RICK CASTRO: DIARY- 7/30/2020

So This Is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro 7/30/2020

Me bro…..

I have a very long tumultuous relationship with my brother. It goes all the way back to 1962 when I was four years old, and he was seven. At that time he was my best friend, we did everything together. He was one of the few people I knew thus far in my short little life. We shared a bedroom together. I remember we would play bridges. He would hold his legs straight out and I would crawl on them to his bed, then I would hold my legs out and he would crawl to mine, all the while both of us wearing pajamas with feet. 

We were very creative in all the different antics we got up to. 

One of my earliest memories was waking up in the middle of the night to a “creature,” who’s origin I’ve never been able to place. 
It had big teeth and was growling. Something like a cross between a small Tyrannosaurs Rex and a demon. It definitely had a tail.

 I was going to chalk it up to another bizarre nightmare, until my brother shouted, “did you see that?!” YES!, what was that?! 
I confirmed. We had both witnessed a phenomenon at a young age. We both confirmed it happened as we screamed to our father, who just wrote it off as youngsters with wild imaginations. After all there was a book in that era called “Where The Wild Things Are, “ about a boy named Max who sees beasts and ogres in his bedroom during the night. We had both read it and loved it. 

Around this time, our relationship took a more sinister turn. One day in the back yard our black cocker spaniel with a white stripe down its forehead named Lightning, had just taken a dump. With a straight face me bro said to me, “step on that.” I looked at him incredulously and said, “NO!” Why would someone who was my friend ask me to do such a dirty thing? What motivation could this be. “Ok, Doink, (his condescending nick-name for me), don’t be such a baby.” “No!, I still insisted. “If you wanna be a baby, that’s fine with me. “ He turned to walk away dismissing me. If I didn’t do what he said, he would no longer give me his time. I no longer worth his energy. Feeling abandoned with as much mature clarity as a four year old has, which is none, I stomped my right Buster Brown shoe into the heap of brown mass created by Lighting. The feces engulfed my shoe, absorbingly it like the Blob in that 1958 Steven Mcqueen film. 

  

My older brother buckled up in laughter. He couldn’t contain himself and marveled at how he was able to command me to do what he said, no matter the consequences. 

My mother Bee came running over wearing her newest flowered apron. She was aghast as to why I would do such a thing, never once thinking to question my brother.  Bee reprimanded me, punished me and told my father who equally humiliated me as to how dumb I could be. My Buster Brown shoe was ruined. 

 At the wee age of four I learned the hard way never to trust or believe in anything my brother ever said to me again. He was corrupt. 

This order of control and dominance in all aspects of my family hierarchy, played out throughout my adolescents, teen years, 
early adult life, and now just plain old.

My feelings of confusion and not understanding what dynamic I was born into was confirmed by other family members, (as in cousins) who would state what I already knew, “Your brother acts like he’s the father, he acts like he’s in control and makes sure that you are always afraid of him.”

As old adults nothing has changed. Everything is the same, except now instead of wasting his time with commands to step on shit, 
he merely does everything in his power to amass and horde whatever family wealth there is, and call it his own.

A bully, is a bully, is a bully.

So this is how the world will end.

copyright- rick castro- 72020

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