The Enemy Inside the House

I miss my brother. This is not a surprise. It's hard to know someone you love is not only far away but in kindddddddd of a bad area and thrives on disarming weapons that are meant to kill people. Yeah, I don't sleep well a lot of the time. What amazes me, however, is just how much I worry & think about Brendan considering he has been a self centered asshole most of my life and his hobbies when we were younger consisted of He-Man, lacrosse and narcing on me. Some of the most heinous offenses were the ones that centered around him lying his face off to our parents….but telling me the truth. So there I'd be sputtering, "he's lying! HE IS LYING TO YOU!" and Mom & Dad would shake their heads and conjure up an image of their blond haired, blue eyed Aryan poster child and say "oh Brigid, you're just jealous." WELL YES I AM.

Here are my Top 4 Moments of Brendan Assholehood:
4. My parents didn't trust me a lot growing up. I mean, they would give me "opportunities for character building" and I would saaaaaay, invite 6 friends over, drink my father's Windsor and let our dog Lamar have beer then lock myself out of the house.....twice.... in 7 hours. Oopsie. It didn't really come as a surprise then when my parents needed to go look at houses in Masschusetts and I was told I was going with them.....while Brendan, 16 at the time, stayed at home. W....T....F? We land, look at 18 houses and around dinnertime call Brendan. Brendan relays that he does not feel well. Mom immediately is in Doctor Mode - "oh no, do you have a fever? Check it now. Are you doing it rectally? It's 103? OH BRENDAN! You're VOMITING? OH BRENDAN! You have pain in your chest and your fallopian tubes? OH BRENDAN!" Diagnosis: Brendan is sick. I am suspicious. I ask to speak to my ill, bedridden brother. This is what he says, "holy shit, I'm not sick. Are you fucking stupid? Kevin, Matt and I drank everything in the liquor cabinet. Did you know cooking sherry has alcohol in it? I am so hungover, I threw up off the deck. People are coming over tonight. Gotta go, bitch."

3. My wedding was a special day. Special for all the right reasons - it was lovely, romantic & organized in 6 weeks by my mother. It was also special because I was, for once, the only sober person in an 18 mile radius of our afterparty held at my parents' home complete with 3 grills going and a giant ass bonfire. The best part? Drunk Ass Brendan who kept telling everyone to "lick my balls" for no apparent reason. Many conversations with him that night went like this -

AUNT: Hey Bryn, can you grab me another beer?
Brendan: Only if you LICK MY BALLS.
Me: Brendan, please don't tell Aunt Kathy to lick your balls.
Brendan: I'm sorry......now LICKMYBALLSSSSSSSSSSS.

On & on & on this went. EVERYONE heard him saying this. However, the next morning when I told my mother that the best part (not) of my wedding day was having my brother ask every, single guest to perform oral sex on him, her response was "don't be ridiculous, Brigid. Did you do that, Brendan?" Brendan shook his head no and gave me this 'how could you say that?' look. "See Brigid, don't say horrible things about your brother. But what can I expect from someone who couldn't even wear white on her wedding day?"

2. One day, my mom pulled out a shoebox and said softly "oh wow, look at these." Her reverence and gentleness led me to believe something sacred was in the box and I walked over. It was sacred all right. A sacred violation of sibling trust and a testament to the pure shittiness that was my brother's narcing soul. In the box were tons - nay, THOUSANDS - of little notes written in Brendan's Unabomber scratch. "Dear Mommy, Buffy did not eat the 7 chocolate chip cookies. Brigid did. She is a liar. I love you, Brendan"....."Mommy, Brigid put a stick in my bike wheel and I fell over. I didn't hit a curb like she said. I'm a good boy, Brendan"...."Mommy, Brigid signed her own interims and told her teacher you were in Bolivia getting liposuction. Here are her last 6 report cards charting her descent in to juvenile delinquency. Oh, and I included the secret AOL address she is using to write all of her friends that you are, and I quote, 'a fucking hobag.' I love you, Brendan."

1. As we got older, Brendan and I developed a really great relationship with our parents. It became more about being a family instead of kids vs adults. We laughed a lot and told fun stories and enjoyed each other's company. So much so, sometimes Brendan and I would share things we had done in our younger days with our parents in a 'look what we got away with!' kind of way. Fun for everyone, right? Eh. Debatable.

A few years after high school, Brendan shared with my parents that pretty much any time he was left alone in our house in Virginia, he had people over. Didn't matter if my parents were gone for 2 days or 20 minutes. Brendan could assemble a mob quickly, drink my parents' alcohol and pretend to be sick when they returned and found him bleary-eyed & pale and get away with it. OH HILARITY, THY NAME IS GOLDEN CHILD. My parents laughed for centuries.

I do not like to be topped so I decided to reveal a bit of truth behind one of my more wacky evenings. In high school, I was at a party and backed my parents' Chevy Blazer in to another car as we had been told the cops were coming. This all happened while screaming "WE NEED TO GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE NOW!" This was not a ding that could be buffed out with a Shamwow. I got out, assessed the damage, felt waves of Catholic guilt....and then I got the fuck outta there.

The next day, I told my parents that I - being the designated driver (90% true....2 shots of tequila don't count, right?) - was driving my very inebriated friends home, they were so loud and wild in the car and I was focusing SO HARD, DAD that I hit a fire hydrant in my friend's yard. My parents were pissed but not Serial Killer Face mad, and so I had to contribute some cash to fix up the Blazer and that was that. Mental high five.

HILARIOUS, RIGHT? DEFINITELY tops Brendan's lame "I used to have people over to the house" story, RIGHT? Wrong.

My mother started screaming at me about how this act was, in fact, a felony and she always knew I was up to no good shit with my friends and Christ knows that if I did this - AFELONYBRIGID!! - what else I had done. She started saying that Brendan, while "naughty" (her words), was never a fucking sociopath like myself. Enter the phrase "GODDAMMITBRIGID" times 78,000 and that was our evening.

And there was Brendan....smirking in the corner....probably writing a note to our mother:
"Dear Mommy, Brigid IS a sociopath and by the way, in high school she hit a parked car in the school parking lot and told the woman her name was Ally Sheedy because she had watched 'Breakfast Club' the night before and it was all she could think of. You know all this now because 6 months after the incident happened, the woman managed to track Brigid down, call you and tell her what a lying fucktard your daughter is which resulted in Brigid coming home from school one day and was caught unaware as you beat her fucking ass the minute she walked inside. That was a glorious day for me. I just wanted you to know that while you tore Brigid up, I invited 18 people over and we drank homemade moonshine up in my bedroom. I love you, Brendan."

I miss you, Dummy. Reading the above, I don’t know why. But I miss you. Hurry home, bitch.