i went upstairs to have some breakfast and to see if my mom still wanted to have a picknick with me today at this small island in the archipelargo thing nearby where we live. we both agreed to save it for next week as the sun didn't seem to want to show itself today.

so i'm making toast, and my brother comes out, and i just put two more slices in of the bread i bought friday which happened to be the two last slices of that bread, and he starts bringing out things to make himself toast.

at which point i know he's going to bitch because when he wants to do something, i.e. make toast, he wants to do it right that second. he does not want to wait the 20 seconds left on my toast. hence, he reaches over and pops my toast up.

and that's where things escalate. i point out that i was first, he states that he wants to make his toast now and that i've had all morning to eat, my mother starts yelling, everybody's yelling, and he throws a tennisball full force at my mother. it hits her on her arm.

i hiss at him that he's an abusing idiot who just hit his own mother, he screams that i'm next, i go off on my usual rant where i inform him that he's a creep who obviously doesn't even realize that he is repeating a behaviour instilled in him as a child when my father beat him and my mother.

my brother picks up the tennis ball again and takes turns shouting and aiming the ball at me, at my mother, back at me, throws it towards my mother and misses. it hits the wall with a loud thump.

i continue to scream at him what a coward he is, and that this isn't normal behaviour, that this is actual abuse, and he goes on to keep his fist three inches from my face. his face is contorted into a mix of eyes actually grinning, but in a cold, hard way, and his mouth spews out ridiculous threats of "physical abuse? you don't even know what that is, yet."

no, i'm not scared. i'm so pissed off i'm shaking. we continue to yell back and forth - my ammunition is some kind of lame gibberish consisting of my own psychological theories regarding him and the damage that was done to him growing up with an abusive father.

his responses consist of telling me i needen't come back next summer, that i will never get any money from him helping me out again, i should just stay in america because honestly, nobody here likes me, just yesterday a woman asked him if i wasn't leaving soon because i'm weird, and how right she is about that, and how i'm practically the equivalent of the elephant woman.

he takes fancy to calling me elephant woman from then on, and i shout something lame at him like "i'd rather be the elephant woman and know i have a brain than be him and know i was just a pathetic joke living at home terrorizing his mother at the age of 31."

eventually he storms into the livingroom hollering something about how we're not allowed to watch anything on his big screen tv or use his vcr anymore, as if he actually believes himself that that's something that'll hurt me. as my mother goes to scream at him, he hurls two video cassettes i got yesterday out of the room, hitting my mother's legs.

before i run down the stairs i see my mother crying and stroking the red bruises on her legs. i repeatedly tell her to either call the police, or have me do it. she refuses, of course, on the grounds that she hates that whole process (as do i) of having the police show up, have a talk with my brother and then leave because it never leads to anything anyways.

we've been through it before. and she is right. calling the police leads to nothing but a bit of embarrassement, and that's that. so we don't.

as i get downstairs i'm crying and shaking of anger and feeling like i was just run over. i wish it was one of those beautiful cry things, like when two large, dense tears roll down demi moore's perfect face in ghost, but it's not.

it's the kind of cry where your whole face swells up and takes on a reddish tone, your eyes are equally red, and tears and phlegm is just running everywhere, and the stress makes me throw up for a few minutes.

i'm sitting in my grandmother's livingroom, cussing and feeling like smashing everything around me would actually help when my mother comes. i tell her to leave, i'd appreciate some time alone, thank you, and that's when she says the prize-line: "everything was calm before you came back, he hasn't been like this for months!"

i just stare at her. as i reply, i know that she probably doesn't mean to imply that this was all somehow my fault, but i'm angry enough to take everything the wrong way without care.

"don't you dare imply that this was my fault, i came up there to make myself some breakfast, and the bastard _hit_ you. i know you won't call the police because deep down you will always feel that he is your little boy, even at 31, but for you to try and pin his behaviour on me is just disgusting."

"no it's not your fault i didn't say that, but he's been calm for months and you know you just can't be there first thing in the morning because his mood is always bad when he wakes up..."

"i came up to make myself _breakfast_. i know you try really hard to pretend things are okay, but i just defended you up there like i always do, and somehow it's never his responsibility that he HIT you...

...until you stop forgiving and excusing him everytime _he_ does something out of line, you get no sympathy from me. i intervene, but i refuse to feel sorry for you not picking up the phone and reporting him, and i refuse to believe that you honestly think he's doing something wrong, because if you did you wouldn't let him be in charge over your life, your apartement and your peace without even having to pay rent."

it went on like that for a while, and eventually she left. last thing i heard before she closed the door was "if you just wouldn't come up for breakfast like that."

and that was that.