Little Brother

Little Brother

accompanying narrative to 'Fix'

I follow him around the debris-strewn room, the filthy palet of the floor tripping me as I try to make my way through. It's so absurd to imagine that he actually lives here in this destruction. It's as if I've walked into an abandoned building, but I have to force my mind to wrap around the obvious fact that he lives here. He sleeps here, on this sickeningly grimy couch and he eats in this disgusting dirt-encrusted room with its rotting walls, melancholy ragged wallpaper drooping from the surface of the walls. Its as if the walls have been left half unwrapped, a disturbing portrayal of a Christmas present.

I feel as though I might be contaminated if I even breathe the air which actually holds the nauseating odor of old smoke and stale piss. I struggle against the nearly overwhelming impulse to vomit as the air shifts around me, permeating into my clothes, hair and clinging to my skin. I can't even imagine what it must be like to live day to day in this war zone. But he manages to do it day in and day out. I find myself shaking my head as he leads me through the mess.

Liem looks like he belongs here, nothing more than another piece of the forgotten furniture in this place. His clothes are tattered and worn, not having been washed in weeks probably. His hair is greasy and caked with filmy scum on the once soft strands. The mass falls in shaggy clumps, shadowing his sunken eyes. His skin is a sallow yellowish tinge and his lips are cracked and chapped. His t-shirt hangs from his bony shoulders like a tent and his arms are marred by angry scarlet scabs and lined scratches from the needles he holds so dear. His jeans are slung so low on his hips, barely clinging on to his protruding hip bones. His teeth are yellowed and his smile no longer reaches the rest of his face. His eyes I think must be the worst, the glassy jade that once matched my own, now whispers of an intimate relationship with fly.

I can hardly bring myself to believe what my eyes are telling me must be true. My brother is an addict. He's just barely twenty-three years old and he looks like he's going on forty instead. And I remember the only reason I am here is to make sure he's still alive. I can't remove my gaze from him as I try to understand. He's searching around the room, tossing papers and garbage as if they don't exist and shoving things out of his way recklessly in his pursuit. I know what he must be looking for; I can see his hands shaking like mad and the frantic gleam in his eyes. He's needing another fix.

He doesn't call anymore, probably forgot the number. He hasn't spoken to mom or dad in over a year and that's why I am here. I need to give mom some kind of hope that Liem is still with us. How can I tell her what he's become, a walking corpse, a broken shell of his former self. He used to be so alive; he laughed and cried and called. And now he's someone else. I guess that is what they say drugs do to you, make you into someone you don't recognize. Are all addicts just like him?

And I can't help but to feel that this is all my fault. And before you go and tell me not to be so hard on myself; no one's at fault in situations like this. You need to know that Liem wasn't always like this, some junk-starved case on his way to self destruction. He was just fine until that night, not so long ago. In just one night, his world would change dramatically. Yes, that night was the night I introduced my baby brother, innocent, naive Liem who always looked up to me, to his first shot of silky sweet lady heroin.