THE VULTURE AND THE COBRA
michael internicola
"we have to get out of this country."-he said, "just got to find a way to
pull it off. fucking niggers. fucking hate new york."
that one's an ADD, cokehead, alcoholic, mess of a guy. i live with him and
he hates himself.
our apartment looks like a twelve year old's room. buffalo bills shit
everywhere. cases of beer in the fridge. 62 packs of ketchup from the diner.
cigarette butts and yea in the microwave from after hours till' six.
he sleeps on the floor in the living room. he buys porno every time he's
fucked up.
there are days when i wonder if death will come. he's also the worst gambler
in the world. goes 2 for 3 on sunday but the loser he already bet the night
before. he just forgot. so he tries a two team teaser tied to a three team
parlay
stuffed into a proposition bet on first half fumbles.
he loses money, steals money,
walks thru red lights in front of cars
cursing the world and what it owes him.
probably thinks i'm the same way.
too smart to be doing what he's doing.
he looks for roadwhores with no plans and big ideas about making it,
3 miles per hour in a place he doesn't want to live anymore.
"i hate it here."-he says, "it's a dead end life."
calls his other buddies with the same weakness and they laugh about it.
"two day bender, baby. papa can't take too many more of those."
he can't date or hardly talk sober,
like the words and thoughts just don't match.
fucks hookers on a regular basis.
around seven/eight he gets up to order food,
jerks off and gets the lines for monday night football.
he thinks of his ex,
he wants revenge for throwing out his shit,
he thinks of the english girl across the ocean,
he would pay her a salary to keep him out of trouble.
then he throws up, shits and calls himself the vulture.
he loses the bet on the over,
he wants to kill himself,
is trying desperately to make it to january so he can move out of town,
to where he don't know.
he hates the guilt i lay on him.
he's not considerate for his own feelings,
let alone anyone else but he's a great person inside.
he thinks about therapy.
his sister can't love,
his brother can't love.
he eats, blows his nose twenty times, ice's his knee and falls back to sleep
not willing to do a god damn thing about it.
he has no god.
i think he just wants it over.
wonder what he would write about me.
if he could sit still for an hour out of the day that is.
nobody could last here but a cobra like me.
every morning i check to see if the sheets are moving.
that means he's still breathing.
if none of this ever makes sense just know that i'm his brother and i love
him so much
and it's hard to help somebody who doesn't want to help themselves.
besides capturing him and force feeding rehab i don't know what to do. i
know it's hell inside his skin.
i see it in his eyes.
it starts with the drinking.
truth is us both getting help would spin the world upside down.
the dead fish would smell wonderful.
he'd be in love with a wife and two sons.
i'd be cooking steaks and shrimp with my novels published.
both our parents would think we were stars.
in fact, we would be stars.
we wouldn't be glued to the pain
and life would be sweet as cookies.
