been a better place for him. Much better than a party.

I picked my pen back up and started to underline all the vocabulary I needed to know for my test.

“Good idea, Mar, good idea.”