When my brother’s wife passed away suddenly back in February I spent about a month with him up in Anderson. He needed some time to adjust and while I wasn’t doing anything at the time I volunteered to be his “body man” while there. His mother-in-law was staying there too so my sleeping accommodations were relegated to either the big couch or the hardwood floor with only an air mattress and a blanket. Again I stress that I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart.
As time went on he and I managed to make it up to the club house where the majority of his days on the golf course ended. As expected he found his golfing buddies bellied up at the bar and were all glad to see him as he stopped in for a short visit.
His friends all looked like him. Dressed almost exactly the same all, Dennis jumped into a mosh pit of swapping stories and taking jabs at college teams and NASCAR, A-Typical man cave stuff. Dennis introduced me to his friends uneasily. I guess he thought I wouldn’t fit in or something. It came as a huge surprise to him that I was immediately accepted.
Now ten years are between my brother and I. It doesn’t seem like much but when between brothers it’s literally a lifetime. He and I went different directions to be certain. He went down the path of a factory worker, strong hand of industry. I went the other way. Dennis is very conservative, isn’t big on crowds and pretty much keeps a normal, steady low profile. There’s nothing wrong with that of course that is until there’s liquor involved. Then it’s like being in the “hot seat” of a dunking booth he goes from normal and dry to shocked and drenched.
I think he thought I couldn’t hold my liquor. Maybe it’s because he still looks at me as his “little brother”. That’s perfectly fine. So I guess he was again shocked, as were his friends, that when ordering something from behind the bar I asked for “Wild Turkey-American Honey” basically rock and rye. The stuff my foster grandmother gave me whenever it looked like I was coming down with a cold.
We had a great night that night. We all drank a little more than we should’ve and Dennis finally let loose after all that he’d been thru in the past three weeks. He tear’d up a little, hugged his friends, and laughed like I’d not heard in years. It wasn’t the type of therapy we’re all used to getting but it was exactly what he needed from people that knew him best.
But none of that’s why I’m writing this...
Now I’ve always worried about going crazy. My mind slipping slowly into insanity and my not being able to rationalize what’s normal and what’s not has always been my biggest fear. Crazy runs in my mom’s side of the family so you’ll understand my concern.
The morning after our turn at the club house I can’t say I was hung-over but I was a lot slower getting off the couch than the days before. I wasn’t still intoxicated but I think maybe the combination of my prescribed medications for my hypertension coupled with all that Wild Turkey might have helped concoct what I saw the morning after.
With the blankets and pillows all folded and stacked in the corner of the couch I sat next to it all getting dressed and putting on my socks. The TV was on and I was trying to make out what kind of weather blurb was scrolling across the bottom of the screen when I looked down at my phone and saw the strangest thing. I picked up my phone and held it in my palm. I was mesmerized by what was strangely morphing within the numbers and buttons.
It was a face.
It wasn’t a friendly face either. It reminded me of a Tiki doll. The 1 and the 3 seemed to bend at an an angle to resemble eyebrows. Only they were mean eyebrows. The 4 and the 6 seemed to transform into eyes and the 7, 8 and 9 along with the *, 0, and # looked like upper and lower teeth. This was a strange illusion and I starring at it. I couldn’t figure out why I was seeing this. I couldn’t understand what was staring back at me.
I shut my eyes tight and opened them slowly and the face was gone…mostly.
Obviously this was some sort of chemically induced hallucination. Was this the madness that I feared I was venerable to because of my bad genes? I didn’t say anything to Dennis for fear he’d think I was still drunk somehow or worse. I didn’t share what I saw in my cell phone with anyone else. I’ve not mentioned any of this up until now. I figured since Halloween was right around the corner it felt like the perfect opportunity to do share.
What do you think it was that I saw? Was it something left over from the bourbon the night before? Or was it madness setting up housekeeping.
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