Ned the Wino
Second entry today.
This entry is about my younger brother, �Ned�. I don�t talk about him much, because fortunately, he doesn�t come around much. He�s the alcoholic loser rarely employed sometimes homeless brother. He�s 31 years old and hasn�t done shit with his life except piss it away.
We live in a relatively small area. The city we grew up in, directly next to the town I currently live in, has a population of roughly 80,000. The local newspaper rules as far as keeping the public up-to-date about the goings on around town, especially as far as crime and murders and mischief and such. I love my local newspaper. I find out who�s dead, who�s arrested, it�s great. My brother is occasionally featured in the �Police Log� and �District Court� sections, enjoying his 15 minutes I suppose.
He�s an alcoholic. One of those really annoying, obnoxious ones who gets so obnoxious, he sometimes gets beaten up. Or arrested. He gets arrested for stupid shit. Vandalism, criminal trespass, shoplifting (he steals beer), disorderly, etc. Not enough to go away for big time in the state prison, but enough to get him thrown into county jail for a few weeks/months once in a while and enough to irritate the local law enforcement and court personnel.
He can�t keep a job. He can�t keep a roof over his head. He hasn�t had a driver�s license since 1998 (and he�s never owned a car). He has a kid, who�s 7 (holy shit, that reminds me, I forgot his b-day last week!), and good for him that his mom has HALF a clue (literally), and she and her boyfriend have taken good care of him. (Oh yeah, except last week when Ned went over to visit his son, he ripped the kid�s mom off for $78. He owes child support, and he goes and steals her cash. Pretty soon, her boyfriend is going to have to punch him again. He punches Ned, then calls my dad to apologize, and my dad says, �why are you apologizing? I�d like to punch him myself�. See what I�m dealing with here?).
I�m expecting to open that newspaper up one day to the news of his death or the death of someone else at his hands. Seriously. That�s how I see him going.
A few weeks ago, there was a report that a man in his 30�s was found dead, hanging from a tree by the river, but they couldn�t publish the name pending notification of next of kin. Well, if I didn�t jump every time the phone rang that day, waiting for the call from my dad. Turns out, it wasn�t him.
Today I get the paper, and the headlines are �Arrest made in city man�s death�. And I see the picture for the story is right in front of my all-time favorite bar in town. Which is downtown, Ned�s stomping grounds.
The murderer was a 31 year old homeless guy. At least they had this guy�s name. Cuz I was worried for a minute. It wasn�t Ned, but I�d put money on the fact that he knows him through the little homeless posse.
We haven�t heard from Ned much in the past couple of months. He had been on this kick where he wanted to get close to his family again (meaning me and my dad), but dropped it. And when he was on that kick, I didn�t want any part of it.
Which is the part that makes me kind of sad. I just don�t love my brother. I avoid his phone calls. If I see him walking around in town, sometimes I might wave, but I never stop to talk to him. I gave up trying to save him years ago when it just got too hard to watch him on his downward spiral.
When people who�ve known the both of us since back in the day (we ran around the same circles in high school and after despite an almost 3 year age difference), they always ask, �How�s your brother?�. I haven�t fucked around with that question for years, I just say, �Oh, he�s still a loser. He�s currently homeless/in jail/in rehab�, whatever the case may be. And I usually get �I know! I saw him at *such and such* and he *did something fucked up*� as a response.
Granted, we had ourselves a shitty time growing up. We had two parents, an older half-bro, dog, cat, our own home, the whole nine, in the beginning. Things were good back then. Then, when I was 7 and Ned was 4 or 5, it all got horribly fucked up. My mom got really sick, like incapacitated sick and was put into a nursing home. (When you go get a flu shot, they give you a paper all about the vaccine. It mentions a contaminated flu vaccine from 1976, in which a few people got Guillian-Barre syndrome. My mom, being a nurse, got a flu shot. THAT one. She got the worst possible case of Guillian-Barre ever). We moved next door to my grandmother, who was a pretty verbally abusive woman. My dad turned to alcohol and drugs. My older brother left as soon as he was 18 (enlisted in the USAF). My mom died when I was 11, after three years at the nursing home.
Between all that shit, and the way it was handled, we had a tough time, to say the least. I�m not knocking my dad or my grandmother, they did the best they could. I don�t hold anything against them. Me, being the little bitch that I was, was never spared discipline for the shit I pulled. I think that�s the difference between me and Ned. Everyone felt sorry for him, poor little boy losing his mama like that. As a result, he never learned consequences for his actions. Never. He never got grounded or punished. He never had to be responsible for anything.
He was a shit, but still stayed relatively normal through his teens. He drank, did drugs but that was the worst of it.
He started going downhill when he was about 22, and he met his baby mama, I�ll call her �Nina�. Nina was a whopping 15 years old when they hooked up. Oh, and she was his first girlfriend, his first lay, first everything. She was a doosie, too. (Oh, if I had had my online diary back then, the stories I could�ve shared! Like the night she drove my grandmother�s car into the shed, or the way she couldn�t flush a dirty tampon down the toilet ever, or the way I�d find her bra and panties in my couch. I�ve since gotten over it, since she really did turn out to be a decent mom to my nephew. By decent, I mean, DCYF probably would not take him away from her. She�s no June Cleaver, and I could nitpick about my nephew�s rotten teeth and little things like that, but she�s never been without a roof over his head, and that�s the most important thing).
When things started going bad for Ned and Nina, he really lost it. That�s when he started doing fucked up shit. He started his first string of arrests, he would go out with a fucking billy club (don�t even ask how he got it) looking for Nina or whoever, he just really started to lose it.
They were on again, off again, and then the baby came, and Ned seemed to have a clue. For like the first, oh, 6 months of the kid�s life. Back to loserville. And it�s been downhill ever since. He�s never gotten better. Just when you�d think, he MUST have hit rock bottom by now, he goes and proves, everyone�s definition of rock bottom is different. (Personally, mine is going to the ATM and only being able to take out $10. For groceries. I�ve been there).
He sucked money off my grandmother until she died. He couldn�t even go to her funeral, cuz he was in jail, and none of us would spare the $150 it�s take to bail his dumb ass out.
I�d say I gave up hope for him around 1999. I just couldn�t take it anymore. I�ve helped him out when I could, but it never does any good. There�s no talking to him. He just �I know� s you to death. Hub tried to make him his pet project about two years ago. Yup, Hub was going to be the one to change him. I had no faith in that effort, and Hub soon learned his lesson on that one. Once, when Hub was really pissed at Ned for some stupid thing he�d done, Ned asked Hub to just beat him up, that�s what he needed. Hub didn�t, but it shows where Ned�s head is at. That�s right, up his ass!!!
Anyway. That�s my brother. I just had to vent. Me and my dad were talking about him this morning, that whole downtown murder kinda got my gears rolling.
Oh, and the whole retarded teenage boy thing, ie; Beavis and Butthead? I bitch about them, but they are a blast to have around. The excitement never ends. I�m telling ya, don�t dread this shit, ENJOY IT! It�s great. And I�ll have an arsenal of information for any future girlfriends or wives.
Payback is a bitch!