Sometimes I seek out specific memories from my past and it never fails that they are there waiting for me with a sense of familiar happiness that was very rare growing up, but they were everything when they did happen. With all the difficult and stressful things going on in the world it´s so strange how these simple moments of no real substance are where authentic comfort and happiness live. It´s like having them captured in a bottle and you can go back and experience them any time you want. Little miracles in a bottle I call them. They got me through some bad times. They helped keep me from getting lost when I was in solitary all those years.
I remember when I was about 6 years old and we went to an outside drive in movie theater and saw "Conan the Barbarian" when it first came out. We had a station wagon and we had the back hatch opened and we all watched it from there. Me and my brother Mike fought the whole time as we always did but I have the strangest memory from that day. There was a small bicycle in the back of the station wagon and while we were watching the movie I kept spinning the tire and I ended up getting my finger caught in the spokes. I don't know if I made this up in my mind but I can see it and feel it as if it was yesterday. I remember my brother Mike grabbing my hand and yelling and telling my mom. I remember seeing how scared and worried he was that I was hurt.
I can feel what he felt in the moment. Isn't that weird? It isn't like my life was in danger, but he seemed afraid that it was. I think ahead when we were around 17 and 18 years old (he was a year and 5 months older than me). Me, him, and his girlfriend were in the back seat of a car and another friend of ours was driving, her name was Angie. We had been at a party all night and we had all taken a bunch of acid, they had been drinking as well, and it was winter time. We were going around a curve and Angie lost control of the car and it went spinning around. All I remember is my brother leaning over between me and the front seat, putting his body there to protect me. We slid off the road and slammed in to a big snow bank. No one got hurt, the car wasn't even damaged. I have this memory and feeling in my chest of exactly how I felt when we came to a stop and noticing how he put himself in the way to protect me. I remember his girlfriend even being mad at him for not thinking about her in that moment. They actually had a full blown argument over it.
10 years later we are both in prison and we really don't have anyone out there looking out for us financially, times were hard for sure. One day I got a letter in the mail from him and it said something to the effect of "hey bro, I just wanted to write and ask you something, please tell me the truth. do you have a TV? I have an opportunity to get one but I can't be sitting in my cell watching TV if you ain't got one. Don't lie and tell me you got one just because you want me to get one either, give me your word bro, do you have one or not?" I'm sure that's not word for word what he said but its pretty close for sure. My brother could not stand even the thought of having the priviledge of watching TV while knowing that I was probably staring at brick walls. That empathy hit me different man. I knew he loved me and even though we fought our whole lives we were close, but while that might sound like a simple thing, it was on another level. I could feel the authenticity in his written words. I never felt more loved in my life. I must admit though that unfortunately I did lie to him, I told him that I had one. I did exactly what he knew I would do but asked me not to do. I just wanted him to have that TV. The thought of him sitting in that cell staring at the walls stressing out when he could be watching old episodes of Seinfeld and laughing was unbearable, so I lied.
The night before my brother overdosed I talked to him, he sent me two hundred dollars. He wasn't working, he was getting high and he still found a way to send me 200 dollars. I called the next day to tell him I got the money and he was gone. But I got those memories in a bottle sitting on a shelf in my mind and I have the blessing of being able to open it and look inside anytime I want. The way my brother loved me makes life perfect no matter how painful it has been or will get. I miss you Mikey!!!!!!!!!
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