Elmo On The Half Shell

You think my brother changed? Or tried to? I’m a firm believer in change. When I got pissed at him and wanted to show the world what a creep he was, that’s what I thought about. He never returned the favor. Always looked for ways to cut me up. He was good at it too. Go ahead. Pick any season or year and there he was.

Like when I was eleven and found this turtle in the backyard. About a foot long. I called him Elmo — right? — cause he was funny looking. I picked him up, spread a towel on the driveway, and grabbed my tool belt. The gang gathered round. Glen. Sammy. Everyone. Started egging me on. — Why do boys do that? When girls get bored they don’t egg each other on. — I gripped  the bottom shell with one hand and the pliers in the other. It wouldn’t budge, so I put him down,

wedged my sneaker through the opening to get leverage, then grabbed the top part of the shell with my pliers and RRRRIP! This horrible wet sound. RRRRIP! I remember that sound exactly. It took me a few tries to shell the guy. I don’t know. He was connected with tendons or something.

Sammy and Glen never told their parents. Not a word. It was like any other day in our neighborhood. You walk home from school and see Mr. Frame rolling around on his front lawn. Or passed out. Or Mr. Blake leading his kid by the hair. And no one mentions it. Nate didn’t say a word either. But somehow by the time me and the gang buried Elmo out back, that slimy towel I used ended up in my mother’s hamper. On the second floor of our house. Now. How do you think it got there? Who decided, the day Ma stopped on her way home from the clinic to pick up her wig and was trying to have a normal day and do normal stuff, like laundry, to put that god damned towel in her hamper!? With stuff oozing all over her clothes!?

I — I could see what was going on. I’m not blind. When you’re struggling or sick you need someone to cling to. You need someone to be good. And strong. And perfect. You know? Well in our house, growing up, that person wasn’t me.