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Care to know a little more about me?
A sorrow
_For Christopher Theodoru_
I had a brother once.
His name was Christopher.
My mother and his father were together since i was about two years old.
The split when i was about 13.
Through out all of my childhood he was there for me.
Oh we fought, like brothers do, but we respected each other as well.
I guess that it's because of him that i am the person i am today.
Where he was in to rap and dance music, i was in to metal and rock.
Where he was in to going out every night with his friends, i stayed in and read, or went out with some friends for the odd night out or three.
Where he was skinny and athletic, i was more solidly built, and at times was not at all afraid to use the size to my advantage, where he might have been stronger, i would be able to take it for longer.
I envied him, and he said that when we were younger, he wished he were more like me.
Odd really, this guy could have gone in to athletics seriously, but it was ruined.
All in a week.
Literally.
On a monday he had a cigarette, then on the tuesday, he had some puff, on wednesday he went for acid, on thursday he'd turned to speed, and by friday he was on heroine.
Actually, it happened in a few weeks, not a few days, but the memory of seeing him slowly die really affected me.
To see this person i loved and looked up to, willingly (at first) destroy himself.
He became an addict, and then he became a dealer who dealt to his friends.
When i had long moved from the isle of sheppy, i returned, and we met again, by chance, in the old arcade where we used to hang out.
His friends and "dealt too's" were all around him.
I knew him by his voice.
Gone were his good looks, the ones bred from Austrian and Greek grandparents.
Gone was his flashing smile.
Stubs of teeth were left.
If i had seen him on the street and not heard his voice it would have taken me a few minutes to realize it was my brother.
That’s what the drugs had done to him.
He sent his friends away, and they complained bitterly that "the freak with the hair" would interrupt them.
I recognized most of them.
I took a chance to scare them as well, as i recounted some old joy or memory of theirs.
Some recognized me, others were angered further, being reminded of a better time that they no longer had in their grasp.
We sat and talked for a while.
He told me of his most recent partner, a girl who was in my old school class, and of their child.
Yes I’m an uncle, a couple of times over now, i have more relatives than many of you who know me realize.
I went back to his flat.
He was the same age i am now, twenty-five, he was a crook to put it simply.
We talked a while more, then the subject of drugs came up, he offered me a cigarette, i refused, he shrugged, he offered me dope, i refused, he shrugged, he offered me other things as well, pills, papers, foil wraps, needles, pipes and other things.
All of this i refused.
It was then that he started to cry.
I held him for a while.
This living dead thing, in my arms, older than me by four years, crying like a babe in its crib.
I waited, and when the tears slowly stopped, he smiled and said "i wish i was you, your a better person than me".
It was my turn to shed a tear then.
"No, i've had my temptations, i've had my joys, my moments of perfection, but i had a brother before i had all of those things."
We said good bye at that point.
I saw him a year later, he barely recognized me, even though i looked the same.
He had gotten worse.
He'd been in and out of prison, things weren't going to well for him and his partner, still the same one.
We sat and talked a while again, in the same arcade, and then we said good-bye.
I don't know if he is still alive or not.
Those of you that know me, know that i don’t smoke, i don’t do drugs.
I have a passion against drugs.
No, i don’t go round saying "thou shalt not do drugs" or anything like that, but i do mourn when a friend turns to the things that killed my brother.
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