These Things Happen by Michael EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Michael Eon
- Language: English
- Genre: Sibling Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
With the palms of his hands on his pale cheeks, Max sat at the kitchen
table and moaned in pain. It was the morning of October 30, 1995—a
Monday—and my older brother had just tried to kill himself. Fortunately,
the barrel of the gun had not been perpendicular to his temple—more
like forty-five degrees—so though the result was gruesome, it was not
fatal. A small piece of his scalp and skull lay on the floor behind his chair.
e slice of skin, covered in brown hair, had curled up. It looked like a
miniature sugar cone. e little fragment of skull lay concave, like a wet
piece of dirty pottery. e area of exposed brain, though clearly nicked,
appeared largely intact.
On the white tile floor, beneath the kitchen table, lay a half-peeled,
uneaten banana. It was the only one missing from the bunch on the table.
e bananas were almost perfect. Peak yellow and exquisitely ripe, the
peel of each unblemished but for one thing: a handwritten notation in
blue ink. Max had been writing the days of the week on his bananas for
as long as I could remember. Whenever Mom returned home from the
supermarket, my eldest brother, Harry, and I would dig inside the big
brown bags for the cookies and chips.
Not Max. He’d search for the
bananas, and when he found them, he’d label each with a day of the week.
“ese are mine. Keep your hands off,” he’d demand every time,
which was fine with Harry and me. We preferred the junk food.
Now, a banana marked “Monday” lay on the ground near his feet.
I grabbed the .22-caliber pistol off the kitchen table, flipped on the
safety, and shoved it into my jacket pocket.
“No.” Max reached for it. ere was anguish in his voice. “It’s mine.”
He said it matter-of-factly, as if I would actually give it to him.
“Cut it out.” I stepped behind him so he couldn’t reach me. I tried to
remain calm, but my voice, echoing inside the small apartment, sounded
shaky. I would not be giving this gun back to Max. Not that it made a
difference. He was a grown man. I knew he could get another gun
whenever he wanted to. But that was a problem for later.
Groaning, Max reached for his head.
“Don’t touch.” I pushed his hands away.
A siren wailed in the distance, making its way through the walls of
Max’s third-floor studio apartment, located on Ridge Boulevard in the
Fort Hamilton section of Brooklyn. His kitchen countertop was littered
with at least a dozen empty beer cans and one empty bottle of El Toro
tequila, wearing its little red sombrero cap. Only two days before, I’d
begged him to come with me to an AA meeting. He’d refused, the way he
always did.
“Suicide isn’t an option, Max,” I said now. e words coming out of
my mouth sounded surreal to me. I couldn’t believe I was in the position
of having to say them to anyone, let alone my brother. Max had been
struggling for a long time. But I’d had no idea his desperation would
make him do something like this.
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