The Only Three I'll Ever Need

*Warning: contains sexual abuse, vulgar language, and minor self-harm.

An open bottle falls from the coffee table, painting the cracks of the floorboards with the splatter of flat beer. The smell of molding trash and burnt wood hang in the stale air, while the embers in the fireplace fight to release themselves from shattered glass and last night’s Chinese. The ceiling fan is stuck, allowing the humidity to tease the brick walls that line the room. A single streak of light creeps in through drawn curtains, creasing the leg of a living corpse who lays passed out on his whiskey-stained couch, providing just enough light to illuminate the dry vomit which is blanketed across one side of his patchy beard, and the still damp piss stains on the front of his pajamas.

           A bell from the door interrupts his slumber. He lets the first ring pass, then the second, uttering only the feint grunt of a threat to go away. The third ring becomes a volley of ear-splitting shots which force a louder, more desperate call for silence. The polluted noise eventually stops, drawing a rotten breath of relief from the man’s lips. His body relaxes, and again, he begins to slip back into his darkness, until a sudden fiddling of keys catches his dim attention.

           The deadbolt on his door cracks as it slides open, and the latch gives welcome to the unknown visitor. The creak of rusted hinges carpets the hall with a dull incandescence, accompanied by the long shadow of a figure which peeks around the corner. A half-cocked eye struggles to remain open, watching as the shadow moves across the floor and into the dining room. The uninvited silhouette is familiar, replacing the curious gaze with an annoyed groan.

           “Wow.” The silhouette blurts out with a low tone of surprise. Footsteps follow, slowly navigating the remnants of homeless trinkets and destroyed food boxes below.

           “Go. Away.” The laying man gurgles.

“No, on second thought, this is a good look for you, Johnny.” A condescending chuckle is heard through the partial slumber. “Phew. And that smell! Man, I’m impressed. You really have to work hard for an aroma like that. What’s it called? Sandlewood and Shit?”

Johnny waits to see if the silhouette will simply disappear, then eventually increasing his tone. “I said, go away!”

“Jesus… Johnny, you pissed yourself!”

Johnny’s eyes peel open, lifting his head as high as his inebriation will allow. “Stan… Just go the fuck away.”

Stan’s oxfords knock against the hardwood as he slides over a stool from the kitchen, brushing off the top before hesitantly taking a seat.

“You know you missed her funeral, right? You sober enough to remember that?”

“Man…” Johnny rolls to his back, a forearm creeping over his eyes. “I don’t really care what you think. Just get the hell out of my house.”

“It’s not a house, Johnny. It’s a cheap ass apartment. And for your information, she loved you, more than she loved anyone else. So why – why disrespect her, and everything she did for you by turning yourself into the one person she hated the most?”

Johnny’s head falls side to side. “Mm mm. Nope. You don’t get to say that. Not you.”

“Really?” Stan’s words grow sharper, an intensity piercing through his memories. “You don’t remember him being just like this? Especially after all those week-long binges? You don’t remember the bruises all over mom’s face? All over hers?”

“Stan. Stop. Seriously.”

“You don’t remember how she would take us up to her room and lock the door? How dad would follow, banging and banging and banging, yelling and screaming while she held us? Telling us everything would be alright? Huh?!” Stan points a finger beyond the couch. “You don’t remember how, late at night after mom fell asleep, he would go into our sisters room and… And her cries for…” Stan cuts himself off, the emotion choking him into clearing a knot of phlegm from his throat.

“Johnny boy… This is exactly who he was. And now, you’re spitting on her memory because you’d rather dive headfirst into a bottle. Just like dad would.” Stan rises to his feet, closing the middle button of his business suit. He takes a disappointed gander around the room, briefly sifting through all the garbage and empty bottles. An object catches his eye, leading him across the dining room towards the fireplace.

He reaches down and carefully picks up a small black bag, half unzipped, and gently coddles it in his hand.

“You even take it out?” Stan asks, his eyes not straying from the bag. “Doesn’t even look like you took it out.”

“That’s because I haven’t.” Johnny snips.

Stan nods. “Of course you haven’t.”

“Why should I?” Johnny shrugs his shoulders, letting his arm fall from his face. “She cared more about that thing than she did about us.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.  You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Here we go.” Johnny snorts, pulling himself to a seated position. “Go ahead. Beguile me with all your wisdom.”

“This was her way of living, Johnny…”

“No.” Johnny interrupts quickly, pointing a stern but unsteady finger at Stan. “That was her way of dying.”

“She just wanted something for herself, man. She spent her whole life looking out for us, which is pretty sad because I’m the older brother, and she had to look out for me.”

“Spare me the sentimental bull, Stan. She’s gone, ok? For all I care, you can toss that thing in the fire.”

“She left this for you, and we both know Jess never did anything without a purpose. You couldn’t at least see if there was any film in it?” Stan unzipped the bag the rest of the way, clutching the outsides of the camera within.

“Don’t!” Johnny yelled. “I don’t want to see that thing!”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t matter! It’s not yours! So leave it!”

“Johnny, she had cancer! Why couldn’t you just support her?”

“Because she had cancer, Stan! And instead of choosing to be around the ones who loved her, she decided to go off on some stupid soul search around India! We never even got to say good-bye!”

“You need to see what’s inside.” Stan begins taking the camera out. Johnny’s hand grabs an empty beer bottle on the coffee table and whips it across the room, grazing Stan’s shoulder, the sound of the shatter behind him freezing Stan in his tracks. He glares down at Johnny, his arms firmly protecting the bag.

“She deserted us.” Johnny heaves through gritted teeth. “You seriously forgive her for that?”

Stan bites the inside of his lips, letting a slow nod direct his hands back to the coffee table where he cautiously releases the bag.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “I can. Because I loved her… Good-bye Johnny.” He turns and drifts towards the hallway. When he reaches the corner, he sits on his front foot, glancing back one last time. “If you really don’t care, then why didn’t you throw that thing in the fire the moment it showed up?”

Stan’s words danced over the edges of the room as he slipped from view, the latching of a closed door following his exit. Johnny stares into the bricks he’d just painted with bits of shrapnel, his drunken thoughts still catching up to the moment. “You don’t know me.” Johnny murmurs, directing his snark at the fading scent of his brother’s cologne.

A pang of guilt gives birth to a wrenching in his stomach, finding regret in the harsh words he had spoken about his sister. This was the first time he openly conveyed such sentiments, and it felt as if he’d just harmed an innocent child for no reason. Eventually, his eyes crawl over the bag. He tries to will his hands to move, convincing himself that the unopened bottle on the kitchen counter will soothe any pain that may come of it. He can practically feel the liquid numbing the walls of his throat, and warming the blood which still leaks from the cracks in his heart; holes which simply won’t seem to mend.

Then an unexpected voice sends a shockwave through his system, delivering a sobering resuscitation to his corrupted nerves. You’re just like dad. It was her, with a paralyzing statement that yanked Johnny’s heart from his chest. His head whips around, eyes wild and breath shuddering. The pressure behind his cheeks becomes too much to fight, sending two sporadic streams of tears across his reddening pores.

His agitated breathing quickly turns to panicked wheezes. His vision blurs and he can no longer protect his spine from the violent spasms that overcome him. The little boy inside begins begging through empty screams that his brother would return and wrap his arms around his now failing body, just as their sister would when these attacks plagued him in his youth. Johnny collapses into the fetal position as the spasms continue and his lungs begin to weaken. Minutes feel like hours, and images of his father lying dead in a pool of his own feces and vomit molest Johnny’s mind. His tears thicken, and a slight whimper vibrates over his curling tongue. You’re right, he cries to himself. You’re right.

Several more moments pass, his symptoms unforgiving. As he continues to suffer in the depths of his convulsions, something pulls his attention to the camera bag, still waiting patiently on the table in front of him. He doesn’t know what makes him suddenly notice the bag, or what keeps his eyes drawn to it, but as his gaze remains fixed on the reflective metal of the camera’s edge, sending his mind through forgotten memories of his sister’s life. He remembers the time he broke his leg at the river and she carried him in her arms for nearly a mile back home. She tore a muscle in her wrist that day, unwilling to put her own pain before her little brothers trauma. Then the time he accidently drove his father’s car into the neighbor’s SUV, and Jess took the blame, along with two black eyes and a night of desperate whimpering while Stan and Johnny hid in their rooms, too scared to defend her from the nightmare occurring on the other side of the wall.

The spasms finally begin to fade, and his breath settles to a manageable pace. As he gains his composure, he pulls himself back up. His arms, weak from the whiskey and memories, fights to reach over and drag the bag into his lap. He stares inside, reluctant to grasp the edges of the camera, but he finds that they eventually do the work for him, pulling it into a world it hasn’t seen in several weeks. It was a simple machine, an antique really. Jess always loved the mild graininess that old pictures produced. Natural, she’d tell Johnny. And raw too. Like capturing a moment of history, just for yourself.

He gives it another once-over, noting the shallow void in its center, which was without a lens. Johnny raises it, peering through the peephole, but nothing stares back at him. He carefully sets the camera beside him and returns to the bag. A stack of photos lies propped against the back, some of which fall forward as Johnny cautiously retrieves them. The light in his apartment is dim, barely able to illuminate the images with much clarity, but it doesn’t seem to be the light that hides the pictures from him. A series of blurred ravines spider over the fronts of each photo. It’s the same pattern in each one, blemishing his sisters final days from Johnny’s view. He releases soul crushing breath, shaking his head. The last photos you take big sis, and this is what you leave me?

Johnny’s hands fall in disappointment, his thoughts having found an excitement for the first time since his sister died, only to melt away into the faded colors of imperceivable memories. He sets the pile next to the camera, then returns to the bag, letting his fingers rummage around one last time. He feels a bulging through the mesh, something hard coming from a secondary pocket which protrudes from the front. Johnny unzips the pocket, exposing a long lens case, tightly packed. It takes a moment, but when Johnny finally pries it out, he pops open the top, and watches a long, polished cylinder slide effortlessly into his palm. Johnny raises it to look through the outside of the concaved glass, but a momentary jolt of confusion freezes his gaze. His head jerks away sharply, apprehensively pausing before leaning back in to confirm that he’s not hallucinating. When reality convinces him that it isn’t a dream, the hair on his spine stands erect. This thing stares at him, dead in the face. A message of sorts, simple, yet unexpected. His fingers touch the glass, tracing the series of etches which have been not-so-carefully scratched into the reflective surface of the glass. Their edges slice at his skin, but he doesn’t care. He can feel her words, their warmth, a final message just for him coursing through these four little lines – I LV U.

 His concentration locks onto to them, a barrage of thoughts trying to piece together how a sister’s love had traversed the plains of hatred, pain, and even death to suck the poison from his tortured heart. Jess, through only four letters, had reached down and planted something in a field that’s been scorched by self-destruction, which he believed would forever stay baron. Would this have been all there was, Johnny may have found his way back, yet through the engraving, he begins to notice something else calling out from beyond the lens, a kind of murky coloring that piques his interest. Johnny turns over the cylinder, and to his surprise, finds a folded piece of paper tucked into its casing. He eagerly pulls it out, his fingers fidgeting as they unfold it – My Dearest Little Brother. His gaze shoots towards the ceiling, attempting to control the oncoming third wave of tears. When he realizes there’s no comfort to be found, he apprehensively clears his throat, peers down, and begins to read.

My Dearest Little Brother,

I hope you are surviving this tragedy with the grace and strength that I’ve always known you were capable of. I can imagine that you’re not too happy with my choice to run off and find my peace before I die, but there are desires in me that have always burned strong, and I don’t want to leave this world with any guilt or regrets. Oh, Johnny, I wish you could see this magical place. The pictures I’ve taken here will never capture the magnificence that springs from every branch and stem. I have truly scratched my itch, little brother. I have found my bliss in this wild journey of mine. Now, as I lay here in this hospital cot, awaiting that infamous tunnel of light to come and take me, I want to talk about your happiness.

Don’t let the sins of our past ruin you. We all have scars, some more visible than others, but that shouldn’t stop us from living. You’ve probably noticed the message I left you, and the photos. They were our best of times, and I’ll always cherish them. But I want you to take that as an official challenge, Johnny, to go and find that thing that makes you happy. Whether it’s photography, music, philosophy, or love, you deserve to be happy. Through this lens, I have found my peace. Now, I challenge you to go outside and find yours. I’ve been told that a picture can say a thousand words, but for you, I’ll only ever need three… I’ll always be with you. So put away the grief, put on your shoes, shave that God awful scruff on your face, and go live your story. This is my final request. Until next time –

Your Big Sis,

Jess.

           Droplets fall from Johnny’s chin, staining the letter in his hands. After all the hatred and accusations, he finally realizes why she had to leave and that, in the end, she never did abandon him or his brother. He reflects on the words, reading them over and over. The message I LV U keeps playing through his mind, as an unsettling feeling starts nagging at his relief. It was as if he’d missed something and couldn’t figure out what. Eventually, he sets the letter down and rescans the lens. There’s nothing more there, at least nothing more than what his sister intended. Then part of her letter catches his eye. And the photos. Johnny’s gaze falls on the stack beside him – the images he couldn’t make out. The lens.

           His hand whips backwards and jerks open the curtains, allowing the sun to flood into his apartment. He quickly snatches up the pile and watches everything come full circle. They were photos within a photo, childhood pictures of Johnny and Jess which had been laid out on a wooden table and recaptured through her lens, the message I LV U blurred across each image. The pang of guilt creeps back in, realizing how foolish his actions have been lately. Jess was more than a sister, she was his mother, his best friend, his protector, and his role model. He looks around at his apartment, disturbed by the empty bottles and a piss stain which is still moist on his pants. How? He questioned. Me… This… He nods his head, feeling his sister’s seed instilling a different kind of resolution in his heart. He snatches up his phone and dials Stan, unsure of what to say but feeling a desire to tell him what happened. As the beeps ring through, Johnny’s eyes peer upwards, dropping his final tear, and letting her grace blanket him through the echoes of her lens. Thanks Jess, I love you too…