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10.05.02 - 11:55 p.m. for some reason i have been thinking a lot about my oldest brother today. No one knows much about him...all my friends ask, "is he the cute on or the other one?" and i guess, hes the other one. He still likes tennessee football even though hes long since abandoned his ties to the university. The intellectual conglomerate that introduced him to fraternitys and pot, girls and heroin. I was 8 when he left for college and the memories i had of him consisted mostly of times when he had to pick me up from st. jude. He had no idea that i was sure he was the coolest thing ever. As everyones elses mother picked them up in minivan after minivan my brother would pull up in his impossibly long station wagon with the Dead Milkmen or the Violent Femmes blaring and his too cool for school long locks in his face, id throw my bookbag in the back with his beer cans and duct taped algebra books and id try to talk to him. I guess i was 7 and he was almost ready to leave for school. Once UTK had him he came home every now and then and stayed in his room, upstairs, now alternately my room and the guest room. This was most distressing to alex- my middle brother- who had lost his kindred spirit. Hed yell up to him to play basketball, to play nintendo, to throw grapefruits at cars down Kesslers Hill. He received no answer. If i was older i would have known he was depressed but at 8 years old he was as mysterious to me as the drugs that pumped through his system. And now, 23 years later i have only a few memories of his growing up years. That one time at Christmas. My crazy uncle joe had come down with my shag carpeted grandma, houspainter tom and i think granola greg came as well; my fathers brothers. Since i was still the shortest i had the back couch which was only a tad longer than i was. It was so late, and cold too, Christmas Eve. Erik got to keep his room mostly because my parents were afraid of him but also beacuse it was too filthy to even bother with. He had "gone out." I didnt know what this meant other than he left after i was in bed and slept until dusk. That night though, he came home and i stayed awake for him. He was noisy and i held my breath for him, afraid he would wake up mom and dad and i wanted one moment with him. "Hi!" i sat up in my flannel pj's i bet i was 10. And i couldnt believe it, he sat down next to me. And what i remember most was that he was wearing bowling shoes and that he was so nosiy and he didnt even care. I know now that he was drunk, that he had driven his impossibly long car home, drunk. He sat next to me on the couch in the snow-black night. His jacket cold against my skin and he asked me what i had done today. I didnt know where to start. What would be interesting enough to keep him. But he laughed because he was drunk adn thats what you do when youre drunk and youre taking a breather before walking the rest of the way to your bed. I didnt know this of course and i thought he was laughing at me and i asked him if he would stay with me in the back room. "Where would i sleep?" he slurred and i offered the couch which was really to small for even 10 year old me. He laughed and put his arm around me and he was wearing his high school varsity jacket. I snuggled into him as much as i could a stranger and he sat with me, probably till the nausea passed but i didnt know that. Its the first memory i have of my brother loving me. And his bowling shoes. � 
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