Bleeding Perseverance - Episode 48

Autobiography

At Revco we’d close at 9 p.m. I’d close the store portion while the pharmacist closed their area. My duties included counting down the cash tills, placing the day’s money into envelopes, storing it all in the store safe, filling out paperwork, and sending the information to corporate via the computer. So I basically had the job of closing manager, the skills of which would help me in future work.

The manager who had hired me had to quit, so me and this female employee were the two running the store for about six months. She’d open, I’d close. We were doing fine as a two-person team, which I guess is why the powers-that-be didn’t bring in an official store manager for so long. But they should have compensated us accordingly.

Meanwhile Mom and the kids had found an apartment in Smyrna, another small town outside Atlanta. Daniel had recently contacted her and was planning to make the move. I told Mom I’d make it there for Thanksgiving and made sure I’d have the weekend off to do so. We were supposed to have gotten together on my birthday to attend an Olympic event, but she failed to get the transportation together so it never happened. The summer Olympics were in Atlanta that year and someone had given me tickets for handball. Not the most exciting sport, but an Olympic event nonetheless.

It had been just over a year since I had last seen Daniel. Jake and Stephen dropped me off for the weekend and I was looking forward to a home-cooked meal. Jesse had just turned twelve and Mom had been working a data entry job. I wish I could say it was a nice reunion and all, but her negative nature never took breaks. Not even for holidays.

She’d be bitching up a storm, getting on to Jess, etc. And every Thanksgiving it never failed. Soon after sitting down to eat she’d find a reason to get upset and storm off, saying something like, “I’ve lost my appetite!”

She’s literally been doing this all of our lives! Her Thanksgiving attention grabber. And nearing the end of the meal she’d return sulking while serving herself. You ever heard of the psychological disorder where someone isn’t happy unless they’re unhappy. Well~

Daniel wanted to come live with me again. Although I had been really focused with my training I missed having family around, so I told him I’d look into it. I had worked really hard to get to where I was in Norcross and didn’t need anybody coming along screwing that up for me, but at the same time I wanted to give my brother the benefit of the doubt, and if he could learn to be focused through me, great. So after going back home to Norcross and asking B if he could stay in my room if he paid rent too, I went back to pick him up during the first week of December.

This was a chance for Daniel to get a fresh start. He liked Ninjutsu, so I thought it would be cool if he started training too. He was still receiving his SSI, but I told him that I could probably get him work at my two jobs as well. This way he’d easily be able to cover his rent, training, etc.

He first joined the dojo. Members were accepted by contract and he was really excited to start. Everyone was happy to meet him at the dojo and told him how lucky he was that he was my brother, meaning the extra help he’d get from me. I had been there for eight months and was already 7th Kyu. They all knew me to be very dedicated to the art and to Jimmy. I even had Japanese Kanji written on my training weapons which translated to ‘Rico studying under Jimmy.’

Besides bringing Daniel into Ninjutsu I also got him hired at Revco and Fujita’s with me. Being surrounded by a good environment, he started to show signs of maturity for those first few weeks. All except for one thing that is.

When he first moved in with me I started to notice how often he would scratch and that I was becoming really itchy as well. He claimed he had no idea where it had come from, even though it coincided with his arrival. We ended up having to go to a clinic where we were told we had scabies. A contagious condition where these tiny bugs invade your skin, clothes, bedding, etc. He actually had got it before moving to Georgia, but instead of being honest with me up front had lied and denied it for quite some time. That’s one of the biggest differences we had. He wouldn’t think twice about lying to somebody’s face. I was hoping this new environment would help rid him of such poor character.

One of the guys I would sometimes train with on Saturdays, David, was now looking for a roommate. He lived about a forty-five-minute walk from the dojo in a three-bedroom townhouse with his girlfriend. Living at B’s place, you always had to be cautious of what you did, like the ol’ saying, ‘Walking On Egg Shells.’ So we grabbed the opportunity and moved in with David a few days into 1997.

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David and his girlfriend wanted to keep separate rooms, so Daniel and I had to share one, but it was still better than being at B’s place. We finally had room to breathe! The townhouse was one of the nicest places we ever lived, and was located in a small community.

Beside our subdivision was an apartment complex. David’s old friend Matt lived there, along with a roommate, Joey. Daniel and I met them when they stopped by the townhouse, and before the end of the week Daniel went to go stay the night with them. This caused him to skip class and be late to work. Well, that night’s stay turned into two.

Then three.

And four.

Until a week had passed. So what was going on with him and these two guys? Well, no matter where a person moves to they tend to seek out like-minded people. It’s like some weird law of attraction. And since Matt and Joey were pot-headed losers who liked to do nothing but smoke, drink, and party, Daniel found his soul mates.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t judge someone just because they partake in recreational drug use, but when it affects a person from getting things done in life there’s obviously a problem. And here I was thinking Daniel had really changed. I had went out on a limb for him, and only after a couple of weeks of classes and work he had already ditched the training and was fired from Revco. (We now had new store managers coming and going every couple of weeks)

Although he was spending all his time at Matt and Joey’s he insisted he planned to stay living with us in the townhouse, and that he’d pay his share of rent and bills on time. Well, in February he hadn’t been home for a month and his rent was past due. After some bullshit excuses we waited, but no money came. It was now March, and still nothing. By April he finally admitted he wasn’t coming back, but continued his empty promises that he’d pay us what he owed us. Over seven hundred dollars now.

So there it was. Royally screwed over by my own brother for a second time. He had defaulted on his contract with the dojo, threw away the two jobs I had lined up for him, and left me, David, and David’s girlfriend with a big debt. It was all I could do to talk David out of kicking his ass, but of course being the unappreciative imbecile he was Daniel would just talk shit. “Yeah right, he can’t kick my ass!” Sure, Danny boy, you had become a force to be reckoned with in your short-lived two weeks of training. Pathetic.

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It was now June. Daniel had received a notice from social security regarding his benefits. Letting it pass him by like everything else in life, he soon lost his SSI. No more free money to blow on his poisoned lifestyle. Mom and the kids had moved on to New Hampshire months before, so with no one to run to he found a job at Old Time Pottery.

Through Mom I heard that Chino was having some problems back there in Stockton and wanted to get away for a while. He and Leticia had already divorced, and he was stressing out because he didn’t have his son in his life anymore. It had been two and a half years since I last saw him, so when I spoke with Grandma on the phone I had her tell him if he wanted to get away for a while he could come stay with me. And so Chino boarded a Greyhound and a few days later Daniel and I went to go pick him up.