In Orbit

by Adam Jeffries Schwartz

My brother looks like an alien. His hair is gone,
eyebrows also. Morphine and other poisons have made
his eyes transparent; it's painful to look at him.

Dad stays with him during the day, because he doesn't
work. I stay with him at night because I don't sleep
and mom doesn't come at all because she pays the bills.

We all live in our own private
orbits, circling but never making contact. That's
probably just as well.

Dad is in a new cult, the Ministry of Love or
something like that. Love is OK with me. Lots of
people believe in love—the Beatles of course, other
people also. It's the chanting that gets on my nerves
This cult involves chanting, I can hear him all the
way down the hall.

"You are not you. You are not this. You are you. You
are love. Love, Love Love. You are the spark of
life, which is Love. You are not you ..."

The kid's asleep. Dad's head is drooping, he's put
himself to sleep. It takes a special talent to bore
yourself, but dad is gifted that way.

He sees me in the doorway, "Are you color blind?"

He means my shorts. I'm wearing plaid golf shorts.
He's wearing a sea foam green Armani suit of armor, a
tie so subtle it has its own column in The Republic
and a watch that costs more (much more) than I earn in
a year.

He takes my thrift-store old-man clothes as a personal
insult, which they are.

"What about Love, you are love. Love, Love, Love?"

"Not in those shorts." He huffs and he puffs and he's gone.

The kid opens his eyes, "Is he gone?"

"Yeah."

"I thought I'd die. I mean even sooner. You see the
kid from Jersey?"

"No," I say, I hadn't.

"And you're not gonna see him. He's history." The kid seems pleased by this.

"And this is good?"

The kid looks ancient, "We're all goners. I know you are."

He cackles and then goes back to sleep. Or, he's pretending, either way—he's alone.